"Yes," said his companion, "there is a story to the effect that one day the Grand Vizier was walking by the side of the Bosphorus with the late Sultan Abdul Aziz. A beautiful yacht, the property of Issek Pacha, happened to be anchored close to the royal palace. 'What a magnificent vessel!' said the Sultan. 'To whom does it belong?' The Grand Vizier," continued the Armenian, "did not much like the Governor of Sivas, and replied, 'It was the property of Issek Pacha, but he has sent it here to be placed at your majesty's disposal.' 'Write and say that I accept it with pleasure,' said the Sultan. The first notification which Issek Pacha had of this transaction was the receipt of an official letter from Constantinople enclosing the Sultan's thanks for the present. "A subscription had been recently started in the vilayet or province of Sivas, with the object of collecting funds to enable the Government to continue the war. Ten thousand liras were collected. The Pacha sent the money to the Grand Vizier without exactly stating the sources from which it was derived. The minister at once ordered the receipt of this sum, as coming from Issek Pacha, to be acknowledged in the public journals; he also desired a secretary to write an official letter to the governor to thank him for his large donation, and say in the postscript that when the rest of the people in the province of Sivas had sent in their subscriptions, he was to forward them immediately to Constantinople. Our Pacha did not like this letter," continued my informant. "However, what could he do? he is an enormously rich man, and, though it went very much against the grain, he sent a fresh 10,000 liras to the Porte." It was clear that the Armenians did not love their Pacha. From what I subsequently heard, their dislike to him originates in the fact that he is not amenable to bribes. That he is not a miser can be easily shown. Misers are not in the habit of expending large sums of money in the construction of public buildings. Issek Pacha at the time of my stay in Sivas was having a large mosque built in the town of Erzingan, at his own expense. It was said that this building would cost him 40,000 Turkish liras. Three American missionaries called; they had been settled for several years in Anatolia, and had succeeded in making some converts amidst the Armenians, but they had not in any one instance induced a Mohammedan to change his faith. I inquired if it were true, as stated at Yuzgat, that Armenian boys and girls had been carried away from their parents, and shut up in Issek Pacha's seraglio.