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THE WIXE-SHOP AT TOSAN ALI 277
skill in their calling. Noting it in a few isolated
individuals, you would be at a loss to name this
curious quality of which your instincts rather than
your senses become conscious ; discovering it in many
Germans in the country, however, you are able to
perceive what it really is. It amounts, in fact, to
a national consciousness ; to a habit of mind, if you
like, which looks beyond each man's present individual
interests to the benefit of his country as the
great indirect aim. They are, indeed, tribesmen in
every sense, German tribesmen, who instinctively
feel that personal gain and tribal gain go together
and are inseparable. Having this instinct they are
not individualists, but each man counts himself a
representative of the great German community in
middle Europe. To further the interests of that
community is part of each man's purpose ; for each
man sees his own future and that of his children
depending upon the future
of the State.
From Ak Keupru to Ulu Kishla is more than
thirty miles, so as evening came on we halted for
the night at the midway village of Tosan Ali. It
stands where the gorge has lost its rocky grandeur
and begins to assume the nature of a deep valley
between brown mountains. At this time the village
was railhead of the Bagdad Railway. A train of
passenger-coaches was standing in the station when
we arrived ; but proved to be an experimental
train, and Ulu Kishla was still the first station for
traffic. The only accommodation to be found in
Tosan Ali was a Greek wine-shop whose proprietor's
ideas were inflated by the profits he had made and
was still making. A long narrow room served as
bar and caf^ combined ; seven feet of its length
was screened off by a partition head high, and this
compartment I managed with difficulty to hire for
the night. At dark the cafe filled with a roaring
crowd of Greek and Italian workmen engaged on
the railway. Standing up I could look over the
partition and see Neapolitans and Sicilians at their