Mother, I was mad as a hornet, and what I did proves that I am no good as a missionary. We told Miss X that when this petty persecution was being carried on, she was to be like B'rer Rabbit, and "jes' keep on sayin' nothin'." When the Swiss teacher came for a week-end, we invited her for coffee. As she settled herself before our fire, she said engagingly: "Now you must speak French with me. Take every chance you can for practice." "Thank you, Mademoiselle," I answered, "we should rather speak English. We are going to live in Paris, you know, and don't dare risk catching your Swiss accent." No, Mother dear, that wasn't like a missionary, was it? I am not sorry I said it. When I went to Adana, Miss X told me that the teasing had suddenly ceased after Mademoiselle's Tarsus visit.
Mrs. Nesbit Chambers invited me to spend a whole week with her. Herbert was to come over the following Sunday to bring me home. The train conductor who speaks passable French gave up to me his own private compartment. Some weeks since, I should have been aghast at the thought of going off all alone in Turkey and in Asia on such a queer train, with outlandish fellow travelers, to a place where I had never been. But things become familiar to one in a very short time. It seemed almost as natural as South Station, Broad Street, Grand Central, Trenton, Princeton, New Haven, Annapolis or Bryn Mawr—a year ago my whole world.
After the train pulled out of Tarsus, I felt that I had my nerve with me. But I was too interested in what I saw from the window to occupy my mind regretting that I had not waited until Herbert could come with me. The uncle of Krikor Effendi's bride (I mean the conductor) was most polite, and left me alone in his reserved compartment. At the first station an old brigand got off with a brilliant red tangled rug on his shoulder. I recognized it as the Cretan rug we had been bargaining for. Evidently he had not been able to get his price in Tarsus. A Turk on horse came up to meet the train. The horse jumped around so that his saddle turned. The man fell off safely, but his friends were still struggling to turn the saddle straight when we tooted on. At another station, a shiny tinned trunk, just like a big doll's trunk made in Germany, was dumped off. Two husky Kurds picked it up, and carried it to a turbaned Hodja on a tall white horse, who put the trunk in front of him on the saddle, and started off at a run across the plain. After an hour I became cold, and was glad I had my steamer rug.
At Adana, a polite individual asked me whether he could find a carriage for me. I told him Mrs. Chambers would come. He said to wait right there. I stood on the platform in the midst of the most variegated crowd I had ever seen—even in the Tarsus bazaars. The whole town was either getting off the train or had come to meet friends. Some day the Bagdad Railway will go on from here. But now this is the terminus of the line from Mersina, and there is none yet across the Taurus to Konia.
I was glad to see Mrs. Chambers coming. We rode up to her house in an open carriage. I did not want the top up, in spite of the cold. It was all so new and strange to me. The arabadjis (drivers) in Turkey are sons of Jehu. Carriages are the only things I have found yet that move fast. You cannot help being nervous about running people down. It never happens, though.
When I was once indoors I had no desire to take off my sweater or my long coat. My nose and ears were as numb as fingers and toes. Mrs. Chambers gave me two cups of hot tea and I felt better. She took me into her guest room, and cautioned me to be careful about the bedspread. "I keep it for special people," she explained, "like the British Consul's wife and you. But that is no reason why either of you should fail to be careful of it, for it is the best thing I have." The crockery washstand took my eye. It was dark green from basin to tooth-mug.
During the few minutes before supper we climbed up on the roof for the red winter sunset. The Chamberses live in the heart of the Armenian quarter on the top of the hill. Quite a change after flat Tarsus. The Armenians have to go to the river to get their water. What a back-breaking job for the women! They carry tall jars on their shoulders. We could see the mountains behind Alexandretta in Syria very plainly. There was snow on the summits.
Adana,
February twenty-second.
The Girls' School of the Mission is run by women-folks. I went over there for a meal, and had a look at the teachers and the pupils. When I saw the girls all collected in the schoolroom, they seemed to me infinitely pathetic. They are mostly Armenians. In spite of the curves and glow and bloom of their youth, they look like little women. Perhaps it is because of the sadness that lurks in their eyes. What chance have girls in this country anyway? Ought we not to wait until the country is changed politically before we bring them up to live in our sort of a world?
In Tarsus the houses are mostly of stone, because the moderns have used the remains right at hand for successive rebuilding through centuries. The ancient city, in Roman Imperial days, was so large that it is an inexhaustible quarry. Modern Adana, on the other hand, is much larger than the ancient city, and Roman stone gave out long ago. You never hear of the Turks going to the trouble of stone-cutting. Where they are not able to utilize the labor of past ages, they build for the day. Consequently, Adana is a city of wood, totally unlike Tarsus. This, with the hill, and the big river right in the town, makes Adana more picturesque. The background of mountains and rich plain is the same, however. Turkish wooden houses are built haphazard, with no idea of architecture, and they are never repaired. All except the new ones look as if they were just about to fall down. Many are falling down. Holes are patched with new boards or more frequently with flattened-out petroleum tins. Balconies are stayed with props. When the inevitable day of collapse arrives, the Turks thank Allah that the catastrophe did not happen sooner, and praise Allah's mercy in giving them firewood for next winter. A mass of wooden houses in Turkey makes an ensemble of brown, of different shades, depending upon the age of the house. The Turks do not paint: for they calculate that a house will last at least as long as the man who built it. The next generation can look after itself.