How dreadfully cold it is, and how interminably long the winter seems! Malaria and colds have pursued us. Our boots have collapsed everywhere, and the few pairs in the bazaar cost over eight liras. Here, again, we have fallen back on ourselves, and two officers started repairing in an institution called the "Snob's Shop." They are now quite good at it, and turn out really fine work. The only leather obtainable, however, is rotten local stuff. Other prices have risen steadily. The wretched tea available is about two liras a pound, and there is little of that. Sugar is ten shillings a pound, coffee dearer than tea, meat two shillings a pound, and wood works out at about three-pence a stick. The wonder is how all these people live. Many are pinched and haggard, and funeral processions in the snow are more frequent. The Turkish contractor at the _mektub_ has been playing the extortionate _rôle_, and for weeks we have threatened to strike and had meeting after meeting. The net result has been to get the Turks' backs up against us, and it seems evident enough that the military authorities are in the financial swim with the fleecers. We have almost decided to mess ourselves--the chief objection to this being that every obstacle will be put in our way and prices will go up accordingly in the bazaar. The other day we were allowed our permitted long walk and took the direction of the pine woods, away up the long ascent. We trod in young snow a few inches deep. It was a glorious walk with the tiny bronze pines peeping through the white sheets that stretched from horizon to horizon over hill and valley. We climbed until on a patch of upland from which the sun had ousted the snow, thousands of tiny crocuses invited us to stop and listen to their premature whispers of spring. But since then winter seems to have fastened on us another clutch of unmistakable proprietorship. On our way back we stopped at our cemetery, which has gradually grown larger since we came. Last November the survivors of the unfortunate yacht _Nida_ reached us. She had struck a mine near Alexandretta and lost half her crew. The commander had a terribly rough trip here, and the disaster seemed to have preyed upon his mind. He died in the hospital here, poor fellow. Recently we buried a gunner orderly arrived from Angora. He had belonged to the 82nd R.F.A., and came with the last batch allowed us by the authorities as the result of continuous applications. The reports they brought of the men were simply terrible. Hundreds of them seem to have perished in the cold. The sick were allowed to die without any attention whatever. A daily loaf of bread and one blanket, and often no medical care at all, had accounted for hundreds. Whole regiments are wiped out. Father Tim and the Reverend Wright, who were recently ordered to Kara Hissah for the other officers, managed to get a line back to us to the effect that the reports about the men were true. Rumours are in the