Ramsay, William Mitchell: Impressions of Turkey during twelve years' wanderings (London, 1897)

OF ASIA MINOR 107

ance and way of talking they seemed to me very
like the Turkmens. In 1880 I spent some days in
a Yuruk winter village in Mt. Sipylos near Smyrna.
After a very wet da)-, which much impeded ex-
ploration,! next morning asked the chief,a splendid-
looking old man of about eighty, what he thought
of the prospect of weather, thinking that his long
experience would have made him weather-wise.
His answer was in the true Turkish style, grave,
measured, sententious : " How should I know the
weather ? God knows. If the sun shines, it will be
fine weather; if it rains, the weather will be bad."
So his answer was translated to me.

Dr. Von Luschan denies that intermarriage ever
takes place between Yuruks and Turks. I have,
however, known an example. In 1886 one of our
men, named Veli, was a puzzle to me in character;
he was always good-humoured and light-hearted,
always good company, always idle, never to be
trusted to do anything or take any trouble out of
my sight, in short, utterly unlike a Turk. At last
he could stand the work no longer, shammed ill-
ness, got himself laid up and doctored, and we went
on without him. Our other man, Akhmet, one of
the best Turks I have known,1 explained matters.
Veli was no Turk, but a Yuruk, who had married a
woman of his village and settled down there. Akh-
1 See p. 45.