Next morning we pushed on as fast as we could, crossed the Euphrates at midday, and at five o'clock in the afternoon we reached Erzeroum. As we entered the town we naturally expected to find the Russians in possession of the town; but we could see no trace of the well known uniforms, and gradually it dawned upon us that Sir Arnold Kemball had been misinformed when he told us that the long expected Russian assault had already been delivered. We went straight to the British Consulate, and called upon Mr. Zohrab, our consul, who gave us a most cordial reception, and informed us of the position in the town, which was certainly serious. About a week before our arrival a desperate attack had been made by the Russians, who had taken one of the forts, and the Turks lost two thousand men in killed and wounded. Consequently the hospital resources were taxed to the utmost, although in addition to the Turkish medical staff there were several English doctors in Erzeroum before we got there. Lord Blantyre had sent up a number of English doctors at his own expense; but the total strength of the medical staff had been depleted by various accidents. Dr. Casson and Dr. Buckle, for instance, had been taken prisoners, and were then in the hands of the Russians; Dr. Guppy had died of typhoid fever about a week before we got there; and the available surgeons were Charles Fetherstonhaugh, James Denniston, whom I had known before in Edinburgh, and John Pinkerton. We took up our quarters with these three, in the great bare house where they lived without any furniture except a table and a couple of benches. There were no beds, so we slept on the floor; and our by no means luxurious meals were cooked for us by an Armenian named David whose son Siropé, commonly called Jonathan, acted as waiter and general factotum. As soon as we were installed we had time to look round, and my first impression of Erzeroum was a very favourable one. I found that we had come to a very picturesque town, lying under the lee of a range of mountains which rose to a height of six thousand feet, the town itself being about four thousand feet above the sea level. A remarkable feature about the place was the entire absence of timber, which I noticed at once with the apprehension of an old campaigner who knew the value of a supply of fuel and the horrible discomfort of being without it. I found that the nearest timber was seventy miles away, where the great forest of Soghanli Dagh was situated. There were very few trees in the town, and the mountains were great masses of bare rock, without a trace of vegetation to hide their cold nakedness. Under these circumstances the inhabitants relied for fuel principally on dried camel's dung, which was a most precarious source of supply.