As the _arabya_ climbed up the steep road leading to the centre of the town, it breasted a stream of traffic coming down from the high pass. Young John shouted with glee as the solemn camels trudged by, their bells tinkling, their backs loaded with great bales of merchandise. Wagons, bullock-carts, donkeys, packhorses, _arabyas_ and men carrying great bundles, all seemed destined for one place, the block of warehouses above the harbour. Here and there a tired camel knelt for rest in the shade of a wayside tree. The drivers were vivid figures in their white cloaks, dusty and travel stained, while beside them moved, talked, and gesticulated such a mixture of races and colours that the eye was dazzled with the indistinguishable medley of blue, scarlet, gold, yellow and green gowns and cloaks, nearly all richly embroidered; and above all, rose the noise of innumerable bells in all keys, some ringing deep and slow, others tinkling incessantly as the donkeys wound by, urged on by cries and blows. Sounds, colours, smells, all mingled in this small town, along this crowded highway, and Charles Dean was not slow to notice the prosperity of the place. Every man and animal was burdened with merchandise of some kind. Carts rolled by with shrieking axles, loaded with wheat and barley. The camels were weighed down under great bales of wool, tobacco, mohair and boxes of fruit and nuts. Brown-legged boys from the hills drove their flocks down the main street. They had started for the town at early dawn, and by eleven were in Samsoon, a distance of twenty miles. They were chiefly Turks, but occasionally one noticed the sharp features and clear skin of a Syrian youth, or the dark lean profile of a Circassian, always mounted and belted with daggers and pistols. The Greeks too were in evidence, walking about with a superior air of possession, for they and the Armenians were the chief citizens. They kept the shops and ran the small hotels and cafés.