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"SPOKTMEN" ARRIVE 295
with beard turning grey, a man who took things
easily ; but he was assisted by his nephew, a tall
young fellow, whose inches and demeanour spoke of
objectionable customers to be thrown out sometimes.
A boarded divan extended along both sides of the
room, and on one side a staging was formed five or
six feet above the divan. By these means, lying
side by side upon the divans and staging, something
like thirty men could find sleeping space.
We were eight in the room, and slept as near
the red-hot stove as the divans made possible. In
the morning heavy rain was falling and the weather
impossible for travelling ; in the forenoon it turned
to another furious blizzard which brought powdery
snow through every chink and crevice in roof and
walls. All day long men of various nationalities
arrived : a Turkish telegraph-repairer and his mate
who had been mending lines broken in the previous
storm, six dagger -wearing Circassians, Turkish and
Kurdish carters, a zaptieh who presently went out
again, and a wandering dervish with his battle-axe.
And then, in the afternoon, came parties of Greeks
and Armenians, whose occupation and present circumstances
I found hard to decide. They wore strangelooking
knickerbockers, sometimes with stockings,
sometimes with soft leather gaiters ; they had European
jackets, and cloth caps with enormous peaks like
French jockeys ; and all carried guns and revolvers,
and leather bags slung over their shoulders. All
were wet to the skin and half-perished with cold.
The mystery of who and what they were was
partially cleared up when I heard the word "Sportman
" used familiarly by a Greek. I heard later
that they belonged to Bulgar Maden, a small town
in a gorge of the Taurus only a few miles away,
where are the richest silver mines in Asia Minor.
After the last heavy snow these sportsmen had
gone out on the mountains for deer and other game,
and being caught in the present storm had turned
to Tahkta Keupru as the nearest shelter.