Thomas Gaskell Allen

“ No more fitting place than this could the fancy of the Kurds depict for the home of the terrible jinn; no better symbol of nature for the awful jaws of death.
Our companion now awoke considerably refreshed, and the ascent was continued close to the chasm’s brink. Here were the only rocks to be seen in the vast snow-bed around us. Cautiously we proceed, with cat-like tread, following directly in one another’s footsteps, and holding on to our alpenstocks like grim death. ”

“ From the Chu valley, dotted here and there with Kirghiz tent villages and their grazing flocks and herds, we pushed our wheels up the broken path, which wound like a mythical stairway far up into the low-hanging clouds. We trudged up one of the steepest ascents we have ever made with a wheel. The scenery was grand, but lonely. The wild tulips, pinks, and verbenas dotting the green slopes furnished the only pleasant diversion from our arduous labor. Just as we turned the highest summit, the clouds shifted for a moment, and revealed before us two Kirghiz horsemen. ”

“ In fact, two armed ferashes were galloping toward us, armed, as we afterward learned, with American rifles, and the usual kamma, or huge dagger, swinging from a belt of cartridges. These fellows, like the zaptiehs, were fond of ostentation. They frequently led us a roundabout way to show us off to their relatives or friends in a neighboring village. Nature at last came to our deliverance. As we stood on a prominent ridge taking a last look at Mount Ararat, now more than fifty miles away, a storm came upon us, showering hailstones as large as walnuts. ”

“ The slope became steeper and steeper, until it abutted in an almost precipitous cliff coated with snow and glistening ice. There was no escape from it, for all around the snow-beds were too steep and slippery to venture an ascent upon them. Cutting steps with our ice-picks, and half-crawling, half-dragging ourselves, with the alpenstocks hooked into the rocks above, we scaled its height, and advanced to the next abutment. Now a cloud, as warm as exhausted steam, enveloped us in the midst of this ice and snow. ”

“ II THE ASCENT OF MOUNT ARARAT According to tradition, Mount Ararat is the scene of two of the most important events in the history of the human race. In the sacred land of Eden, which Armenian legend places at its base, the first of human life was born; and on its solitary peak the last of human life was saved from an all-destroying flood. The remarkable geographical position of this mountain seems to justify the Armenian view that it is the center of the world. ”

“ Colder and colder grew the atmosphere. From 39° the thermometer gradually fell to 36°, to 33°, and during the night dropped below freezing-point. The snow, which fell from the clouds just over our heads, covered our frugal supper-table, on which were placed a few hard-boiled eggs, some tough Turkish bread, cheese, and a bottle of tea mixed with raki. Ice-tea was no doubt a luxury at this time of the year, but not on Mount Ararat, at the height of eleven thousand feet, with the temperature at freezing-point. ”

“ By no possibility could we mount our machines, although the mob was growing more and more impatient. They kept shouting for us to ride, but would give us no room. Those on the outside pushed the inner ones against us. With the greatest difficulty could we preserve our equilibrium, and prevent the wheels from being crushed, as we surged along toward the palace gate; while all the time our Russian interpreter, Mafoo, on horseback in front, continued to shout and gesticulate in the wildest manner above their heads. ”

“ The monotonous appearance of the steppe itself is only intensified in winter, when the snow smooths over the broken surface, and even necessitates the placing of mud posts at regular intervals to mark the roadway for the Kirghiz post-drivers. But in the spring and autumn its arid surface is clothed, as if by enchantment, with verdure and prairie flowers. Both flowers and birds are gorgeously colored. One variety, about half the size of the jackdaw which infests the houses of Tashkend and Samarkand, has a bright blue body and red wings ”

“ In the midst of our efforts to extricate them, we often wondered how Noah ever managed with the animals from the ark. Had these donkeys not been of a philosophical turn of mind, they might have offered forcible objections to the way we extricated them from their straightened circumstances. A remonstrance on our part for carelessness in driving brought from the muleteer a burst of Turkish profanity that made the rocks of Ararat resound with indignant echoes. The spirit of insubordination seemed to be increasing in direct ratio with the height of our ascent. ”

“ Although surrounded by unusual fertility and luxuriance for an interior town, the low mud-houses and treeless streets give Kirshehr that same thirsty and painfully uniform appearance which characterizes every village or city in Asiatic Turkey. The mud buildings of Babylon, and not the marble edifices of Nineveh, have served as models for the Turkish architect. We have seen the Turks, when making the mud-straw bricks used in house-building, scratch dirt for the purpose from between the marble slabs and boulders that lay in profusion over the ground. ”

“ After their curiosity regarding us had been partly satisfied, it was suggested that a sheep should be slaughtered in our honor. Neither meat nor bread is ever eaten by any but the rich Kirghiz. Their universal kumiss, corresponding to the Turkish yaourt, or coagulated milk, and other forms of lacteal dishes, sometimes mixed with meal, form the chief diet of the poor. The wife of our host, a buxom woman, who, as we had seen, could leap upon a horse’s back as readily as a man, now entered the doorway, carrying a full-grown sheep by its woolly coat. ”

“ Nowhere have we drunk better tea than around the steaming samovar of our Tashkend host. No peasant is too poor, either in money or in sentiment, to buy and feel the cheering influence of tea. Even the Cossack, in his forays into the wilds of central Asia, is sustained by it. Unlike the Chinese, the Russians consider sugar a necessary concomitant of tea-drinking. ”

“ Far from being veiled and shut up in harems, like their Turkish and Persian sisters, the Kurdish women come and go among the men, and talk and laugh as they please. The thinness and lowness of the partition walls did not disturb their astonishing equanimity. In their relations with the men the women are extremely free. During the evening we frequently found ourselves surrounded by a concourse of these mountain beauties, who would sit and stare at us with their black eyes, call attention to our personal oddities, and laugh among themselves. ”

