DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5541#0404
Chap, xxi.]
FER-HAT.
373
I have already alluded to the aqueduct along the road
side on entering Amasia, and which Fontanier mistook
for the watercourse mentioned by Strabo. The Turks of
Amasia have a tradition respecting its origin, which is no
had specimen of their talents and ingenuity in this way.
The story goes that there once dwelt in this neighbourhood
a rich and powerful young man of the name of Fer-hat, who
was in love with a beautiful damsel of Amasia. He offered
her marriage, which she accepted, on condition that he sup-
plied her native town with water from a distant valley,
and performed all the work himself. Undismayed at the
magnitude of the undertaking, he immediately set to work,
and to judge from the result, must have laboured hard for
many a year. At length one day he met an old woman
who, with true Turkish inquisitiveness, asked him what he
was about; Fer-hat told her the story of his love, and that
he hoped soon to have completed his task; whereupon she
replied, that he might cease from his useless labour, as the
maiden, who must by this time have passed her seventieth
year, was dead. On hearing this he gave up his under-
taking, and soon dying of a broken heart, was buried with
the lady of his love on the summit of a neighbouring moun-
tain.
FER-HAT.
373
I have already alluded to the aqueduct along the road
side on entering Amasia, and which Fontanier mistook
for the watercourse mentioned by Strabo. The Turks of
Amasia have a tradition respecting its origin, which is no
had specimen of their talents and ingenuity in this way.
The story goes that there once dwelt in this neighbourhood
a rich and powerful young man of the name of Fer-hat, who
was in love with a beautiful damsel of Amasia. He offered
her marriage, which she accepted, on condition that he sup-
plied her native town with water from a distant valley,
and performed all the work himself. Undismayed at the
magnitude of the undertaking, he immediately set to work,
and to judge from the result, must have laboured hard for
many a year. At length one day he met an old woman
who, with true Turkish inquisitiveness, asked him what he
was about; Fer-hat told her the story of his love, and that
he hoped soon to have completed his task; whereupon she
replied, that he might cease from his useless labour, as the
maiden, who must by this time have passed her seventieth
year, was dead. On hearing this he gave up his under-
taking, and soon dying of a broken heart, was buried with
the lady of his love on the summit of a neighbouring moun-
tain.