We reached Erzeroum in the afternoon of November 24. The grim-looking old fortress was dimly perceptible from afar through the dry wintry mist, dominated by a background of hills rising considerably higher than the plateau upon which it is situated. As we drew near, our cavalcade careered along _ventre à terre_, the horses of our cavalry escort foaming and bleeding at the mouth as their riders urged them on at a furious pace in order to enable us to reach our destination before dark—the only instance in all our journey when I saw horses at all hardly used. Here, as later at Bitlis and Diarbekir, our arrival had been expected: the roofs of the houses were crowded with inhabitants—women and children among them—eager to obtain a sight of the remarkable visitors as our cortège drove past and proceeded through the narrow streets to our quarters at one of the public offices or konaks in the town. Our camp-beds were promptly fixed up and we could look for a few days’ rest after the exertions of our journey. Here we found ourselves in the interior of Asia. Professor Vambéry, visiting Erzeroum more than fifty years ago, gives a depressing description of the place. The houses were already built in Eastern fashion, the walls of stone and mud running irregularly in zigzag line, with windows looking out in the yard rather than the street, secret entrances, and other little things characteristic of Eastern houses.[8] “Evidences of the poverty of the inhabitants of Erzeroum meet the eye in whatever direction one may look. The dirt, the squalor, and the underground dwellings are unbearable. The smell of their food, which they cook by the fire made of a fuel called tezek (cattle dung), is especially loathsome.” This description tallies with our own experience. The hardships we had undergone—notably the unpalatable food spread out before us on the ground—quickened our longing to arrive at Erzeroum, which, to our imagination, fired by the contrast we expected it to offer to the places we had passed through, already presented itself in glowing colours. Dr. Hepworth and I had ceased to enjoy a meal long before we reached Erzeroum, and had it not been that M. Maximow, the Russian Consul, generously lent us his Armenian cook, who accompanied us during the remainder of our journey, we both might well have succumbed to its hardships. Footnote 8: “Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambéry.” London, 1890: p. 41.