acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

AERESTED IN AMASIA 11
have done, where you have been, and where you are
going, is convincing. With Achmet I should have
gone unmolested.
We walked down the busy main street and an
interested crowd began to gather. Boys ran in front,
boys ran behind, and a line of wondering citizens
watched the little procession pass. Not often do the
good folk of Amasia see a foreigner ; and behold ! here
was one plainly arrested by za'ptielis. The Capitulations
have made the person of a foreigner almost
sacrosanct in the Turkish Empire, and when native
law does lay its hand upon him the sight has charm
in native eyes.
Presently a voice from the crowd called out in
English, "What is it you do?" and a young man,
evidently an Armenian, came up to me. He introduced
himself as a graduate of Sivas American
College, and a man anxious to be of help.
"The Governor is my friend," he said, when I had
given him a few particulars of myself. "Let us go
to the Governor when he comes to the Konak." I
suspected that a Turkish Governor would not readily
acknowledge the friendship, but was grateful all the
same to my new-found Armenian supporter.
The Chief of Police could not be seen as yet, so, for
a preliminary examination, the zaptiehs took me to
the shop of a native chemist, who, it was said, would
be able to understand my passport. A chemist's shop
in Asia Minor is the resort of doctors all day long.
There they smoke cigarettes and sip coffee and wait
for patients ; thither patients go to find them. An
incoming patient makes his choice of the assembled
doctors on reputation or appearance or the ascertained
reasonableness of his fees. Each doctor, on his part,
endeavours to secure the patient for himself I have
not heard that any binding etiquette controls professional
rivalry in these circumstances. Tufenkjian
Effendi, of known reputation, may have agreed terms
with a patient, and be stepping with him into the
little consulting-room behind the chemist's shop, when