So much has been said and written to the detriment of the ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid that it would seem to be an almost hopeless task to break a lance in his favour; and yet to do so, at least with regard to the human aspect of his character, is nothing more than a bare act of justice.

As he timidly peeps out of the window of his palatial prison at Begler-Bey, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, he has now ample leisure to reflect on the ingratitude of those he loaded with his favours.

And if he be familiar with the history of his own time, in bemoaning the unhappy fate of his country he may well re-echo the bitter words of the Austrian ex-Emperor Ferdinand, who, living in retirement at Prague when, in 1866, the victorious Prussians appeared before the city, exclaimed: “Surely it was scarcely worth while to force me to abdicate in order to bring things to their present pass!”

Certain figures have come down to us as typical of the extremes of fortune, and some are identified with Constantinople; of these that of Belisarius, the victorious general of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, lies nearest. After great deeds of war, he is said to have ended his days in a prison, through the iron bars of which he implored the charity of passers-by: “Give, oh, give an obolus unto Belisarius, whom virtue had raised and envy has brought so low.”

The ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid offers the latest instance of a similar change of fortune, for on his deposition an orgy of vilification was let loose in the Press of the Old World concerning this unfortunate Sovereign, who only a short time ago was able to boast the friendship of Emperors. One of the last to be entertained by him was a daughter of the House of Habsburg, upon whom, as was customary with him, he poured a rain of diamonds. To-day all these visitors have departed, and the ex-Khalif of the Faithful has not a friend left in the world among the crowd of high, well, and Imperial born to whom, in his prosperity, he played the part of a generous host, and upon whom he squandered countless millions of treasure in one form or another, either as presents or in expensive entertainment. Between them and him constant relays of highly paid emissaries were flitting on confidential missions along the iron roads of Eastern Europe, always at his expense. Close upon 4000 parasites were daily remorselessly draining his financial resources by living on him, and the more lavishly he dispensed his favours the deeper became the morass of ingratitude which at last engulfed him. But even this record does not exhaust the list of his iniquities. He was said to have hoarded fifty millions, whether in francs or pounds sterling matters little, which he invested in German banks. And it was these millions which excited the cupidity of his conquerors, and upon which they were bent on laying hungry hands.

“The power of kings is based upon the reason and folly of the people, but more upon their folly. The greatest and most important thing in the world has human weakness as its basis; and this very basis is admirably secure; for nothing is more certain than the fact that the people are weak. That which is founded on reason alone is badly founded, as, for instance, the recognition of wisdom.”^[16]

This may serve to explain much in connexion with those exotics of our democratic age—the autocrats, and more particularly the career of the ex-Sultan Abdul Hamid, though the lesson conveyed is not applicable to him alone, even among the living. Autocrats can have little or no conception of real values; whilst their system makes it next to impossible for them to train those whose abilities and knowledge of realities might be of use to them.

The career of Abdul Hamid offers too many parallels to that of Napoleon III not to call for notice, embodying as they well may a useful lesson to those who care to understand. Abdul Hamid wanted to monopolize power, and in the end everything slipped from his grasp.

I had not been long in Constantinople when it occurred to me that public opinion, as in the case of Napoleon III, overrated the Sultan’s ability and his knowledge of mankind, and underrated his qualities of heart. It was not so much the disastrous results of his reign to Turkey which irresistibly forced this conclusion upon me as the poor estimate one could not help forming of his surroundings and of the exaggerated importance he attached to things and individuals of questionable value; notably those complimentary missions and visits the practical results of which stand revealed to us to-day in all their futility. The Sultan was imbued with the instincts of a gentleman in his personal dealings, and these inclined him to accept as sincere assurances of friendship from those whom he thought in a position to be as good as their word. And yet I have it on fairly good authority that the only true friend in high station the Sultan possessed was the Emperor of Russia, who promised him that he would not undertake anything against Turkey during his reign, and kept his promise. On one occasion I ventured to point out to Baron Marschall von Bieberstein that the never-ending visits of foreign princes and the expense of their extravagant entertainment,^[17] whilst the salaries of the officers in the Army remained unpaid, were calculated to make the Sultan unpopular with his own people. He replied that His Majesty could never have enough visits of that kind. The Sultan clamoured for them, and, as we know, he got an ample supply of what he clamoured for.

