In the evening a telegram arrived from the Pacha at Scutari. It was to the effect that nothing had been heard of my horse; however, so soon as the animal was found he should be sent after me. This would have been useless. There was no rail beyond Ismid, and I intended to start the following morning. In consequence of this, I wrote to a friend at the British Embassy, to ask him, in the event of the horse being found, to have the animal sold at the market in Constantinople. Meantime I sent Osman to hire a post-horse to carry my baggage as far as Sabanja, a small village about twenty miles from Ismid, and on the road to Angora. Just as we were leaving Ismid, two Zaptieh or mounted police rode up. They had been ordered by the Pacha to escort me as far as Sabanja. Smart-looking fellows they were, too, with light blue jackets, red trousers, and Hessian boots. Each of them carried a repeating-rifle slung across his shoulder. Revolvers were stuck in the crimson sashes which encircled their waists. Short scimitars, but with no hilt-guards to protect the hand, were slung from their sword-belts. It is singular that the Turkish military authorities, who have adopted the modern armament in so far as fire-arms are concerned, should be still so backward in the manufacture of swords. A cavalry soldier armed with a Turkish sword without a hilt-guard would have very little chance if engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with a dragoon supplied with one of our own weapons. After riding for about half an hour in the direction of Sabanja, Radford—who was leading a pack-horse, remarked to Osman,— "What have you done with the post-horse?" The Turk did not understand the question. When it was interpreted to him, he replied,— "The animal is in front with the Zaptieh." As it is always as well to put a Turk's statement to the test, I determined to trot on ahead and look for myself. The Zaptieh had not seen the horse. It appeared that after loading him, Osman had started the animal, much in the same way as an Irishman does a pig, with the object of driving him before our party. We now all dispersed in different directions, and finally, after a two hours' search, discovered the animal tied up by the side of a Khan, an old woman who had observed the horse wandering about having attached him to a post. The track now became much worse than anything I had previously seen. In many places there were quite four feet of mud. It reached our horses' girths, and with the greatest difficulty we were able to force a passage. Presently we came to a hollow in the path. Here a cart drawn by four oxen was at a standstill. The bullocks, with only their necks and shoulders out of the mud, gazed plaintively before them. The two drivers had taken off their trousers and under-clothes; their shirts were tucked up to their armpits; they waded through the black slime, and goaded the bullocks forward.