Chapter IX: Oloukishla. Plain of Lycaonia. Eregli

_June 5th._—Rose at sunrise. No wonder this place is unhealthy; there is a considerable traffic, and all the camel trains halt here for a longer or shorter time, but of course the litter, &c., is never cleared away, the only purifiers are the sun and rain.

This is the nearest station to the silver and lead mines of Bulghar Maden. I did not see them, but extract the following particulars from the diary of a friend who visited them in 1876:—

“From Tchifteh Khan to Bulghar Maden, about four hours over a dreadful road; when about half way, halted under a sycamore tree. An old villager came up and told me of an inscription on a rock in the mountain above; I went to see it, and copied all I could of it. At Maden, stayed in the house of the head man, Kantarji Georgi. Visited the mines, and descended one so narrow that only one man at a time can pass along or work in it. The system here is that the concessionaire extracts the ore from the mine, the Government officials carry it to the smelting place, it is smelted at Government expense, and then purchased; silver at 32 paras the dram, lead at 32 paras per oke. (The oke = 400 drams; 40 paras = 1 piastre; 106 piastres = 18_s._ English.) The system of smelting is primitive, indeed everything is badly managed. I was told that the Government expend about 24,000_l._ per annum, and recover 50,000_l._; but upon this statement no reliance can be placed. The great profit is made by cheating the Government in weight of ore, &c., and the head workman is as rich as Crœsus. Anyone can obtain permission to open a mine.

“Georgi says that this is one of the very few places where the ancient Greek is still spoken.[14] I asked him to pronounce for me a few words from Homer which I remembered, and the pronunciation was much nearer the English method than the modern Greek, which seems to confirm what I once heard on this subject from Mr. Skene, of Aleppo.

“All the fine pine and cypress timber has been cut down in this neighbourhood for smelting the ore, and none replanted. The people complain of want of rain, but seem ignorant that destroying all the trees will much affect the rain supply. Timber for smelting the ore has now to be brought from a distance of nine hours. Excepting six Turkish families, all the people here are Greek.”

Left Tchifteh Khan at 9.30 A.M. The route was up ravines, between rounded hills of lava and trachyte, sparsely covered with stunted trees, chiefly juniper. It was a dreary ride, but always with noble views of Bulghar Dagh on our left. At 10.40 A.M. we descended from the highlands to the Ak Sou, and crossed it by a ford, for the bridge had been long broken down; near it were the remains of an ancient bridge. At present the stream is low, but in winter it is often impassable; close by the ford are the mill and hamlet of Toussoun Ali Khan. We were now in a wide, open valley, filled with scattered Turkman encampments, and very numerous flocks of goats; their sheep and cattle, requiring better pasturage, are higher up in the mountains. Parched by the heat and dust, we stopped at several of these encampments to buy some milk or yaourt; it seemed, however, that the supply of milk was only just sufficient for the young animals and they had not enough to spare for making yaourt. The Turkmans of the last encampment were evidently in very comfortable circumstances, their tents were spacious, solidly made of thick camels’-hair cloth, and well furnished with good carpets and “yorghans.” Both men and women were well dressed for their station, and many of the women wore a quantity of gold ornaments, and had several large gold coins hung round the head and at the temples; they were dressed in home-spun woollen cloth, mostly dyed of a deep blue colour (indigo), or “kermezy,” “deep red” (madder). Several of them were extremely good-looking—even handsome—and did not veil themselves or run away at our approach, but answered our inquiries with a modest confidence; I can well imagine that they make good wives, for they are most industrious. Some of them were washing clothes at the brook hard by, some bread making, others weaving carpets, their lords and masters, meanwhile, sat, or slept, or smoked; their duty being to look after the flocks, and beyond this all is left to the women. They are a very good and hospitable set of people, and had we asked we might have had bread and coffee gratis. Amongst other little marks of comparative refinement, I noticed in the chief’s tent a pretty set of “zarfs” and porcelain “finjans” for coffee.[15]

