disheartening significance. The view was too sublime, the moment too thrilling to attach too much importance to an occurrence which had already passed. I turned my attention to pointing out to my wife the resplendent charm of our surroundings. We were entering within the water gate of an Eternal City—the queen of two continents—the coveted prize of all nations—which, to make it the more desirable, God had endowed with the most gorgeous beauty.

Under our eyes Asia and Europe were uniting in a passionate embrace. Historic monuments, palaces and mosques emerged under the clear blue sky of the Orient, curving their shining domes, raising their slender minarets as if pointing to God, the Merciful. The City was shrouded in an atmosphere of peace and calm, Constantinople was reposing in her timeless dignity ... but the harbour was filled with foreign warships in horrid contrast with the setting. Motor boats and chasers glided busily through a maze of dreadnaughts and cruisers deadly gray in a mist of colour! Battleships were lying at anchor, their decks cleared for action, their guns turned on the City! My thrill changed to a shudder, I winced.

“Never mind, Zia,” said my wife, gently placing her hand on my arm, “every one has his day. A country cannot die, a nation cannot forever be enslaved. Patience and untiring work will lead Turkey to progress and to-morrow the Turks will have their day!”

Her understanding braced me. Progress, yes, progress! But had we progressed in the midst of ten years of fighting, could we progress during this interminable state of war which had not ceased even since the armistice? Patience, yes, patience! But could we be patient and work untiringly under the present conditions?

* * * * * * *

I took my wife to my father's residence. He lived then in Nishantashe, in a house on a hill, surrounded by a garden, overlooking the Bosphorus. The house was large, but our family is large too, especially when it comes to living together under the same roof. My father wanted us to settle with him. Family bonds are very strong in Turkey and the Turks have retained to a large degree the old idea of clans. Large homes dating from the old days, designed to shelter all the members of one family and their children, are still in use in Constantinople. It is true that the high cost of living and the restricted housing facilities—caused by a series of fires, by the influx of war refugees and by the foreign invasion—have contributed to perpetuate to this date this system of cohabitation. It is true that even families not related to each other now live together for economy's sake. But the custom originated in the clan spirit and its continuation is principally due to the strength of the bonds attaching the members of one family to each other.

Traditions have been most carefully respected in my father's family, as in all genuine old Turkish families. We have adopted or adapted as the case may be, any and all of the western customs which are compatible with the Orient. But we still jealously preserve certain quaint customs characteristic of the old Turkish civilization. The relations between the members of our family remain as in the past: most intimate and cordial, although outwardly somewhat ceremonious and the family has stuck together as much as the cosmopolitanism of its members and their frequent travels permitted. This blending of Eastern and Western customs, of Oriental and Occidental education and mode of living is a very natural occurrence in Turkish families such as ours. Identified with official positions which have placed them for generations in continuous touch with surrounding European countries and with the Western world, they had the duty at the same time of perpetuating Turkish traditions and the desire of assimilating any part of Western customs and education they deemed compatible with their own. Our family's governmental service dated back to the fifteenth century when it had been appointed “mufty” of Western Albania. By hereditary right it had ever since then to personify, represent and propagate Turkish customs and education in that outlying province of the Empire where it exerted a sort of political-religious governorship. But the constant relation with the Italians, Austrians, Dalmatians and Croatians of the neighbouring states gave it an opportunity to learn, appreciate and assimilate certain Western ideals. In recent years this double influence of the East and the West became if anything more pronounced. My grandfather having died when my uncle and my father were very young, they were brought up by my grandmother, and the dear old lady succeeded so thoroughly in her task that she had the satisfaction of seeing, before she died, her two sons representing at the same time their country as Ambassador to France and Ambassador to Italy. The delicate Oriental touch imparted by this lady of another age is still to-day very much alive in members of the family. Although a man of a certain age and having filled the highest dignities in the Government, my father still to-day gets up respectfully when my uncle—his elder brother—enters the room. Although we discuss freely any subject among ourselves, without distinction of age, although the greatest cordiality and intimacy exists between all of us, none of the younger members of the family would, for instance, think of smoking before one of his seniors unless he had been especially invited to do so. Although each of us travels extensively and at times lives far away for years, the ties uniting us to each other are as strong and as “clannish” as they were generations ago.

So my father wanted us to live with him. But it happened that most of the family were then gathered in Constantinople. Besides our immediate family numbering four, my uncle, his wife, their daughter and a cousin were in town and lived with my father and two old servants who had been so long with us that they were now part of the family also shared the same roof. Old servants are an immovable institution in Turkey. After years of service they acquire a standing almost equal to that of a member of the family. They have their own establishment, they do not do any work except watching over the hired men, and they would feel insulted if they were paid any salary. They ask for money when they need it. They are really part of the family. One of the old servants who was then with my father had been the nurse of my mother, and had married many years ago—at which time she had been given a little house comfortably furnished. At the death of her husband she felt so lonely—they had no children—that she sold her house and came back to us. She has lived with us ever since and considers us all as her adopted children!

So while the house in Nishantashe was quite large it was nevertheless full; and much to the regret of every one of us we decided that we would visit there only until we could find a place of our own.

This was a difficult task. All the principal houses, all the best apartments had been requisitioned by foreign officers belonging to the Inter-Allied armies of occupation, by their retinues and by their friends. We were shown many small, dirty cubby-holes in Pera, which Greek and Armenian owners were eager to rent us at prices even higher than those prevailing in New York. In Stamboul there was no place to be had, more than two-thirds of the city having been destroyed by fire. We were just about deciding to settle in a hotel, when at last we had the good luck to fall upon a Greek couple who had suddenly decided to get a divorce. No foreign officers had yet heard of it. The house was situated in a populous Greek section but was otherwise all right and it had a bathroom which is