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—
"GERMAN CASTLES" 281
long stops at stations, picking up groups of recruits
and peasants, and now and then a long - booted
German official. Any one seeing these stations, all
on the German model, would recognise how aptly
they and their vague impression of* control had been
hit off by Ighsan. On reaching Ulu Kishla he had
remarked sourly
" Here is another German castle."
As a matter of fact all of these stations are massive
structures, built on a scale indicating unlimited faith
in the future. Although nominally a railway built
as a speculation by private foreign enterprise, it had
every characteristic of State construction ; of outlay
not having been considered ; of everything being
heavier and larger and stronger, not only than
seemed necessary here, but than you had seen in
any similar railway elsewhere. Those who really
called the tune took long views, believing they had
in hand the creation of a great national reversion.
At Karaman, a considerable town and once an
Osmanli capital, the railway station is placed several
miles away ; for as a matter of considered policy all
stations on this railway are kept at a distance from
the towns they serve, thus ensuring that the town
shall spread to railway-owned land. So also—the
shrev/d surmise of possible rioters with critical eye
—is provided a clear field for rifle fire, that in the
event of popular disturbance the mob may be kept
at
arm's-lentrth.
At Karaman several shepherds were on the platform,
each wearing his cloak of thick white felt :
you could almost think the wearers had come here
to display their finery, they stood in such a careful
row. As the stiff cloaks are about five feet across
the shoulder, and make a triangle of which the acute
point is at the feet, these figures in white, enriched
with green and yellow and red embroidery, became
so many odd inverted pyramids each with a dark
head atop.
After long waiting at this station, a little cloud