The Eastern question! It is very easy indeed to have distinct notions on the Eastern question. I had once, not very long ago neither. Of course, like every Englishman, I was for fighting, sooner than the Russians, or any other European Power, should come to the Bosphorus without the leave of England, and that as often as might be necessary, and quite apart from any consideration as to the internal state of the country. But as for the Turks, I as much thought that their time was about over in Europe as the Czar Nicholas when he talked of the sick man to Sir Hamilton Seymour. They were a worn-out horde, the degenerate remnant of a conquering race, who were keeping down with the help of some of the Christian Powers, ourselves notably amongst the number, Christian subjects—Bulgarians, Servians, Greeks, and others—more numerous and better men than themselves. I could never see why these same Christian subjects should not be allowed to kick the Turks out of Europe if they could, or why we should take any trouble to bolster them up. Perhaps I do not see yet why they should not be allowed, if they can do it by themselves; but I am free to acknowledge that the Eastern question, the nearer you get to it, and the more you look into it, like many other political questions, gets more and more puzzling and complicated and turns up quite a new side to you. A week or two on the Bosphorus spent in looking about one, and sucking the brains of men of all nations who have had any experience of this remarkable country, make one see that there is a good deal to be said for wishing well to the Turks, notwithstanding their false creed and bad practices. I hear here the most wonderfully contradictory evidence about these Turks. They have one quality of a ruling nation assuredly in perfection—the power of getting themselves heartily hated. But so far as I could test them, the common statements as to their dishonesty and corruption are vague and general if you try to sift them, and I find that even those who abuse them are apt in practice to prefer them to Creeks, Armenians, or any other of the subject people in these parts. On the other hand, you certainly do hear much of the honesty of the lower classes of the Turks. For instance, it seems that contracts are scarcely ever made here in writing, and in actions of debt if a Turk will appear and swear that he was never indebted, the case is at an end, and he walks out of court a free man. Admiral Slade, amongst his other functions, is judge of a court which is a sort of mixture of an Admiralty and County Court, in which he tries very many actions of debt in the year. After an experience of nearly three years he told my informant that he had had only two cases in which a defendant had adopted this summary method of getting out of his difficulties. Again in the huge maze of bazaars in Stamboul there is a quarter, some sixty yards square, at least, I should say, which is par excellence the Turkish bazaar. The Jews, Armenians, and Greeks, who far out-number the Turks in the other quarters of the bazaars, have no place here; or if an Armenian or two creep in, it is only on sufferance. The Turks are a very early nation, and not given to overwork themselves, and this bazaar of theirs is shut at twelve o’clock every day, or soon afterwards, and left in charge of one man. I passed through it one day when many of the shops were closing. The process consisted of just sweeping the smaller articles into a sort of closet which each merchant has at the back of the divan on which he sits, and leaving the heavier articles (such as old inlaid firelocks, swords, large china vases, and the like) where they were, hanging or standing outside. Most of the merchandise, I quite admit, is old rubbish; still there are many articles of considerable value and very portable, and certainly every possible temptation to robbery is given both to those who shut up latest and to the man who is left in charge of all this property, and yet a theft of the smallest article is unheard of. In this very bazaar I saw an instance of honesty which struck me much. The custom of trade here is, as every one knows, that the vendor asks twice or three times as much as he will take, and you have to beat him down to a fair price. I accompanied a lady who had to make some purchases. After a hard struggle, she succeeded in getting what she wanted at her own price; but her adversary evidently felt aggrieved, and declared that he should be a loser by the transaction. She cast up the total in her head, paid the money; her cavass (as they call the substitutes for footmen here, who accompany ladies about the streets with scimitars by their sides, and sticks in their hands, to belabour the Jews and Greeks with who get in the way) had taken up the things, and we had left the shop, when the aggrieved merchant came out, called us back, explained to her that she had made a wrong calculation by ten francs or so, and refunded the difference. I was much surprised. The whole process was so like an attempt to cheat that it seemed very odd that the man who habitually practised it should yet scruple to take advantage of such a slip as this. But my companion, who knows the bazaars well, assured me that it was always the case. A Turk does not care what he asks you, often loses impatient customers by asking fabulously absurd prices, but the moment he has made his bargain is scrupulously exact in keeping to it, and will not take advantage of a farthing in changing your foreign money, or of your ignorance of the value of his currency. This was her experience. I might multiply instances of Turkish honesty if it were of any use, but have been unable to collect a single instance of the like virtue on the part of Greeks or Armenians. Every man’s word seems against them, though their sharpness in trade and cleverness and activity in other ways are admitted on all hands. I found that every one whose judgment I could at all depend on, however much he might dislike the Turks, preferred them to any other of the people of the country whenever there was any question of trust. So, on the whole, notwithstanding their idleness, their hatred of novelties and love of backsheesh, their false worship and bigotry, and the evils which this false worship brings in its train, I must say that the immense preponderance of oral evidence is in their favour, as decidedly the most upright and respectable of the races who inhabit Turkey in Europe. One does not put much faith in one’s own eyes in a question of this kind, but, taking them for what they are worth, mine certainly led me to the same conclusion. The Turkish boatmen, porters, shopmen, contrast very favourably with their Greek and other rivals.

In short, they look particularly like honest self-respecting men, which the others emphatically do not.

