ast three on the 16th day of January,
with only the clothes we stood up in, Peter and I entered
Constantinople.

I was in considerable spirits, for I had got the final lap successfully
over, and I was looking forward madly to meeting my friends; but, all
the same, the first sight was a mighty disappointment. I don't quite
know what I had expected--a sort of fairyland Eastern city, all white
marble and blue water, and stately Turks in surplices, and veiled
houris, and roses and nightingales, and some sort of string band
discoursing sweet music. I had forgotten that winter is pretty much
the same everywhere. It was a drizzling day, with a south-east wind
blowing, and the streets were long troughs of mud. The first part I
struck looked like a dingy colonial suburb--wooden houses and
corrugated iron roofs, and endless dirty, sallow children. There was a
cemetery, I remember, with Turks' caps stuck at the head of each grave.
Then we got into narrow steep streets which descended to a kind of big
canal. I saw what I took to be mosques and minarets, and they were
about as impressive as factory chimneys. By and by we crossed a bridge,
and paid a penny for the privilege. If I had known it was the famous
Golden Horn I would have looked at it with more interest, but I saw
nothing save a lot of moth-eaten barges and some queer little boats
like gondolas. Then we came into busier streets, where ramshackle cabs
drawn by lean horses spluttered through the mud. I saw one old fellow
who looked like my notion of a Turk, but most of the population had the
appearance of London old-clothes men. All but the soldiers, Turk and
German, who seemed well-set-up fellows.

Peter had paddled along at my side like a faithful dog, not saying a
word, but clearly not approving of this wet and dirty metropolis.

'Do you know that we are being followed, Cornelis?' he said suddenly,
'ever since we came into this evil-smelling dorp.'

Peter was infallible in a thing like that. The news scared me badly,
for I feared that the telegram had come to Chataldja. Then I thought
it couldn't be that, for if von Oesterzee had wanted me he wouldn't
have taken the trouble to stalk me. It was more likely my friend Rasta.

I found the ferry of Ratchik by asking a soldier and a German sailor
there told me where the Kurdish Bazaar was. He pointed up a steep
street which ran past a high block of warehouses with every window
broken. Sandy had said the left-h