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266 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
it might be four or five miles to the mountains, but
there they rose in precipices. For the whole day
for more than twenty miles—we travelled in this
weather, past succeeding mountains of the same
grandeur, with the Korkun always beside the road.
Since leaving Kavluk Tepe we had used the precautions
of men who might meet robbers at any
moment, and to-day we went even more warily.
Every passenger upon the road was a suspect, and
watched until he had gone by. He was also given
room to pass, in order that by closing his distance
he would have to show something of his intentions
in advance. Fortunately the valley was open, and
provided little cover beside the road ; but wherever
such cover did present itself I examined it before
Ighsan and the horse came up. We fancied that,
on the whole, the three Circassians did not have
much chance against
us.
As the forenoon wore on straggling parties of men
appeared, coming from the south, each with a pack
of bedding and other possessions carried on his
shoulders. Every man had a steel rod, one end
turned into a hook, the other sharpened to a point.
By their dress Ighsan recognised some of these wayfarers
as belonging to his own memliket or native
district, and now and then stopped to ask where
they were from and what they had been doing. All
were labourers, discharged for the winter from the
cuttings of the Bagdad Railway, going home till
the spring, when they would return to their southern
employment again. There were also men from
the Sivas country, and even Lazis getting back to
their far-off homes amid the mountains and forests
Lazistan, by the Black Sea.
Yelatin KJian, our evening stopping -place, stood
alone, with no other habitation in sight, at a point
where a great spur sprawling down from Bulgar Dagh
narrowed the valley bottom almost to a gorge. The
Korkun rushed noisily past in front, and behind rose
one of the boldest peaks of Ala Dagh. The spot was
of