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KHAN AT CHAKALLU 21
judge my prospects for travelling. No snow was
visible except upon the higher ranges, and on those
it lay thinly. The mountains of the coast had intercepted
the fall, and before me extended, under
the clouds, a sun-baked country of brown slopes and
valleys, and pine -clad ridges, and great breadths of
oak and beech scrub. It even seemed to have had
but little rain.
Somewhere hereabouts a dark face enveloped in a
hashluk rose cautiously in the low close scrub upon
my left, and peered up and down the road as we
passed. No sooner did I see it than it dropped
out of sight again. There was nothing sinister in
the incident ; but it gave a sense of mystery and
possible adventure to the spot, as a place where
some one lurked who had his reasons for wishing to
remain unseen.
Twenty miles from Samsun the village of Chakallu
(Place of Jackals) lies in the deep valley behind the
coast range. Here I halted for the night ; but the
Americans went on, to use the remaining daylight
for a long stage, and so reach Marsovan the following
afternoon. What with pleasant company and the
prospect of dry travelling ahead, even of a Little
Summer yet to come, my first day on the Bagdad
Road had gone better than I could have hoped.
A khan on the great highway bears some resemblance
in arrangement to an old English coaching
inn. The building is of two floors and lies against
the road, and has an archway through it large enough
for vehicles to reach the courtyard and stabling behind.
Beside the entrance is a common-room, where
drivers sleep and eat and smoke, and a stall for the
sale of coffee. From the courtyard a rough external
staircase ascends to a balcony, ofi" which the upper
rooms open. Such a khan was the one I entered
at
Chakallu.
Nor is the building the only resemblance between
a khan and an old-time inn. To meet me came the
A'Aan-keeper, in manner very much the attentive and