Of course you can't write to me much. I'm busy too in a modest way... I believe this is the very first time anyone has set Bout to explore thoroughly a single district in central Asia. See what we have got out of it! Two great sites and a vast amount of unexpected Byzantine remains. We spend much time discussing our book, which is to be a great work, please God! Oh, it's delightful, delightful! I only do so hope you think I was right to stay Out here, I could scarcely bear it if you didn't — at a breath from you I would come back by the next train. I hate being away, you understand, but I am deeply absorbed by this work. it grows more and more exciting as one gets further into it.
To F.B.
DAILE, June 21, 1907.
Torrents of rain are streaming down onto my tent, the first heavy rain we have had for 5 weeks and more. I hope it won't go on very long or it will probably run in under my bed where I keep all the long rolls of my big plans. We have had rather a disagreeable few days as regards weather; first 2 days of great heat (I was digging with 30 men on one of them and had to be out the whole day long in the sun). Then we had 2 days' wind which is the most intolerable thing possible and almost prevents us from working at all, as one can scarcely dig or measure and if one goes to one's tent to draw, one finds it a kind of dust heap inside. Last night the wind brought up a thunderstorm and it rained a good deal in the night and this morning it was quite grey and cool. Sir W. and I profited by this to go down to Maden Sheher to finish up some odds and ends. I think we have still about a week's work here and it's the most important work of all for we are now beginning to get our views and our information into some kind of shape. This consoles me a little for I should have had to have been going away now to get home in time for Elsa's wedding. I am become quite the architect I must tell you. I have pages and pages of mouldings all beautifully drawn out and MY plans are most elaborate, I don't think anyone has ever published any of these Anatolian mouldings before — our book will be very 'bahnbrechend,' you'll see! ... I'm so glad the new motor is a success. Dear me! it will be very pleasant to be back again in the bosom of my family. Still, I'm very happy.
I propose to stay at home for a good long time after this.
To F.B.
DAILE, Tuesday, June 24, 1907-
We are coming to the very end of our time here. The Ramsays leave on the 26th and I on the 28th. Well, we have accomplished a great deal. This last week has been the most useful of all. It makes me quite sad to think that in all probability I shall never come back here. We have been a sort of small providence, what with our work and the market we have offered. I don't suppose so much money has passed hands in the Karadagh since the time of the Byzantines.
My simple annals must seem very paltry to you in the midst of all your festivities. Yes, it is very very nice to be completely absorbed in the thing one is doing and to have no interruption in it. I rather shiver to think what a tremendous work it will be writing all this. It will take months, I think. I am not going to lecture at all — I've refused to go to Redcar. I must get this book done or someone else will nip in and take the wind out of our sails. I'm afraid I shall not be back till the beginning of August, but as I've stayed so long it would be silly to scamp things for the sake of a week more or less... .
To F. B.
KARAPUNA, June 30, 1907.
Yesterday I took the road again. A great plain is a wonderfully beautiful thing. It stretched away and away from my tent door as far as the eye could see, as level to the horizon as it was level under my feet. It looked like an immensely wide floor made ready for some splendid spectacle. To-day we rode over it again for 3 hours to Karabanar, a small town at the foot of the Karajadagh. There lives on the plateau the largest beetle I have been privileged to see. Black and green is his colour and he is the size of a mouse.
I lunched in the khan, waiting for my luggage cart. They gave me quite a nice bare room to myself; publicity, however, was ensured by a window which opened into the room next me. Then the Kaimmakam and another came to call. Thank Heaven I can now talk enough Turkish not to be left speechless with Kaimmakams and the rest. We were in the thick of making arrangements to go straight on into the hills.
