An account of modern Turkey and of the modern Turks would not be complete without an account of these Turks, their mode of living, their ideals and ideas and to obtain first-hand information on them I have written to a childhood friend of mine, Djemil Haidar Bey, who is now visiting Angora. I have received a letter from him and for fear of omitting the smallest detail or detracting from its vivid pictures vibrating with youthful vitality, I am giving here its textual translation. I have only left out those parts which had to do with matters of personal interest. “I will now endeavour to give you the description you have asked of the Angora of to-day and of the people who are living here. I believe you visited Angora before the war. Anyhow you know that it was nothing but a village which could boast of no more than about fifteen thousand inhabitants living in wooden shacks and mud huts, good Anatolian peasants and their families, satisfied with leading a good, peaceful life, working in their fields during the day and meeting in prayer at night. “The general war came and as in every other village of Anatolia it drained Angora of all its male inhabitants who could bear arms and with the signing of the armistice those of the surviving inhabitants who were lucky enough to come back found nearly half of their village destroyed by fire. “It was written,” they said with a sigh, and settled down to their usual life. Little did they know that soon the most momentous events in the Near East were to make of their unknown little village the powerful center of a whole nation in open rebellion against the imperialistic desires of powerful enemies. “But somewhere in the limitless space of the infinite the powers that rule the destinies of the world were silently acting. Events were taking shape. Turkish patriots, practically all members of the House of Representatives duly elected by the people, winced on reading the terms of the treaty of peace which the enemies of Turkey wanted to impose on their country. To accept them would have been to sign the death warrant of the country. But to refuse them and remain in Constantinople was not to be thought of. Several of their leaders who had openly given vent to their feelings in Constantinople had been arrested and exiled to a little island in the Mediterranean where they could leisurely think over the emptiness of war formulas such as the one which enunciated as inalienable the rights of small nationalities. To organize an open rebellion in Constantinople would have been impossible; the guns of the most powerful fleets of the world were turned on the city.