The machinations of the reactionaries, however, produced some effect. For a considerable time Constantinople was in an overwrought and nervous condition, and various incidents inspired the Christian inhabitants with a great dread of impending peril. These Greeks, Armenians, Levantines, and others, timid of nature after their ages of oppression, suffered from an epidemic of panic, acute fits of which were daily brought about by very small causes. Thus, one day at about this time, as I was walking through the Grand Bazaar in Stamboul I witnessed the following incident which showed the jumpy condition of the population. A man, revolver in hand, chased by soldiers and others, suddenly appeared, running at full speed through the crowded lanes of the Bazaar. This was quite enough to start a panic. Like wildfire spread the report that the Moslem mob, stirred up by the Softas, had at last commenced the massacre of the Christians. The scene was indeed an extraordinary one. Men and women turned pallid, wrung their hands, wept and howled, and there was a general stampede for the shelter of the houses. People ran into their own or other shops, doors were bolted, bars were drawn, shutters were closed, and in a trice what had been a busy mart had become empty and silent as a city of the dead, and remained so until Sami Pasha, the Minister of Police, came down to reassure the frightened Greek and Armenian traders. It turned out that the origin of this widespread panic was merely the endeavouring of a vender of contraband tobacco to escape from the soldiers who had been sent to arrest him.