Page:Englishwomaninan00elli.pdf/54

 They sit in thick layers on the table-cloth, they drown themselves in your glasses, you swallow them with your food; "and to think," said a Danish merchant, "these creatures have been fattening on corpses!"

Whatever their nationality, all my neighbours made the most chivalrous endeavours to shield me from these pests. I was advised to sacrifice my bread as a cover to my glass when not drinking. I always refused water, and Naim Bey defied the law to give me German wine.

One day, exasperated beyond endurance, I procured what the French call a "guillotine," and successfully slaughtered every fly that came within my reach. The "Italian" gently inquired whether the corpses were not more awful than the living insects.

"At least," I said, "they cannot bite or carry microbes," and I pursued the slaughter with a zeal that astonished even myself. I even aimed at those I saw walking over the South American's arm, and hit his nose! Without a smile, he courteously declared that he did not mind what I might do to his nose, "but you will be careful of my glasses, won't you?"

"Can't you do something?" I asked Naim one day.

"They will go away when it is cold," he replied with the philosophy of the true Turk.

"Cure or endure is also my motto," I told him, smiling, "but I never endure before I've made a fine attempt to cure."

On another occasion, my energies were not rewarded with true Christian gratitude or tact. I was busy as usual, when an orthodox lady who had given her nationality as "Catholic," and was staying in Smyrna by special dispensation of the Turks, said to a Greek neighbour: "Look at this lady slaughtering flies, as her friends the Turks slaughter Christians."

"Madame," said I, "I have passed this morning among the ruins to which your 'Christians' have reduced this city." I had yet to see the hideous devastation in Anatolia!

There were about two or three hundred business