The next two hours find me engaged in the laborious task of climbing a mere bridle-path up the rugged mountain slope, along which no wheeled vehicle has certainly ever been before. There is in some places barely room for pack animals to pass between the masses of rocks, and at others, but a narrow ledge between a perpendicular rock and a sheer precipice. The steepest portions are worn into rude stone stairways by the feet of pack animals that toiled over this pass just as they toiled before America was discovered and have been toiling ever since; and for hundreds of yards at a stretch I am compelled to push the bicycle ahead, rear wheel aloft, in the well-known manner of going up-stairs.

While climbing up a rather awkward place, I meet a lone Arab youth, leading his horse by the bridle, and come near causing a serious accident. It was at the turning of a sharp corner that I met this swarthy-faced youth face to face, and the sudden appearance of what both he and the horse thought was a being from a far more distant sphere than the western half of our own so frightened them both that I expected every minute to see them go toppling over the precipice. Reassuring the boy by speaking a word or two of Turkish, and seeing the impossibility of either passing him or of his horse being able to turn around, I turn about and retreat a short distance, to where there is more room. He is not quite assured of my terrestrial character even yet; he is too frightened to speak, and he trembles visibly as he goes past, greeting me with a leer of mingled fear and suspicion; at the same time making a brave but very sickly effort to ward off any evil designs I might be meditating against him by a pitiful propitiatory smile which will haunt my memory for weeks; though I hope by plenty of exercise to escape an attack of the nightmare.

This is the worst mountain climbing I have done with a bicycle; all the way across the Rockies there is nothing approaching this pass for steepness; although on foot or horseback it would of course not appear so formidable. When part way up, a bank of low hanging clouds come rolling down to meet me, enveloping the mountain in fog, and bringing on a disagreeable drizzle which scarcely improves the situation.

Five miles from the bottom of the pass and three hours from Geiveh I reach a small postaya-khan, occupied by one zaptieh and the station-keeper, where I halt for a half hour and get the zaptieh to brew me a cup of coffee, feeling the need of a, little refreshment after the stiff tugging of the last two hours.

Coffee is the only refreshment obtainable here, and, though the weather looks anything but propitious, I push ahead toward a regular roadside khan, which I am told I shall come to at the distance of another hour - the natives of Asia Minor know nothing of miles or kilometres, but reckon the distance from point to point by the number of hours it usually takes to go on horseback. Reaching this khan at three o'clock, I call for something to satisfy the cravings of hunger, and am forthwith confronted with a loaf of black bread, villanously heavy, and given a preliminary peep into a large jar of a crumbly white substance as villanously odoriferous as the bread is heavy, and which I think the proprietor expects me to look upon as cheese.

This native product seems to be valued by the people here in proportion as it is rancid, being regarded by them with more than affection when it has reached a degree of rancidness and odoriferousness that would drive a European - barring perhaps, a Limburger - out of the house. These two delicacies, and the inevitable tiny cups of black bitter coffee make up all the edibles the khan affords; so seeing the absence of any alternative, I order bread and coffee, prepared to make the most of circumstances.

The proprietor being a kindly individual, and thinking perhaps that limited means forbid my indulgence in such luxuries as the substance in the earthenware jar, in the kindness of his heart toward a lone stranger, scoops out a small portion with his unwashed hand, puts it in a bowl of water and stirs it about a little by way of washing it, drains the water off through his fingers, and places it before me. While engaged in the discussion of this delectable meal, a caravan of mules arrives in charge of seven rough-looking Turks, who halt to procure a feed of barley for their animals, the supplying of which appears to be the chief business of the klian-jee. No sooner have these men alighted and ascertained the use of the bicycle, than I am assailed with the usual importunities to ride for their further edification. It would be quite as reasonable to ask a man to fly as to ride a bicycle anywhere near the khan; but in the innocence of their hearts and the dulness of their Oriental understandings they think differently. They regard my objections as the result of a perverse and contrary disposition, and my explanation of mimkin deyil" as but a groundless excuse born of my unwillingness to oblige.

One old gray-beard, after examining the bicycle, eyes me meditatively for a moment, and then comes forward with a humorous twinkle in his eye, and pokes me playfully in the ribs, and makes a peculiar noise with the mouth: " q-u-e-e-k," in an effort to tickle me into good-humor and compliance with their wishes; in addition to which, the artful old dodger, thinking thus to work on my vanity, calls me "Pasha Effendi." Finding that toward their entreaties I give but the same reply, one of the younger men coolly advocates the use of force to coerce me into giving them an exhibition of my skill on the araba. As far as I am able to interpret, this bold visionary's argument is: "Behold, we are seven; Effendi is only one; we are good Mussulmans - peace be with us - he is but a Frank - ashes on his head- let us make him bin."

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Adapted from Thomas Stevens, Around the World on a Bicycle