THE LOST WEALTH OF THE KINGS OF MIDAS 



835 



grounds, the child would not be satisfied 

 until I said that it would be all right to 

 put down the cups for the others to take 

 when they awoke. He had been so well 

 trained in the hospitality which is almost 

 universal among the Turks that at the 

 age of five he felt greatly distressed for 

 fear he might fail to do his duty as a 

 host. 



S£:NTINE:i.S 01^ THE DESERT 



For the next week or more we rode 

 across the vast barren plain. On the 

 edges it is diversified by ranges of vol- 

 canic mountains, while from the plain 

 itself symmetrical brown cones of extinct 

 volcanoes rise to flat tops, in which lie 

 gracefully rounded craters. Near Kara 

 Funar we came to an odd type of volcano. 

 The plain is composed of ancient lake 

 deposits, which have been consolidated 

 into a soft marl alternating with sand- 

 stone of a grayish brown color. In these 

 deposits a hole a mile or more in diame- 

 ter and nearly 200 feet deep was formed 

 many thousand years ago by a volcanic 

 explosion. In the middle of the hole a 

 cone of slag and scoria was built up until 

 it rose well above the level of the plain. 

 When the internal forces of old Vulcan 

 ceased to act, a pretty cup of a crater 

 remained in the top of the cone, while 

 at its base an annular depression sur- 

 rounded the cone and was itself sur- 

 rounded by the gray clii¥s of the lake 

 deposits. Today the depression is occu- 

 pied by a lake, narrow and ring-shaped 

 and very salty. In winter the lake fills 

 lip to a considerable depth, but during 

 the long rainless summer evaporation re- 

 duces its size and "causes the water to 

 b>ecome so concentrated a solution that 

 much salt is deposited. 



VALUABLE SALT DEPOSITS 



In May salt-gatherers arrive and keep 

 •on working for about two months, when 

 the water is almost gone and the deposits 

 b)egin to contain not only common salt 

 iDut other distasteful chemical com- 

 pounds. 



As we came to the edge of the hollow 

 and looked down at the annular lake a 

 strange sight presented itself. The lake 



was so far dry that part of its ring was 

 waterless, and was covered with green 

 reeds ; another part was white with salt, 

 and still another contained muddy blue 

 water ringed around with white salt, out- 

 side of which was a ring of green reeds. 

 Back of the reeds in the center rose the 

 black and red slopes of the volcano, while 

 on either side stood the steep gray and 

 brown clifl^s of the lake deposits. In 

 the large pond at the foot of the slope 

 below us 40 or 50 men were wading 

 knee deep, or were stooping to get hold 

 of something at the bottom of the water. 

 In their hands they brought up great 

 masses of dainty square crystals of salt, 

 which they placed in little piles whose 

 tops touched the surface of the muddy 

 pond. When each man had gathered 

 enough he brought a sieve like an ash- 

 sifter and used it to carry the salt ashore, 

 and piled it up among the reeds in glis- 

 tening little cones from two to four feet 

 high, shining white as snow against a 

 bright green background. 



It is hard work to gather the salt, for 

 the constant dipping of the hands into 

 the briny water and the rubbing of the 

 finger-tips upon the mud of the bottom 

 soon causes sores. A man can work 

 only from four to six days at a stretch, 

 after which he must let his hands rest 

 a few weeks and get well. An indus- 

 trious man can earn high wages, how- 

 ever — 80 cents a day if he is very ener- 

 getic — so there is no lack of laborers. 

 The salt works are owned and run by 

 the government, which sells the product 

 at the rate of about 10 pounds for 8 

 cents. 



HOW THE LOWLY LIVE 



In order to see as much as possible 

 of the life of the people, I traveled as 

 the natives do. Each morning we started 

 soon after 5 o'clock, in the cool beauty 

 of the dawn. Sometimes we ate a little 

 bread before starting, and sometimes 

 'took a bite in the wagon. There was no 

 real meal, however, until 10 or 1 1 

 o'clock. Then, as the heat grew great, 

 we stopped at one of the clusters of 

 from six to a dozen houses which sprin- 



