TURKEY

His Excellency Tewfik Pasha,Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Imperial Ottoman Empire.

CHAPTER ITHE LAND OF THE WANING MOON

The Orient Express again—On the Black Sea to Constantinople—A disenchantment—My dragoman—How to bribe the Customs officers—Mud and dogs—A city of spies—Feebleness of British policy at the Porte—Turkish adoration of Germany—The basis of my confidential inquiries.

From Bucharest to Constantinople is not at all an unpleasant journey.

The Orient Express runs twice a week to Constantza, the Roumanian port on the Black Sea, where there is a fine and comfortable passenger-steamer service direct to Constantinople.

At Bucharest Station I was seen off by several kind friends, with many parting injunctions to “take care of myself” in Macedonia, and it was not without regret that I left the gay little Roumanian capital, where I had received so much hospitality, from Her Majesty the Queen down to some of the humblest of her subjects.

The “Orient,” on the Constantza line, is not so well fitted, nor is the food so good, as upon the direct line from Paris to Constantinople by way of Belgrade and Sofia.

The whole train was shabby, dusty, and over-heated, and the dinner, instead of the usualtable d’hôte, wasà la carte. The only item on the bill of fare, however, proved to be beef-steak. The small piece cooked for me was fit only for a dog, and served on a dirty tablecloth; therefore I was compelled to make my dinner off stale bread and soapy cheese. And this on atrain de luxe—and one of the principal European Expresses!

The Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et Grand Express Européenes are not very considerate towards travellers to the East. There is neither competition in sleeping accommodation nor buffets, therefore the rolling-stock is often old-fashioned and dirty, and the food leaves very much to be desired. Surely upon a journey of three or four days, the maximum degree of comfort should be secured! Why should the traveller who spends one night between Calais and Nice be better provided for than he who goes East from Ostend to Constantinople—a four days’ journey?

In the “Orient,” the old-fashioned coal-fire heating in every carriage is still in vogue, and consequently the person who is unfortunate enough to have a berth near the stove is half roasted, while he who is at the farther end is half frozen. The traveller who goes East would certainly welcome the up-to-datewagons-litsof the Mediterranean or Carlsbad Expresses.

I travelled in the “Orient” from Paris to Vienna, from Belgrade to Sofia, from Bucharest to Constantza, and from Nisch in Servia to Paris, and on each of the trains were the same defects in sleeping comfort, and often in food.

It is to be hoped that the Company will shortly remedy this, for on some of their routes, notably Calais-Paris, or Paris-Marseilles, the food is all that can be desired.

The Express, after passing the wonderful bridge over the Danube, arrives at the quay at Constantza, or Kustendji, as is its local name, at eleven o’clock at night, where the mails from London and Vienna are quickly transferred on board, and we are soon under steam, with the flashing light of Cape Tusla fast disappearing at the stern.

The steamerKing Charlesmakes the voyage from Constantza to Alexandria, calling at Constantinople, and is a very comfortable and up-to-date boat, with excellent state-rooms and a fine saloon, and ladies’ drawing-room. Officers and men are Roumanians, but as the head steward speaks French there is no difficulty. An excellent supper at midnight, with Roumanian white wine, caviare, and a glass ofslivovitzato follow, and then a stroll on the deck in the white moonlight.

Past the Kamara and Shabaloh lights, we at last see the broad rays from the Kali Akra, and then we head straight out upon the lonely sea for the Bosphorus. One by one, the tired travellers, some of them from Ostend, Berlin, or Petersburg, make for their berths, and finding myself alone, I turn into the comfortable deck cabin kindly secured for me by telegram by my friend the Minister of Finance in Bucharest.

Rising early, I was already out on deck and taking photographs as we passed the two Turkish forts, Kilia and Poiraz, at the narrow entrance to the Bosphorus. And after stopping to take up our pilot, we crept slowly up the narrow channel amid delightful scenery, some of which I photographed and have reproduced in these pages, past the pretty summer resort of Therapia and Anatoli Hissar, until we approached the capital of Turkey, with her hundred domes and minarets, looking almost like a fairy city against the blue cloudless sky as we approached.

