How is it these women can, even now, tenderly hush "the cry of the children," and give their men? Theirs is a "willing" sacrifice for an ideal, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland.
I had been "protected" in advance, I found, by the authorities, who had announced by telegram the arrival of "an American lady." It was, perhaps, perverse, even ungrateful, but I persisted in contradicting the news at every stage. I would far sooner take all risks under my own flag than falsely accept shelter beneath the "Stars and Stripes." "I have no dislike for America," I assured those who assumed that explanation of my obstinacy, "it simply does not happen to be my country, any more than India is yours. . . . I have nothing but good to say of individual Americans; the most charming people on the face of the earth."
Nevertheless "I keenly resent the clamour of Mr. Morgenthau for 'an ideal republic of his own making on the banks of the Bosphorus, to be backed by all that "Tammany" means in the U.S.A.' I am for asking him, then, to start by making an 'ideal' republic on the banks of the Hudson."
American oil-hunters are always boasting that they never declared war on Turkey. "You did not," I have admitted, "but you urged, nay begged and almost ordered, us to do it for you. . . . Your Literary Digest printed at least one eloquent appeal to Great Britain for a 'holy' war against the 'unspeakable Turk'!" And if they resent my protest at being called "an American," I am convinced they would have done the same in my place. They, too, have the virtue of national pride.
The train was held up once more for a little excursion to what had been the prosperous town of Alaschéir, a well-wooded district with abundance of fresh water. Here out of four thousand eight hundred
