The Count could claim no country. Both Russia and Bulgaria denied him; and the man without a passport is contraband in Turkey. My pockets were full of smaller articles of the forbidden class, and my shirt was packed like a life-preserver. Austrian military maps and weighty books on the Balkans, a Colt’s and cartridges, and many rolls of kodak film, which might be taken for sticks of dynamite--these things puffed up my person.
The Customs inspectors entered the train at Mustafa Pasha, and, perceiving my plight, subjected the baggage to a scandalous search. They turned out every bag, ran their hands into the shoes, undid the balls of socks, and even lifted the linings of an extra hat; but all they found was a Bulgarian art journal containing a few pictures. As I replaced my mauled garments one of these fiends poked his fezzed head into my compartment again. He handed back the Bulgarian journal, saying, with approval, ‘Allemand, monsieur.’ The magazine was printed in German.
Strange things are contraband in Turkey--salt, because there is monopoly in the land; firearms, though they are sold openly in the streets; novels such as the ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ because the dog is named Turk; dictionaries containing the words ‘elder’ and ‘brother,’ as Abdul Hamid usurped the throne from his elder brother; and works of chemistry containing the term H_{ 2}O, which could but mean Hamid-Second-Zero.
Another baggage inspection takes place at Constantinople, but this is only for the purpose of extorting backsheesh. I paid a mijidieh to the chief inspector, claimed to be German, and took my bags through unopened.
The approach to Constantinople by train is over a long, marshy plain. Occasional camel caravans lumber along the road beside the tracks, and cranes, pelicans, and storks rise majestically and sail away as the train passes. The outskirts of Constantinople are repulsive. The train passes down a narrow street between rows of miserable dwellings, many no larger than drapers’ boxes, roofed with flattened petroleum tins; and at the base of the decaying walls of the city, excavations, closed with more petroleum tins, form the kennels of indolent gypsies. The entrance to Constantinople by train is not attractive. To see its glories one must come up the Bosphorus.
