In many places the "carriage road" was no road at all. The carts lurched
and bumped over rivers, boulders, fields, and the inevitable mud.
Several times we had to jump on our carts as they dragged us over deep
and rapid rivers. After three hours we stopped at a farm, our mounted
policeman called out the owners and autocratically ordered two of the
young men to accompany us as guides and guards.
They came, bearing their guns, white fezzed, white clothed, black
braided youths with shaven polls and flashing teeth. We began to climb,
and for hours and hours we toiled upwards. The carriages lumbered
painfully far behind us, led by their elderly and panting drivers.
"If this is what they call a good and easy road," we thought, "it would
have been better to harness four horses to each cart, and to have left
five carts behind."
The horses came from the plain of Chabatz, and had probably never seen a
hill in their lives.
"These horses will die," said the corporal; but he seemed more
interested in hunting for water for himself than in the struggles of the
poor beasts.
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