acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

394 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
defiance to Marash, threatening to march upon that
city, and, recognising- nothing as impossible, once
they had got going, ro do as much by Aleppo.
For stir and sound, and even for menace and
achievement, Zeitiinlis might number hundreds of
thousands, yet the whole district does not contain
above 20,000 souls. You hear more wild stories of
Zeitiin than of any other place in Asia Minor. Of its
" Robber Ward," the quarter where Zeitiin brigands
lived in open honour, whence they issued like heroes
to roam and take toll over the country from Aleppo
to Kaisari3^eh and the Cilician Gates. Of defeats
which Zeitunlis had inflicted upon Turkish regulars.
Of how Zeitun burnt its Turkish mosque—a feat not
to be so much as attempted anywhere out of Zeitun.
And of what the women of Zeitun, while the men
were away holding the passes against the Turk,
did to three hundred prisoners of the Jerusalem
Regiment taken in battle and left in their charge.
I had heard these tales and many others, and now
proposed to go up and see this remarkable people
in its native fastness.
With an American friend I called on the Governor
of Marash to get his permission for the visit. He
looked down his long nose for a few seconds, touched
it thoughtfully with his pen, and then agreed that I
might go if accompanied by a zaptieh. The zaptieh,
I had no doubt, was to keep his eye on me, and
report what he could of my mission.
So on a fine morning, when sunlight and air and
distant plain and mountains combined to tell of a
land difterent from any I had seen hitherto, I left
Marash, the zajjtieh and Mustapha riding, myself
and two Zeitunli guides on foot. Of the two paths
from Zeitun to Marash the upper and shorter was
still blocked by snow ; the lower one made a good
two days' journey. This path skirted the plain westward
for ten miles to the Jihun. It crossed by a
high-pitched Arab bridge of single span near where
the river enters its mighty gorge for the Cilician