The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1882-04-07


number. 1t required considerable
ingenuity and after / had done it
sat down to admire it as work Of
art and then went over to the tele,
graph Office to send it. The porter
of the hotel, who was Jew, and
spoke English and Turkish went with
me. handed the dispatch to the
operator. He looked at it and shook
his head. "We can't send that, you
will have to write it in Turkish. F"
Well, didn't like to do that, and
the Jew said that he didn't know how.
Strange to say he could speak six or
seven different languages with con-
siderable fuency and was a quite
intelligent, well-informed man, but
could neither read nor write in any
language. "I'll tell you," he said,
'you come with me and | will find a
man who can do it." He took me to
al was going to say notary public
/ hardly know what to call him, man
whose business it is to do the writing
for the whole community-business
letters and love letters and all kinds
for everybody. 1 handed him the
dispatch, he looked at it and passed
it back to me and asked, "Well,
what do you want to say?" l saw
that l would have to abandon that
dispatch and begin over again, and
so told the Jew in English while he
told it over again in Turkish and the
man wrote. But first he had some
questions to ask.
"Who is Mr.. Lee?"
I was just going to say mission
airy when a dark suspicion crossed my
mind. This man was Mohammedon
and I thought if l said missionary
the dispatch would never reach
him. So l said, "Never mind about
that, just put it Mr.. Lee, Marash, and
it will go all right"
But no, that wouldn't do. He
must know who he was, and how he
got there, whether he enjoyed good
health and how long he expected to
stay. Whether he was English or
Was he to meet me at
Mersina himself or to send a servant,
or in case his servant couldn't come
then a camel or mule, or how about
it anyway. And all the time the fellow
kept on writing and writing until l
thought that dispatch would certainly
take all the money I'd got-and ruin
me, asked him if he wouldn't stop
a minute and count up and see how
many words there were.
ooh, yes" he said, "when / get
through"
And he kept on writing. At last
ne seemed to have put down all he
could think OF. He pushed the paper
:oward me.
GLOW many" asked.
Gust twenty" said he.
Then l found out how it was. 1t
vas simply a peculiarly of the
Turkish language. 1t is such warm
climate where they live and they are
uch slow people naturally and by
preference that they never like to put
orth their energies upon single
word alone and SO they sit still and
wait patiently until the words accu-
nulate into sentence, and then
bundle them together and throw them
'ut all in one breath and that makes
me word. Then they rest awhile and
ny it again. So that while it makes
he language very difficult for a
oreigner to learn, there is nothing
ike it for convenience and cheapness
n telegraphing, and it occurred to me |
hat possibly the time is not far dis.
hat when it will be universally |
/ have a copy of the
lispatch. 1t looks as though some
me had loaded up a double barreled |
hotgun with black ink and fired away
t it at short range.
AS I was saying, we began to be
lied with questionings, uot unnat-
rally, whether that dispatch ever
cached its destination, and if it did,
whether it didn't say just the oppo-
lite of what we wanted it to say, and |