I started soon after this for home. The party with which I travelled took a route different from the one by which we had come three years previously to Constantinople. I therefore had the opportunity of visiting other towns of Asia Minor. When I reached our own town, I found that my mother had already moved to her summer house in the country. By a strange coincidence, the British Consul and his family were staying in a summer residence which they had hired close by our own. They were the only English people, and also the only Europeans, to be found in the town, as the Anatolian railway was not then even projected, and no European could possibly have found any employment there. I made the acquaintance of the Consul one day while shooting wild-duck on the shores of a neighbouring lake. The British Consul was able to make himself understood in Turkish, and we soon struck up an acquaintance. I made him promise to meet me again, so that we might go shooting together. When I became more intimate with him, I was privileged by an introduction to his wife, who did not associate at all with the ladies of the country. A wish crossed my mind soon after that my mother and she should meet. This was a most delicate matter, because, though I found the lady very charming, after all, from my mother's point of view, she was an 'infidel.' However, I secured her consent, and she met the English lady with a considerable amount of shyness. On account of the Englishwoman's inability to speak Turkish sufficiently, they talked very little. Notwithstanding this, my mother liked her visitor greatly, and she afterwards repeatedly expressed to me her regret that such a nice woman should not be a follower of 'the true religion of God,' that is to say, Islam. I used to ask many questions of the Consul about his country, and I think my inquiries must have been of the most ridiculous description, for while they answered me most kindly, wife and husband exchanged words in their own tongue and smiled the whole time. I was so afraid of the prejudices of my people that I did not even venture to express to the Consul my then most unrealisable desire of visiting England.
When the three months' vacation given to me that year came to an end, I started for Constantinople again. Having gained sufficient seniority in the _madrasseh_ I was now free from serving any tutor. I had a room which I shared with an Albanian fellow-pupil. That year I made progress in the study of Mohammedan law, which is always taught in the Arabic language. Two more years passed. The next summer vacation I wanted to see some new country, so I took a French liner for Beyrout, where I had a relation. On my way I stayed at Smyrna, and visited the Turkish islands of Chios and Mitylene. During my travels I saw many young men who, having completed their studies in modern colleges, had been appointed by the Government to various posts in the provinces, with salaries which at that time seemed to me higher than could have been expected by any young man. An idea crossed my mind that I might change the course of the antiquated studies on which I was wasting my time. On making inquiries about a rational system of education to which I could devote myself, and by which I might eventually make a future career and earn a competence, I found that an entrance examination was going to take place in three months for the newly established law college. The Government wished to find trained officials for the new courts, and qualified advocates for the bar. I determined to try my luck; and a young officer from the military academy, who was residing close to our _madrasseh_, gave me, as a favour, some coaching for the examination in geography and arithmetic, the two subjects in which I was most backward. I passed the examination fairly well, and joined the law l institution.