Those who know him best also claim that the Turk is hospitable, temperate, devoid of meanness, sincere in his friendships—once he is your friend he is always your friend—and, though his enemies have represented him as very much the reverse, gentle and humane. Of the steadfastness of his friendship I have had experience. When a Turk is your friend you can implicitly trust him, even though he be, what the conditions of his country have sometimes made him, a murderous outlaw. I have had friends among Turkish brigands myself, and Sir William Whittall, who knows the Turks as well as any Englishman can, writes in the following sympathetic way of his robber friend Redjeb: “Peace be to his ashes! He is dead now. Brigand or no brigand, I had a sincere admiration for the man as a man. His faithfulness was like unto that of a dog, and he saved my life at the risk of his own. I have had many incidents with brigands in Asia Minor during my fifty years of sport, and I must say that as long as they were Turks, and I had assisted some friends or villages of theirs, which I always made it a point to do when I frequented the wild regions, I never feared any accidents; and though I might often have been taken, I never was. I would not like to trust Christian brigands in the same fashion.” Gentleness and humanity are among the most marked characteristics of the Turk. With his ferocity in war when his passions are roused I shall deal later, but of his kindliness and charity in his dealings with his fellow-men there can be no doubt. In no European country are animals treated so kindly as they are in Turkey. A Turk never ill-uses his horse or his ox or his domestic pets, and the wonderful tameness of these creatures in Turkey testifies to this good trait. In Constantinople the pariah dogs lie about the streets in their tens of thousands; they live partly on garbage and partly on the scraps of food which even very poor Turks put out for them. These dogs, though fighting among themselves, display nothing but friendship for, and confidence in, man. They never move for one as they sprawl across the narrow pavements, for they know that no Turk would have the heart to kick them out of the way. A few years ago an American offered a very large sum for the right to clear Constantinople of its pariah dogs, his object being to sell their skins to the glove makers. The populace raised a howl of indignation when they heard of this, and had not the scheme been abandoned serious riots would have occurred. There is no need for a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in a Turkish town.