I haven't written since I told you the biggest news a girl can give her mother, and then I was so full of it that I did not answer the questions your letters have been re-iterating for many months. What is Tarsus like? What sort are the people, and your school boys? What do you and Herbert do with yourselves out there in that God-forsaken country? It is precisely because we have been trying to find out all about Tarsus and get to know the people and the boys that I have neglected writing. That is part of the reason. The biggest part has to do with horses. You know how we love to ride--and here we have learned what it really means to ride. It isn't a genteel afternoon tea parade through a park where every one you meet is as sick of seeing you and the park as you are sick of seeing them and the park. When conventional city folk look at a bird or an animal in a cage, and are sorry for the poor thing, it is only another sign of lack of realization as well as of imagination. With my teas and balls and clothes I was blissfully happy at home: but so was our canary. Neither of us knew any better, for we knew only our prison. We have been round about Tarsus everywhere, and every day, rain or shine. There is very little of the former. From the moment of our arrival in Mersina last August, aside from an hour or so in the morning of tennis, and an occasional visit to the bazaars, all our out-of-doors has been on horse. We have explored the city and the neighborhood, and have tried the roads on the Plain in every direction. Herbert's sky-piloting in Idaho gave him a taste for restless stallion mounts, and I encourage it. Mastering horses is training for mastering men. There is nothing in the world better for the teacher than to ride high-spirited horses. The other day we took out a new horse Henri Imer is thinking of buying. We had him from a villager, who declared the horse was in a town for the first time. It was true! For he shied at every little thing. I tried him first, and had great fun making him go through crowded streets and the bazaars. The noise in the copper and tin bazaar drove him wild. But I had him in hand: for Turkish bits give you the hold. He did not like the butcher stalls. Such a time. It cost me ten piastres to the indignant butcher to get the better of the horse. But I did it by making him go straight up and rub his nose in freshly-cut pot-roasts. There was no danger for pedestrians. In Turkey the people are used to camels and horses and buffaloes "acting regardless." Pedestrians know how to get out of the way.