‘We allow no strong drink in this house,’ remarked Mr. Bond. ‘So I perceive,’ I replied. ‘Do you smoke?’ ‘I can do without tobacco quite easily.’ Condition three was a compromise. ‘We do not send for our post on Sundays,’ said the missionary. ‘I can go for my own letters.’ ‘You attend service?’ ‘I do.’ The room I got for my goodness was on the first floor. It held a big downy bed, wherein one could roll about without danger or discomfort. There was a rug on the floor, on a washstand a china wash-bowl and pitcher instead of the petroleum tin with faucet in the _khan_ yards for guests who wash. My window looked out on the garden and over the red-tiled roofs of the town, covered with storks’ nests. The residence was situated on the border between the Turkish and the Bulgarian quarters. Round the corner, in the upper room of a large wooden building, was the church; and in the next street was the girls’ school, conducted by two American women with the assistance of several Bulgarians educated at Samakov. The number of people in the congregation was less than a hundred. They were all Bulgarians, with the exception of one family of Albanians. The school was quite prosperous, having several grades and boarding pupils who came from a hundred miles around. Among the scholars were Greeks from Florina, and Vlachs from Krushevo, as well as Bulgarians and Albanians, all, of course, Christian girls. The school was a sort of select seminary for the better classes. Tsilka, husband of Mrs. Tsilka, his wife, and ‘the brigand baby,’ born in captivity, lived near our house. Tsilka assisted Mr. Bond in his duties, and Mrs. Tsilka taught at the school. They both spoke English quite well, and the accounts they gave of the long captivity and the ransom were extremely exciting. It was never dull at the mission. There was always something interesting going on. My visit began in the height of a panic. Rumour, which stalked rampant after the Salonica outrages, planned trouble for Monastir on the following _fête_, St. George’s Day. The Vali, under instructions from the Governor-General, got his garrison in readiness to combat an attack by dynamiters, and the civilian Mohamedans, being in an ugly mood, prepared to assist the soldiers. No attack came from the Bulgarians, but the promises of trouble were fulfilled nevertheless. Turks all ready, it required but a signal to start them to work. The signal came in a row between a Turk _khanji_ and a Bulgar baker over payment for a long due account. The Bulgar died, and the mob of bashi-bazouks slaughtered some forty other ‘infidels’ before being dispersed by the soldiers, who at first assisted them. [Illustration: A GREEK.]