room, and sent forth fetid odors; the floor was sticky with mud; and there was no window, but a little light struggled down a chimney, up which no smoke would go, and we sighed for the comforts of our tomb.

was quite as well known a god as the people whose whole life is spent in the Corycian Jove, whose cave and temple we open air. In the district we traversed, have just visited. Around this hole also now nameless, but which once was Olba, dwelt many nomads in their tents and there are some twenty of these collections hovels, constructed out of the débris of of scattered hovels. On a threatening the surrounding ruins. The approach to evening when our tents would have been this ancient town and its depression is by out of the question, we reached one of a valley, the sides of which are honey- these called Vei Selli, and found no one at combed with rock-cut tombs, with quaint home; the doors were locked, and all the bas-reliefs over them, and inscriptions inhabitants had gone off to their tents. threatening dire penalties on the riflers Disconsolately we sat down on our bagthereof. "Let him who opens it eat the gage, and lit a fire to boil our kettle, whilst liver of his own child," ran one of the a messenger was despatched to the owner most awful of these threats. In these of the best of the hovels for his wooden ready-made houses many of the nomads key, for luckily the tribe had not as yet have taken up their abode, and it is curi-migrated very far. Towards sunset it ous to hear in these quondam homes of came, and we inspected our tenement. the departed the thud of the cotton-beater, The stable opened out of the dwellingthe grinding of grain, and the gay chatter ing of the nomad women. We ourselves were not sorry during wet weather, when tents were anything but agreeable, to house ourselves in a rock-cut tomb. The stone benches on which the sarcophagi once stood formed excellent receptacles for our mattresses. On the flat space in the middle we set up our table and chairs, we hung a curtain before the aperture, and lit a fire outside the curtain to warm the air as it came in. In point of fact, archæological nomads could wish for no better abode than a clean, dry, rock-cut tomb, and never again shall we look upon those as necessarily mad who dwell in tombs. The large stone mausolea of the departed Greeks, with which this district is plentifully supplied, are used by the pastoral nomads for many purposes besides houses. In them they store their grain, in them they shut up their kids when their mothers are out at pasture, and they are entirely without ghost stories a fact which would be at once highly discouraging to any one intent on psychological research.

We got very much interested in these wandering Yourouks during our stay amongst them. Sometimes we dwelt in their stone hovels, horrible holes with mud floors and dripping roofs approached by an aperture without a door, and occasionally lighted by an aperture without a window. In these many of the nomads of a sedentary tendency dwell for the three winter months a period they look upon with natural horror, and speak of as "the ninety days," subdividing it again into three periods. The first of these they call Kampsin, which lasts for fifty days; then comes Karadès, or "black winter," a period of only ten days; and then one month called Zembrai, or the opening, a period naturally hailed with delight by a

The country we traversed was very similar-always the same grey rocks to the right and left of us, peeping out of the everlasting and almost impenetrable brush wood. At one time our rugged path led us up a deep gorge; at another time we were on an undulating plateau; and ever and anon we had to dismount, bag and baggage, whilst our horses and our chattels were literally dragged up and down places which were never intended for quadrupeds. No wonder the ancients called it "rugged Cilicia;" and in these fastnesses behind this rugged approach the pirates felt secure. Then, again, those wretched pirates had a fancy for placing their most interesting relics in all but inaccessible places. A fine series of thirteen bas-reliefs, with two inscriptions, were carved on a ledge in the rock halfway down an almost sheer precipice. got there, and with exceeding difficulty got back, but we never contemplate a second visit to so dangerous a place.