“ After following many of the beaten lines of travel in the British Isles we arrived in London, where we formed our plans for traveling across Europe, Asia, and America. The most dangerous regions to be traversed in such a journey, we were told, were western China, the Desert of Gobi, and central China. Never since the days of Marco Polo had a European traveler succeeded in crossing the Chinese empire from the west to Peking. ”

“ Nowhere is this so well illustrated as in the manner of shopping in Turkey. This was brought particularly to our notice when we visited the Sivas bazaars to examine some inlaid silverware, for which the place is celebrated. The customer stands in the street inspecting the articles on exhibition; the merchant sits on his heels on the booth floor. If the customer is of some position in life, he climbs up and sits down on a level with the merchant. If he is a foreigner, the merchant is quite deferential. A merchant is not a merchant at all, but a host entertaining a guest. ”

“ Little Ararat is the meeting-point, or corner-stone, of three great empires. On its conical peak converge the dominions of the Czar, the Sultan, and the Shah. The Russian border-line runs from Little Ararat along the high ridge which separates it from Great Ararat, through the peak of the latter, and onward a short distance to the northwest, then turns sharply to the west. On the Sardarbulakh pass, between Great and Little Ararat, is stationed a handful of Russian Cossacks to remind lawless tribes of the guardianship of the “White Sultan.” ”

“ Away we would go at a rapid pace down the streets of the town or village, to the utter amazement of the natives and the [pg 7] great satisfaction of our vainglorious zaptieh. As long as his horse was fresh, or until we were out of sight of the village, he would urge us on with cries of “Gellcha-buk” (“Come on, ride fast”) . When a bad piece of road or a steep ascent forced us to dismount he would bring his horse to a walk, roll a cigarette, and draw invidious comparisons between our steeds. His tone, however, changed when we reached a decline or long stretch of reasonably good road. ”

“ The interest the Kurds had up to this time taken in our venture died away at once. Even the three Kurds who, as requested in the message of the mutessarif, were to accompany us up the mountain to the snow-line, refused absolutely to go. The mention of the mutessarif’s name awakened only a sneer. We had also relied upon the Kurds for blankets, as we had been advised to do by our friends in Bayazid. Those we had already hired they now snatched from the donkeys standing before the tent. All this time our tall, gaunt, meek-looking muleteer had stood silent. ”

“ To this influence is largely due the present growing prosperity of Tashkend, which, in military importance, is rapidly giving way to Askabad, “the key to Herat.”
That spirit of equality and fraternity which characterizes the government of a Russian mir, or village, has been carried even into central Asia. We have frequently seen Russian peasants and natives occupying adjoining apartments in the same household, while in the process of trade all classes seem to fraternize in an easy and even cordial manner. The same is true of the children, who play together indiscriminately in the street. ”

“ A week’s cycling from the Bosporus brought us beyond the Allah Dagh mountains, among the barren, variegated hills that skirt the Angora plateau. We had already passed through Ismid, the ancient Nicomedia and capital of Diocletian; and had left behind us the heavily timbered valley of the Sakaria, upon whose banks the “Freebooter of the Bithynian hills” settled with his four hundred tents and laid the foundation of the Ottoman empire. ”

“ Fields of rice and the opium poppy were sometimes met with, but of the silk-worm and tea-plant, which furnish the great staples of the Chinese export trade, we saw absolutely nothing on our route through the northern provinces. Apart from the “Yellow Lands” of the Hoang-ho, which need no manure, the arable regions of China seem to have maintained their fecundity for over four thousand years, entirely through the thoughtful care of the peasantry in restoring to the soil, under another form, all that the crops have taken from it. The plowing of the Chinese is very poor. ”

“ OUR RUSSIAN FRIEND AND MR. SACHTLEBEN LOADED WITH ENOUGH CHINESE “CASH” TO PAY FOR A MEAL AT A KULDJA RESTAURANT. The blowing of the long horns and boom of the mortar cannon at the fort awoke us at daylight on the morning of July 13. Farewells had been said the night before. Only our good-hearted Russian host was up to put an extra morsel in our provision-bag, for, as he said, we could get no food until we reached the Kirghiz aouls on the high plateau of the Talki pass, by which we were to cut across over unbeaten paths to the regular so-called imperial highway, running from Suidun. ”

“ Everywhere the ground is traversable by horses and carts. This comparatively fertile tract, cutting the Gobi into two great sections, has been, ever since its conquest two thousand years ago, of vast importance to China, being the only feasible avenue of communication with the western provinces, and the more important link in the only great highway across the empire. A regular line of caravan stations is maintained by the constant traffic both in winter and summer. But we were now on a bit of the genuine Gobi—that is, “Sandy Desert”—of the Mongolian, or “Shamo” of the Chinese. ”

“ There was no such thing as a restaurant; each one by turn must do his own cooking in the inn kitchen, open to all. We, of course, were expected to carry our own provisions and do our own culinary work like any other respectable travelers. This we had frequently done before where restaurants were not to be found. Many a time we would enter an inn with our arms filled with provisions, purchased at the neighboring bazaars, take possession of the oven and cooking utensils, and proceed to get up an American meal, while all the time a hundred eyes or more would be staring at us in blank amazement. ”

“ The peasant classes in Turkey are of course the most superstitious because they are the most ignorant. They have no education whatever, and can neither read nor write. Stamboul is the only great city of which they know. Paris is a term signifying the whole outside world. An American missionary was once asked: “In what part of Paris is America?” Yet it can be said that they are generally honest, and always patient. They earn from about six to eight cents a day. This will furnish them with ekmek and pilaff, and that is all they expect. ”