Two rather better opportunities were provided by the officer in charge of our guards, a young Turk who was fanatical and unbelievably stupid. The party occupied two compartments, one containing three prisoners, the officer, and a Turkish soldier, and the other the remaining four prisoners, a corporal, and a third guard. The officer paid us not the least attention, whether to guard against a possible escape, to provide us with food, or even to count his prisoners from time to time. At sunset he turned eastward and murmured his prayers, and at odd moments throughout the day, with head on breast, he muttered what I supposed to be passages from the Koran. Nobody but Allah, Mohammed, and his fanatical little self seemed to interest him. The fanatic had a basket of bread and dried meat for his own needs--but for his own needs only. After ten hours of foodlessness we stopped awhile at Homs, and in broken Arabic we demanded food. He pointed to a man on the platform who was selling bread and hard-boiled eggs, and resumed his meditation. We left the train without hindrance, and mingled with the people who surrounded the hawker. Two of us, at least, could have slipped away, with the crowd as screen. But the nearest point on the coast was far distant, and, with neither compass nor a supply of food, to make the attempt in our uniforms would have been madness. On this station I got into conversation with a Maronite woman, who talked of the dreadful conditions in her native province of Lebanon. The crops had been commandeered, the cedars and the fruit trees cut down by the Turks for fuel, the people systematically starved. Already thirty per cent. of Lebanon's pre-war population had died of destitution, she declared, including her father and her two children. "The people of Lebanon perish, and neither God nor anybody else helps us." This in a tone of dull hopelessness, as if she were beyond even despair. And even as she said it, many a consignment of Syrian and Anatolian grain was _en route_ for Germany. The second chance came at Hamah, where we halted at dusk for half an hour. A little restaurant faced our compartment, and, still being hungry, we made for it. The Turkish officer ordered us to stop, while a guard, running from the train, clutched at H.'s arm. H. shook him off, like a horse shaking off a fly, said "_mungaree_" (his version of the Arabic for food) and proceeded toward the restaurant. The young officer continued to protest, but, when we took not the slightest notice, he joined us at the buffet, where, for the price of three dollars, one could buy a plate of goat's meat and beans, with bread and coffee. Afterward, while the Turk went outside with four of our number, H., M., and I stayed behind to buy bread.