captain. When that personage came ashore next morning, therefore, he found himself confronted by an Anatolian peasant, rifle in hand, who actually slipped in an extra cartridge under the great man's eye.
Our consul, of course, intervened, and the captain, with his sword drawn, was permitted to land, ample apologies being tendered in due course by a repentant Vali.
No more was heard of this incident; but with some "big" men it would not have been allowed to end there.
I admit that a warning should have reached the captain; but Turks are proverbially careless about official details. It was just bad luck, too, that some petty officer was not the first to land, who could have borne the indignity without loss of prestige, and "arranged" matters for his chief; but if we must appoint our "best" men to such a post, someone smaller should be sent in advance to spy out the land. Friction is bound to occur between our experienced officers, statesmen, or diplomats (above all, if their sense of humour is not very keen) and the primitive Anatolians of young Turkey. We should, surely, have been well advised in this matter to follow the French way of employing "middle men" for a time.
I love the casual freedom of Turkish customs, which will suffer a train to be kept waiting for my private comfort; but the characteristic may be extremely trying on another occasion. Every virtue has its pet vice!
When I visited Turkey after the Balkan war our steamer somehow "missed" the mouth of the bay, and no one remembered the exact position of the mines! As a matter of fact, the Senegal was blown to atoms only a few days ahead, and our own escape was pure luck. There was considerable alarm on board, and I was once more filled with gratitude for my own small share of the fatalism of the Turk!
On this occasion, for my own private benefit, I could also have wished that our captain had been a "smaller" man, or one less scrupulously compact of duty. When I admitted that I had really come on
