acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

294 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
own country. And then the mind reviewing this
scheme saw plotters in Berlin, saw von Bieberstein
as astute arch -plotter in Constantinople, and these
working parties as the myrmidons of Germany. If I
could have found the whole company together here,
and started the mountain sliding down upon them,
I am not sure that I should not have set it going.
It was now fine weather for travelling, and the
scenery very noble and bold, and to make the most
of both I stretched our stage. Instead of halting
at Chifte Khan we went on another seven or
eight miles to Tahkta Keupru. Here was a place
of accommodation—something between a khan^ a
kahveh, and a wine-shop,—but chiefly a wine-shop,
an establishment for Infidel and Faithful alike,
though kept by a Moslem known to Ighsan. Here,
he said, we should be better treated than we were
by the Greek at Tosan Ali, We reached the place
when the valley was filled with a bluish gloom,
though overhead the peaks were glowing with sunset
light.
Tahkta Keupru Khan exhibited the sudden change
in native ideas and customs brought about wherever
a railway is introduced. The building was a corrugated-iron
hut, about twenty feet by thirty, erected
to supersede the little dry-stone kha^i of earlier days,
which still remained on the opposite side of the road
as stable. It sought to cater for men of a dozen
different nationalities. It sold coffee and tea in
small glasses, and its Moslem proprietor saw no evil
in providing mastica {the favourite liquor of Greeks),
beer, wine, and rakki (native brandy), for the benefit
of Christians. From the secrecy of a small hidden bar
or kitchen almost everything was forthcoming, from
Bologna sausage to apples or oranges. A sheet-iron
stove, its side red - hot, stood in the midst of the
room. A stuffed bear of the Black Sea coast was
against tlie wall, and, on a perch, a great vulture,
which I took for stuffed also till it solenmly turned
its head. The Ma?i-keeper was a stout, placid Turk