I found also the grapes, which in many places they keep till the summer, most refreshing at times. The following is their method of preserving them, as I took it down from their lips:—They select a bunch in which the grapes are of a good size and fully ripe, a condition which is easily brought about by the sun in Turkey. This bunch they put into a vessel of wood or earthenware, after first covering the bottom with a good layer of ground mustard; on the top of this they put the grapes; then they pour the mustard flour in gradually, so as to pack the grapes in it; lastly, having filled the vessel with grapes up to the top, they end by pouring in unfermented wine as fresh as possible; this done, they shut up the vessel and keep it till the hot summer weather sets in, when people are thirsty, and refreshment of this kind is acceptable. They then unseal the vessel, and put out the grapes for sale, together with the sauce, which last the Turks like quite as well as the grapes themselves. But the flavour of mustard was not at all to my taste, so I had my grapes carefully washed. I found them very refreshing and wholesome during the great heats. You must not be surprised at my gratefully recording in my letter to you the things which proved beneficial to myself, for you will remember that the Egyptians carried this feeling to such an absurd length, that they worshipped as gods the vegetables of their own gardens from which they had derived benefit. But it is high time for me to return to my road. Leaving the bank of the Halys (which the Turks, I think, call Aitoczu) we came to Goukurthoy, and thence to Choron (Chorum), and after this to Theke Thioi (Tekiyeh). Here there is a famous monastery of Turkish monks, or dervishes, from whom we learned a great deal about a hero named Chederle, a man of great prowess and courage, whom they try to identify with our St. George, ascribing to him the same feats as we claim for our saint—to wit, that he saved a maiden, who had been given up to a fierce and terrible dragon, by slaying the monster; to this they add many other stories of their own invention, telling how their hero was wont to wander through distant lands, and at last came to a river whose waters gave immortality to those that drank thereof.