We

On the undulating plateau grow amongst the brushwood wild olives and wild carobs, which told of former cultivation; and at every ruined village or town were winepresses and wine-reservoirs, which told of vineyards in abundance which have long since disappeared, and that the Cilician pirates were not strangers to the festive bowl. Occasionally we came across little flat spaces in the mountains, clear of the grey rocks, and full of rich, red marl. On this the nomads grow their grain, and the contrast of the red soil with its skirting of grey rocks, and the dark green foliage of

down from the castle to the stream, which is fifteen hundred feet below. This stair. case is not practicable now, as many of the steps have been eaten away in the lapse of years.

the brushwood, the holly-oak, the liquorice, the arbutus, and that awful thorn which the Greeks call "the devil with the many nails," is very striking. This rough undulating country, gradually sloping upwards to the mighty snow-capped peaks of the The castle of Pireneh is now the haunt Karamanian Mountains, is rent by numer-only of the ibex or wild goat and the bear. ous gorges, formed by tiny streams which During the summer months these wild have eaten their way through the calca- animals come down to the Lamas stream reous rocks. to drink when the mountain ponds are dry, and are shot by the nomads, who hide behind the rocks on the paths they are known to frequent. These mountains are full of big game, and it is a quaint idea of the nomads that if a civilized individual drinks of the rain-water which lodges in the crevices of the rocks, he will become wild as they are, and in this way they account for their love of roving. In these same clear pools their diviners profess to see the future, and tell the events which are to come. The Lamas River fed the aqueducts of two big towns in the days of the pirates, and it is still a useful river, turning water-mills, and providing splendid fish. Woodcutters send down trees by it to the shore and the nomads use it to irrigate the tiny little fields in which they sow their grain on its banks. The sheer cliffs are full of tombs, and in these at one period anchorites used to dwell, who have painted in red letters on the walls pious texts and other relics of their occupation. In truth it is one of the most exquisite spots nature could ever have invented, with its rich verdure below, plane-trees overhanging the rapid streams, and fig. trees clinging to the rocks, which climb to such a height on either side.

Of these streams, the so-called Lamas River is the most considerable, and in our wanderings we went up almost the whole of its course to its source in the Karamanian Mountains. For this course, only about fifty miles with all its windings, the Lamas eats its way through a gorge which resembles somewhat forked lightning. In the heart of the Taurus, at eventide from our quarters on the plateau above, we watched the curious effect of clouds rising out of the gorge, and showing the zigzag course of the stream almost to its mouth. The Lamas gorge is never more than half a mile across, and the stupendous walls on either side of it, of sheer precipice, reach an elevation in some places of two thousand feet. In one part the passage is so narrow that it does not even afford a foothold for the acrobatic nomad; and the pathway is therefore on the mountain above, and not unfrequently you have to go for miles along the edge of the cliff before finding a means for descent. In certain places the nomads have paths descending to the stream known only to themselves, and practicable only for a people of goatlike mode of life.

All along the Lamas gorge the Cilician pirates had their eyries. Every three or The natural abode of the nomad Youfour miles we came across the ruins of rouk is his black goat's-hair tent with open their towns with their polygonal masonry, sides, against which, for protection, he and walls of massive pre-Roman structure places his camel pack-saddles in a row, always perched on the cliffs, which go forming a sort of wall. In the centre are down sheer into the stream. Some of spread the family mattresses by night, these had evidences of high civilization, which are rolled up by day and placed on -public buildings, theatres, and temples; the saddles to be out of the way. His life and yet, such has been the oblivion in is occupied in looking after his flocks, and which this wild district has been shrouded, according to the season he moves from both ancient and modern geographers are one pasture to another. Into such a form silent as to their existence. On most of of camp life we plunged, when engaged in the fortresses we found heraldic devices, studying a ruined town of the pirates, at a or local marks carved on the edge, show spot now known as Maidan. On a little ing that the pirates had made some ad-green plateau were collected half-a-dozen vance in the study of heraldry. Perhaps the most curious of them all is the castle now called Pireneh, built on a peak, jutting out like a promontory into the gorge, and protected on two sides by it, whilst the third is only approachable by a narrow ledge, but in the days of the pirates a flight of many steps cut in the rock led

tents; in the brushwood for miles around were other tents belonging to the same tribe. It took but little time for Captain Achmed to persuade them to evacuate two of their tents for our benefit, and we gave up our own to the use of our servant. The one allotted to us was exceedingly open, one side being formed by a rock, and the