Higher up the valley is a village surrounded by groups of fine walnut trees, but cultivation and trees are only found in the valleys, and most of the hills around are bare even of grass. After a ride of about eight hours we came to the large village of Oloukishla, inhabited entirely by Turks. Just at the entrance of the village we met two well-dressed men, one of whom beckoned to us, and we rode up to him; he asked to what house we were going? We said we had a recommendation to Berber Oglou, who was one of the leading people of the place. “I am he,” said our new acquaintance, and invited us to his house, promising to meet us there in a few minutes. It turned out, however, that he was the son of Khalil Aga, another of the notables of the place; he sent a boy to show us the way to his father’s “salaamlik,” and we were soon seated in the midst of a curious company, and, which is always unpleasant, with our faces to the light, while most of the company sat in front of us, having the windows at their back, and so could inspect us without our being able to see them in the dim light of a Turkish “salaamlik.” The usual fussy ceremonial of coffee was gone through, the usual questions asked. Who is this gentleman? Whence comes he? Whither goes he? What is his business here? What is he in his own country? Is he rich? &c., &c. In Europe such questions would seem impertinent, but here they signify nothing; you can answer them or not as you please, although it is always politic to give a frank account of yourself. Sometimes I was plainly asked, “What is your employment?” and “How much pay do you receive per month?” To such questions I used to return no answer. In general, the “bouyourdi” of the Governor of Adana, together with such explanations as Nahli thought fit to give, secured me a civil reception; and the impression usually produced on the country people was, that I had been specially sent by the British Government to “go all about Anatolia” on a tour of inspection, amongst other things to copy the antiquities, inscriptions, &c.

After resting awhile, I went out to see the village; the only thing in it worthy of notice is the khan. I have seen few such buildings in Turkey out of Constantinople, and this I should imagine was built by some Italian architect—perhaps some poor captive of war or piracy, whose architectural skill had recommended him to his new masters—for the style is thoroughly Italian, and it has a form and finish such as no Turk could produce, especially at the time of its construction, which was probably the early part of the sixteenth century. It consisted of a very handsome khan, composed of rooms and an arcade of pointed arches enclosing a spacious square area; attached to it was a mosque, a bath, and a magnificent bazaar, which was not inferior (except in size) to the finest bazaars in Constantinople. The whole was built of large hewn stones, cube and oblong—of trachyte and hard limestone—brought (so the villagers told me) from quarries six hours distant, and roofed with great slabs of limestone. Like almost everything else in Turkey, it is fast falling to ruin, but so solid is its construction that it might still be thoroughly repaired, and we heard that the Government engineers for the railways had designed to change it into a great railway station and point of departure for all this district—supposing, that is, a railway should ever be constructed beyond Angora. It is entirely deserted and abandoned now, and the only tenant of the khan was a poor villager, a wayfarer from Kaisariyeh, sick of typhus fever, who had been placed here, and was in some measure tended and cared for by public charity.

In former days a large portion of the pilgrims to Mecca went by this route, and the khan, under those circumstances, would be well frequented, but now few or none come this way. The villagers could tell me nothing of its history, but I afterwards heard from the village moollah, “Hadji Ahmed,” who was a dervish of Beshiktash, and a very intelligent man, that it was supposed to have been built by Sultan Selim II., and had been afterwards repaired by a certain Eukeuz Mohammed Pasha, one of the Memlook Governors of Egypt, but he could give me no date. Hereupon one of the villagers present said that a few years ago a man died in the village at the age of one hundred years, but he knew nothing of the history of the khan, and the old people before him had been unable to give him any information about it. What a strange difference there is between Orientals and ourselves on such points! It might have been expected that tradition would have preserved the date of this really magnificent construction, and the name of its founder, but although I questioned many of the people I could obtain no further information. As we returned from the old khan a shower of rain forced us to take shelter in the house of a weaver; his wife was at work weaving a kind of thick woollen sash, commonly worn in this district. The work was solid, but, in my opinion, displayed little taste. The cost of a sash was from fifty to sixty piastres (about 10_s._), of which the material cost twenty to twenty-five piastres; as it occupied fifteen or sixteen days to weave, the labour seems but poorly paid.

On our return we found the evening meal ready. We were supposed to be the guests of Khalil Aga, but of course next day I should have to pay for our accommodation. The son had asked for rice to make a pilaff, and considerably more than usual had been given. Then Nahli had paid for eggs, and for butter to cook them and the pilaff; our host’s contribution was a soup of rice and milk, and a dish of yaourt flavoured with garlic and served up on spinach. To my surprise, six other persons besides the master of the house and his son sat down to eat with us; they helped themselves so quickly and greedily that in a trice all the dishes were cleared, and I should have fared badly had not Nahli brought me a separate plate, and helped me first to pilaff before the rest attacked the dish. Poor fellows! It was not every day they could get such a supper, and most of it at another’s expense. It was evident we were in a famine-stricken district.

