should be thrown away. Remember also that there are few surer means of starting blisters than wearing stockings which either have holes or which have been darned.

Sensible shoes, fortunately enough, are much more common to-day than they were. Even in the city streets French heels and pointed toes are being supplemented by normal heels and broad toes. It is now possible for any woman to buy a pair of shoes which will not squeeze her feet beyond recognition. The Young Women's Christian Association is performing a valuable service in recommending certain shoes which pass the common-sense test.

So far as men's shoes are concerned, there is none more satisfactory than the army shoe.

The so-called "sporting" shoe, which some people consider a necessary adjunct to a trip to the woods,

1swers very well provided that it fits,

but one must remember that fit rather than appearance and a lot of waterproofing is of first importance. Furthermore, leather which has been thoroughly waterproofed does not permit much ventilation. And the feet need ventilation. In any case, let me urge that you never make the mistake of starting out on a long hike with a brand-new pair of shoes. Break them in first.

A pair of feet which are tender through disuse can develop painful ailments during a long walk even though the footgear be above reproach. Feet become hardened with walking, but if one has not done any walking to speak of for months on end it is folly suddenly to attempt a fifteen or twenty mile jaunt without preliminary conditioning of some sort. A rather effective artificial method of hardening the feet is that of taking a series of foot-baths for several days. Either cold salt water or a mix

ture of alum and salt in water is likely to toughen the feet appreciably. A solution of alcohol and salt is also effective. A strongly alkaline soap is bad for the feet, in that it has a tendency to crack the skin. The most effective foottoughening process is the wholly natural method of getting out and using one's feet.

Any hiker, however seasoned or unseasoned he may be, can with profit soak his feet in salt water before going to bed if he plans to take a long walk next day. And before starting out in the morning let him rub talcum powder on his feet and sprinkle some in his shoes. The time-honored custom of rubbing soap on the feet or on the inner sides of the stockings cannot always be recommended, for reasons which I have just mentioned.

During the noon-time rest of a long jaunt you will find it advisable to take off shoes and stockings, wipe out the insides of the shoes, bathe the feet, dry these thoroughly, add more talcum powder, shake and rub the stockings in order to eliminate as much dirt as possible, and then put these on either inside out or each upon the foot other than it has been worn on during the morning. If at any time during the day's hike one senses foot trouble coming on, an immediate halt should be called and investigation started before the trouble gets well under way.

If a blister has appeared and there seems likelihood of its breaking with further walking, it should be immediately opened and then covered with adhesive tape, so that the skin will not be rubbed off. Great care should be taken to prevent infection, for a muchworn sock is by no means devoid of germs. To open a blister, sterilize the end of a needle or your knife in the flame of a match, prick the skin through the side of the blister, and gently squeeze out the water. Never prick the blister on top. If a cramp develops in the leg muscles, sit down and knead these. A cramp in the side can be relieved by drawing a deep breath and bending over.

At the end of a day's tramp the shoes should be cleaned (especially so the insides) with a damp cloth. When wet. they should be dried in a gentle heat. A great amount of heat shrinks the leather and starts foot trouble the next time you wear them. They should be oiled sufficiently to keep them pliable, but no more; too much oil clogs the ventilation pores. When feet do not receive their required amount of ventilation, they are likely to become tender.

The right footgear and proper care of the feet are, as I have indicated, of vital importance to the pleasure of a hike. The choice of route which one follows also has a direct bearing upon this subject, sometimes to a greater extent than one thinks. Avoid all macadam roads. Macadam is jarring to the feet and passing automobiles are jarring to a hiker's nerves. Stick to back roads and pleasant winding trails. A Government topo

graphical map of any given locality will point out a network of these.

Suppose that it pleases your fancy to make an extended walking tour covering several days of lugging your bed and home in a pack on your back. This is a thoroughly practicable undertaking, but here again due consideration must be given to comfort. To carry a pack which does not presently become a weighty burden is an art which requires a considerable amount of studious attention before starting. If you do not wish to become a pack-horse, you must cut down the weight to the last possible ounce. And you must come to realize before the start of the trip that you can get along comfortably with about half as many articles of equipment as you would like to take.

