We climb rickety stairs and cross a wooden veranda to examine the rooms—one with three beds, the other with two. Alas, the former is too much for even the cheik’s philosophy, and he decides for the courtyard. Neither of the beds in the double room is clean, certainly, but a marked advance on the alternative; and, after placing the cheik’s quilt and prayer-mat _between_ myself and the “men in possession,” and wrapping myself up in two thick rugs, I am glad enough to “go to bed in my boots,” with at least the prospect of “keeping still” for a few hours. If a fire _has_ brought out more “visitors” than were obvious at our first inspection, it is still better than traffic “by goods.” The officer is compelled literally to “sit up” all night, as there is no room for him to stretch his limbs. On such a night I could have wished for a “smaller” hole in the floor, and that the “mud” walls had not been quite so badly in need of repair; yet the shabby and threadbare costume of the “man with our morning tea,” was not sordid, but only picturesque. The cheik, like so many men, is an excellent housewife, and when he laid a clean handkerchief upon a large volume for tray, our breakfast of bread and helva, nuts and fruit, looked quite appetising. It is not the “indolence of the East” that is leaving these people in destitution among the ruins. One day, what remains standing will have to be pulled or burnt down, and a complete rebuilding undertaken. But nothing can be done under a threat of war. * * * * * At every inn on our return journey the whole of the “service” was entrusted to men. This, no doubt, largely explains the usual discomfort. Women must not remain entirely anonymous. The cheik told me he hoped the new generation, largely educated in Europe, might welcome such innovations, but “it would be difficult for the old. My wife, for instance, complained at having to ‘receive’ men visitors in Berlin. She considered it ‘cheap’ and ‘lowering’ to her prestige.” I can only hope the women of Turkey, when they achieve progress, will advance on the right lines—more determined on tact than pace. One must, of course, discard conventions at need, as I was doing all the time on this journey, but one can, at the same time, respect the feelings of others. I could not, for convention, allow my present companions to keep up the full Eastern “separation of the sexes”; and, as the cheik remarked, London ballrooms would be no less offensive to Turkish ladies of the old school than the comparatively “close quarters” which common humanity forbade us to avoid.