acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

216 ACROSS ASIA MIXOR ON FOOT
was Hodja Dagh, which stands beside Tuz Geul, the
great Salt Lake. The twin peaks of Hassan Dagh,
an extinct volcano, showed sixty miles away in the
south-west, rising from the Axylon plain. And then
came the long level wall of the Taurus, beginning in
the farthest south-west somewhere above the Gulf
of Adalia, and passing eastward as a pearly cloud
which grew in whiteness and distinctness till in the
south its features became visible. There it merged
into the still nearer range of Bulgar Dagh, and then
into Ala Dagh, whose white serrated peaks, seen foreshortened
against a blue sky, were like the teeth of
a saw. Farther to the east were various hisfh white
peaks, and these, when we came to them, Ighsan
dismissed as the mountains of Ajemistan, or Persia.
With all these distant landmarks in sight it was
possible to trace afar the route I hoped to follow.
For a part of the way I aimed to travel down the
wild little-known track which passes under the peaks
of Ala Dagh for a hundred miles. Ighsan grew
eloquent as he spoke of that long valley. He knew
it well. There the guest-houses were always good,
the water sweet, the yoghourt plentiful. While
gazing on these distant mountains and recounting
travellers' joys, he opened his shirt and bared his
arms. I wondered what he was at, for his action
was strangely vigorous ; he seemed to be preparing
to fight, or for sudden and unexpected labour. But
he only wished to show old scars on chest and arms
—scars of his younger days recalled by the scenes he
now looked upon, and which, it seemed, he had not
beheld so well for man}^^ years. This slash coming
down from forearm to hand he had received under
Ala Dagh, these bullet-marks also. A stab had been
got beside Hassan Dagh. Another cut at a village
in the Bulgar Dagh, over there. He had seen much
in his life ; he had learnt the names of these mountains
with his blood and had never forgotten them.
Animated by such recollections he spread out his
full beard, extended his moustachios, straightened