April 30th.—I have been unwell all these days and was obliged to remain in bed. Yesterday I felt well enough to leave my room, and Mme. Gilbert hastened to call on me. She threw her arms round my neck and nearly strangled me with kisses, having been awfully anxious about me, for when one falls ill in this blessed country, one is sent beforehand ad patres.
April 31st.—I called to-day on Signora Lavini, a curious specimen of a Turkified European woman. She is the wife of an Italian druggist, who has lived here for many years. Their daughter was born and educated in Erzeroum, of which one is easily aware by her moral development. Nevertheless her parents seem very proud of their offspring; they called her up to exhibit her musical accomplishments before us. The young virtuose betook herself to the piano, and first played some scales on the elderly instrument shockingly out of tune, toiling up and down the piano, and giving her wrist and arm a tremendous jerk every time it was her thumbs turn to go under. She ended her musical performance by the traditional Cloches du Monastère.
Profiting by the improvement of the roads, a great number of Turkish officers hasten to Erzeroum to see their families.
As soon as the pasture grounds were covered with grass, bands of brigands, belonging to the Kurdish tribe, began to appear. The Ottoman administration has tolerated the exploits of these highwaymen till now, especially the deeds of a well known bandit named Mirza-Bek, who carried in his expeditions his favourite wife, a young Circassian dressed in masculine clothes; but we cannot maintain the same indifference to be sure! Last night there was a robbery connected with murder in a village near Erzeroum; the villains were immediately found and arrested. I saw them this morning brought up to my husband, under a great escort. Oh, how awful-looking they were! All in rags, with dark vicious faces and rapacious glances resembling those of the hyena who dreads daylight and human beings. We have been warned that a band of Kurds are going to assault the cloister of “Kermirvank”; my husband has sent a dozen Cossacks there and the would-be brave highwaymen hastened to run away. It seems that the Kurds venture upon robbery-expeditions only when they are sure of their grounds.
May 1st.—Our policemaster Kamsarakan organises all sorts of amusements for me; to-day, for instance, in honour of the 1st of May, he arranged a picnic out on the side of the Tap-Dagh. The Cossacks made a great fire and we roasted potatoes and boiled water for our tea, after which we sat down on carpets and did full justice to the contents of our luncheon baskets. Crowds of people from the surrounding villages had gathered around, and a mob of Armenian peasants organised a village-dance. We followed their example, trying our feet in a waltz on the uneven ground, the train of my long habit being very much in my way. A functionary of the intendance, an enormous giant, looked so comic waltzing with a tiny officer, who was scarcely up to his shoulder; it seemed all the time as if he wanted to swallow up his undersized partner, or to jump over his head. A group of Armenian urchins, armed with sticks instead of guns, appeared under the command of a little chief, wearing a Russian cap on his head and paper epaulettes; they looked like small lead-warriors taken out of a toy box. These boys executed all sorts of military evolutions, mimicking the training of our soldiers.
On our way home we visited a Turkish Coffee house. We entered a paved courtyard with a fountain basin in the middle, surrounded by big yellow flowers. The customers were sitting around the basin on low cushions; some of them were sipping their coffee and others smoked their narghile, passing it by turns from neighbour to neighbour. Thus occupied, the Turkish smokers pondered meditatively, whilst the Greeks and the Armenians argued about their commercial affairs. This coffee-house consists of several lofty rooms. In one of them the proprietor was sitting proudly behind his bar; a quantity of narghiles of all dimensions, richly adorned with gold and silver ornaments, lay in rows on the shelves fixed all around the wall. In the next room a barber worked, shaving a greater number of skulls than beards.
May 5th.—A Russian employer has been insulted this morning by an individual serving in the Persian Consulate, who called him a lot of bad names. The man came to complain to my husband just when the Persian Consul was announced. The culpable Persian was speedily sent for and brought in under the escort of a Russian gendarme and a Turkish kavass. The interview was not pleasant. Sergy told the Persian that it was only out of regard to his Consul that a severe punishment was not imposed upon him by the Russian authorities; he was handed over entirely to the discretion of his Consul.
May 8th.—Yesterday we went to a ball given at the Casino, the building of the ancient “seraglio,” where all the festivities were organised before, being now transformed into a hospital for the Turkish wounded soldiers. This ball was to be a grand affair, the arrangements were splendid; the ball-room was fitted up as a big Turkish tent, decorated with plants and flowers. I had to sign a large packet of invitations for that ball, printed on gilt-edged paper, which indicated a long sojourn in the shop by its yellowish colour. This ball sowed discord in many Armenian families; the fair sex wanted to assist at it but the unfair protested energetically. Bulerian, one of the richest Armenians of Erzeroum, had proclaimed publicly that his compatriots who dared to conduct their families to that ball would have to pay dearly for it when Erzeroum was given back to the Turks. Bulerian was responsible for his reckless speech; after having been smartly lectured for it, he has undergone the most infamous Asiatic punishment, which was, being forbidden to mount his horse for a whole month.
The ball was a great success, and the whole entertainment went off admirably. Many Christian inhabitants brought their families to this ball; elderly Armenians and Greek matrons, gorgeously dressed, sat against the wall, and watched our dancing. Supper was served for two hundred persons, and continued till very late. We returned home at dawn, escorted by a military band. We had two Turks at dinner to-day, Ismael-Bey and Maksoud-Effendi. I could hardly keep from laughing in looking at the desperate efforts that they made in serving themselves with their knives and forks; how gladly they would have thrown away these instruments of torture to be able to tear their meat with their fingers!
May 30th.—This afternoon we made an excursion to the banks of the Euphrates. After having made about five miles on horseback, we arrived at a sort of paved dike, which seemed to have been built by giants; the stones are so enormous that it is quite incomprehensible how human beings could handle them. For many centuries whole generations have gone over this ancient dike without its being necessary to mend it. The Euphrates is very broad in this part, and in full rise just now. Frogs were croaking around us, and whole flocks of wild geese dived about ten steps from us; their tranquillity, as it seems, is rarely troubled by musket-shots. On the middle of the river a boatman was rowing his yawl, cut out of the trunk of an enormous tree, with a long perch.