54 OVERLAND TO INDIA CHAP.
affairs of France under the superintendence of the consul, and the French consul was the same M. Grenard who took part in the unfortunate journey of Dutreuil de Rhins in I Tibet. In M. Srabyan's large chancellery a comfortable room was prepared for my use ; and after a thorough and j very necessary renovation of my outer man I paid visits to /I the Russian consul, General Skriabin ; the English consul, Shipley ; and the governor-general or vali of the Erzerum vilayet, Nazim Pasha, a perfect gentleman, who spoke • excellent French and had received orders from Constanti- • nople to provide me with an escort of six troopers for the journey through the insecure Kurdish borderlands. While M we were sitting in his house the Persian consul and his a" two secretaries came to call, and thus I had an opportunity of making acquaintance with this potentate, whose visa for my passport was of great importance. Then we waited t on the American missionaries and their doctor, who took 21 in hand my wounded arabachi, whose head had swollen up from blood-poisoning after the blow he received from the
trooper. i
With M. Srabyan as guide I took a drive through the 11 narrow, picturesque, and singular streets of the town, where ~I the deep mire is mixed with refuse from the houses, and • homeless dogs act as scavengers. No verdure, no gardens, j only a poplar or willow or two relieve the mosaic of solid • stone houses with flat roofs. The Chift minaret is a m beautiful memorial of the Arab period, with pishtak façade ,j and two fluted towers, and the principal mosque, Uli- Jami, is an old Greek Orthodox church which was converted p by the Mohammedan conquerors into a temple of Islam. The town has 40,000 inhabitants, of whom a fourth are Armenians who own four churches and a school ; the rest are Turks with a few Kurds and Lazes. In the whole of the Erzerum vilayet, which is said to contain 646,000 1 inhabitants, 8o per cent are Mohammedans and 20 per ; cent Christians. The Turks have sixty mosques in the town, several dervish monasteries, a hospital, schools, and hammams or baths. Since 1864 the town has been surrounded by fortifications, and the most important forts are I Top-dagh and Kirimithi-dagh. The garrison may number
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