Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/23

 In summer also and for the greater part of the year a night in the open is preferable to one in a village khan, which is sure to be stuffy and probably also very dirty.

Friday, May 27th.—All were astir long before dawn and at 4 a.m. the mules being laden we moved άολνη to the river bank to await our turn for the ferry boat, which took five mules and seven or eight people each journey. Meanwhile the sun had risen and we could see up the gorge made by the river as it breaks through the bare limestone hills that border the Thessalian plain. The Turkish frontier here crossed the river and recrossing it below Kutsokhiro included a group of hills on the southern bank. These hills to the south of the Peneus were one of the strategic advantages obtained by the Turks after the war of 1897, and were joined to the rest of Turkey by a military bridge, just visible from Ghunitsa ferry. W^ile we waited on the bank the iniquities of a certain khan- keeper, who had best be nameless, came under discussion. A muleteer made a miniature grave mound, put a cross at its head, and formally cursed the khan-keeper with the words, "So-and-so is dead." Within a year he was robbed, abandoned his klian, and fled. A belief in this particular form of magic is probably common amongst both Vlachs and Greeks, but no other example has yet come under our notice. After an hour’s delay all were safely across, and we continued our way over the plain keeping the frontier close on the right. Soon we overtook another family that had made an earlier start on the previous day, and passed the river before nightfall. Their unusual display of energy had met with its own reward, for we found them vainly searching for two mules that had strayed during the night. An hour and a half from Ghunitsa we reached the Trikkala road about seventeen kilometres west of Larissa, and following it crossed the Peneus for the second time by the ferry at Kutsokhiro. The old wooden bridge, that spanned the river here was carried away many years ago by a flood. Preparations were promptly made for a new one : an embankment was made for the road, and piers were built in the river. The work was then abandoned, and has not now been touched for several