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BAZAARLUK 405
with pine-trees, through which I could see my road
of the morrow cHmbinof. Behind the khan rose a
conical artificial mound in size worthy to be called
a hill. Of its origin no one had any idea, but pieces
of loose stone in the soil indicated that ruins of some
kind had been here upon a time. The lowing of
many cattle, the leisurely tinkling of their bells as
they scrambled on the mound, the spacious breadth
of sunset sky shading from the orange of west into
the purple of east, and the nomads' fires that dotted
the plain as darkness fell, all told that my route had
brought me into another region. After the wild
Zeitun country of three days' earlier the contrast
was vivid, and in it too seemed to be the promise
of changes yet to follow.
To make sure of reaching Aintab by daylight we
started from Bazaarluk just as a splendid dawn was
breaking over the pine-covered hills. The stars appeared
to be still set in purple velvet, the air was
sweet and warm, in the grey half-light animals before
us on the road were ghostly in the dust of their own
making, and even the bells they wore seemed muflled
or not yet fully awake. Fifteen or twenty years ago
these hills,
to which the road now ascended, were a
favourite haunt of Zeitun brigands. A large guardhouse
at the highest point told of many zaptiehs
having been stationed here once, and four or five
were in occupation now, A sentry on the flat roof
hailed as I passed, and required me to come in and
show my papers. During earlier stages of the journey
I had been taken for a German, now I was suspected
of being an Italian, and that, in the present Turkish
humour, might become an unpleasant matter. The
sergeant in charge said the vilayet was under martial
law, and that his orders were to arrest all Italians who
came his way. But when convinced of my nationality
he proffered coffee and cigarettes, and endeavoured to
make up by courtesy for the loss of time he had caused.
During the afternoon, just where the track from
Baghche Pass came into our path, I fell in with one