always remain an uncertainty.  I am afraid, however, that with the advantage on their side, the Koordish herdsmen rarely trouble themselves about any such uncongenial task as peace-making.  Reaching the smooth ground before any of the new-comers overtake me, I mount and speed away, followed by wild yells from a dozen Koordish throats, and chased by a dozen of their dogs.  Upon sober second thought, when well away from the vicinity, I conclude this to have been a rather ticklish incident; had they attacked me in the absence of anything else to defend myself with, I should have been compelled to shoot them; the nearest Persian village is about ten miles distant; the absence of anything like continuously ridable road would have made it impossible to out-distance their horsemen, and a Persian village would have afforded small security against a party of enraged Koords, after all.  The first village I arrive at to-day, I again attempt the “skedaddling” dodge on them that proved so successful on one occasion yesterday; but I am foiled by a rocky “jump-off” in the road to-day.  The road is not so favorable for spurting as yesterday, and the racing ryots grab me amid much boisterous merriment ere * I overcome the obstruction; they take particular care not to give me another chance until the arrival of the Khan.  The country hereabouts consists of gravelly, undulating plateaus between the mountains, and well-worn camel-paths afford some excellent wheeling.  Near mid-day, while laboriously ascending a long but not altogether unridable ascent, I meet a couple of mounted soldiers; they obstruct my road, and proceed to deliver themselves of voluble Tabreez Turkish, by which I understand that they are the advance guard of a party in which there is a Ferenghi (the Persian term for an Occidental).  While talking with them I am somewhat taken by surprise at seeing a lady on horseback and two children in a kajaveh (mule panier) appear over the slope, accompanied by about a dozen Persians.

If I am surprised, the lady herself not unnaturally evinces even greater astonishment at the apparition of a lone wheelman here on the caravan roads of Persia; of course we are mutually delighted.  With the assistance of her servant, the lady alights from the saddle and introduces herself as Mrs. E—­, the wife of one of the Persian missionaries; her husband has lately returned home, and she is on the way to join him.  The Persians accompanying her comprise her own servants, some soldiers procured of the Governor of Tabreez by the English consul to escort her as far as the Turkish frontier, and a couple of unattached travellers keeping with the party for company and society.  A mule driver has charge of pack-mules carrying boxes containing, among other things, her husband’s library.  During the course of ten minutes’ conversation the lady informs me that she is compelled to travel in this manner the whole distance to Trebizond, owing to the practical impossibility of passing through Bussian territory