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490 Great numbers of camels, pack-horses, and oxen were receiving or discharging their loads at the warehouses near the water-front. Fred ascertained on inquiry that there were no wagon-roads to Persia or the interior of Asiatic Turkey, but that all merchandise was carried on the backs of animals. One authority says sixty thousand pack-horses, two thousand

camels, three thousand oxen, and six thousand donkeys are employed in the Persian trade, and the value of the commerce exceeds seven million dollars per annum.

"We are only a hundred and ten miles from Erzeroom," said Fred, "the city of Turkish Armenia, which is well worth seeing. Wouldn't it be fun to go there and have a look at a place that stands more than a mile in the air?"

"Is that really so?" Frank asked; "more than a mile in the air?"

"Yes," replied his cousin, "Erzeroom is six thousand two hundred feet above the level of the sea, and two hundred feet higher than the plain which surrounds it. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants at the beginning of this century, but now has about a third of that number,