Chapter XXII: An Armenian and a Turk

I. ARTEN.

Arten was an Armenian; he was quick, thin, methodical, dirty, intelligent, and untruthful; he was also the cook. I say _the_ cook advisedly, for _a_ cook he was not. No doubt he would have made an excellent cook if he had known anything about the art; but it was not till after we had engaged him in this capacity that we discovered that he had not thought this qualification necessary. At any rate, he knew, being a hungry man himself, that we were in need of food of some sort at stated intervals. In this he was a decided improvement on the Greek cook we had just dismissed; this man had a habit of coming to us, after we had been waiting hours in momentary expectation of a meal, and saying with a languid air, "Do you wish to eat?" He was a good cook, but always seemed overcome with astonishment when we expected him to cook.

Arten was a dirty man, and he looked dirtier than he was owing to his dark complexion and hairy hands; besides this, his unbrushed and greasy black European clothes showed off to disadvantage amongst the simpler Eastern garments of his companions.

"Arten is not a clean cook," Hassan would say, and Arten would smile sadly. He must have been slightly conscious of this defect, for he never handed me a plate or a spoon without saying "Temiz" (clean) as a forestalling measure before I had even looked at it. He spent a good deal of time rubbing smeary plates with a blackish cloth, murmuring "Temiz, temiz."

He had a sincere desire to please us; but he always imagined this object was attained by the vigorous assertion of any fact that seemed necessary for our pleasure. "Taze" (fresh) he would say every time he handed me an egg; and, when I cut off the top and an explosion followed, "Taze" he would say again.

"Eat it yourself then," I would suggest, handing it back to him; after putting his great nose right into it, "Taze," he would say. But he never ate it; he kept it for omelettes.

His nose was his chief feature. One saw the nose first and then the man behind it. On cold days, when we all wrapped our heads and faces entirely in keffiyehs, Arten would be always distinguishable from the others by this protrusion. He had a jet black drooping moustache which he was always wiping furtively with a jet black pocket-handkerchief, for Arten was a greedy man and the only person who loved the taste of his own cookery.

"I like to see him getting fat," X would say; "he looked half starved when he came to us."

But Hassan and I were not so charitable.

"Look," Hassan would say, "the door of the tent is shut; that pig Arten is stealing the food," and he would go and kick at the tent until Arten looked out, guiltily wiping his moustache.

"You are cold, I suppose," says Hassan with lofty sarcasm. Arten mops his perspiring brow--he was always perspiring.

"How cold?" he answers with well feigned surprise.

"Because you shut the tent door," answers Hassan.

"Aman," rejoins Arten, "what am I to do? if the muleteers see me cooking they come and ask for food; they are such greedy men, the muleteers."

Hassan returns to us snorting.

"Arten says the muleteers are greedy men. Mashallah! greedy men! We know who is the greedy man!" And he slaps his thigh vehemently.

Arten's notions of cookery were, as I have said, limited. His staple dish was a mixture of mutton, potatoes, onions, and rice, which were all cooked up together in the same pot, each ingredient being thrown in according to the length of time it took to cook. It certainly tasted very good, and I would suggest the method to those in England who dislike washing many saucepans. His other idea of cooking mutton was less satisfactory in results, though simpler in method, and I have no hesitation in not recommending it to English housewives, though I append the recipe as a matter of interest from its originality.

Take a piece of sheep, and with an axe cut it into chunks, regardless of bones or gristle; take a chunk and throw it on to red-hot charcoal in a brazier; when there is a distinct smell of burning and the hissing has nearly ceased, turn it over on the other side. When it resembles a piece of burnt charcoal, remove it and serve at once; swallow whole, as if you try to bite it your teeth will remind you of it for a considerable time, and in any case you will be conscious of its resting-place for the remainder of the day.

