acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

268 ACEOSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
not think he slept — I know that I did not, for a
furious gale made uproar in the gorge all night, and
whistled and shrieked in the loft, and the rushing
Korkun filled in any pauses with the sound of tumbling
water. But though the weather would have
served well, the Circassians kept away, like the halfhearted
robbers they were, who required every advantage
before coming to business.
It was a black frost when we set out next morning,
so hard that springs and streams on the hillside were
frozen into perfectly transparent ice ; but the wind
had died away, there was sunlight and clear sky,
and the mountains were coloured in all the delicate
shades of blue and purple produced by distant snow
in shadow, and glittered in a thousand points where
the sun fell on ice. And by some strange incidence
of light the Korkuu behind us lay as deep blue pools
among its boulders. The gracious foliage of trees
alone was lacking to perfect the scene ; one solitary
arduch, indeed— something between a juniper and
cypress — stood upright and lonely beside the river,
and claimed attention as the first tree of any kind
since the orchards of Develi Kara Hissar. But about
noon we got among woods, first a stretch of dark
juniper scattered over brown slopes, and then arduch
and pine going up the mountain-sides.
Soon after entering this wooded region, where the
Korkun left us and turning sharply east entered a
deep gorge, we met three dismounted zaptiehs coming
up the valley from the south. They explained their
purpose : they were in search of the Circassians, going
afoot to follow them into the mountains if necessary.
Perhaps they knew their men, and having this
knowledge ran no risks, but they went from us as
carelessly as sportsmen setting out for a day's shooting,
and might have been ambushed or captured with
ease.
The valley bottom presently became broken into
many steep-sided little glens and ridges covered with
forest of pine and arduch. Through this exceed-