We found Erzerum in a condition verging upon famine. During my residence several people died of inanition, and the poorer classes were only just alive. I was informed that there was no lack of grain in the place; but it was all in the hands of merchants, and they refused to sell except at famine prices. A short harvest in 1892 had been followed by insufficient sowing, owing to the consumption of the seed for food. Grain was said to be lying at Trebizond on Government account; but the officials pleaded that they were unable to obtain transport. Some of them, if not all, were no doubt confederates of the Corn Ring. The same state of things was prevalent at Van; and throughout our journey we had great difficulty in obtaining barley for our horses, even when offering exorbitant prices. One may present some conception of the acuteness of the sufferings of the townspeople by recording some particulars of prices and wages. Wheat was selling at 50 piasters a kilé, or about 2 1/2 piasters an oke (2 3/4 lbs.). The price of bread was 2 piasters an oke. A healthy man requires at least three-quarters of an oke of bread a day, in addition to his ration of sheep's tail or meat sausage, of which the working classes lay in a provision in the autumn. The wages of a carpenter or skilled labourer are in good times 8 piasters a day. But hundreds of workmen were seeking employment at 1 1/2 piasters, and the best paid among the makers of cigarettes for the régie were receiving a daily wage of 2 piasters. Rice at Erzerum is quite a luxury, and potatoes are so little grown that they may be left out of account. How was a man to pay for his lodging, provide food for his family and himself, and obtain tezek, or cow-dung cakes, for his fire upon the current wages? I was shown the kind of bread upon which the majority were living; it looked like a thin pancake, and its staple consisted of a black grain or seed. But the principal ingredient was mud and chopped straw. The cruelty of the situation was accentuated by the fact that all kinds of comestibles were spread out upon the booths of the bazar. One regretted the absence of the glass windows of our shops. Here the temptation might be touched as well as seen. There is no poor-law, and no poor-houses. People starve in the streets. A Mussulman girl of great beauty came to our house, and begged piteously for food, showing her face. We endeavoured to obtain for her a place as servant in the residence of some Turkish ladies. But it was well known that there was many a brute in Erzerum who, like the Spectre of Hunger in the pregnant lines of Alfred de Musset, demanded kisses as the price of a piece of bread.