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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo by Ellsworth Huntington 



TURKISH SOLDIERS CROSSING THE MUZUR SU, A BRANCH Of THE EUPHRATES 

 RIVER, BY MEANS OF A SMALL, RAPT OF SKINS, TOWED 

 BY A FRIGHTENED HORSE 



not across it. They took out their long 

 flint-lock guns and prepared to shoot. It 

 was only when we emphasized the fact 

 that our party contained a consul that 

 they let us go without payment and with- 

 out gunshot. 



Later we came to an isolated crag of 

 naked rock rising close to the river and 

 crowned by the ruins of an ancient castle, 

 used first by the Haldis, then by the 

 Romans, and finally by the Saracens. At 

 its foot lay the ruined mosques of Pertag, 

 a town which was moved to another loca- 

 tion nearly a hundred years ago because 

 soldiers were quartered on the inhabi- 

 tants for half a year at a time. 



Some months later I visited the new 

 town — a picturesque place at the foot of 

 hot, white, limestone mountains, from 

 which gush out springs of clear, cold 

 water to support the trees and vines 

 that embower the flat-roofed adobe 

 houses. As my companion and I were 



sitting under the ever-present mulberry 

 trees, enjoying a watermelon with yellow 

 flesh and brown seeds, a ragged man, hot, 

 breathless, and exhausted, came running 

 up to the house where twenty soldiers 

 were quartered to preserve the peace. 

 At once there arose the sound of shout- 

 ing; horses were led out; soldiers were 

 seen taking down their guns and ammu- 

 nition; the villagers came out of their 

 houses or in from the fields in wild ex- 

 citement, loading their long guns as they 

 walked. Some of the soldiers and vil- 

 lagers went in one direction, some in the 

 other. It appeared that three or four 

 hundred sheep and goats belonging to the 

 village had been grazing, an hour's jour- 

 ney away, when a band of Kuzzilbash 

 Kurds swooped down upon them. One 

 shepherd was shot; the others ran away. 

 Now the whole village was going out in an 

 attempt to overtake and punish the rob- 

 bers. How it turned out I do not know, 



