A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



let them fire at bottles with my pistol. There were quiet hours 

 spent across the water at Deirmenddr^, drinking, at one half- 

 penny the cup, such coffee as cannot be had in Mayfair, ex- 

 changing fish stories with an old storekeeper who used to give 

 me glorious roses from his garden, and buying ripe red cherries 

 at a price that would bankrupt Covent Garden in a week. When 

 I first went to the Gulf, seeking peace after the troublous times 

 in Constantinople, the revolt against the Committee of Union 

 .and Progress was not yet at an end ; and a company of infantry 

 was established at Solujak, where it used to stop every train 

 and overhaul the passengers in search of deserters from the 

 colours and other revolutionary fugitives. Now and again I 

 would run ashore with a fresh levrak for the officers' mess, 

 and they would give me cordial welcome and produce coffee 

 and cigarettes. They soon left for the capital, but they were 

 merry fellows while they stayed, and many a good story I 

 heard of their operations in hounding down rebels against 

 the all-powerful Mahmoud Shevket ; particularly how, on one 

 occasion, a few days earlier, they had made a haul of over eighty 

 soldiers in civilian disguise by the simple ruse of suddenly 

 giving the military salute, when instinct proved stronger than 

 caution, and the wretches were taken back to barracks. Other 

 days I spent meditating in and round the ruined kiosk on the 

 shore of the Gulf, close to Derinj^, which Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz 

 had built him as a retreat in the eighteen-sixties. Alas, since 

 he held wassail in its halls, it had been deserted, and spiders 

 had spun in the palaces of kings ! Here I would sit, smoking 

 R^gie cigarettes and chatting with the old caretaker, or wring- 



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