Dec. 6 , 1913. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
717 
The Conversion at Ismidt, Turkey 
I S there any dearer friend than a good, regular 
hunting pal? 1 don’t believe so personally. 
No matter if you live with him, if you see 
him six times a day; there is always something 
mutually interesting to talk about. You can 
never exhaust going over your experiences to¬ 
gether, planning for new ones; every little birdy 
has a story all its own; a scheme for a trip into 
unexplored ground can be discussed and planned 
for hours without wearying either you or him. 
Pat S—, a young Englishman, is the friend 
in question. I met him shortly after I first ar¬ 
rived in Constantinople in the “tunnel,” a sort 
of subway, with half a dozen miscellaneous duck 
slung over his shoulder, returning home, and 
from that time we became fast friends. Oh! but 
he is such a good lad. 1 never asked him why 
he is out here, but 1 believe he is reaping some 
wild oats he sowed in England, for one bright 
moonlight night last summer, as we were rolled 
up in our blankets on the sand of a beach—inci¬ 
dentally, reader, a most comfortable bed—on the 
Sea of Marmora coast, some seventeen miles 
away from Constantinople, with my faithful 
pointer “Jack” chained to my ankle to watch over 
and wake us if any prowling man or animal went 
by us, as we were smoking our last pipe before 
curling up to sleep until “Dawn with her rosy 
fingers” should wake us up to hustle off and get 
after the little quail before sunrise, as the loneli¬ 
ness and dead silence but for the ripple of the 
waves a few feet away from us and beauty of 
the night led to a stronger feeling of fellowship 
and confidence, he gave a sigh and told me he 
longed to be back in his dear England, but that 
he could not remain there as he was not on good 
terms with his family. 
Well, yesterday again I met him and we am¬ 
bled along to a public garden to have a drink to¬ 
gether and to hear the band play. “Hello! Billy,” 
he greeted me, “ten days more!” The lad checks 
off each day in the calendar until the opening of 
the shooting season. The band struck up an old 
waltz—the one with which we wound up the night 
in one of the local cafe-chantants, or cabarets, 
dancing with the pretty little so-called artistes of 
all nationalities that drift to this “pestilential pim¬ 
ple on the face of the universe” a few hours be¬ 
fore we crossed the Bosphorus to take the train 
on the trip I shall describe. Pat’s eyes gleamed 
and he began harmonizing on the old chestnut so 
loud that the occupants of the little tables around 
us looked our way disdainfully and disapprov¬ 
ingly. 
“Do you remember this tune, Billy?” he said. 
“Another time listen to your uncle when he says 
something,” and once more we went over each 
stalk of our first trip together to the Ismidt 
marsh. 
Pat converted me from having a positive ob¬ 
jection to wildfowling to regarding it with as 
almost a passionate love as for cover and dry¬ 
land hunting. Twice he had prevailed on me to 
join him on a wildfowling expedition to Lake 
Tchekmedge, four months ago between the Turk¬ 
ish and Bulgarian lines of fortification. I had 
never done this kind of shooting before, and be¬ 
ing almost frozen to death in a small boat, never 
getting within range of the duck on that wide 
open lake, only shooting uneatable coot with 
which to feed the Turkish boatman and his fam¬ 
ily, or h:s cats, queered wildfowling with me for 
the time being. 
However, after assuring me that the Ismidt 
marsh simply teemed with snipe and all manner 
of wildfowl, I decided to go with him, to please 
him more than anything else. Ismidt is a very 
old, small, but important town on the Asiatic side 
of the Marmora, about forty miles from Con¬ 
stantinople. 
It might be well to specify the date of this 
trip. It was February 1, [913. The present gov¬ 
ernment, Young Turk, had come into power one 
week before, and hostilities were about to be re¬ 
newed once more with the Balkan States. Things 
were pretty exciting in those times of war. One 
day I remember last fall we were out woodcock 
hunting on the Asiatic side of the Marmora, 
when a deep, distant, reverberating sound broke 
out. It was the cannonade along the Tchataldja 
lines. 
Well, we started off at 6 a. m. to connect 
with the railroad terminal across the Bosphorus, 
meeting numerous patrols in the streets who eyed 
us carefully but never stopped to question us. 
