Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-08-04
A TURKISH VILLAGE.
Interesting Sketch of Scenes in and
 About an Anatolian Hamlet.

The Turk is essentially q domestic creature. However widely he travels, his thoughts arc always ccntered on his early home. No lapse of time weakens the tie which binds him to his native country, no sense of beauty or magnii- cence ever supplants his village in the warmest corner of his affections. Never theless, he eXpends little moro than affection upon his native place, having hardly any taste for improvement and none at all for unnecessary labor; consequently the appearance of an AnatOlian hamlet is as nearly immuta- ble as any thing in this world can be. To describe one village is to describe all other villages in Anatolia inhabited by the same race, for they differ in nothing but the accident of position. Perhaps in Kara Euren, resembling hundreds of other villages in all it's ar engagements, but eXcelling in the beauty of it's surroundings, there is as good an example of the home of the Turk as all AnatOlia can show.
 Kara Euren, then, is little village III lllc CculeE Ol LASId h1IlOt. l SclIlDlC spot where manners arc patriarchal and hustle is unknown: where civiliza- tion has not penetrated and education Is undrcamed of; where the tourist is not and the European rare as roses in December. Kara Euran has no place in history. Its annals, did it possess any, would prove dull to the least eXacting reader. Generations have lived and died here, in life and death alike unknown to fame. To architectural distinction it can lay no claim. Flat-roofed mud huts, alter hating with wooden shanties, effect to shelter its inhabitants Even anti quarian interest, which lends interest to many a humble spot, is utterly. want ing
 Yet, in one respect. Kara Euren is blessed above more pretentious places; if the handiWOrk of man is unattractive, that of nature makes ample amends. The village nestles on green slopes under the shadow of the great pine woods. Above the forest-clad hills great gaunt peaks rise solemnly against
 
 their ancient heads even at the end of an Asiatic June. Down the mountains and through the pines little brooklets babble and splash all through the long, hot summer, and at the foot of the woods lie the waters of the blue lake, in whose still depths the snow-capped peaks and dark-green pines and mirror which lends them lOveliness even great CT than their own.
 It is needless to say that the village is guiltless of any attempt at regu- larity. Perhaps fifty log shanties and as many mud huts are scattered over the three or four little hills on which the village stands. Some of the wooden eroGtiOns are picturesque enough, but painfully deficient in point of construction. The greatest possible seems to have been the problem which their builders set themselve to solve. As for the mud huts, the roofs of few are high as a man on horseback, and, owing to the slope on which they are built and the nature of the materials, in wandering about Kara Euren one perpetually finds ones self trespassing on somebody's roof, and in imminent danger of disappearing down the ample hole which too often supplies the place of a chimney.
 Through the hot hours of the day the village is deserted. The young men are all away on the hills with the tiocks The graybeards are enjoying a solemn nap in the shade. Half dozen women and a score of dusl1y brats rep. resent the inhabitants. But whsn the sun is going down in flame behind the dark peaks, and the brief evening twi- light is coming on apace, and the soft, warm air is full of sounds. At this hour every one is awake and stirring. the heat of the day is over, and the men are coming home from the fields and the mountains.
 There goes a plowman, happy in a days work done-an odd figure; tall and spare, scorched almost to blackneSs by blazing suns, holding his goad over. his head like lance. With Infinite dignity he strides a tiny donkey, heed less of the fact that his toes trail in the dust on either side. In front trots still more diminutive ass, bearing the. blow slowed away in his panniers, the long shaft waggling far behind his head and such aplow! Surely that crooked stick, shod with a bit of iron like a magnified thimble, must be own brother to the instrument with which Tr1ptole- mus first blessed mankind. Thea three or four handsome young fellows join the circle in front of the guest-house, sitting dutifully down behind the elders. They have been hunting among the hills, and bring in a mixed bag con- sisting of a dozen hares, a thrush and