One old fellow, yearning for a closer acquaintance, asks me if I ever saw the wonderful "chu, chu, chu! chemin defer at Stamboul," adding that he has seen it and intends some day to ride on it; another hands me a Crimean medal, and says he fought against the Muscovs with the "Ingilis," while a third one solemnly introduces himself as a "makinis " (machinist), fancying, I suppose, that there is some fraternal connection between himself and me, on account of the bicycle being a makina.

I begin to feel uncomfortably like a curiosity in a dime museum - a position not exactly congenial to my nature; so, after enduring this sort of thing for an hour, I appoint the kahvay-jee custodian of the bicycle and sally forth to meander about the bazaar a while, where I can at least have the advantage of being able to move about.

Upon returning to the khan, an hour later, I find there a man whom I remember passing on the road; he was riding a donkey, the road was all that could be desired, and I swept past him at racing speed, purely on the impulse of the moment, in order to treat him to the abstract sensation of blank amazement. This impromptu action of mine is now bearing its legitimate fruit, for, surrounded by a most attentive audience, the wonder-struck donkey-rider is endeavoring, by word and gesture, to impress upon them some idea of the speed at which I swept past him and vanished round a bend.

The kahvay-jee now approaches me, puffing his cheeks out like a penny balloon and jerking his thumb in the direction of the street door. Seeing that I don't quite comprehend the meaning of this mysterious facial contortion, he whispers confidentially aside, "pasha," and again goes through the highly interesting performance of puffing out his cheeks and winking in a knowing manner; he then says-also confidentially and aside - "lira," winking even more significantly than before. By all this theatrical by-play, the kahvay-jee means that the pasha - a man of extraordinary social, political, and, above all, financial importance - has expressed a wish to see the bicycle, and is now outside; and the kahvay-jee, with many significant winks and mysterious hints of " lira," advises me to take the machine outside and ride it for the pasha's special benefit.

A portion of the street near by is " ridable under difficulties; " so I conclude to act on the kahvay-jee's suggestion, simply to see what comes of it. Nothing particular comes of it, whereupon the kahvay-jee and his patrons all express themselves as disgusted beyond measure because the Pasha failed-to give me a present. Shortly after this I find myself hobnobbing with a small company of ex-Mecca pilgrims, holy personages with huge green turbans and flowing gowns; one of them is evidently very holy indeed, almost too holy for human associations one would imagine, for in addition to his green turban he wears a broad green kammer bund and a green undergarment; he is in fact very green indeed.

Then a crazy person pushes his way forward and wants me to cure him of his mental infirmity; at all events I cannot imagine what else he wants; the man is crazy as a loon, he cannot even give utterance to his own mother-tongue, but tries to express himself in a series of disjointed grunts beside which the soul-harrowing efforts of a broken-winded donkey are quite melodious. Someone has probably told him that I am a hakim, or a wonderful person on general principles, and the fellow is sufficiently conscious of his own condition to come forward and endeavor to grunt himself into my favorable consideration.

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Adapted from Thomas Stevens, Around the World on a Bicycle