CHAPTER VI.

THE SAVROON AND SOMBAZ RIVERS. ROCK FORTRESSES OF ANAZARBA AND SIS.

_May 9th._—Awakened by the sound of many goat-skin churns all around us. The women of the village were hard at work churning last night’s and this morning’s milk. In another place milking was going on, and in a third bread-making. Two women squatted facing each other, each with a small round wooden table in front of her, by her side was a mass of well-kneaded flour and water in a wooden bowl; taking a bit of this, as large as the fist, the woman dexterously rolled it out flat on the table, by means of a small rolling-pin, about as thick as a ruler, and then presented it, hanging on the roller, to a third woman, seated near a fire close by, over which stood a tripod, covered with a round plate of iron, slightly convex, on this she laid the thin sheet of dough, which she had dexterously received from the other woman upon a similar rolling-pin. It was just warmed through, and then the baking was sufficient; soon a heap of these thin cakes was piled at her side.

Near the door of our hut was one of the native threshing machines. This primitive instrument is a thick piece of pine wood, thickly set on the under side with flint stones, fixed along the grain of the wood (Isaiah