The street is not quite as bad as it was; and there are little oases of respectability in it you would never expect.

Here and there in the residential road are little oases of shops, patronised by the neighbourhood, and some of the children may live over these.

The desert extends up to the neighborhood of Uzun Ada, and the railway stations form so many little oases, made by the hand of man.

Some day the world will understand that, and the little oases on the windy tops of hills will harbor for healing its ailing, house-weary broods.