General Kemallidine Pasha is about thirty-five, with an honest, open face and merry eyes, that strongly reminded me of my brother; who—though not wounded eighteen times like the Pasha—has been so frequently sewn up as to present to the world, so I tell him, no more than a figure of "threads and patches." He apologised for offering his left hand, obviously pleased when I said, "it did not matter which of a hero's hands one is privileged to shake." When I said that I was sorry to hear he disliked my country, he gave the only explanation I ever obtained from a Turk: "It is because I once loved her so well!"
And for that I have only one answer, provided for me by Mr. D, who was in Constantinople all through the war, and is convinced that the English were, throughout, entirely misled by Greek and Armenian dragomen. He, himself, would never trust these men to translate any newspaper article for him. "Their work may be, and frequently is, quite correct, but they are clever enough to impart an entirely different meaning from one language to the other; for example, with the word "iltehoc," how can that word be translated with all its shades of meaning?
"The most dangerous Englishmen," he said, "were irresponsible young colonels of twenty-five, the familiar "temporary gentlemen," whose sudden access to power and responsibility has, on other occasions, led Great Britain into adventures she cannot, afterwards, disown. One must regret, but can scarcely in fairness condemn, some of these brave boys from the "edge of beyond" in Canada or Australia, who, of course, are absolutely ignorant of Moslem customs, and, by training, rather aggressively impatient of the slow ways of old England herself.
There were Turks of a very inferior type to be found to help them, as it would be dishonest to deny. Those who made themselves personna grata to the Allies, and enemies to the Nationalists, because they would sink to any calumny or blackmail to secure a "job," or to keep one.
It is, indeed, high testimony to the personality of
