DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4752#0075
I. THE WAV OUT 65
great height; a thunderstorm came on when we
were near the top, and in the heavy rain we lost
the sense of direction, and wandered away to the
east, instead of keeping north-east. We struck a
river, which, as I knew, flowed in the direction we
were going ; but the existing maps did not show
that here it makes a great loop, flowing round
two-thirds of a circle. We went round with it, and
at last saw a village half a mile up from the stream.
Despairing of ever reaching Hamil-Keui, we went
to this village, and found that we were at Hamil-
Keui, and that our packs had arrived an hour ago.
I had never made such an egregious error, or so
entirely lost the estimate of locality, since 1881,
when after sunset on a late November evening we
found ourselves wandering over the Banaz-Ova in
search of Suleimanli, without any idea whether it
lay west or south or north.
Hamil-Keui was a fair specimen of the Turkish
ichifilik village, where the land is not village pro-
perty, but is in private hands. As a general rule,
when, on entering a village, you are struck with the
appearance of extreme dilapidation, discomfort and
wretchedness, the houses being mere small huts of
the poorest, lowest and most sordid type, con-
structed apparently of little except mud and thatch,
you will be told, if you ask the question, that this is
a tcliiftlik. There are exceptions, not merely those
S
great height; a thunderstorm came on when we
were near the top, and in the heavy rain we lost
the sense of direction, and wandered away to the
east, instead of keeping north-east. We struck a
river, which, as I knew, flowed in the direction we
were going ; but the existing maps did not show
that here it makes a great loop, flowing round
two-thirds of a circle. We went round with it, and
at last saw a village half a mile up from the stream.
Despairing of ever reaching Hamil-Keui, we went
to this village, and found that we were at Hamil-
Keui, and that our packs had arrived an hour ago.
I had never made such an egregious error, or so
entirely lost the estimate of locality, since 1881,
when after sunset on a late November evening we
found ourselves wandering over the Banaz-Ova in
search of Suleimanli, without any idea whether it
lay west or south or north.
Hamil-Keui was a fair specimen of the Turkish
ichifilik village, where the land is not village pro-
perty, but is in private hands. As a general rule,
when, on entering a village, you are struck with the
appearance of extreme dilapidation, discomfort and
wretchedness, the houses being mere small huts of
the poorest, lowest and most sordid type, con-
structed apparently of little except mud and thatch,
you will be told, if you ask the question, that this is
a tcliiftlik. There are exceptions, not merely those
S