Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Fragment: Leaving Bodrum

Fragment from Gough, Mary. The Plain and the Rough Places : An Account of Archaeological Journeying through the Plain and the Rough Places of the Roman Province of Cilicia in Southern Turkey. London: Chatto & Windus, 1954.
As our cart lurched down on to the ferry by which we had to cross the river Ceyhan, we asked ourselves whether the villagers had, in fact, been  so tiresome, so importunate, so inquisitive as we had thought; or whether it was we ourselves who had been boorish and hyper-sensitive, unco-operative and ungrateful. We found the question unanswerable, and saddened, we bumped off on the dusty track of the far side of the river, hating the cart, hating the plump, garrulous wife of the muhtar who sat next to the driver, hating the hot sun and the dust and ourselves for being so weak, so tired, and so temperamental.
 pages 74-75.

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