After supper, in answer to my inquiries, the men told me of their experience during the years 1873-5. Very sad it was, of a truth! Before 1873, Oloukishla contained 400 inhabited houses; of these about 300 are now deserted and falling fast to ruin; in every direction we saw empty, ruinous houses. They had lost 1200 cows and oxen, they had lost 20,000 sheep and goats—of this number only about 1000 were goats, and “if I chose to walk up a little way into the mountains I could see a ravine full of their bones.” They had lost about 300 horses and camels, and, lastly, they estimated the loss of inhabitants at about 1000, of these a great many died of absolute starvation in and round Oloukishla itself, but yet more in their flight to Koniah or Adana. The latter city seemed to have been the general resort of the fugitives from the whole district; too often they only found a grave there!

It was the destruction of their flocks and herds which ruined the people. Had this not occurred they might have tided over the bad harvests, but the loss of their flocks meant utter starvation; “the rich had become poor, the poor were dead, or had emigrated, or were starving.” There is still a short period of severe distress to be endured before the new harvest can be reaped, and the straits to which they are reduced are shown by the high price of wheat, which at Adana costs 18 piastres per Stamboul kileh (= 1 English bushel), but here in the interior costs from thirty to forty piastres.

They said that the prospects of the harvest were very good, but much loss was caused by the ravages of an animal which they called “sitchan” (a species of lemur, of which I observed several on the roadside as we came to Oloukishla, they are of the colour of a squirrel, and have the eye of a jerboa). When I asked why they did not set to work to destroy them, “Oh!” they replied, “of what use would it be to try, there are thousands of them.” “But,” we said, “if everybody killed a dozen or so, and kept on doing it, that would surely finish them off in the end.” “Well, some had been killed by a stick placed at the mouth of their holes, in such a way that when they touched a string, which served as a trigger, the stick would strike them, but after awhile they became wary, and would lurk in their hole for days; besides, they came to ravage the fields at night, when no one could see them.” Such were the excuses made, but the fact is that the men are a lazy set, and pass their time in smoking and gossip, leaving “work” to the women.

Amongst the company was a very intelligent man, the moollah of the village, Hadji Ahmed, a dervish of Beshiktash, who had lived at Constantinople. He was very handsome, evidently not averse to Europeans, and spoke Turkish beautifully, a striking contrast to the language used by the villagers. He conversed a good deal with me, but asked no impertinent questions, indeed, his manners were really polished. He said that Bulghar Dagh had many veins of silver and even of gold, but there were “few seekers” for them (“arayaǹ az”). He spoke of the vast forests under and around the mountain, but said that the waste and destruction of forest in all the districts round was very great, especially near the mine. He seemed greatly interested about the prospect of a railway through the province. I said I did not think that Europe would advance more money to the Turkish Government, for they took the money and simply wasted it. “Yes,” he said, “the walis eat, the mudirs eat, everybody eats, and so the money disappears.”

_June 6th._—Roused at daybreak by the master of the house, who insisted on entering before we were astir; and soon a curious crowd collected to watch the process of washing and dressing, which was not pleasant. A number of boys were assembled round the door; they were children whose parents were dead, and who lived on the charity of those in the village who had still a little property left. One boy was pointed out to us who was quite alone in the world, not a single relative having survived. “If you choose, we will give him to you,” said the son of Khalil Aga, in joke.

There is a school in the village; but I suppose it is of the kind usual in a Turkish community. I asked what the name of the village meant. Some said it meant “people die here of the winter,” i.e. of cold. But the mudir of the telegraph at Eregli gave a better explanation, “the great or perfect barrack,” referring to the great khan. This is the same as the title of the great mosque at Adana, “Olou Jamaa” (“the perfect mosque”).

We left Oloukishla at 6.45 A.M. Our route was amidst low, rounded hills, with only a few stunted juniper trees growing on them. On the side towards Bulghar Dagh there were, first, grassy hills; then high ridges thickly covered with forest; then a deep valley, very wide and green; then the steep, towering ridges and peaks of the high mountain chain, covered with great snow-fields, such as it was at Tchifteh Khan. Another great range, “Allah Dagh,” was on N.E. by E., but seemed far off, farther than it is represented in Kiepert’s map.

