In the morning they search the village over to find the wherewithal to prepare me some tea before my departure.  Eight miles from the village I discover that four miles forward yesterday evening, instead of backward, would have brought me to a village containing a caravanserai.  I naturally feel a trifle chagrined at the mistake of having journeyed eight unnecessary miles, but am, perhaps, amply repaid by learning something of the utter simplicity of the villagers before their character becomes influenced by intercourse with more enlightened people.

My course now leads over a stony plain.  The wheeling is reasonably good, and I gradually draw away from the shore of Lake Ooroomiah.  Melon-gardens and vineyards are frequently found here and there across the plain; the only entrance to the garden is a hole about three feet by four in the high mud wall, and this is closed by a wooden door; an arm-hole is generally found in the wall to enable the owner to reach the fastening from the outside.  Investigating one of these fastenings at a certain vineyard I discover a lock so primitive that it must have been invented by prehistoric man.  A flat, wooden bar or bolt is drawn into a mortise-like receptacle of the wall, open at the top; the man then daubs a handful of wet clay over it; in a few minutes the clay hardens and the door is fast.  This is not a burglar-proof lock, certainly, and is only depended upon for a fastening during the temporary absence of the owner in the day-time.  During the summer the owner and family not infrequently live in the garden altogether.  During the forenoon the bicycle is the innocent cause of two people being thrown from the backs of their respective steeds.  One is a man carelessly sitting sidewise on his donkey; the meek-eyed jackass suddenly makes a pivot of his hind feet and wheels round, and the rider’s legs as suddenly shoot upward.  He frantically grips his fiery, untamed steed around the neck as he finds himself over-balanced, and comes up with a broad grin and an irrepressible chuckle of merriment over the unwonted spirit displayed by his meek and humble charger, that probably had never scared at anything before in all its life.  The other case is unfortunately a lady whose horse literally springs from beneath her, treating her to a clean tumble.  The poor lady sings out “Allah!” rather snappishly at finding herself on the ground, so snappishly that it leaves little room for doubt of its being an imprecation; but her rude, unsympathetic attendants laugh right merrily at seeing her floundering about in the sand; fortunately, she is uninjured.  Although Turkish and Persian ladies ride a la Amazon, a position that is popularly supposed to be several times more secure than side-saddles, it is a noticeable fact that they seem perfectly helpless, and come to grief the moment their steed shies at anything or commences capering about with anything like violence.