Having arrived at their destination, the carpets are spread out, and while some prepare and lay out the appetizing viands, others disport themselves in the fields, and return laden with flowers and with great yellow marigolds stuck in their hair. The repast may consist of such _hors-d'oeuvres_ as salted sardines, black olives, caviar, and salad of _tchiros_, or dried mackerel. This mackerel is the fish that in spring-time migrates from the Mediterranean, where it has spawned, into the Black Sea, and is in such an emaciated condition that the expression "thin as a _tchiros_" is used in Turkey to designate a person of extreme leanness. Nevertheless, it is caught and dried in the sun in such large quantities that the fields over which they are suspended look blue from a distance. They are sold by the pair, or "married couples," as the vendors cry out, and are grilled, shredded, and prepared into salad with oil and vinegar, and the tender leaves of the cummin (_tereot_). Next to the _hors-d'oeuvres_ follow _dolmaz_ or rissoles of rice, raisins, and pine-nuts, seasoned with oil, and wrapped and boiled in vine-leaves. _Keftez_ or meat rissoles come next, and then the fruits of the season, such as strawberries, cherries, and plums, or, should it be autumn, grapes, peaches, melons, water-melons, figs, etc. Cheese is frequently eaten with these fruits. _Hoshaf_, or the sweetened water in which fruit has been stewed, is generally drunk during meals, and when the humble repast is over, coffee is prepared, and served round in little cups which will barely hold an ounce. Turkish coffee owes its excellence to the beans being newly roasted and newly ground. The grinding is done with a small machine, which pulverizes the beans very finely. The coffee is prepared in a special brass pot, the bottom of which is wider than the top. A teaspoonful is put in for every cup required, and the water is gently brought to a simmer over a slow fire. The coffee is allowed to rise thrice, and after resting the pot for a minute for the grounds to settle, it is poured out into the cups and drunk while quite hot, with or without sugar. The cups containing a creamy foam are the most recherche. The dregs are not drunk. The illustration on the cover of this book shows a Kafedji in the act of preparing coffee. Before and after partaking of food, hands are washed, and this is all the more necessary, as meals are eaten with the fingers, the party sitting round a low tray, and dipping into a common dish. Should the hostess desire to confer a special attention on a guest, she takes up a dainty morsel in her fingers, and exclaiming _Buyrum_ (Welcome), places it gently into the guest's mouth. It would be the grossest insult to refuse. Cigarettes invariably follow, and then comes the lounging and the sleeping, and the return home with the lingering rays of the setting sun.