When Abdul Hamid ascended the throne, the internal situation of Turkey was so critical that it required a man of great strength of character not to lose heart. The tragic circumstances connected with the death of Abdul Aziz had contributed to unhinge the mind of His Majesty’s brother, his immediate predecessor. The reckless extravagance of Sultan Abdul Aziz and his Court had left the finances of the Empire in hopeless embarrassment. The Ottoman Empire was practically bankrupt. Corruption reigned supreme in every department of the State. The governorships of the provinces had frequently been sold at enormous prices to men who were utterly corrupt and unfitted for their positions, and who oppressed the unfortunate populations under their charge, extorting from them, often by torture, the profits of their industry. Justice was shamelessly bought and sold in the courts. There was no uniform system of taxation: every governor fixed his own tariff and enforced its collection, however unjust and oppressive it might be.

The responsibility imposed upon a young and inexperienced prince was heavy indeed; for Abdul Hamid was only thirty-four years of age when he succeeded to the throne, which was still reeking with the blood of his predecessor. Disorder reigned in the provinces. Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro were in open rebellion, and, incited by Russia, declared war against Turkey. The demands of the States practically amounted to independence and autonomy. Russia backed up their demands by moving a corps d’armÉe to the banks of the Pruth, and declared war. What followed is part of the history of the nineteenth century.

It affords strong testimony to the firmness of the Sultan’s character that he did not despair: far from it. From the very first, Abdul Hamid boldly grasped the nettle of sovereignty, and for thirty years never ceased for a day to devote his whole energies to the task of ruling his country. As a stray indication of such devotion to duty, it may be mentioned that during all that period he missed only one Friday’s public visit to the HamidiÈ Mosque for the ceremony of the Selamlik, and that omission was due to illness. Surely this is almost a unique record of regularity of habit, and one which only a constitution fortified by a life of constant hard work and studied moderation could have rendered possible.

To-day it is no empty assertion to say that Abdul Hamid endeavoured to be the Educator of his people. He had hardly girded on the sword of Ejoub, the emblem of Turkish sovereignty, when he sent an aide-de-camp to a German professor living in Constantinople—Dr. Mordtmann—and sought his assistance to organize the so-called Mekteb MilkiÈ, a school for training Government Civil officials. He established the Turkish University at Haidar Pasha, near the English cemetery at Scutari, at an expense of close upon £1,000,000. The water supply of Constantinople, the finest in the world, is due to him. Constantinople had abundant fresh water at a time when Europe had little or no idea of its hygienic value. Under Sultan Suleyman there were 700 fountains or springs in Constantinople. Most of these had been allowed to dry up and decay. One of Abdul Hamid’s first acts was to create a gratuitous supply of fresh water for the inhabitants of Pera at a cost of £100,000.

In former days, famine and hunger-typhus, which invariably accompanies it, periodically ravaged Asia Minor. Anatolia now exports wheat worth two million pounds per annum and is growing cotton, and Angora produces improved cereals which are used in brewing and are also exported. Turkey even exports goats’ skins so far as it can do so in face of Russia’s prohibitive tariff. When Abdul Hamid came to the throne Constantinople lived on Russian beef; an excellent quality is now raised in Anatolia which is sent to Constantinople by rail.

It must be borne in mind that these and other achievements were carried out in the face of constant money difficulties. The Sultan founded technical schools and hospitals and made roads and railways. But more remarkable still, from a Turkish point of view, were his manifold efforts to raise the status of the Turkish woman. He even created a special decoration for ladies, the Order of the Chefakat. He was a true Mohammedan in his democratic breadth of sympathies, and there can be no doubt that in his early days he was honestly intent on the recognition of individual worth and character.

