But in the morning everything was changed.  A band of howling, screaming, roaring, fighting pirates came alongside in dirty row-boats, and to our utter consternation we found these bloodthirsty brigands were to row us to land.  Not one word could we understand in all that fearful uproar.  We were watching them in a terror too abject to describe, when, to our joy, an English voice said, “I am the guide for the two American ladies, and here is the kavass which the American minister sent down to meet you.  The consul at Odessa cabled your arrival.”

Oh, how glad we were!  We loaded them with thanks and hand-luggage, and scrambled down the stairway at the side of the steamer.  A dozen dirty hands were stretched out to receive us.  We clutched at their sleeves instead, and pitched into the boat, and our trunks came tumbling after us, and away we went over the roughest of seas, which splashed us and made us feel a little queer; and then we landed at the dirtiest, smelliest quay, and picked our way through a filthy custom-house, where, in spite of bribery and corruption, they opened my trunk and examined all the photographs of the family, which happened to be on top, and made remarks about them in Turkish which made the other men laugh.  The mud came up over our overshoes as we stood there, so that altogether we were quite heated in temper when we found ourselves in an alley outside, filled with garbage which had been there forever, and learned that this alley was a street, and a very good one for Constantinople, too.

The porters in Turkey are marvels of strength.  They wear a sort of cushioned saddle on their backs, and to my amazement two men tossed my enormous trunk on this saddle.  I saw it leave their hands before it reached his poor bent back; he staggered a little, gave it a hitch to make it more secure, then started up the hill on a trot.

I never saw so much mud, such unspeakably filthy streets, and so many dogs as Constantinople can boast.  You drive at a gallop up streets slanting at an angle of forty-five degrees, and you nearly fall out of the back of the carriage.  Then presently you come to the top of that hill and start down the other side, still at a gallop, and you brace your feet to keep from pitching over the driver’s head.  You would notice the dogs first were it not for the smells.  But as it is, you cannot even see until you get your salts to your nose.  The odors are so thick that they darken the air.  You are disappointed in the dogs, however.  There are quite as many of them as you expected.  You have not been misled as to the number of them, but nowhere have I seen them described in a satisfactory way—­so that you knew what to expect, I mean.  In the first place, they hardly look like dogs.  They have woolly tails like sheep.  Their eyes are dull, sleepy, and utterly devoid of expression.  Constantinople dogs have neither masters nor brains.  No brains because no masters.  Perhaps no masters because