"I guess you find it slow here!"
An American tourist couple from Brusa stood over us. They had seen us off at Madame Brot's hotel, and had then announced their intention of driving to Nicæa in a landau.
"We thought we would just look you up and see if you had got here all right, but we cannot stop a minute; we've only had an hour to see the walls, they were so long getting lunch."
"You ought to see the tower on the site of the church where they discussed the Nicene Creed," said X.
"The Nicene Creed—eh, what?" said the American, as he consulted his guide-book.
"Say, we just ought to have a look at that," he said to his wife.
"We shall miss the Augusta Victoria if you do," said the lady. Then she turned to us. "We go on to Smyrna in it to-morrow morning," she explained, "so we must get back to-night."
The landau appeared at that moment; time was up. Smyrna, Beyrout, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Luxor had to be got in during the allotted time, and there had been no provision made for the Nicene Creed. So in they got and dashed away over the plain.
They had come as a whirlwind over from the West, sweeping the surface of this Eastern land and catching up the loose fragments on it; but its traditions were too deeply rooted to be caught in the blast; these had merely bent their heads and let the blast pass by. Strong as it is, it cannot unloose the sway of ancient customs. Even for Americans the East will not move. The natives gazed at the landau, hardly wondering at it; then they forgot it. But we did not forget it so easily. For us an odour of the West was left hanging over the plain—and above all, our sense of time had been offended.
A French engineer with his wife and family were the next to appear on the scene. They were the only Europeans living in the place, and rejoiced over the sound of their mother-tongue. The man poured out volumes of it, and was interesting about his work up to the point when we became fatigued.
"Ah! mademoiselle, what it is to be in civilised company again! We live here from day to day and year after year, and have no one to speak with, no one with whom to exchange ideas. C'est comme la mort."
"Do you not see anything of the natives?" we inquired. "They seem very friendly, and you can speak Turkish."
"Ah! mademoiselle, what can one do with such people? how can one associate with them? They are canaille, mere canaille."
"We were talking to some of them," we said, "and thought them very intelligent."
He held up his hands in horror.
"But, mademoiselle, do you not understand? Certainly there are the Christian races, but for the most part, ce sont des Turques, des infidèles, des chiens. There is Marie there, pauvre Marie! it is bad enough for me, but then I have my work; but Marie, the pauvre Marie, she dies of ennui, she can speak to no one but me and the children."
The pauvre Marie seemed indeed to have lost the power of speech; she sat silently as her husband poured out his contempt of the canaille.
We had found the Greek women very entertaining in the morning, and they too had sat and looked at us in silence. But they had not been ashamed of their silence; Marie was, and felt awkward; so we all felt uncomfortable, and tried to talk to her.
One felt then how little actual language had to do with social intercourse. We could not get into touch with Marie, whose language we understood, in the same way that we had got into touch with the native women, whose language we did not understand.
They sat on and on; it was not until the sun began to send out long warning shoots of colour, heralding its disappearance behind the purple mountains, that they rose to go.
And we, worn out with this final effort in sociability, gave ourselves up to the quiet of the deserted camp, and watched the shades of night creep once more over the ruined walls and the distant hills, over the houses of the French engineer and the canaille.
CHAPTER IV
THE DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY
I
There is something very weird and uncanny in the terminus of a railway in the middle of a wild and desolate country such as this. The Monster runs his iron fangs into the heart of its desolation and shoots you into it like a ball out of a cannon's mouth. Roaring and hissing and sending out jets of flame, he comes racing through the darkness to a certain definite spot; here he discharges you in the blackness of night and subsides. Next morning when you awake he is gone, and you are left to shift for yourself as best you can. But there is a certain human friendliness about this Monster while you are travelling with him. He seems to draw all the signs of life out of an apparently dead country and collect them at the stations for you to see. Great warehouses filled with sacks of corn testify to the productiveness of a country which, judging it from the train window after harvest time, one would dismiss as mere barren soil; an occasional MacCormick's "Daisy" reaper awaiting delivery on a side platform, native carts hanging about, and truck-loads of empty sacks tell the same tale. Groups of peasants, idly gossiping, gathered together by the whistle which heralds the Monster's approach, belie the impression of an uninhabited land; for Turkish villages are carefully designed so as not to attract attention. When one's eye gets more familiar with the seemingly uniform colour of the landscape, varied only by light and shade, one becomes aware of the low, flat-topped, mud-brick houses, which, even at close quarters, often seem but part of the natural rock.
Even the unchanging East is powerless once the Monster's fangs have taken hold; he alone of all influences comes to stay and leave his mark.
Slowly, perhaps, but very surely, he undermines with irresistible persistence the customs and habits which from time immemorial have held their own against the religious, educational, or military forces of stronger nations.
This particular spot has long been the battlefield of the East and the West; now one, now the other, has had temporary ascendance; in the long run the East has always conquered.
But already we can see what a power the East has to reckon with in the railway. For one thing it attacks the Eastern in one of his vital points—his conception of Time. Time waited for him when he had but camels to load; but the railway will not wait for him; the Monster screeches and is off. Sunrise or two hours after sunrise is not one and the same thing to him. Relentless as day and night he comes and goes, and there is no cheating him as the Eastern cheats Time.
But the railway is cheating the East out of its time-worn customs and ideas, and there is a certain sadness in the evidences of transition. All down the line picturesque native costumes are being replaced by ugly European clothes. The men wear terrible fancy trouserings from Manchester; the women spend more money on dress—and unfortunately it is European dress—and less on the old-fashioned wedding feasts. The turnover of the shops in the larger towns has increased fourfold in the last ten years. The bazaars are now a medley of stalls exhibiting native manufactures side by side with cheap trinkets from England and loud flannelettes from Italy. The price of wheat has doubled; and with that of wheat the prices of other exports have also risen. Opium, wool, mohair, hides, and salt are amongst the products of these great plains.
Two short days' ride from Nicæa had brought us to Mekidje, a station on the Anatolian Railway
