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Most unfortunately, the Turk’s kindness and consideration for his customers is not withheld from the flies. The Nationalist motto, “A free and independent Turkey,” has certainly been granted them—they go wherever they like, do whatever they like. They sit in thick layers on the table-cloth, they drown themselves in your glasses, you swallow them with your food; “and to think,” said a Danish merchant, “these creatures have been fattening on corpses!”

Whatever their nationality, all my neighbours made the most chivalrous endeavours to shield me from these pests. I was advised to sacrifice my bread as a cover to my glass when not drinking. I always refused water, and Naim Bey defied the law to give me German wine.

One day, exasperated beyond endurance, I procured what the French call a “guillotine,” and successfully slaughtered every fly that came within my reach. The “Italian” gently inquired whether the corpses were not more awful than the living insects.

“At least,” I said, “they cannot bite or carry microbes,” and I pursued the slaughter with a zeal that astonished even myself. I even aimed at those I saw walking over the South American’s arm, and hit his nose! Without a smile, he courteously declared that he did not mind what I might do to his nose, “but you will be careful of my glasses, won’t you?”