acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

262 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
The sun was still above the mountains, and making
Ala Dagh a glory in white and dull red, when we left
the track and turned up a glen of the Bulgar Dagh
to seek quarters for the night in Bayam Dere. In
the manner of Turkish villages this place hides itself
from the road. After passing a turn in the glen the
village appeared—a narrow street, with a stream in its
midst, and little
buildings on' either side, and a guesthouse
known of old to I^hsan, at which he said we
should be comfortable and find good food. A European
was a visitor so rare that a small crowd accompanied
us to the building, various hands helped to
unload the horse and carry our gear inside, and while
Ighsan took the beast to the stable two men hastily
lit a fire in the room. Our arrival was an important
event in the secluded life of Bayam Dere. Looking
from the window a few minutes after getting in I
saw a stream of people hastening up the street, all
of them making for the guest-house. There was the
priest coming at a brisk walk, anxious to miss
nothing, behind him the hodja or teacher, and then
followed men of various ages,— in their haste they
looked like a stream of folk late for church.
With the practice gained at Enighil, Ighsan was
able to do better than ever as showman, both for
himself and me.
"Now," he said in a low voice as my preparations
for a meal went on, " the chelehi (gentleman) will
drink tea and eat potatoes and English meat." The
information went round the room in whispers.
"English meat" was a thoughtful euphemism for
pork, adopted perhaps in his own interest—for I
heard no references to pig, and all found so much
to look at that further inquiry as to the sort of
meat may have been forgotten.
The village had no bread, nothing but thin sheets
of youvhah, indigestible, half-baked stuff that I baked
afresh on a sheet of asbestos. My attempt to remedy
the defects of their own staple food was watched with
special interest. When it happened, as it did several