For adventure it certainly was. Our orders were {141} to march on Zinjan, where a few hundred Turks were said to be holding a post, defeat or disperse them, raise and train Persian levies, and, with these auxiliaries to aid us in the fighting line, push on to Tabriz, and, if possible, dispose of any Turks who might be inclined to dispute our entry into the capital of Azarbaijan. We had a Lewis gun, but no artillery. We had a medical officer, but scant medical and surgical stores; no ambulance or stretchers, but a couple of dhoolies, to each of which a mule was harnessed fore and aft. Baggage and supplies were cut down to a minimum, for the column, if such it could be termed, was to be self-supporting, and to live on the country, not always an easy task in the starving land of Persia. This British forlorn hope was led by Major Wagstaff of the Indian Army, an officer who had spent years in Persia attached to the South Persia Rifles, and had an intimate knowledge of the Persian as a fighter and as an intriguer. Wagstaff spoke the language of the country with great fluency, and knew all the tribes from Fars to Azarbaijan with the intimacy of an ethnological connoisseur. I remember that he held the Persian in high esteem, believed him to be courageous to a certain extent, honest according to his lights, and altogether possessing the makings of a soldier. But then Wagstaff was born an optimist! Our route lay due north from Hamadan to Zinjan, where it was intended that we should cut in on the {142} main Tabriz road that runs from Teheran by way of Kasvin. The Turks, too, had been active in this district lately. Small reconnoitring parties of them were said to have made their way down through Azarbaijan to the neighbourhood of Mianeh and Zinjan, in quest of supplies and military information. In a sense they were operating on favourable ground, for a large proportion of the inhabitants of Azarbaijan are of Turkish origin. They belong to the same race as the Turks on the north side of the Araxes (Russian-Persian frontier) who occupy the valley from Julfa to Erivan, and with whom those in Azarbaijan have blood ties.