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I saw that both my conductors were greatly pleased by my expressions of trust, which they well knew how to appreciate.

Nevertheless, when we had been driving along the quay and my eyes had fallen on our own man-of-war flying the Union Jack without which, for the first time in my life, I was embarking upon my perilous way, I was not far from tears.

My thoughts were crowded with all that England has ever meant to me, from the quiet corner in the churchyard where my father is sleeping, to the little face, seldom innocent of jam, that looks up so eagerly to tell his “Auntie” he has been a naughty boy.

Shall I, indeed, soon find myself in an “enemy” country, which surely should be, as I have always known it, the land of my England’s dearest friends?

CHAPTER VIII

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EMOTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS—“ON THE WAY.”—NOWHERE TO HOUSE THE POOR PEOPLE

It was, indeed, a kindly Providence that led the cheik to accompany us upon this stage of my tour. No one could have been more polite and thoughtful, more ready to gratify my every wish at great personal sacrifice, than the officer from Smyrna. But he had not been at Oxford; he could not speak our language with the distinguished accent of that University; above all, he had not the vast culture of this man of God. His information would have been conveyed in German, a language I speak with no pleasure.

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