I much regret that I was never able to find an opportunity of meeting this lady, partly because she was educated at Chislehurst, almost next door to my own school—Rochester. Inevitably the Pasha’s liberal attitude towards marriage has been criticised, and described as “in direct opposition to the principles of Islam.” He, however, will not admit the charge. It is true that, at the very door of Europe, women have been content to live through the centuries in a comfortable material security, that means being cut out of all the realities of life, and all the serious joys or sorrows of existence. It is not unnatural that isolation should have kept them down so long. But the harem was _not_ invented by the Turks, and has nothing in common with the nomad existence of the Great Preacher of the Deserts. Polygamy and the harem were first introduced when the Turks entered Byzantium as conquerors. They served, in those troublous times, as the best means available for the protection of women, and proved a fine school of instruction for Georgian Circassian slaves. It is false to say that Eastern women have blamed their religion for the evils, so many now recognise, of seclusion. The most ignorant are quite familiar with the great names of women who have been the glory of Islam. Mahomet’s own daughter, the “Lady of Paradise,” spoke to large audiences of dusky-skinned Arabs, her face unveiled. Neither did Zeyneb, the famous and beautiful professor at the University of Bagdad, wear the veil. Khadidja sang in public, her own beautiful songs, still known and admired all over the East. Rhadyah, one of the first great travellers among these lands, was also an eloquent lecturer, applauded by the most learned men of Islam. Therefore are not the women themselves to blame for their prolonged isolation? or was it the régime of Abdul Hamed? Mustapha Kemal has not only offered his wife the privileges Mahomet accorded to his daughter, but he has swept from the path of Islam the retrograde heresies that Byzantium grafted on to the Faith. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXI A TURKISH CABINET—THE THREE BEST-KNOWN MINISTERS—A CABINET OF YOUNG MEN UNLIKE the European type to which we are accustomed, the Cabinet of the Assembly is almost exclusively composed of very young men, possessed, however, of the strong determination to serve their country. Mustapha Kemal Pasha has great faith in youth, and his oldest minister is probably no more than forty-two. “Youth,” he said, “makes mistakes that can be corrected; age and experience make the mistakes of routine.” Fethi Bey, who is the chief’s right hand, also believes in youth, and was himself a minister at thirty-two. [Illustration: RAUF BEY—PRIME MINISTER. EX-NAVAL OFFICER. He speaks perfect English and knows England better than any other Turk. p. 192 ]