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THE AUSTRIAN CAPTAIN'S VIEWS 3
When I explained that from Samsun I proposed
to walk to the Mediterranean, perhaps as far as
Beirfit, he forgot his charge of national greed. An
avowal of lunacy had been made to him by a passenger,
and he took it as a matter requiring immediate
attention. I knew by his sudden fixity of
stare that for a moment or two he felt himself in
the company of one who might be dangerous. He
even drew off a little. But then a satisfactory explanation
struck him, and he said
"You are English. You will say you go for the
pleasure ? " When I told him I expected to find
much pleasure in the journey, he answered with a
deep " !
So " and recalled another journey which he
thouofht similar to mine.
There was an Englishman, he said, by name the
"Lord Bill," who not long before had come riding
alone from Persia into Trebizond. There the " Lord
Bill" took steamer to Constantinople, and thence
went on riding till he came to Calais. And all
this long lonely riding the captain understood was
done for pleasure.
" And you — you are to walk for the same pleasure ?
Where is it, my friend? I require to understand this
pleasure," he cried. But it was a thing not to be
explained, where those who differ think in different
terms ; and after hearing me out he said
"Paris, and Berlin, and Vienna are for pleasure;
but not this country," and he waved his arm towards
the coast. "There you find not pleasure; but much
of mountains, and much of snow, and much of wolves
and banditti, and you will be seen never in Beirlit."
And there we left the matter.
To him the 2000 miles of coast-line between
Beiriit and Trebizond represented only so much
exacting navigation. The region behind the coast
he filled with savage, little-known people ; and saw
it from the sea as a fastness where anything might
happen ; a territory from which his calling, happily,
kept him well removed. His notions of the interior