106 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



travelling alone with her courier would be an easy prey. But in 

 this they found they were mistaken. There were some five or 

 six of them, and the driver of my yiley (a brute I would like to 

 have kicked many a time had I been a man) was evidently in 

 league with these Circassians. Bersa behaved splendidly, as he 

 always did, and I instinctively felt that the principal thing was 

 to show no fear ; neither did I feel any, for I knew they were 

 cowards — all Circassians are — and to be met with courage, 

 especially in a woman, would be the only way to get the better 

 of tbem. But it was not till Bersa, at my bidding, had given 

 them to understand that, as I was related to the British Consul at 

 Constantinople, they would get into more serious trouble than 

 they perhaps anticipated, that they gave in, sneaking away one 

 after the other, till I was allowed to go on my way unmolested, 

 without having relieved my purse of so much as one metelik. 



The weather was now intensely hot, and during this journey I 

 slept on the roofs of the khans, amongst the storks' nests, with 

 nothing above me but star-strewn sky, and in the pale dawn it 

 was wonderful to wake up, maybe to see the dark outline of a 

 stork close by, standing on one leg beside his nest, or to hear 

 the muffled, measured tread and clanging bells of a long line of 

 heavily-laden camels passing along the dusty road below. I once 

 counted one hundred and fifteen of these animals in one drove, 

 to say nothing of the diminutive donkey at intervals, who leads 

 each detachment, generally ridden by one of the drivers. We 

 passed many of these caravans of camels, laden with grain and 

 other produce, on their way from the interior to the coast, and 

 sometimes it would be a long line of some thirty or forty bullock- 

 waggons, frequently drawn by big patient buffaloes, who always 

 looked hot and thirsty, and as if they were longing to be lying 

 down in some stream or river-bed, as they so loved to do when- 

 ever they got the chance. The wheels of these waggons were 

 apparently never oiled, so that as each one creaked on a different 

 note, the discordant and almost deafening noise they produced is 

 better imagined than heard, and 1 often knew when a troop of 

 the clumsy vehicles was coming by these fearful sounds at some 

 considerable distance off. 



I soon found out that it was difficult to work the neighbour- 

 hood of Tokat : the mountains were high', and for the most part 

 barren ; there were very few of those lovely sunny glades and 

 flower-strewn valleys which made the neighbourhood of Amasia 

 so delightful. Also the country was by no means so safe as 

 round that much favoured vicinity; indeed, for a long expedition 

 I was obliged to take a zaptieh, which was however, I believe, 

 quite a necessary evil. There was a lovely pine forest three or 

 four hours' ride from where I was staying, through which wound 

 the Old Sivas Pioad, but I never saw such apparently splendid 

 collecting- ground in the month of July with so little to be got 