At 9 A.M. we reached the water-parting, and saw before us the great Lycaonian Plain, a vast and perfectly level expanse, extending towards the west till the horizon line faints away in the blue, misty distance. At various points of the compass, great volcanic mountains rise, grand and abrupt, from the level surface. On the north was the double cone of Hassan Dagh, over the site of ancient Nazianzus, covered with snow. N.W. by W. was the long and jagged chain of Karajah Dagh, of a dull grey colour. From its south-western extremity extended a long line of abrupt smaller hills and rocky heights, amongst them two extinct volcanic cones, of a form so strangely regular that even art itself could scarcely shape them more evenly and smoothly. Far away to the west rose the great volcanic mass of Kara Dagh (Parlais). The soil of the plain is almost entirely chalk, not fitted for agriculture, but supplying plentiful and excellent pasturage, which, before the terrible winter of 1873-74, supported innumerable flocks, the property of the various villages. The water, as well as the pasturage, was very good; the little valley by which we descended to the plain was full of emerald verdure; and from one little fountain here, flowed the finest water I drank on my whole journey.

The plain is treeless; far as the eye can reach there is not even a thicket or a bush; but the number, the variety, and the beauty of the flowers are truly wonderful. There must have been at least fifty different species at once in bloom, and mingled with them, all over the plain, was a great variety of aromatic herbs. I noticed wild thyme, rosemary, mignonette, and lavender; but the muleteer gathered four or five other kinds, two then in flower, which I had never before seen.

The road was very solitary, not a living creature could be seen, it was like the sea in its vast lonesomeness. The great plain was covered with a thin, blue vapour, through which a few distant villages could be faintly discerned. The mountains rose from the level surface grand and abrupt, their bases veiled in mist, their summits bathed in the bright sunlight.

At 10.30 A.M. we came to the village of Tchaian, and halted at the house of the mukhtar (head man). This village, like all the others in the district, had suffered horribly from the famine. It once contained about 2000 inhabitants, but of these more than half are dead or have disappeared. When the famine became severe many tried to escape to Koniah and Adana; by far the larger portion of the fugitives perished on the way, but all who succeeded in reaching Koniah were saved. The fate of the fugitives who reached Adana was less happy, for typhus and dysentery cut off nearly all. “We used to find the dead,” said the mukhtar, “lying in the roads or on the mountains, and how many little children died Allah only knows!” The village had been inscribed on the Government register as possessing 10,000 sheep and goats—_all_ are dead. It had about 300 cows and oxen, and as many camels; only some 150 in all are left! There seems to have been no epidemic; they died principally of hunger, for no food could be obtained. Owing to the failure of the crops there was no straw (saman), and the snow lay on the ground four feet deep for nearly five months; a horse-load of saman cost 60 piastres, 12_s._ The men used to go out into the mountains to cut what little grass they could find under the frozen snow, but it was impossible to supply food for the animals, and so all died. “Formerly I used always to have a horse,” said our informant, “but I have either lost, or been obliged to sell, everything, and now I must go afoot.” Many petitions for aid were sent to the authorities, but in 1874 no help was given; however, by selling at half their value the household furniture they had, their casseroles, yorghans, carpets, &c., the villagers contrived to purchase a little “jundàri” (millet? or rye?). For this they were forced to pay at the rate of 120 piastres the kileh; the price at Mersina being 5 to 6 piastres! There was little or no rain at sowing time, but a little fell just in time, and they sowed the dear-bought grain in all the moist places they could find, and so obtained a miserable harvest. At last an order came to give to each head of a family 4½ kilehs of a mixture of wheat and barley, and they actually received 2½ kilehs of barley, and wheat for sowing, the latter, however, as a debt to the Government. They had few or no oxen left, but in the sowing time of 1875 the poor fellows helped each other by putting their few remaining animals together, and combining to plough and sow; not half the land, however, could be sowed, but at least that which is sowed will be productive this year. Of course the villagers are deeply in debt; they hope, however, to clear off their debt if they should have two good harvests in succession, but the net proceeds of this year’s harvest will be required for replacing their oxen, so as to be ready for the coming season, and they fear that this year’s crop will hardly suffice even for that. I asked if, under these sad circumstances, the Government remitted any of the taxes. They replied that last year the tax farmers took the dîme as usual, even of the miserable crops of millet and rye; and this year, of course, the dîme and the vergui (property tax) would be taken. (They called the latter tax “salyan”; it has different names according to the district.) Already this year zaptiehs had been sent from Eregli with orders to exact the vergui by force, if necessary, and about 4000 piastres had been wrung from them. This amount had been obtained by forcing them to sell the miserable remnants of their furniture, animals, &c. Some had even been beaten and roughly treated.

