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A SACRED TREE 321
flutter of rags and heap of pious stones, and then
one knew with certainty that he was not in Surrey.
This bush, I think, was a hawthorn, and sacred
beyond most, judging by the mj^riad snippets of
coloured cloth tied to every twig and branch within
reach and the waggon-loads of small stones piled
around the trunk. These sacred trees and bushes
are regarded as Moslem shrines. They are found
wherever trees and bushes grow, are decorated always
with rags and surrounded by an accumulation of stones.
Though I inquired often, I never learnt definitely how
they came by their dedication, how or by whom the
first offerings were made, and whether, for instance,
if I attached pieces of bright-coloured cloth to any
roadside bush, and gathered a few hundred pebbles,
other passers-by would follow my unknown lead.
The best explanation I got was that these bushes
mark the haunt of some dead holy man— in life a
roadside beggar, thereafter a memory of sanctity
at which, as at a shrine, offerings might produce
lesser miracles, or at least be accounted as good
works.
When passing such bushes before, Ighsan had carelessly
dropped a stone or two ; but now he put five
to his credit, with a furtive air as if not caring to
be seen doing so. This was a matter on which I
could say nothing ; but when, as we went along,
he continued for more than an hour to pick up loose
stones and carefully throw them off the road, I was
moved to ask why. His manner became awkward
at once. He was upon some action directed by his
religion, and I saw that my curiosity was ill-timed
and ill-received.
Yeni Klian was called a place where people came
from the Cilician plain to take the mountain air,
drink sweet mountain water, and escape the enervating
heat of the coast. The khan provided food and
bedding at need, though most visitors brought their
own, and by comparison with other khans was indeed
"a la Franga." It stood alone, a low stone-built
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