Page:Red Rugs of Tarsus.djvu/102

 THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS

struction. The natives declare that the Mer- sina gate was built by Harun-al-Rashid, hero of the Arabian Nights. Harun's walls did pass at this point, and the city has never gone beyond. A few yards outside the gate, we are in a Fellahin village. Between two of the reed huts is a mud oven, patted into oval form, baked outside by the sun and inside by a fire of grass. When we pass, the women are always making bread. The whole operation is before your eyes. The wheat is threshed out of its stalks and winnowed, and ground in a stone basin with a huge pestle of iron or copper. The coarse flour is mixed with water, and kneaded in pats about as big as my hand. These are passed to an old hag, who quickly flattens them out on a board, using her forearm as rolling-pin. They are put in the oven with sticks. Two or three minutes and you have your bread. It is not in loaves. Think of a griddle-cake nine inches in diameter, or something even thinner than a griddle-cake, and you have the Fellahin [82]

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