51

have seen them digging a hole beneath a Greek inscription, and chiselling into an inscribed column in perfect faith that gold will be found inside; so no wonder they looked with suspicion on us, and could not see what we could be doing with the inscriptions, unless it was to find the locality of hidden treasure.

bottom of the others being merely closed | Yourouks identified the horse and the
by branches of brushwood. But as it thief, as he was on his way with it to the
was fine weather and warm, we were very mountains. They fired on him, and he
comfortable. Here we remained for sev- fled into the brushwood, leaving our horse
eral days, and the story of our life whilst behind him, which was duly restored to
there was the story of a Yourouk, be he its overjoyed master. On one occasion
pastoral or archæological.
we suffered ourselves from this honesty
Each tent has its spinning-wheel and its of theirs, for certain officious Yourouks
loom, a hole for working the pedals of gave information to the governor of the
which is dug in the ground, and all the neighboring town of Selefkeh that suspi-
women of the tribe were engaged in mak- cious travellers in search of treasure were
ing the far-famed Karamanian carpets. in their midst. He accordingly sent a
There is the wooden mortar for grinding small army to capture us, and, much
the roast coffee-berries in, the decorated against our will, we had to go to prove in
wooden platter in which they cool the his august presence our innocence and
same, the wooden water-jars made out of our identity, and when we had done this,
the hollowed stems of pine-trees. Every to abuse him soundly from daring to take
thing almost they use is of wood, and gaily free-born Englishmen prisoners without a
decorated with rude patterns, according to cause. The Yourouks have great ideas of
their fancy. When reaping, a Yourouk their own about treasure hunting. They
uses wooden gloves to protect his left believe that the builders of the ruins
hand from the sickle. When tending his amongst which we were searching were
flock, the Yourouk shepherd has a long their ancestors, and that they put up in-
wooden flute, encased in a carved wooden scriptions on rock and ruin to guide their
case made of two bits of wood glued to descendants to the spot where treasure
gether, and strung with ribbons and collies concealed. With our own eyes we
ored beads across his shoulder, looking
for all the world like the African assegai,
or some other primitive weapon of war.
In it he always keeps a long stick with
goat's hair at one end to clean it, and really
the weird music that he produces with this
instrument, known as the naï, is very
striking, and suitable to the surroundings.
In one corner of the tent are the bee-
hives - long trunks of trees hollowed out,
and the ends stopped with dung-cakes.
The bees travel with them, wherever they
go, on the backs of camels, and their
honey resembles cakes of soap, for they
boil it, wax and all, before eating it. The
Yourouks have not the remotest idea of
letters, and carry on their transactions
with the outer world by means of wooden
tallies, -four-sided bits of wood, some-
times gaily carved, sometimes plain.
Notches are cut first down one angle and
then down the other when payments are
made, and a fully notched tally is equiva-
lent to a receipt. They are by nature very
honest, and the Turks call them "the po-
licemen of the mountains," for they are
ever ready to give useful information to
the authorities concerning Circassian and
Kourdish robbers who haunt these moun-
tains. One night a horse of ours (not
Strabo) was stolen. Its owner was in great
tribulation, and Captain Achmed used
dire imprecations, whilst I felt confident
we should never see it again, and much
walking for the future would be my por-
tion. As luck would have it, a set of

It was interesting every evening to watch the home-coming of the flocks, the rushing to and fro of frantic, bare-legged women, with bags of salt in one hand and bowls in the other - for salt is the bribe which they offer to the refractory goat to induce it to stand still, —and their language is anything but feminine on these occasions. Then the kids, which are usually in charge of the children of the tribe, and do not go far from the camp, are let loose, bleating and leaping over one an other, all eager for their evening meal, and many were the kicks and rebuffs these little things got when in their eagerness they selected a wrong mother. When all was quiet again, and the goats had retired to their enclosure for the night, the women proceeded to prepare the evening meal at the tent door before darkness set in. Fires of sticks were lighted, and on wooden platters they rolled up dough. Into this they put green herbs, and cooked the cakes over the fire on iron platters. When ready, the family was summoned, and all ate in silence. With the darkness all retire to rest, for lights other than turpentine torches are unknown amongst them.

