acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

—
A WEIRD BEGGAR 29
As we rose out of the next valley a donkey and a
figure on the ground beside it attracted my attention.
They were in the shadow of a solitary tree growing
at the roadside. The donkey stood with drooping
head, the picture of patience, but the figure moved in
curious fashion, and I went up to look more closely.
And now it appeared that I had fallen into the trap
of a beggar, one of those mendicants who infest the
road and profit by their infirmities. He sprang up
and asked for alms, and because these were not immediately
forthcoming went on all-fours and showed
a number of antics, imitating a dog and goat and
other animals to admiration. Then I saw that he was
without thighs ; that the knee-joint was at the hip,
the leg rigid, and only half the usual length. With
his grim bearded face thrust upwards, and the odd
movements of his little legs, he lacked only a stump
of tail to make me think I had come upon a satyr
in life. At last I photographed him, and gave him
three piastres for his trouble. Achmet protested
against the amount : the fellow was rich, he said, and
added with apparent admiration that he had two or
perhaps three wives. But I heard afterwards that
Achmet had exaggerated the beggar's standing not
only in goods but in wives, seemingly as a matter of
principle. For he was ever hostile to beggars, and
jealous of all to whom I gave tips. As a hardworking,
honest, thrifty man, it galled him to see
worthless folk receiving good money for nothing
gifts that, he suspected, might diminish his own
gratuity at the journey's end.
From Samsun to the pass of Kara Dagh had been
a switchback road, that crossed three mountain-ranges
and two deep valleys in a matter of forty miles. But
at Kara Dagh I reached the great central plateau of
Asia Minor, which stands from 2500 to 4000 feet above
the sea. It is a plateau of geography and not of the
eye—the general level of interior plains and valleys
from which chains of mountains ascend and leave you
quite unconscious of any high supporting tableland.