acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

24 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
For bread, eggs, potatoes, fruit, and yoghourt I
looked to the country ; the rest I carried, and that,
as several weeks' supply, came to a good deal.
Some like to travel and eat native foods, thinking
they give added pleasure to a journey. Not so ran
my tastes. There was to be no beginning the day
stayed only on coffee and bread or coffee without
bread ; I intended to have good honest English
breakfasts the whole w^ay. So I had a supply of
bacon, Cambridge sausages, beef, soups, jams, butter,
milk, and cheese all in tin, also cocoa and tea. Of
English tobacco, too, I had provided three pounds.
The knowledge that always ready to hand were stores
could cook and eat when
for several weeks, and that I
and where I felt inclined, conferred a feeling of independence
beside which the trouble involved counted
for nothing. To complete the outfit, and make it
suitable for all circumstances, were a powerful Browning
with two hundred rounds, and a heavy steel- pointed
stick for use against dogs. So equipped, I thought
myself competent to go anywhere, and looked forward
to mountain roads and paths, and wild places, with
confidence and anticipation.
Perhaps Chakallu is the most crowded place of halt
to be found on the Bagdad Road. Excepting fast
arahas, nearly everything going out of or into Samson
passes the first or last night of the journey in this
small village. As afternoon draws on caravans and
vehicles making for the various khans and campinggrounds
pour in from both directions, to the sound of
jingling bells, and complaining animals, and groaning
wheels ; and they come with colour of every sort, and
either in deep dust or mud. During these hours the
stone bridge which crosses the brawling Merd Su
becomes a spot of seeing and hearing that belongs
to the East of tradition, and also to the Middle
Ages.
And then after dark the scene has changed so
completely that the place no longer seems the same.
The road is white and vacant, and dies away in