Before reaching Erzeroum I have a narrow escape from what might have proved a serious accident. I meet a buffalo araba carrying a long projecting stick of timber; the sleepy buffaloes pay no heed to the bicycle until I arrive opposite their heads, when they - give a sudden lurch side wise, swinging the stick of timber across my path; fortunately the road happens to be of good-width, and by a very quick swerve I avoid a collision, but the tail end of the timber just brushes the rear wheel as I wheel past.

Soon after noon I roll into Erzeroum, or rather, up to the Trebizond gate, and dis-mount. Erzeroum is a fortified city of considerable importance, both from a commercial and a military point of view; it is surrounded by earthwork fortifications, from the parapets of which large siege guns frown forth upon the surrounding country, and forts are erected in several commanding positions round about, like watch-dogs stationed outside to guard the city. Patches of snow linger on the Palantokan Moiintains, a few miles to the south; the Deve Boyuu Hills, a spur of the greater Palantokans, look down on the city from the east; the broad valley of the West Euphrates stretches away westward and northward, terminating at the north in another mountain range.

Repairing to the English consulate, I am gratified at finding several letters awaiting me, and furthermore by the cordial hospitality extended by Yusuph Effendi, an Assyrian gentleman, the charg'e d'affaires of the consulate for the time being, Colonel E--, the consul, having left recently for Trebizond and England, in consequence of numerous sword-wounds received at the hands of a desperado who invaded the consulate for plunder at midnight. The Colonel was a general favorite in Erzeroum, and is being tenderly carried (Thursday, September 3, 1885) to Trebizond on a stretcher by relays of willing natives, no less than forty accompanying him on the road. Yusuph Effendi tells me the story of the whole lamentable affair, pausing at intervals to heap imprecations on the head of the malefactor, and to bestow eulogies on the wounded consul's character.

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Adapted from Thomas Stevens, Around the World on a Bicycle