The conscription had gone on as usual, but the conscripts, though chosen, had not been called out for service; the sum for which the village was inscribed in the Government register as annual tax was 32,000 piastres. The village medjlis (council) and the mukhtar apportion the payment of this sum amongst the villagers, according to their property. Their land is good, but depends entirely upon rain. In winter the communication with Koniah and Adana, though difficult and expensive, is still maintained, but for one month and a half no caravans can pass.

Such is the experience of a Turkish village in time of scarcity, and sad as the case of Tchaian was, the case of others was very much worse. As regards the number of animals lost, I may mention that a Government register of the flocks is kept for the purpose of taxation, so that the calculation of loss is tolerably exact and not exaggerated; and, indeed, the whole interior of Asia Minor has suffered so much, that many years must pass before it can recover its former prosperity.

In the mukhtar’s house I first saw a fire of “zybeel,” dried camel dung (the “fimus bubulus” of Livy, xxxviii. 18). We are no longer in the region of pine and oak forests.

We left Tchaian at 1.45 P.M. and crossed the little river and the cultivated land of the village. On our left were low, rounded hills, covered with scanty herbage; on our right the great plain, extending westwards, till the eye could no longer distinguish its boundary lines, and northwards, to the base of Hassan Dagh, a double, snow-topped cone, more than 8000 feet high, and to the long, serrated ridge of Karajah Dagh; but even this wide level is but a small portion of the great central Lycaonian Plain. The range of Bulghar Dagh still bounded the horizon on the south, not now so lofty as at Kulek Boghaz, but still rising far above all the neighbouring mountains.

Very sad and depressing was the strange loneliness of the country. For some three hours from Tchaian we saw not a living creature, except a few stray hawks and vultures. The telescope showed some small villages, far off in the plain, and one considerable village, “Sheikh Ali Keui,” was near our road, but they were all apparently deserted, and after long and close examination with the glass we could detect neither men nor animals in or near them.

All the villages of this district are more or less deserted, some have not even a single inhabitant left, owing to the famine, and the diseases consequent upon it. The farther we entered the plain the more remarkable became the colour, odour, and variety of the flowers and aromatic herbs with which the ground is covered. But the soil is poor, and from lack of irrigation only fit for pasturage; so that when the poor villagers had lost their flocks nothing but ruin and starvation was before them. Only a small portion of the plain is thus adorned by nature. In summer nine-tenths of it is an arid waste, bearing salicornia, wormwood, and similar plants, and broken up by great marshes and wide patches of salt, while in the winter season inundations cover the whole face of the country, and extend, irregularly, nearly the whole distance from Koniah on the west to Tyana on the east, so that sometimes the whole district is like an inland sea, and perfectly impassable. To this is owing the extreme unhealthiness of Lycaonia, for the rivers and streams which descend from the many mountain ranges bordering the plain have no visible outlet, and as summer advances, and the inundations begin to disappear, a deadly malaria is generated from the half dry surface of the marshes.

A line of dark green, extending far in front into the plain, marked the site of Eregli. To compare small things with great, this primitive little place resembles Damascus in its position, although, of course, the pretty gardens and orchards of Eregli cannot vie with the magnificent plain around the Syrian capital. Both cities are at the foot of lofty mountains, from whose perennial springs rise the rivers which spread verdure over the soil as far as their life-giving waters reach. Beyond that limit all is arid desolation, excepting for a brief period in spring and early summer. The rivers of Eregli rise in the mountains south of the town, and fall into the lake Ak Göl (pronounced Ghyùl), about three hours to the west of Eregli. The limits of the lake are constantly varying, and sometimes in winter its waters extend over the great marshes on its N.E. side, and thus form one connected sheet of water fully 50 miles in length; but the true lake is only 10 to 12 miles long by 4 to 6 wide. At its S.W. extremity is the only known outlet for the vast body of water collected in the plain during winter. The people of the country call it the “Duden.” It is a narrow valley in the hills to the south, containing a pool or small lake into which a stream from the Ak Göl flows; from this valley there is no visible exit for the stream, it is probable, therefore, that the waters make their way thence by subterraneous passages through the Taurus.

