with “my friend Burnaby, whose tragic death in the Soudan will never cease to make me feel unhappy.”  Suleiman Effendi appears to be remarkably intelligent, compared with many Asiatics, and, moreover, of quite a practical turn of mind; he inquires what I should do in case of a serious break-down somewhere in the far interior, and his curiosity to see the bicycle is not a little increased by hearing that, notwithstanding the extreme airiness of my strange vehicle, I have had no serious mishap on the whole journey across two continents.  Alluding to the bicycle as the latest product of that Western ingenuity that appears so marvellous to the Asiatic mind, he then remarks, with some animation, “The next thing we shall see will be Englishmen crossing over to India in balloons, and dropping down at Angora for refreshments.”  A uniformed servant now announces that the Vali is at liberty, and waiting to receive us in private audience.  Following the attendant into another room, we find Sirra Pasha seated on a richly cushioned divan, and upon our entrance he rises smilingly to receive us, shaking us both cordially by the hand.  As the distinguished visitor of the occasion, I am appointed to the place of honor next to the governor, while Mr. Binns, with whom, of course, as a resident of Angora, His Excellency is already quite well acquainted, graciously fills the office of interpreter, and enlightener of the Vali’s understanding concerning bicycles in general, and my own wheel and wheel journey in particular.  Sirra Pasha is a full-faced man of medium height, black-eyed, black-haired, and, like nearly all Turkish pashas, is rather inclined to corpulency.  Like many prominent Turkish officials, he has discarded the Turkish costume, retaining only the national fez; a head-dress which, by the by, is without one single merit to recommend it save its picturesqueness.  In sunny weather it affords no protection to the eyes, and in rainy weather its contour conducts the water in a trickling stream down one’s spinal column.  It is too thin to protect the scalp from the fierce sun-rays, and too close-fitting and close in texture to afford any ventilation, yet with all this formidable array of disadvantages it is universally worn.

I have learned during the morning that I have to thank Sirra Pasha’s energetic administration for the artificial highway from Keshtobek, and that he has constructed in the vilayet no less than two hundred and fifty miles’ of this highway, broad and reasonably well made, and actually macadamized in localities where the necessary material is to be obtained.  The amount of work done in constructing this road through so mountainous a country is, as before mentioned, plainly out of all proportion to the wealth and population of a second-grade vilayet like Angora, and its accomplishment has been possible only by the employment of forced labor.  Every man in the whole vilayet is ordered out to work at the road-making a certain number of