of a thousand hearts by deciding to start, the happy crowd deserting half-smoked nargilehs, rapidly swallowing tiny cups of scalding-hot coffee in their anxiety lest I vault into the saddle at the door of the khan and whisk out of their sight in a moment — an idea that is flitting through the imaginative mind of more than one Turk present, as a natural result of the stories his wife has heard from his neighbor’s wife, whose sister, from the roof of her house, saw me ride around the vacant space at the mudir’s request yesterday.  The Oriental imagination of scores of wondering villagers has been drawn upon to magnify that modest performance into a feat that fills the hundreds who didn’t see it with the liveliest anticipations, and a murmuring undercurrent of excitement thrills the crowd as the word goes round that I am about to start.  A minority of the people learned yesterday that I wouldn’t ride across the stones, water-ditches, and mud-holes of the village streets, and these at once lead the way, taking upon themselves the office of conducting me to the road leading to the Kara Su Pass; while the less enlightened majority press on behind, the more restless spirits worrying me to ride, those of more patient disposition maintaining a respectful silence, but wondering why on earth I am walking.

The road they conduct me to is another of those ancient stone causeways that traverse this section of Asia Minor in all directions.  This one and several others I happen to come across are but about three feet wide, and were evidently built for military purposes by the more enterprising people who occupied Constantinople and the adjacent country before the Turks-narrow stone pathways built to facilitate the marching of armies during the rainy season when the natural ground hereabout is all but impassable.  These stone roads were probably built during the Byzantine occupation.  Fairly smooth mule-paths lead along-side this relic of departed greatness and energy, and the warm sun having dried the surface, I mount and speed away from the wondering crowd, and in four miles reach the foot of the Kara Su Pass.  From this spot I can observe a small caravan, slowly picking its way down the mountain; the animals are sometimes entirely hidden behind rocks, as they follow the windings and twistings of the trail down the rugged slope which the old Turk this morning thought would make me puff to climb.

A little stream called the Kara Su, or black water, comes dancing out of a rocky avenue near by; and while I am removing my foot-gear to ford it, I am joined by several herdsmen who are tending flocks of the celebrated Angora goats and the peculiar fat-tailed sheep of the East, which are grazing on neighboring knolls.  These gentle shepherds are not overburdened with clothing, their nakedness being but barely covered; but they wear long sword-knives and old flint-lock, bell-mouthed horse-pistols that give them a ferocious appearance that seems strangely at variance with their