Where so much power is placed in the hands of one man, it goes without saying that abject servility has to be reckoned with; nor is this a feature peculiar to Turkey. That the Sultan often showed respect for unwelcome though honest opinion is, under the circumstances, a merit which calls for recognition. That he did so in early years is attested by some well-authenticated facts. He had hardly come to the throne when he decided to call a Council of State to judge the conduct of Midhat Pasha and his associates, who had agitated for the introduction of European representative institutions into Turkey. The question was submitted to the Council, which sat at the Imperial Palace, whether the said persons were guilty of treason or not. All the members but one brought in a verdict of “Guilty.” The single dissentient vote of “Not guilty” was given by Emin Bey, a German—a native of Mecklenburg—who had entered the Turkish service and embraced Islam. His colleagues, in their dismay, pointed to a curtain in the apartment and endeavoured to convey to the recalcitrant German that the Sultan was posted behind it and consequently cognizant of his opposition to the vote of the rest. Emin Bey, however, remained firm, for he belonged to the old school, and added that he could not conscientiously decide otherwise. Every member of the Council received some mark of the Sultan’s favour, but the highest distinction of all was reserved for Emin Bey.

Either the Sultan must have been endowed with remarkable qualities, or circumstances must have been exceptionally favourable to him, or both, to have enabled him to hold on during thirty-two years, in the course of which the pay of his soldiers was always in arrear and the gang of favourites at the Palace was constantly plundering him. Whatever may have been the effects of despotic rule on his character in the course of years, there can be no doubt that when he came to the throne he was filled with a high conception of the responsibilities of his position. It is established beyond question that it was with the greatest reluctance he consented to his brother being deposed, and then only after the most reliable medical opinion regarding the latter’s mental unfitness had been taken. At the beginning he endeavoured to attract honest advisers to his service.

But whatever may have been his qualifications or shortcomings as a politician, there can be little doubt that he possessed many unusual personal attributes, though perhaps of a negative nature. He had the calmness, the reticence, the self-control of a well-bred man, never proffering advice and not given to expansiveness, for his nature was undemonstrative. He showed no vulgarity, no coarseness, no hectoring or bullying. He had no desire to put himself forward, to be communicative, his thoughts in the market-place, nor was he carried away by the shouts of a crowd or intoxicated by its homage. When on a Friday he passed in front of the cheering troops his features always bore an expression of calm dignity and benevolence, and a marked capacity for leniency and forgiveness. His recognition, even to the humblest, for services, many of a trivial kind, was extreme.

Abdul Hamid’s political ability has been for long an article of faith, even with those who were prepared to deny him every other quality, and the results obtained by him during a period of over thirty years in his dealings with the Great Powers, freely admitting that their final outcome was a negative one, point undeniably to his having been endowed with some political gifts. He must have possessed a certain inborn sagacity, which, however, was not nurtured by a wise bringing up or such an experience of the world as would have enabled him to gain an insight into real values, notably in the selection of high-class character. This handicapped him through life. It showed itself in his misplaced confidence, as evidenced by the rise of many favourites of doubtful character from absolute obscurity to power and great wealth, and it does not tell in favour of the common belief in the Sultan’s perspicacity that so many of those he distinguished were mediocrities even when they were not rogues.

Professor VambÉry relates the following incident as an illustration of the queer type of men that managed to gain the favour of Abdul Hamid: “Among these obscure worshippers round the Sultan was the famous Lufti Aga, in his official capacity of Master of the Robes, but in reality the most intimate confidant of the Sultan, in spite of his Turkish origin.^[18] I had a rather curious adventure with this worthy. One day whilst walking with the Sultan in the garden I saw this man approaching His Majesty, and looking closer into his face, I recognized in him the servant of Mahmud Nedim Pasha, formerly Grand Vizier, distinguished by his Russian sympathies—hence his nickname, Nedimoff—in whose house in Bebek I acted formerly as teacher of French to his son-in-law, Rifat Bey. In accosting the said former servant somewhat boldly I noticed a perplexity on his face, but still more remarkable was the blushing of the Sultan, who asked me whether I knew his favourite man before. ‘Of course,’ said I, ‘Lufti was a servant in the house of Mahmud Nedim Pasha, and he often cleaned my boots.’ Tableau! The most intimate man of the Sultan a shoeblack by origin. But this intermezzo did not disconcert Abdul Hamid, for Lufti went on in his delicate service until the end of his life. Such is the East, and such are Orientals, however so much gifted.”

