I was awakened by the wife early in the morning; her man yet slumbered. She herself carried out the small luggage to the carriage, and then two or three villagers turned out and loaded up the heavy things. Last of all the headman appeared, and, as we drove away, the sound of his rough hearty farewells rang in my ears. These were the first Kurds I met, the outposts of a great race, that covers 125,000 square miles of mountain in Turkey and Persia, and who, despite the fact that their outlying tribes are but fourteen days distant from London, are the least known of any Middle Eastern race; albeit they are one of the bravest, most independent, and intelligent of all, cursed only by the black mark of the blood-feud, and a terrible propensity to brigandage. The way to our next station was across an undulating plain peopled by Armenians, and sedentary Kurds of the Milli tribes. For miles and miles we rolled along between ploughed lands, where the grain was just beginning to send its green spikes above earth. From the north a keen wind came at a temperature obviously lowered by the snow on the hills, about whose shoulders rags of cloud were beginning to collect, to drench the land and the travellers therein but a few days later. In fact, rain had already fallen by the afternoon--when we found ourselves upon a dreary and immense plain of mud, sticky, clayey soil, into which the wheels and the horses sank. Our station, Charmelik, was visible in the far distance, a distance we seemed never to be able to reduce, for the sticky prospect spread out on all sides, and our speed was about half a mile an hour. Sudden showers began to fly round the country. One could count them as they descended from the hills, and progressing swiftly--columns of dark rain descending from dense black cloud-centres--did the round of the soaked plains, and apparently returned to the mountains and the solid mass of cloud that hung about them. [Sidenote: CHARMELIK] However, we did arrive at Charmelik at sunset, and put up in a little room. The village is a Kurdish one, and talk among the inhabitants was mostly of Ibrahim Pasha, the famous robber chief who held this country in terror for so long. So bad a character was he, this outlaw (who adopted his trade in revenge for the Turkish treachery that brought his father to a miserable end), that Kurd and Arab alike disclaimed him; Kurd asserting that he was Arab, and Arab calling him Kurd. The body of ruffians and thieves that joined him were of every class--Turk, Armenian, Kurd, and Arab. All served under his standard, and by his disregard for the property of any tribe or people he drew upon himself the enmity of his own kinsmen, the Milli Kurds.