Around the World on a Bicycle V1 by Thomas Stevens (page 7)

industriously at their trade, others gossiping and sipping coffee with friends or purchasers.

“Doesn’t it call up ideas of what you conceive the quarters of the old alchemists to have been hundreds of years ago.” asks my companion. “Precisely what I was on the eve of suggesting to you,” I reply, and then we drop into one of the shops, sip coffee with the old silversmith, and examine his filigree jewelry. There is nothing denoting remarkable skill about any of it; an intricate pattern of their jewelry simply represents a great expenditure of time and Asiatic patience, and the finishing of clasps, rivetting, etc., is conspicuously rough. Sivas was also formerly a seat of learning; the imposing gates, with portions of the fronts of the old Arabic universities are still standing, with sufficient beautiful arabesque designs in glazed tile-work still undestroyed, to proclaim eloquently of departed glories. The squalid mud hovels of refugees from the Caucasus now occupy the interior of these venerable edifices; ragged urchins romp with dogs and baby buffaloes where pashas’ sons formerly congregated to learn wisdom from the teachings of their prophet, and now what remains of the intricate arabesque designs, worked out in small, bright-colored tiles, that once formed the glorious ceiling of the dome, seems to look down reproachfully, and yet sorrowfully, upon the wretched heaps of tezek placed beneath it for shelter.

I am remaining over one day at Sivas, and in the morning we call on the American missionaries. Mr. Perry is at home, and hopes I am going to stay a week, so that they can “sort of make up for the discomforts of journeying through the country;” Mr. Hubbard and the ladies of the Mission are out of town, but will be back this evening. After dinner we go round to the government konak and call on the Vali, Hallil Eifaat Pasha, whom Mr. Weakley describes beforehand as a very practical man, fond of mechanical contrivances; and who would never forgive him if he allowed me to leave Sivas with the bicycle without paying him a visit. The usual rigmarole of salaams, cigarettes, coffee, compliments, and questioning are gone through with; the Vali is a jolly-faced, good-natured man, and is evidently much interested in my companion’s description of the bicycle and my journey. Of course I don’t forget to praise the excellence of the road from Yennikhan; I can conscientiously tell him that it is superior to anything I have wheeled over south of the Balkans; the Pasha is delighted at hearing this, and beaming joyously over his spectacles, his fat jolly face a rotund picture of satisfaction, he says to Mr. Weakley: “You see, he praises up our roads; and he ought to know, he has travelled on wagon roads half way round the world.” The interview ends by the Vali inviting me to ride the bicycle out to his country residence this evening, giving the order for a squad of zaptiehs to escort me out of town at the appointed time. “The Vali is one of the most energetic pashas in Turkey,” says Mr. Weakley, as we take our departure. “You would scarcely believe that he has established a small weekly newspaper here, and makes it self-supporting into the bargain, would you.” “I confess I don’t see how he manages it among these people,” I reply, quite truthfully, for these are anything but newspaper- supporting people; “how does he manage to make it self-supporting?” Why, he makes every employe of the government subscribe for a certain number of copies, and the subscription price is kept back out of their salaries; for instance, the mulazim of zaptiehs would have to take half a dozen copies, the mutaserif a dozen, etc.; if from any unforeseen cause the current expenses are found to be more than the income, a few additional copies are saddled on each ‘subscriber.’ “Before leaving Sivas, I arrive at the conclusion that Hallil Eifaat Pasha knows just about what’s what; while administering the affairs of the Sivas vilayet in a manner that has gained him the good-will of the population at large, he hasn’t neglected his opportunities at the Constantinople end of the rope; more than one beautiful Circassian girl has, I am told, been forwarded to the Sultan’s harem by the enterprising and sagacious Sivas Vali; consequently he holds “trump cards,” so to speak, both in the province and the palace. Promptly at the hour appointed the squad of zaptiehs arrive; Mr. Weakley mounts his servant on a prancing Arab charger, and orders him to manoeuvre the horse so as to clear the way in front; the zaptiehs commence their flogging, and in the middle of the cleared space I trundle the bicycle. While making our way through the streets, Mr. Hubbard, who, with the ladies, has just returned to the city, is encountered on the way to invite Mr. Weakley and myself to supper; as he pushes his way through the crowd and reaches my side, he pronounces it the worst rabble he ever saw in the streets of Sivas, and he has been stationed here over twelve years. Once clear of the streets, I mount and soon outdistance the crowd, though still followed by a number of horsemen. Part way out we wait for the Vali’s state carriage, in which he daily rides between the city and his residence. “While waiting, a terrific squall of wind and dust comes howling from the direction we are going, and while it is still blowing great guns, the Vali and his mounted escort arrive. His Excellency alights and examines the Columbia with much interest, and then requests me to ride on immediately in advance of the carriage. The grade is slightly against me, and the whistling wind seems to be shrieking a defiance; but by superhuman efforts, almost, I pedal ahead and manage to keep in front of his horses all the way. The distance from Sivas is four and a quarter miles by the cyclometer; this is the first time it has ever been measured. We are ushered into a room quite elegantly furnished, and light refreshments served. Observing my partiality for vishner-su, the Governor kindly offers me a flask of the syrup to take along; which I am, however, reluctantly compelled to refuse, owing to my inability to carry it. Here, also, we meet Djaved Bey, the Pasha’s son, who has recently returned from Constantinople, and who says he saw me riding at Prinkipo. The Vali gets down on his hands and knees to examine the route of my journey on a map of the world which he spreads out on the carpet; he grows quite enthusiastic, and exclaims, “Wonderful.” ” Very wonderful!” says Djaved Bey; “when you get back to America they will-build you a statue.” Mr. Hubbard has mounted a horse and followed us to the Vali’s residence, and at the approach of dusk we take our departure; the wind is favorable for the return, as is also the gradient; ere my two friends have unhitched their horses, I mount and am scudding before the gale half a mile away.

“Hi hi-hi-hi! you’ll never overtake him.” the Vali shouts enthusiastically to the two horsemen as they start at full gallop after me, and which they laughingly repeat to me shortly afterward. A very pleasant evening is spent at Mr. Hubbard’s house; after supper the ladies sing “Sweet Bye and Bye,” “Home, Sweet Home,” and other melodious reminders of the land of liberty and song that gave them birth. Everything looks comfortable and homelike, and they have English ivy inside the dining-room trained up the walls and partly covering the ceiling, which produces a wonderfully pleasant effect. The usual extraordinary rumors of my wonderful speeding ability have circulated about the city during the day and evening, some of which have happened to come to the ears of the missionaries. One story is that I came from the port of Samsoon, a distance of nearly three hundred miles, in six hours, while an imaginative katir-jee, whom I whisked past on the road, has been telling the Sivas people an exaggerated story of how a genii had ridden past him with lightning-like speed on a shining wheel; but whether it was a good or an evil genii he said he didn’t have time to determine, as I went past like a flash and vanished in the distance. The missionaries have four hundred scholars attending their school here at Sivas, which would seem to indicate a pretty flourishing state of affairs. Their recruiting ground is, of I course, among the Armenians, who, though professedly Christiana really stand in more need of regeneration than their Mohammedan neighbors. The characteristic condition of the average Armenian villager’s mind is deep, dense ignorance and moral gloominess; it requires more patience and perseverance to ingraft a new idea on the unimpressionable trunk of an Armenian villager’s intellect than it does to put up second-hand stove-pipe; and it is a generally admitted fact – i.e., west of the Missouri Elver – that anyone capable of setting up three joints of second-hand stove-pipe without using profane language deserves a seat in Paradise. “Come in here a minute,” says Mr. Hubbard, just before our I departure for the night, leading the way into an adjoining room.; I “here’s shirts, underclothing, socks, handkerchiefs-everything;.! help yourself to anything you require; I know something about I travelling through this country myself. ” But not caring to impose too much on good nature, I content myself with merely pocketing a strong pair of socks, that I know will come in handy. I leave the bicycle at the mission over night, and in the morning, at Miss Chamberlain’s request, I ride round the school-house yard a few times for the edification of the scholars. The greatest difficulty, I am informed, with Armenian pupils is to get them to take sufficient interest in anything to ask questions; it is mainly because the bicycle will be certain to awaken interest, and excite the spirit of inquiry among them, that I am requested to ride for their benefit. Thus is the bicycle fairly recognized as a valuable aid to missionary work. Moral: let the American and Episcopal boards provide their Asia Minor and Persian missionaries with nickel-plated bicycles; let them wheel their way into the empty wilderness of the Armenian mind, and. light up the impenetrable moral darkness lurking therein with the glowing and mist-dispelling orbs of cycle lamps. Messrs. Perry, Hubbard, and Weakley accompany me out some distance on horseback, and at parting I am commissioned to carry salaams to the brethren in China. This is the first opportunity that has ever presented of sending greetings overland to far-off China, they say, and such rare occasions are not to be lightly overlooked. They also promise to send word to the Erzeroum mission to expect me; the chances are, however, that I shall reach Erzeroum before their letter; there are no lightning mail trains in Asia Minor. The road eastward from Sivas is an artificial highway, and affords reasonably good wheeling, but is somewhat inferior to the road from Yennikhau. Before long I enter a region of low hills, dales, and small lakes, beyond which the road again descends into the valley of the Kizil Irmak. All day long the roadway averages better wheeling than I ever expected to find in Asiatic Turkey; but the prevailing east wind offers strenuous opposition to my progress every inch of the way along the hundred miles or so of ridable road from Yennikhan to Zara, a town at which I arrive near sundown. Zara is situated at the entrance to a narrow passage between two mountain spurs, and although the road is here a dead level and the surface smooth, the wind comes roaring from the gorge with such tremendous pressure that it is only by extraordinary exertions that I am able to keep the saddle.

Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi was a gentleman of Greek descent. At Zara I have an opportunity of seeing and experiencing something of what hospitality is like among the better class Armenians, for I have brought from Sivas a letter of introduction to Kirkor-agha Tartarian, the most prominent Armenian gentleman in Zara. I have no difficulty whatever in finding the house, and am at once installed in the customary position of honor, while five serving-men hover about, ready to wait on me; some take a hand in the inevitable ceremony of preparing and serving coffee and lighting cigarettes, while others stand watchfully by awaiting word or look from myself or mine host, or from the privileged guests that immediately begin to arrive. The room is of cedar planking throughout, and is absolutely without furniture, save the carpeting and the cushioned divan on which I am seated. Mr. Tartarian sits crossed-legged on the carpet to my left, smoking a nargileh; his younger brother occupies a similar position on my right, rolling and smoking cigarettes; while the guests, as they arrive, squat themselves on the carpet in positions varying in distance from the divan, according to their respective rank and social importance. No one ventures to occupy the cushioned divan alongside myself, although the divan is fifteen feet long, and it makes me feel uncomfortably like the dog in the manger to occupy its whole length alone. In a farther corner, and off the slightly raised and carpeted floor on which are seated the guests, is a small brick fire-place, on which a charcoal fire is brightly burning, and here Mr. Vartarian’s private kahvay-jee is kept busily employed in brewing tiny cups of strong black coffee; another servant constantly visits the fire to ferret out pieces of glowing charcoal with small pipe-lighting tongs, with which he circulates among the guests, supplying a light to the various smokers of cigarettes. A third youth is kept pretty tolerably busy performing the same office for Mr. Vartarian’s nargileh, for the gentleman is an inveterate smoker, and in all Turkey there can scarcely be another nargileh requiring so much tinkering with as his. All the livelong evening something keeps getting wrong with that wretched pipe; mine host himself is continually rearranging the little pile of live coals on top of the dampened tobacco (the tobacco smoked in a nargileh is dampened, and live coals are placed on top), taking off the long coiled tube and blowing down it, or prying around in the tobacco receptacle with an awl-like instrument in his efforts to make it draw properly, but without making anything like a success; while his nargileh-boy is constantly hovering over it with a new supply of live coals. “Job himself could scarcely have been possessed of more patience,” I think at first; but before the evening is over I come to the conclusion that my worthy host wouldn’t exchange that particular hubble-bubble with its everlasting contrariness for the most perfectly drawing nargileh in Turkey: like certain devotees of the weed among ourselves, who never seem to be happier than when running a broom-straw down the stem of a pipe that chronically refuses to draw, so Kirkor-agha Vartarian finds his chief amusement in thus tinkering from one week’s end to another with his nargileh. At the supper table mine host and his brother both lavish attentions upon me; knives and forks of course there are none, these things being seldom seen in Asia Minor, and to a cycler who has spent the day in pedalling against a stiff breeze, their absence is a matter of small moment. I am ravenously hungry, and they both win my warmest esteem by transferring choice morsels from their own plates into mine with their fingers. From what I know of strict haut ton Zaran etiquette, I think they should really pop these tid-bits in my mouth, and the reason they don’t do so is, perhaps, because I fail to open it in the customary haut ton manner; however, it is a distasteful thing to be always sticking up for one’s individual rights. A pile of quilts and mattresses, three feet thick, and feather pillows galore are prepared for me to sleep on. An attendant presents himself with a wonderful night- shirt, on the ample proportions of which are displayed bewildering colors and figures; and following the custom of the country, shapes himself for undressing me and assisting me into bed. This, however, I prefer to do without assistance, owing to a large stock of native modesty. I never fell among people more devoted in their attentions; their only thought during my stay is to make me comfortable; but they are very ceremonious and great sticklers for etiquette. I had intended making my usual early start, but mine host receives with open disapproval – I fancy even with a showing of displeasure – my proposition to depart without first partaking of refreshments, and it is nearly eight o’clock before I finally get started. Immediately after rising comes the inevitable coffee and early morning visitors; later an attendant arrives with breakfast for myself on a small wooden tray. Mr. Vartarian occupies precisely the same position, and is engaged in precisely the same occupation as yesterday evening, as is also his brother. No sooner does the hapless attendant make his appearance with the eatables than these two persons spring simultaneously to their feet, apparently in a towering rage, and chase him back out of the room, meanwhile pursuing him with a torrent of angry words; they then return to their respective positions and respective occupations. Ten minutes later the attendant reappears, but this time bringing a larger tray with an ample spread for three persons; this, it afterward appears, is not because mine host and his brother intends partaking of any, but because it is Armenian etiquette to do so, and Armenian etiquette therefore becomes responsible for the spectacle of a solitary feeder seated at breakfast with dishes and everything prepared for three, while of the other two, one is smoking a nargileh, the other cigarettes, and both of them regarding my evident relish of scrambled eggs and cold fowl with intense satisfaction.

