We had come from Pera, crossing in a steamer, and had to ride some twenty miles on rough little ponies to the sleeping place, and—horror of horrors!—_on Turkish saddles_. Now to the timid rider a Turkish saddle is at first a delight, for to leave it without great effort is impossible, and there is a pommel which is so high that it appears the height of folly not to cling to it; but when one’s knees are in one’s mouth, when one’s saddle is hard as iron and cuts like a knife, when one has new and heavy shooting-boots on, and one’s unmentionables have a tendency to ruck, besides having the glory of carrying a forty-guinea gun slung (oh, demon cockney gun-maker!) by a sling that slips along the barrel, and was highly recommended, with the addition of one hundred loaded cartridges distributed over the many pockets of a very new shooting-coat, in the sun, with a fur cap on—is it to be wondered at that the sufferings of the tortured Indian at the stake were child’s-play to what I endured without a groan, and repeating constantly assurances of my delight and enjoyment?—and remember, reader, we went at a brisk canter all the time. How glad I was to lie down! How grieved I was, at 4.30 A.M. the next day, to be called, and, after a hurried wash, to start in the half dawn in my tight and heavy boots! But the firing began; I forgot the tightness of my boots, the stiffness of my back. Do you remember how stiff you felt after your _first riding lesson_, my friend? and you hadn’t one hundred loaded cartridges about you, and an intermittent garotte with your knees in your mouth; and I thanked Heaven I need not sit down, for weighty reasons. Of course I fired wildly; of course I missed continually, but it was my first day, and I never enjoyed anything so much in my life. I hobbled bravely on till there was no more daylight, but I did feel thoroughly done on getting in, and I did not enjoy my ride back the next day. I used to try and learn Persian in my idle hours, and I soon mastered the printed character and could read fluently, but without the slightest idea of meaning. Kind Colonel G⸺ gave me many a lesson, but I fear that loafing in Stamboul by day and going to the French or Italian theatre in the evening had greater attractions. I was always passionately fond of the stage, and, as we were always going _in a day or two_, I used, on the principle that I might never be able to go to the play again, to go every evening. Of course there was only a third-rate French company, but how very good they were! The term “stick,” so justly applied to many of our actors, could not be attached to any player in the little band. All were good, and all were good all round, and though the leading man might be everything in the drama, yet he didn’t object to play the lover in the little vaudeville, and played it well. An Englishman, in the event of anything so dreadful happening to him, would soon let his audience see that he was only doing it under protest.