But notwithstanding the total absence of all the entertainments that contribute so much to the pleasure of the people of Europe and America, the Anatolian has a way of spending his leisure hours that quite satisfies him. His amusements are simple indeed, but with them he is content. Most of these center in the coffeehouse, which, to a great extent, takes the place of the restaurant in France and the club in the United States. Like the club and restaurant the Turkish coffeehouse _Is the resort of public men; the haunt_ _Of wealthy idlers and the trysting-place_ _Of such as have no home to indicate--_ _A place where each may come and go at will,_ _Think his own thoughts, pursue his own affairs,_ _Or fling his ore of feeling and of sense_ _Into the common crucible._ Unlike the club and restaurant, the coffeehouse serves no food or alcoholic liquors of any kind. Aside from the people who congregate there, and it is usually well-patronized, its attractions are as limited as they are simple. In the less pretentious places these are confined to coffee, tobacco, and, occasionally, the _Medak_, or story-teller. In the more sumptuous places of the larger cities there is also music, but it is generally of a very inferior quality, for the instruments employed are for the most part limited to a drum, a tambourine, and two or three rude guitars. In Anatolia, as in all Moslem countries, the _Medak_ is a most popular character. Not infrequently his ability is so marked that he attains the rank of a personage, and his services on festive occasions are in great demand and for them he is liberally remunerated. The admirable manner in which he can, unaided, fill the rôle of entire casts of the most diverse characters, his marvelous versatility in personating the people of different nations, and in imitating the tones, phraseologies, and even the facial expression of the multitudinous races of the Turkish empire are really astonishing and are to his audience a source of unending delight. Not a few of the Medaks, in addition to histrionic talent that would do honor to the best European stage, have a gift of expression and a facility of invention that make them the rivals of the most eminent Italian _improvisatori_. With such entertainers the Turks can readily forego our more elaborate forms of amusement, even if they were available.[183] * * * * * But the stories and drolleries of the Medak--although always a perennial source of pleasure--are not the chief attractions of the coffeehouse. These are partly supplied, as Lowell so playfully puts it, by _The kind nymph to Bacchus born_ _By Morpheus’ daughter, she that seems_ _Gifted on her natal morn_ _By him with fire, by her with dreams--_ _Nicotia, dearer to the Muse_ _Than all the grapes’ bewildering juice._