Their flocks consist of goats and sheep. | bacco or fractions of a penny, known as The goats are of several descriptions and metallics, to those who professed to be various colors - some with long, twisted able to guide us to such things. They horns, some without; some with the long, generally chose the tobacco, and terrible flowing, silken hair of the Angora, others walks they would take me at times; their with short, stubbly growth; but the sheep hour generally grew into two or three, or are all of that quaint Oriental description sometimes four. Now and again my lawhich one sees depicted on the bas-relief bors were rewarded with success, and a of Persepolis, with such enormous tails of further item was added to the history of fat that cases are on record of shepherds the pirates; but as often as not their exproviding tiny wooden carts for the sheep peditions ended in some miserable fiasco, to carry its appendage on. I have fre- fatigue, and loss of temper. A rock with quently seen sheep quite weighed down by natural marks upon it was supposed to be them, but I have only heard of and never an inscription. A cave, supported by a actually set eyes on the cart. These sheep natural pillar, was in their idea a ruin of are mentioned by Moses in Leviticus, and exceeding importance. Tombs of a recent by Herodotus, who tells us that the tails date were the frequent cause of acute diswere "one cubit in width." This weighty appointment. But notwithstanding the "bustle" is usually about the size of an many failures, each walk had a charm of ordinary football, and consists of a mass its own amongst the gorges, the rocks, of fat on each side of the sheep's spinal and the brushwood of rugged Cilicia; and cord, and forms, as we discovered, a most each walk increased my admiration for the excellent substitute for dripping, and far instinct for locality possessed by these preferable for cooking purposes to the nomads, who could thread their way with rancid butter the nomads provided us with. unerring steps through this mazy labyMost tribes of Yourouks on the south-rinth. ern slopes of the Taurus go in largely for camel-breeding. The stunted brushwood amongst which they live is excellent pasturage for them. They produce here that sort of mule camel known in Asia Minor as the Toulou camel,- -a cross between the Syrian and the Bactrian, excellent for standing heat and cold, mountain or plain. Every encampment we visited had a number of camels, tiny foals a few hours old, and broken-down old camels which had carried for many seasons the Yourouk tents up into the mountains. A camel, we learnt, has a great fancy for tobacco, and will often stretch its long neck around to receive a whiff from its owner's cigarette or pipe.

As for the Yourouks themselves, they will do anything for tobacco and coffee, smoking the dried leaves of certain mountain herbs they know of when they cannot get the genuine article; and for coffee, too, they have an excellent substitute, slightly medicinal, and more aromatic in flavor, which they produce from the seed of a sort of thistle which grows abundantly on their mountains (Gundelia Tournefortia). Coffee and tobacco are often more serviceable to the traveller to have with him than money when amongst the nomads, for everything is done over coffee. Whenever we wanted to ascertain the whereabouts of ruins or inscriptions, Captain Achmed would summon the men of the tribe to a solemn cup of coffee and a conclave. Then he would offer either to

In their home life the Yourouks have their peculiarities. They are the least religious people I ever came across, though professing to be followers of Mohammed. They have no mosques, nor did I see them saying the prayers or performing the ablutions inculcated by the Koran more than once or twice during the months we spent amongst them. They have their children circumcized, for the fact was forcibly brought before our notice one day during our stay at Maidan, when the trav elling operator appeared to initiate the young Yourouks into the first mysteries of their religion, and the greensward before the tent of the aga, or chief man, was chosen for the ceremony, and the children from all the neighboring tents were here assembled for treatment. Beyond this outward symbol there appears to be but little of the religious zeal common in Mohammedan communities, and the Turkish officials are constantly urging them to have mosques in certain spots, and to employ hodjas to instruct their children. But they will have none of these things. In one settlement we visited, high up in the mountains, a pious Mussulman had built them a mosque, but its roof was off, and I should think no service had been performed there for many years.

