with the library.  Were it not for this a comparatively short and easy journey would take them to Tiflis, from which point there would be steam communication with Europe.  Ere the poor lady gets to Trebizond she will be likely to reflect that a government so civilized as the Czar’s might relax its gloomy laws sufficiently to allow the affixing of official seals to a box of books, and permit its transportation through the country, on condition-if they will-that it should not be opened in transit; surely there would be no danger of the people’s minds being enlightened -not even a little bit-by coming in contact with a library tightly boxed and sealed.  At the frontier an escort of Turkish zaptiehs will take the place of the Persian soldiers, and at Erzeroum the missionaries will, of course, render her every assistance to Trebizond; but it is not without feelings of anxiety for the health of a lady travelling in this rough manner unaccompanied by her natural protector, that I reflect on the discomforts she must necessarily put up with between here and Erzeroum.  She seems in good spirits, however, and says that meeting me here in this extraordinary manner is the “most romantic” incident in her whole experiences of missionary life in Persia.  Like many another, she says, she can I scarcely conceive it possible that I am travelling without attendants and without being able to speak the languages.  One of the unattached travellers gives me a note of introduction to Mohammed.  Ali Khan, the Governor of Peri, a suburban village of Khoi, which I expect to reach some time this afternoon.

CHAPTER XIX.

PERSIA AND THE TABREEZ CARAVAN TRAIL.

A short trundle to the summit of a sloping pass, and then a winding descent of several miles brings me to a position commanding a view of an extensive valley that looks from this distance as lovely as a dreamy vision of Paradise.  An hour later and I am bowling along beneath overhanging peach and mulberry trees, following a volunteer horseman to Mohammed Ali Khan’s garden.  Before reaching the garden a gang of bare-legged laborers engaged in patching up a mud wall favor me with a fusillade of stones, one of which caresses me on the ankle, and makes me limp like a Greenwich pensioner when I dismount a minute or two afterward.  This is their peculiar way of complimenting a lone Ferenghi.  Mohammed Ali Khan is found to be rather a moon-faced individual under thirty, who, together with his subordinate officials, are occupying tents in a large garden.  Here, during the summer, they dispense justice to applicants for the same within their jurisdiction, and transact such other official business as is brought before them.  In Persi, the distribution of justice consists chiefly in the officials ruthlessly looting the applicants of everything lootable, and the weightiest task of the officials is intriguing together against the pocket