When staying at a consulate in the middle of our tour, the consul's wife, horrified at our fare, offered to let her cook teach Arten a few simple dishes which would considerably add to our comfort. Arten acquiesced with very good grace, and was inducted, amongst other things, in the art of making cutlets. On our departure our kind hostess, moreover, provided us with a piece of meat suitable for cutlets. The first evening there was an undercurrent of excitement in the air; there were to be cutlets for dinner. Arten had an important, self-conscious bustle about him and looked mysterious; the Zaptiehs seemed awed and asked questions under their breath; the greedy muleteers were distinctly interested; we pretended to be unmoved. Finally, with a modest air, through which bumptiousness glared furiously, Arten announced that supper was ready. There was a covered dish keeping warm under the brazier; Arten very deliberately placed it before us and with a dramatic flourish removed the cover. We were only conscious of a yellow-looking crumby paste.

"Where are the cutlets?" we asked, keeping up our courage nobly.

"That is cutlets, Pasha."

We tasted it; it appeared to consist of fried eggs and breadcrumbs. We felt justified in contradicting him, but he still persisted that it was cutlets.

"But we want the cutlets, like those the Effendi's cook showed you how to make."

"Yes, that is it, Pasha; that is what the Effendi's cook showed me."

"But cutlets are meat," we persisted.

"Yes, Pasha; but that is cutlets without the meat."

This reasoning was incontrovertible. We tried to fill up with dates and rice and went to bed crestfallen and hungry. The next day we returned to the charge. I undertook to show Arten how to cook cutlets, though I had not the smallest idea myself how it ought to be done. I had an inkling, however, that egg and breadcrumbs were in it somehow.

"Arten," I said, "cut the meat as the Effendi's cook did for cutlets." Arten obeyed.

"Make egg and breadcrumb," I said. He did this also.

"Now do with it what the Effendi's cook did," I said. Arten smeared the meat with it. I began to see light and breathed more freely, but I had still one venture to make.

"Now cook the meat as the Effendi's cook did," I said.

I held my breath; for all I knew they might now have to be boiled in a saucepan or toasted on a fork. But Arten appeared to know what he was doing. He took a frying-pan and fried them in fat. A glow of satisfaction crept all over me as I watched them beginning to resemble the finished appearance I was acquainted with. When they were actually on a dish, I said loftily:--

"Please remember for the future that when we say we want cutlets, this is what we mean."

"As you please," he answered affably; "I call them frisolen. I knew how to cook them before the Effendi's cook showed me," he went on.

"Why did you never let us have them, then?" I said severely.

"How could I know you would like them?" he answered with injured innocence.

"How did you know we liked tough chunks burnt on a brazier?" was my icy retort.

Arten shrugged his shoulders; there never has been any accounting for the whims of women.

Small differences of opinion such as these were continually cropping up between us; and I would tell him in calm and measured tones, though in forcible English, what I thought of him. As the language was unintelligible to him, this method had the advantage of relieving my feelings without hurting his. But there were secret bonds of sympathy between us. We both suffered intensely from the cold, and Arten would carefully wrap things round me so that the apertures and crevices were not on the windward side. There is a good deal of art in this, and he did it very scientifically.

"Little things feel the cold," he would say compassionately, and in such a kindly spirit that, for the moment, I forgave him his greed and forgot to feel undignified.

We were also on common ground when I tried to cook dishes which I did not know how to cook. Currents of great sympathy ran between us when things did not seem to be turning out right and Arten would tentatively suggest various ways and means. But he never did what a foolish or disagreeable person would have done: he never expressed in his looks that I was no better than himself, which obviously would not have been true, since I did not pretend to be a cook, while Arten did.

And then when the critical moments of our existence arrived and we placed the dish before X, we both watched with the same intensity for the expression of her face after the first mouthful. X was singularly appreciative, and, when she kept assuring us how excellent it was, Arten would glance at me encouragingly and appear to share the delight I experienced at my own prowess. X thought Arten's cookery good, too, but then she never knew what she was eating, and, if you do not know the name of the dish, how can you judge whether or not it is cooked as it ought to be?

"What is this?" X would ask one day.

"Mutton," Arten would answer.

"What is this?" she would say the next day, when the identical substance was handed to her.

"Chicken," Arten would answer. And X was perfectly satisfied.

The next day it would be "tinned meat," and it was all the same to her--and to me; but then I knew what a liar Arten was.

His kindness of heart and his desire to please us made it all the more difficult not to be irritated with him when circumstances did not draw out the better side of his nature. It is uncomfortable to despise people in a qualified manner, and I found it impossible to despise Arten unreservedly and therefore happily. There was no doubt that he was a horrible coward. If he had said, "I am a coward--I am afraid," he would have enlisted my sympathy for what it was worth, because I was a coward myself and admired sincerity. If he had even preserved a decent silence on the subject I should have been unable altogether to despise him, for that was the course I pursued myself. But when any real or imaginary danger was past he would come out with assumed and aggressive hilarity, and make tales about it and his prowess, which latter he had already made conspicuous enough by its absence. Yet his position was no doubt complicated: he knew that the Turks in our train despised not only him but his race; there was no one to suggest his courage if he did not do it himself, and, as he was unable to exhibit it in deeds, I have no doubt he saw no other course to pursue but that of publishing it by word of mouth. Moreover, he had suffered personally from bad treatment; the tale was a piteous one. Near his native town of Adana he had a small mill where he ground corn through the season. On one occasion he had done well and was on his way back to his wife and children in the town, carrying his earnings, which were to keep them through the winter. Half way home he was attacked by a band of robbers, who relieved him not only of his gold but of all his clothes. He had to remain in hiding by the roadside until some one passed from whom he could borrow a garment in which to return starved and penniless to his expectant family. Small wonder that the poor man shuddered at the word "Khursus" (brigand) which we laughingly joked about.

"What is it to you?" he said one day; "you have rich relations, kind friends, and a just Government. If you are robbed, justice is done to you. But what can I expect but more abuse and ill-treatment?--and I have a wife and small children into the bargain!"

When he was not posing as a hero, he was posing as a feature in the landscape. This was particularly exasperating, for no amount of pity for his condition would turn him into a picturesque martyr, even in the foreground of ancient ruins. No sooner was my camera produced than Arten produced himself. The only occasion on which I knew him keep out of sight was when I was trying to get a snap-shot of the band of Kurds who held us up on the Tigris. He seemed to have no desire to show himself, although I was considerate enough to invite him to occupy a prominent position for once. His appearance was not calculated to enhance the effect of any picture. He was like a starved black scarecrow dressed up in tight and clerical garments, with a fez on the top--and then there was the nose. He would have made any warm desert scene look cold, as it would not be obvious that he was perspiring, and in any group of picturesque natives he would look ludicrous.

I recall, as I write, isolated moments of exasperation--when, for instance, he sat, singing a hymn, kicking up the dust with his heels, when we were trying to inflate ourselves with worthy feelings on the contemplation of Babylon, awed by the silence and desolation of the scene around us. Or again, how in a fit of nervousness he hurled the whole of our dinner in agitation on the floor, while we, after an unusually long fast, could have cried for food.

But reviewing him calmly at a distance, one remembers a man that one alternately laughed at and pitied; who annoyed one by his transparent faults, but who commanded one's sympathy by his tragic condition, and one's admiration by his cheerful willingness in trying circumstances. A man who was meant by nature to be light-hearted and happy, kind to his fellows, energetic and interested in his work, ambitious for his children; but who fate dictated was to have his spirit quenched, his nature hardened, and mean and cowardly qualities developed owing to the fear, injustice, and poverty in which, like the rest of his countrymen, he was condemned to live.