But what a disenchantment on landing! That terrible rabble at Galata in the midst of dirt and squalor, of shouting touts, scrambling porters, and scavenger dogs, is a thing to be ever remembered. Fortunately, I had a Greek dragoman, one Demosthenes Cambothecras, to meet me. I can recommend him as an excellent and honest fellow, and to the intending traveller I may say that a letter addressed to the Pera Palace Hotel will always find him.

He stood on the quay amid the thousand off-scum of Constantinople, and shouted my name. I shouted back, and ten minutes later we met. When I gave him over my baggage ticket, he said—

“The customs here, m’sieur, are difficult. But, with your permission, I will give the officer five francs.”

I assented readily, and my luggage was passed without inquiry, while that of a bespectacled Hungarian next me was examined piece by piece, greatly to the disgust and consternation of his obese wife.

I saw no money pass in the shabby, shed-like Custom House, but he told me that the chief of the Customs employed an agent out in the street to receive his bribes!So much for the morality of the Custom dues in Turkey. In that very same week the British Ambassador had made protest to the Sublime Porte regarding the same thing, but was promptly “snuffed out” by the all-influential Power, Germany.

Germany and German interests are always paramount in Turkey. If you are an Englishman, you may take a back seat and endure all your passport worries, but the German is, by the Turk, supposed to be his friend. German diplomacy is clever, wary, and unscrupulous, and in the Sultan’s capital you are treated with deference if you are a subject of the Kaiser William.

And how strange and ridiculous it all is! Germany intends ere long to wipe Turkey off the face of Europe—only Turkey cannot see it. She is fascinated and spellbound by German cringing and German goodwill, all pretence, and all directed towards the one end of traitorous abandonment.

Great Britain, notwithstanding her fine Embassy, is entirely eclipsed by the big white palace overlooking the Bosphorus which houses the German Ambassador. Tewfik Pasha, the Sultan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, lives beneath its shadow, and the Turks look upon Germany as their natural protector and friend. A British protest to the Porte passes unheeded, while a German protest receives attention and adjustment the very next day. A German diplomatist at the Sublime Porte told me this with a roar of laughter, adding—

“We are the only diplomatists here. We are listened to. You are merely tolerated.”

And verily he spoke a great truth.

Our big grey Embassy in Pera, with its gorgeous Montenegrinkavass, may be extremely ornamental and impressive, but nowadays of little use. The British taxpayer is paying for the glorification of Great Britain without one single farthing’s worth of benefit. The Turkish Government—clever as they are—laugh in the face of our persevering and well-meaning Ambassador. They give him, or his representative, cups of rather badly-made coffee in Tewfik’s shabby anteroom at the Sublime Porte, and put their fingers to their noses behind hisback. It is not the fault of our Ambassador, or of his staff. All of them are practised diplomatists, who endeavour to their utmost to do their duty to King and Country, and to protect British interests in the East. The fault lies in the timid policy and shrinking politeness adopted by our present Government. The late lamented Lord Salisbury, or Lord Beaconsfield, would never for a moment have submitted to the open rebuffs which Great Britain daily meets with nowadays at Constantinople.

The Turk knows that Germany is behind him, and is therefore defiant. So British diplomacy is beaten every time.

Constantinople swarms with spies. If you have ever been there, and landed from a steamer, you will recollect that a crowd of unwashed porters swarm on board directly the ship is made fast. Every man of that ragged rabble is a spy. He is only allowed on board on condition that he gives information to the Custom officers ashore as to any concealment of revolvers, books, or prohibited articles. Respectable dragomans are constantly asked to assist in this, and offered monetary reward, as well as a permit to board the ship, but they refuse—and leave the espionage to the rabble.

And so it is all through the Turkish capital. Spies are everywhere—they haunt one in all the hotels, even in the much-advertised Pera Palace—and every movement of the stranger is noted. If you happen to be a German and have shown your passport in the Custom House, then you go hither and thither and do whatever you like. But if you are of any other nationality you will be suspected and haunted by all sorts and conditions of secret agents, until you kick the mud of Constantinople off your boots.

I have been more than once in the Sultan’s capital, and on each occasion, on entering it, have been seized with a fit of depression, which has only been removed when I have got my passportvisédby the British Consul-General, and also by the Turkish police, preliminary to leaving the place.

