It is proposed to proceed at once with the organization of local alliances throughout the Union, any person connected with a Christian Organization or society, regardless of denomination, being eligible to membership. * * * * * The headquarters of the alliance at the National Hotel are open from ten to twelve o'clock. It is intended to send out about two million of the pamphlets explaining the purposes of the alliance, in lots of two hundred thousand or more. The delegates to the national convention will be selected by the different local clubs. Well knowing, however, that investigation would show no trace of government or other official authority, we decided to lose no time, but to prepare ourselves for work at the earliest moment; and taking up the rôle of merchants, went into Stamboul, and purchased from the great wholesale houses, immense quantities of such material as could not fail of being useful and needed, to be later taken by caravans into the interior. Just at this interval, a request was brought to me by Dr. Washburn, of Robert College, from Sir Philip Currie, English ambassador, asking if I could not be "persuaded" to turn my expedition through the Mediterranean, rather than the Black Sea, in order to reach Marash and Zeitoun, where the foreign consuls were at the moment convened. They had gotten word to him that ten thousand people in those two cities were down with four distinct epidemics--typhoid and typhus fevers, dysentery and smallpox--that the victims were dying in overwhelming numbers and that there was not a physician among them, all being either sick or dead, with no medicines and little food. This was not a case for "persuasion," but of heartfelt thanks from us all that Sir Philip had remembered to call us whom he had never met. But here was a hindrance. The only means of conveyance from Constantinople to Alexandretta were coasting boats, belonging to different nationalities, and which left only once in two weeks and irregularly at that. Transport for our goods was secured on the first boat to leave, the goods taken to the wharf at Galata, and at the latest moment in order to give time, a request was made to the government for _teskeres_ or traveling permits for Dr. Hubbell and assistants. To our surprise they were granted instantly, but by some delay on the part of the messenger sent for them, they reached a moment too late; the boat left a little more than promptly, taking with it our relief goods, and leaving the men on the dock to receive their permits only when the boat was beyond recall. It was really the fault of no one. With the least possible delay the doctor secured passage by the first boat to Smyrna, and a fortunate chance boat from there, took him to Alexandretta, via Beyrout and Tripoli, Syria. The goods arrived in safety and two other of our assistants, whom we had called by cable from America, Messrs. Edward M.