acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

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422 ACROSS ASIA MINOE ON FOOT
with a large open courtyard in its midst, surrounded
by a cloister-like arcade two stories in height. Above
the entrance the building perhaps rises to three stories
and shows a facade so well suited to its purpose,
so excellent in workmanship and restrained use of
ornament, as to compare well with any building
of its class in the world. Standing in Europe it
would have been made familiar by illustration and
held up as an admirable example of ancient art
standing in Aleppo it is unknown to the outer world
and unappreciated.
The yard is stacked with merchandise in small bales
and bundles and sacks, for much of it has come or is
to go by caravan, with Bagdad and even Persia as
places of departure or destination. Men in gay-coloured
garments flit about in sunlight and shadow. Under
shady walls camels and asses are kneeling and standing,
or are being loaded or unloaded. In the arcades
and the rooms behind them goods are being unpacked
and stored or made up into bales again. Under one
of the arches perhaps you come upon some curious
process of trade in full swing : it may be the cleaning
of hair or wool, or the making of woollen felt.
The cleaning of wool or hair seems to have something
of conjuring about it, so immediate are the
results and so unexpected compared with the rude
implement used.
A man seated cross-legged on the stone paving
is the unlikely-looking conjurer. He is small, thin,
dirty, dark, and unmistakably unhealthy, but his
movements of hand are those of a master in his calling.
His instrument is a heavy wooden bow, about
four feet in length, in form something like a violin
bow, but with the back nearly two feet from several
stout catgut strings ; a wooden horn at each end of
the bow projects six inches below the strings. On
the floor he places a small heap of goat's hair,
clotted into lumps by dirt and mud, above it
places his bow, its two horns resting on the paving,
its back in air, its strings parallel to the ground