The Free Press

TREBIZOND.
Vivid Pictures of Life in a Persian City.
The Bazars, the Tea Gardens and the Camel Trains,

Trebizond is a city of some thirty thousand inhabitants. Persia begins here, practically if not politically, and the road from Trebizond, through Erzeroum, to Tabreez, or Tauris, the largest city in Persia, is undoubtedly the oldest caravan route in the world.

All the merchandise from the north of Persia to western Europe and England passes over it, and the return traffic is equally important. The time of transit is rather uncertain. We were told in Tabreez that it often took three months from Persia to the Black Sea by camel caravans, which usually travel by night, and rest during the day. When they reach a grassy nook, or fertile hollow high among the hills the beasts are unloaded and turned out to pasture, while the drivers light their camp-fires and brazen samovars under roughly extemporized shelters of rugs and hempen mats, erected among the square bales of merchandise packed at Tabreez or Teheran.

The main bazar of Trebizond, which is interesting on account of its products from the East and the far West, has one long artery partly roofed over, and some narrower parallel veins of commerce straggling up and down the hill; it is particularly rich in the embroidered bags and saddlery and the roughly picturesque mule trappings of Asia Minor and Kurdistan. Here, too, are weapons of every description, from the silver-hilted pistols and swords left by the Kurdish cavaliers, to the latest Martini and Winchester rifles. The genuine Smith & Wesson revolver is not rare, but more frequent still is the clever imitation made in Russian workshops.

In the center of the town is a small parklike enclosure, much frequented by resident Persians as a tea-garden, and nothing stronger than effervescent lemonade is sold there. Near by are several great caravansaries with court-yards, where the "arabas" and other quaint vehicles from the interior are put up. A winding road bordered by pleasant gardens and cemeteries with venerable black cypresses leads to the hills high above the bay. Down this road come the Kurdish horsemen and the long camel trains led by flat-faced and ruddy Tartar drivers, their sun-burnt cheeks shaded by shaggy peaked caps of camel's-hair or sheepskin. The leading camel, always a majestic brute, carries his head proudly aloft, decorated with a ponderous mass of colored tassels and jingling bells.

A favorite resort in the late afternoon is a little Persian tea-garden by the road-side, looking down on the harbor and the distant town. The view is like a vignette, framed by trellises with vine leaves and the drooping fronds of the weeping willow. Pink rhododendrons and white-flowering shrubs are set in moss-covered pots and boxes. A rude projecting balcony, higher up, over the shrubbery, is frequented by Turks, whose turbaned heads cut like black silhouettes against the pale orange of the evening sky.

Only tea is served here, and the waiters are two Persian boys, who bring it in small glass cups, together with burning coals in metal trays, for the kalyans and cigarettes of the loungers at the little round tables. A row of distant and slender cypresses of inky blackness is pencilled against the sky.

—[Harper's Magazine