We reached the first branch of the river of Eregli at 5.45 P.M., and, after crossing two other branches, one a considerable stream, entered the town. It is a decayed and miserable place, consisting of a number of straggling houses, widely scattered amid orchards and gardens full of luxuriant groves of walnut, poplar, willow, and mulberry. The material of the houses is chiefly unbaked mud-brick and poplar timber. Almost the only solidly-built edifices in Eregli are the khan, now in ruin, which resembles the khan of Oloukishla, but is smaller, and a mosque, with a lofty round minaret; both are of deep red stone. The “Yeni khan” at which we alighted is an edifice of mud-brick and poplar timber, built about a large, square court. The accommodation was so bad, being wretched chambers floored with clay, that we induced the khanji to give us his own room, which was tolerably clean and comfortable, only the windows had no shutters, but the nights are not cold now.

In the evening we were visited by two officers of the Ottoman army, both of whom had served in the Crimea; the elder had seen much service in other parts of the empire also. I gave them tea, but I think they were disappointed; they expected, I believe, either Cognac or araki, and did not honour me with another visit. They said Eregli was a very unhealthy place, owing to its damp air and the marshes round it, and that many of the people had died of hunger in the famine time, but I obtained no particulars. One of them afterwards lent me two breakfast-cups and saucers, which he said he had brought from Constantinople.

_June 7th._—Two men from a village called Bektik came to see me; they had heard of our arrival and thought we had come to distribute relief, as hitherto the assistance in money, seed-corn, &c., sent from England and America had been dispensed mostly in the neighbourhood of Kaisariyeh and the country north of it. Bektik is a general name for a number of villages to the N.W. of Eregli. These men told me that their village consisted originally of 400 families; of these, about 150 remained in the village, about 200 families were missing (they did not know with certainty what had become of them, but probably many of them were still at Adana or Koniah), 50 families they knew to have perished of starvation, and no account was taken of the number of little children who had died. Their village once possessed 30,000 sheep and a few goats, all of which had perished from want of food during the terrible winter of 1873-4. They had owned 1100 oxen and 2000 cows; of these only about 200 remained. They sold the little remaining property they had, such as carpets, casseroles, and yorghans, &c., to buy seed, and then, one helping another, they made shift to sow part of their land. This year they will have a good harvest, but how to live in the meantime? The Government had given seed to the village, but the rich and more influential men, having the distribution of it in their hands, had mostly kept it for themselves. I gave them a little money and sent them away. It is evident that the people are in great straits to tide over the time till harvest.

A doctor of the town, Saleh Effendi, a native of Tripoli, in Syria, also called; he told me that Eregli contained about 650 to 700 houses, and under 3000 people, of whom only about 150 were (Armenian) Christians. At prosperous seasons many traders from Kaisariyeh resort to Eregli, but at present there is no trade, and the place seems deserted; yet, strange to say, a considerable amount of building is going on, but the style of architecture is poor, simply a rough stone arch on the street, all the rest walls of mud-brick. The doctor told us of Ibreez, and various other places; amongst others, of a perennial fountain of bitter water, two hours east of Ak Serai, which, “when sweetened, made excellent lemonade.” He added that near Bektik, about two to three hours from Eregli, at a place called Koukerdt, there is a strongly petrifying spring, which is also sulphurous. This spring does not always issue from the same spot, but sometimes from one place, sometimes from another. The little stone used for building in Eregli is nearly all brought from this place. The doctor paid me several visits during my stay.

