For the Asiatic tour I have invented a “bicycle tent” — a handy contrivance by which the bicycle is made to answer the place of tent poles.  The material used is fine, strong sheeting, that will roll up into a small space, and to make it thoroughly water-proof, I have dressed it with boiled linseed oil.  My footgear henceforth will be Circassian moccasins, with the pointed toes sticking up like the prow of a Venetian galley.  I have had a pair made to order by a native shoemaker in Galata, and, for either walking or pedalling, they are ahead of any foot-gear I ever wore; they are as easy as a three-year-old glove, and last indefinitely, and for fancifulness in appearance, the shoes of civilization are nowhere.  Three days before starting out I receive friendly warnings from both the English and American consul that Turkey in Asia is infested with brigands, the former going the length of saying that if he had the power he would refuse me permission to meander forth upon so risky an undertaking.  I have every confidence, however, that the bicycle will prove an effectual safeguard against any undue familiarity on the part of these frisky citizens.  Since reaching Constantinople the papers here have published accounts of recent exploits accomplished by brigands near Eski Baba.  I have little doubt but that more than one brigand was among my highly interested audiences there on that memorable Sunday.

The Turkish authorities seem to have made themselves quite familiar with my intentions, and upon making application for a teskere (Turkish passport) they required me to specify, as far as possible, the precise route I intend traversing from Scutari to Ismidt, Angora, Erzeroum, and beyond, to the Persian frontier.  An English gentleman who has lately travelled through Persia and the Caucasus tells me that the Persians are quite agreeable people, their only fault being the one common failing of the East:  a disposition to charge whatever they think it possible to obtain for anything.  The Circassians seem to be the great bugbear in Asiatic Turkey.  I am told that once I get beyond the country that these people range over — who are regarded as a sort of natural and half-privileged freebooters — I shall be reasonably safe from molestation.  It is a common thing in Constantinople when two men are quarrelling for one to threaten to give a Circassian a couple of medjedis to kill the other.  The Circassian is to Turkey what the mythical “bogie” is to England; mothers threaten undutiful daughters, fathers unruly sons, and everybody their enemies generally, with the Circassian, who, however, unlike the “bogie” of the English household, is a real material presence, popularly understood to be ready for any devilment a person may hire him to do.