Nevertheless, it is perhaps too sweeping an accusation to say that there is no religion amongst them. A Yourouk of the mountain has his sacred tree, speci mens of which we frequently came across

in wild, remote spots. Rags are hung to them, and wooden spoons as votive offerings. Little piles of stones are heaped up by passers-by in the vicinity, and when a person dies they bring the corpse to one of these trees, read a few verses of the Koran over it, and take a handful of the small stones to put upon the grave; and furthermore, the idea is current amongst them that a corpse should be buried near a pathway, that the passers-by may pray for its welfare. Religion in a modified form is present with them, and the religion of honesty and the respect for the good of others is far more present with them than it is amongst the Orientals who inhabit the towns and haunts of men. A verbal contract made over a cup of coffee is as binding to them as a written one, and the biggest rogues in the Levant are those to whom this primitive verbal contract has lost its value-those who are, so to speak, in the transition stage between patriarchal simplicity and the laws of civilization.

all occupy the same tent, nor even the same encampment, but are scattered hither and thither with varied occupations. One wife minds the camels, two or three look after the flocks in different pasturages; a wife to spin and a wife to weave, a wife to cook and a wife to hew wood and draw water, completes the probable sum total of a Yourouk's harem; and as hired labor is unknown amongst them, the multiplication of family ties is absolutely necessary for advance in life. A poorly clad Yourouk was very glad to earn a few coppers by acting as our guide when we were encamped at a spot called Jambeslii, amid the ruined fortresses of a pirate town built on the edge of a gorge. He was said to be very low indeed in the scale of humanity; and on inquiring, I found that he was only able to keep three wives, and I could see that the Yourouks estimate the social position of their neighbors, much as we do in England, by the number of servants they are able to keep.

One of the most intelligent Yourouks Womanhood is, as a natural result of we came across was called Osman. He this system, sunk very low amongst them. knew something of letters, and could dis- A woman in her red petticoats, open tinguish them from marks on the rocks, so jacket, and untidy head, is condemned to that he never took me wild-goose chases rush bare-legged after the goats, amid whilst we were in his district. He had a stones and brambles. Her only ornaments pleasing, round face, like all his race, but are cowrie-beads and brass bracelets; and far more intelligent. His long white pet- the surprise evinced at seeing their wrinticoats, blue jacket, and red fez made him kled faces in the looking-glass proved that decidedly picturesque, though perhaps the sin of vanity is unknown amongst not so strikingly so as some of his fellows them. When at the well fetching water, who indulged in yellow cotton and red or at the stream thumping their clothes girdles. He gave me a good deal of in-between stones to get them clean, they formation on the religious question, and appear to have hardly anything on, and spoke of the desire the government had to they are not ashamed; poor, hounded centralize the nomads, and induce those things, they have no cause for shame. with families to reside, for some months Anything like immorality is unknown of the year at any rate, where some instruc- amongst them. tion could be got for their young. "But," said he, "the spirit of roving freedom is innate in us; we could never conform to any other mode of life." And I could fancy that the nomad races of Asia Minor, like the Indians of America, if brought into immediate and forcible contact with the sedentary habits of the civilized, would dwindle away and become extinct.

We saw one or two betrothals and marriages whilst among them. At the betrothal the husband-elect generally agrees on the sum which he can pay for his future bride. In fact, the betrothal is the purchase of a slave pure and simple. When all arrangements are made, some one plays a tambourine or a flute, guns are let off, and the engaged couple exchange handkerchiefs. The marriage ceremony is a trifle gayer. Men go round with the bridegroom on horse or camel back to the tents in the neighborhood three or four times before the day of the wedding, and feasting and dancing are indulged in in the evenings. Generally on the fourth day the bride is brought to her husband's tent, he entertains his guests with coffee and food, and the ceremony is concluded. But these oft-repeated weddings lose their zest,