ht be
turned into a weapon of defence. Luckily for us there was one cool head
amongst us. Schipka Campbell, who had not then earned the title by which
he was afterwards so widely known, was there, and he took command of the
party. We were all armed, but though we displayed our weapons for the
intimidation of the mob we were gravely cautioned not to fire a shot on
peril of our lives. The Grande Rue de Pera was raging when we reached
it, but we slipped out one by one, each man revolver in hand, and ranged
ourselves against the wall. I cannot recall that a solitary blow was
struck, but I know that the people in the rear of the crowd were in a
mighty hurry to get at us and that those in front were in equal haste to
retire, and little by little we made our way to the Byzance Hotel where
the gates were closed and barred against the crowd. Shortly afterwards
the Chief of the Consular Police was amongst us making inquiries into
the origin of the emeute. He took an official note of the occurrence and
drank a glass of wine or two and smoked a cigar with us, but we never
heard any more about the business, and though we strolled thereafter
into the "Concert Flam" quite freely, we suffered no molestation.

CHAPTER X

Constantinople _Continued_--The Massacre of Kesanlyk--A
Sketching Expedition--Failure of Supplies--Correspondent for
the _Scotsman_ and the _Times_--Adrianople--The Case of the
Gueschoffs--The Bulgarians.

At first I thought the Constantinople fare the most delightful I had
ever encountered anywhere. At the first dinner at which I sat down we
were served amongst other things with red mullet, stuffed tomatoes and
quail--all excellent of their sort and admirably prepared. Red mullet,
_tomates farcies_ and quail appeared again for breakfast and were not
to be despised, but red mullet, tomates farcies and quail for luncheon,
began to be a trifle tiresome, and when all three appeared again at
dinner and at the next day's breakfast and luncheon, there were some of
us who began to hunger for a change. We made a little party and we
went across to the Valori restaurant. Here we encountered a polyglot
major-domo, who spoke all languages of Europe indifferently ill. "What
can we have for dinner?" asked our spokesman. "Ret moiled, domades
varcies, et qvail!" He smiled ineffably and evidently thought that he
was offering us food for the gods. We ate tough beefsteak, fried in oil,
and cursed the delicacie