We now come to the actual physical motion of walking. There is more to be said upon this subject than most people suppose. Strange as it may seem, the average city-bred person doesn't know how to walk. The average country person does. City folk have been called "leg-walkers" and country people "bodywalkers." Which sums up the matter in a nutshell.

These two respective gaits are largely the result of environment. The city person has grown careless of energy and balance. The energy in his legs is sufficient to carry him the requisite few blocks to which he is accustomed, and the sidewalks are so neatly level that he doesn't have to pay much attention to balance.

So far as exercise is concerned, that of the city gait is confined almost entirely to the legs. The average city stride is short and choppy, the toes are pointed outward, the heels strike the pavement with a dull, sickening thud, the hips remain fairly rigid-in fact, the whole body above the legs is close to rigid. Such a gait is comparable to the actions of an automatic toy. It is illbalanced and exhausting.

In contrast to this leg-walking of the city we have in the body-walking of the country a gait which is rolling, easy, rhythmic, and because of the fact that the whole body comes into play is a fine all-around exercise and good for long distances. The stride in level places is as long as it can comfortably be made, while on hills it is both short and leisurely. The toes, instead of pointing out ward, as in the city gait, are pointing straight ahead in the line of march (toeing-out causes no small amount of foot trouble).

An English physician some time ago made a collection of well-worn city and country shoes for the purpose of investi gating the bottoms of these. He found it almost universally true that the shoes of the city people were worn out at the heel, while those of the country people showed the greatest amount of wear on the soles.

This investigation is fairly significant of the two methods of planting the foot on the ground. It means that the city

person walks on his heels, that his foot functions somewhat after the order of the end of a "peg leg." As against this, the countryman's step is far more elastic; it is nearly flat-footed at the moment when the foot is planted on the ground, so that all muscles and arches come into play. These parts happily combine and work in harmony for the forward plunge. With heel walking there can be no such manner of elas ticity and team-work.

While climbing a slope a city-bred person is likely to go to the opposite extreme from heel walking, plant the front part of the foot firmly in the ground and leave the heel suspended in the air. This is a muscle-tiring proceeding. In any sort of walking the heel has a distinct service to perform. The point which I wish to bring out is that the heel should not be shouldered with more than its allotted amount of work.

Body-walking has the twofold advantage of being fine exercise and a means of conserving one's energy, while leg. walking at the best is merely a means of locomotion. A method which has been suggested for testing one's self in this respect is to take a leather strap and adjust it around the chest. The strap should be just tight enough to prevent much expansion of the chest. If the wearer walks about fifty yards and finds that the strap gives him no discomfort, he may conclude that he is a leg-walker; but if it gives him considerable inconvenience this means that he is accustomed to opening his lungs when walking, and hence is a body-walker.

Body-walking, the rhythmic combined movement of legs, hips, chest, arms, your whole body, is the only natural way of walking, the only method that will make you forget that you have legs and allow you thoroughly to enjoy the countryside.

Constantinople, December 12, 1921.

D

EAR SAM: It must have been the day of the Standard Oil dinner

when I wrote you last. That evening left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It was a jolly dinner-in the apartment of Jack Byrne, a young Standard Oil man. Eight of us, all Americans. Afterward we went on to Maxim's, to dance. There was a special celebration of something

or

other (nearly every night is). The White Lyres (an American orchestra that used to be in Paris) were at their best, and the Cossack dancers shouted and stamped and did particularly wonderfu! things with their swords. Then there was a silly sort of beauty contest, and the winner of the prize was asked to step forward. I felt shocked and sick when I saw who it was. Little Did I tell you about this girl? I had heard things, but only seeing is believing. is young, not over twenty,

I should think. When I first saw her, two or three months ago, she was a pretty, soft-eyed little Turkish doll, modest in her black dress and charchaf, laughing at herself as she said her few stumbling words of English and French to me. Now she looked years older, in a low-cut European evening dress, with paradise plumes drooping over shoulder, half silly with champagne. She is the first Turkish woman ever to act in the movies, and that alone will cost her her life if ever the Turks come back into power in Constantinople.