The squalor in Galata, in Stamboul, and even in aristocratic Pera, sickens one. The streets, unswept for ages, are an inch deep in slimy mud, upon which one slides and slips at every step, and the grey, wolf-like dogs, held sacred by everyTurk, prowl about in hordes, each in their own quarter, living in the streets and sleeping in doorways.

Constantinople, with the most picturesque and beautiful position in all the world, is the most filthy and uncomfortable of all cities. With the exception of the Grande Rue, at Pera, there is scarcely a single decent European business street. Every thoroughfare is crowded to excess by a motley throng of Mohammedans, both European and Asiatic, and every form of costume and physiognomy, from the Tartar to the Syrian, may be seen.

The pilgrimages were leaving for Mecca while I was there, and the whole city was filled with the Faithful from every part of the great Moslem world. The bridge at Galata was daily a perfect panorama of costume as the pilgrims assembled to embark.

Though I spent a little time in the great Bazaar—which is always attractive to the traveller from the West—and revisited Saint Sophia and other of the big mosques, my days in Constantinople were mostly occupied in having interesting chats with the heads of the Turkish Government.

I carried letters of introduction to His Excellency Tewfik Pasha, the Sultan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs; to the Grand Vizier of the Sultan; to d’Aristarchi Bey, the Grand Logothete; to His Excellency Noury Pasha, Under-State Secretary for Foreign Affairs; to the British Chargé d’Affaires, Mr. Geo. H. Barclay—the Ambassador being absent on leave; to His Excellency Monsieur George Simitch, the Servian Minister; to M. Dimetri Vlastari, the well-known banker; to Mehemed Ali Pasha; to Riza Pasha, Minister of War; and to many other of the leading people in the Turkish capital.

Thus I was enabled to go thoroughly into the present state of affairs. I was granted an audience of His Majesty the Sultan, as well as by the Grand Vizier, by Tewfik Pasha, the Khardjie-Naziri, and had many interviews with the persons named above.

My inquiries were mainly directed to ascertaining—first, what attitude Turkey was assuming towards Macedonia; secondly, whether the Turks were alive to the firm intentionof Bulgaria for the protection of her subjects, and in what manner they viewed the prospect of hostilities; thirdly, the truth about the Macedonian reforms; fourthly, the extent of German intrigue in Constantinople; fifthly, the Turkish policy towards Austria; and sixthly, the policy towards Great Britain.

I went to the Porte in order to penetrate the veil of mystery surrounding diplomacy there, and to get at the true state of affairs. The task was very difficult, for in the East one is hardly ever told the real facts about anything. Nevertheless, unique opportunities were afforded me to obtain knowledge by the absolute facts and the future aims of both Turkey and Germany—opportunities of which, as will be shown in the following pages, I was not slow in taking advantage.

In view of the present situation in Turkey, the proclamation of the “Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress,” which was found posted upon all the walls of the Pera quarter of Constantinople on January 1 of this present year, is of great interest in showing the present state of public feeling in the Turkish capital.

This proclamation, which was issued by a very strong and formidable party in Turkey, began by stating that Abdul Hamid, after thirty years of impunity, was now on the verge of death. The fact that now and then he gives audience of a few minutes’ duration to an Ambassador, or that at the weekly Selamlik he drives to the mosque, a few yards from his palace, proves nothing. The Sultan Mahmud fell dead from his horse, returning from the Selamlik; while the Sultan Medjid was on his feet up to the very last. In reality Abdul Hamid, knowing the profound effect which his failure to attend the Selamlik would have upon the people, is expending all the energies that remain to him in fulfilling this religious observance and in granting an occasional interview to a foreign Ambassador.

The proclamation proceeded:—

“During the thirty years of his reign Abdul Hamid has brought ruin on the land; one half of our patrimony hehas delivered to the enemy; he has destroyed our fleet, disorganised our army; he has reduced the people to misery; he has annihilated our governmental system, and has left nothing to the civil organisation or the civilisation of the past. He has concentrated the whole government into his own hands, and has dismissed all his tried and experienced Ministers, transferring the reins of office to self-seekers and traitors willing to become his tools.”

