Her countrywomen, in Ascot gowns, driving their four-horse carriages up to the golf-course at Marienbad, _in search of_ an introduction, did not find His Majesty so easy to approach. The most determined of them all (up against something that “money” could not buy) was driven to use her scissors to cut off a few hairs from his dog’s tail. “At least,” she said, “if I have no souvenir of the King of England, I have a bit of his dog,” and she mounted the hairs in a locket and wore it until she died. “You see,” I concluded, “how much these ‘democrats’ admire a king. Will the fever, I wonder, ever take root in the East?” * * * * * When we reached the Sakharia, the eyes of the general were filled with tears, and it was some time before he managed to speak of what _had been_. It seemed, indeed, too good to be true. The Greeks had penetrated to Sakharia; and now they were driven out of the whole country! “Without our Pasha,” said he, “we should still be slaves. To-day, none dare fail in duty to our Fatherland!” They were all this man’s pupils, these Nationalist leaders. To his fine, upright character they owe an example they are proud to acknowledge. His sons told me that he was in exile for six years, and they had no idea where he was! It was easy to see how they admired him and how devoted he was to them; and now his work at Teheran will not be easy; such men give their whole lives to service! We have travelled quickly and comfortably over this desolate country; the little engine, _stoked with wood_, is tugging its long burden up the long heights. “Look,” said the colonel, “there is Angora.” “That little village perched on a hill?” “It is not a village,” he corrected, “it is a town.” Yet somehow I felt this was not what I had expected ... “such a tiny speck of a place to bear so great a name!” Well, I had my first peep at that which I had come so far to see—the cradle of the New Turkey. Soon I shall meet the hero of the Nationalists! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV ANGORA I.—ENTERING A “BROTHERHOOD”—AN ATMOSPHERE OF CAMARADERIE “WELL, what did you expect to see?” asked the colonel. “Really, I don’t know exactly,” said I, “but something different.... I suppose I am foolish enough to look for some sort of likeness to our Western towns.... There is a certain resemblance in parts to a town in the Rhondda Valley, except that the Welsh mining districts are sordid and this is picturesque.” “Why not leave it as it is,” said the colonel—“unique and impossible to classify? Begin your explorations at my house, where you can enjoy another glass of warm tea.” This, in fact, was the first house I entered, and the last I left, in Angora.