cries for assistance awakened Colonel E—­, who came to his rescue without taking the trouble to provide himself with a weapon.  The man, infuriated at the detection and the prospect of being captured and brought to justice, turned savagely on the consul, inflicting several severe wounds on the head, hands, and face.  The consul closed with him and threw him down, and called for his wife to bring his revolver.  The wretch now begged so piteously for his life, and made such specious promises, that the consul magnanimously let him up, neglecting-doubtless owing to his own dazed condition from the scalp wounds-to disarm him.  Immediately he found himself released he commenced the attack again, cutting and slashing like a demon, knocking the revolver from the consul’s already badly wounded hand while he yet hesitated to pull the trigger and take his treacherous assailant’s life.  The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it.  The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the robber, who, however, escaped and bolted up-stairs, followed by the servant with the sword.  The consul’s wife, with praiseworthy presence of mind, now appeared with a second revolver, which her husband grasped in his left hand, the right being almost hacked to pieces.  Dazed and faint with the loss of blood, and, moreover, blinded by the blood flowing from the scalp-wounds, it was only by sheer strength of will that he could keep from falling.  At this juncture the servant unfortunately appeared on the stairs, returning from an unsuccessful pursuit of the robber.  Mistaking the servant with the sword in his hand for the desperado returning to the attack, and realizing his own helpless condition, the consul fired two shots at him, wounding him with both shots.  The would-be murderer is now (September 3,1885), captured and in durance vile; the servant lies here in a critical condition, and the consul and his sorrowing family are en route to England.

Having determined upon resting here until Monday, I spend a good part of Friday looking about the city.  The population is a mixture of Turks, Armenians, Russians, Persians, and Jews.  Here.  I first make the acquaintance of a Persian tchai-khan (tea-drinking shop).  With the exception of the difference in the beverages, there is little difference between a tchai-khan and a Icahvay-lchan, although in the case of a swell establishment, the tchai-khan blossoms forth quite gaudily with scores of colored lamps.  The tea is served scalding hot in tiny glasses, which are first half-filled with loaf-sugar.  If the proprietor is desirous of honoring or pleasing a new or distinguished customer, he drops in lumps of sugar until it protrudes above the glass.  The tea is made in a samovar-a brass vessel, holding perhaps a gallon of water, with a hollow receptacle in the centre for a charcoal fire.  Strong tea is made in an ordinary queen’s-ware teapot that fits into the hollow; a small portion of this is poured into the glass, which is then filled up with hot water from a tap in the samovar.