but listened a very great deal.

Tall, mustached Circassians, with eighteen-inch Erzerum daggers at
their waists, swaggered about as if they, and only they, were history's
heirs. It was expedient to get out of their path alertly, but they
cringed into second place before the Turks, who, without any swagger
at all, lorded it over every one. For the Turk is a conqueror,
whatever else he ought to be. The poorest Turkish servant is
race-conscious, and unshakably convinced of his own superiority to
the princes of the conquered. One has to bear that fact in mind
when dealing with the Turk; it colors all his views of life, and
accounts for some of his famous unexpectedness.

Will and I fell in love with the crowd, and engaged a room over the
great arched entrance. We were aware from the first of the dull red
marks on the walls of the room, where bed-bugs had been slain with
slipper heels by angry owners of the blood; but we were not in search
of luxury, and we had our belongings and a can of insect-bane brought
down from the hotel at once. The fact that stallions squealed and
fought in the stalls across the courtyard scarcely promised us
uninterrupted sleep; but sleep is not to be weighed in the balance
against the news of eastern nights.

We went down to the common room close beside the main entrance, and
pushed the door open a little way; the men who sat within with their
backs against it would only yield enough to pass one person in gingerly
at a time. We saw a sea of heads and hats and faces. It looked
impossible to squeeze another human being in among those already
seated on the floor, nor to make another voice heard amid all that
babel.