Having by this time determined to merely drift with the current of mine host’s intentions concerning the time of my departure, I resume my position on the divan after breakfasting, simply hinting that I would like to depart as soon as possible. To this Mr. Vartarian complacently nods assent, and his brother, with equal complacency rolls me a cigarette, after which a good half-hour is consumed in preparing for me a letter of introduction to their friend Mudura Ghana in the village of Kachahurda, which I expect to reach somewhere near noon; mine host dictates while his brother writes. Visitors continue coming in, and I am beginning to get a trifle impatient about starting; am beginning in fact to wish all their nonsensical ceremoniousness at the bottom of tho deep blue sea or some equally unfathomable quarter, when, at a signal from Mr. Vartarian himself, his brother and tho whole roomful of visitors rise simultaneously to their feet, and equally simultaneously put their hands on their respective stomachs, and, turning toward me, salaam; mine host then comes forward, shakes hands, gives me the letter to Mudura Ghana, and permits me to depart. He has provided two zaptiehs to escort me outside the town, and in a few minutes I find myself bowling briskly along a beautiful little valley; the pellucid waters of a purling brook dance merrily alongside an excellent piece of road; birds are singing merrily in the willow-trees, and dark rocky crags tower skyward immediately around. The lovely little valley terminates all too soon, for in fifteen minutes I am footing it up another mountain; but it proves to be the entrance gate of a region containing grander pine-clad mountain scenery than anything encountered outside the Sierra Nevadas; in fact the famous scenery of Cape Horn, California, almost finds its counterpart at one particular point I traverse this morning; only instead of a Central Pacific Railway winding around the gray old crags and precipices, the enterprising Sivas Vali has built an araba road. One can scarce resist the temptation of wheeling down some of the less precipitous slopes, but it is sheer indiscretion, for the roadway makes sharp turns at points where to continue straight ahead a few feet too far would launch one into eternity; a broken brake, a wild “coast” of a thousand feet through mid-air into the dark depths of a rocky gorge, and the “tour around the world” would abruptly terminate. For a dozen miles I traverse a tortuous road winding its way among wild mountain gorges and dark pine forests; Circassian horsemen are occasionally encountered: it seems the most appropriate place imaginable for robbers, and I have again been cautioned against these freebooting mountaineers at Sivas. They eye me curiously, and generally halt after they have passed, and watch my progress for some minutes. Once I am overtaken by a couple of them; they follow close behind me up a mountain slope; they are heavily armed and look capable of anything, and I plod along, mentally calculating how to best encompass their destruction with the Smith & “Wesson, without coming to grief myself, should their intentions toward me prove criminal. It is not exactly comfortable or reassuring to have two armed horsemen, of a people who are regarded with universal fear and mistrust by everybody around them, following close upon one’s heels, with the disadvantage of not being able to keep an eye on their movements; however, they have little to say; and as none of them attempt any interference, it is not for me to make insinuations against them on the barren testimony of their outward appearance and the voluntary opinions of their neighbors.

My route now leads up a rocky ravine, the road being fairly under cover of over-arching rocks at times, thence over a billowy region of mountain summits-an elevated region of pine-clad ridges and rocky peaks-to descend again into a cultivated country of undulating hills and dales, checkered with fields of grain. These low rolling hills appear to be in a higher state of cultivation than any district I have traversed in Asia Minor; from points of vantage the whole country immediately around looks like a swelling sea of golden grain; harvesting is going merrily on; men and women are reaping side by side in the fields, and the songs of the women come floating through the air from all directions. They are Armenian peasants, for I am now in Armenia proper; the inhabitants of this particular locality impress me as a light hearted, industrious people; they have an abundant harvest, and it is a pleasure to stand and see them reap, and listen to the singing of the women; moreover they are more respectably clothed than the lower class natives round about them, barring, of course, our unfathomable acquaintances, the Circassians.

Toward the eastern extremity of this peaceful, happy scene is the village of Kachahurda, which I reach soon after noon, and where resides Mfrdura Ghana, to whom I bring a letter. Picturesquely speaking, Kachahurda is a disgrace to the neighborhood in which it stands; its mud hovels are combined cow-pens, chicken-coops, and human habitations, and they are bunched up together without any pretence to order or regularity; yet the light-hearted, decently-clad people, whose songs come floating from the harvest-fields, live contentedly in this and other equally wretched villages round about. Mudura Ghana provides me with a repast of bread and yaort, and endeavors to make my brief halt comfortable. While I am discussing these refreshments, himself and another unwashed, unkempt old party come to high, angry words about me; but whatever it is about I haven’t the slightest idea. Mine host seems a regular old savage when angry. He is the happy possessor of a pair of powerful lungs, which are ably seconded by a foghorn voice, and he howls at the other man like an enraged bull. The other man doesn’t seem to mind it, though, and keeps up his end of the controversy – or whatever it is – in a comparatively cool and aggravating manner, that seems to feed Mudura Ghana’s righteous wrath, until I quite expect to see that outraged person reach down one of the swords off the wall and hack his opponent into sausage-meat. Once I venture to inquire, as far as one can inquire by pantomime, what they are quarrelling so violently about me for, being really inquisitive to find out They both immediately cease hostilities to assure me that it is nothing for which I am in any way personally responsible; and then they straightway fall to glaring savagely at each other again, and renew their vocal warfare more vigorously, if anything, from having just drawn a peaceful breath. Mine host of Kachahurda can scarcely be called a very civilized or refined individual; he has neither the gentle kindliness of Kirkoragha Vartarian, nor the dignified, gentlemanly bearing of Tifticjeeoghlou Effendi; but he grabs a club, and roaring like the hoarse whistle of a Mississippi steamboat, chases a crowd of villagers out of the room who venture to come in on purpose to stare rudely at his guest; and for this charitable action alone he deserves much credit; nothing is so annoying as to have these unwashed crowds standing gazing and commenting while one is eating. A man is sent with me to direct me aright where the road forks, a mile or so from the village; from the forks it is a newly made road, in fact, unfinished; it resembles a ploughed field for looseness and I depth; and when, in addition to this, one has to climb a gradient of twenty metres to the hundred, a bicycle is anything but a comforting thing to possess. The country becomes broken and more mountainous than ever, and the road winds about fearfully. Often a part of the road that is but a mile away as the crow flies requires an hour’s steady going to reach it; but the mountain scenery is glorious. Occasionally I round a point, or reach a summit, from whence a magnificent and comprehensive view bursts upon the vision, and it really requires an effort to tear one’s self away, realizing that in all probability I shall never see it again. At one point I seem to be overlooking a vast amphitheatre which encompasses within itself the physical geography of a continent. It is traversed by whole mountain-ranges of lesser degree; it contains tracts of stony desert and fertile valley, lakes, and a river, not excepting even the completing element of a fine forest, and encompassing it round about, like an impenetrable palisade protecting it against invasion, are scores of grand old mountains – grim sentinels that nothing can overcome. The road, though still among the mountains, is now descending in a general way from the elevated divide, down toward Enderes and the valley of the Gevmeili Chai River; and toward evening I enter an Armenian village.

The custom from here eastward appears to be to have the threshing-floors in or near the village; there are sometimes several different floors, and when they are winnowing the grain on windy days the whole village becomes covered with an inch or two of chaff. I am glad to find these threshing-floors in the villages, because they give me an excellent opportunity to ride and satisfy the people, thus saving me no end of worry and annoyance.

The air becomes chilly after sundown, and I am shown into a close room containing one small air-hole, and am provided with a quilt and pillow. Later in the evening a Turkish Bey arrives with an escort of zaptiehs and occupies the same apartment, which would seem to be a room especially provided for the accommodation of travellers. The moment the officer arrives, behold, there is a hurrying to and fro of the villagers to sweep out the room, kindle a fire to brew his coffee, and to bring him water and a vessel for his ablutions before saying his evening prayers. Cringing senility characterizes the demeanor of these Armenian villagers toward the Turkish officer, and their hurrying hither and thither to supply him ere they are asked looks to me wonderfully like a “propitiating of the gods.” The Bey himself seems to be a pretty good sort of a fellow, offering me a portion of his supper, consisting of bread, olives, and onions; which, however, I decline, having already ordered eggs and pillau of a villager. The Bey’s company is highly acceptable, since it saves me from the annoyance of being surrounded by the usual ragged, unwashed crowd during the evening, and secures me a refreshing sleep, undisturbed by visions of purloined straps or moccasins. He appears to be a very pious Mussulman; after washing his head, hands, and feet, he kneels toward Mecca on the wet towel, and prays for nearly twenty minutes by my timepiece; and his sighs of Allah! are wonderfully deep-fetched, coming apparently from clear down in his stomach. While he is thus devotionally engaged, his two zaptiehs stand respectfully by, and divide their time between eying myself and the bicycle with wonder and the Bey with mingled reverence and awe. At early dawn I steal noiselessly away, to avoid disturbing the peaceful slumbers of the Bey. For several miles my road winds around among the foot-hills of the range I crossed yesterday, but following a gradually widening depression, which finally terminates in the Gevmeili Chai Valley; and directly ahead and below me lies the considerable town of Enderes, surrounded by a broad fringe of apple-orchards, and walnut and jujube groves. Here I obtain a substantial breakfast of Turkish kabobs (tid-bits of mutton, spitted on a skewer, and broiled over a charcoal fire) at a public eating khan, after which the mudir kindly undertakes to explain to me the best route to Erzingan, giving me the names of several villages to inquire for as a guidance. While talking to the mudir, Mr. Pronatti, an Italian engineer in the employ of the Sivas Vali, makes his appearance, shakes hands, reminds me that Italy has recently volunteered assistance to England in the Soudan campaign, and then conducts me to his quarters in another part of the town. Mr. Pronatti can speak almost any language but English; I speak next to nothing but English; nevertheless, we manage to converse quite readily, for, besides proficiency in pantomimic language acquired by daily practice, I have necessarily picked up a few scattering words of the vernacular of the several countries traversed on the tour. While discussing a nice ripe water-melon with this gentleman, several respectable- looking people enter and introduce themselves through Mr. Pronatti as Osmanli Turks, not Armenians, expecting me to regard them more favorably on that account. Soon afterward a party of Armenians arrive, and take labored pains to impress upon me that they are not Turks, but Christian Armenians. Both parties seem desirous of winning my favorable opinion. One party thinks the surest plan is to let me know that they are Turks; the others, to let me know that they are not Turks. “I have told both parties to go to Gehenna,” says my Italian friend. “These people will worry you to death with their foolishness if you make the mistake of treating them with consideration.”

Donning an Indian pith-helmet that is three sizes too large, and wellnigh conceals his features, Mr. Pronatti orders his horse, and accompanies me some distance out, to put me on the proper course to Erzingan. My route from Enderes leads along a lovely fertile valley, between lofty mountain ranges; an intricate network of irrigating ditches, fed by, mountain streams, affords an abundance of water for wheat-fields, vineyards, and orchards; it is the best, and yet the worst watered valley I ever saw – the best, because the irrigating ditches are so numerous; the worst, because most of them are overflowing and converting my road into mud-holes and shallow pools. In the afternoon I reach somewhat higher ground, where the road becomes firmer, and I bowl merrily along eastward, interrupted by nothing save the necessity of dismounting and shedding my nether garments every few minutes to ford a broad, swift feeder to the lesser ditches lower down the valley. In this fructiferous vale my road sometimes leads through areas of vineyards surrounded by low mud walls, where grapes can be had for the reaching, and where the proprietor of an orchard will shake down a shower of delicious yellow pears for whatever you like to give him, or for nothing if one wants him to. I suppose these villagers have established prices for their commodities when dealing with each other, but they almost invariably refuse to charge me anything; some will absolutely refuse any payment, and my only plan of recompensing them is to give money to the children; others accept, with as great a show of gratitude as if I were simply giving it to them without having received an equivalent, whatever I choose to give.

