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—
A TURKISH BURYING-GEOUND 259
It appeared unlikely that any attempt would be
made upon us near the village, for collective retribution
is not unknown, and sometimes falls heavily. If
risk there was it would come later, perhaps not until
next day. All the same, I kept a bright look-out
and had the sensation of being in an enemy's land.
Still more were these feelings confirmed when I saw
two horsemen, riding at the gallop, cross the skyline
of hills a mile or so away on our right rear,
Five minutes later
and come diagonally towards us.
they appeared for a few seconds in the valley bottom,
still galloping as if to cut us off. Once again I saw
them, by this time w^ell ahead, and now drawing towards
the road. Thereafter they disappeared, gone
into hiding somewhere, I supposed, near enough to
take stock of us as a mysterious party. But when two
Circassians on foot—the only figures seen for three
hours thereafter— appeared from nowhere on the
road and came slowly towards us, 1 had no doubt
they were the same, and Ighsan found no scruples
in telling them to pass on the other side. For so
you do by recognised custom in this country, if you
think fit, especially after dusk, nor can the party so
challenged take offence. Nor did these two. They
bore off a little and went by, perhaps fifteen yards
away, looking at us closely, as we did at them.
By this time the country had become green, and
a hurrying stream went beside the path ; for we
were ascending to the pass, 4500 feet above sealevel,
which here forms the watershed between the
Mediterranean and the interior. This stream was
hastening to the lake lying in the morning shadow^
of Argaeus ; and in the pass began the infant Korkun,
thence to follow the long valley under Ala Dagh, and
presently fall into the old Sarus, now the Sihon of the
Cilician plain, and so reach the Mediterranean.
At the very summit of the pass an abandoned Turkish
burying-ground extends on both sides of the track
grey, lichen-covered fragments of rock planted in the
earth without order, unhewn, and without inscriptions.