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46 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
their waving shirt-tails make a dash for the main hatch and
take refuge in the hold, over which a tarpaulin was stretched
to keep them dry. One of them had a gramophone, but it
evidently had only one record with a monotonous Persian
tune, which \ve heard over and over again without respite.
An easily satisfied musical taste.
In the evening I saw all the families turn in down there
in the roomy hold. The veiled ladies were there, too, only
without their veils ; how they survived it was a puzzle to
me. Each family had a small area to itself ’tween decks,
where they made their nest of mats and clothing and could
sleep the sleep of the just in warmth and comfort. A little
Persian girl was playing with a Kurdish girl, while her fat
Persian father sat by, genial and rotund, talking to some other
Persians, and occasionally throwing in a word of encourage
ment to the two children. When they had to go to bed the
Persian told his daughter to say good-night nicely to the
Kurdish girl, who stood there looking shy, and seemed to be
of a poorer and less respected class. The little Persian maiden
ran to her and gave her a kiss : then began playing with her
father and danced off to bed in front of her stout, genial
parent, while the Kurdish girl slipped away in silence.
Next day, Saturday, June i3th, we dropped anchor in the
roads outside Trebizond, the oid Greek colony which used
to be the busy terminus and port of the caravan-route from
Persia and the East, but has recently lost much of its impor
tance since the flight of the Greeks and Armenians. Clearly
the rainfall is greater here than farther west on the coast, for
the vegetation is richer and the hills more thickjy wooded.
The country rises in ridges behind the town towards high
mountain ranges far inland. Across these mountains the
road runs south and south-east to Erzerum and the Armenian
highlands. But as communications across these rough
mountainous regions have always been precarious, Armenia
naturally came to form her chief connections with the east
and south, and to a less extent with the Black Sea.
At Trebizond most of the passengers left the ship, the
Kurds with their property in big boxes and baskets on their
shoulders, the Persians tripping along with their white shirt
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