It was not till nearly 10 P.M. that we reached the Kizil Irmak, and then only with great difficulty. The country was well populated, and many shepherds' huts and sheep-dogs barred our path. At one point we actually passed by the front door of a small house, outside which two men and their families were lying. The men sprang up in alarm at seeing eight extraordinary figures walk by, but we did not wait on the order of our going. Before reaching the river we came to a small stream where we drank our fill: then making several detours and walking as noiselessly as possible, we finally reached the bank of the Kizil Irmak. It was difficult in the moonlight to judge how broad it was: probably 300 yards across. But at that time of year half the bed was merely sandbanks, with a few trickles running through them. Taking off our boots and socks we tied them round our necks; trousers were pulled up over our knees, and we started off, hoping that we should find the main stream fordable. At the point where we stood the river was on a curve, and it was clear that the deep water would be on the opposite side. Walking along in single file we crossed in a direction slanting up-stream, and to our delight reached the other bank with the water only just above our waists. This bank was covered with reeds and difficult to climb. The river water had been much warmer than the small streams we had passed, but now as we sat wet to the waist in the wind we soon became very cold; for it was a lengthy process wringing out our clothes and dressing on the steep bank where we remained so as not to be seen in the bright moonlight. Here we also washed our faces and brushed our teeth. When we started from Yozgad we had thought of the Kizil Irmak as the first definite mark in our journey, and though we had not crossed it as soon or in the same place as we had intended, yet we were across it, and one stage was successfully accomplished after nine days' march. As soon as all were dressed and ready we again set off, and, passing a gigantic and solitary rock near the bank, here running almost due N. and S., we went up a steady incline over prairie land. At 2 A.M. we halted and slept for two hours under the shelter of some small rocks. At daylight we crossed a valley which had been converging on the left with our course, and drank at a little pool on the farther side. This would have been a pleasant resting-place for the day: we could have lain and slept under the shade of the trees which ran the length of the valley, and we even saw a few blackberry bushes to tempt us; but there were signs of human activity in vegetable gardens around, so we proceeded.