We have only to review the course of affairs since his deposition to be forced to the conclusion that whatever Abdul Hamid’s mistakes may have been, he was yet able to postpone the catastrophe which, under any circumstances, must now be admitted to have been inevitable in the long run.

To-day there can be no doubt that he was more or less driven into the arms of Germany by the attitude of England both under Mr. Gladstone and in a less degree under Lord Salisbury, more particularly during the period known as that of the Armenian atrocities. But even this should not have sufficed to endow him with the faith he undoubtedly possessed, where only the cleverness to take advantage of Germany’s assistance in a utilitarian spirit would have been justified. This credulity on his part was all the more remarkable seeing that it was never shared by the more sterling and astute political and religious elements around him. These never swerved in their preference for England and the English, even in the darkest days which followed upon the Armenian massacres in 1895 and 1896. They still held on to the Turkish traditions of the Crimean war of friendship between Turkey and England. In departing therefrom the Sultan may be said to have made the exchange familiar to us as children in Aladdin’s story of bartering old lamps for new. England’s goodwill was Turkey’s old lamp in spite of every misunderstanding.

In some respects the ex-Sultan shone to advantage as compared with many rulers of the past and some of the present. Notably was this the case as regards his sense of gratitude for services rendered and of loyalty to those who he believed had served him well. My own sporadic relations with His Majesty have furnished me with evidence that his wish to benefit others could even outweigh a consideration for his own interests. For supposing that my position as correspondent of the New York Herald at Constantinople was really of any value to him, as he plainly believed to be the case, his proposal to me to leave that paper and enter his service was obviously contrary to his own interests. The guiding principle of others in the Sultan’s position would have been to continue to utilize a man’s services at no cost to themselves and then to throw him over. How different was Abdul Hamid’s conduct in this as in so many other cases! The late Mr. Whittaker, for many years correspondent of the Times at Constantinople, received signal marks of favour at the Sultan’s hands, in spite of the anti-Turkish attitude of that paper. He was, I think, acceptable to the Sultan as a man of culture and a talented musician, and was now and then asked to come up to the Palace to play the piano. When a rupture finally took place, it came about through Mr. Whittaker himself, who was exasperated at the restrictions placed by the Censor upon the Levant Herald, of which he was the proprietor.

Barely has a sovereign distinguished a private individual, without wealth or rank, and a foreigner into the bargain, with his intimacy to such a degree as the Sultan did in the case of Professor Arminius VambÉry, whom he used to address by the familiar, almost endearing, term of “Baba.” This friendship had its source in his appreciation of the Professor’s distinction as an Oriental scholar and his well-known sympathies with Turkey, her people, and her religion. Here, again, the estrangement was, I believe, due to the Professor himself, who became dissatisfied with His Majesty’s political tendencies, which he could not see his way to share or champion.^[19]

The Sultan possessed a rare delicacy of feeling, which he now and then showed in small things, doubly remarkable in a man in his exalted position and, moreover, always overburdened with work. Thus when Sirry Bey, one of the Sultan’s secretaries, accompanied us as chief of our expedition through Anatolia, and was taken seriously ill between Erzeroum and Bitlis, the Sultan was apprised of the fact. He was most anxious to keep the news away from Sirry Bey’s wife, and made a point of sending to his konak from time to time with cheering news and a present of money, for fear the Bey’s salary might not have been paid to his family in his absence through the ordinary channels. In conferring the Order of the Chefakat on a lady, he caused the following words to be inscribed in the brevet: “Sa MajestÉ ImpÉriale accorde cette dÉcoration À Madame X pour faire plaisir À son mari.” It seemed to afford him gratification to give pleasure to others.

