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CHAPTER XXII.
Return to Injesu—A native washing-day—The drummer again—The
pasha at the khan—An ancient caravanserai— Gypsies—Castles of
Asia Minor—A murderer in custody at Develi Kara Hissar.
The next afternoon, in Indian summer weather, I
came down the long road from the pass of Topuz
Dagh to Injesu again. The country gained nothing
in appearance from sunshine and brilliant air. Mist
had veiled its barrenness and made it seem merelylocal
during my ascent ; but now I saw a wide stretch
of naked mountain - slopes strewn everywhere with
stones. The only attractive feature was Argaeus,
whose shoulders and peak showed over an eastern
ridge as a vast blue -and -white glittering pyramid
against the sky.
In Injesu valley, a mile or more above the town,
all the women and girls of the place seemed to have
gathered beside the stream to do their washing. A
Turkish matron of full proportions is a prodigy of
shape when seen in her working trousers. Such
trousers they are too ! for if she is wide they are
thrice as wide, and each leg becomes an inverted
crinoline, which narrows to tightness at the ankle.
In this garment she waddles about her duties,
squats or sits cross - legged when it suits her,
and seems almost lost in the quantity of material
surrounding her hips and lower limbs. Startling drab
figures of this kind were in rows along the stream,
whirling wet garments in air to beat them on stones,