After this, I had breakfast by the kiosk-steps, and when I was finished, put a mass of truffled foie gras on a plate, brushed through the thicket to the well, and gave it her.  She took it, but looked foolish, not eating.  I then, with my forefinger, put a little into her mouth, whereupon she set hungrily to eat it all.  I also gave her some ginger-bread, a handful of bonbons, some Krishnu wine, and some anisette.

I then started out afresh, gruffly bidding her stay there, and left her sitting on the well, her hair falling down the opening, she peering after me through the bushes.  But I had not half reached the ogival bazaar-portal, when looking anxiously back, I saw that she was limping after me.  So that this creature tracks me in the manner of a nutshell following about in the wake of a ship.

I turned back with her to the house, for it was necessary that I should plan some further method of eluding her.  That was five days ago, and here I have stayed:  for the house and court are sufficiently agreeable, and form a museum of real objets d’art.  It is settled, however, that to-morrow I return to Imbros.

* * * * *

It seems certain that she never wore, saw, nor knew of, clothes.

I have dressed her, first sousing her thoroughly with sponge and soap in luke-warm rose-water in the silver cistern of the harem-bath, which is a circular marbled apartment with a fountain and the complicated ceilings of these houses, and frescoes, and gilt texts of the Koran on the walls, and pale rose-silk hangings.  On the divan I had heaped a number of selected garments, and having shewed her how to towel herself, I made her step into a pair of the trousers called shintiyan made of yellow-striped white-silk; this, by a running string, I tied loosely round the upper part of her hips; then, drawing up the bottoms to her knees, tied them there, so that their voluminous baggy folds, overhanging still to the ankles, have rather the look of a skirt; over this I put upon her a blue-striped chiffon chemise, or quamis, reaching a little below the hips; I then put on a short jacket or vest of scarlet satin, thickly embroidered in gold and precious stones, reaching somewhat below the waist, and pretty tight-fitting; and, making her lie on the couch, I put upon her little feet little yellow baboosh-slippers, then anklets, on her fingers rings, round her neck a necklace of sequins, finally dyeing her nails, which I cut, with henna.  There remained her head, but with this I would have nothing to do, only pointing to the tarboosh which I had brought, to a square kerchief, to some corals, and to the fresco of a woman on the wall, which, if she chose, she might copy.  Lastly, I pierced her ears with the silver needles which they used here:  and after two hours of it left her.

About an hour afterwards I saw her in the arcade round the court, and, to my great surprise, she had a perfect plait down her back, and over her head and brows a green-silk feredjeh, or hood, precisely as in the picture.