Grave troubles are predicted after his death, and the Committee urges the population of the Empire, Christian and Mussulman, to be on their guard and to consider seriously the following facts:—

“(1) Abdul Hamid and his accomplices are conspiring to hand over the sovereignty and the Caliphate to his fourth son, the youth, Burhaneddin, in defiance of the tradition and the civil and religious law of the Empire. The success of this stratagem would be a mortal blow to the aspirations of the nation.“(2) To prevent the enemies of the country from provoking disorders in order to bring about foreign intervention, guarantees must be given to the Christian populations and, if necessary, written assurances to the Embassies.“(3) The happiness and the future of the country being dependent upon the suppression of the despotic régime and the enforcing of the Constitution, which was recognised in 1876 as an inalienable right of the nation, and after being two years in operation was perfidiously abrogated by Abdul Hamid, our fellow-countrymen, Christian and Mussulman, must of one accord exact the application of that Constitution, which will restore to the country its vitality and safeguard the liberties of the people. United in heart and mind, the Ulemas, the notables of the capital and the provinces, must, through the intermediary of the Grand Vizier and the Valis, demand of the new Sultan that he proclaim and bring into force without delay the clauses of the Constitution.“(4) The duty of preserving the essential rights of the nation belongs, above all, to the members of the guild of the Ulemas and to the high civil and military officials; the ceremony of the Biat, when the chosen of the people demonstrate the popular sovereignty by recognising and accepting the new Sultan, is the most propitious occasion for the exercise of that duty. It is an obligation that lies upon every Turkish subject to exact a pledge from the delegate he sends up to do his duty on that occasion.”

“(2) To prevent the enemies of the country from provoking disorders in order to bring about foreign intervention, guarantees must be given to the Christian populations and, if necessary, written assurances to the Embassies.

“(3) The happiness and the future of the country being dependent upon the suppression of the despotic régime and the enforcing of the Constitution, which was recognised in 1876 as an inalienable right of the nation, and after being two years in operation was perfidiously abrogated by Abdul Hamid, our fellow-countrymen, Christian and Mussulman, must of one accord exact the application of that Constitution, which will restore to the country its vitality and safeguard the liberties of the people. United in heart and mind, the Ulemas, the notables of the capital and the provinces, must, through the intermediary of the Grand Vizier and the Valis, demand of the new Sultan that he proclaim and bring into force without delay the clauses of the Constitution.

“(4) The duty of preserving the essential rights of the nation belongs, above all, to the members of the guild of the Ulemas and to the high civil and military officials; the ceremony of the Biat, when the chosen of the people demonstrate the popular sovereignty by recognising and accepting the new Sultan, is the most propitious occasion for the exercise of that duty. It is an obligation that lies upon every Turkish subject to exact a pledge from the delegate he sends up to do his duty on that occasion.”

The Manifesto ended with an appeal to the Christian and non-Christian populations to prepare for the coming crisis.

CHAPTER IIIN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

His Excellency Noury Pasha—A quiet chat at his home—Turkish view of European criticism—The Turk misunderstood—The massacres in Macedonia—My visit to the Sublime Porte—His Excellency Tewfik Pasha tells me the truth—A great diplomatist—The fashion to denounce Turkey—The attitude of the Porte towards Bulgaria—Significant words.

The first visit I paid was to His Excellency Mehmed Noury Pasha, Secretary-General of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is one of the most advanced and progressive of Turks, and who, next to Tewfik Pasha, the Sultan’s Foreign Minister, is one of the most powerful men in Turkey.

As such, it may be interesting to note that he was born in Constantinople, and having made his early studies in that city, was sent by the Sultan to Paris, where he underwent a long course of training, returning to occupy the post of Inspector in the Ministry of Public Works. Afterwards, he became Director-General, and subsequently his perfect knowledge of French brought him again before the notice of the Sultan, who appointed him to the office of Secretary-General in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position which he has held for the past eighteen years.

Through his hands all diplomatic correspondence passes, and to him is mainly due the clever and tactful diplomacy of the Porte. His is, indeed, a delicate and laborious task.

His Excellency Noury Pasha.

He is a slim, fair-bearded, middle-aged man of very charming manner, and a delightful companion; shrewd, full of tact and clear discernment. Times without number he has givenproof of assiduous work for his country’s advancement, and no one knows better than he the defects of Turkish rule.

