acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

AINTAB 407
So In a little while he stopped short, and laughed,
and gasped '^Eferin!" being at heart a sportsman;
and then, as a second thought, asked if I were
" Ingleez." I appreciated Eferin ! coming from him,
for it means " !
Bravo " therefore I shook his hand,
and gave him ''Eferin !'' in turn, and let him know
that I was used to this sort of making haste, whereas
he was not.
With that we sat on boulders and smoked
my cigarettes till Mustapha came up wide-eyed, and
broke into one of his rare contagious laughs.
The day had been hot and clear and windless,
until a district of rolling downs and bright red earth
was reached ; but then the sky darkened, heavy
sleety rain came on, and the temperature fell as if
upon entering a freezing chamber. Such weather
they tell you to expect in Northern Syria at this
time of year. But you do not credit its changes and
the sudden extremes of heat and cold except after
experience. It made good its reputation for me
now, however, for when I entered Aintab about five
o'clock the sun was shining hotly again, the road
drying and red mud caking on my clothes. The
road of my entering led straight to the American
College, at the edge of the town, and there I presented
myself, stiff with dried mud, but was made
welcome in the ready and hearty American manner
as one who had "just blown in."
Aintab stands in a shallow valley surrounded by
downs, showing rich red earth wherever ploughed,
and here and there planted with pistachio orchards.
The town is built of stone, and is clean, and has an
air of brightness and openness not often found in
Turkish towns. Of fifty or sixty thousand inhabitants
more than a third are Armenians, who are
prosperous, and some even wealthy, to whom in
large measure are due the favourable characteristics
of the place. Such Armenians usually have ideas,
and a sense of citizenship, and where, as here, they
possess the power, do not tolerate the dirt and
squalor which Moslems accept as a matter of course.