diately before sunrise they eat breakfast, either on the march or during a short rest at a kavekhaneh. My driver eats bread and raisins on the box-seat and smokes cigarettes just before the sun rises, and after that abstains from everything.
Now we are down in the valley of the Karshut river, which flows into the Black Sea at Tirebolu west of Trebizond.
At three o'clock in the morning the driver is up again and knocks at my door, and we start at half-past four o'clock, driving slowly through the street of the village until we are again out on the lonely highway. We drive steeply up the corniced road, which here is rough and miry from melted snow and moisture from the mountains, and from small brooks which do their best to ruin it. We have a suspicion that the road will become worse the farther we retire from the coast. We are on the left flank of the valley, which falls suddenly to the bottom, the sky is cloudy, darkness envelops us, and the abysm is veiled in mist. Dark spruces are indistinctly seen beside the road. At the more precipitous places the road is guarded by a wooden paling. Beyond the village Khanera-khanlari we are almost on a level with the surrounding crests, and beneath us the chasm of the valley conceals its secrets. The clouds clear away, and sharp shadows of the vehicles and horses are thrown by the moon on the road, which is now again excellent and runs downhill. In the windings of the side valleys the road is at least twice as long as it need be ; then it follows a slope down to the valley bottom in order to pass by a bridge over to the other side and mount up again. The two stretches of road are often almost parallel to each other. Along a steep bare cliff the road runs like a shelf, and here is a nasty place to meet a large caravan in close order ; the driver keeps inside that his horses may not be forced over the edge where an abyss yawns, while I hold myself in readiness to jump out if anything of the kind occurs.
The snowy crests of the east appear in light pink hues, and the edges of the clouds are tinged with purple, heralding the dawn. Down we go again to the village Köpri-
IIIFカラー高解像度