If this be true, and so long as it continues to be true, I for one am for keeping the Turks where they are. And this does not involve any intervention on our parts. They are quite able to hold their own if no foreign power interferes with them, and all we have to do is to see that they are fairly let alone, which is not the case at present. For the present Government of Fuad Pasha is the best and strongest Turkey has seen for many a year. Fuad’s doings in Syria led one to expect considerable things of him, for few living statesmen have successfully solved such a problem as putting down the disturbances there, avenging the Damascus massacre, quieting the religious excitement, and getting the French out of the country. All this, however, he managed with great firmness and skill, and since he has been Prime Minister he has given proofs of ability in another direction equally important for the future of his country. Turkish finance was in a deplorable state when he came into power. I don’t suppose that it is in a very sound condition now, but at any rate the first, and a very important, step has been successfully made. Until within the last few months the paper currency here, called caimÉ, has been the curse of the country. There were somewhere about five million sterling’s worth of small notes, for sums from ten piastres (2s.) to fifty piastres in circulation. The value of these notes was constantly fluctuating, often varying thirty or forty per cent in a few days. The whole of these notes have been called in by the present Government and exchanged for small silver coin within the last two months, so that now the value of the piastre in Turkey is fixed. A greater blessing to the country can scarcely be conceived, and the manner in which the conversion has been effected has been most masterly. The English loan, no doubt, has enabled Fuad to do this, and he has had Lord Hobart at his elbow to advise and assist him in the operation. But, making all proper drawbacks, a very large balance of credit is due to the Turkish Government, as will appear when the English Commissioner’s Report appears in due course, the contents of which I have neither the knowledge nor the wish to anticipate. The settlement, for the present, at least, of the Servian and Montenegrin difficulties are further proofs, it seems to me, of the vigour and ability of the present Government. But still, giving the Turkish statesmen now in power full credit for all they have done, one cannot help feeling that this Eastern question is full of the most enormous difficulties, is, in short, about the most complicated of all the restless, importunate, ill-mannered questions that are crying out “Come, solve me,” in this troublesome old continent of ours.

For it hardly needs a voyage to the East to convince any man who cares about such matters that this Turkish Empire is in a state of solution. If one did want convincing on the point, a few days here would be enough to do it. Let him spend a few hours as I did last week at the Sweet Waters of Asia on a Turkish Sunday (Friday), and he will scarcely want further proof. The Sweet Waters of Asia are those of a muddy little rivulet, which flow into the sparkling Bosphorus some four miles above Constantinople. Along the side of this stream, at its junction with the Bosphorus, is a small level plain, which has been for I know not how long the resort of the Turkish women. Here they come once a week on their Sundays, to look at the hills and the Bosphorus without the interference of blinds and jalousies, and at some other human beings besides the slaves and other inmates of their own harems. You arrive there in a caique, and find yourself at a jump plump in the middle of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. The Sultan has built a superb kiosk (summer-house) here, with a faÇade and balustrade of beautiful white marble, one hundred yards long, fronting the Bosphorus. (They tell me, by the way, that the whole kiosk is of the same white marble, and so it may be, but, at any rate, if it be, it is most superfluously covered with yellow stucco.) Outside the enclosure of his kiosk, at the Bosphorus end of the little plain, and some fifty yards from the shore, is a fine square marble fountain, with texts from the Koran in green and gold upon it, and steps all round. A few plane-trees give a little shade round it. On all the steps of the fountain, along the kiosk garden wall, under the plane-trees, and out on the turf of the valley, are seated Turkish women of every rank, from the Grand Vizier’s wife and family, on superbly embroidered cushions and carpets, and cloaked in the most fascinating purple and pink silks, down to poor men’s wives, in faded stuffs, on old scraps of drugget which a rag-collector would scarcely pick out of the gutter. Others of the veiled women are driving slowly round the little plain in the strangest carriages, just like Cinderella’s coach in the children’s books, or in arabas drawn by two oxen, and ornamented with silk or cotton hangings. Here the poor women sit, or drive, or walk for an hour or two, and smoke cigarettes, and eat fruit and sweetmeats, and drink coffee, which viands are brought with them or supplied by itinerant dealers on the ground. So far, the scene is just what it might have been in the days of Haroun Alraschid, and the black eunuchs standing about or walking by the carriages seem to warn off all contact with the outer world. But what is the fact? There were English and French ladies sitting on the carpets of the Grand Vizier’s wife and talking with her. There were men and women of all nations walking about or sitting close by the veiled groups, and plenty of Turkish men looking on, or themselves talking to unbelievers, and seeming to think that it was all quite natural. It is impossible in a few words to convey the impression of utter incongruity which this and other scenes of the same kind give one. Islamism and Frankism—Western civilisation, or whatever you like to call it,—I dare not call it Christianity,—are no longer at arm’s length. They are fairly being stirred up together. What will come of it? At a splendid garden fÊte, given by a great Pasha in the spring, amongst other novelties dancing was perpetrated. The Pasha is a Turk of advanced ideas. His wife (he has only one) and the other women of his household were allowed to look on from the harem windows. “In two years they will be down here, in five they will be dancing, and in ten they will wear crinolines,” said an Englishman to one of the French Embassy with whom he was walking. “Et alors l’empire serait sauvÉ,” replied the Frenchman. Not exactly so, perhaps, but still the speakers were touching the heart of the Eastern question. The harem or the Turks will have to go down in Europe in the next few years. But as this letter is already too long, I hope you will let me say what I have to say on the subject in my next.