CHAPTER XII.

Moun

Start for Trebizond -Personal appearance of the author tain-pass Reception at Beyboort-Misfortunes of Mustapha Pass of Zigana Dagh — Arrival at Trebizond.

ON the 27th of December, all preparations being completed, I started on my journey over the mountains to Trebizond. Kiamili Pasha had prepared an order to all and sundry, great and small, upon the road, to give me every assistance, and, with this and a powerful firman from the Sultan, I had authority to do whatever I pleased in that part of the world. About twenty attendants accompanied me, besides a certain levy from every village I passed, who were to march to the next village every day to clear the roads, move the snow, and pick us out of it when we tumbled in, &c. These villagers were all armed with the peculiar dagger of Circassia, called a cama, a most efficient tool as well as weapon, and a short heavy rifle, generally beautifully made, with which they hit objects at very long distances, 400 yards not being considered out of shot. My personal appearance

must have been remarkable: I had alo ng beard, and so thin a face that my nose was translucent, if not transparent. I had a Persian cap upon my head, and over other garments a toilette of my own invention, which vested me with a dig nity peculiar to myself: this was a large eiderdown quilt, of bright green silk, in the middle of which I had caused a hole to be made, through which I put my head; the two ends of the quilt hung down before and behind, like a chasuble or a poncho; round it I tied a girdle: my general appearance must have been rather striking to the beholder, and was probably considered by the natives on the road as the official costume of an Elchi Bey. I was so weak that when I was bundled into the takterawan I could not turn round, and was nearly smothered in my own feathers, till somebody turned me the right side upwards, when I was able to bid adieu to all the principal Europeans and others who had kindly assembled to see me off. A number of people accompanied me for some distance out of the town; and Colonel Williams came as far as Elijè, about three hours in the snow, which ended my first day's march.

On the next day, December 28th, we got to Meymansoor, a village at the foot of the first mountain-pass, called Hoshapoonah, a terrible

place at all times, but frightful in the depth of winter and under the circumstances I was in. Only two or three days before it had been rendered practicable by driving a thousand horses belonging to the caravans which were snowed up at the foot of the pass up and down the road to make a track. This road is what is called a scala—that is, a series of holes, each about a foot deep, sometimes two feet, about eighteen inches in diameter, and the same in distance from one another. From long practice the horses put their feet very cleverly into these holes without tripping over the intervening ridges of hardened snow. Men on foot usually step on the ridges, which is like walking on the rounds of a ladder for a few hundred miles, the probabilities of not breaking your leg if you slip into the hole before or behind you being very slight. As in many places this road was slantindicular, going up and down at an angle of 45°, I was reclining in the litter alternately on my head and on my heelsmostly on my head going up hill. My mules were held upon their feet by as many men as could stand on each side where the road was wide enough; most of it was a ledge on a precipice, about eighteen inches wide, when the men supported my equipage with ropes, a strong body hopping and stumbling behind and before,

at the rate of about one mile an hour. My glass windows were smashed with the least possible delay, but we repaired them the next day with oiled paper. At the top of the pass we came upon a party of Persians, who were going the other way towards Erzeroom; they were seated in a row, on the ledge of the precipice, looking despairingly at a number of their baggagehorses which had tumbled over, and were wallowing in the snow many hundred feet below; they did not seem to be killed, as far as I could see, as the snow had broken their fall; the drift covered the precipitous rock from the bottom to within twenty or thirty feet of the top, and they slid down this till they popped into a deep hole in the snow, like a well, in the valley below. It did not appear that there was any probability of their getting up again. The poor Persians crammed themselves into nooks and little hollows on the ledge to make room for us to pass. I presume their horses were frozen to death before we had left them very long. This was an awful spot altogether; we had started before light in the morning, and arrived in a dreary mountain valley, at a hovel called Zaza Khan, in the evening. During one part of the day the danger to the takterawan was so great that I was plucked out, and a tall, good-natured man, called Beyragdar

(the standard-bearer), carried me like a baby in his arms, one or two others supporting him, across a tremendous ledge. I was light enough to carry, but was such a great bundle of fluff that he could not see over me, and another man helped him along, and showed him where to put his feet. We were very fortunate in a fine sunny day for our journey over this tremendous mountain. On the last day of the year 1843 we arrived at the town of Beyboort: though I had sent two horsemen on to say that I was coming, no one came out of the town to meet me, and on proceeding to the palace or house of the Bey, the Governor of the place, I was refused admittance, though he had received orders before to pay me every attention. I at last was taken in by the Cadi, in whose comfortable house I was kindly entertained. The next day we met a tatar, a Government courier, on the road from Trebizond; I sent letters by him to Erzeroom, complaining of my reception by the Bey of Beyboort, and so rapidly were matters conducted by my friend the Pasha, that the Bey was turned out of his government, and another Bey appointed to succeed him, before I and my party arrived at Trebizond. This was sharp practice, and doubtless had a good effect. The chiefs of the other villages, and the one town

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