acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

312 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
many times the load was dragged from his back, and
the pyramid of gear had to be built up again : our
progress was so slow that in six hours we did not
advance as many miles. We had become altogether
weary of camels and camel-men and everything pertaining
to caravans while still on the wrong side of
the summit. And yet there was the deep ditch of
our labour winding on towards the still distant
summit—though not much more of height was to be
made—and still filled with ungainly panniered beasts
coming against us. In the telling our difficulties
may sound trivial, and yet in experience they made
this day the most exhausting and trying of any
during the journey. A camel goes straight forward
and swerves from the footsteps of its leader not a
hand's-breadth. Not a foot of grace could we win
from them, and we were the only travellers going
this way. Had the depth of snow been a little
greater, or had the caravans followed each other a
little more closely, we should have been as effectually
stopped as if a wall had crossed the road.
In the midst of our exasperation, when for the
tenth time, perhaps, the horse was lying half-buried
in snow, Ighsan managed to produce a laugh. Kicking
at a mass of mouse-coloured fur embedded beside
the fallen horse, he exclaimed with unmistakable satisfaction
: ''Dave!" (A camel!), and then, in a lower
voice, as if making his own heartfelt personal comment,
he added '' Mashallah!" (God be praised!). It
was only one carcase of dozens that appeared subsequently,
for the blizzard which overtook us at Ulu
Kishla had played havoc with the caravans up here.
But when this plague of camels seemed at its worst,
and kept us still struggling on the ascent, the end
appeared—actually a rearmost camel, none following
behind, and a long empty space of track already in
sight. I now could look about me. I could take in
the mountains and pine-woods and glittering snow.
I could notice that here and there upon the slopes
were yailas; for this high valley is a summer resort