My desire was to join one of these colleges, after having been prepared by private tuition to pass the obligatory entrance examination. But since my elder brother had already entered one of the modern colleges, my uncle urged me to affiliate myself to one of the old-fashioned _madrassehs_. As we had yet some hope of recovering our confiscated property, and as the right of holding the estates depended on the heir's following our grandfather's semi-theological profession, my uncle insisted that I should continue my studies in one of these quasi-theological _madrassehs_. Although I was most reluctant, I had to fall in with his wishes, so I prepared to go and live with a tutor who had his room in the _madrasseh_ which is attached to the mosque of little St Sophia,[3] a Byzantine building, which is as much visited by European tourists as the great St. Sophia. When one becomes a member of these old-fashioned institutions of learning, one must wear a professional turban and a long cloak, let the beard grow, if one is old enough to have one, and shave the hair off one's head. They procured for me a turban and cloak, and my uncle sent me with a manservant to a barber's shop to get my head shaved. The shaving of a thick head of hair is a most painful thing, and tears filled my eyes, partly from the pain caused by the razor on my unaccustomed head, and partly, I think, from the anticipation of the terrible monk-like existence I was about to pass in the _madrasseh_. Next day I went with my luggage to the school, but did not begin my studies until several months had passed away, as I caught cold by being shaved, and suffered in consequence from headache and ophthalmia. I shall never forget the miserable life I passed in that school. It will perhaps be of some interest if I give a description of a _madrasseh_, and the mode of life and study therein.