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One is grateful for these slow trains that afford such ample opportunity for seeing the country, with its fig-trees, olives, and palms, and the bright sun bringing a climate that recalls the South of France. Yet everywhere, long before we reached the actual devastations, one felt that despair and sadness were hovering over the land. At first, we sought in vain for the reason of our impressions. Then suddenly I knew: There were no cattle.

Of course, Mrs. de. C—— had told me, they had all been brought into Smyrna by the Greeks. Outside her house mules were being sold for fourpence or sixpence apiece, and if no purchaser could be found even at that figure, the wretched creatures were left mutilated on the wayside, their eyes burnt out, their legs broken by hatchets!

Our first halt was at Manissa, once a flourishing town of about ninety thousand inhabitants, standing some sixty-five kilometres above sea-level. The Governor and all the “notables” were on the platform to welcome the travellers, and had arranged that the “train should wait,” for us to be shown round.