hovels, but sometimes a more pretentious affair where the houses rise to two stories and which (on the strength of such superiority) feels justified in calling itself a town. Often even the meanest of these were formerly towns indeed, and instead of being called El Bab or Membij, were known by such high-sounding names as Bambyce and Hierapolis.[3] The hummocks and hollows which mark the foundations of their ancient edifices form a wide margin all around the outskirts, and the surface is strewn for acre on acre with dislocated fragments of columns and great squared blocks of stone. At one point where we made a short halt, we were able to decipher a few tags of Latin inscriptions;—cos, divi, cæsar and a few other similar words. They were deeply, but rudely incised, as though cut in sheer idleness{8} by some unoccupied soldier. A householder who saw us examining them led us to the door of his hut where he showed us another inscription. In this case the lettering was Arabic, and we could read no more than the name of Allah:—a fact which caused great consternation to our householder, for he had been using it as a threshold.

We halted each night at some village khan, the Turkish synonym for the better known Persian word caravanserai, which forms the common house of entertainment both for man and beast. A typical khan consists of a great square courtyard full of foul dust in dry weather and of fouler mud in wet. Often have we felt inclined to bless the hard frost at night in winter time, which has enabled us next morning to walk to our carriage on the top of the mud instead of wading through. The courtyard is enclosed by a range of miserable hovels—the sort of shanties which might perhaps pass muster as tool sheds in allotment gardens, those “lodges in gardens of cucumbers,” which Isaiah considered the nadir of dilapidation. Some of these take rank as stables and others as guest chambers. In point of comfort and cleanliness there is little to choose between them; but occasionally the guest chambers are on an upper story, and then the humans are somewhat better off than the brutes. Let us assume, not to be too sanguine, that our room will be on the ground floor; and, not to be too despondent, that we shall get a room to ourselves.

Such a room will be about 9 feet square, and will boast a ramshackle door and (perhaps) a shuttered window. Its floor will be about six inches below the level of the yard—we mean the mud. It will be furnished, like the Prophet’s chamber, with “a bed, a stool, and a candlestick;” videlicet—with a rush mat or a rough plank bedstead, a small table (this only occasionally), and a paraffin lamp upon the wall. For a small additional fee the Khanji[4] will bring us a charcoal brazier; but (not wishing to be asphyxiated) we must leave this to burn outside until the blue flames subside.{9} Here we are at liberty to make our own beds, and to cook and eat such provisions as we may have brought with us. The room is never swept, and prudent travellers will often take the precaution of bringing their own carpet with them. The regular charge for such an apartment is five piastres (10d.) a night.

Our fellow guests are mostly Kurds or Arabs, with Syrians and Armenians rather more sparsely intermixed. They may be told apart by their languages, or less certainly by their dress; for the Arabs are the only folk hereabouts who adhere very scrupulously to their own distinctive costume. This consists of a gown, generally of some striped or plain soft-coloured material, reaching almost to the feet, and girt about the waist with a bright coloured sash. A V-shaped opening from neck to waist shows an embroidered shirt-front under, and over all is worn an abba or Arab cloak. The abba is generally of woollen fabric, either dark brown, or boldly striped with black and white or brown and white in broad and narrow stripes arranged alternately. For winter wear it is often made of sheepskin, worn woolly side out during wet weather, and woolly side in during dry. On their heads they wear a bright coloured head cloth, either of silk or cotton, which is kept in position by a double coil of soft black rope forming a sort of wreath. They usually wear their hair long.

The Kurds also in the plain villages often wear an Arab type of costume; but the muleteers and other travellers are clad in a nondescript garb which seems based upon a Turkish original. The typical Turkish trousers are made from a piece of stuff whose width is equal to the length of the leg from waist to ankle. This is folded to form a square, sewn up the sides, and furnished with a cord run round the top to gird in at the waist. A couple of holes for the feet are cut at the two bottom corners, and the garment is then complete. This of course leaves an immense amount of slack between the legs, and superior tailors get rid of this to some extent by a certain amount of shaping; but a very sufficient surplus is always allowed to remain. Above this is worn a waistcoat, with a coloured sash and a kind{10} of zouave jacket. The waistcoat, the lappets of the jacket, and the pockets of the trousers are often adorned with braiding; and the rough frieze of which the dress is composed is generally blue, black or brown. Sheepskin jackets are often worn in winter time.

On their heads they wear sometimes an Arab head cloth, sometimes a Turkish fez, sometimes the conical felt cap of the Kurds and Syrians, either with or without a turban. In cold weather they swathe the ends of their turbans about their faces, muffling themselves up to the eyes and making themselves look even more complete ruffians than they did before.

The officials and well-to-do classes wear what they consider to be European costume, but always top it off with a fez.

One of the first impressions which besets a traveller in these parts is the reality of the curse of Babel. For a curse it is most emphatically, though some of our home-bred cranks would appear to regard it as a blessing; and it is devoutly to be wished that all those crack-brained politicians who are seeking to promote the revival of Erse and Gælic and Cymric might be awarded some practical experience of the realization of their dreams. The Swiss boasted that he had three native languages; but the inhabitants of Asiatic Turkey are provided with at least six. Arabic is dominant on the plains; Syriac and Kurdish in the mountains; Armenian on the plateaus to the northward; and Greek in western Asia Minor. Turkish, except in Anatolia, is only the official language; but we suppose it deserves recognition along with the other five. Naturally each of these main stems branches off into dialects by the score; and if these are to be reckoned separately the Turkish Empire is still as polyglot as that of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

No one of course speaks all the languages; but no one can get on at all comfortably without speaking a minimum of two. That number will probably enable him at least to find an interpreter in most of the villages which favour the four remaining tongues.{11}

The nationalities are as diverse as the languages, and are interwoven together in the most bewildering entanglement; not by separate districts dovetailed into one another like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, but by tiny fragmentary communities dispersed like different grains shaken up vigorously in a bag. The village is the largest unit; and where one village is Syrian, the next may be Kurdish, the