acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

386 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
to descend when they wished, lest worse should befall
me. And there I left the ladder, and when some
chose to sleep in the lower room instead of going
to the loft again, I made no objection. To the end
of the journey Mustapha told this story at every
stopping-place, and told also of the " Ingleez Consolos,''
who for two days had marched in the mud
while he and the kavass rode ; but this tale seemed
to carry a flavour of the incredible, whereas the
other excited mirth.
For the eighteen or twenty miles between El Oghlu
and Marash was a hot windless morning and sky
without cloud except over the northern mountains.
Of themselves these were lofty and capped with
snow, but above them stood till evening a bank of
cumulus so gigantic, so much like mountains, so firm
and sharply defined, and so varied by pearty light
and leaden blue shadow, that it altered the whole
character of the landscape. These celestial mountains
reached a third of the way to the zenith, and
as they merged into snow below, from which they
were scarcely distinguishable, they seemed to make
a range loftier than the Himalayas. The difficulty
was to realise that they were cloud and not the
snow of an incredible mountain - range, for they
would almost deceive the eye. One could at least
say that just so Akhar Dagh might look were it
of the same stupendous height.
On the nearest blue spur of these fabulous mountains
the city of Marash climbed out of the plain, its
gardens and orchards as small green squares upon
the slopes, its buildings and minarets clear and white
in the fierce sunlight. For more than four hours this
wonderful view grew before me, not changing otherwise
as I marched towards it. The city seemed to
vouch for the reality of the whole. Behind it rose
green and bluish slopes ; next came snow lying as
streaks in gullies ; and then unbroken snow, which
insensibly shaded off into the unreal. And the unreal
then went on and on, in mighty snow- fields tilted