They love it, are as eager as children, and a little shy. The husbands and brothers stand around and glare, mostly. Fearfully jealous. Mustapha Kemal said in a despatch from Angora: "Constantinople is becoming degenerate under the Christians. Our women are dancing in public places." But the younger ones realize that the old order must go-that iron lattices are no longer strong enough to shut women away from the world.

The Sultan is a weak-looking old man. I have been to the palace at Yildiz, on Friday at noon, to watch him go to prayer, escorted by horsemen in gorgeous uniforms, with pennants flying. While he is in the mosque no Christian may enter; so we were taken into the palace and served with Turkish coffee in gold cups and long gold-tipped cigarettes, while he prayed.

The Crown Prince is a quiet, middleaged man. His aide, Ekrim Bey, never misses one of our dances. He is absurdly German looking-cropped head, round face is always making polite, stiff speeches and clicking his heels together in stiff bows.

There is a Turk of English descent who, they say, expects to be Turkey's next Ambassador to America. You see him everywhere. Black Bey is his

name. her He has an American wife. He looks like the villain in a melodramaa great tall man, very dark, heavybrowed, wears a monocle as if born with it; always stands in the doorways at a ball, just glowering at the dancers.

Turkish women may be treated as dolls, and of course that is wrong. They don't know how to use freedom yet. But they are kept in better order by their men than any of the other nationalities here.

is the only Turkish woman

I have ever heard of who has taken advantage of her husband's absence with Mustapha Kemal to tread primrose paths. Poor little thing! She is a bad advertisement for Western chivalry. Turks-neither men nor women-go to the restaurants at night. And no good Turkish woman is seen on the street, even in the daytime, with any other man than her husband. Even the husband could not walk with her until recently.

But can you imagine a Turkish princess with blond bobbed hair and a permanent wave? I know one, Princess Sabaiheddin. Her father was a political exile under Abdul Hamid, and she was brought up in Paris. Sometimes she leaves off the charchaf-but she looks much prettier in it. She often comes to tea-dances at our Embassy. By the way, the United States Embassy is the first place where Turkish women have ever danced with men. It has cnly happened since Admiral Bristol has been there.

1 A letter from this American girl, the sister of a naval officer, appeared in The Outlook for October 23.

The only Turkish parties that I have been at are teas. Women, I think, never appear at evening parties. But men are asked to the teas. Clee often goes with me. Those at Madame Hassib Bey's are the most interesting. She is a very brilliant and modern woman of fifty or so, and has several talented daughters and friends of every nationality. She wishes that the daughters might go back to America with me. I do, toowhat fun it would be to show them Fifth Avenue and Broadway! They ask all sorts of questions. Most of the Turkish women whom I have met speak better English-book English-than I do, and of course perfect French. They are musicians, artistic, read a great deal; but of real life are as ignorant as babies.

Well-so am I! "Befo' de wah," back in New York, I used to think myself rather sophisticated. Clee would come home from school for holidays and he would be fearfully impressed because certain head waiters, a playwright and an artist or two, and leading lights of Greenwich Village bowed to me. "Why, sis, you're a regular 'girl about town,' he would say, and I'd try to look blasé. But heavens! I'm a mere babe, and always will be, in comparison with the European women out here. And the men! They just can't believe that my

"

Constantinople, December 20, 1921. My dear:

