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Trebizond is the terminus of the northern caravan route from Persia, and about 30 per cent. of the commerce of the city is carried back and forth on camels. The road over which the caravans travel is the same that Xenophon followed in the retreat of the “Ten Thousand,” and it has been kept in fairly good condition all these centuries, although it is scarcely fit for vehicles. In former years about twenty thousand camels arrived annually at Trebizond, each carrying from four hundred to five hundred pounds. So much of the trade has been diverted through the Caucasus by the new Russian road from Teheran to Rescht and the railway through the Caucasus, that not more than eight thousand to ten thousand camels are employed at present.
The distances between the principal points along the caravan route are as follows:
Miles From Trebizond to Erzroom 198 Erzroom to the Persian frontier 156 Persian frontier to Tabriz 162 Tabriz to Teheran 344 Total distance from Trebizond to Teheran 860The caravans usually take sixty days for the journey each way, twenty-four days from Trebizond to the frontier and thirty-six days from the frontier to Teheran.