"But, seriously," I replied, "asses are seldom as black as they're painted. After all, to be stubborn is one form of personality. I remember staying in a French chateau during the war, where one donkey had taken over the duties and responsibilities of the eighteen horses, which had been requisitioned by the State. On Sundays, tied up to a tree in the churchyard, while the family was inside the church, he always waited to hear the Sanctus bell, and then brayed his loudest. He must take part in the Mass!"
One rarely sees any driver astride his camel. He may be "considering his beast," but, on the other hand, he may not. For of every variety of sickness (of the sea, the home, or love itself) is not camel-*sickness the worst?
My companion agreed that he had not found the Turks either stubborn or unreasonable. "Everyone I met in Anatolia made an honest attempt to understand my point of view, even when I endeavoured to explain or at least to excuse, English policy.
"Turks are 'stubborn,' if you insist on the phrase, about the future of their country; but they have given a great deal of thought to the subject, and they speak from experience that has been bought at a big price. I have never encountered that uncomfortable type of mind we know so well among ourselves, and in a more aggressive, if less dangerous, form in the States, which nothing will move from its 'pet' hatred or chosen love, in spite of great culture and general understanding.
"I will not quote President Wilson, because we have an even better illustration in the late Lord Bryce. Few men could claim wider culture, few have been so universally acknowledged a great statesman, yet the Turk to him was no better than a red rag to a bull! And when he said that these people were 'unspeakable,' the world believed it.
"I once attended a debate on whether 'the Turks should, or should not, be forced to abandon Constantinople.' A judge from Constantinople had been called to open the discussion, who said, among other
