But for members of his order, Father Paschal’s case is not exceptional. In Moslem lands the Sons of St. Francis are always shown similar kindness and consideration and have been ever since the famous interview of the Poverello of Assisi with the Sultan of Egypt at Damietta eight hundred years ago. Can greater hospitality be found in other lands? By the hammering reiteration of a tradition which, for most part, had its origin in the reports of imaginative travelers and which has, in recent years, been greatly fostered by a subsidized press bent on forcing the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the Osmanlis have been pictured as monsters of cruelty. To judge by certain propaganda articles and brochures which, within recent years, have been given world-wide currency, the average Ottoman is like the viceroy described in Don Quixote, who “every day hanged a slave; impaled one; cut off the ears of another; and this upon so little animus, or so entirely without cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because it was his nature.”[138] People who have lived among the Osmanlis and have learned to admire their gentleness and sense of justice would denounce such a characterization as absurd. “During the two years I have traversed the country,” writes a French Colonel from Asia Minor, “I have never heard of a murder or a theft.” This is not the evidence of a solitary witness. Innumerable foreigners who have resided in Anatolia could give similar testimony.[139] Nor does it apply only to the Osmanlis of the present time. History abounds in like testimony regarding them in every century of their history. It is surprising [writes the historian Finlay] how well the Ottoman government preserved tranquillity in its extensive dominions, and established a greater degree of security for property among the middle classes, than generally prevailed in European states during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This end was obtained by a regular police, and by the prompt execution of a rude species of justice in cases of flagrant abuses and crimes. In the populous cities of the Ottoman Empire, and particularly in Constantinople, which contained more inhabitants than any three Christian capitals, the order which reigned in the midst of a great social corruption, caused by extreme wealth, the conflux of many different nations, and the bigotry of several hostile religions, excited the wonder and admiration of every observant stranger. Perfect self-reliance, imperturbable equanimity, superiority to the vicissitudes of fortune, and a calm temper, compensated among the Ottomans for laws which were notoriously defective and tribunals which were infamously venal.