Comparatively few people are aware of the refined nature of one so much maligned; and yet testimony to this effect rests on irrefragable evidence. I need only mention the Sultan’s intense love of music, his munificent remuneration of artistes who had been asked to perform at the Palace, and the deep interest he took in Nature, whether animals, birds, or flowers. One day the Turkish Ambassador in London asked me to assist him to procure a book dealing with Australian birds. The Sultan had heard that such a work existed and would like to have a copy. All this may well lead us to inquire how such facts are to be reconciled with the popular conception of his treachery, his blood-guiltiness? The answer is self-evident.

The Sultan was anxiously bent on keeping in touch with the happenings in the outside world. Thus, in addition to reading translations of foreign newspaper articles, he looked through several English illustrated weeklies regularly, the letterpress of which was translated into Turkish expressly for him by his secretaries. One of the first questions he would ask a visitor, after the usual inquiry regarding his welfare, would be concerning some important current event: what might be the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war, the Russian revolution (1905–6), etc. On one occasion he expressed his belief to me that both the Mohammedans and the Jews would outlast the Christian world.

I have often seen it stated in print that the Sultan wore an habitual look of melancholy—in other words, that his main characteristics were sadness and nervousness. Neither my own experience, nor the testimony of others best in a position to form a reliable opinion, bears this out, although the tragic circumstances under which, very much against his will, he came to the throne may well have left their impress on his mind. The Sultan was of an exceedingly sensitive nature. He was a man in whom the domestic affections were very strong; thus a blow, such as the loss of a daughter, might well have had a cruel effect on him, as only those can understand who have loved and lost children of their own. But I do not believe that the Sultan’s temperament was one of habitual melancholy. On the contrary, I know that His Majesty could enjoy a joke as heartily as ever did Martin Luther; though the nature of some of the doughty Reformer’s sallies would hardly have suited the refined taste of the Khalif of the Mohammedans.

The Sultan on one occasion was inquiring of one of his confidants about a stranger whose personality interested him. His Majesty’s informant told him that the individual in question was never seen in coffee-houses or theatres, much less in places of doubtful repute or in suspicious company; that he was most moderate, even abstemious, in his habits; that he sat at home working most of his time, and if he went out, it was to visit a mosque and watch the Faithful at prayer. “Truly a remarkable man,” broke in the Sultan; “he might almost be an Osmanli” (for among themselves the Turks never use the word “Turks”). The other, feeling that he had drawn an impossible picture of perfection, which might perhaps encounter the Sultan’s incredulity, here rejoined that truth compelled him to confess to His Majesty that he had seen the stranger walk up and down in his room during the hot weather with next to no clothing on—almost naked. This caused the Sultan to burst out laughing. On such occasions—and they were by no means rare—when the Sultan was in good spirits, the monarch’s merriment, as if by magic, was reflected in his surroundings. I have seen all Yildiz in the best of good humour, for the word had gone round that “Sa MajestÉ est de fort bonne humeur,” and the news spread far and wide; it even found expression in the broad grin of the hamal who carried the fat pasha’s dinner-tray from the Imperial kitchen on his head.

It would, indeed, be no cause for wonder if the Sultan had been occasionally in a serious mood. There are other monarchs besides the Sultan whose humour is not always couleur de rose. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” is not a Mohammedan proverb. But the Sultan’s strength of purpose, his truly phenomenal powers of work, his abstinence from every form of nervous stimulant except an occasional cigarette and a cup of coffee, are irreconcilable with the idea that he could have been of a morbidly nervous disposition. As to the Sultan’s working habits, I have known him to be at work at five in the morning and at that hour keep going a whole staff of secretaries, who had slept overnight on couches in the rooms in the Palace in which they habitually worked. Munir Pasha once said to me: “There is one characteristic of His Majesty which conveys a lesson to us all: it is his extraordinary self-control—his impressive calm. It is almost sublime—no contrariety, no trial seems to ruffle his perfect self-possession. It is truly marvellous.”

Making every allowance for the enthusiasm of a devoted servant and a prince of courtiers, I am yet inclined to believe, on the strength of other evidence, as well as from my own personal observation, that Munir Pasha’s estimate of his master’s nerve was by no means exaggerated. Certain Ambassadors, who had abundant opportunity of testing the Sultan’s self-control, might, if they were still among the living and inclined to make revelations of incidents in which they did not come off with flying colours, give even better corroborative evidence than I am able to do.

