lace kindly
pointed out the many points of interest.

"Those pyramids over there," he would say, "were erected by the Turks,
to commemorate a victory. Here is where Byron swam the sea from Europe
to Asia; and over there is where King Midas lived, whose touch turned
piastres to napoleons, and flounders to goldfish. Here, to the left,
on that hill, stood ancient Troy."

All things seemed to work together to make the day a most enjoyable
one, and just at nightfall the doctor came to me and said:

"See that island over there? That was the home of Sappho."

An hour later we anchored in a little natural harbor, and five of us
went ashore. Besides the ship's doctor (whose uniform was a sufficient
passport for all), there were in our party a Pole and a
Frenchman--both inspectors of revenue for the Turkish government, and
splendid fellows--a Belgian, and the writer. We entered a _cafe_
concert, where one man and five or six girls sat in a sort of balcony
at one end of the building and played at "fiddle." The main hall was
filled with small tables, at which were Greeks, Arabs, Armenians,
Turks, and negroes as black as a hole in the night. Between acts the
girls were expected to come down, distribute themselves about, and
consume beer and other fluid at the expense of the frequenters.

The girls were nearly all Germans, plain, honest, tired-looking
creatures, who seemed half embarrassed at seeing what they call
Europeans. One very pretty girl, with peachy checks, who, as we
learned, had for several evenings been in the habit of drinking beer
with a Greek, sat this evening with a dark Egyptian, almost jet-black.
The Greek--a hollow-chested, long-haired fellow--came in, and, the
moment he saw the girl with the chalk-eyed Egyptian, turned red, then
white, and then whipping out a pistol levelled it at the girl. Nearly
all the lights went out, and the girl dropped from the chair. When the
smoke and excitement cleared away, it was found that the bullet had
only parted the girl's hair, and she was able to take her fiddle and
beer when time was called.

At midnight we were rowed back to the boat, with all the poetry
knocked out of the isle of Sappho, hoisted anchor, and steamed away.
On the whole, however, the day had been most delightful. To me there
are no fairer stretches of water for a glorious day's sail than the
Dardanelles.

When we dropped anchor again, ten hours later, it was at Smyrna, the
garden of Asia Minor. Here I w