The numerous irrigating ditches have retarded my progress to an appreciable extent to-day, so that, notwithstanding the early start and the absence of mountain-climbing, my cyclometer registers but a gain of thirty-seven miles, when, having continued my eastward course for some time after nightfall, and failing to reach a village, I commence looking around for somewhere to spend the night. The valley of the Gevmeili Chai has been left behind, and I am again traversing a narrow, rocky pass between the hills. Among the rocks I discover a small open cave, in which I determine to spend the night. The region is elevated, and the night air chilly; so I gather together some dry weeds and rubbish and kindle a fire. With something to cook and eat, and a pair of blankets, I could have spent a reasonably comfortable night; but a pocketful of pears has to suffice for supper, and when the unsubstantial fuel is burned away, my airy chamber on the bleak mountain-side and the thin cambric tent affords little protection from the insinuating chilliness of the night air. Variety is said to be the spice of life; no doubt it is, under certain conditions, but I think it all depends on the conditions whether it is spicy or not spicy. For instance, the vicissitudes of fortune that favor me with bread and sour milk for dinner, a few pears for supper, and a wakeful night of shivering discomfort in a cave, as the reward of wading fifty irrigating ditches and traversing thirty miles of ditch-bedevilled donkey-trails during the day, may look spicy, and even romantic, from a distance; but when one wakes up in a cold shiver about 1.30A.M. and realizes that several hours of wretchedness are before him, his waking thoughts are apt to be anything but thoughts complimentary of the spiciness of the situation. Inshallah! fortune will favor me with better dues to- morrow; and if not to-morrow, then the next day, or the next.

CHAPTER XVII.

THROUGH ERZINGAN AND ERZEROUM.

For mile after mile, on the following morning, my route leads through broad areas strewn with bowlders and masses of rock that appear to have been brought down from the adjacent mountains by the annual spring floods, caused by the melting winter’s snows; scattering wheat-fields are observed here and there on the higher patches of ground, which look like small yellow oases amid the desert-like area of loose rocks surrounding them. Squads of diminutive donkeys are seen picking their weary way through the bowlders, toiling from the isolated fields to the village threshing-floors beneath small mountains of wheat-sheaves. Sometimes the donkeys themselves are invisible below the general level of the bowlders, and nothing is to be seen but the head and shoulders of a man, persuading before him several animated heaps of straw. Small lakes of accumulated surface-water are passed in depressions having no outlet; thickets and bulrushes are growing around the edges, and the surfaces of some are fairly black with multitudes of wild-ducks. Soon I reach an Armenian village; after satisfying the popular curiosity by riding around their threshing-floor, they bring me some excellent wheat-bread, thick, oval cakes that are quite acceptable, compared with the wafer-like sheets of the past several days, and five boiled eggs. The people providing these will not accept any direct payment, no doubt thinking my having provided them with the only real entertainment most of them ever saw, a fair equivalent for their breakfast; but it seems too much like robbing paupers to accept anything from these people without returning something, so I give money to the children. These villagers seem utterly destitute of manners, standing around and watching my efforts to eat soft-boiled eggs with a pocket-knife with undisguised merriment. I inquire for a spoon, but they evidently prefer to extract amusement from watching my interesting attempts with the pocket-knife. One of them finally fetches a clumsy wooden ladle, three times broader than an egg, which, of course is worse than nothing. I now traverse a mountainous country with a remarkably clear atmosphere. The mountains are of a light creamcolored shaly composition; wherever a living stream of water is found, there also is a village, with clusters of trees. From points where a comprehensive view is obtainable the effect of these dark-green spots, scattered here and there among the whitish hills, seen through the clear, rarefied atmosphere, is most beautiful. It seems a peculiar feature of everything in the East – not only the cities themselves, but even of the landscape – to look beautiful and enchanting at a distance; but upon a closer approach all its beauty vanishes like an illusory dream. Spots that from a distance look, amid their barren, sun-blistered surroundings, like lovely bits of fairyland, upon closer investigation degenerate into wretched habitations of a ragged, poverty-stricken people, having about them a few neglected orchards and vineyards, and a couple of dozen straggling willows and jujubes.

For many hours again to-day I am traversing mountains, mountains, nothing but mountains; following tortuous camel-paths far up their giant slopes. Sometimes these camel-paths are splendidly smooth, and make most excellent riding. At one place, particularly, where they wind horizontally around the mountain-side, hundreds of feet above a village immediately below, it is as though the villagers were in the pit of a vast amphitheatre, and myself were wheeling around a semicircular platform, five hundred feet above them, but in plain view of them all. I can hear the wonder-struck villagers calling each other’s attention to the strange apparition, and can observe them swarming upon the house-tops. What wonderful stories the inhabitants of this particular village will have to recount to their neighbors, of this marvellous sight, concerning which their own unaided minds can give no explanation!

Noontide comes and goes without bringing me any dinner, when I emerge upon a small, cultivated plateau, and descry a coterie of industrious females reaping together in a field near by, and straightway turn my footsteps thitherward with a view of ascertaining whether they happen to have any eatables. No sooner do they observe me trundling toward them than they ingloriously flee the field, thoughtlessly leaving bag and baggage to the tender mercies of a ruthless invader. Among their effects I find some bread and a cucumber, which I forthwith confiscate, leaving a two and a half piastre metallique piece in its stead; the affrighted women are watching me from the safe distance of three hundred yards; when they return and discover the coin they will wish some ‘cycler would happen along and frighten them away on similar conditions every day. Later in the afternoon I find myself wandering along the wrong trail; not a very unnatural occurrence hereabout, for since leaving the valley of the Gevmeili Chai, it has been difficult to distinguish the Erzingan trail from the numerous other trails intersecting the country in every direction. On such a journey as this one seems to acquire a certain amount of instinct concerning roads; certain it is, that I never traverse a wrong trail any distance these days ere, without any tangible evidence whatever, I feel instinctively that I am going astray. A party of camel- drivers direct me toward the lost Erzingan trail, and in an hour I am following a tributary of the ancient Lycus River, along a valley where everything looks marvellously green and refreshing; it is as though I have been suddenly transferred into an entirely different country.

This innovation from barren rocks and sun-baked shale to a valley where the principal crops seem to be alfalfa and clover, and which is flanked on the south by dense forests of pine, encroaching downward from the mountain slopes clear on to the level greensward, is rather an agreeable surprise; the secret of the magic change does not remain a secret long; it reveals itself in the shape of sundry broad snow-patches still lingering on the summits of a higher mountain range beyond. These pine forests, the pleasant greensward, and the lingering snow-banks, tell an oft-repeated tale; they speak eloquently of forests preserved and the winter snow-fall thereby increased; they speak all the more eloquently because of being surrounded by barren, parched-up hills which, under like conditions, might produce similar happy results, but which now produce nothing. While traversing this smiling valley I meet a man asleep on a buffalo araba; an irrigating ditch runs parallel with the road and immediately alongside; the meek-eyed buffaloes swerve into the ditch in deference to their awe of tho bicycle, arid upset their drowsy driver into the water. The mail evidently stands in need of a bath, but somehow he doesn’t seeiu to appreciate it; perhaps it happened a trifle too impromptu, as it were, to suit his easy-going Asiatic temperament. He returns my rude, unsympathetic smile with a prolonged stare of bewilderment, but says nothing.

Soon I meet a boy riding on a donkey, and ask him the postaya distance to Erzingan; the youth looks frightened half out of his. senses, but manages to retain sufficient presence of mind to elevate one finger, by which I understand him to mean that it is one hour, or about four miles. Accordingly I pedal perseveringly ahead, hoping to reach the city before dusk, at the same time feeling rather surprised at finding it so near, as I haven’t been expecting to reach there before to-morrow. Five miles beyond where I met the boy, and just after sundown, I overtake some katir-jees en route to Erzingan with donkey-loads of grain, and ask them the same question. From them I learn that instead of one, it is not less than twelve hours distant, also that the trail leads over a fearfully mountainous country. Nestling at the base of the mountains, a short distance to the northward, is the large village of Merriserriff, and not caring to tempt the fates into giving me another supper-less night in a cold, cheerless cave, I wend my way thither.

Fortune throws me into the society of an Armenian whose chief anxiety seems to be, first, that I shall thoroughly understand that he is an Armenian, and not a Mussulman; and, secondly, to hasten me into the presence of the mudir, who is a Mussulman, and a Turkish Bey, in order that he may bring himself into the mudir’s favorable notice by personally introducing me as a rare novelty on to his (the mudir’s) threshing-floor. The official and a few friends are sipping coffee in one corner of the threshing floor, and, although I don’t much relish my position of the Armenian’s puppet-show, I give the mudir an exhibition of the bicycle’s use, in the expectation that he will invite me to remain his guest over night.

He proves uncourteous, however, not even inviting me to partake of coffee; evidently, he has become so thoroughly accustomed to the abject servility of the Armenians about him – who would never think of expecting reciprocating courtesies from a social superior – that he has unconsciously come to regard everybody else, save those whom he knows as his official superiors, as tarred, more or less, with the same feather. In consequence of this belief I am not a little gratified when, upon the point of leaving the threshing-floor, an occasion offers of teaching him different.

Other friends of the mudir’s appear upon the scene just as I am leaving, and he beckons me to come back and bin for the enlightenment of the new arrivals. The Armenian’s countenance fairly beams with importance at thus being, as it were, encored, and the collected villagers murmur their approval; but I answer the mudir’s beckoned invitation by a negative wave of the hand, signifying that I can’t bother with him any further. The common herd around regard this self-assertive reply with open-mouthed astonishment, as though quite too incredible for belief; it seems to them an act of almost criminal discourtesy, and those immediately about me seem almost inclined to take me back to the threshing-floor like a culprit. But the mudir himself is not such a blockhead but that he realizes the mistake he has made. He is too proud to acknowledge it, though; consequently his friends miss, perhaps, the only opportunity in their uneventful lives of seeing a bicycle ridden. Owing to my ignorance of the vernacular, I am compelled to drift more or less with the tide of circumstances about me, upon entering one of these villages, for accommodation, and make the best of whatever capricious chance provides. My Armenian “manager ” now delivers me into the hands of one of his compatriots, from whom I obtain supper and a quilt, sleeping, from a not over extensive choice, on some straw, beneath the broad eaves of a log granary adjoining the house.

I am for once quite mistaken in making an early, breakfastless start, for it proves to be eighteen weary miles over a rocky mountain pass before another human habitation is reached, a region of jagged rocks, deep gorges, and scattered pines. Fortunately, however, I am not destined to travel the whole eighteen miles in a breakfastless condition-not quite a breakfastless condition. Perhaps half the distance is traversed, when, while trundling up the ascent, I meet a party of horsemen, a turbaned old Turk, with an escort of three zaptiehs, and another traveller, who is keeping pace with them for company and safety. The old Turk asks me to bin bacalem, supplementing the request by calling my attention to his turban, a gorgeously spangled affair that would seem to indicate the wearer to be a personage of some importance; I observe, also that the butt of his revolver is of pearl inlaid with gold, another indication of either rank or opulence. Having turned about and granted his request, I in turn call his attention to the fact that mountain climbing on an empty stomach is anything but satisfactory or agreeable, and give him a broad hint by inquiring how far it is before ekmek is obtainable. For reply, he orders a zaptieh to produce a wheaten cake from his saddle-bags, and the other traveller voluntarily contributes three apples, which he ferrets out from the ample folds of his kammerbund and off this I make a breakfast. Toward noon, the highest elevation of the pass is reached, and I commence the descent toward the Erzingan Valley, following for a number of miles the course of a tributary of the western fork of the Euphrates, known among the natives in a general sense as the “Frat;” this particular branch is locally termed the Kara Su, or black water. The stream and my road lead down a rocky defile between towering hills of rock and slaty formation, whose precipitous slopes vegetable nature seems to shun, and everything looks black and desolate, as though some blighting curse had fallen upon the place. Up this same rocky passage-way, eight summers ago, swarmed thousands of wretched refugees from the seat of war in Eastern Armenia; small oblong mounds of loose rocks and bowlders are frequently observed all down the ravine, mournful reminders of one of the most heartrending phases of the Armenian campaign; green lizards are scuttling about among the rude graves, making their habitations in the oblong mounds. About two o’clock I arrive at a road-side khan, where an ancient Osmanli dispenses feeds of grain for travellers’ animals, and brews coffee for the travellers themselves, besides furnishing them with whatever he happens to possess in the way of eatables to such as are unfortunately obliged to patronize his cuisine or go without anything; among this latter class belongs, unhappily, my hungry self. Upon inquiring for refreshments the khan-jee conducts me to a rear apartment and exhibits for my inspection the contents of two jars, one containing the native idea of butter and the other the native conception of a soft variety of cheese; what difference is discoverable between these two kindred products is chiefly a difference in the degree
of rancidity and odoriferousuess, in which respect the cheese plainly carries off the honors; in fact these venerable and esteemable qualities of the cheese are so remarkably developed that after one cautious peep into its receptacle I forbear to investigate their comparative excellencies any further; but obtaining some bread and a portion of the comparatively mild and inoffensive butter, I proceed to make the best of circumstances. The old khan-jee proves himself a thoughtful, considerate landlord, for as I eat he busies himself picking the most glaringly conspicuous hairs out of my butter with the point of his dagger. One is usually somewhat squeamish regarding hirsute butter, but all such little refinements of civilized life as hairless butter or strained milk have to be winked at to a greater or less extent in Asiatic travelling, especially when depending solely on what happens to turn up from one meal to another. The narrow, lonely defile continues for some miles eastward from the khan, and ere I emerge from it altogether I encounter a couple of ill- starred natives, who venture upon an effort to intimidate me into yielding up my purse. A certain Mahmoud Ali and his band of enterprising freebooters have been terrorizing the villagers and committing highway robberies of late around the country; but from the general appearance of these two, as they approach, I take them to be merely villagers returning home from Erzingan afoot. They are armed with Circassian guardless swords and flint-lock horse-pistols; upon meeting they address some question to me in Turkish, to which I make my customary reply of Tarkchi binmus; one of them then demands para (money) in a manner that leaves something of a doubt whether he means it for begging, or is ordering me to deliver. In order to the better discover their intentions, I pretend not to understand, whereupon the spokesman reveals their meaning plain enough by reiterating the demand in a tone meant to be intimidating, and half unsheatns his sword in a significant manner. Intuitively the precise situation of affairs seems to reveal itself in a moment; they are but ordinarily inoffensive villagers returning from Erzingan, where they have sold and squandered even the donkeys they rode to town; meeting me alone, and, as they think in the absence of outward evidence that I am unarmed, they have become possessed ot tue idea of retrieving their fortunes by intimidating me out of money. Never were men more astonished and taken aback at finding me armed, and they both turn pale and fairly shiver with fright as I produce the Smith & Wesson from its inconspicuous position at my hip, and hold it on a level with the bold spokesman’s head; they both look as if they expected their last hour had arrived and both seem incapable either of utterance or of running away; in fact, their embarrassment is so ridiculous that it provokes a smile and it is with anything but a threatening or angry voice that I bid them haidy. The bold highwaymen seem only too thankful of a chance to “haidy,” and they look quite confused, and I fancy even ashamed of themselves, as they betake themselves off up the ravine. I am quite as thankful as themselves at getting off without the necessity of using my revolver, for had I killed or badly wounded one of them it would probably have caused no end of trouble or vexatious delay, especially in case they prove to be what I take them for, instead of professional robbers; moreover, I might not have gotten off unscathed myself, for while their ancient flint-locks were in all probability not even loaded, being worn more for appearances by the native than anything else, these fellows sometimes do desperate work with their ugly and ever-handy swords when cornered up, in proof of which we have the late dastardly assault on the British Consul at Erzeroum, of which we shall doubtless hear the particulars upon reaching that city. Before long the ravine terminates, and I emerge upon the broad and smiling Erzingan Valley; at the lower extremity of the ravine the stream has cut its channel through an immense depth of conglomerate formation, a hundred feet of bowlders and pebbles cemented together by integrant particles which appear to have been washed down from the mountains-probably during the subsidence of the deluge, for even if that great catastrophe were a comparatively local occurrence, instead of a universal flood, as some profess to believe, we are now gradually creeping up toward Ararat, so that this particular region was undoubtedly submerged. What appear to be petrified chunks of wood are interspersed through the mass. There is nothing new under the sun, they say; peradventure they may be sticks of cooking-stove wood indignantly cast out of the kitchen window of the ark by Mrs. Noah, because the absent-minded patriarch habitually persisted in cutting them three inches too long for the stove; who knows. I now wheel along a smooth, level road leading through several orchard-environed villages; general cultivation and an atmosphere of peace and plenty seems to pervade the valley, which, with its scattering villages amid the foliage of their orchards, looks most charming upon emerging from the gloomy environments of the rock-ribbed and verdureless ravine; a fitting background is presented on the south by a mountain-chain of considerable elevation, upon the highest peaks of which still linger tardy patches of snow.

