Page:Englishwomaninan00elli.pdf/285

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

with a bit of old newspaper, from which a most unappetising collection of honey and eggs and nuts and bread are tumbling in dirty confusion, as the broken eggs and printer's ink trickle in a discoloured stream on the floor.

"If only you would send out a good company of missionaries in hygiene," I cried out, in my excitement, "the other gospels would follow as a matter of course. The world will be a far better place when America comes to the East and preaches the need for exterminating the house-fly and other insects with the fine zeal she is now devoting to the extermination of the Turk."

My new friend—I had almost said compatriot—laughs good-naturedly at my enthusiasm; and in a few moments, despite my sympathy with Anatolia, I am again compelled to recognise that I am, after all, a woman of the West.

When someone brought in a blazing mangal and carefully closed every door of the crowded luggage-van, the American soon found a polite excuse to jump out. Five minutes later I, too, ventured to open the door and call out to ask him for a helping hand. Both of us knew it was far better for us to die of cold in the fresh air than to choke in those thick charcoal fumes. I will hold a light while he digs out a hole, for sleep on the bosom of Mother Earth.

But now two charming Turkish boys, the sons of Moueddine Pasha, in our party, are telling me that they are terribly distressed at my discomfort. It is in vain for me to assure them that no one could blame them. Somehow, they find the Commandant de la place; and, at his direction, gallantly tramp back for two and a half hours, to bring me a mattress from the Governor's house which, placed on three standard oil-boxes, forms my bed. Meanwhile, the Commandant, who is familiar with Europe and speaks fluent German, earnestly begs me to excuse this terrible reception. "It is the work of Lloyd George," he adds, as for every disaster in Anatolia the same cause is proclaimed. Ask a peasant who killed his sons, and he will reply without