Yesterday I disobeyed orders, and went to Stamboul-to the Grand Bazaar -alone. (Of course you understand that we live in Pera, the European part of the city? All of the Embassies are here, except the Persian. Many Turks also live in Pera, but the most in Stamboul, across the Golden Horn.) Clee said that I was never to go out alone after dark; and never alone in Stamboul at any time. But I love prowling around among the little dark booths of the Bazaar, and other people are always in a hurry. The Grand Bazaar is very old; covers acres of ground. It is honeycombed with tiny shops, along dark little alleys, where you can buy anything, from priceless Oriental rugs and jewels to the commonest Manchester cloth. I love the "Bezesten" best. That is the oldest part, in the very center, where old bearded Turks sit crosslegged and don't care whether you buy or not. Here lovely old carved ivories, strings of amber, beautifully wrought brasses, are heaped up with useless junk. And in the "Bit Bazaar" (translated, Louse Market) an open road back of the Grand Bazaar-I picked up some of the quaintest old Venetian china for almost nothing. In the main part some of the shopkeepers (mostly Armenian or Jewish) fairly drag you into their places, shouting the merits of their wares. The Turks would not be so undignified. But one never pays the price asked, even in the great rug houses. It is part of the game to bazelik (bargain). First, coffee is brought you on a little tray. You have a chat; then, very delicately, the subject is led up to. A price mentioned. It is too much. "Alas! I shal! be ruined-my children starve but I love the Americans!" and a reduction is made. No-you are firm. Leave the shop. A few steps down the street"Ah, mademoiselle!" and he plucks at your sleeve. You go back, and get your rug for two-thirds of his first price. He is delighted, and blesses you. The favorite felicitation is, "May you live a thousand years, and have only male children!"

I have done all the usual sightseeing. St. Sophia and the other mosques; the howling and whirling dervishes (I felt sick and had to leave when the howlers stuck stilettos through their cheeks and tongues); the beautiful carved sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, in the Seraglio Museum. Seraglio Point, at the entrance of the Golden Horn, is where,

they say, old or troublesome royal wives used to be tied in a bag with a cat and a snake and dropped in.

By day Stamboul streets are full of a howling mob, but at night as still as the grave.

Pera's streets are never still. Some of the poor Russians have no other place to go. When I first came, their faces haunted me. I could not bear to be so comfortable in the midst of such suffering. Just then (the first of October) the American Red Cross had stopped helping them. But Major Davis, head of the Red Cross here, is keeping on just the same, backed by all the Americans in Constantinople. Major Davis is a wonder; a big, stout man from Boston, with a gay taste in socks, a sleepy smile, a heart as big as he is, and the keenest sort of a mind. He has taken me to see the refugee camps. In one-a dark old palace barn-some twelve thousand sleep on the ground. They are just building little raised platforms for beds, so it will not be so bad now. There aren't many children. They must have died. The lucky ones have work, but so many were just sitting around, looking dully into space. Do you know, the first thing they did in that place was to make one corner of it into a church. They hung up cheap little pictures, and their icons, that they never part with; and decorated it all with pitiful paper flow

ers.

The Muscovite is the famous Russian restaurant where a general checks your coat and helps you on with your rubbers; and a princess, very likely, brings your soup-wonderful bortsch, with sour cream floating on bits of sausage and cabbage, and little hot biscuits with meat stuffing served with it. I dined there my very first night in Constantinople. I was delighted to see a haughty beauty, dressed in black, with a tiny white apron, draw a jeweled lorgnette out of her dress and coolly eye a singer up and down. Imagine how you would feel if your waitress lorgnetted you! And when they are not too busy they will sit down and dine or talk with the patrons who are their friends.

The captain of one of our destroyers is engaged to the prettiest and sweetest girl at the Muscovite. He gave a tea on his ship one Sunday afternoon. There were eight Russian girls and I; the captains of several other destroyers; a much-traveled Englishman; Mr. Thomas, of the Standard Oil, then staying with Admiral and Mrs. Bristol; and my brother. It was a birthday party, and great fun. After the birthday cake and tea we danced. You would never guess, from their manner, that these girls had ever known any more trouble than I. They are really well bred, "gentle, brave, and gay."

I can't say so much for the men. They don't stand up so well. They only know how to wear uniforms. There was one who fired my imagination at first. An ex-colonel in Wrangel's army. Big, handsome, shabby, but very neat in his

old uniform. He kissed one's hand so reverently, and told of his life in Petrograd and his despair here in a way to stir a stone. Well, Clee brought him home to dinner, to tea. He was charming, and so grateful. Clee gave him a job. He worked like a fiend for a few days. We wished that he might go to America, where he would have a chance; and I told Cleveland that if it could be arranged I would gladly give up the trip to Egypt that I'm longing for to pay this man's passage. But we found that he had been given money and passports for America some time before. He had given a farewell party to all his friends at the Muscovite the night before the sailing date and paid for the very good champagne with the passage money. Clee gave him money for passage on a freighter, and it went the same way. But, knowing all this, he was a lovable rascal. They are great impulsive children-all emotion and no sense. The Relief workers never give them money; just work, food, or clothes.

