The appearance of our men on their arrival at Constantinople confirmed the impression that they had not been recalled too soon. They had gone out through the snows and ice of winter and without change or rest had come back through the scorching suns of midsummer--five months of rough, uncivilized life, faring and sharing with their beasts of burden, well-nigh out of communication with the civilized world, but never out of danger, it seemed but just to themselves and to others who might yet need them that change and rest be given them. Since our entrance upon Turkish soil no general disturbance had taken place. One heard only the low rumbling of the thunder after the storm, the clouds were drifting southward and settling over Crete and Macedonia, and we felt that we might take at least some steps toward home. It was only when this movement commenced that we began truly to realize how deep the roots of friendship, comradeship, confidence, and love had struck back among our newly found friends and countrymen; how much a part of ourselves--educational, humanitarian, and official--their work and interest had become, and surely from them we learned anew the lesson of reciprocity. Some days of physical rest were needful for the men of the expeditions after reaching Constantinople before commencing another journey of thousands of miles, worn as they were by exposure, hardship, and incessant labor, both physical and mental. This interval of time was, however, mainly employed by them in the preparation of the reports submitted with this, and in attention to the letters which followed them from their various fields, telling of further need, but more largely overflowing with gratitude and blessing for what had been done. For our financial secretary and myself there could be neither rest nor respite while we remained at a disbursing post so well known as ours. Indeed there never had been. From the time of our arrival in February to our embarkation in August there were but two days not strictly devoted to business, the 4th of July and the 5th of August--the last a farewell to our friends. For both of these occasions we were indebted to the hospitality of treasurer and Mrs. W. W. Peet, and although held in the open air, on the crowning point of Proti, one of the Princes’ Islands, with the Marmora, Bosporus, and Golden Horn in full view, the spires and minarets of Constantinople and Scutari telling us of a land we knew little of, with peoples and customs strange and incomprehensible to us, still there was no lack of the emblem that makes every American at home, and its wavy folds of red, white, and blue shaded the tables and flecked the tasteful viands around which sat the renowned leaders of the American missionary element of Asia Minor.