About midday I paid a visit to the kaimakam. The Government House is a most picturesque old wooden edifice, with quaintly carved ceilings; the road to it was through the great cemetery, which contained a prodigious number of monuments, consisting of upright slabs of unhewn stone; not one in a hundred bore any inscription. It is the land of oblivion, and when once an Osmanli has “shuffled off this mortal coil” his memory seems to be utterly lost. The kaimakam was very courteous, and at my request sent a zaptieh to show me some of the gardens of the town. We walked through lanes bordered by high mud walls, and overshadowed by finely grown trees, but the heat was very great, and on my inquiring if Eregli was considered healthy, the man said “by no means, that the great marshes round it spoiled the climate; only the winds from Bulghar Dagh and Hassan Dagh [i.e. from south and north] were healthy;” all others blow across marshes, and therefore come laden with malaria. This, combined with the great dampness of the place from the plenteous supply of water, and the sudden and extreme changes of temperature between day and night, cause deadly dysenteries and fevers. “A man loses his strength, and when he lies down to sleep he does not get up again;” meaning, I suppose, that a man thoroughly prostrated by fever seldom recovers here. Severe congestive fevers, _cold_ fevers (or pernicious fevers, as they are called in Alexandria) are common, and very fatal.[16]

The best garden I saw was that of Hadji Hassan, one of the only two rich Turks in Eregli. He does not live there, but comes occasionally to take his “kef” (enjoy himself). The gardener’s residence was a tumbledown wooden and mud house, but the owner’s “kioschk” (pleasure house) was very pretty. The garden, too, was well kept, and full of magnificent walnuts and oaks, like the corner of an English park. I noticed most of our English fruit trees, and fine vines trained along espaliers; the clover and turf equalled the finest in England. I was much interested by the number and tameness of the birds. The garden was literally full of singing birds, especially the thrush and the nightingale. Eregli is the paradise of nightingales. And a host of smaller warblers sang amid the branches, bright-hued woodpeckers flitted from tree to tree, the hoopoe waved his long-crested top-knot; even the wary magpie alighted close by us without signs of fear. All the birds are wonderfully tame, but in this country they are never persecuted, and so have no fear of man; the gentleness of the Osmanli to animals is a good trait in his character. I never saw any place in which the swift was so abundant; from our room we could see hundreds upon hundreds sweeping and screaming through the air. A large running stream traversed the garden, bordered by rows of old poplars, which were full of storks’ nests. These grave birds kept up a continual clapping with their bills, or twined their lithe necks in amorous fondness as they stood on the mass of sticks that formed their nest, without taking any notice of the strangers a few yards below them. The gardener brought us out carpets and cushions and coffee, and we lay down awhile to repose ourselves. This garden is exactly the kind of place an Osmanli loves; here, on the soft turf, under the shade of some wide-spread tree, will the Osmanli lounge, hour after hour, languidly inhaling the smoke of his narghileh, and fingering his “tesbihh” (rosary), lulled by the murmur of the babbling stream, and thinking of “nothing at all;” but should need require it, he can rouse himself with lightning swiftness from this siren lethargy, and then he will pass at once from languid repose to fiery action. This is a land of contrasts, and its sons are like their mother.

We returned to our khan pleased with our visit, but exhausted by the heat. We were very comfortable, on the whole, in this wretched, tumbledown old place, miscalled the “Yeni Khan,” the “new” khan. The khanji was obliging and very attentive to us, and a poor little Turkish boy of twelve or fourteen years, a veritable treasure, waited upon us. He brought us bread, milk, eggs, and yaourt from the market, looked after the horses, lighted our fire, &c., and did all in so nice a way, so attentively and conscientiously, that I was greatly pleased with him. I can recall even yet his musical voice and concise replies, “Var,” “Yes, there is,” or “Yes, it is;” “Boulăneùr,” “Yes, it is to be had, and I will bring it,” &c. Poor little Osman! He was a native of Bektik, and belonged to a family of eight brothers, of whom three only remained, two younger than himself, with their mother; three had died in the famine time, two, he thought, were in Adana, but he knew nothing of them. He was allowed to stay at the khan and do any little odd job that offered, and so get a precarious kind of living from the people who resorted to the khan. “He would not get much from the Cæsariots,” said Nahli. We advised him to try and make his way to the sea-coast, not to stay in the interior, but to avoid Adana, as it is most unhealthy. That little boy will succeed wherever he goes, his manners are so pleasing, and he is so willing and obliging. Poor fellow! adversity had come on him very early; he was very dejected when we left.

Our food at Eregli, though extremely plain, was pure and wholesome; the bread, milk, eggs, and yaourt were good in quality and remarkably cheap. But meat could not be obtained, and though we tried fowls twice, the result was not encouraging, so preternaturally tough were they. In Karamania no hen is promoted to the honours of the table until after she has fulfilled her duty by laying a great many eggs.

I recall my brief stay at Eregli with much pleasure.