inaret, calling to morning prayer.

[Illustration: GIPSIES OF ASIA MINOR.]

Our morning ablutions were usually made _a la_ Turk: by having water
poured upon the hands from a spouted vessel. Cleanliness is, with the
Turk, perhaps, more than ourselves, the next thing to godliness. But his
ideas are based upon a very different theory. Although he uses no soap for
washing either his person or his clothes, yet he considers himself much
cleaner than the giaour, for the reason that he uses running water
exclusively, never allowing the same particles to touch him the second
time. A Turk believes that all water is purified after running six feet.
As a test of his faith we have often seen him lading up drinking-water
from a stream where the women were washing clothes just a few yards above.

[Illustration: SCENE AT A GREEK INN.]

As all cooking and eating had stopped at the sound of the morning cannon,
we found great difficulty in gathering together even a cold breakfast of
_ekmek_, _yaourt_, and raisins. Ekmek is a cooked bran-flour paste, which
has the thinness, consistency, and almost the taste of blotting-paper.
This is the Turkish peasant's staff of life. He carries it with him
everywhere; so did we. As it was made in huge circular sheets, we would
often punch a hole in the middle, and slip it up over our arms. This we
found the handiest and most serviceable mode of transportation, being
handy to eat without removing our hands from the handle-bars, and also
answering the purpose of sails in case of a favoring wind. Yaourt, another
almost universal food, is milk curdled with rennet. This, as well as all
foods that are not liquid, they scoop up with a roll of ekmek, a part of
the scoop being taken with every mouthful. Raisins here, as well as in
many other parts of the country, are very cheap. We paid two piasters
(about nine cents) for an _oche_ (two and a half pounds), but we soon made
the discovery that a Turkish oche contained a great many "stones"--which of
course was purely accidental. Eggs, also, we found exceedingly cheap. On
one occasion, twenty-five were set before us, in response to our call for
eggs to the value of one piaster--four and a half cents. In Asiatic Turkey
we had some extraordinary dishes served to us, including daintily prepared
leeches. But the worst mixture, perhaps, was the "Bairam soup," which
contains over a dozen ingredients, including peas, prunes, walnuts,
cherries, dates, white and black