By this time the “Urano” casts anchor, and we are soon surrounded by two or three hundred row-boats that have come to take the passengers ashore. Just as I am about to step on shore an armed soldier cries out: “Halt, stand!” I do not know what the reader would have done, but I—well, I obey the gruff voice. I am informed that no man is allowed to set foot on Ottoman soil without legal papers from his native country. Whereupon, I draw from my pocket a passport. The officer admires the American eagle, but has some difficulty in reading the document. When he comes to “_E pluribus Unum_” he stalls; and, turning to me, he asks: “What does this mean?” I reply: “That simply indicates my high rank and official position at home. It says I am _one among many_.” The Turk now uncovers his head, shows his teeth, and bows. I can say to-day, more truly than ever before, “I am a stranger in a strange land.” I have just been out in the city. The streets are crowded. I saw Turks, Greeks, Jews, Americans, Russians, Bulgarians, and Slavonians, all speaking strange languages, all wearing different, strange, and grotesque costumes, all looking and staring at me as though I was some wild animal in Barnum’s show. Nothing can be more strangely hideous than a tall, stoop-shouldered, long-haired, black-eyed, copper-colored Ottoman in his native dress, if dress it may be called. The women go with their faces veiled, their eyes being “too pure” to look upon “Christian dogs,” as they call us. [Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE.] It is Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, so I went at noon to-day to the “Imperial Mosque” to see the Sultan as he entered to say his prayers. And I saw the Sultan, the man who is the husband of 500 wives, the political ruler of the Turkish Empire, and the spiritual head of the Mohammedan world. The ceremonies attending the Sultan’s parade to the Mosque were conducted with an Oriental splendor that was simply dazzling to human sight. Twenty thousand armed soldiers—horse and foot—lined the way and surrounded the Mosque. The soldiers all wore red caps, and they looked like a veritable sea of blood, on which were floating thousands of gleaming bayonets and glistening sabres. The Sultan’s approach was announced by blowing bugles, playing bands, beating drums, and booming cannons. As the Sultan—I had almost said as the Satan—passed, the heathen people shouted: “Kalif, Humkiar,” “Zil-Ulla,” “Alem Penah,” which being interpreted means, “The successor of the Prophet,” “Vicar of God, shadow of God,” “Refuge of the world.” When I saw and heard these things, I said to myself: “I would rather be an ass—crazy, crippled, blind, and dumb—doomed to serve in a tread-mill for a thousand years, than to be a two-legged mass of putrefaction, and yet adored as a god by an ignorant and corrupt heathen people.” CHAPTER XXIII. FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ATHENS.