LETTER xxvn HUMOURS OF RISKS 245

be " unsettled/' no Persians will go by the route that I
wish to take, and two sets of Kurds, after making agree-
ments to carry my loads, have disappeared. Various
Syrians have come down from the mountains with stories
of Kurdish raids on their sheep and cattle, but as such
things are always going on, and the impression that
" things are much worse than usual" does not rest on
any ascertained basis, my friends do not advise me to give
up the journey to Kochanes, and I am just starting en
route for Trebizond. I. L. B.