We left Erzeroum on March 31, intending to catch the Messageries steamer _Simois_, which was due to leave Trebizond on April 10, and fancying that by giving ourselves ample time we would have three or four days in Trebizond to recruit before going on board. However, we reckoned without our host, or on this occasion, to speak more accurately, without our guest--the lady. She spoke every continental language except English with equal facility, and her vocabulary in each was surprisingly extensive. Day and night for one consecutive fortnight her shrill falsetto voice poured forth a never failing stream of complaint and invective, abuse and lamentation in half a dozen languages. What she suffered no one knew except herself, although this was not her fault, to be sure, for she lost no opportunity of imparting the information, sometimes in Spanish, and when she had exhausted the resources of that noble language in the slang of half the capitals of Europe. We found too late that our doña had not been cast in the heroic mould. She had never learnt how beautiful it is to suffer--and be silent. A few miles from Erzeroum we came to the village of Ilidja, which was occupied by the Russians; and there we halted for half an hour, and had a glass of wine with a party of jovial officers, who were keeping up their spirits as well as they could in the lonely, God-forsaken place. On a dunghill in the village we counted eleven dead Russians; so we guessed that the typhus was not confined to Erzeroum. When we got to Purnekapan, we camped for the night in the town, intending to make an early start, so as to negotiate the Kopdagh Pass before the sun spoiled the road. An unexpected difficulty, however, presented itself, for our Persian headman refused to go on, declaring that it was necessary to rest his horses for a day. In vain did we cojole, threaten, or bully him. He had come under the spell of a fixed idea, and nothing that we could say seemed to have the slightest effect upon his diseased intelligence. But at last I found a way to move him. There was a Turkish regiment in the village, and I sought an interview with the colonel, who had heard something about our work, and was very well disposed towards us. Tapping the butt of his revolver significantly, he suggested to the Persian that it was high time to start, and the hint was accepted with alacrity. However, all this had taken time, and before we left the foot of the mountain and began the ascent it was eleven o'clock, and the sun's rays were ruining the track.