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ARRIVE AT MARASH 387
towards me, in mountains rising from mountains, in
valleys so profound that they might have hidden the
Alps. Sunlight fell on surfaces snowy white, in the
deep recesses were the faint purple shadows of snow,
and the extreme distance was filled in by soft pearly
suggestions of mountains still more remote. No one
need tell me he has seen a more wondrous mountain
spectacle than this, for T refuse in advance to believe
him. The best proof of what I saw when entering
I discovered when leaving Marash. It was just such
another morning of clear hot sunlight, but the sky
had not a vestige of cloud, and then the 8000 feet
of Akhar Dagh seemed insignificant, and the whole
country wore a tame and unfamiliar aspect.
My road into Marash went through rice-fields, and
then among gardens, and so into the hot narrow
streets of the city. And there I found a clean
hhan—as khans go—large and stone-built and whitewashed,
its courtyard thronged with the camels and
asses and horses of caravans and travellers. The
time was three o'clock, and such a power of fierce
sunlight lay over all as I had not felt since the
height of the previous summer. The odahashi came
with his keys—a bunch like ancient turnkeys carried
—and showed me into a stone-floored room covered
with mats, and gave me a key weighing two pounds
for my own use. And because of the wonderful
mountains seen in approach, and the fierce sunlight,
and the colours and odours of the narrow streets,
and the bells, and the pleasant khan, a glamour is
cast over Marash for me that, I think, will last
always.