When I arrived I had asked if there were pack horses. "As many as you like can be found," said the innkeeper. Presently he returned to say there were none. "Then," said I, "I will take a cart to the village at the edge of the hills." Most excellent," said the surrounding company, "the cart will draw you to the hills and then you will get camels." "Camels are to be found, then?" said I. "Many," said they. Then arrived the Kaimmakam and the Other, and I explained that I was leaving at once for Salur with my luggage in a cart. They heartily approved this plan. Over the coffee the Other let fall a remark to the effect that I should find no people at all as they had all gone up to yaila. "Then how shall I find camels?" said I. "Effendim ," said he, "there will be no camels." Finally I resolved to take camels from him and after waiting for 4 hours the camels have appeared. An incident similar to this occurs daily when travelling in Asia Minor; the wonder is that one gets through at all... There go the camels with a Haide! father! pull, my soul! hasten, hasten!" from all onlookers.
They pulled very well and we got in here at 5:30... . .
I must tell you that this expedition into the Karajadagh is rather an adventure. No one has as yet explored the mountain. We have come into the heart of it and pitched tents and so far all is well. The whole of the upper part of the mountain is entirely deserted. It's extraordinarily lonely. There are said to be robbers about.
I have no less than 6 men here, including the 2 camel drivers, so I don't feel at all anxious even if they should be still in these parts.
Wednesday, July 3 I am so dreadfully torn this week by considering exactly what you are doing and wishing I were doing it too. I feel terribly outcast when I think of you and long 50 times a day to be at home. However, there it is and next week I shall feel better, after it's all over and done with. Yesterday I had a very long day. We started out, Haidar and my gipsy, Aziz is his name, and I, and rode up to a hill on the top of the crater above us. It was cold, absurdly enough, a north wind which increased all day till it became a horrid nuisance. There were two men on the uplands above the crater, one with a herd of deer and one with a herd of cattle from the villages below — we saw no other living soul all day. And there was a cruciform church with monastic buildings and fortifications and all complete! I do not doubt that this is the chief and central shrine of the Karajadagh so I am content. No one has been here before — it's a most curious sensation to step into these great ruined places and to be the first person of the same civilization which they stand for since the last monk fell or fled before the Seljuks. Up in the mountains there was the absurd cuckoo which shouted all day above my camp. I don't like hearing the cuckoo in deep summer; he is sadly reminiscent of the delicious beginnings of things — "where are the joys of spring? Oh, where are they!" The kite who screams above my tents here is better.
Friday, July 5. Yesterday I had a long, hot and tiresome day. We spent the whole morning going from village to village along the side of the Karajadagh looking for ruins and inscriptions. The manner of proceeding is this: you arrive in a village and ask for inscriptions. They reply that there are absolutely none. You say very firmly that there are certainly inscriptions and then you stand about in the hot sun for 10 minutes or so while villagers gather round. At last someone says there is a written stone in his house. You go off, find it, copy it, and give the owner two piastres, the result of which is that everybody has a written stone somewhere and you have to look at them all, 99 per cent. of them being only a lintel with a cross on it. As you leave they all tell you that though there are not many written stones here, in the next village, or in the village on the next mountain 10 hours away, or in the one you have just left behind you there are at least a hundred. I know this village of the hundred inscriptions so well now that I hear of it without any emotion, even when I have left it behind. At 11 o'clock I determined that
I would do no more of this pottering work, so we rode down to a village in the plain, where we expected to find the tents and lunch in the shade. No tents, no shade, no people, for they had all gone to the yaila. At last we found a deaf old man who told us that there was a magnificently cold place to lunch in by the mosque and thither we went. It was the mosque porch. I distinguished myself by climbing wearily on to a sort of erection of planks in the corner. Haidat arriving with the lunch looked horrified at seeing me there and begged me to come down at once for it was the village hearse. So I came down, thinking that it probably hadn't been much disinfected since the last man who died of smallpox was carried on it to his grave, and for the evil omen that I had brought upon the party Heaven sent a sacrifice in the shape of a young swallow who dropped out of his nest above me on to the pavement and died at once, poor little dear.
Transport is rather difficult in this country. The camel drivers we had brought from Karapuna declared last night that they were going no further than the Karajadagh, but as we had no other means of carrying our packs but their camels only, we put force upon them and insisted that they should take us across to Hassan Dagh lest nameless evils should befall them. So they went, and they went 8 hours, poor people, the usual camel march being 5. We started before 5 in the morning so that it might be cool for them, and by great good luck it was a grey cloudy day with scarcely a glimpse of sun, and we rode across the waterless flat plain without any trouble and up the low foot hills that lie before Hassan Dagh.
