alive with twenty prancing steeds; some are bestrode by men who, from the superior quality of their clothes and the gaudy trappings of their horses, are evidently in good circumstances; others by wild-looking, barelegged bipeds, whose horses’ trappings consist of nothing but a bridle.  The transformation brought about by crossing the mountain ridge is novel and complete; the fez, so omnipresent throughout the Ottoman dominions, has disappeared, as if by magic; the better class Persians wear tall, brimless black hats of Astrakan lamb’s wool; some of the peasantry wear an unlovely, close-fitting skullcap of thick gray felt, that looks wonderfully like a bowl clapped on top of their heads, others sport a huge woolly head-dress like the Roumanians; this latter imparts to them a fierce, war-like appearance, that the meek-eyed Persian ryot (tiller of the soil) is far from feeling.  The national garment is a sort of frock-coat gathered at the waist, and with a skirt of ample fulness, reaching nearly to the knees; among the wealthier class the material of this garment is usually cloth of a solid, dark color, and among the ryots or peasantry, of calico or any cheap fabric they can obtain.  Loose-fitting pantaloons of European pattern, and sometimes top-boots, with tops ridiculously ample in their looseness, characterize the nether garments of the better classes; the ryots go mostly bare-legged in summer, and wear loose, slipper-like foot-gear; the soles of both boots and shoes are frequently pointed, and made to turn up and inwards, after the fashion in England centuries ago.

Nightfall overtakes me as, after travelling several miles of variable road, I commence following a winding trail down into the valley of a tributary of the Arasces toward Ovahjik, where resides the Pasha Khan, to whom I have a letter; but the crescent-shaped moon sheds abroad a silvery glimmer that exerts a softening influence upon the mountains outlined against the ever-arching dome, from whence here and there a star begins to twinkle.  It is one of those. beautiful, calm autumn evenings when all nature seems hushed in peaceful slumbers; when the stars seem to first peep cautiously from the impenetrable depths of their hiding-place, and then to commence blinking benignantly and approvingly upon the world; and when the moon looks almost as though fair Luna has been especially decorating herself to embellish a scene that without her lovely presence would be incomplete.  Such is my first autumn evening beneath the cloudless skies of Persia.

Soon the village of Ovahjik is reached, and some peasants guide me to the residence of the Pasha Khan.  The servant who presents my letter of introduction fills the untutored mind of his master with wonderment concerning what the peasants have told him about the bicycle.  The Pasha Khan makes his appearance without having taken the trouble to open the envelope.  He is a dull-faced, unintellectual-lookiug personage, and without any preliminary palaver he says: