ease, though it still makes a pretence of thinking that time is money by only stopping ten minutes at every station.  In Bulgaria it ceases to imitate Western ways, and becomes frankly Oriental, reposing for half an hour at spots where there are no passengers and no traffic.  The part of the journey which lies on Turkish territory follows a singularly tortuous and corkscrew course, across a perfectly level plain which presents no obvious engineering difficulties.  The Porte confided the construction of this line to an eminent Israelite at a remuneration of so much for every kilometre built.  The eminent Israelite was straightway possessed by the spirit of his ancestors, and made a large fortune by laying the rails along a road as lengthy and complicated as that selected by Moses when he spent forty years in traversing a distance which anyone else can accomplish in a few days.

On arriving in Turkey we are at once seized by the representatives of the Board of Health.  After all, times have indeed changed since Eothen was written.  Instead of being put in quarantine by Europe, Turkey now puts Europe in quarantine.  It is true that good Moslems still hold that men’s souls leave their bodies when God calls them, and count it impious to suppose that neglect or precaution can hasten or delay the Divine summons.  But though the Porte are not disposed to amend the sanitary condition of Mecca, they enforce quarantine regulations all round Constantinople with fanatical rigour.  This is due partly to the fears of the Palace, and partly, I think, to a sense of humour.  It is an excellent joke to apply a parody of European rules to Europeans in the name of sanitary science: to keep a set of fussy business people waiting a few days because they have come from a country which has not imposed quarantine on another country where there has been a doubtful case of cholera, or to detain a ship with a valuable cargo while embassies and merchants scream that thousands of pounds are being lost daily.  On the present occasion we are told we must wait a day under inspection, to see if we develop the symptoms of any terrible malady, and are accordingly lodged in damp little wooden huts on a muddy plain, where we are certainly likely to fall ill even if hale and hearty on arriving.  Turkish soldiers prevent us from crossing an imaginary line and contaminating the surrounding desert.  The quarantine doctor, however, explains to me that he has a peculiar respect for my character, sanitary and general, and would like to take a walk with me outside the limits of the establishment.  He has a remarkable pedigree.  His father was a Bohemian monk who found convent life too narrow for his taste, and accordingly embraced Islam.  Once within the true fold he made up for lost time by marrying as many wives as his new liberty allowed, and this is one of the results.  He confides to me that his one ambition is to wear decorations, and that in return for his civilities strangers of distinction have procured for him the orders of their respective countries.  The Siamese Minister, who recently passed through, made him a Commander of the Order of the White Elephant.  Could I not obtain for him the Order of the Garter?  Doubtless I possess it myself.  With blushing mendacity I lead him to believe that I do, but explain that the distinction is only given to Englishmen and not to foreigners.  I see that he does not believe me, and meditates revenge.  Before we leave the quarantine station we have to be disinfected.  The doctor attaches a garden hose to a reservoir filled with a fetid and corrosive fluid.  The victims are led up one by one by the military authorities as if to execution, and the jet is turned upon them, causing their garments to burst out into leprous spots.  I see by the doctor’s eye that he means to make me pay for my unfriendliness in the matter of the decoration, and therefore, casting scruple to the winds, I assure him that if he will only treat me gently he shall have the Fourth Class of the Garter.  He is at once all civility and consideration, and when I am led up in front of his infernal machine, directs an odoriferous douche to the right and left, leaving me unwetted in the middle.

Truly the way into Turkey is beset with as many difficulties as the road to paradise.  After the quarantine comes the Custom House.  The entry of most things is absolutely prohibited, and those which do enter pay a high duty.  Books are treated with incredible severity.  No work is allowed to pass the frontier which hints that the Turks were ever defeated, or that the Ottoman Government or the Mohammedan religion have any imperfections.  Turkish officials having found by experience that very little European literature comes up to their high standard, simply confiscate as “seditious” every publication which mentions Turkey or the Mohammedan East.  Eothen, even without the present highly seditious preface, is placed on the index, as are also Shakespeare, Byron, Dante, the Encyclopædia Britannica, Baedeker, and Murray.  In practice, of course, certain familiar argumenta ad hominem modify this Draconian system, but even the golden key sometimes fails to open the door.  The officials watch one another, and know that they are much more likely to obtain a Turkish decoration by confiscating some infamous historian who is not ashamed to say that the Turks were once driven out of Hungary than they are to receive the Garter for letting his calumnies in.  But there is an end to all troubles, even on the Turkish frontier, and at last we are allowed to proceed to Karakeui, where I ultimately alight at the hotel.

Karakeui lies on a plateau, under a range of snowy mountains which glitter with strange distinctness in the pure translucent air.  A forest of minarets bears testimony to the piety of the place.  It is the sacred month of Ramazan, and at sunset they will be festooned with lights and blaze like columns of fire, while in the mosque below myriads of little oil lamps will shed their soft glow on the bowing crowds, the plashing fountains, and the names of saints and prophets blazoned on the walls in green and red.  In the streets is a motley throng of men and animals.  Strings of camels and pack-horses, dogs, sheep, and turkeys are mixed up with the human crowd.  Bulgarians and Servians quarrel in the bazaar, and denounce one another to the Turks.  They each claim exclusive rights over the only Christian Church, and the Governor, to end the dispute, has shut it up altogether.  A few Greeks are occupied in making large fortunes, and are ready to expatiate on the Hellenic Idea, and to explain how, from a certain peculiar point of view, the late war may be regarded as a victory for Greece.  Albanians, armed with many weapons, and with moustaches as long as their own rifles, swagger through the crowd which respectfully makes way for them.

The hotel is kept by an Armenian, who left his native village on account of what are beautifully termed the “events” which occurred there.  Having been inspired by these occurrences with a wholesome respect for the followers of the Prophet, he is a little apt to recoup himself at the expense of his co-religionists; but the local Ottoman authorities, to whose care I am duly recommended as being “one of those who wish well to the Sublime Government,” have sternly informed him that I am not to be fleeced.  (I wonder if the Governor of New York would address a similar warning to the proprietor of this hotel.)  The establishment is constructed in the form of a quadrangle.  The central space is a quagmire, wherein are embedded,