Since the occupation of Ears by the Russians, the military mantle of that important fortress has fallen upon Erzeroum and Erzingan; the booming of cannon fired in honor of the Sultan’s birthday is awakening the echoes of the rock-ribbed mountains as I wheel eastward down the valley, and within about three miles of the city I pass the headquarters of the garrison. Long rows of hundreds of white field-tents are ranged about the position on the level greensward; the place presents an animated scene, with the soldiers, some in the ordinary blue, trimmed with red, others in cool, white uniforms especially provided for the summer, but which they are not unlikely to be found also wearing in winter, owing to the ruinous state of the Ottoman exchequer, and one and all wearing the picturesque but uncomfortable fez; cannons are booming, drums beating, and bugles playing. From the military headquarters to the city is a splendid broad macadam, converted into a magnificent avenue by rows of trees; it is a general holiday with the military, and the avenue is alive with officers and soldiers going and returning between Erzingan and the camp. The astonishment of the valiant warriors of Islam as I wheel briskly down the thronged avenue can be better imagined than described; the soldiers whom I pass immediately commence yelling at their comrades ahead to call their attention, while epauletted officers forget for the moment their military dignity and reserve as they turn their affrighted chargers around and gaze after me, stupefied with astonishment; perhaps they are wondering whether I am not some supernatural being connected in some way with the celebration of the Sultan’s birthday – a winged messenger, perhaps, from the Prophet. Upon reaching the city I repair at once to the large customhouse caravanserai and engage a room for the night. The proprietor of the rooms seems a sensible fellow, with nothing of the inordinate inquisitiveness of the average native about him, and instead of throwing the weight of his influence and his persuasive powers on the side of the importuning crowd, he authoritatively bids them “haidy!” locks the bicycle in my room, and gives me the key. The Erzingan caravanserai – and all these caravanserais are essentially similar – is a square court-yard surrounded by the four sides of a two-storied brick building; the ground- floor is occupied by the offices of the importers of foreign goods and the customhouse authorities; the upper floor is divided into small rooms for the accommodation of travellers and caravan men arriving with goods from Trebizond. Sallying forth in search of supper, I am taken in tow by a couple of Armenians, who volunteer the welcome information that there is an “Americanish hakim” in the city; this intelligence is an agreeable surprise, for Erzeroum is the nearest place in which I have been expecting to find an English-speaking person. While searching about for the hakim, we pass near the zaptieh headquarters; the officers are enjoying their nargileh in the cool evening air outside the building, and seeing an Englishman, beckon us over. They desire to examine my teskeri, the first occasion on which it has been officially demanded since landing at Ismidt, although I have voluntarily produced it on previous occasions, and at Sivas requested the Vali to attach his seal and signature; this is owing to the proximity of Erzingan to the Russian frontier, and the suspicions that any stranger may be a, subject of the Czar, visiting the military centres for sinister reasons. They send an officer with me to hunt up the resident pasha; that worthy and enlightened personage is found busily engaged in playing a game of chess with a military officer, and barely takes the trouble to glance at the proffered passport: “It is vised by the Sivas Vali,” he says, and lackadaisically waves us adieu. Upon returning to the zaptieh station, a quiet, unassuming American comes forward and introduces himself as Dr. Van Nordan, a physician formerly connected with the Persian mission. The doctor is a spare-built and not over-robust man, and would perhaps be considered by most people as a trifle eccentric; instead of being connected with any missionary organization, he nowadays wanders hither and thither, acquiring knowledge and seeking whom he can persuade from the error of their ways, meanwhile supporting himself by the practice of his profession. Among other interesting things spoken of, he tells me something of his recent journey to Khiva (the doctor pronounces it “Heevah”); he was surprised, he says, at finding the Khivans a mild-mannered and harmless sort of people, among whom the carrying of weapons is as much the exception as it is the rule in Asiatic Turkey. Doubtless the fact of Khiva being under the Russian Government has something to do with the latter otherwise unaccountable fact. After supper we sit down on a newly arrived bale of Manchester calico in the caravanserai court, cross one knee and whittle chips like Michigan grangers at a cross-roads post-office, and spend two hours conversing on different topics. The good doctor’s mind wanders as naturally into serious channels as water gravitates to its level; when I inquire if he has heard anything of the whereabout of Mahmoud Ali and his gang lately, the pious doctor replies chiefly by hinting what a glorious thing it is to feel prepared to yield up the ghost at any moment; and when I recount something of my experiences on the journey, instead of giving me credit for pluck, like other people, he merely inquires if I don’t recognize the protecting hand of Providence; native modesty prevents me telling the doctor of my valuable missionary work at Sivas. After the doctor’s departure I wander forth into the bazaar to see what it looks like after dark; many of the stalls are closed for the day, the principal places remaining open being kahvay-khans and Armenian wine-shops, and before these petroleum lamps are kept burning; the remainder of the bazaar is in darkness. I have not strolled about many minutes before I am corralled as usual by Armenians; they straightway send off for a youthful compatriot of theirs who has been to the missionary’s school at Kaizareah and can speak a smattering of English. After the usual programme of questions, they suggest: “Being an Englishman, you are of course a Christian,” by which they mean that I am not a Mussulman. “Certainly,” I reply; whereupon they lug me into one of their wine-shops and tender me a glass of raki (a corruption of “arrack” – raw, fiery spirits of the kind known among the English soldiers in India by the suggestive pseudonym of “fixed bayonets”). Smelling the raki, I make a wry face and shove it away; thev look surprised and order the waiter to bring cognac; to save the waiter the trouble, I make another wry face, indicative of disapproval, and suggest that he bring vishner-su. “Vishner-su” two or three of them sing out in a chorus of blank amazement; “Ingilis. Christian? vishner-su.” they exclaim, as though such a preposterous and unaccountable thing as a Christian partaking of a non- intoxicating beverage like vishner-su is altogether beyond their comprehension. The youth who has been to the Kaizareah school then explains to the others that the American missionaries never indulge in intoxicating beverages; this seems to clear away the clouds of their mystification to some extent, and they order vishner-su, eying me critically, however, as I taste it, as though expecting to observe me make yet another wry countenance and acknowledge that in refusing the fiery, throat-blistering raki I had made a mistake.

Nothing in the way of bedding or furniture is provided in the caravanserai rooms, but the proprietor gets me plenty of quilts, and I pass a reasonably comfortable night. In the morning I obtain breakfast and manage to escape from town without attracting a crowd of more than a couple of hundred people; a remarkable occurrence in its way, since Erzingan contains a population of about twenty thousand. The road eastward from Erzingan is level, but heavy with dust, leading through a low portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers. To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side, compact mud huts, and placed there in huge earthenware vessels, holding perhaps fifty gallons each; these are kept supplied with pure spring-water and provided with a wooden drinking-scoop. Fourteen miles from Erzingan, at the entrance to a ravine whence flows the boisterous stream that supplies a goodly proportion of the irrigating water for the valley, is situated a military outpost station. My road runs within two hundred yards of the building, and the officers, seeing me evidently intending to pass without stopping, motion for me to halt. I know well enough they want to examine my passport, and also to satisfy their curiosity concerning the bicycle, but determine upon spurting ahead and escaping their bother altogether. This movement at once arouses the official suspicion as to my being in the country without proper authority, and causes them to attach some mysterious significance to my strange vehicle, and several soldiers forthwith receive racing orders to intercept me. Unfortunately, my spurting receives a prompt check at the stream, which is not bridged, and here the doughty warriors intercept my progress, taking me into custody with broad grins of satisfaction, as though pretty certain of having made an important capture. Since there is no escaping, I conclude to have a little quiet amusement out of the affair, anyway, so I refuse point-blank to accompany my captors to their officer, knowing full well that any show of reluctance will have the very natural effect of arousing their suspicions still further. The bland and childlike soldiers of the Crescent receive this show of obstinacy quite complacently, their swarthy countenances wreathed in knowing smiles; but they make no attempt at compulsion, satisfying themselves with addressing me deferentially as “Effendi,” and trying to coax me to accompany them. Seeing that there is some difficulty about bringing me, the two officers come down, and I at once affect righteous indignation of a mild order, and desire to know what they mean by arresting my progress. They demand my tesskeri in a manner that plainly shows their doubts of my having one. The teskeri is produced. One of the officers then whispers something to the other, and they both glance knowingly mysterious at the bicycle, apologize for having detained me, and want to shake hands. Having read the passport, and satisfied themselves of my nationality, they attach some deep mysterious significance to my journey in this incomprehensible manner up in this particular quarter; but they no longer wish to offer any impediment to my progress, but rather to render me assistance. Poor fellows! how suspicious they are of their great overgrown neighbor to the north. What good-humored fellows these Turkish soldiers are! what simple-hearted, overgrown children. What a pity that they are the victims of a criminally incompetent government that neither pays, feeds, nor clothes them a quarter as well as they deserve. In the fearful winters of Erzeroum, they have been known to have no clothing to wear but the linen suits provided for the hot weather. Their pay, insignificant though it be, is as uncertain as gambling; but they never raise a murmur. Being by nature and religion fatalists, they cheerfully accept these undeserved hardships as the will of Allah. To-day is the hottest I have experienced in Asia Minor, and soon after leaving the outpost I once more encounter the everlasting mountains, following now the Trebizond and Erzingan caravan trail. Once again I get benighted in the mountains, and push ahead for some time after dark. I am beginning to think of camping out supperless again when I hear the creaking of a buffalo araba some distance ahead. Soon I overtake it, and, following it for half a mile off the trail, I find myself before an enclosure of several acres, surrounded by a high stone wall with quite imposing gateways. It is the walled village of Housseubegkhan, one of those places built especially for the accommodation of the Trebizond caravans in the winter. I am conducted into a large apartment, which appears to be set apart for the hospitable accommodation of travellers. The apartment is found already occupied by three travellers, who, from their outward appearance, might well be taken for cutthroats of the worst description; and the villagers swarming in, I am soon surrounded by the usual ragged, flea-bitten congregation. There are various arms and warlike accoutrements hanging on the wall, enough of one kind or other to arm a small company. They all belong to the three travellers, however; my modest little revolver seems really nothing compared with the warlike display of swords, daggers, pistols and guns hanging around; the place looks like a small armory. The first question is-as is usual of late – “Russ or Ingilis.” Some of the younger and less experienced men essay to doubt my word, and, on their own supposition that I am a Russian, begin to take unwarrantable liberties with my person; one of them steals up behind and commences playing a tattoo on my helmet with two sticks of wood, by way of bravado, and showing his contempt for a subject of the Czar. Turning round, I take one of the sticks away and chastise him with it until he howls for Allah to protect him, and then, without attempting any sort of explanation to the others, resume my seat; one of the travellers then solemnly places his forefingers together and announces himself as kardash (my brother), at the same time pointing significantly to his choice assortment of ancient weapons. I shake hands, with him and remind him that I am somewhat hungry; whereupon he orders a villager to forthwith contribute six eggs, another butter to fry them in, and a third bread; a tezek fire is already burning, and with his own hands he fries the eggs, and makes my ragged audience stand at a respectful distance while I eat; if I were to ask him, he would probably clear the room of them instanter. About ten o’clock my impromptu friend and his companion order their horses, and buckle their arms and accoutrements about them to depart; my “brother” stands before me and loads up his flintlock rifle; it is a fearful and wonderful process; it takes him at least two minutes; he does not seem to know on which particular part of his wonderful paraphernalia to find the slugs, the powder, or the patching, and he finishes by tearing a piece of rag off a by-standing villager to place over the powder in the pan. While he is doing all this, and especially when ramming home the bullet, he looks at me as though expecting me to come and pat him approvingly on the shoulder. When they are gone, the third traveller, who is going to remain over night, edges up beside me, and pointing to his own imposing armory, likewise announces himself as my brother; thus do I unexpectedly acquire two brothers within the brief space of an evening. The villagers scatter to their respective quarters; quilts are provided for me, and a ghostly light is maintained by means of a cup of grease and a twisted rag. In one corner of the room is a paunchy youngster of ten or twelve summers, whom I noticed during the evening as being without a single garment to cover his nakedness; he has partly inserted himself into a largo, coarse, nose-bag, and lies curled up in that ridiculous position, probably imagining himself in quite comfortable quarters. “Oh, wretched youth.” I mentally exclaim, “what will you do when that nose-bag has petered out?” and soon afterward I fall asleep, in happy consciousness of perfect security beneath the protecting shadow of brother number two and his formidable armament of ancient weapons. Ten miles of good ridable road from Houssenbegkhan, and I again descend into the valley of the west fork of the Euphrates, crossing the river on an ancient stone bridge; I left Houssenbegkhan without breakfasting, preferring to make my customary early start and trust to luck. I am beginning to doubt the propriety of having done so, and find myself casting involuntary glances toward a Koordish camp that is visible some miles to the north of my route, when, upon rounding a mountain-spur jutting out into the valley, I descry the minaret of Mamakhatoun in the distance ahead. A minaret hereabout is a sure indication of a town of sufficient importance to support a public eating-khan, where, if not a very elegant, at least a substantial meal is to be obtained. I obtain an acceptable breakfast of kabobs and boiled sheeps’- trotters; killing two birds with one stone by satisfying my own appetite and at the same time giving a first-class entertainment to a khan-full of wondering-eyed people, by eating with the khan-jee’s carving-knife and fork in preference to my fingers. Here, as at Houssenbeg-khan, there is a splendid, large caravanserai; here it is built chiefly of hewn stone, and almost massive enough for a fortress; this is a mountainous, elevated region, where the winters are stormy and severe, and these commodious and substantial retreats are absolutely necessary for the safety of Erzingan and Trebizond caravans during the winter. The country now continues hilly rather than mountainous The road is generally too heavy with sand and dust, churned up by the Erzingan mule-caravans, to admit of riding wherever the grade is unfavorable; but much good wheeling surface is encountered on long, gentle declivities and comparatively level stretches.

