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From Keshtobek my road leads down another small valley, and before long I find myself in the Angora vilayet, bowling briskly eastward over a most excellent road; not the mule-paths of an hour ago, but a broad, well-graded highway, as good, clear into Nalikhan, as the roads of any New England State.
No wonder the people of Keshtobek thought an Englishman and a revolver quite safe in travelling without zaptiehs; some of them had probably been to Nalikhan and seen this same chromo.
The entire distance between Torbali and Keshtobek, where tomorrow forenoon I cross over into the vilayet of Angora, is through a rough country for bicycling.
The Keshtobek people seem principally interested to know why I am travelling without any zaptieh escort; a stranger travelling through these wooded mountains, without guard or guide, and not being able to converse with the natives, seems almost beyond their belief. When they ask me why I have no zaptieh, I tell them I have one, and show them the Smith & Wesson.
In view of the nature of the country and the distance to Keshtobek, I have no idea of being able to reach that place to-night, and when I arrive at the ruins of an old mud-built khan, at dusk, I conclude to sup off the memories of my excellent dinner and a piece of bread I have in my pocket, and avail myself of its shelter for the night.
This sudden transition is not unnaturally productive of some astonishment on my part, and inquiries at Nalikhan result in the information that my supposed graded wagon-road is nothing less than the bed of a proposed railway, the preliminary grading for which has been finished between Keshtobek and Angora for some time.
I have learned during the morning that I have to thank Sirra Pasha's energetic administration for the artificial highway from Keshtobek, and that he has constructed in the vilayet no less than two hundred and fifty miles' of this highway, broad and reasonably well made, and actually macadamized in localities where the necessary material is to be obtained.
Twelve miles from my last night's rendezvous, I pass through Keshtobek, a village that has evidently seen better days. The ruins of a large stone khan take up all the central portion of the place; massive gateways of hewn stone, ornamented by the sculptor's chisel, are still standing, eloquent monuments of a more prosperous era.
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