For once I flatter myself that I “did” a Russian Jew, but his companions in crime have so thoroughly “done” me in other corners of the world that I need not plume myself unnecessarily.  He is more than even with me.

All through Russia we contented ourselves with buying Russian engravings, which are among the finest in the world.  Perhaps some of their charm is in the subject portrayed, which, being unfamiliar, arouses curiosity.  Russian operas, paintings, theatricals, the national ballet, the interior of churches and mosques are different from those of every other country.  There is in the churches such a strange admixture of the spiritual and the theatrical.  So that the engravings of these things have for me at least more interest than anything else.

Occasionally we were betrayed into buying a peasant’s costume, an ikon, or an enamel, but in Moscow and Kief, the only way that we could reproduce to our friends at home the glories and splendours of these two beautiful cities was by photographs, in which the brilliancy of their colours brings back the sensations of delight which we experienced.

Shopping in Constantinople is not shopping as we Americans understand it, unless you happen to be an Indian trader by profession.  I am not.  Therefore, the system of bargaining, of going away from a bazaar and pretending you never intended buying, never wanted it anyhow, of coming back to sit down and take a cup of coffee, was like acting in private theatricals.  By nature I am not a diplomat, but if I had stayed longer in the Orient, I think I would have learned to be as tricky as Chinese diplomacy.

We were given, by several of our Turkish friends, two or three rules which should govern conduct when shopping in the Orient.  One is to look bored; the second, never to show interest in what pleases you; the third, never to let your robber salesman have an idea of what you really intend to buy.  This comes hard at first, but after you have once learned it, to go shopping is one of the most exciting experiences that I can remember.  I have always thought that burglary must be an exhilarating profession, second only to that of the detective who traps him.  In shopping in the Orient, the bazaars are dens of thieves, and you, the purchaser, are the detective.  We found in Constantinople little opportunity to exercise our new-found knowledge, because we were accompanied by our Turkish friends, who saw to it that we made no indiscreet purchases.  On several occasions they made us send things back because we had been overcharged, and they found us better articles at less price.  Of course we bought a fez, embroidered capes, bolero jackets, embroidered curtains, and rugs, but we, ourselves, were waiting to get to Smyrna for the real purchase of rugs, and it was there that I personally first brought into play the guile that I had learned of the Turks.

I remember Smyrna with particular delight.  The quay curves in like a giant horseshoe of white cement.  The piers jut out into the sapphire blue of this artificial bay, and are surrounded by myriads of tiny rowing shells, in which you must trust yourself to get to land, as your big ship anchors a mile or more from shore.