The material results of the morning were:
Some food and tobacco for the men staying behind.
Rations for ourselves, consisting of an amorphous mass of dates, cigarettes, conical loaves of sugar, candles, and a heap of unleavened bread.
Carriages for our conveyance to Aleppo.
But the moral effect of our excursion was greater far. I sowed broadcast the seeds of disaffection to Abdul Ghani Bey. To the tobacconist I said that the English, Germans, Turks, and all the nations of the earth, while differing in other matters, had agreed he was a worm to be crushed under the heel of civilisation. To the grocer I repeated the story. To the fruiterer I said his doom was nigh, and to the baker and candlestick maker that his hour had come.
Everyone agreed. Conspuez le commandant was the general opinion.
"In good old Abdul Hamid's days," they said, "such devil's spawn would not have been allowed to live."
It was a matter of minutes before rumours of his downfall were rife throughout the city.
Next day he came to see us off, bow-legs, whip, and scowl and all. He stood stockily, watching us drive away, and then turned and spat. But the taste of us was not to be thus easily dispelled. He will remember us, I hope, to his dying day. May that day be soon!