Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/583

Rh other. Life on the gallery is bustling and picturesque: it is a kind of "sample-room," where travelling traders exhibit their wares; there, too, one removes the stains of travel and suffers immolation at the hands of the peripatetic barber; there it is that all culinary functions are performed, and there the antikajee tries to "do up" the innocent archæologist.

The illustration last referred to may serve to show the difference between the karwan-serai of Mesopotamia or Sultan Khan and the unspeakable khan in modern second-rate cities of Asia Minor. It is a view of the khan in Malatia (the ancient Melitene) in Cataonia. The open court, being a necessity, is found in all of them. The two stories of the city khan are there, too, but all glory has departed. In the court may be seen specimens of the so-called Circassian wagons—i. e., spring- less wagons, such as were unknown in the dominions of the Sultan until the advent of the Circassian, who, being a Mussulman, fled from annexation by Russia. The country about Malatia has a super-abundance of water, and being also intensely fertile, it produces trees with luxuriant foliage. Among fruit-trees the apricot and the white-berried mulberry flourish, their fruit being dried and shipped to all parts of Asia Minor. The city is embowered in gardens—a delightful feature not often to be observed in Asia Minor. The photograph was taken in 1884 and in a period of profound peace, when no one could foresee that the court of this khan was to be the scene of a hideous massacre. During the troubles some years ago the Armenians of the region of Zeïtun, two hundred in number, were imprisoned in this very khan under the pretext of protecting them from harm, but really in order to butcher them leisurely in the court as so many penned-up pigs.

The picture on page 536 will serve to give an idea of the strangers' chamber among the nomadic Arabs of southern Babylonia. It is quite a gorgeous affair, and whatever its discomforts may be, at all events it does protect its guests from the chill blasts that search the dead level of the plain of lower Mesopotamia.

In such countries the best karwan-serai is the one which travellers erect each night for themselves—a tent, in which one may find privacy, comfort, and comparative freedom from vermin.