At four o’clock every afternoon the German officers, who are constantly arriving from Berlin at the Pera Palace Hotel to receive their instructions, remove their military clothes and appear in mufti. Here again we have evidence of German subtlety. No man in the world loves his uniform as does the German officer, but, as one waggish Bavarian lieutenant said to me, “We must not give the Turks the impression that we are a flight of German locusts. We do not want the Galata Bridge to look like Unter den Linden all the time, so as soon as we have finished our duty we go about as civilians.” They are wise. Constantinople already looks quite German enough; that is, to Turkish eyes. There are German newspapers printed in the city, there are the crews of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ wearing the Turkish fez, and of the submarines, and swarms of miscellaneous Germans, all with their particular object in view. These facts in themselves are enough to cause misgiving in the heart of the most pronouncedly pro-German Turk. My own impression is that whatever may be the result of the war the Germans are getting such a hold on the Near East that it will be next to impossible to drive them out. Money is scarce in Germany, but the Germans seem to have plenty to spend in Turkey and Asia Minor. CHAPTER VI I VISIT ASIA MINOR A Remarkable Railway Station--I Leave for Konia--The Anatolian Railway--How to Get to Baghdad--Elaborate Instructions--Necessity for Caution--English and French Prisoners--Instructing the Turk in the Arts of Peace--A Noisy Sleeper--Hamburg’s Hatred of Great Britain--Sops to Austria and Turkey--Field-Marshal Von der Goltz--I Return to Constantinople. After I had been nine days in Constantinople I determined to undertake what I clearly saw would be the most dangerous portion of my journey. At that time I did not anticipate encountering the Kaiser and his detective bodyguard at Nish. I knew that for ordinary civil travellers the Anatolian Railway is closed, because the whole of Asia Minor is what we call here in “the War Zone.” After my interview with Enver Pasha, however, I thought it would not be so difficult to get permission to travel into the interior of Turkey, and in fact, after two days’ ceaseless effort and many hours spent in ante-rooms, I was lucky enough to secure the so much-desired permission. It was stated on my passport in Turkish characters, under the stamp of the Turkish War Office, that I was to be allowed to travel in the military zone--in other words, that I could go into Asia Minor.