It has been said that the Sultan was constantly surrounded by a fierce soldiery armed to the teeth, and that sudden death awaited the hapless creature who should venture to intrude unbidden within the sacred precincts of the Imperial Palace. As a matter of fact I doubt whether there is any other palace into which it would be so easy for a stranger to penetrate as it was into the Yildiz Kiosk. All sorts and conditions of men—but no women—used to find their way in and out. As already mentioned, I have known the Pera shopkeeper of English nationality enter the Palace and walk unbidden into the sanctum of the Sultan’s all-powerful secretary, take his seat among the Ambassadors, Pashas, and Ministers, sip his coffee and smoke his cigarette, and sit there for hours together as if “to the manner born.” So much for the exclusive character of the Sultan’s Palace.

I remember more than once being at the Palace rather late in the evening. Everybody had gone home long since. A few servants, wearing fezes and dressed in the black stambolin frock-coat, stood silently in the hall which adjoined the Imperial apartment. Otherwise not a soul, much less an armed man, was to be seen until you passed the sentry at the gate of exit. Nor, indeed, was a sound to be heard on the beautiful moonlight night, except the splashing of the water of the marble fountain, which issued from one of the side walls of the unpretentious one-storied wing. The Sultan was within, hard at work with his secretary in a suite of apartments opposite those of Ghazi Osman. A stranger might have remained there unmolested, as I did in front of the Sultan’s room, without a soldier to be seen, or a policeman to call upon him to “move on.”

It will always remain a strange feature connected with the dethronement of the Sultan that it came on a sudden, quite unexpected even by those who ought to have been in a position to form a correct estimate of what was going on. As a matter of fact the Sultan’s authority was being undermined some time before the catastrophe really took place. He no longer ventured as of yore to act in direct opposition to the advice of his Ministers by granting valuable concessions to his favourites. The pressure of foreign Ambassadors, notably Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, also became more embarrassing.

About this time the Turkish Ambassador at Madrid, Izzet Fuad Pasha, a grandson of the renowned Grand Vizier Fuad, published a book severely criticizing the conduct of Turkish affairs as embodying so many lost opportunities. He was recalled to Constantinople, put under surveillance in the Pera Palace Hotel, and forbidden to leave it even for an airing. Crowds of spies surrounded the hotel by day and by night. Of even greater significance were the doings of Fehim Pasha and his arraignment and disgrace, of which more later. The contradiction between the Sultan’s supposed diplomatic astuteness and the short-sightedness which appears to have marked his measures in meeting the forces which were destined to overthrow him has not yet found an explanation.

The personal appearance of the Sultan has been described by many writers, for no monarch in the world was seen so regularly in public as he. Anybody who wished to see him had only to walk up to the Imperial Palace, the Yildiz Kiosk (“Tent of the Stars”), on a Friday morning, and he was absolutely certain of seeing His Majesty as he drove in an open victoria, with Ghazi Osman sitting opposite him, out of the Palace gates to the HamidiÈ Mosque to prayer, and half an hour later, on his way back, when he himself handled the ribbons. It is quite true that the road was double-lined with soldiers, but that in no way prevented the spectator from taking stock at his leisure of the Sultan and all his courtly surroundings. Then, again, a number of rooms adjoining the Palace, overlooking the whole pageant of the Selamlik, were placed by the Sultan at the disposal of foreign visitors and the better classes of Constantinople every Friday, and it used to be—until the last few years, as explained elsewhere—the easiest thing in the world for anybody with a decent coat to his back to obtain a card of admission, and thus, for the short period of one forenoon, to become de facto a guest of the Sultan. During the interval, whilst the Sultan was in the Mosque, excellent tea and sometimes, on exceptional occasions, even sweets and cigarettes were handed round to the visitors, whilst bags of bonbons were distributed among the crowd in the road on Mohammed’s birthday; a list of those present was also regularly handed to the Sultan, who perused it, and if any name was familiar to him, he would send his personal greeting to the visitor in question. Thus the privilege of witnessing the ceremony of the Selamlik from the rooms set apart for the purpose was one involving the acceptance of His Majesty’s hospitality. There every Turk appeared dressed in his best, wearing his decorations. This was not always realized by visitors of the English-speaking world, some of whom I have seen in flannel shirts, dirty shoes, and knickerbockers mingling, with complete self-possession, among diplomatists and others belonging to good society, who were carefully attired for the occasion.