The trip to Ismidt was quiet enough, Pat putting 
in a .few hours’ sleep to make up for the same 
morning’s early hours. I contented myself with 
admiring the wonderful scenery all the way 
down. The railroad runs along the coast the 
whole way to Ismidt. It was a clear, cold morn¬ 
ing. About five stations away from Ismidt, just 
as we were entering the gulf bearing that name, 
as the train rushed by (or crawled by rather) 
an old ruined castle on a cliff bounding a small 
cove, a wisp of teals started from this little cove, 
and the dear little fellows skimmed the water for 
a while until they flew upright to light further 
cut in the sea. Not knowing how far Ismidt was 
then, but feeling that three hours’ sleep were 
enough for Pat, I woke him up. He wanted to 
know why I woke him up so “bloody” soon at 
first, but when he rubbed his eyes and followed 
my finger to the teal a little way out in the sea, 
he awoke in no time, and stated that we just had 
time to eat something before we reached our 
destination. As we neared. Ismidt, the gulf be¬ 
came dotted with flocks of duck. “Oh, you Billy,” 
said Pat, “just think that all those beauties must 
fly over us to-night.” 
We arrived at Tsmidt at noon. The streets 
and landing swarmed with troops. The bay was 
full of transports ready to take them across to 
the other side of the Marmora to be slaughtered 
by the murderous Bulgarian shrapnel. We hur¬ 
ried off to the hotel to leave our stuff there, 
made for the landing, where we struck a bar¬ 
gain with a boatman for the use of his boat and 
services for two half days, and were all ready 
to start when a Turkish civil official stopped us 
and asked to see our hunting licenses. They 
were in perfect order, but as he saw two easy 
marks, foreigners, coming “when they were yet 
a great way off,” he thought he would make a 
little something on the side to make up for the 
last three months’ salaries owed him by the gov¬ 
ernment. Remonstrances in our broken Turkish 
were useless; besides a crowd of soldiers and 
fishermen gathered around us, who took the part 
of the sallow offender. So we followed him into 
a clingy, dead hall of records, where we waited a 
long hour for the chief of something to come 
and affix his seal to the new license. These 
liPenses were then handed us in exchange for 
about a dollar and a half. I tried to find some 
government receipt for the amount we gave him, 
as cancelled fee-stamps, but there was nothing. 
After all, the poor official had to live. It was 
the delay that made us sore. Finally we shoved 
off for the marsh, Bedros, our Armenian boat- 
BEDROS, SHOWERED CURSES ON THE TURKS 
man, showering sympathies on us for the late 
inconvenience we suffered and curses on his nat¬ 
ural enemies and oppressors, the Turks. 
The Ismidt marsh is divided into three parts 
by two small rivers, each one an ideal duck estu¬ 
ary. We named these parts the first, second, and 
third. This was, as I said before, my first reai 
wildfowling experience. Pat never prepared me 
fully for what was coming to me. He advised 
me to wear high tennis shoes, as they were the 
best things for the Ismidt marsh. He said hip 
rubber boots would be of no use, as in half an 
hour they would be full of mud and water. Not¬ 
withstanding the fact that there was a bright sun 
shining, there were 12 degrees of frost, of damp, 
clammy frost, and very cold weather for Turkey. 
We were about 150 yards from the first marsh 
when the boat ran aground. “All right. Billy,” 
said Pat, “we wade ashore now.” And over the 
side of the boat we went into the icy water, the 
wash of one step forward beating against the 
other leg to the crutch. The wade came to an 
end. and one can imagine the comfort he would 
feel having waded 150 yards through the sea 
wearing tennis shoes and cloth puttees in that 
temperature. 
Up the first estuary, just beyond range, a 
flock of about fifteen teal rose. We let them 
gc- and walked the marsh for snipe. I’m not such 
a miserable shot on the whole, but the little snipe 
and “jacks” were just beyond my speed, and my 
heavy fusillade was quite harmless for a while. 
Pat was in very good form, bagging four birds 
out of seven shots on the first marsh. At the 
second marsh I succeeded, to my joy, at last in 
bringing down a full snipe. We were handi¬ 
capped by the condition of the marsh, having to 
shoot in every position imaginable, balancing on 