II. HASSAN.

Hassan was an Albanian Turk; he belonged to one of the old Turkish families and looked every inch the gentleman that he was. Introduced to us by a common friend, he accompanied us during our seven months' wandering through Asiatic Turkey in a semi-professional capacity, but what that capacity was it would be difficult to define by any particular name. A dragoman he was not, though he called himself our "tergeman." "Tergeman," literally translated, being "interpreter," he could claim nothing entitling him to this function, for he spoke no European language, and it was not till we learnt Turkish that we could hold any spoken communication with him. Briefly, he acted as a sort of amateur dragoman without any of the qualifications usually expected of these gentlemen--and possessing a great many of the virtues in which, as a rule, they are sadly lacking. Essentially he was our Figure-head, and a splendid one he made, six foot six in stature and broad in proportion, as straight as a die and as supple as a willow, with a handsome head set well back on strong shoulders, and keen, kindly eyes which looked out very straight from under shaggy eyebrows. When he walked he put into his great stride a grace and dignity which soon earned for him the nickname of "the Prince." His chief characteristics were that gentleness which comes of great strength under perfect command; the courtesy which arises from a sense of other people's worth measured by a sense of his own; and an imperturbability which could be as irritating as it was admirable. "Ne faidet?" (what is the use?), was a favourite expression of his, and "ne faidet," he looked all over. In scenes of human quarrel, excitement, or danger, one was chiefly conscious of his calm indifference of mind and manner as he silently surveyed his companions in fear of brigands or in joy over a piece of meat. Yet he was a man full of the passions of his race, capable of an iron self-control when he thought fit to make use of it, but occasionally roused into a state of temper bordering on madness. On these occasions he would afterwards say his "jan" had had him by the throat, and he did not know what he was doing.

A great man with a great imprisoned soul, as free and light-hearted as a careless boy when roaming in the great forests or on the bare mountain-side of his native home, fettered and fretful when the bonds of artificial civilisation held him.

"What a Kallabalak! what is the use of this Kallabalak?" he would say with a wave of disgust when he got into the middle of a noisy crowd. "This is good, this is keyf," was his comment, with great gasps of enjoyment, when we three sat on the ground together in some lonely spot of a lonely desert. One felt he was breathing freely again. A silent man by nature, he could not bear loquacious people. "Burra, burra, burra," he would say, pointing his thumb at them; "burra, burra, burra, what is the use of all this talking?" If the remarks were addressed to him, they were always answered with stern courtesy. A talkative young Armenian rode with us one day and tried to draw him into conversation. "Is not that mirage in front of us? What a wonderful sight--trees and water and mountains! Do you not think it must be mirage, Effendi?"

"With the eyes that Allah has given me, it does seem to be so, young man," was Hassan's grim answer, and he rode on without turning his head to right or left.

Yet on occasion he enjoyed a refined "Kallabalak." One night in Cairo, when we had done for the time with camping and were seated in cleanliness and finery in the hotel garden, a confetti feast was going on. Serious young men and maidens, larky old men and festive matrons, were diverting themselves in the essentially hilarious proceeding of scattering confetti on one another. The garden was hung with Chinese lanterns; fireworks hissed and spluttered, shooting flames of colour. Hassan sat in convulsed enjoyment of the gay scene. It was a revelation to him of the lighter side of life. And when a charming young lady, bolder than the many who cast coy and curious glances at the handsome Turk, came and administered a dose of confetti down the back of his neck, he was overcome with glee and merriment. Afterwards, on subsequent wanderings in wilds and deserts, he would turn to us after hours of silence, and, bursting into a deep roar of laughter, would say, "Do you remember the paper and the foolish men and women?"

His function, as I have said, was first and foremost that of Figure-head; he escorted us on our visits to Turkish officials and dignitaries, and, with grave dignity and courtly manner, unembarrassed by his own unshaven chin or the stains and dust of travel on our weather-worn and unwashed garments, he would make the most of anything entitling us to belong to "the great ones of England." He cast a general air of respectability over us, and we always felt it was largely due to him that we were shown so much consideration in a land where all travellers are treated with suspicion, and where women are not regarded in a particularly chivalrous light.

