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BUYING IN THE BAZAARS 201
was ready. It cost about seven shilliDgs, and seemed
cheap.
Ighsan slung this double pouch over his shoulders,
and as our purchases were made threw them into
the pockets. He bought what he regarded as a
pair of walking shoes : pointed and turned up at
the toes, the sole of two thicknesses, the inner
one soft and thick like - the outer hard and
studded with flat nails. They were shoes something
like those the Turkish infantry wear, heel-less, and
fastened with a thong ; but of more interest was the
semblance they bore to the shoe in Hittite sculptures.
They were obviously the same thing. The marching
Hittite warriors of these Cappadocian highlands had
evolved a foot-covering so suitable that it still survived.
Ighsan bought as well rough sheepskin gloves,
having a stall for the thumbs and a bag for the
fingers, and hung them round his neck by the twist
of horse-hair connecting them for the purpose. A coil
of rope, a new yazma or coloured turban for his fez,
and a pair of rough socks completed his purchases.
By the time we returned to the khan the liahe was
a heavy load. It contained in the way of food, half
a flat Bulgarian cheese, apples, oranges, dried figs,
walnuts, half a dozen loaves of bread, olives in
an empty tobacco tin, and a slab of ^3ascZer7na or
sun - dried beef Cheese and olives and pasderma
were for Ighsan, supplementary food of the sort he
liked, which I hoped would prevent him breaking
down. One reads of Turks eating nothing but
morsels of bread, and performing marvels of endurance
thereon. It is a convenient fiction of the
vegetarians. Bread is the Turkish low^ diet, adopted
only when nothing else can be got, and then is
eaten in quantities never imagined by English
theorists. I have seen native labourers eat four and
five pounds of dark wheaten bread a day, provided
as stipulated ration, and then be ready for pilaf or
anything else. A Turk eats a greater weight of