During the forenoon I meet a company of three splendidly armed and mounted Circassians; they remain speechless with astonishment until I have passed beyond their hearing; they then conclude among themselves that I am something needing investigation; they come galloping after me, and having caught up, their spokesman gravely delivers himself of the solitary monosyllable, “Russ?” “Ingilis,” I reply, and they resume the even tenor of their way without questioning me further. Later in the day the hilly country develops into a mountainous region, where the trail intersects numerous deep ravines whose sides are all but perpendicular. Between the ravines the riding is ofttimes quite excellent, the composition being soft shale, that packs down hard and smooth beneath the animals’ feet. Deliciously cool streams flow at the bottom of these ravines. At one crossing I find an old man washing his feet, and mournfully surveying sundry holes in the bottom of his sandals; the day is hot, and I likewise halt a few minutes to cool my pedal extremities in the crystal water. With that childlike simplicity I have so often mentioned, and which is nowhere encountered as in the Asiatic Turk, the old fellow blandly asks me to exchange my comparatively sound moccasins for his worn-out sandals, at the same time ruefully pointing out the dilapidated condition of the latter, and looking as dejected as though it were the only pair of sandals in the world.

This afternoon I am passing along the same road where Mahmoud Ali’s gang robbed a large party of Armenian harvesters who had been south to help harvest the wheat, and were returning home in a body with the wages earned during the summer. This happened but a few days before, and notwithstanding the well-known saying that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, one is scarcely so unimpressionable as not to find himself involuntarily scanning his surroundings, half expecting to be attacked. Nothing startling turns up, however, and at five o’clock I come to a village which is enveloped in clouds of wheat chaff; being a breezy evening, winnowing is going briskly forward On several threshing-floors. After duly binning, I am taken under the protecting wing of a prominent villager, who is walking about with his hand in a sling, the reason whereof is a crushed finger; he is a sensible, intelligent fellow, and accepts my reply that I am not a crushed-finger hakim with all reasonableness; he provides a substantial supper of bread and yaort, and then installs me in a small, windowless, unventilated apartment adjoining the buffalo- stall, provides me with quilts, lights a primitive grease-lamp, and retires. During the evening the entire female population visit my dimly- lighted quarters, to satisfy their feminine curiosity by taking a timid peep at their neighbor’s strange guest and his wonderful araba. They imagine I am asleep and come on tiptoe part way across the room, craning their necks to obtain a view in the semi-darkness.

An hour’s journey from this village brings me yet again into the West Euphrates Valley. Just where I enter the valley the river spreads itself over a wide stony bed, coursing along in the form of several comparatively small streams. There is, of course, no bridge here, and in the chilly, almost frosty, morning I have to disrobe and carry clothes and bicycle across the several channels. Once across, I find myself on the great Trebizond and Persian caravan route, and in a few minutes am partaking of breakfast at a village thirty-five miles from Erzeroum, where I learn with no little satisfaction that my course follows along the Euphrates Valley, with an artificial wagon-road, the whole distance to the city. Not far from the village the Euphrates is recrossed on a new stone bridge. Just beyond the bridge is the camp of a road-engineer’s party, who are putting the finishing touches to the bridge. A person issues from one of the tents as I approach and begins chattering away at me in French. The face and voice indicates a female, but the costume consists of jack- boots, tight-fitting broadcloth pantaloons, an ordinary pilot-jacket, and a fez. Notwithstanding the masculine apparel, however, it turns out not only to be a woman, but a Parisienne, the better half of the Erzeroum road engineer, a Frenchman, who now appears upon the scene. They are both astonished and delighted at seeing a “velocipede,” a reminder of their own far-off France, on the Persian caravan trail, and they urge me to remain and partake of coffee.

I now encounter the first really great camel caravans, en route to Persia with tea and sugar and general European merchandise; they are all camped for the day alongside the road, and the camels scattered about the neighboring hills in search of giant thistles and other outlandish vegetation, for which the patient ship of the desert entertains a partiality. Camel caravans travel entirely at night during the summer. Contrary to what, I think, is a common belief in the Occident, they can endure any amount of cold weather, but are comparatively distressed by the heat; still, this may not characterize all breeds of camels any more than the different breeds of other domesticated animals. During the summer, when the camels are required to find their own sustenance along the road, a large caravan travels but a wretched eight miles a day, the remainder of the time being occupied in filling his capacious thistle and camel-thorn receptacle; this comes of the scarcity of good grazing along the route, compared with the number of camels, and the consequent necessity of wandering far and wide in search of pasturage, rather than because of the camel’s absorptive capacity, for he is a comparatively abstemious animal. In the winter they are fed on balls of barley flour, called nawalla; on this they keep fat and strong, and travel three times the distance. The average load of a full-grown camel is about seven hundred pounds.

Before reaching Erzeroum I have a narrow escape from what might have proved a serious accident. I meet a buffalo araba carrying a long projecting stick of timber; the sleepy buffaloes pay no heed to the bicycle until I arrive opposite their heads, when they – give a sudden lurch side wise, swinging the stick of timber across my path; fortunately the road happens to be of good-width, and by a very quick swerve I avoid a collision, but the tail end of the timber just brushes the rear wheel as I wheel past. Soon after noon I roll into Erzeroum, or rather, up to the Trebizond gate, and dis-mount. Erzeroum is a fortified city of considerable importance, both from a commercial and a military point of view; it is surrounded by earthwork fortifications, from the parapets of which large siege guns frown forth upon the surrounding country, and forts are erected in several commanding positions round about, like watch-dogs stationed outside to guard the city. Patches of snow linger on the Palantokan Moiintains, a few miles to the south; the Deve Boyuu Hills, a spur of the greater Palantokans, look down on the city from the east; the broad valley of the West Euphrates stretches away westward and northward, terminating at the north in another mountain range.

Repairing to the English consulate, I am gratified at finding several letters awaiting me, and furthermore by the cordial hospitality extended by Yusuph Effendi, an Assyrian gentleman, the charg’e d’affaires of the consulate for the time being, Colonel E–, the consul, having left recently for Trebizond and England, in consequence of numerous sword-wounds received at the hands of a desperado who invaded the consulate for plunder at midnight. The Colonel was a general favorite in Erzeroum, and is being tenderly carried (Thursday, September 3, 1885) to Trebizond on a stretcher by relays of willing natives, no less than forty accompanying him on the road. Yusuph Effendi tells me the story of the whole lamentable affair, pausing at intervals to heap imprecations on the head of the malefactor, and to bestow eulogies on the wounded consul’s character.

It seems that the door-keeper of the consulate, a native of a neighboring Armenian village, was awakened at midnight by an acquaintance from the same village, who begged to be allowed to share his quarters till morning. No sooner had the servant admitted him to his room than he attacked him with his sword, intending-as it afterward leaked out-to murder the whole family, rob the house, and escape. The servant’s cries for assistance awakened Colonel E–, who came to his rescue without taking the trouble to provide himself with a weapon. The man, infuriated at the detection and the prospect of being captured and brought to justice, turned savagely on the consul, inflicting several severe wounds on the head, hands, and face. The consul closed with him and threw him down, and called for his wife to bring his revolver. The wretch now begged so piteously for his life, and made such specious promises, that the consul magnanimously let him up, neglecting-doubtless owing to his own dazed condition from the scalp wounds-to disarm him. Immediately he found himself released he commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking the revolver from the consul’s already badly wounded hand while he yet hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant’s life. The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the robber, who, however, escaped and bolted up-stairs, followed by the servant with the sword. The consul’s wife, with praiseworthy presence of mind, now appeared with a second revolver, which her husband grasped in his left hand, the right being almost hacked to pieces. Dazed and faint with the loss of blood, and, moreover, blinded by the blood flowing from the scalp-wounds, it was only by sheer strength of will that he could keep from falling. At this juncture the servant unfortunately appeared on the stairs, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of the robber. Mistaking the servant with the sword in his hand for the desperado returning to the attack, and realizing his own helpless condition, the consul fired two shots at him, wounding him with both shots. The would-be murderer is now (September 3,1885), captured and in durance vile; the servant lies here in a critical condition, and the consul and his sorrowing family are en route to England.

Having determined upon resting here until Monday, I spend a good part of Friday looking about the city. The population is a mixture of Turks, Armenians, Russians, Persians, and Jews. Here. I first make the acquaintance of a Persian tchai-khan (tea-drinking shop). With the exception of the difference in the beverages, there is little difference between a tchai- khan and a Icahvay-lchan, although in the case of a swell establishment, the tchai-khan blossoms forth quite gaudily with scores of colored lamps. The tea is served scalding hot in tiny glasses, which are first half-filled with loaf-sugar. If the proprietor is desirous of honoring or pleasing a new or distinguished customer, he drops in lumps of sugar until it protrudes above the glass. The tea is made in a samovar-a brass vessel, holding perhaps a gallon of water, with a hollow receptacle in the centre for a charcoal fire. Strong tea is made in an ordinary queen’s-ware teapot that fits into the hollow; a small portion of this is poured into the glass, which is then filled up with hot water from a tap in the samovar.

There is a regular Persian quarter in Erzeroum, and I am not suffered to stroll through it without being initiated into the fundamental difference between the character of the Persians and the Turks. When an Osmanli is desirous of seeing me ride the bicycle, he goes honestly and straightforwardly to work at coaxing and worrying; except in very rare instances they have seemed incapable of resorting to deceit or sharp practice to gain their object. Not so childlike and honest, however, are our new acquaintances, the Persians. Several merchants gather round me, and pretty soon they cunningly begin asking me how much I will sell the bicycle for. ” Fifty liras,” I reply, seeing the deep, deep scheme hidden beneath the superficial fairness of their observations, and thinking this will quash all further commercial negotiations. But the wily Persians are not so easily disposed of as this. “Bring it round and let us see how it is ridden,” they say, ” and if we like it we will purchase it for fifty liras, and perhaps make you a present besides.” A Persian would rather try to gain an end by deceit than by honest and above-board methods, even if the former were more trouble. Lying, cheating, and deception is the universal rule among them; honesty and straightforwardness are unknown virtues. Anyone whom they detect telling the truth or acting honestly they consider a simpleton unfit to transact business. The missionaries and their families are at present tenting out, five miles south of the city, in a romantic little ravine called Kirk-dagheman, or the place of the forty mills; and on Saturday morning I receive a pressing invitation to become their guest during the remainder of my stay. The Erzeroum mission is represented by Mr. Chambers, his brother-now absent on a tour-their respective families, and Miss Powers. Yusuph Effendi accompanies us out to the camp on a spendid Arab steed, that curvets gracefully the whole way. Myself and the-other missionary people (bicycle work at Sivas, and again at Erzeroum) ride more sober and deco-ous animals. Kirkdagheman is found to be near the entrance to a pass over the Palantokan Mountains. Half a dozen small tents are pitched beneath the only grove of trees for many a mile around. A dancing stream of crystal water furnishes the camp with an abundance of that necessary, as also a lavish supply of such music as babbling brooks coursing madly over pebbly beds are wont to furnish. To this particular section of the little stream legendary lore has attached a story which gives the locality its name, Kirkdagheman.

