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VINEYAEDS AND WALNUT GROVES 37
as many do in this country. But he called himself
merely Christos, which, though Greek enough, carries
no glamour, and pertains rather to that modern Greece
whose Western admirers, gazing from afar, pathetically
think is capable of living up to the ancient fame.
A couple of hours beyond Khavsa, the highway
divided just as the gorge opened to the plain of Marsovan.
On the left the Bagdad Road crossed the river
by an old high-pitched stone bridge of a single pointed
arch, and went off along- the hillside for Amasia ; the
other road climbed low spurs on the right, to reach
the plain and town of Marsovan. I wished to visit
this town, which lay about ten miles distant in the
south-west, so here I left the Bagdad Road for a time.
In a little while a wide dark belt of trees, which I
knew for the vineyards and orchards and walnut
groves of Marsovan, began to rise above the brown
plain in the distance. And then, as I drew nearer, appeared
on my right a minaret, showing now and then
over the domes of walnut foliage. It was the minaret
of Marinja's village mosque — obscure Marinja that
nevertheless had sent a son of hers into Europe once,
where he made stir and commotion enough for a time.
Vineyards and orchards and gardens, closely set and
luxuriant, surround Marsovan wherever water can be
brought by irrigation. Through these I passed, following
a narrow lane between rough hedges of
hawthorn tangled with wild clematis and overhung
by walnut-trees. Next came the burying-grounds, on
the edge of the town, Moslem and Christian apart,
with the freshly-made graves of many cholera victims,
and the great mournful heap of loose stones piled
above Armenian victims of a massacre. The path
then went among houses, climbing a low hill, and at
the top, through a gateway with a gatehouse above
it, I entered the walled compound of the American
Mission.