The favourable impression which the Sultan is universally admitted to have produced on those who were privileged to come into contact with him was doubtless due to that charm of manner, that quiet dignity which is more or less characteristic of all well-bred Turks. But in his case it was supplemented by a kindly smile and an unusually sympathetic voice, the tones of which conveyed a pleasant impression even to the stranger who was unable to understand what His Majesty had said until it had been translated by the interpreter. The Sultan usually gave audiences on Friday after the ceremony of the Selamlik, when he wore a Turkish general’s uniform with the star of the Imtiaz Order in brilliants hung from his neck. As he sat in front of you, his hands resting on the hilt of his sword before him, and spoke to Munir Pasha in his quiet, dignified way, you could not resist the impression of a picturesque dignity. I have also seen him attired in a black frock-coat, cut in Turkish fashion, which just hid a white waistcoat with a gold watch-chain, scarcely differing in appearance from one of his secretaries or the other officials. The only other jewellery was a plain gold ring on the little finger of the right hand with a fair-sized cut ruby, or polished en cabochon. He received his visitors standing. It was customary to sit in the presence of the Sultan after being requested to do so; but the native-born Turk sat only on the very edge of the little gilt chair, and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for the Sultan to address him, and then muttered in reply, while bending low, and touching chest, lips, and forehead with the right hand: “Firman Effendemizen” (“Master, thy word is law”).

Many might find it difficult to account for the personal popularity of Abdul Hamid in face of the disasters which marked his reign, such as the Russo-Turkish war and the several Armenian risings. The explanation is to be found in the fact that Abdul Hamid represented the ideals of a ruler in the hearts of his people far more than any Sultan since Mahmud II, who ordered the extermination of the Janissaries. How far he deserved this attachment can be estimated only by making due allowance for the retentive memory of the Turks and their traditional attachment to their race and the tenets of their religion. It is impossible to do justice to Abdul Hamid without realizing to what a depth Turkey had sunk under Abdul Aziz. A knowledge of these facts alone enables us to appreciate the reforms which Abdul Hamid introduced, and for which he obtained credit from his subjects, but none at all from the outer world.

Even allowing for these things and the influence which they exercised upon the minds of the Turkish people, it would be difficult to understand how the Sultan maintained despotic sway for thirty years were it not for the realization that the Mohammedan has a different outlook upon the world from that of the other peoples of Europe. Reverence for the past, fidelity to his faith, deep attachment to the traditions of race and creed—these unfashionable virtues are instinctive with him. Abdul Hamid’s strength lay in this, that he represented in his own person, at least for a time, the ways of thinking of his people: that his ways were in essence theirs. In this connexion my thoughts ever and again revert to the scene of the Selamlik, when I saw Ghazi Osman Pasha sitting opposite the Sultan in his carriage. Nowhere in the Christian world can I call to mind such an inspiring picture as this of the white-headed old man being demonstratively honoured in public by his Sovereign and revered by the people, although his name will always be identified with one of the greatest catastrophes that ever overtook the Turkish arms in Europe. And yet in the eyes of his master there was no disgrace, only honour, for one who typified in himself all the virtues that belong to Islam. How can one help contrasting the treatment the Turks and their ruler meted out to their defeated champion with that which the ever ungrateful house of Habsburg bestowed upon that gallant soldier Field-Marshal Benedek, the unfortunate Austrian commander at the battle of Sadowa—all his former services, his splendid record in Italy in 1848–49, when the Archduke Albrecht presented him with the sword of his father the Archduke Charles, the victor of Aspern, his prowess in Hungary, his distinguished conduct at the battle of Solferino in the Franco-Italian war of 1859, all wiped out of memory, and he himself disgraced and sent to die of a broken heart in the obscure little town of Gratz.