raid they would not have any while we were there, but they
accommodated us with a very satisfactory one! It upset my ink-bottle
and broke the lamp and rattled everything in the room until I was
delighted. When my companion came in she was indignant to think that I
had enjoyed the earthquake all to myself, for she was in the rooms of
the American Bible Society, and being thus protected, did not feel it.
But I told her that that was her punishment for trying to prove that a
missionary had cheated her, for she was not in that place for a godly
purpose.

At another time, however, we met with better success in obtaining a
sensation of a different sort. We visited, in company with our Turkish
friend, a small but wonderfully beautiful mosque not often seen by
ordinary tourists, and afterwards went up on Galata tower to get the
fine view of Constantinople which may be had there. It was just before
sunset again, and I am quite unable to make you see the utter
loveliness of it. We crawled out on the narrow ledge which surrounds
the top, and I had just got a capital picture of my companion as she
clutched the Turk to prevent being blown off, for the wind was
something terrible, when suddenly the keepers rushed to the windows
and jabbered excitedly in Turkish and ran up a flag, and behold, there
was a fire! Galata tower is the fire observatory. By the flags they
hoist you can tell where the fire is. I never was at a fire in my
life. Even when our stables burned down I was away from home. So here
was my opportunity. The way we drove down those narrow streets was
enough to make one think that we were the fire department itself. But
when we arrived we found to our grief that it was our dear little
mosque which was burning. Undoubtedly we were the last visitors to
enter it.

We went back to the hotel for dinner, and about nine o'clock, hearing
that the fire was spreading, we drove down again with our Turk, who
regarded it as no unusual thing to take American women to two fires in
the same day. We found the tenement-houses burning. Our carriage gave
us no vantage-ground, so our friend, who speaks twelve languages,
obtained permission to enter a house and go up on the roof. We never
stopped to think that we might catch all sorts of diseases; we were so
pleased at the courtesy of the poor souls. They had all their poor
belongings packed ready to remove if the fire crept any nearer, but
they ran ahead and lighted us up the dark stairway