” Once upon a time, a worthy widow found herself the happy possessor of no less than forty small grist-mills strung along this stream. Soon after her husband’s death, the lady’s amiable qualities-and not unlikely her forty mills into the bargain-attracted the admiration of a certain wealthy owner of flocks in the neighborhood, and he sought her hand in marriage. ‘No,’ said the lady, who, being a widow, had perhaps acquired wisdom; ‘ no; I have forty sons, each one faithfully laboring and contributing cheerfully toward my support; therefore, I have no use for a husband.’ ‘ I will kill your forty sons, and compel you to become my wife,’ replied the suitor, in a huff at being rejected. And he went and sheared all his sheep, and, with the multitudinous fleeces, dammed up the stream, caused the water to flow into other channels, and thereby rendered the widow’s forty mills useless and unproductive. With nothing but ruination before her, and seeing no alternative, the widow’s heart finally softened, and she suffered herself to be wooed and won. The fleeces were removed, the stream returned to its proper channel, and the merry whir of the forty mills henceforth mingled harmoniously with tlie bleating of the sheep.” Two days are spent at the quiet missionary camp, and thoroughly enjoyed. It seems like an oasis of home life in the surrounding desert of uncongenial social conditions. I eagerly devour the contents of several American newspapers, and embrace the opportunities of the occasion, even to the extent of nursing the babies (missionaries seem rare folks for babies), of which there are three in camp. The altitude of Erzeroum is between six thousand and seven thousand feet; the September nights are delightfully cool, and there are no blood-thirsty mosquitoes. I am assigned a sleeping- tent close alongside a small waterfall, whose splashing music is a soporific that holds me in the bondage of beneficial repose until breakfast is announced both mornings; and on Monday morning I feel as though the hunger, the irregular sleep, and the rough-and-tumble dues generally of the past four weeks were but a troubled dream. Again the bicycle contributes its curiosity-quickening and question-exciting powers for the benefit of the sluggish-minded pupils of the mission school. The Persian consul and his sons come to see me ride ; he is highly interested upon learning that I am travelling on the wheel to the Persian capital, and he vises my passport and gives me a letter of introduction to the Pasha Khan of Ovahjik, the first village I shall come to beyond the frontier.

It is nearly 3 P.M., September 7th, when I bid farewell to everybody, and wheel out through the Persian Gate, accompanied by Mr. Chambers on horseback, who rides part way to the Deve Boyun (camel’s neck) Pass. On the way out he tells me that he has been intending taking a journey through the Caucasus this autumn, but the difficulties of obtaining permission, on account of his being a clergyman, are so great-a special permission having to be obtained from St. Petersburg-that he has about relinquished the idea for the present season. Deve Boyun Pass leads over a comparatively low range of hills. It was here where the Turkish army, in November, 1877, made their last gallant attempt to stem the tide of disaster that had, by the fortunes of war and the incompeteucy of their commanders, set in irresistibly against them, before taking refuge inside the walls of the city. An hour after parting from Mr. Chambers I am wheeling briskly down the same road on the eastern slope of the pass where Mukhtar Pasha’s ill-fated column was drawn into the fatal ambuscade that suddenly turned the fortunes of the day against them. While rapidly gliding down the gentle gradient, I fancy I can see the Cossack regiments, advancing toward the Turkish position, the unwary and over-confident Osmanlis leaping from their intrenchments to advance along the road and drive them back; now I come to the Nabi Tchai ravines, where the concealed masses of Eussian infantry suddenly sprang up and cut off their retreat; I fancy I can see- chug! wh-u-u-p! thud!-stars, and see them pretty distinctly, too, for while gazing curiously about, locating the Russian ambushment, the bicycle strikes a sand-hole, and I am favored with the worst header I have experienced for many a day. I am-or rather was, a minute ago-bowling along quite briskly; the header treats me to a fearful shaking up; I arn sore all over the next morning, and present a sort of a stiff-necked, woe-begone appearance for the next four days. A bent handle-bar and a slightly twisted rear wheel fork likewise forcibly remind me that, while I am beyond the reach of repair shops, it will be Solomon-like wisdom on my part to henceforth survey battle-fields with a larger margin of regard for things more immediately interesting. From the pass, my road descends into the broad and cultivated valley of the Passin Su; the road is mostly ridable, though heavy with dust. Part way to Hassen Kaleh I am compelled to use considerable tact to avoid trouble with a gang of riotous kalir-jees whom I overtake; as I attempt to wheel past, one of them wantonly essays to thrust his stick into the wheel; as I spring from the saddle for sheer self-protection, they think I have dismounted to attack him, and his comrades rush forward to his protection, brandishing their sticks and swords in a menacing manner. Seeing himself reinforced, as it were, the bold aggressor raises his stick as though to strike me, and peremptorily orders me to bin and haidi. Very naturally I refuse to remount the bicycle while surrounded by this evidently mischievous crew; there are about twenty of them, and it requires much self-control to prevent a conflict, in which, I am persuaded, somebody would have been hurt; however, I finally manage to escape their undesirable company and ride off amid a fusillade of stones. This incident reminds me of Yusuph Effendi’s warning, that even though I had come thus far without a zaptieh escort, I should require one now, owing to the more lawless disposition of the people near the frontier. Near dark I reach Hassan Kaleh, a large village nestling under the shadow of its former importance as a fortified town, and seek the accommodation of a Persian tchai-khan; it is not very elaborate or luxurious accommodation, consisting solely of tiny glasses of sweetened tea in the public room and a shake-down in a rough, unfurnished apartment over the stable; eatables have to be obtained elsewhere, but it matters little so long as they are obtainable somewhere. During the evening a Persian troubadour and story-teller entertains the patrons of the tchai-khan by singing ribaldish songs, twanging a tambourine-like instrument, and telling stories in a sing-song tone of voice. In deference to the mixed nationality of his audience, the sagacious troubadour wears a Turkish fez, a Persian coat, and a Eussian metallic-faced belt; the burden of his songs are of Erzeroum, Erzingan, and Ispahan; the Russians, it would appear, are too few and unpopular to justify risking the displeasure of the Turks by singing any Eussian songs. So far as my comprehension goes, the stories are chiefly of intrigue and love affairs among pashas, and would quickly bring the righteous retribution of the Lord Chamberlain down about his ears, were he telling them to an English audience. I have no small difficulty in getting the bicycle up the narrow and crooked stairway into my sleeping apartment; there is no fastening of any kind on the door, and the proprietor seems determined upon treating every subject of the Shah in Hassan Kaleh to a private confidential exhibition of myself and bicycle, after I have retired to bed. It must be near midnight, I think, when I am again awakened from my uneasy, oft-disturbed slumbers by murmuring voices and the shuffling of feet; examining the bicycle by the feeble glimmer of a classic lamp are a dozen meddlesome Persians. Annoyed at their unseemly midnight intrusion, and at being repeatedly awakened, I rise up and sing out at them rather authoratively; I have exhibited the marifet of my Smith & Wesson during the evening, and these intruders seem really afraid I might be going to practise on them with it. The Persians are apparently timid mortals; they evidently regard me as a strange being of unknown temperament, who might possibly break loose and encompass their destruction on the slightest provocation, and the proprietor and another equally intrepid individual hurriedly come to my couch, and pat me soothingly on the shoulders, after which they all retire, and I am disturbed no more till morning. The ” rocky road to Dublin ” is nothing compared to the road leading eastward from Hassan Kaleh for the first few miles, but afterward it improves into very fair wheeling. Eleven miles down the Passiu Su Valley brings me to the Armenian village of Kuipri Kui. Having breakfasted before starting I wheel on without halting, crossing the Araxes Eiver at the junction of the Passin Su, on a very ancient stone bridge known as the Tchebankerpi, or the bridge of pastures, said to be over a thousand years old. Nearing Dele Baba Pass, a notorious place for robbers, I pass through a village of sedentary Koords. Soon after leaving the village a wild-looking Koord, mounted on an angular sorrel, overtakes me and wants me to employ him as a guard while going through the pass, backing up the offer of his presumably valuable services by unsheathing a semi-rusty sword and waving it valiantly aloft. He intimates, by tragically graphic pantomime, that unless I traverse the pass under the protecting shadow of his ancient and rusty blade, I will be likely to pay the penalty of my rashness by having my throat cut. Yusuph Effendi and the Erzeroum missionaries have thoughtfully warned me against venturing through the Dele Baba Pass alone, advising me to wait and go through with a Persian caravan; but this Koord looks like anything but a protector; on the contrary, I am inclined to regard him as a suspicious character himself, interviewing me, perhaps, with ulterior ideas of a more objectionable character than that of faithfully guarding me through the Dele Baba Pass. Showing him the shell-extracting mechanism of my revolver, and explaining the rapidity with which it can be fired, I give him to understand that I feel quite capable of guarding myself, consequently have no earthly use for his services. A tea caravan of some two hundred camels are resting near the approach to the pass, affording me an excellent opportunity of having company through by waiting and journeying with them in the night; but warnings of danger have been repeated so often of late, and they have proved themselves groundless so invariably that I should feel the taunts of self-reproach were I to find myself hesitating to proceed on their account. Passing over a mountain spur, I descend into a rocky canon, with perpendicular walls of rock towering skyward like giant battlements, inclosing a space not over fifty yards wide; through this runs my road, and alongside it babbles the Dele Baba Su. The canon is a wild, lonely- looking spot, and looks quite appropriate to the reputation it bears. Professor Vambery, a recognized authority on Asiatic matters, and whose party encountered a gang of marauders here, says the Dele Baba Pass bore the same unsavory reputation that it bears to-day as far back as the time of Herodotus. However, suffice it to say, that I get through without molestation; mounted men, armed to the teeth, like almost everybody else hereabouts, are encountered in the pass; they invariably halt and look back after me as though endeavoring to comprehend who and what I am, but that is all. Emerging from the canon, I follow in a general course the tortuous windings of the Dele Baba Su through another ravine- riven battle-field of the late war, and up toward its source in a still more mountainous and elevated region beyond.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MOUNT ARARAT AND KOORDISTAN.

The shades of evening are beginning to settle down over the wild mountainous country round about. It is growing uncomfortably chilly for this early in the evening, and the prospects look favorable for a supperless and most disagreeable night, when I descry a village perched in an opening among the mountains a mile or thereabouts off to the right. Repairing thither, I find it to be a Koordish village, where the hovels are more excavations than buildings; buffaloes, horses, goats, chickens, and human beings all find shelter under the same roof; their respective quarters are nothing but a mere railing of rough poles, and as the question of ventilation is never even thought of, the effect upon one’s olfactory nerves upon entering is anything but reassuring. The filth and rags of these people is something abominable; on account of the chilliness of the evening they have donned their heavier raiment; these have evidently had rags patched on. top of other rags for years past until they have gradually developed into thick-quilted garments, in the innumerable seams of which the most disgusting entomological specimens, bred and engendered by their wretched mode of existence, live and perpetuate their kind. However, repulsive as the outlook most assuredly is, I have no alternative but to cast my lot among them till morning. I am conducted into the Sheikh’s apartment, a small room partitioned off with a pole from a stable-full of horses and buffaloes, and where darkness is made visible by the sickly glimmer of a grease lamp. The Sheikh, a thin, sallow-faced man of about forty years, is reclining on a mattress in one corner smoking cigarettes; a dozen ill-conditioned ragamuffins are squatting about in various attitudes, while the rag, tag, and bobtail of the population crowd into the buffalo-stable and survey me and the bicycle from outside the partition-pole.

A circular wooden tray containing an abundance of bread, a bowl of yaort, and a small quantity of peculiar stringy cheese that resembles chunks of dried codfish, warped and twisted in the drying, is brought in and placed in the middle of the floor. Everybody in the room at once gather round it and begin eating with as little formality as so many wild animals; the Sheikh silently motions for me to do the same. The yaort bowl contains one solitary wooden spoon, with which they take turns at eating mouthfuls. One is compelled to draw the line somewhere, even under the most uncompromising circumstances, and I naturally draw it against eating yaort with this same wooden spoon; making small scoops with pieces of bread, I dip up yaort and eat scoop and all together. These particular Koords seem absolutely ignorant of anything in the shape of mannerliness, or of consideration for each other at the table. When the yaort has been dipped into twice or thrice all round, the Sheikh coolly confiscates the bowl, eats part of what is left, pours water into the remainder, stirs it up with his hand, and deliberately drinks it all up; one or two others seize all the cheese, utterly regardless of the fact that nothing remains for myself and their companions, who, by the by, seem to regard it as a perfectly natural proceeding.

