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SEEING KAISARIYEH 193
cure in the way that I had treated chills in the past.
With a bottle of native brandy, two lemons, sugar,
and about a pint of thin oatmeal, I made a boiling
brew, drank it with hope and goodwill, and wrapping
myself in everything I possessed, got into the sleepingbag
and awaited results. They were not long in
coming, and then w^ere memorable. Such fever and
delirium, such a sense of scorching heat, such a
series of wondrous fantasies as took possession of
me that night, I had never known before. The little
room became an enormous hall, so vast that I was
continually lost in amazement at its incredible size.
Going to the flat roof and looking at Argaeus, his
snowy form, dim and ghostly in the clear starlight,
became a mountain proportioned to the room. Such
a prodigious mountain the eye of man had never rested
on before. I grew weary and faint with wonder, and
getting into the sleeping-bag again, at last fell asleep.
I awoke in the morning so unbelievably wet that at
first I thought I must have fallen into a vessel of
water ; but it was perspiration ; and strange though
it may seem, I was well—in feeling as well as ever I
felt in my life. A trifle weak, perhaps, but with the
appetite of a hunter, and ready for any excursion,
and after breakfast I set out with Ighsan to see
Kaisariyeh.
It was his first real duty in my service. While the
fever was on me he had come in each morning, much
concerned to see if he could do anything, but finding
nothing to be done had mounted his horse and gone
off to his home at Talas, and looked in again after
returning in the evening. Now that I had suddenly
become well his pleasure was great ; he would take
me anywhere in the city, he said, for it was his
native place, where he was well known.
Kaisariyeh always has the name of being the most
fanatical city in Asia Minor, a city of Turkish stalwarts,
who believe that everything was better three
hundred years ago than it is now, and do their best
to delay the progress of decadence. When foreign