Now that we are ÁrminiusVambéon the subject of the Turkomans, I must not leave unmentioned that several of them, who were at Astrabad on business, hearing of my arrival in Teheran, called on me and asked my _fatiha_ (blessing). They assured me that my fatihas had worked wonders, and that the people in the Gomushtepe were often wishing to have me there back again. Although dressed in European clothes, these simple people reverently bowed down before me while I gave each of them a blessing, citing at the same time a few verses from the Koran. They left me apparently much edified, and they were the last people to whom I gave a fatiha, and that was the last occasion on which I performed spiritual functions of the kind. My imagination caught fire at the idea of my religious fame. I picture to myself the possibilities I might achieve among these untutored Children of the Desert, if I had only the will and the courage to dare. Such is usually the way in which Oriental heroes commence their career. They shroud themselves in a mysterious magical obscurity, and crowds follow blindly their lead, and determination alone is wanted to make a man an autocrat whose slightest command is obeyed with slavish and unreasoning submission.
With the very first breath of vernal air I bade farewell to the Persian capital, the seat of Oriental civilization, and took the regular post-road through Tabreez, Erzerum, and Trebizond to the Black Sea. As on my journey from Meshed to Teheran I had been well supplied with all things requisite for a traveller in the East, so now from Teheran to Trebizond I lacked in nothing to render the journey comfortable. I was provided with even better horses; I had more funds; and the treatment along the road corresponded with my change of fortune. I reached the Persian frontier in the highest spirits, and made merry all along the road, encouraged by the finest imaginable spring weather.
Gazing from the Pontic mountain, from whose top the Black Sea is first visible, as I arrived in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, I saw before me the coast upon which I had turned my back with so many strange misgivings two years ago this very month. The harbour, the flag of _Lloyd_ fluttering in the breeze--there they were again, as if to salute me on my return. What a wild rush of thoughts were conjured up by those familiar sights, from which my parting had been so bitter!