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Towards nightfall, however, my mind was occupied by certain more personal anxieties. The Italian had not yet even come to the hotel, and I could hear nothing of him. I began to reproach myself with not having attempted to extend the protection of my papers to him, although, like the gentleman he is, he had already refused my suggestion to that effect.

I could only apply, as a last resource, to the Vali’s secretary, who at once took me to the Caracol (i.e., the “lock-up”), where we found my friend in company with the Frenchman we had already been pitying for his struggles with passports. Neither of these young men were known in Smyrna; neither of them had secured permission from Angora to land; neither of them were personally known to their Consuls; neither of them were able to speak a word of Turkish. They could not explain themselves, and were, therefore, to be kept under arrest till further inquiries could be made.

“After all, in war-time did we not do worse things than this?” I asked the enraged Frenchman, who was declaring such treatment would make a casus belli.