Saturday, July 6th. An aged man appeared this morning at the tents and professed to know all the ruins round about, so Fattuh engaged him as guide-in-chief for the day. His name was Ali as I had presently cause to know. After breakfast I went down to the village and drew the church and by dint of wading about in dark and horrible stables and poking into the dark and horrible houses that had been built in the aisles and apse I got it out all complete and it proved extremely interesting. Then I came in and changed all my things, for the houses and the stables were, as always, alive with fleas. Very great travellers would no doubt think nothing of this, but I find it an almost intolerable vexation, yet one can't leave a church unplanned because there are fleas in it. Then I questioned the aged man as to what I should ride out and see. He said: "Many churches there are, a very great many." "Where?" said I. "over there," said he, "that side," waving his hand vaguely round the mountains, "there is one ." "What is his name?" said I (there's no neuter in Turkish). "Ali," said he. "Not your name, the church's name." "Chanderlik," said he. "Aren't there any in the other direction?" said I, for the way he seemed to be pointing was my route for to-morrow. "Not any at all," said he. A bystander, "Many, a great many; over there there is one." "What is his name?" said I. The bystander, "Ali." "Not his name, the church's name?" "Uleuren there is, and Karneuren and Yazlikisle a. . ." so on and so on. (Euren means ruin and kisle means church.) Ali indignantly, "No churches! Ruins ruins" (you repeat the word changing the first letter to 'm' when you want to say "and so forth") "euren meuren,"said he louder and louder, "all destroyed, mestroyed pulled down, broken, all ruins." "It's ruins I want to see," said I. "All ruins," he said, "all broken, moken, no marble churches, all marble and so forth, not any at all." "My soul," expostulated a fellow townsman, "there are two at Uleuren." "No marble churches," said he (there aren't any, anywhere, I may mention)" all ruins, all broken." However we went to Uleuren and I found two churches and a long inscription. Ali was not a success as an archaeologist and I declined to employ him further. Nor did he want to come.
We are now going round to the north side of the mountain where I am told there are a million if not a billion churches or something of the kind. I hope there may be one or two. I know how you are spending this Sunday -how I wish I were with you! I also wish so many flies were not spending Sunday with me.
Wednesday, July 11th. I thought of you a great deal on Monday and very much longed to see Elsa looking as pretty and as happy as I am sure she did look. I shall love to see the wedding photographs and hear all the tales. Now that it is all over I am glad I did not come back, for you see I should have been landed with my work half done and a horrible feeling that I could not go ahead properly for want of knowledge.
The long-expected robber turned up in the night and I was awakened by my servants' firing at him. They missed him, but he missed our horses.
The following preposterous conversation has just occurred:
G.B. loq: Oh! Fattuh, to whom does this poplar garden belong?
F. — To a priest, my lady.
G.B. — Doesn't he mind our camping in it?
F. — He didn't say anything.
G.B. — Did you ask him?
F. — No, my lady.
G.B. — We must give him some backshish.
F. — At your Excellency's command.
A pause.
F. — My lady.
G.B. — Yes?
F. — That priest is dead.
G.B. — !!! Then I don't think we need bother about the backshish.
F. — No, my lady.
The trouble is they don't use speech for the same purpose in the East as we do in the West.
It was piping hot, and we rode over barren rocky uplands and made our horses go their best pace — so good a pace that in 3 hours instead of the promised 4 we got to the great church that I had heard of. I should think it is 10th Cent. All round it the rock is honeycombed with the rooms and halls of a monastery with columbaria and churches. MY heart sank when I saw it for I knew I could do nothing at it under 3 hours and it was the hottest day we have had. However, I eat my lunch under the dome and then we set to work and we got it done in the three hours, the church only, I had not time to touch the rockcut things though they ought to be properly examined. And then we rode down the hills and across an endless plain.
