Note 3 — Chapter III · ACROSS LAKE VAN

According to the Kaimakam there are no less than 500 houses in Akantz; but I am inclined to consider this figure excessive. A number among them are well built, with good walls and glass-paned windows; and it was a change to erect our camp beds in a clean and airy room. The population is partly Mussulman and partly Armenian. I should say that the former have the preponderance, although not in the proportion which was assigned to them by the same authority of four-fifths of the whole.3 The Armenians possess two churches and a school, administered by a priest. Several regiments of Hamidiyeh have their headquarters in the town. They are recruited among the Haideranli and Adamanli Kurds. Their enrolment has been attended by the usual result—a general relaxation of the law. Robberies are committed under the eyes of the Kaimakam, and stealing is scarcely considered an offence. While our effects were being conveyed to the lake in a little cart, a clever thief made away with the yoke of the oxen.