“I will pay honour where honour is due. To all who have so nobly perpetuated the work of Florence Nightingale I bow the knee. But what will American innovations do for Turkey? “In the East End of New York, America’s melting-pot, I once saw a picturesque old Jew reading Spinoza in the original, as he sat absorbed on the sidewalk. His velvet cap was old and shabby, the long grizzly beard maybe none too clean; but in the primitive robes of his ancient race he looked a true Oriental. “Then appeared his ‘American son’—a ‘Bowery’ accent, many smart rings, a costly gold watchchain across his brightly-coloured waistcoat, spats and patents, and a ‘time is money’ expression on his alert face. Which of the generations would you prefer? “If the Turk ever asks our advice, I sincerely hope no ‘counsels from Europe’ will ever replace the artistic traditions of the East.... Europeanised Turks are not the ‘best’ Turks. “You have already, alas, in the Hippodrome at Constantinople, that cheap, ‘made in Germany’ monstrosity of a fountain, which the once-mighty Emperor William bequeathed to you as the ‘souvenir’ of a visit to ‘his brother,’ Abdul Hamid! Why has war left it untouched?” * * * * * It was a strange comfort to compare the happy faces of these men with those one knew under the late Sultans. In those days, two or three meeting together in a café were always in fear of arrest as “suspects.” I remember what songs broke forth on the Night of the Constitution—funereal, indeed, they sounded to our thinking, but such _are_ their songs of joy. Then they sang for joy, since “freedom” was too new a thing for serious contentment; oppression had only just been lifted, the sense of security had not arrived. Now, in the sure knowledge of freedom from the Greeks and from Imperial rule, they sit, calm and confident and well satisfied, no longer an Emperor’s slaves, but citizens of a Free State. Can one wonder that every one of them would die rather than lose one inch of the liberty so bravely won? “Please tell them,” I asked the officer, “that I have been in Turkey for every crisis of progress in recent history, and that none has filled me with such proud delight as the victory of M. Kemal Pasha. I am here to-day to offer him my congratulations.” The colonel politely remarked that it would have been only “prudent” speculation for the British Government to have despatched me upon the mission I had undertaken for myself. I thought how well it would be for many of my compatriots to do similar work in other lands. It may be against all our traditions, but “propaganda” could now do much for England. Here, on the brink of war, where all men were filled with righteous indignation against us, I have at least been able to leave a “better impression” of my country in wayside cafés and many Turkish homes.