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The Frenchman only exclaimed: “No Angora for me, merci! I am counting the hours until the boat arrives to take me away from all this.”

The Englishwoman (Mrs. de C——) felt proud to think of the “feather in a woman’s cap,” that such an adventure would surely prove.

The Dutchman declared that he would trust even his own daughter on such a journey, if “the Vali had pledged his word for her safe conduct.... I know this country inside out—its language, its dangers, its possibilities, its virtues and faults.... You may trust the Vali.... If war breaks out, they will take you, with all possible politeness, to the nearest frontier.”

He gave me all kinds of useful information, and much-needed boxes of matches and cigarettes.

Truly a wonderful budget of advice and a most original collection of gifts! Did ever a woman thus start such a quest?

Yet they had made me sad! Some were born here, others had lived in the country all their lives, and how few of them would trust the Turk, to whom, after all, they owed, at least, their material existence.