Saturday, July 13. I was very glad to have a day off. I spent the whole morning in my tent drawing out some of all the work that has collected in the last few days. It was blazing hot.
Sunday, July 14. From Akserai we had 3 days of absolutely uninteresting travel across the great plains to Konia. I resolved that nothing should induce me to ride, it's too boring and too hot, so we sent the animals on with Haidar and my Turkoman, very early in the morning and Fattuh and I started off with the baggage at 5:15 in two carts. They are springless wooden carts covered with a hood of plaited straw with a cloth thrown over it. I should think less luxurious carriages do not exist. We packed all the luggage into one and put a quantity of rugs and waterproof sheets on to the floor of the other in which we journeyed, and it really wasn't so bad. At any rate! we were out of the glare and much less hot than we should have been riding.
Tuesday, July 16th. Everything comes to an end, even the road from Akserai to Konia. We got in at 10 o'clock this morning. I found quantities of letters from you and Father and Hugo and Moll, and was delighted to have them.
Domnul gives me the first description of the wedding. It Sounds all very very successful.
ON BOARD THE "IMOGEN," OFF CONSTANTINOPLE, July 27, 1907
I'm having a mighty fine time, I must tell you. The Ambassador was more than cordial. Then he insisted on carrying me off to Therapia with him — the Embassy is there now. So I flew back to my Hotel and packed and went down to the quay. Up came Hugoenin, the Director of the German Ryl. So I introduced myself to him, and he pushed me and my box into his launch and steamed up the Bosphorus till we met Sir Nicholas coming down to fetch me. This morning I went into C'ple and did a lot of business and then came back to Therapia to lunch. Now I have gone off with the O'Conors on their yacht to sail about these waters till Monday. It is perfectly delightful and they are both extraordinarily kind.
To H.B.
PERA PALACE, CONSTANTINOPLE, Thursday, August 4, 1907.
Today I accomplished the most important object of my visit here — I saw the Grand Vizier. He is a very great man, is Fetid Pasha... .
There are troops of professors and people of that kind here wh
o have all been to see me. I find it vastly entertaining.
I expect I shall be in London about the 7th or 8th and I should be most grateful if Marie could be sent up to meet me there. I shall have to stay a day or two to get some clothes.
To F.B.
LONDON, Friday, August 9, 1907.
Today I lunched with Sir Edward and Mr. Haldane — Willie [Tyrrell] told Sir E. I was here and he quickly asked me to lunch. It was most interesting and delightful. I'll tell you about it.
Sir Frank [Swettenham) is coming to tea and I dine with Domnul and spend the balance of the evening, after he goes to the office, with Willie T.
Sir Henry C. B. hasn't sent for me yet — I'm a little surprised, aren't you? So different from my habits in Constantinople.
To F.B.
CAMBO, NORTHUMBERLAND, Wednesday, September 4, 1907.
I don't think I ever saw anything more adorable than Moll's children. There's no question about Pauline's being pretty, I think she's quite charming. We have just been spending an hour with them in their garden trying to photograph them. I don't know that it will be a great success for there was no sun an one of them was always crawling busily out of the picture, so that all you saw was the end of its legs. Then I photographed Moll with them, she looks so beautiful with them hanging about her. Now we are going to take Pauline with us and look at the Wallington garden.
To H. B.
LONDON, Saturday, October, 1907.
I have had a wild 24 hours. I worked at the Geog. Soc. All yesterday and in the evening I went to Red Hill, getting there at 8. A young man (one of my fellow students-I think his name is Fairweather) met me at the station and we walked up on to the Common where we met Mr. Reeves. Then we took observations on stars for two hours. It was wonderfully calm and warm but the moon was so bright even the big stars were a little difficult to see. However, I took a number of observations and shall work them out on Monday. I got back after midnight, very hungry, and this morning I was back at Red Hill before 10 and spent three hours taking bearings for a map with Mr. Reeves. That has to be plotted out too on Monday at the Geog. Soc.
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