with a view of favorably impressing those around him, he asks me first if I am an Englishman, and then if I am “a baron,” doubtless thinking that an English baron is a person occupying a somewhat similar position in English society to that of a pasha in Turkish:  viz., a really despotic sway over the people of his district; for, although there are law and lawyers in Turkey to-day, the pasha, especially in country districts, is still an all-powerful person, practically doing as he pleases.

To the first question I return an affirmative answer; the latter I pretend not to comprehend; but I cannot help smiling at the question and the manner in which it is put — seeing which the pasha and his friends smile in response, and look knowingly at each other, as though thinking, " Ah! he is a baron, but don’t intend to let us know it.”  Whether this self-arrived decision influences things in my favor I hardly know, but anyhow he tosses me my passport, and orders the mulazim to return my revolver; and as I mentally remark the rather jolly expression of the pasha’s face, I am inclined to think that, instead of treating the matter with the ridiculous importance attached to it by the mulazim and the other people, he regards the whole affair in the light of a few minutes’ acceptable diversion.  The pasha arrived too late this evening at Eski Baba to see the bicycle:  “Will I allow a gendarme to go to the mehana and bring it for his inspection?” “I will go and fetch it myself,” I explain; and in ten minutes the fat pasha and his friends are examining the perfect mechanism of an American bicycle by the light of an American kerosene lamp, which has been provided in the meantime.  Some of the on-lookers, who have seen me ride to-day, suggested to the pasha that I “bin! bin!” and the pasha smiles approvingly at the suggestion; but by pantomime I explain to him the impossibility of riding, owing to the nature of the ground and the darkness, and I am really quite surprised at the readiness with which he comprehends and accepts the situation.  The pasha is very likely possessed of more intelligence than I have been giving him credit for; anyhow he has in ten minutes proved himself equal to the situation, which the mulazim and several prominent Eski Babans have puzzled their collective brains over for an hour in vain, and, after he has inspected the bicycle, and resumed his cross-legged position on the carpet, I doff my helmet to him and those about him, and return to the mehana, well satisfied with the turn affairs have taken.

CHAPTER IX.

THROUGH EUROPEAN TURKEY.

On Monday morning I am again awakened by the muezzin calling the Mussulmans to their early morning devotions, and, arising from my mat at five o’clock, I mount and speed away southward from Eski Baba, Not less than a hundred people have collected to see the wonderful performance again.