On arriving at Trebizond our traveller continued his route by land; and here he began to experience something of danger. There was no proceeding singly through the country. Every road was beset with robbers; and, in order to protect their persons and property, men congregated together into caravans, small moving polities, the members of which were temporarily bound to each other by a sense of common danger. Every man went armed, as in an enemy’s country. On this occasion Tournefort remarks, that there would be less danger in traversing the wild parts of America than such countries as Turkey: for that the savages, or those independent tribes whom we persist in regarding as such, never fell upon any but their enemies; while in civilized and semi-barbarous countries, robbers make no distinctions of this kind, being the declared enemies of every person possessing property. And as for the cannibal propensities of the former, he does not imagine that they greatly alter the case; for when a poor wretch has been murdered, he does not perceive how it can make any great difference to him whether he be eaten by men, or left naked in the fields to be devoured by birds or wild beasts. However, the caravan in which Tournefort travelled being commanded by the pasha in person, the robbers fled from it with as much celerity as they followed others, for every one who was caught had his head instantly struck off without the least delay or ceremony. This salutary rigour, which those who tasted of the tranquillity it produced were very far from blaming, enabled the whole party to move on perfectly at their ease; and as great men accompanied by their harems seldom move with any great celerity, our Franks enjoyed ample leisure for observing the face of the country, and collecting all such curious plants as nature had sown in the vicinity of their route. Tournefort greatly admired the spectacle presented by the caravan when in motion. Horses, camels, mules, some laden with merchandise, others bestrode by the rude warriors or merchants of the East, others bearing a species of cages said to contain women, but which, says our traveller, with evident chagrin, might as well have contained monkeys as reasonable creatures.