of my experiences on the journey, instead of giving me credit for pluck, like other people, he merely inquires if I don’t recognize the protecting hand of Providence; native modesty prevents me telling the doctor of my valuable missionary work at Sivas.  After the doctor’s departure I wander forth into the bazaar to see what it looks like after dark; many of the stalls are closed for the day, the principal places remaining open being kahvay-khans and Armenian wine-shops, and before these petroleum lamps are kept burning; the remainder of the bazaar is in darkness.  I have not strolled about many minutes before I am corralled as usual by Armenians; they straightway send off for a youthful compatriot of theirs who has been to the missionary’s school at Kaizareah and can speak a smattering of English.  After the usual programme of questions, they suggest:  “Being an Englishman, you are of course a Christian,” by which they mean that I am not a Mussulman.  “Certainly,” I reply; whereupon they lug me into one of their wine-shops and tender me a glass of raki (a corruption of “arrack” — raw, fiery spirits of the kind known among the English soldiers in India by the suggestive pseudonym of “fixed bayonets").  Smelling the raki, I make a wry face and shove it away; thev look surprised and order the waiter to bring cognac; to save the waiter the trouble, I make another wry face, indicative of disapproval, and suggest that he bring vishner-su.  “Vishner-su” two or three of them sing out in a chorus of blank amazement; “Ingilis.  Christian? vishner-su.” they exclaim, as though such a preposterous and unaccountable thing as a Christian partaking of a non-intoxicating beverage like vishner-su is altogether beyond their comprehension.  The youth who has been to the Kaizareah school then explains to the others that the American missionaries never indulge in intoxicating beverages; this seems to clear away the clouds of their mystification to some extent, and they order vishner-su, eying me critically, however, as I taste it, as though expecting to observe me make yet another wry countenance and acknowledge that in refusing the fiery, throat-blistering raki I had made a mistake.

Nothing in the way of bedding or furniture is provided in the caravanserai rooms, but the proprietor gets me plenty of quilts, and I pass a reasonably comfortable night.  In the morning I obtain breakfast and manage to escape from town without attracting a crowd of more than a couple of hundred people; a remarkable occurrence in its way, since Erzingan contains a population of about twenty thousand.  The road eastward from Erzingan is level, but heavy with dust, leading through a low portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers.  To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side,