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A SINGING TURKISH BAKER 301
finds a sinister explanation for every happening containing
doubt.
The next morning was fair enough for travelling,
though snow was deep and the gorge filled with
heavy masses of cloud. By eight o'clock when we, of
all the company the last to leave, had got on the road,
I was sure that never before had I spent three days
and nights amid surroundings more desolate. The
mean iron shed of our lodging, the old flat -roofed
khan—like a cattle-shelter with walls of loose stones
—the ribbon of cliff-hewn road deep with trodden
snow, the foaming yellow Chakia between black precipices
which immediately rose out of sight into dense
cloud, all made up a scene of oppressive gloom. And
yet there was that in it which made also for exhilaration.
It was something to be here, going free
upon this wild road of Cyrus and Alexander, something
to know that in a day's march I should drop
to the Mediterranean coast, which imagination now
made doubly sunny and glamorous.
Nor was I alone in finding pleasure along this
ancient way. We had not gone far before another
cheerful man appeared, and he was one who placed
no restraint upon his feelings. He was a Turkish
baker of Ak Keupru, going his daily round, and
singing as he went. On either side of his white
horse hung an enormous wicker pannier filled with
loaves, and above the panniers sat the baker, his
legs, if you please, crossed above the horse's shoulders.
There was nothing cheerful in his song, for it had
the monotonous wailing manner of his country ; but
his horse stepped out bravely in the deep snow,
and the wicker panniers creaked to the swaying,
and the pleasant smell of warm bread went before
him, and his whole aspect and manner spoke of satisfaction.
As he passed he ceased his singing and
made the best salaam he could, for we had seen him
at Tahkta Keupru wine-shop.
Within a few^ miles we crossed the old bridge of