bicycle over the ground I have traversed between here and Ismidt, I find the tough work interlarded with a sufficiency of novel and interesting phases to make the occupation congenial.  Upon dismounting at Tereklu, I find myself but little fatigued with the day’s exertions, and with a view to obtaining a little peace and freedom from importunities to ride after supper, I gratify Asiatic curiosity several times before undertaking to allay the pangs of hunger — a piece of self-denial quite commendable, even if taken in connection with the idea of self-protection, when one reflects that I had spent the day in severe exercise, and had eaten since morning only a piece of bread.

Not long after my arrival at Tereklu I am introduced to another peculiar and not unknown phase of the character of these people, one that I have sometimes read of, but was scarcely prepared to encounter before being on Asian soil three days.  From some of them having received medical favors from the medicine chest of travellers and missionaries, the Asiatics have come to regard every Frank who passes through their country as a skilful physician, capable of all sorts of wonderful things in the way of curing their ailments; and immediately after supper I am waited upon by my first patient, the mulazim of the Tereklu zaptiehs.  He is a tall, pleasant-faced fellow, whom I remember as having been wonderfully courteous and considerate while I was riding for the people before supper, and he is suffering with neuralgia in his lower jaw.  He comes and seats himself beside me, rolls a cigarette in silence, lights it, and hands it to me, and then, with the confident assurance of a child approaching its mother to be soothed and cured of some ailment, he requests me to cure his aching jaw, seemingly having not the slightest doubt of my ability to afford him instant relief.  I ask him why he don’t apply to the hakim (doctor) of his native town.  He rolls another cigarette, makes me throw the half-consumed one away, and having thus ingratiated himself a trifle deeper into my affections, he tells me that the Tereklu hakim is “fenna; " in other words, no good, adding that there is a duz hakim at Gieveh, but Gieveh is over the Kara Su dagh.  At this juncture he seems to arrive at the conclusion that perhaps I require a good deal of coaxing and good treatment, and, taking me by the hand, he leads me in that affectionate, brotherly manner down the street and into a coffee-Maw, and spends the next hour in pressing upon me coffee and cigarettes, and referring occasionally to his aching jaw.  The poor fellow tries so hard to make himself agreeable and awaken my sympathies, that I really begin to feel myself quite an ingrate in not being able to afford him any relief, and slightly embarrassed by my inability to convince him that my failure to cure him is not the result of indifference to his sufferings.