"I am an Armenian," he answered. "I have a travelling theatre. We want to get to Diarbekr, and have been waiting here for weeks for an opportunity to join a caravan; the road is so unsafe that no one dares pass this way now, and if we do not go with you we may be here for months yet. You will start at seven to-morrow morning, and we shall do thirteen hours to K——."
"We shall start when it suits us," I replied, "and stop when we have a mind. We never travel more than eight hours, and shall not do the regular stages to Diarbekr. We shall be three days on the way."
"You must go in two days," he persisted; "we cannot afford to be so long on the road."
I began to get angry.
"Go away, strange young man," I said, "and don't bother me any more."
"I will have everything ready," he said.
"You may make your own arrangements for yourself," I rejoined, "if you wish to follow us on the road. It is a public way, but understand that we have nothing to do with you. We start when we like, stop when we wish, ride our own animals, and call our souls our own."
"My soul is Christian," he said anxiously, as I moved off; "are you not my sister?"
"Young man," I said sternly, "we may be brothers and sisters in spirit, and we may be travelling along the same road to heaven; but please understand that we travel to Diarbekr on our own horses and not in our sisters' arabas."
Next morning we left the khan at sunrise, and outside the town we found the whole of the Armenian theatre party ready to accompany us. A covered araba concealed the mother and daughters: we caught glimpses of tawdry garments and towzled heads. Another araba was piled with stage scenery and cooking-pots. Three or four men were riding mules and there were an equal number on foot. The men were dressed in flimsy cotton coats, showing bright green or red waistcoats underneath, and tight trousers in loud check patterns; they wore Italian bandit-looking hats, and their shirts seemed to end in a sort of frill round the neck, suggesting the paper which ornaments the end of a leg of mutton. The whole get-up seemed singularly inappropriate as they plunged ankle deep through the mud. Patches of snow lay in the hollows of the road; a furious gale was driving sleet at right angles into our faces; it was bitterly cold.