He said that he would be riding out himself directly to one of the border forts that covered an entry into his country, and asked if we would care to come. Wrexham and I said we should like very much to have a look at the country, but Forsyth announced that he intended to stop behind and learn something of the local language from Aryenis. He spent a very useful day, and when we came back he had long lists of words of some unknown language written out in Greek characters with the Greek equivalents. Aryenis was evidently a good scholar, and Forsyth is a born linguist. He picked up their language amazingly quickly. As he had thought, it was not Greek at base, though there were many Greek words interlarded, especially as spoken by the more educated. Much of the official written language was Greek, somewhat debased but comprehensible, and we discovered that a knowledge of the old tongue was a common possession of the upper classes, much as was Latin in mediæval Europe. He said the original language was quite unfamiliar to him, but had many and unmistakable traits pointing to its being some old Aryan dialect. After we had finished the morning meal, horses were brought round for us, little stocky animals of the class of a small heavy-weight polo pony. The bridles were of deep leather, with single reins and a snaffle bit. The saddles were merely quilted pads with leather surcingles, and rather narrow stirrups, but comfortable enough to ride on. The Sakae gave us the impression of a people to whom horses were a means of locomotion rather than a form of sport. But later we introduced polo, which was a _succès fou_ among the young bloods. As we rode out of the belt of trees surrounding the house and outbuildings, we had our first real view of the country, which seemed to consist of a succession of valleys and ridges of hill, some steep and rocky, others more rolling, and covered with trees and verdure. To our right lay hills, range after range climbing away to where the great snow-peaks filled the sky in the north, above the shimmering blue-grey slopes below. The air was cold and clear under the vivid blue sky, and a little breeze rustled the autumn foliage, splashes of warm colour in the bright sunshine. The track we followed sloped steadily down for a mile or so, and then up again on to a long ridge of hills higher than the ground we had left. To our left, beyond a long expanse of more or less open plain, dotted with fields and cultivation as far as eye could see, were masses of sharp-toothed hills, clustering higher and higher in the direction we had seen the gate. Stephnos pointed it out to us as the Shaman country. I suppose the near edge was thirty miles distant.