After supper they return to their squatting attitudes around the room, and to a resumption of their never-ceasing occupation of scratching themselves. The eminent economist who lamented the wasted energy represented in the wagging of all the dogs’ tails in the world, ought to have travelled through Asia on a bicycle and have been compelled to hob-nob with the villagers; he would undoubtedly have wept with sorrow at beholding the amount of this same wasted energy, represented by the above-mentioned occupation of the people. The most loathsome member of this interesting company is a wretched old hypocrite who rolls his eyes about and heaves a deep-drawn sigh of Allah! every few minutes, and then looks furtively at myself and the Sheikh to observe its effects; his sole garment is a round-about mantle that reaches to his knees, and which seems to have been manufactured out of the tattered remnants of other tattered remnants tacked carelessly together without regard to shape, size, color, or previous condition of cleanliness; his thin, scrawny legs are bare, his long black hair is matted and unkempt, his beard is stubby and unlovely to look upon, his small black eyes twinkle in the semi-darkness like ferret’s eyes, while soap and water have to all appearances been altogether stricken from the category of his personal requirements. Probably it is nothing but the lively workings of my own imagination, but this wretch appears to me to entertain a decided preference for my society, constantly insinuating himself as near me as possible, necessitating constant watchfulness on my part to avoid actual contact with him; eternal vigilance is in this case the price of what it is unnecessary to expatiate upon, further than to say that self-preservation becomes, under such conditions, preeminently the first law of Occidental nature. Soon the sallow-faced Sheikh suddenly bethinks himself that he is in the august presence of a hakim, and beckoning me to his side, displays an ugly wound on his knee which has degenerated into a running sore, and which he says was done with a sword; of course he wants me to perform a cure. While examining the Sheikh’s knee, another old party comes forward and unbares his arm, also wounded with a sword. This not unnaturally sets me to wondering what sort of company I have gotten into, and how they came by sword wounds in these peaceful times; but my inquisitivencss is compelled to remain in abeyance to my limited linguistic powers. Having nothing to give them for the wounds, I recommend an application of warm salt water twice a day; feeling pretty certain, however, that they will be too lazy and trifling to follow the advice. Before dispersing to their respective quarters, the occupants of the room range themselves in a row and go through a religious performance lasting fully half an hour; they make almost as much noise as howling dervishes, meanwhile exercising themselves quite violently. Having made themselves holier than ever by these exercises, some take their departure, others make up couches on the floor with sheepskins and quilts. Thin ice covers the still pools of water when I resume my toilsome route over the mountains at daybreak, a raw wind coines whistling from the east, and until the sun begins to warm things up a little, it is necessary to stop and buffet occasionally to prevent benumbed hands. Obtaining some small lumps of wheaten dough cooked crisp in hot grease, like unsweetened doughnuts, from a horseman on the road, I push ahead toward the summit and then down the eastern slope of the mountains; rounding an abutting hill about 9.30, the glorious snow-crowned peak of Ararat suddenly bursts upon my vision; it is a good forty leagues away, but even at this distance it dwarfs everything else in sight. Although surrounded by giant mountain chains that traverse the country at every conceivable angle, Ararat stands alone in its solitary grandeur, a glistening white cone rearing its giant height proudly and conspicuously above surrounding eminences; about mountains that are insignificant only in comparison with the white-robed monarch that has been a beacon-light of sacred history since sacred history has been in existence.

Descending now toward the Alashgird Plain, a prominent theatre of action during the war, I encounter splendid wheeling for some miles; but once fairly down on the level, cultivated plain, the road becomes heavy with dust. Villages dot the broad, expansive plain in every direction; conical stacks of tezek are observable among the houses, piled high up above the roofs, speaking of commendable forethought for the approaching cold weather. In one of the Armenian villages I am not a little surprised at finding a lone German; he says he prefers an agricultural life in this country with all its disadvantages, to the hard, grinding struggle for existence, and the compulsory military service of the Fatherland. “Here,” he goes on to explain, “there is no foamy lager, no money, no comfort, no amusement of any kind, but there is individual liberty, and it is very easy making a living; therefore it is for me a better country than Deutschland.” ” Everybody to their liking,” I think, as I continue on across the plain; but for a European to be living in one of these little agricultural villages comes the nearest to being buried alive of anything I know of. The road improves in hardness as I proceed eastward, but the peculiar disadvantages of being a conspicuous and incomprehensible object on a populous level plain soon becomes manifest. Seeing the bicycle glistening in the sunlight as I ride along, horsemen come wildly galloping from villages miles away. Some of these wonderstricken people endeavor to pilot me along branch trails leading to their villages, but the main caravan trail is now too easily distinguishable for any little deceptiona of this kind to succeed. Here, on the Alashgird Plain, I first hear myself addressed as “Hamsherri,” a term which now takes the place of Effendi for the next five hundred miles. Owing to the disgust engendered by my unsavory quarters in the wretched Dele Baba village last night, I have determined upon seeking the friendly shelter of a wheat-shock again to-night, preferring the chances of being frozen out at midnight to the entomological possibilities of village hovels. Accordingly, near sunset, I repair to a village not far from the road, for the purpose of obtaining something to eat before seeking out a rendezvous for the night. It turns out to be the Koordish village of Malosman, and the people are found to be so immeasurably superior in every particular to their kinsfolk of Dele Baba that I forthwith cancel my determination and accept their proffered hospitality. The Malosmanlis are comparatively clean and comfortable; are reasonably well-dressed, seem well-to-do, and both men and women are, on the average, handsomer than the people of any village I have seen for days past. Almost all possess a conspicuously beautiful set of teeth, pleasant, smiling countenances and good physique; they also seem to have, somehow, acquired easy, agreeable manners. The secret of the whole difference, I opine, is that, instead of being located among the inhospitable soil of barren hills they are cultivating the productive soil of the Alashgird Plain, and, being situated on the great Persian caravan trail, they find a ready market for their grain in supplying the caravans in winter. Their Sheikh is a handsome and good-natured young fellow, sporting white clothes trimmed profusely with red braid; he spends the evening in my company, examining the bicycle, revolver, telescopic pencil-case, L.A.W. badge, etc., and hands me his carved ivory case to select cigarettes from. It would have required considerable inducements to have trusted either my L.A.W. badge or the Smith & Wesson in the custody of any of our unsavory acquaintances of last night, notwithstanding their great outward show of piety. There are no deep-drawn sighs of Allah, nor ostentatious praying among the Malosmanlis, but they bear the stamp of superior trustworthiness plainly on their faces and their bearing. There appears to be far more jocularity than religion among these prosperous villagers, a trait that probably owes its development to their apparent security from want; it is no newly discovered trait of human character to cease all prayers and supplications whenever the granary is overflowing with plenty, and to commence devotional exercises again whenever the supply runs short. This rule would hold good among the childlike natives here, even more so than it does among our more enlightened selves. I sally forth into the chilly atmosphere of early morning from Maloaman, and wheel eastward over an excellent road for some miles; an obliging native, en route to the harvest field, turns his buffalo araba around and carts me over a bridgeless stream, but several others have to be forded ere reaching Kirakhan, where I obtain breakfast. Here I am required to show my teskeri to the mudir, and the zaptieh escorting me thither becomes greatly mystified over the circumstance that I am a Frank and yet am wearing a Mussulman head-band around my helmet (a new one I picked up on the road); this little fact appeals to him as something savoring of an attempt to disguise myself, and he grows amusingly mysterious while whisperingly bringing it to the mudir’s notice. The habitual serenity and complacency of the corpulent mudir’s mind, however, is not to be unduly disturbed by trifles, and the untutored zaptieh’s disposition to attach some significant meaning to it, meets with nothing from his more enlightened superior but the silence of unconcern. More streams have to be forded ere I finally emerge on to higher ground; all along the Alashgird Plain, Ararat’s glistening peak has been peeping over the mountain framework of the plain like a white beacon-light showing above a dark rocky shore; but approaching toward the eastern extremity of the plain, my road hugs the base of the intervening hills and it temporarily disappears from view. In this portion of the country, camels are frequently employed in bringing the harvest from field to village threshing-floor; it is a curious sight to see these awkwardly moving animals walking along beneath tremendous loads of straw, nothing visible but their heads and legs. Sometimes the meandering course of the Euphrates – now the eastern fork, and called the Moorad-Chai – brings it near the mountains, and my road leads over bluffs immediately above it; the historic river seems well supplied with trout hereabouts, I can look down from the bluffs and observe speckled beauties sporting about in its pellucid waters by the score. Toward noon I fool away fifteen minutes trying to beguile one of them into swallowing a grasshopper and a bent pin, but they are not the guileless creatures they seem to be when surveyed from an elevated bluff, so they steadily refuse whatever blandishments I offer. An hour later I reach the village of Daslische, inhabited by a mixed population of Turks and Persians. At a shop kept by one of the latter I obtain some bread and ghee (clarified butter), some tea, and a handful of wormy raisins for dessert; for these articles, besides building a fire especially to prepare the tea, the unconscionable Persian charges the awful sum of two piastres (ten cents); whereupon the Turks, who have been interested spectators of the whole nefarious proceeding, commence to abuse him roundly for overcharging a stranger unacquainted with the prices of the locality calling him the son of a burnt father, and other names that tino-je unpleasantly in the Persian ear, as though it was a matter of pounds sterling. Beyond Daslische, Ararat again becomes visible; the country immediately around is a ravine- riven plateau, covered with bowlders. An hour after leaving Daslische, while climbing the eastern slope of a ravine, four rough-looking footmen appear on the opposite side of the slope; they are following after me, and shouting “Kardash!” These people with their old swords and pistols conspicuously about them, always raise suspicions of brigands and evil characters under such circumstances as these, so I continue on up the slope without heeding their shouting until I observe two of them turn back; I then wait, out of curiosity, to see what they really want. They approach with broad grins of satisfaction at having overtaken me: they have run all the way from Daslische in order to overtake me and see the bicycle, having heard of it after I had left. I am now but a short distance from the Russian frontier on the north, and the first Turkish patrol is this afternoon patrolling the road; he takes a wondering interest in my wheel, but doesn’t ask the oft-repeated question, “Russ or Ingiliz?” It is presumed that he is too familiar with the Muscovite “phiz” to make any such question necessary.

About four o’clock I overtake a jack-booted horseman, who straightway proceeds to try and make himself agreeable; as his flowing remarks are mostly unintelligible, to spare him from wasting the sweetness of his eloquence on the desert air around me, I reply, “Turkchi binmus.” Instead of checking the impetuous torrent of his remarks at hearing this, he canters companionably alongside, and chatters more persistently than ever. “T-u-r-k-chi b-i-n-m-u-s!” I repeat, becoming rather annoyed at his persistent garrulousness and his refusal to understand. This has the desired effect of reducing him to silence; but he canters doggedly behind, and, after a space creeps up alongside again, and, pointing to a large stone building which has now become visible at the base of a mountain on the other side of the Euphrates, timidly ventures upon the explanation that it is the Armenian Gregorian Monastery of Sup Ogwanis (St. John). Finding me more favorably disposed to listen than before, he explains that he himself is an Armenian, is acquainted with the priests of the monastery, and is going to remain there over night; he then proposes that I accompany him thither, and do likewise. I am, of course, only too pleased at the prospect of experiencing something out of the common, and gladly avail myself of the opportunity; moreover, monasteries and religious institutions in general, have somehow always been pleasantly associated in my thoughts as inseparable accompaniments of orderliness and cleanliness, and I smile serenely to myself at the happy prospect of snowy sheets, and scrupulously clean cooking.

Crossing the Euphrates on a once substantial stone bridge, now in a sadly dilapidated condition, that was doubtless built when Armenian monasteries enjoyed palmier days than the present, we skirt the base of a compact mountain and in a few minutes alight at the monastery village. Exit immediately all visions of cleanliness; the village is in no wise different from any other cluster of mud hovels round about, and the rag-bedecked, flea-bitten objects that come outside to gaze at us, if such a thing were possible, compare unfavorably even with the Dele Baba Koords. There is apparent at once, however, a difference between the respective dispositions of the two peoples: the Koords are inclined to be pig-headed and obtrusive, as though possessed of their full share of the spirit of self-assertion; the Sup Ogwanis people, on the contrary, act like beings utterly destitute of anything of the kind, cowering beneath one’s look and shunning immediate contact as though habitually overcome with a sense of their own inferiority. The two priests come out to see the bicycle ridden; they are stout, bushy-whiskered, greasy-looking old jokers, with small twinkling black eyes, whose expression would seem to betoken anything rather than saintliness, and, although the Euphrates flows hard by, they are evidently united in their enmity against soap and water, if in nothing else; in fact, judging from outward appearances, water is about the only thing concerning which they practise abstemiousness. The monastery itself is a massive structure of hewn stone, surrounded by a high wall loop-holed for defence; attached to the wall inside is a long row of small rooms or cells, the habitations of the monks in more prosperous days; a few of them are occupied at present by the older men.; At 5.30 P.M., the bell tolls for evening service, and I accompany my guide into the monastery; it is a large, empty-looking edifice of simple, massive architecture, and appears to have been built with a secondary purpose of withstanding a siege or an assault, and as a place of refuge for the people in troublous times; containing among other secular appliances a large brick oven for baking bread. During the last war, the place was actually bombarded by the Russiaus in an effort to dislodge a body of Koords who had taken possession of the monastery, and from behind its solid walls, harassed the Russian troops advancing toward Erzeroum. The patched up holes made by the Russians’ shots are pointed out, as also some light earthworks thrown up on the Russian position across the river. In these degenerate days one portion of the building is utilized as a storehouse for grain; hundreds of pigeons are cooing and roosting on the crossbeams, making the place their permanent abode, passing in and out of narrow openings near the roof; and the whole interior is in a disgustingly filthy condition. Rude fresco representations of the different saints in the Gregorian calendar formerly adorned the walls, and bright colored tiles embellished the approach to the altar. Nothing is distinguishable these days but the crumbling and half-obliterated evidences of past glories; both priests and people seem hopelessly sunk in the quagmire of avariciousness and low cunning on the one hand, and of blind ignorance and superstition on the other. Clad in greasy and seedy-looking cowls, the priests go through a few nonsensical manosuvres, consisting chiefly of an ostentatious affectation of reverence toward an altar covered with tattered drapery, by never turning their backs toward it while they walk about, Bible in hand, mumbling and sighing. My self-constituted guide and myself comprise the whole congregation during the “services.” Whenever the priests heave a particularly deep- fetched sigh or fall to mumbling their prayers on the double quick, they invariably cast a furtive glance toward me, to ascertain whether I am noticing the impenetrable depth of their holiness. They needn’t be uneasy on that score, however; the most casual observer cannot fail to perceive that it is really and truly impenetrable – so impenetrable, in fact, that it will never be unearthed, not even at the day of judgment. In about ten minutes the priests quit mumbling, bestow a Pharisaical kiss on the tattered coverlet of their Bibles, graciously suffer my jack-booted companion to do likewise, as also two or three ragamuffins who have come sneaking in seemingly for that special purpose, and then retreat hastily behind a patch-work curtain; the next minute they reappear in a cowlless condition, their countenances wearing an expression of intense relief, as though happy at having gotten through with a disagreeable task that had been weighing heavily on their minds all day.

