Gentlemen in white trousers, wearing a fez - Hakakim Bey, step-brother of Artim Bey; his green glasses (at the Norma performance), which gave him the look of a fantastic beast, with his big nose, half toad, half turkey - but a beautiful little negro! MM. Jorelle, Gallice Bey, Gérardin, Princeteau Bey, Willemin, Soliman Pacha, Father Abro, from the Dutch consulate in Smyrna, dressed as an Armenian. The evening we arrived, people walking in the streets, carrying lanterns - the kids strike our legs with sticks. The next day, circumcision festival - camel covered with gold piasters - all the corporations represented - a mobile phallus. Visit to the Cleopatra needles, one upright, the other lying on the ground, to the right of the city, near a guard house. Pompey’s Pillar, a monolith with a wonderful Corinthian capital and the name “Thompson of Sunderland” written three feet high in black paint on the pedestal - the tombs are of the same grey color as the earth, no greenery. Cleopatra’s baths. Small cove by the sea, with the grottos to the left. All sorts of bright colors; the tip of the rocks in the water was red, as if wine had been spilled; an Arab, barefoot, his dress pulled up, in the water to his ankles, was scraping a sheepskin with a knife - the sun was hitting hard on all of this. I was standing, mute. Back to the city; we sped on our donkeys - a few Bedouins from the Libyan desert wrapped in their grey blankets. Stop at a café near the Mamouhdieh canal - we eat biscuits. First Turkish baths - feels funeral; it seems you’re about to be embalmed.