No, not all are children! General Wrangel is a real, grown man! He has been one of my heroes for ever so longand imagine how thrilled I was to meet him! The first time I saw him was at an Embassy dance in October. It was soon after the sinking of his yacht by Bolshevists. The American women had sent clothes to Baroness Wrangel; and he-at a ball-was dressed in an ordinary Red Cross khaki shirt, worn outside as a tunic! It might have been the most gorgeous uniform in the world, the way he carried it. He looks more royal than almost any pictures of royalty that I've ever seen. And worn, spiritual with suffering for his people. The Baroness is a bright, cheerful soul, awfully sweet and friendly. Of course they do not dance-in Russia's trouble-but they are nearly always at our balls. I did not want to meet General Wrangel until my French had improved; he does not speak English. So I asked my French teacher (a Russian widow) what to say to him when I met him. We used to laugh over it, and I had quite a beautiful conversation all learned. Then when the actual moment came, in the middle of a crowded ballroom floor, I forgot it all, and only shook his hand, stammered, "H-how do you do?" and gazed at him!

He is going soon to Serbia, with several thousand of his troops, who are being taken into the Serbian army.

Some one downstairs is playing the Volga song. That thing will haunt me to the end of my days. There are half a dozen Russian folk-songs that you hear every night, somewhere. We do get wonderful music here. So much fire -oh, other music will seem pale and tame, after these Russians! There is Vertinsky, the singer at the Ermitage, who used to appear before the Czar. He sang at a dinner at our Embassy the other night, and I could see the Cossacks marching-going away-away-faint in the distance, never, never to march again. Everybody cried. Vertinsky is a

drug fiend, and will die soon; but how he can sing!

Last night we had dinner with a family of rich Armenians. Heavens, the food they expected us to eat! I don't wonder these people look oily. Perfectly wonderful dishes, beginning with a creamed shrimp soup, and winding up with real Oriental sweet dates stuffed with kaimak (clotted buffalo cream) with syrup over them. Afterward the men played bridge, while the three other women and I lounged on a great low divan. With the men's whisky-sodas the maid brought tea for us!

Oh, it's a good thing I'm not here for always. Awfully demoralizing. Everybody is either starving or gorging. Everything is extreme. How anybody ever works in such a place is beyond me!

But the return to sanity is going to be hard. Your FRANCES.

Sam, dear:

Constantinople, January 4, 1922.

You have heard me speak of Elizabeth Baker? The pretty Navy wife who is so very popular with the British? She gave such a jolly dinner last night, a farewell for our naval attaché, who is leaving for Japan. Sir Horace Rumbold, British High Commissioner, was there; Lady Rumbold; Baron Uchida, the jolly little Japanese High Commissioner; General Marden; and some other British army and navy people. Elizabeth put me beside Sir Horace. I was petrified at first. He is the typical book-Englishman, to look at. Absolutely impassive, bored face, monocle and all. But after five minutes we were talking away as if he were a sophomore. He is as simple and easily amused as any boy of twenty, and says that he finds Ameri cans refreshing. Lady Rumbold is a trifle more formal at first, but I thought her very sweet.

Lady Harington (wife of Sir Charles Harington, Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in Turkey) is such a differ ent type from Lady Rumbold. She is Irish, I believe; is big, bobbed-haired, carelessly dressed, unconventional. She is always dancing at Tokatlian's at tea time with a crowd of young officers.

The British large parties are too formal to be much fun. Even the great fancy-dress ball at Harbié, on New Year's Eve, hadn't the right go to it.

On Armistice Day I went to a British tea-dance. It was a "shriek," as one of my little friends here would say. Old English dowagers with hats of the Spanish War period resting on two hairs, younger women with all sorts of beads and lace and what-not hung on them, and carrying off these atrocities with such an air that you almost think maybe that is the way to dress, after all! They wear just what suits their fancy. Straw hats in winter, and a girl at the dancing club last night had a little gold-lace nightcap affair on her head (weren't there such things back