acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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208 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
rest. On this point Ighsan was inflexible, with a
good deal of reason on his side, as I had to admit.
To stop would involve a risk of chilling' the horse
it would also mean unloading and reloading the
burden. This considerable operation was to be
avoided, so in native fashion we htid continued
walking, and munched bread-and-cheese and apples
as we went.
But more trying to me than this new custom was
the slow dragging pace at which we went. I had
been used to a comfortable swinging gait of four
miles an hour with the arahas, and now had to
conform to a dawdle of less than two and a half
It was the uniform pace of loaded pack-horses and
donkeys and those who drove them, and nothing I
could do would make it better. If I took the halter
myself I had to drag the beast by main strength,
and soon grew tired of that labour. Travelling with
a pack-horse, I saw, meant this tedious rate of progress
always—a pace so slow that it would not keep
me warm on a cold day. Not yet had I learnt how
to get speed out of a loaded horse and leisurely driver.
It was now seven o'clock, and grown so dark that
I could see neither man nor horse, and we had gone
ten hours without a halt, and eaten little. Nor could
so much as a light be seen. I believed we had got
off the road, and was beginning to
think my guide a
failure, when the horse's footsteps re-echoed sharply
from either side, and more by instinct than by sight
I knew we were passing through an archway.
" What is it ? " I asked.
"Kcqnc" (door), replied Ighsan curtly, now so deadbeat
that he could hardly speak. A little way farther
lights appeared, and the outlines of buildings ; we
were undeniably in a street, and the knowledge was
cheering.
Injesu," said Ighsan, with a tone of righteous
justification in his weary voice.
We reached a khan, whence came the ominous buzz
of voices telling of a crowded house. A servant at