By no means bigoted, he is, on the contrary, broad-minded and eager for reform. He was sent by the Sultan to represent him at Rome at the silver wedding of the King and Queen of Italy in 1893, and later, was one of the Peace delegates at the Conference after the Greco-Turkish War. He acted as second delegate of the Ottoman Empire at the Conference at Rome against the Anarchists, and also at the Peace Conference at The Hague.

At this latter Conference he won golden opinions from all the delegates of the other Powers for his politeness, his charm of manner, and the clever tact with which he performed his somewhat difficult mission.

Few, if any, of the dignitaries of Constantinople possess such a wide knowledge of Europe, European ways, and European politics. Enjoying the full confidence of the Sultan and of the Sublime Porte, he is recognised by the foreign missions as the working head of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He is the right hand of his chief, Tewfik Pasha, whom he aids with all his intelligence in the incessant difficulties which beset Turkish diplomacy. As a mark of their esteem he has been decorated by nearly every sovereign in Europe, while the Sultan has given him the plaque in brilliants of the Orders of Osmanie and the Medjidie.

Noury Pasha being well known to me as one of the cleverest men in Turkey, it afforded me great pleasure to obtain a chat with him one evening in the quiet of his own home.

He received me in a cosy room on the ground floor, a room that was more European than Turkish, and where I noticed many signed photographs of the chief diplomatists of Europe who are his friends.

When we were seated, a man-servant brought us the inevitable tiny cup of excellent coffee, and delicious cigarettes, and then we fell to chatting.

I gave him a message from a notable foreign ambassador who was our mutual friend, and told him the reason I was in Constantinople.

“Ah! So you wish to see His Majesty, and also His Excellency Tewfik Pasha! Well, I will see what can be done,” was his reply.

“But I want your Excellency to tell me, if you will, what is the present situation in Turkey, and what are her future aspirations?” I said boldly.

The question was rather a poser. He hesitated. I pressed him to tell me the truth as far as he was able, without being injudicious; and at last, after some reluctance, he consented.

“You Europeans,” he laughed, “are under a great misconception as regards Turkey. My sovereign, His Imperial Majesty, is often portrayed as a bloodthirsty brute, who has no regard for human life, and whose reign is one of terror and terrible injustice. Now the exact opposite is the truth. You will meet His Majesty, and judge for yourself. I have good opportunities of seeing how deeply he has the welfare of his people at heart. Is it not he, for instance, who out of his own pocket supports some six hundred schools in Turkey? It is he, personally, who has more than once prevented a declaration of war. I know we Turks have many defects. But what nation has not? Even you English are not—well, exactly perfect,” he laughed. “Foreigners come here to Constantinople and hold up their hands that we do not sweep our streets, as is done in other capitals. The fact is, Turkey is not a rich country, and we have no money to expend on scavengers. I and every Turk would only welcome cleanliness. But how can we do it when we have no funds? Again, the very people who criticise us, the foreigners, can come and live here for twenty years and not pay one piastre of municipal tax. Can they do that in any other country?”

I admitted that they could not.

“Then why should they criticise us? All we want to be allowed to do is to carry on our government in our own way. Our population is of different race and different creed from Europeans, and therefore necessitates a totally different method of government. England does not understand Turkey, or Turkish methods. I readily grant that our government would not suit England, but neither wouldBritish ideas be tolerated here. For many years all the diplomatic correspondence of the Sublime Porte has passed through my hands, hence I know what I am speaking about when on the topic of Turkish diplomacy. Abroad, we are told that our word is not our bond, that we give promises that we do not fulfil, and that we are a century or so behind the times. Well, I admit that we are not a twentieth-century nation. I admit that our Sublime Porte is not so imposing as your Foreign Office in Whitehall, or the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Paris, or in Vienna. But I do maintain that the government of my sovereign, the Sultan, is a beneficent one for Turkey, and that our foreign policy has for its base the peace and welfare of the Balkans.”

“But Macedonia?” I remarked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The question of Macedonia is, I admit, an extremely difficult one,” he answered. “We have to govern a population so varied, both in nationality and in creed, that there must of necessity be constant aggressions and outbreaks. It is said that we aid and abet the Greek bands in massacring the Christians. I totally deny this. We do not. Surely it is to our own interest to maintain peace and order in Macedonia, and not to allow outsiders to create disorder and dissension!”