But beside this, he was general caretaker of our personal comforts: he put up our camp-beds and arranged our tent; he always sat beside us at meals, which we took seated cross-legged on the ground, either outside by the camp-fire, or in bad weather on the floor of the tent. His first self-constituted duty was to peel the oranges with which we generally finished a meal; he removed the peel to form two cups, in which he neatly piled the sections and placed them beside us, carefully counting the pieces to make sure that he had treated us alike. "Shimdi" (now) he would say when we had finished the first course and we would ask for dates. "Shimdi" he would say again when the last of these were demolished. "Shimdi Kahiveh," and coffee would come in its turn. "Shimdi." "Nothing more." "Nothing," he would exclaim; "nothing?" "We will smoke now." "Tuetuen (tobacco), aha, Shimdi tuetuen," and he would light us each a cigarette. Then, when this too was finished, "Shimdi"--"Shimdi Rahat" (now rest), we answer--and he makes pillows for us with our saddle-bags and covers us over with rugs. This process was repeated every day until it became a stock joke. His jokes were all of this kind; there were certain standing ones which had to be gone through periodically. My Turkish was limited to about fifty words, so that conversation between us did not flow, but X, who had learned to speak more fluently, would ride with him for hours together, holding endless conversations on Turkish religion, habits, and ideas. When X and he fell out he would come and joke with me: one day I teazed him about being a better friend to her than to me.

"How can that be?" he said gravely.

"Because," I answered, "you quarrel with the Vali Pasha" (X was the Vali Pasha and I was the Padishah), "and then you make it up and are great friends again. But you are never cross with me. If I were your friend you would quarrel with me, too. But I am glad I am not your friend, or you would get angry with me." This idea seemed to tickle him immensely, and every day after this conversation there would be a moment when he would ride alongside of me, and, feigning an air of great disgust, would shrug his shoulders and say, "Istemen, istemen" (I do not want you). It was his singularly primitive way of acting a quarrel with me, and thereby showing that he and I were also friends. X would also attack him on the subject.

"Why don't you go and scold the Padishah?" she said on one occasion; "she thinks the same as I do about these things, only she cannot talk Turkish, so she does not say them."

"The Padishah is but a child," he answered; "it would hurt her. It would be a shame to hurt a child."

As a matter of fact I was older than X in months, but her bodily proportions were larger than mine, and everything goes by size in the East.

As time went on, however, we too had our little rubs, and his methods of making friends again were what one would expect from his schoolboy nature. If I was in the tent, he would throw stones at it until I looked out smiling; this was taken as a sign that the quarrel was over; he would roll up an extra large cigarette for me, and we would sit on the ground and have a smoke of peace together. Our friendship was of a silent nature. I made my fifty words express everything I had to say, and to simplify matters only used the verbs in the infinitive and nouns in the nominative. Long custom had established a certain meaning to various sentences between us which would have been unintelligible to any other Turk.

"What Turkish, aman, what Turkish she speaks!" he used to say to X, holding up his hands in amused dismay.

We taught him a few English sentences, of which he was very proud.

"Pull it up," he invariably said when he held out his hand to help us off the ground.

"Pull it down," was his formula when he arranged our habit skirts after mounting us.

"Pull it off," when he helped us off with our oats.

When he was in a temper I made him say, "I am a silly man," which he pronounced:

"I am----

"A Silliman."

Although he did not know the meaning of the words, he connected them with his own misdemeanours.

"Silliman yok (not), silliman yok," he used to say fiercely when he was beginning to repent and get ashamed of himself. He always said "Good-bight" for "Goodbye," confusing it with "Good-night."

Great was his pleasure whenever in the course of our travels we came across a European, or any one who could speak a language which I understood.

"See now," he would exclaim at the unwonted sight of me talking with any one, "she has found a friend!" And then, when we parted and I relapsed into silence: "See now, how sad she looks! She is thinking of her friend."

And he would ride up to me compassionately.

"Where is your friend now, Padishah?"

"Where, indeed?" I answer. "I have no friend; you must buy me one in the bazaars next time we get to a town."

"And how much money must I give for him, Padishah?"

"You must not give much, because I am poor, but you must get a very good one."

"Aman, ama, see now what she says: I must get a good one, and yet not give much money. Do you hear, Vali Pasha?"

And when he came back from the bazaars:

"I have bought the friend, Padishah."

