ct the whole place was a prey to a
restless terror. Between the city and the Sweet Waters of Europe there
was an encampment of perhaps the most remarkable and varied assortment
of blackguards that ever got together in the history of civilised
warfare. Until they were known, the curious citizens used to ride out to
look at them and wander about the camp; but one or two days' experience
cured the people of Constantinople of this habit A Greek lady and her
daughter were hideously done to death by the encamped ruffians, and
the coachman who strove to rescue them had his throat cut Two or three
events of this kind set the Christian part of Constantinople in a panic,
and no white man ventured abroad after nightfall without carrying arms.

With all this the streets had never been bare. Every night the Grande
Rue de Pera swarmed with passengers; the restaurants and hotels were
full; and you could hear the raucous voices of the vocal failures of a
dozen countries shrieking and bellowing through the open windows of the
_cafes-chantants_ along the street The one place that we frequented was
the Concert Flamm. It was kept by one Napoleon Flamm, who in those days
was known to almost every Englishman in Constantinople. He had a little
silver hell beside the concert-room, and the swindling roulette-table
there was presided over by a fat oily Greek, who might from his aspect,
had some friend taken the trouble to wash him, have been supposed to
be a diplomat of high rank. The table, as I very well remember, had but
twenty-four numbers and at either end a zero. Had the game been fair,
and had all the players been skilled, the proprietor of this contrivance
must have taken by mathematical law a penny out of every shilling
which was laid against the bank. I make no pretence to an extraordinary
credulity; but I still believe that the fat Greek had a dodge by means
of which it was possible to arrest the action of the wheel at the most
profitable moment.

There was a Dutchman in the silver hell one night--a gentleman who told
us that he was known in South Africa as the King of Diamonds. We learned
later on, from independent sources, that though he had kept the suit he
had changed the card. From Kim-berley to Table Bay the fame of the Knave
of Diamonds had travelled, and if only one-half we heard of the man was
true he had earned his title. For something like an hour and a half
this gentleman and myself stood side by side at the roulette-table