Thursday June 17 [17 June 1909] Left Ekrek at 6.45, still very cold.
One of my zaptiehs, Ahmet Agha is a native of Suwagen and knows
all this country so he took me by a short way round Kolete D. At 8.35
we came to Kolete, Islam, where they were burying a man - it seemed
impossible that anyone shd die on that clear cold morning. At 9.15 we
saw Kizil Euren to the L - at 1 we came to Kˆpekli where a nice old
man who had been walking with us for some way directed us to
Kavak, but evidently thought little of us for wanting to go there. So we
rode up the bare hill by a shallow gorge and got to the church at 12. I
planned it and lunched till 2.15. There is no sign of other buildings
round it nor is it in any particular sort of plan. We rode down the hills
and into the valley on the edges of which the lava had broken away in
great slabs like pavement, and got to Tomarza about 4.30. Curious
lava village, all of stone, the roads and fields edged with the lava
slabs set upright. Found the caravan had put up in an Armenian
monastery at the E end of the village and was at first very angry. But F
[Fattuh] said there was no place to camp on the lava slabs. I had a
lovely room and the priest and I had tea together. Then we went to
the church where I worked till near 7. There is also an oldish church in
the monastery, 800 years old, Armenian. The dome on pendentives
has been rebuilt. A good many old slabs with crosses and some with
Armenian inscrips. The rest of the monastery and the big church are
about 40 years old - very fine. A man met us in the village and said
Parlez vous Francais?" "Yes" Parlez vous bien?" "Yes" said I tres
bien." But when I asked him if he was a native of Tomarza he cd not
understand and I had to repeat the question in Turkish. The priest
complained much of Zulur and said the Moslems took the Xian
children and girls. Why cd not we help since we were all Xians?