Consisting of an accretion of villages, containing the conveniences of a village, Pera keeps, in strange contradiction to her urban dimensions, the air of a village, the separation of a village from the larger world, the love of a village for gossip and the credulity of a village in rumour. This is partly due, of course, to the ingrained belief of the Turks that it is not well for people to know exactly what is going on. The papers of Pera have always lived under a strict censorship, and consequently there is nothing too fantastic for Pera to repeat or believe. Hence it is that Pera is sniffed at by those who should know her best, while the tarriers for a night console themselves with imagining that there is nothing to see. I have never been able to understand why it should be thought necessary nowadays for one town to be exactly like another. I, therefore, applaud Pera for having the originality to be herself. And within her walls I have learned that one may be happy even without steam-heat and telephones. In despite, moreover, of the general contempt for her want of intellectual resources, I submit that merely to live in Pera is as good as a university. No one can hope to entertain relations with the good people of that municipality without speaking at least one language beside his own. It is by no means uncommon for a Perote to have five or six at his tongue’s end. Turkish and French are the official languages, but Greek is more common in Pera and Galata proper, while you must have acquaintance with two or three alphabets more if you wish to read the signs in the streets or the daily papers. And then there remain an indeterminate number of dialects used by large bodies of citizens.