“And the protests of Bulgaria?”

His Excellency smiled.

“We hear from time to time threats of war,” was his answer. “But when we hear them, we remember that we are sixteen million Turks; and when we sleep, we sleep quite undisturbed by any war rumours from Sofia.”

“Then you do not anticipate armed reprisals from Bulgaria?”

He laughed, but said nothing except—

“Turkey is well informed, I assure you, of all that transpires in Sofia.”

Noury Pasha’s son, a smart lad of sixteen, entered and chatted with us in French. He is going to Paris for his education, and is destined for the Turkish Diplomatic Service.He is a bright, intelligent youth, who, like his father, is imbued with Western ideas, and yet is naturally full of patriotism for his own country.

Another cup of excellent coffee, another cigarette over a chat upon private matters, and I took leave of my host—after I had begged the photograph which appears in these pages—feeling that I had met one of the most charming and most intelligent men in the great Ottoman Empire.

Next day I called at the palace of Tewfik Pasha, and on being ushered into a gorgeous reception-room—very French, but by the way lit by candles in high glass chimneys—the usual cup of coffee upon a golden tray and cigarette were brought me. The secretary of the Greek Embassy was waiting to see His Excellency upon an urgent matter concerning a massacre by a Greek band in Macedonia which had taken place near Seres the day previously. This meant, I saw, a long interview, and not caring to wait, I left a message for His Excellency to the effect that I would call and see him at the Sublime Porte on the following morning.

Next to His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, Tewfik Pasha is certainly the most powerful man in the Ottoman Empire. A quiet-mannered, quiet-spoken, grey-bearded gentleman with kindly eyes and a fatherly manner, he is entirely the opposite that one would expect of “the terrible Turk.” Born in Constantinople in 1845, the son of a General of Division, Ismail Hakki Pasha, he was destined for the army, and prosecuted his studies with great diligence. Unfortunately, owing to feeble health, he was compelled to abandon the idea of a military career—not, however, before he had passed his examination and obtained his diploma. He then chose a new career, one in which he has certainly rendered his country signal services. In 1866 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as attaché, six years later being nominated as second secretary at the Ottoman Legation at Rome, whence he went to Vienna, to Berlin, and, later on, to Athens. He was transferred to St. Petersburg as first secretary at the moment when there arose those grave complications which resulted in the war between Russia and Turkey. Then, duringthe war, he was appointed diplomatic agent to the Turkish Commander-in-Chief. In 1879, after the war, he was sent back to the Russian capital, but on this occasion in the capacity of Minister Plenipotentiary.

At the early age of forty-one Tewfik Pasha found himself Ambassador at Berlin, a post which he occupied for ten years, namely, till 1895. His personal charm, his uprightness, and his frankness of manner endeared him to his colleagues in the German capital, as well as to the German Court, and it was he, indeed, who laid the foundation of the present cordial friendliness between the sovereigns at Berlin and Constantinople.

Finally, in 1895, the Sultan recalled him to Turkey and promoted him to be Minister of Foreign Affairs, a powerful position which he still holds. For the past eleven years he has directed the destinies of the Ottoman Empire with broad-mindedness, tact, and patience, that have, without doubt, been highly beneficial to his country’s interests. His post is no sinecure, as recent history has shown us. Yet he is a conscientious man of Western ideas and Western views; one of the cleverest diplomatists in the whole of Europe, and yet at the same time just and honourable in his dealings. However much we in England may criticise the policy of the Sublime Porte, we can have only admiration for Tewfik Pasha, both as a man and as the faithful servant of his Imperial master.

In Turkey fresh diplomatic difficulties arise every minute, yet with Noury Pasha’s assistance he grapples with them and deals with them in a manner which the diplomatists of few other nations could ever hope to do. Honoured by the most complete confidence of his sovereign, who possesses for him a particular esteem, Tewfik Pasha is universally known and liked. The diplomatic corps in Constantinople are ever loud in their praises of his extreme kindness and courtesy and his readiness to accede to all requests that are in reason.