We are invited to take supper with their Reverences in their cell beneath the walls, which they occupy in common. The repast consists of yaort and pillau, to which is added, by way of compliment to visitors, five salt fishes about the size of sardines. The most greasy-looking of the divines thoughtfully helps himself to a couple of the fishes as though they were a delicacy quite irresistible, leaving one apiece for us others. Having created a thirst with the salty fish, he then seizes what remains of the yaort, pours water into it, mixes it thoroughly together with his unwashed hand, and gulps down a full quart of the swill with far greater gusto than mannerliness. Soon the priests commence eructating aloud, which appears to be a well-understood signal that the limit of their respective absorptive capacities are reached, for three hungry-eyed laymen, who have been watching our repast with seemingly begrudging countenances, now carry the wooden tray bodily off into a corner and ravenously devour the remnants. Everything about the cell is abnormally filthy, and I am glad when the inevitable cigarettes are ended and we retire to the quarters assigned us in the village. Here my companion produces from some mysterious corner of his clothing a pinch of tea and a few lumps of sugar. A villager quickly kindles a fire and cooks the tea, performing the services eagerly, in anticipation of coming in for a modest share of what to him is an unwonted luxury. Being rewarded with a tiny glassful of tea and a lump of sugar, he places the sweet morsel in his mouth and sucks the tea through it with noisy satisfaction, prolonging the presumably delightful sensation thereby produced to fully a couple of minutes. During this brief indulgence of his palate, a score of his ragged co- religionists stand around and regard him with mingled envy and covetousness; but for two whole minutes he occupies his proud eminence in the lap of comparative luxury, and between slow, lingering sucks at the tea, regards their envious attention with studied indifference. One can scarcely conceive of a more utterly wretched people than the monastic community of Sup Ogwanis; one would not be surprised to find them envying even the pariah curs of the country. The wind blows raw and chilly from off the snowy slopes of Ararat next morning, and the shivering, half-clad-wretches shuffle off toward the fields and pastures, – with blue noses and unwilling faces, humping their backs and shrinking within themselves and wearing most lugubrious countenances; one naturally falls to wondering what they do in the winter. The independent villagers of the surrounding country have a tough enough time of it, worrying through the cheerless winters of a treeless and mountainous country; but they at least have no domestic authority to obey but their own personal and family necessities, and they consume the days huddled together in their unventilated hovels over a smouldering tezek fire; but these people seem but helpless dolts under the vassalage of a couple of crafty-looking, coarse-grained priests, who regard them with less consideration than they do the monastery buffaloes. Eleven miles over a mostly ridable trail brings me to the large village of Dyadin. Dyadin is marked on my map as quite an important place, consequently I approach it with every assurance of obtaining a good breakfast. My inquiries for refreshments are met with importunities of bin bacalem, from five hundred of the rag-tag and bobtail of the frontier, the rowdiest and most inconsiderate mob imaginable. In their eagerness and impatience to see me ride, and their exasperating indifference to my own pressing wants, some of them tell me bluntly there is no bread; others, more considerate, hurry away and bring enough bread to feed a dozen people, and one fellow contributes a couple of onions. Pocketing the onions and some of the bread, I mount and ride away from the madding crowd with whatever despatch is possible, and retire into a secluded dell near the road, a mile from town, to eat my frugal breakfast in peace and quietness. While thus engaged, it is with veritable savage delight that I hear a company of horsemen go furiously galloping past; they are Dyadin people endeavoring to overtake me for the kindly purpose of worrying me out of my senses, and to prevent me even eating a bite of bread unseasoned with their everlasting gabble. Although the road from Dyadin eastward leads steadily upward, they fancy that nothing less than a wild, sweeping gallop will enable them to accomplish their fell purpose; I listen to their clattering hoof-beats dying away in the dreamy distance, with a grin of positively malicious satisfaction, hoping sincerely that they will keep galloping onward for the next twenty miles. No such happy consummation of my wishes occurs, however; a couple of miles up the ascent I find them hobnobbing with some Persian caravan men and patiently awaiting my appearance, having learned from the Persians that I had not yet gone past. Mingled with the keen disappointment of overtaking them so quickly, is the pleasure of witnessing the Persians’ camels regaling themselves on a patch of juicy thistles of most luxuriant growth; the avidity with which they attack the great prickly vegetation, and the expression of satisfaction, utter and peculiar, that characterizes a camel while munching a giant thistle stalk that protrudes two feet out of his mouth, is simply indescribable.

>From this pass I descend into the Aras Plain, and, behold the gigantic form of Ararat rises up before me, seemingly but a few miles away; as a matter of fact it is about twenty miles distant, but with nothing intervening between myself and its tremendous proportions but the level plain, the distance is deceptive. No human habitations are visible save the now familiar black tents of Koordish tribesmen away off to the north, and as I ride along I am overtaken by a sensation of being all alone in the company of an overshadowing and awe-inspiring presence. One’s attention seems irresistibly attracted toward the mighty snow-crowrned monarch, as though,the immutable law of attraction were sensibly exerting itself to draw lesser bodies to it, and all other objects around seemed dwarfed into insignificant proportions. One obtains a most comprehensive idea of Ararat’s 17,325 feet when viewing it from the Aras Plain, as it rises sheer from the plain, and not from the shoulders of a range that constitutes of itself the greater part of the height, as do many mountain peaks. A few miles to the eastward is Little Ararat, an independent conical peak of 12,800 feet, without snow, but conspicuous and distinct from surrounding mountains; its proportions are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by the nearness and bulkiness of its big brother. The Aras Plain is lava-strewn and uncultivated for a number of miles; the spongy, spreading feet of innumerable camels have worn paths in the hard lava deposit that makes the wheeling equal to English roads, except for occasional stationary blocks of lava that the animals have systematically stepped over for centuries, and which not infrequently block the narrow trail and compel a dismount. Evidently Ararat was once a volcano; the lofty peak which now presents a wintry appearance even in the hottest summer weather, formerly belched forth lurid flames that lit up the surrounding country, and poured out fiery torrents of molten lava that stratified the abutting hills, and spread like an overwhelming flood over the Aras Plain. Abutting Ararat on the west are stratiform hills, the strata of which are plainly distinguishable from the Persian trail and which, were their inclination continued, would strike Ararat at or near the summit. This would seem to indicate the layers to be representations of the mountain’s former volcanic overflowings. I am sitting on a block of lava making an outline sketch of Ararat, when a peasant happens along with a bullock-load of cucumbers which he is taking to the Koordish camps; he is pretty badly scared at finding himself all alone on the Aras Plain with such a nondescript and dangerous-looking object as a helmeted wheelman, and when I halt him with inquiries concerning the nature of his wares he turns pale and becomes almost speechless with fright. He would empty his sacks as a peace-offering at my feet without venturing upon a remonstrance, were he ordered to do so; and when I relieve him of but one solitary cucumber, and pay him more than he would obtain for it among the Koords, he becomes stupefied with astonishment; when he continues on his way he hardly knows whether he is on his head or his feet. An hour later I arrive at Kizil Dizah, the last village in Turkish territory, and an official station of considerable importance, where passports, caravan permits, etc., of everybody passing to or from Persia have to be examined. An officer here provides me with refreshments, and while generously permitting the population to come in and enjoy the extraordinary spectacle of seeing me fed, he thoughtfully stations a man with a stick to keep them at a respectful distance. A later hour in the afternoon finds me trundling up a long acclivity leading to the summit of a low mountain ridge; arriving at the summit I stand on the boundary-line between the dominions of the Sultan and the Shah, and I pause a minute to take a brief, retrospective glance. The cyclometer, affixed to the bicycle at Constantinople, now registers within a fraction of one thousand miles; it has been on the whole an arduous thousand miles, but those who in the foregoing pages have followed me through the strange and varied experiences of the journey will agree with me when I say that it has proved more interesting than arduous after all. I need not here express any blunt opinions of the different people encountered; it is enough that my observations concerning them have been jotted down as I have mingled with them and their characteristics from day to day; almost without exception, they have treated me the best they knew how; it is only natural that some should know how better than others. Bidding farewell, then, to the land of the Crescent and the home of the unspeakable Osmanli, I wheel down a gentle slope into a mountain-environed area of cultivated fields, where Persian peasants are busy gathering their harvest. The strange apparition observed descending from the summit of the boundary attracts universal attention; I can hear them calling out to each other, and can see horsemen come wildly galloping from every direction. In a few minutes the road in my immediate vicinity is alive with twenty prancing steeds; some are bestrode by men who, from the superior quality of their clothes and the gaudy trappings of their horses, are evidently in good circumstances; others by wild-looking, barelegged bipeds, whose horses’ trappings consist of nothing but a bridle. The transformation brought about by crossing the mountain ridge is novel and complete; the fez, so omnipresent throughout the Ottoman dominions, has disappeared, as if by magic; the better class Persians wear tall, brimless black hats of Astrakan lamb’s wool; some of the peasantry wear an unlovely, close- fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far from feeling. The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually cloth of a solid, dark color, and among the ryots or peasantry, of calico or any cheap fabric they can obtain. Loose-fitting pantaloons of European pattern, and sometimes top-boots, with tops ridiculously ample in their looseness, characterize the nether garments of the better classes; the ryots go mostly bare-legged in summer, and wear loose, slipper-like foot- gear; the soles of both boots and shoes are frequently pointed, and made to turn up and inwards, after the fashion in England centuries ago.

Nightfall overtakes me as, after travelling several miles of variable road, I commence following a winding trail down into the valley of a tributary of the Arasces toward Ovahjik, where resides the Pasha Khan, to whom I have a letter; but the crescent-shaped moon sheds abroad a silvery glimmer that exerts a softening influence upon the mountains outlined against the ever-arching dome, from whence here and there a star begins to twinkle. It is one of those. beautiful, calm autumn evenings when all nature seems hushed in peaceful slumbers; when the stars seem to first peep cautiously from the impenetrable depths of their hiding-place, and then to commence blinking benignantly and approvingly upon the world; and when the moon looks almost as though fair Luna has been especially decorating herself to embellish a scene that without her lovely presence would be incomplete. Such is my first autumn evening beneath the cloudless skies of Persia.

Soon the village of Ovahjik is reached, and some peasants guide me to the residence of the Pasha Khan. The servant who presents my letter of introduction fills the untutored mind of his master with wonderment concerning what the peasants have told him about the bicycle. The Pasha Khan makes his appearance without having taken the trouble to open the envelope. He is a dull-faced, unintellectual-lookiug personage, and without any preliminary palaver he says: “Bin bacalem,” in a dictatorial tone of voice. “Bacalem yole lazim, bacalem saba,” I reply, for it is too dark to ride on unknown ground this evening. ” Bin bacalem, ” repeats the Pasha Khan, even more dictatorial than before, ordering a servant to bring a tallow candle, so that I can have no excuse. There appears to be such a total absence of all consideration for myself that I am not disposed to regard very favorably or patiently the obtrusive meddlesomeness of two younger men-whom I afterward discover to be sons of the Pasha Khan – who seem almost inclined to take the bicycle out of my charge altogether, in their excessive impatience and inordinate inquisitiveness to examine everything about it. One of them, thinking the cyclometer to be a watch, puts his ear down to see if he can hear it tick, and then persists in fingering it about, to the imminent danger of the tally-pin. After telling him several times not to meddle with it, and receiving overbearing gestures in reply, I deliberately throw him backward into an irrigating ditch. A gleam of intelligence overspreads the stolid countenance of the Pasha Khan at seeing his offspring floundering about on his back in the mud and water, and he gives utterance to a chuckle of delight. The discomfited young man betrays nothing of the spirit of resentment upon recovering himself from the ditch, and the other son involuntarily retreats as though afraid his turn was coming next. The servant now arrives with the lighted candle, and the Pasha Kahn leads the way into his garden, where there is a wide brick-paved walk; the house occupies one side of the garden, the other three sides are inclosed by a high mud wall. After riding a few times along the brick-paved walk, and promising to do better in the morning. I naturally expect to be taken into the house, instead of which the Pasha Khan orders the people to show me the way to the caravanserai. Arriving at the caravanserai, and finding myself thus thrown unexpectedly upon my own resources, I inquire