Short stretches of ridable mule-paths are found along this valley as I follow the course of the little stream eastward; they are by no means continuous, by reason of the eccentric wanderings of the rivulet; but after climbing the rough pass one feels thankful for even small favors, and I plod along, now riding, now walking, occasionally passing little clusters of mud huts and meeting with pack animals en route to Ismidt with the season’s shearing of mohair.  “Alia Franga!” is the greeting I am now favored with, instead of the “Ah, I’Anglais.” of Europe, as I pass people on the road; and the bicycle is referred to as an araba, the name the natives give their rude carts, and a name which they seem to think is quite appropriate for anything with wheels.

Following the course of the little tributary for several miles, crossing and recrossing it a number of times, I finally emerge with it into the valley of Sackaria.  There are some very good roads down this valley, which is narrow, and in places contracts to but little more than a mere neck between the mountains.  At one of the narrowest points the mountains present an almost perpendicular face of rock and here are the remnants of an ancient stonewall reputed to have been built by the Greeks, somewhere about the twelfth century in anticipation of an invasion of the Turks from the south.  The wall stretches across the valley from mountain to river, and is quite a massive affair; an archway has been cut through it for the passage of caravans.  Soon after passing through this opening I am favored with the company of a horseman, who follows me for three or four miles, and thoughtfully takes upon himself the office of telling me when to bin and when not to bin, according as he thinks the road suitable for ’cycling or not, until he discovers that his gratuitous advice produces no visible effect on my movements, when he desists and follows along behind in silence like a sensible fellow.  About five o’clock in the afternoon I cross the Sackaria on an old stone bridge, and half an hour later roll into Geiveh, a large village situated in the middle of a triangular valley about seven miles in width.  My cyclometer shows a trifle over forty miles from Ismidt; it has been a variable forty miles; I shall never forget the pass over the old causeway, the view of the Sabanja Valley from the summit, nor the lovely little retreat on the eastern side.

Trundling through the town in quest of a khan, I am soon surrounded by a clamorous crowd; and passing the house or office of the mudir or headman of the place, that person sallies forth, and, after ascertaining the cause of the commotion, begs me to favor the crowd and himself by riding round a vacant piece of ground hard by.  After this performance, a respectable-looking man beckons me to follow him, and he takes me — not to his own house to be his guest, for Geiveh is too near Europe for this sort of thing — to a khan kept by a Greek with a mote in one eye, where