An Englishwoman in Angora

OVER a sea as smooth as ice, the sun shining brightly most of the way, the Messageries Maritimes steamer _Pierre Loti_ is carrying us to Smyrna. Ten years ago, to a beaten Turke...

MY supreme interest in Turkey among the Moslem nations, arose from influences, or instincts, I cannot now with any certainty determine. I suspect, however, it was in part reacti...

Was it not of Malta that Angora was born; and since “the trouble” in the East, Malta has been turned into a universal dumping-ground for officers’ wives and refugees. Whenever M...

FROM Malta to Athens, indeed, is not a long run; but when every moment you are tossed from side to side, at the mercy of all the winds in heaven, most things have a disagreeable...

FOR Orientals, the sky is no less variable and uncertain than the political horizon. In the space of an hour the sea, calm as a lake, has been transformed to a roaring torrent.

He was seated at a small, improvised and over-crowded bureau in one of the few remaining houses on the Smyrna Quay. He had just sufficient of a Scotch accent to make one see tha...

I TAKE daily walks in Smyrna, with one of the Vali’s officers, chiefly among the ruins. The European part of the town (save for a few houses on the quay and a few hospitals, sch...

IT was, indeed, a kindly Providence that led the cheik to accompany us upon this stage of my tour. No one could have been more polite and thoughtful, more ready to gratify my ev...

THE train is slowly crawling up the heights, the air grows colder and colder, we put on wrap after wrap, and, all of a sudden, not a fly to be seen!

IT is not given to many in this enlightened twentieth century to travel in a country as God made it, almost untouched by man. Upon the road from Gunhani I saw no signs of man’s...

AT Ouchak, I frankly declined to spend another night in a luggage train. I admired the Turks’ resourcefulness in coping with the extremely limited service of trains—the women in...

WE are an hour late, the rain is pouring in torrents as I mount from a Turk’s back to my now familiar “van”; the station is full of friends crowding to witness our start and say...

AFTER a few miles of such travelling as had now become familiar, I determined that I would change my carriage and pay a visit to the French colonel—which proved far more lengthy...

There had, of course, been no chance of “undressing for the night.” But I had been able to take off my boots, and having a whole compartment to myself, I was only too glad to ta...

“Really, I don’t know exactly,” said I, “but something different.... I suppose I am foolish enough to look for some sort of likeness to our Western towns.... There is a certain...

THE next morning we breakfast, “when I am ready,” which is 8.30. My host’s face beams with delight, and the generous _menu_ could hardly fail to put “the guest” in good spirits—...

IN all my wanderings, East and West, over Europe and America, I have nowhere been so much thrilled by a dominating sense of “real effort” as at Angora. Against a background of p...

From the window of the antechamber I saw the Pasha arrive, attended only by one aide-de-camp. There is, of course, absolutely no foundation for the stories that he is even more...

“Our attitude has never changed. All reports of inconsistency are false, and circulated by the clever propaganda of our enemies. The Government has to render account of itself n...

We afterwards went up the staircase to the invalid’s apartments. To my surprise, we found her seated on a wide divan, supported by cushions. It was difficult at first to believe...

UNLIKE the European type to which we are accustomed, the Cabinet of the Assembly is almost exclusively composed of very young men, possessed, however, of the strong determinatio...

IN judging the members of the Cabinet one must realise that some of them do not speak any European languages, and know little, or nothing, of Western ways. In some cases, for ex...

Quite apart from the Turkish officers’ personal antipathy, the Germans have no money for concessions; their educational methods would never take root in Anatolia; they have lost...

THERE can scarcely be a worse misinterpretation of the Turks to-day than the common assumption that they do not value their women. As an example to prove this we turn to the cha...

ONE’S first impression of Angora would lead one to imagine that everything could be seen in a very short time; but the days pass, and there is still much to be done. I have visi...

ANGORA, certainly, carries one back to the centuries before Christ; although we now realise that life was by no means without its luxury in those bygone days. As the houses of P...

THERE is so often compensation for disappointment. Had I been able to reach Angora through Constantinople, had I not been held up six weeks by strikes on sea, I should have miss...

IN Rome I met three diplomats; as different from each other as night from day, as the Pope of Rome from the Khalif of Islam—a false comparison often made in New Turkey to-day.

ONE does not expect comfort in an unheated railway carriage, with snow a foot and a half deep, and the temperature 15° below zero. As we left Angora we also noticed that one of...

OUR adieux to Bilidjik did not delay us long. As there were no trains to Constantinople, we had to take the road to Broussa and Moudania, whence the boat runs to Constantinople....

THE Governor who, once more, “comes from Malta,” has detailed a police officer to look after me during the five-days’ visit unexpectedly imposed upon us, since there is no boat...

AS our little cockle-shell reaches the busy quay at Constantinople, the veiled women collect their animals and carry them through the Custom house. I am the only Britisher, yet...

“PLEASE reserve comfortable room for Englishwoman coming from Angora,” so ran the telegram despatched by an American friend of mine, who had gallantly determined that I should b...

FOR those of us who pinned their faith on the League of Nations, it is a matter of the deepest regret that Turkey has lost her trust in the great Parliament of All Nations, espe...

I saw M. Franklin-Bouillon in Paris and, though not perhaps in agreement with all he did in Syria, I maintain that his work in Moudania deserved thanks rather than criticism. He...