He was doubtless right. Asia Minor, like Spain, needs a threefold population to develop her natural wealth. Let foreign settlers go to Anatolia. Let them make railways throughout the country, it could supply the whole of Great Britain with corn, and the mines of coal and of other minerals would prove a source of immense wealth to the inhabitants. Later in the day we passed a Kurdish encampment. The Kurds all lived in circular black tents, and some women, with unveiled faces, rushed outside the dwellings to see the strangers pass. The Turkish authorities have great difficulty in collecting the taxes from this nomad race. Whenever the Kurds expect a visit from the tax-collector, they pack up their chattels and migrate to the mountains. Here they can place the Turkish officer at defiance, and only return to the plains when their spies have announced the enemy's departure. A few years ago the wealth of the Kurdish sheiks was very considerable; many of them owned twenty, and even thirty thousand sheep, besides large droves of horses, and numerous herds of cattle. The famine, however, which devastated the province, was as disastrous for the Kurds as for the Turks. It has left them in a wretched state of poverty. The Delidsche Ermak, a tributary of the Kizil Ermak, crossed our path. There was no bridge, and we had some difficulty in finding a ford. At last the marks of some horses' hoofs showed our guide the exact spot: riding into the stream—here about fifty yards wide—and with the water up to his horse's girths, he piloted us over in safety. The bottom of the river is firm. I was informed that the stream becomes very shallow during the summer months; the inhabitants can then cross it with their ox-carts. The village of Sekili is made up of twenty mud hovels. Our accommodation for the night was not of a luxurious kind. But after a long and tiring march a man speedily reconciles himself to circumstances. A fire was lit. Two old hens were stewing in the pot. A kettle full of tea simmered on the fire; and with a pipe after dinner, things looked a little brighter than at first. We next traversed a district abounding with salt. The soil sparkled in the sun. The crystal substance was visible for a considerable distance. Presently some Turkoman girls, with high, picturesque head-dresses, rode by us at a gallop: their merry laughter rang in the air as they passed. Soon afterward we came to their village, the habitations being nothing more or less than a few holes in the side of a hill. The Turkomans pronounce Turkish rather differently to the Turks. At first I had some little difficulty in making myself understood. Indeed, a man must be a polyglot to know all the languages spoken in Anatolia. Armenian, Greek, Circassian, Kurdish, Tartar, Persian, Georgian, and Arabic, besides Turkish, are heard within a radius of one hundred miles. The different sounds in these languages are very puzzling to a stranger who is trying to perfect himself in Turkish.