As we were having tea in the reception room of Halil Bey we talked of his family and of how much the art renaissance in Turkey owed to them all. Besides Hamdi Bey, who has left an undying name in the annals of Turkish history both as the founder of the Imperial Museum and as the creator of the Art Academy, besides the fact that his brother, Halil Bey, has followed in his path and is continuing the work undertaken by him, it is worth mentioning that Hamdi Bey's son is a distinguished architect to whom is due the beautiful buildings of the Museum and of the Academy. This distinguished family has unquestionably done more for the revival of art in Turkey than any one family has done for art in any other country and it was almost a pleasure that Halil Bey was not present as we could more freely talk of his services and of those of his family within the very walls which had been erected by them and filled by them with treasures discovered through their own initiative and work. Our American friends admitted that this visit had thrown a different light on their conception of art in Turkey and its appreciation by the Turks, but as they were not satisfied until they had seen some other art school I took them next day to the Darul-Elhan, the Turkish School of Music for Girls and we had the good fortune to assist in a most interesting concert. This school was founded and is being managed by Senator Zia Pasha, who was Turkish Ambassador in Washington a few years before the war. It is located in an old palace in the very heart of Stamboul. Our American friends were quite impressed by the knowledge that they were to hear and see, in the proper setting where their ancestors had been recluses, free and emancipated Turkish girls playing and singing for the benefit of strangers. To the accompaniment of violins, lutes and longstemmed “tambours” these Turkish girls with the full knowledge possessed only by accomplished artists and with the soft, velvety voices so typical of the Orient, sang and played a selection of the most complicated, classical music as well as charming little folksongs. Zia Pasha was there himself and as I introduced him to our friends he expressed the wish that more foreigners would make it a point, when in Constantinople, to assist at such concerts: “Perhaps,” said he, “if foreigners studied our music better its reputation for weirdness and monotony would give place to one of softness and melody. Perhaps foreigners would even be able to detect in our music all the accords and measures they relish so much in modern Russian music such as that of Rimsky Korsakoff, which after all is nothing more or less than the orchestration of our Oriental music.” XIII A GLIMPSE OF ISLAM