The extraordinary thing is that one is so secluded. One seems on the other side of creation's wall--in the backwash of the waters. But we all know it only seems so. The stream of Time flows on, sweeping along with it great events in the changing scene from which we here are far removed. I have ever been of a restless nature, and I am told this may operate as a rest cure. One hundred and fifty miles from the nearest railway, and that far from anywhere, locked in by mountains bordering the Black Sea, cut off from papers and books and news, in a town that but awakes and sleeps, with no public institutions or even a picture theatre, one has left for a hobby only the delivery of direct interrogatories to oneself, and the supplying of answers thereto. I believe this is a supreme test of character, and may prove a strength to some and a ruination to others. Sometimes an event overtakes us. For instance, I have been placed in "gaol" for a short time, and the incident was so funny I must set it down. One day, while I was filling in notes of this diary, I observed one of the flimsy untied curtains was ablaze. How it started I can only conjecture. Either it blew on to the hot cigarette ash tray, or a hot part of a cigarette must have fallen down near the bed and caught in the curtain. These local cigarettes are wretched things and burn furiously, the head often falling off so that it is a common thing to find one's clothes alight. I ripped the curtain down and stamped it out. The two beds had caught, and the room filled with smoke. I stamped out the fire and doused the bed with water. As it still smouldered I flung it out of the door. And then they came, Turks, choushs, postas, Sheriff Bey, the kaimakam himself, and I began to expect the Sultan. They were very angry, a fire having occurred in the Gurkhas' quarters a few days previously. They persisted in saying I tried to burn the house down and to set fire to Kastamuni. That afternoon a sort of court-martial was made of it, and I was arraigned before the Turkish Commandant, thinking it a delightful joke. Their serious faces amused me. I told them it was an accident, that I was sorry, that I would pay the damage, and after a debate of ordinary budget length, the kaimakam decided to let me off on my paying a lira. (The curtain would have cost about ten piastres, and the bed was only singed.) Then Sheriff Bey stormed and protested for more punishment, and I was sent under an escort after handing over all my smokes and matches, to a dirty iron-barred cellar room in a house used by the kaimakam as an office. It was full of paper, and there was no bed or chair. I had no supplies at all. When I was left in peace I took a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Virginibus Puerisque" from my pocket, and sitting in a corner started to read. Presently I became aware of an eye watching me through the crack. In fact, I was just on the point of lighting up from a spare cigarette case and matches in my hip pocket.