"No, not always. In fact, more often with the daughter or wife of a friend."
"I should like to see a ball very much," observed my host.
"We had better go," said his mother, "it is getting late;" rising from the sofa, she made another very obsequious reverence, and left the room with her daughter-in-law.
The following day I rode to see the barracks. Arabkir is built in such a straggling fashion, that, although it only contains about 3000 houses, it extends for a distance of six miles. The houses are built on each side of a deep ravine. The streets, which are very precipitous, lead, in some instances, over the flat roofs of the dwellings. The latter were many of them built of stone, and an air of cleanliness prevailed throughout the town.
Large gardens, planted with all sorts of fruit-trees, surrounded the houses. Long avenues of mulberry-trees were to be met with in every direction.
I stopped for a few minutes at the prison, and, dismounting, walked into the building. There were only seven prisoners—six Turks and one Armenian—the latter for attempting to pass false money, the Mohammedans for robberies and debt.
The population in Arabkir is equally divided between the Turks and Armenians. It was very creditable to the latter that there should be only one Armenian in the gaol. By all accounts, there was very little crime in this district, and the prison of Arabkir would be often for weeks together without a single criminal within its walls.
We arrived at the barracks, a square building, with long dormitories for the troops, and which were fairly clean. It contained at the time of my visit 500 redif (reserve) soldiers. They were shortly to start for Erzeroum. There were quarters for three times that number of troops, and another battalion was expected very shortly.
The men had not received their uniform. It was to be given to them at Erzeroum; they were clad for the most part in rags and tatters, and had been armed with the needle rifle. I was informed that the Martini-Peabody weapon would be shortly served out to them. A squad of men was being instructed in the manual exercise in one of the passages. I spoke to the officer, and inquired if the battalion had ever been out for target practice.
"No," replied the man, apparently surprised at the question, "we want all our ball-cartridges for the enemy."