I climbed Hissar hill again, to warn the rest of a town-going household of the situation and to collect recruits for a forced march of seven miles across country. They were not difficult to obtain. Three of us were starting for a last reconnaissance of the _scala_, when we heard a steamer whistle. We were just in time to jump triumphantly on board. So the croakers were mistaken, after all! The passengers were few, however. At the next station of Bebek, where a considerable English colony lives, a number of friends joined us. At the station below that the captain threw up the sponge. An up-bound steamer was there, which had turned back. We told our captain he was a fool, a coward, and as many other uncomplimentary things as we could think of, but he refused to budge. We accordingly got off and took the stony street following the shore to the city. People stared at us as Habib had stared at me. The tide of travel was all the other way. There were carriages full of Turkish women, with eunuchs on the box. There were Armenians, Greeks, and Jews of the lower classes—the last distinguishable by the furred robes of the old men—hurrying northward on foot, with babies and bundles in their arms. There were, more notably, soldiers of the garrison, singly, in groups, with or without rifles. We stopped the first we saw and asked what was up. They all declared that they knew nothing, showing much haste to be on. We afterward realised that they were running away. We saw some of them bargaining for boats to take them to the Asiatic side.