From the Deveh Boyun to Erzerum must be a distance of several miles, since, although we rode at a rapid trot, we did not reach the city in less than fifty minutes. Two facts, which were unexpected, became clear as we proceeded. In the first place, the position is by no means so strong as it might appear, even to a near view, from the eastern side. There is at least one, and there are probably more than one passage between the mound and the northern wall of the plain. This circumstance, and the peculiar character of the ground on the west of the barrier, which is broken up into precipitous heights, are in favour of the attack, in so far as they necessitate the employment of a considerable defensive force. The second surprise was perhaps more personal; I had formed the conception of a transverse parapet leading immediately into the plain of Erzerum. But the parapet is succeeded by the broken ground of which I have spoken, and of which the heights are crowned with batteries. The road is taken along the face and among the recesses of the southern barrier; and you are already above the picturesque site of the famous fortress before you overlook the full expanse of the level land. We arrived within the enclosure of the circumvallation at a few minutes before three. [176] CHAPTER IX ERZERUM We rode through empty spaces, littered with ruin and refuse, haunted by miserable and filthy dogs, to a street of some width, bordered by substantial stone houses, down the incline of which we checked the pace of our mounts. It leads to the north-eastern quarter of the city--a quarter which is numerously inhabited by Christians, and where are situated the Consulates of the European Powers, notably those of Great Britain, France and Russia. The British Consulate is housed in a small but comfortable residence at the northerly extremity of the street. There we were received with emotion by the principal dragoman--an Armenian with a handsome, frank and engaging face, whose curly black hair had become tinged with grey. I had not seen the excellent Yusuf for many a long year, not since the time when he used to delight the fancy of childhood with dainty boxes, or the figures of various animals, which he would fashion with exquisite skill in a kind of silver wire--an art practised by the silversmiths of the East. What tales he would tell us in England of this distant Erzerum! We used, as children, to try and realise the features of the scenes of which he spoke--the great Mesopotamian deserts, the encampments of the Arabs, the khans on the roads to the highlands in which the traveller rested, the mountains and the snow-clad plains. Alas! for the powers of description; how different it all looked, when after many years these various landscapes were successively unfolded before the eyes! Yet they spoke to the very soul of the child grown to manhood, perhaps reviving hidden germs in the lengthy process of heredity, or