acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

200 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
called, and iii time became its bishop. There are
ruins existing still of the ancient church dedicated
to St Basil, which was stripped by the Seljuks and
lost its accumulated treasures in this way. Of
secular history, too, much had happened within eyeshot.
Sapor had been here and done his part in
producing all this rubbish on the hillside. So had
the Byzantines, so also the Seljuks, the Mongols,
and the armies of Timur. Twice at least the city
had seen its inhabitants massacred ; and once seen
them deported in a body and settled near Bitlis by
an Armenian king, when performances of this sort
were in the power of Armenians. They, like others,
followed the customs of the country when they
could.
It had always been a doubtful matter to me how
Ighsan could expect to walk seven or eight hundred
miles in the worn-out slippers that he used. Therefore
on the day before starting I offered him an
advance against his pay, saying nothing about my
object. He took the money with dignified gratitude
and asked permission to go to Talas and leave half
with his wife ; the remainder he proposed to spend
on articles required for the journey. He returned
in three hours; then we went shopping in the
bazaars.
One thing I wanted was a large habe, two pannierlike
saddle-bags of horse-hair, to throw over the
horse's
back.
" When the journey is over," I said to Ighsan, " the
habe shall be yours ;
get a good one." At a hahemaker's
stall various materials were brought out for
approval. They were strips of stuff, with a carpetlike
pattern in black and white, varying in length
and width according to size of horse and of bag
required. A strip about ten feet long and two and
a half in width was chosen ; the ends were turned
up nearly two feet, the sides stitched together with
twisted horse - hair while we waited, and the liahe