May 28th.—A very disagreeable incident occurred last night, a musket-ball whizzed close past the sentry on duty near the guard-house. Investigations were made and the inhabitants handed over a Turkish solider this morning, who said that in jumping over a wall he had awkwardly let fall his gun, which fired itself. The culprit is arrested. During our evening ride along the line of the fortifications, a bullet flew past me and made my horse start. The misunderstanding explained itself. The Cossacks of our escort were ready to retaliate, when it proved to be simply a Russian officer who, shooting at a target, did not perceive that his bullets passed over the ramparts. All the same it is evident that I stood in imminent danger of being shot through the body, and feel myself trained up in war now, having experienced the baptism of fire, which is a very peculiar feeling, indeed! May 29th.—Troubles have arisen again. There has been a fresh underhand musket-shot which took place in town this morning. This time the ball lodged itself in the wall of a house inhabited by one of our functionaries. A group of “imams” from different parts of Erzeroum were gathered, and the order was given to them to find out the culprit, under the threat of making the whole Mussulman quarter responsible for his misdeed, and to deliver him immediately into the hands of the Russian authorities, as also all the fire-arms that the Turkish government had dealt out to the inhabitants during the blockade of Erzeroum. The “imams” listened woefully to the proclamation of that severe decree, and presented, a few hours later as culprit, the single Christian inhabitant of their quarter; it is quite evident that they accuse him wrongfully. There came a telegram to-day which announced that a ratification of peace was going to be opened in Berlin on the 12th of June. That’s a new gleam of hope that we shall soon leave Erzeroum. I have often heard military bands playing in the streets of Erzeroum, but they generally executed funeral marches, whilst platoons of soldiers accompanied their chiefs, victims of the terrible epidemic, to their last dwelling-place, and one can easily conceive my joy when I perceived from my window the first detachment destined to reinforce our army, entering Erzeroum this morning, preceded by a military band. The Mussulmans must be very much annoyed to see our troops increasing, as up till now the number of our soldiers diminished every day. May 30th.—The Persian Consul presented Sergy with the portrait of the Shah and a piece of poetry which states that this portrait is given to the Russian governor of Erzeroum in token of gratitude for his kindness to the Persian inhabitants.