month, and that the summer is warm without being oppressive. The river swarms with fish, which the people take no trouble to catch, and boats are not used.
We went about and looked at the motley groups and playing children, beggars in rags, khojas in white and seids in green turbans, hajis and dervishes, citizens, soldiers, and officers, in dark blue or red uniforms with large bright brass buttons, curved sabres, and red fezes with black tassels, veiled ladies riding and driving,—a kaleidoscope of corners and goers, and of ever-new groups all rich in colouring.
A cannon-shot booms over the houses, sunset is come, and people hurry to the evening meal after the day's fast. My cicerone, who walks with a cigarette behind his ear to have it at hand, makes use of the first torch which flares up before the echo of the shot dies away among the mountains. Now oil lamps are lighted on the minarets and in the open shops and booths of the meidan, and the Mohammedans gather to their longed-for supper.
We sit down in my balcony and listen to the roar of the river and the sounds of the Ramazan evening, and see in darkening shadows two streams of traffic pass over the bridge, a Galata bridge in miniature. Over this bridge runs the great important artery between Trebizond and Tabriz, nay, between Constantinople and Teheran, the famous old caravan route which served Northern Persia before the Caucasian railway was built. Compared to the Grand Trunk Road in India, it is quite insignificant in our days ; but the life, with its Oriental colouring which is bound up with and dependent on the road itself, has the same magical and fascinating character as there. It is the great road for the arabas, or carts, with their occupants —Turkish men and women ; the way for the carriages of officers, officials, and merchants ; for horses, asses, and mules, when the caravans carry groceries to the interior, and corn, wool, and hides to the coast ; it is the highway for the creaking ox-carts and buffalo waggons, and an excellent riding-path for couriers who carry letters in two days from Trebizond to Erzerum. But above all it is the grand route of camel and dromedary caravans to and from
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