"Where is he? I don't see him."

"He is here, in my bag."

"How much did you give for him?"

"Ten piastres."

"He cannot be a good one if he is as cheap as that, and so small that he will go in your bag."

"Oh yes, he is a good friend," and he produces a roll of tobacco; "a good friend and little money. That was what you said, wasn't it, Padishah?"

And I reflect that there is many a true word spoken in jest.

"Has she no friend in England," he asked X one day, "or does she never speak in England either?"

"Yes," said X, "she has a friend in England, and she does not speak because she is thinking of him."

"And you, Vali Pasha, have you also a friend in England?"

"Yes," I answered for X; "she has twenty-nine friends in England, and you are only the thirtieth."

And Hassan would ride on in silence, pondering over the strange ways of English ladies.

Amongst his other duties he had to purchase the food, pay the muleteers and soldiers, and give tips; and it fell to my lot to do up the accounts with him periodically. The unusual mental exertion required by this he found very trying. His imperturbability would forsake him completely. On the first occasion he broke down altogether. "What can I do with figures?" he said, the tears rolling down his cheeks; "let me go back to my hills and forests; I am only a poor hunter. She brings out her little book and I shall not know how the piastres have gone, and she will think I have taken her piastres," and he laid his head on his knees and groaned aloud.

When we became better acquainted, however, "hisab" (accounts) became a joke, though they always caused him to perspire profusely.

At first my entire ignorance of the language made our intercourse over the account-book somewhat difficult. We would sit on the ground opposite one another, and Hassan would fumble in the folds of his belt until he had found his spectacles and his account-book.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Peki (very good), Effendim; yimurta (eggs), 2 piastres." I would write it down.

"Yasdin me?"

"Ne yasdin me?" (what is "yasdin me?").

"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?"

I have not the smallest idea what "yasdin me" means, but I pretend to write it down and then say:

"How many piastres was it?"

Hassan makes a gesture of despair.

"Yasdin me? yasdin me? yasdin me?" he repeats again.

"X," I shout across the tent, "what does 'yasdin me' mean? I suppose it's some sort of food, only he won't tell me how many piastres it costs."

"It means 'Have you written it?'" said X calmly.

"Yasdin me?" repeats Hassan again.

"Yes," I answer meekly.

"Aha, now she know," says Hassan, and he mops his forehead vigorously. "I say 'Yasdin me' and she says, 'How many piastres?' Aman, aman!"

"Peki, Effendim" (very good), he goes on. "Etmek (bread), 3 piastres. Have you written it?"

"Yes."

"Peki, Effendim. Et (meat), 12 piastres. Have you written it?"

"Yes."

"Peki, Effendim. Pilij (chicken), 3 piastres."

"Ne Pilij?" (what is pilij?).

"Pilij, _pilij_, PILIJ."

"Yes, but what is it?"

"Pilij, pilij--she doesn't know pilij, and she learns it every day."

He begins to crow like a cock.

"Oh yes, I know."

"Ah, ah, now she knows! Peki; pilij 3 piastres. Have you written it?"

"Yes."

"Peki, Effendim."

And so we go on through all the items, and finally add up the total in our respective languages. By means of holding up our ten fingers a large number of times, we ascertain whether the results tally, for in those early days I could only count in Turkish up to twenty-nine, and knew the words for a hundred and a thousand. Then Hassan would give a great sigh, close his book, fold his spectacles, take off his fez, and wipe his head all over, and finally forget his troubles under the soothing influence of tobacco.

And so the days slipped away. At the end of six months we landed out of the Syrian desert into Damascus. An immense change came over Hassan when he was released from the anxieties of piloting us through impossible places and rumoured dangers. He became more boyish and cheerful and amused at everything. His first care on arriving at the end of our journey was, after spending several hours in a public bath, to go a clean and happy man to the Mosque, to return thanks to Allah for having brought us safely through.

We had been to call at the consulate, and, as we drove up to the hotel on our return, I caught sight of Hassan in the street with a crowd round him; he was strutting up and down in his shirt-sleeves, with his head even more thrown back than usual and a wild look in his eye.

