At the third village after leaving the sons of the Pasha Khan, my Tartar- eyed escort, with much garrulous injunction to his successor, delivers me over to another soldier, himself returning back; this is my favorable opportunity, and soon after leaving the village I bid my valiant protector return. The man seems totally unable to comprehend why I should order him to leave me, and makes an elaborate display of his pantomimic abilities to impress upon me the information that the country ahead is full of very bad Koords, who will kill and rob me if I venture among them unprotected by a soldier.

The expressive action of drawing the finger across the throat appears to be the favorite method of signifying personal danger among all these people; but I already understand that the Persians live in deadly fear of the nomad Koords. Consequently his warnings, although evidently sincere, fall on biased ears, and I peremptorily order him to depart. The Tabreez trail is now easily followed without a guide, and with a sense of perfect freedom and unrestraint, that is destroyed by having a horseman cantering alongside one, I push ahead, finding the roads variable, and passing through several villages during the day.

The chief concern of the ryots is to detain me until they can bring the resident Khan to see me ride, evidently from a servile desire to cater to his pleasure. They gather around me and prevent my departure until he arrives. An appeal to the revolver will invariably secure my release, but one naturally gets ashamed of threatening people's lives even under the exasperating circumstances of a forcible detention. Once to-day I managed to outwit them beautifully. Pretending acquiescence in their proposition of waiting till the arrival of their Khan, I propose mounting and riding a few yards for their own edification while waiting; in their eagerness to see they readily fall into the trap, and the next minute sees me flying down the road with a swarm of bare-legged ryots in full chase after me, yelling for me to stop.

Fortunately, they have no horses handy, but some of these lanky fellows can run like deer almost, and nothing but an excellent piece of road enables me to outdistance my pursuers. Wily as the Persians are, compared to the Osmanlis, one could play this game on them quite frequently, owing to their eagerness to see the bicycle ridden; but it is seldom that the road is sufficiently smooth to justify the attempt. I was gratified to learn from the Persian consul at Erzeroum that my stock of Turkish would answer me as far as Teheran, the people west of the capital speaking a dialect known as Tabreez Turkish; still, I find quite a difference. Almost every Persian points to the bicycle and says: "Boo; ndmi ndder. " ("This; what is it?") and it is several days ere I have an opportunity of finding out exactly what they mean. They are also exceedingly prolific in using the endearing term of kardash when accosting me.

The distance is now reckoned by farsakhs (roughly, four miles) instead of hours; but, although the farsakh is a more tangible and comprehensive measurement than the Turkish hour, in reality it is almost as unreliable to go by. Towards evening I ascend into a more mountainous region, inhabited exclusively by nomad Koords; from points of vantage their tents are observable clustered here and there at the bases of the mountains. Descending into a grassy valley or depression, I find myself in close proximity to several different camps, and eagerly avail myself of the opportunity to pass a night among them. I am now in the heart of Northern Koordistan, which embraces both Persian and Turkish territory, and the occasion is most opportune for seeing something of these wild nomads in their own mountain pastures.

The greensward is ridable, and I dismount before the Sheikh's tent in the presence of a highly interested and interesting audience. The half-wild dogs make themselves equally interesting in another and a less desirable sense as I approach, but the men pelt them with stones, and when I dismount they conduct me and the bicycle at once into the tent of their chieftain. The Sheikh's tent is capacious enough to shelter a regiment almost, and it is divided into compartments similar to a previous description; the Sheikh is a big, burly fellow, of about forty-five, wearing a turban the size of a half-bushel measure, and dressed pretty much like a well-to-do Turk; as a matter of fact, the Koords admire the Osmanlis and despise the Persians. The bicycle is reclined against a carpet partition, and after the customary interchange of questions, a splendid fellow, who must be six feet six inches tall, and broad-shouldered in proportion, squats himself cross-legged beside me, and proceeds to make himself agreeable, rolling me cigarettes, asking questions, and curiously investigating anything about me that strikes him as peculiar.

I show them, among other things, a cabinet photograph of myself in all the glory of needle-pointed mustache and dress-parade apparel; after a critical examination and a brief conference among themselves they pronounce me an "English Pasha." I then hand the Sheikh a set of sketches, but they are not sufficiently civilized to appreciate the sketches; they hold them upside down and sidewise; and not being able to make anything out of them, the Sheikh holds them in his hand and looks quite embarrassed, like a person in possession of something he doesn't know what to do with. Noticing that the women are regarding these proceedings with much interest from behind a low partition, and not having yet become reconciled to the Mohammedan idea of women being habitually ignored and overlooked, I venture upon taking the photograph to them; they seem much confused at finding themselves the object of direct attention, and they appear several degrees wilder than the men, so far as comprehending such a product of civilization as a photograph is an indication. It requires more material objects than sketches and photos to meet the appreciation of these semi- civilized children of the desert.

They bring me their guns and spears to look at and pronounce upon, and then my stalwart entertainer grows inquisitive about my revolver. First extracting the cartridges to prevent accident, I hand it to him, and he takes it for the Sheikh's inspection. The Sheikh examines the handsome little Smith & Wesson long and wistfully, and then toys with it several minutes, apparently reluctant about having to return it; finally he asks me to give him a cartridge and let him go out and test its accuracy. I am getting a trifle uneasy at his evident covetousness of the revolver, and in this request I see my opportunity of giving him to understand that it would be a useless weapon for him to possess, by telling him I have but a few cartridges and that others are not procurable in Koordistan or neighboring countries. Recognizing immediately its uselessness to him under such circumstances, he then returns it without remark; whether he would have confiscated it without this timely explanation, it is difficult to say.

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Adapted from Thomas Stevens, Around the World on a Bicycle