could not exactly make out. But after all,
perhaps, I should only have looked like an old coat
turned and well brushed, but with something
worn about the seams and button-holes. Alas!
too, one's feet get bulbous, and one's hands
look like unstarched muslin, and the flesh is no
longer elastic. Nevertheless, in the first blush
of my triumphant exit from the bath, I would
much rather that Reason had kept all these
disagreeable truths to herself. Still, when I sum up
my sensations calmly, I find I have been a
considerable gainer, for although I am well aware that
I came out of the bath much dirtier than I went
into it—as one does also from a Turkish bath
taken in Turkey—and that it has cost me two
hours, part of my skin, and a headache, yet I
know all the news of the town, and the bathman
has flattered me so adroitly that I go
away with a satisfactory idea of my own
importance.

The remarkable change I have noticed in my
personal appearance, was produced, partly by
the action of string and cobbler's-wax on my
beard, partly by the famous Persian hair-dye,
the receipt for which I obtained, by the kindness
of a medical friend, from the Shah's Anderoon,
and I will impart it, in the strictest confidence,
to any member of the public who may choose
to ask me for it; for it is too complicated and
abstruse to be printed in a non-scientific journal.
Let me return, for the present, to my trusty
retainer.

Mehemet Beg is a good man according to his
lights. He would not touch a drop of brandy,
even when seized one day with cholera, on a
wild mountain side, with no help near. Yet he
had a peculiar horror of sickness, and took the
simple remedy which I substituted out of my
medicine-chest with tears of gratitude. His
selfishness on ordinary occasions, and the wily
ways in which he contrives to gratify it, are
very amusing. If I pick out some nice shady
place for breakfast before he is hungry himself,
he will shake his head gravely, and tell me that
it is impossible to stop there. If I persist, he
will immediately invent some extraordinary story
about robbers, or wild beasts. Nothing will ever
persuade him to order the breakfast until he is
hungry himself. One day when I was riding a
little too fast for him, and had disregarded a
gentle hint he had given me to go slower, he
dashed suddenly up to my bridle-rein, exclaiming,
"Stop!" impressively, and looking
wistfully round. We were on the wild frontier lands,
and I knew that parties of marauding Kurds
were moving about the country, so I halted, at
once, unbuckled my holsters, and shading my
eyes with my hand, tried to find out from what
quarter danger might be expected. Meantime,
the Gholaum took out his pipe, lighted it, and
deliberately smoked it out. Then asking me
for a draught of cold tea, he rode on without
further comment.

Meshed Kerrim (the Pilgrim Kerrim) is a
very different sort of person. He is my Nozzir,
or chief servant. He is a fine man, of grave
imposing appearance, and of solemn speech
nothing would induce him to smile, or to speak
three sentences consecutively. The man is a
cheat, but a serious respectable sort of cheat—
the most provoking and irritating cheat of all.
Money entrusted to him for the expenses of the
road always disappears in some unaccountable
manner. His accounts never balance,
and he seems to consider it extraordinary
that any one should expect them to balance.
Here follows a verbatim report of a
conversation respecting ten pounds which I gave to
him.

"What! More money again to-day, Kerrim!
What have you done with the money you had
yesterday?"

Kerrim, bowing abjectly, sideways, and with
a face of preternatural solemnity, answers, " I
have lent it."

"To whom?"

Kerrim vaguely, as if not understanding the
question, " I was in the service of Mr. Smith
for fifteen years."

"Well, well; I know that, but that is nothing
to do with the ten pounds I gave you yesterday.
What have you done with it?"

"I have got it in my bosom."

"Then why do you ask for more?"

"Because there is none left. By Allah and
all the prophets, there is none left."

"Then why did you say you had it in your
bosom?"

"What should I have said?"

"The truth. If you have not got the money
in your bosom or anywhere else, give some
account of it?"

"I have served Mr. Smith fifteen years."

This is all the account I ever got of my ten
pounds.

There are endless quarrels about precedence,
between my servants and those of a gentleman
who is travelling with me. They have
serious fights among themselves as to who shall
enter first after dinner, with pipes.

The Persians are essentially a dirty people,
and Persian servants are dirtier than the rest
of their countrymen. I am obliged, therefore,
to have a Christian cook—for there is no
trusting a Persian artist, and Persian servants
will not have an Armenian among them. This
cook is a Pole. He is the boldest rider I ever
saw, and seems quite unconscious of danger,
though his horses have not a leg to stand upon.
He is always galloping about at a furious pace,
and there is quite a job to catch him when
one wants to have dinner. When caught, he is
a pleasant, good-humoured, tumble-down sort of
fellow, whose only idea of cooking is to cram
as much meat and vegetables into a tin pot as it
will hold, and then let it boil till called for. He
serves this mess half raw, or done to rags, as
the case may be, in the saucepan in which it
was cooked, and calls it " Istu." Upon this
dainty fare I had dined for some ten or twelve
days, and was rather wishing for a change of
diet when I got to Erzeroom. It was with a
keen appetite and a very agreeable expectation,
therefore, that I prepared to avail myself of an