there was no place left free from pine and berberis and juniper but the boulder-strewn bed of the river. At length we were able to pull our horses up an exceedingly steep track through the pine-woods, by which we emerged on to a grassy hill-side. Here by good fortune we found a party of Circassians, who were hauling their bullock wagons, heavily loaded with timber, over ways which we reckoned to be hard going even for our baggage animals. They directed us to Boran Dereh Keui. Before we had gone far we rounded a spur and the snowy peaks of Mount Argæus swam into our ken, set in the midst of the Anatolian plateau. Boran Dereh Keui is a Muhâjir village, that is to say, it is peopled by Circassian immigrants from the Caucasus. They have filled the valley of the Zamantî Su, and though they are not liked by the indigenous population, their coming has raised very sensibly the level of civilization. Forty years ago the Zamantî valley was innocent of any settled habitation; the nomad Avshars drove their flocks up to it in the summer, sowed scanty crops, and left before the first winter snows. Now it is all under the plough, and the Circassian villages, with their osier beds and neat vegetable gardens, are scattered thickly along it. Nomad life dies out in a cultivated country, and the Avshars are settling into villages, though their houses are not so well built, nor their gardens so well kept as those of the Circassians. The chief town of the district is ’Azîzîyeh. There we changed zaptiehs, and I sat in the konak while the necessary arrangements were being made and drank coffee with the officials. Presently there appeared one who was half a negro and told me his tale in the strong, guttural Arabic of the desert. He was a native of the Ḥejâz; he had wandered up into this country before there were any villages in it and had remained as a merchant. “It is very beautiful here,” said I. “Yes,” said he, “but the desert is different. I have not seen it for forty years.” And I understood what was in his heart.