bour in cutting through bush-thicket
for the passage of the motor in bringing it up to the lake. It has
pleased me to see her lie among the silk cushions of the middle, while
I, paddling, taught her her first words and sentences between the hours
of eight and ten in the evening, though later they became 10 A.M. to
noon, when the reading began, we sitting on the palace-steps before the
portal, her mouth invariably well covered with the yashmak, the
lesson-book being a large-lettered old Bible found at her yali. _Why_
she must needs wear the yashmak she has never once asked; and how much
she divines, knows, or intends, I have no idea, continually questioning
myself as to whether she is all simplicity, or all cunning.

That she is conscious of some profound difference in our organisation I
cannot doubt: for that I have a long beard, and she none at all, is
among the most patent of facts.

* * * * *

I have thought that a certain _Western-ness_--a growing modernity of
tone--may be the result, as far as I am concerned, of her presence with
me? I do not know....

* * * * *

There is the gleam of a lake-end just visible in the north forest from
the palace-top, and in it a good number of fish like carp, tench, roach,
etc., so in May I searched for a tackle-shop in the Gallipoli
Fatmeh-bazaar, and got four 12-foot rods, with reels, silk-line,
quill-floats, a few yards of silk-worm gut, with a packet of No. 7 and
8 hooks, and split-shot for sinkers; and since red-worms, maggots and
gentles are common on the island, I felt sure of a great many more fish
than the number I wanted, which was none at all. However, for the mere
amusement, I fished several times, lying at my length in a patch of
long-grass over-waved by an enormous cedar, where the bank is steep, and
the water deep. And one mid-afternoon she was suddenly there with me,
questioned me with her eyes, and when I consented, stayed: and presently
I said I would teach her bottom-angling, and sent her flying up to the
palace for another rod and tackle.

That day she did nothing, for after teaching her to thread the worm, and
put the gentles on the smaller hooks, I sent her to hunt for worms to
chop up for ground-baiting the pitch for the next afternoon; and when
this was done it was dinner-time, and I sent her home, for by then I was
giving the reading-lessons in the morning.

The next day I found her at the