His Excellency’s courtesy towards myself was very marked. Hardly had I been ushered into his anteroom at the Sublime Porte—a very shabby, unimposing building of long dreary corridors with broken windows and broken wooden flooring—whenthe usual coffee was brought, and I signed his big visitors’ book. In that book I noticed the signatures of all the diplomatic world of Constantinople. Then there entered the Russian Ambassador, who, with a cheery “Bon jour, m’sieur,” crossed, and also signed the book.

A moment later the secretary came, and presenting His Excellency’s regrets to the Ambassador, pointed out that he already had an appointment with me, and asked whether he would call later. The representative of the Tzar said he would call the following morning, and I was then ushered into Tewfik’s private room, a big, cheerful apartment with splendid Persian carpets, long windows and a large writing-table at one end, where sat the grey-bearded Minister in frock-coat and fez. He rose and greeted me with a hearty hand-shake. With him was seated the Grand Vizier and Noury Pasha, both of whom also greeted me.

We four had a long and very interesting conversation in French, its drift, however, being such as would be injudicious to print in these pages. The chat was of a purely private character, although it closely concerned the present political situation in the Near East.

“The fact is,” remarked His Excellency presently, smiling as he sat back in his arm-chair before his littered writing-table, “we Turks are not understood abroad. Writers in England, and especially your journalists, not knowing Turkey and never having visited the East, criticise us, and say all sorts of hard things about Turkish rule and Turkish diplomacy. They call us intolerant and fanatical. But surely there are evidences in Constantinople that we are tolerant? We allow Christians to erect churches wherever they want them; and again, have we not done everything possible in Macedonia to preserve for its inhabitants their religious liberty? Really, the English ought to know the truth concerning Turkey. Unfortunately, the fashion of late seems to be to denounce our land and all its ways!” And he laughed again.

The entrance to theBosphorus.Bosphorus.

In Constantinople.

I referred in guarded words to the possibilities of war with Bulgaria, whereupon he said—

“We view the matter with perfect tranquillity. TheGovernment of His Imperial Majesty regrets most deeply those unfortunate incidents in Macedonia that so constantly occur, but is unable to remedy it. It is the Greek bands that are to blame—not the Turks.”

“And your diplomatic relations with Bulgaria?” I asked.

“They are perfectly normal,” was his reply. “Dr. Stancioff is an able Minister, and he fully understands us.”

“Then you do not anticipate hostilities at an early date?” I asked, pressing home my question.

His Excellency said nothing. He merely shrugged his shoulders. But that gesture was, to me, sufficiently significant.

“You are going to Macedonia,” he said. “It is not altogether safe, you know, especially around Presba and Ochrida, or about Seres. But if youaredetermined to go, I wish you every good luck on your journey.”

I thanked him, and after another half-hour’s pleasant chat with the Grand Vizier and Noury Pasha I rose, and Tewfik Pasha grasped my hand heartily in warm farewell, his parting words being—

“Go, see for yourself, and I believe you will find that we Turks are not quite so black as we are painted.”

And I left the presence of a man whose broad-minded policy, if it were adopted in every particular, would, I feel sure, advance the Turkish cause, and place the Ottoman Empire in a very different position from what it is to-day.

I crossed the Sea of Marmora to Haidar Pasha, in Asia Minor, visited Ismid, and saw the new German railway that has its head opposite Stamboul and is to have its terminus on the Persian Gulf. I went to Brusa, the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire, walked in the wonderful burying-grounds of Scutari, and made many interesting excursions about Asia Minor, in order to observe the all-powerful influence of Germany in that country. And I was amazed.

On my return to Constantinople I had other interviews at the Yildiz with His Majesty himself, and with members of the Government, all of which combined to show that Turkey is not in any way afraid of Bulgaria. The fact is, she isuncertain of the attitude of Servia and Roumania, and is rather mystified as to what Austria will do in the event of war. Relying upon Germany, and treating Great Britain with studied politeness, she views the present critical position with perfect coolness and indifference.

Indeed, as Noury Pasha very justly said one day to me—

“It takes a good deal to arouse us Turks, but when we are aroused, we fight—and fight to the death.”

Turkey to-day is still in its lethargic state, but once aroused, who knows where the war will end, or what European complications will result?

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