"Good heavens," I said to X, "the Prince must have got into one of his tempers and killed a few people in the street," and I anxiously looked round for signs of gore. The Prince took no notice of us, but stalked up and down, the crowd making way before him with looks of awe.

"What are we to do?" I said; "he looks as if he had gone off his head and would knock down any one who comes near him."

"He does look like a prize-fighter," said X; "I have never seen him look like that before."

Our cook was standing on the steps.

"What is the matter with Hassan?" I said to him.

The man stared.

"Nothing," he said, "it's only his new shirt."

We went inside, telling him to fetch Hassan to us.

The Prince stalked into the room with the same air with which he had been stalking the streets, and stood in front of us with an excited and expectant expression.

"The cook is right," said X; "it is his new shirt. He is overcome with pride and conceit; he is on parade, that's all."

He certainly had something to be conceited about. The shirt was of fine silk in gorgeous yellow and red stripes; round his waist was a wide, bright-coloured kammerband, round his head a new keffiyeh flashed all the colours of the rainbow. Clean and shaven, his tight-fitting shirt showing up the strong outline of his muscular frame, he exhibited, to say the least of it, a striking spectacle.

We were evidently expected to be overcome at the magnificence of his appearance, and certainly we did not disappoint him in this respect.

"You are grand," said X to him in his own language; "you quite surprise us."

Hassan put his hands into his trouser pockets and strutted up and down the room, speechless with delight.

"Who would have thought you could be such a turkey-cock, you old gander!" I said in English.

"What is she saying?" said Hassan to X.

"She says you are just like a very magnificent bird we have in England," answered X.

Hassan beamed triumphantly.

"You have fine clothes," he said; "I must not disgrace you."

"Is he always going about in his shirt-sleeves, I wonder?" I inquired. X asked him.

"It is quite usual in my country not to wear a coat in hot weather," he said; "my coat is old and dirty, and my shirt is new and clean: why should I wear my coat?"

And he rarely put it on again.

He loved to see us in nice clothes, and took great delight in wandering about the bazaars with us buying presents for the "twenty-nine friends" in England. But we used to sigh over the good old camping days.

"Hebsi bitdi" (all is over), he would say dolefully, when anything particularly brought them back to our thoughts.

We rode down Palestine and took him over to Egypt with us. Evading with difficulty the importunities of Cook, and the rush of tourists on the beaten track, we tried to steal days which brought back a sense of our old free-and-easy times.

But there came a day when there was an end to it all, an end to the long silent rides, an end to the quiet smokes in desert places, an end to the little daily jokes, an end to the serious talks and the foolish quarrels, an end to the Kallabalaks and the Keyfs.

We stood on the steamer which was to take Hassan back to his old life in the forests of the Turkmendagh.

"You will soon be going a long journey with some one else," said X cheeringly.

Hassan shook his head.

"No, indeed," he said; "I should take care not to go with two ladies again, and I shall not go with a man, for no man would be so much of a fool as to wish to go such a mad journey."

The steamer gave vent to its first hideous whistle. We put our fingers to our ears.

"Good-bight, little Padishah," he said, as we clasped hands for the last time; "good-bight. Go home to your friend in England; he will be glad to see you looking so fat."

"Silly man," I said with a lump in my throat.

"Silliman yok," he answered.

The whistle blew again, we turned and went our different ways. If there had been a stone he would have thrown it after me; as it was, when I turned he made a face and shouted, "Istemen, istemen!"

And now, looking back on those days, there rises invariably before us the memory of this companion in our many adventures--the memory of a simple-minded, honourable man, a trusted friend, a pleasant companion, and a devoted servant, who, whether he was sharing the discomforts and dangers of winter travel in a wild and lawless country, or experiencing the joyous freedom of the roaming desert life we loved so well, or enduring the terrors of critical and carping civilisation, invariably put us in the foremost place, and, without swerving an inch from the traditions of his race, never offended the susceptibilities of ours.