"The one true God, and Jesus Christ His Son."
"We worship the one true God, and worship Him through Mohammed His Prophet. But Mohammedans dislike idols and all that sort of thing, quite as much as you do."
The following morning the Caimacan was up at daybreak to see me off. He accompanied us a little way on the road. The moon was throwing her pale beams on the old citadel as we rode beneath the turrets. In a few minutes we crossed the Euphrates on a narrow wooden bridge, and, continuing for a short distance over mountains, came again upon the valley of the river. Here there were green fields in abundance. The country in summer-time is said to be rich in corn and barley. Hundreds of cattle and sheep, grazing on some rich pasture-lands, testified to the wealth of the inhabitants.
It was an eleven hours' march to Erzingan. By the time we neared that city our horses showed symptoms of being thoroughly exhausted. Indeed, there was no reason to be surprised at this. They had marched a thousand miles since we left Constantinople. The last two hundred miles had been exceptionally fatiguing, not only on account of the snow and constant mountain-climbing, but also owing to our high elevation and the rarefied nature of the atmosphere. Radford was weak, and from being a fourteen-stone man had come down to about eleven. His clothes hung on his wasted limbs. Some rest would be absolutely necessary to enable him to reach Erzeroum.
The road became much better as we entered the suburbs of Erzingan, and, to my surprise, I was met by a man in a four-wheeled chaise. He announced that he was the intendant of Issek Pacha, the governor of Sivas. The governor had written to him to say that I had promised to reside in his house during my stay at Erzingan. A servant advanced and took my horse; I dismounted, and getting into the vehicle, drove to the Pacha's residence.
Some pretty Armenian women were standing on the roofs of their houses. They were not so particular about veiling themselves as their compatriots in Sivas. They stared at the procession with wondering eyes. The Pacha's carriage was not often seen in the streets of Erzingan. It was the only vehicle of the kind within an area of 150 miles. It was only brought out on state occasions, religious ceremonies, or when some very important visitor arrived. This was quite enough to set the ladies in Erzingan on the qui-vive; the European dresses of my servant and self whetted their curiosity still more.
Erzingan is different to either Egin or Arabkir, both of which towns are built upon the sides of a mountain. Erzingan stands in the middle of a large plain, the Kara Su—Black Water—as the Euphrates is here called, running through the plain a few miles south of the city.
I now made the acquaintance of a very intelligent Turk. He was an officer with the rank of major, but employed as the superintendent of a large manufactory, which had been established to supply the troops in Asia Minor with boots. He had spent three years in France, where he had studied everything connected with the trade in question. In addition to this he was a fair chemist and mineralogist.
He informed me that there were ebony forests in the neighbourhood of Erzeroum. A great deal of this wood used formerly to be bought by Armenian merchants and despatched to France. Of late years this branch of industry has been neglected. Iron, silver, and gold, could be found here, but the people were much too idle to search for these metals. The lead-mines were worked to a small extent by the Kurds. These mountaineers required this substance for bullets and shot. The lead in the towns of Asia Minor was all brought from Constantinople. It was, consequently, very dear; this had led the Kurds to make use of the metal beneath their feet. According to my informant, there is coal of a good quality in the neighbourhood of Kemach. However, the peasantry do not like the idea, that this mineral may some day replace wood as an article of fuel. Cutting down trees is easy work in comparison with mining. The villagers do their best to keep the people in the towns from burning coal; and they make their livelihood by bringing firewood from the mountains, and selling it at a large profit to the citizens.
The Government take twenty per cent. of the net produce of all mines which are worked in Anatolia, and only two-and-a-half per cent. from the price fetched by sheep, oxen, and horses in the market. The result is that the people think it more profitable, and less laborious to breed cattle, than to dig in the earth for treasure.