This lengthy stay, followed as it was by two subsequent visits, has made me feel quite at home with the subject of this chapter. And the fact that I have approached Erzerum from the three directions in which it is most accessible, from the east, from the west and from the south, enables me to speak, in so far as a civilian traveller may judge such a question, of the strategical importance of a city which is probably destined to play a leading part in any future struggle between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires. For an Englishman this side of the subject has a special interest; since the possession by Russia of this strong place would mean her control of the head waters of the Euphrates, which issues in the Persian Gulf. It is a maxim of peculiar appropriateness to such a country as Asia that he who is master of the sources of a river is master of the lands through which it flows. On the other hand, such an event would closely affect all Europe; for there would then exist no important barrier between the Asiatic provinces of Russia and the shores of the Bosphorus. Indeed Erzerum resumes in herself the importance of Turkish Armenia as a factor in the world movements of the near future. Mistress of this spot of ground, Russia is mistress of these vast provinces. It is plainly the duty of a writer who has enjoyed the advantages which I have mentioned, not indeed to pander to the feeling of blind animosity against Russia, but to place his readers in possession of the essential facts, in the hope that at least they may not be taken unawares by any advance of the northern empire in this direction.