We found the Bey at the head of the stairs waiting to receive us; and the first person whom I remarked in the saloon of the Salemliek was M. Hassuna de Ghies, whom I had known in London, and with whom I was delighted to renew my acquaintance. This talented and amiable man is now the editor of the Constantinopolitan Journal; and his acquirements and knowledge are justly appreciated by his Imperial master; who, besides other marks of his favour, has, since his return from Europe, been pleased, as an especial token of his regard, to change his name, which he considered to be too difficult of pronunciation, into Hussein Madzhar Effendi;[4] an alteration by no means calculated to diminish its difficulty to European lips. He was seated on the divan, smoking his chibouk, which he relinquished on our entrance; and, ere long, he was busily engaged in conversing with my father in English; while I was undergoing the ceremony of presentation to a Greek lady, who, with a delicacy which did him honour, Azmè Bey had invited, in order to relieve me from the restraint and _désagrément_ of finding myself the only female of the party. I mention the circumstance in order to prove to those who are inclined to treat the Turks as barbarians, and to speak of them as such, that there are many among them who may be both wronged and wounded by such an opinion, and who are capable of convincing them by their actions that it is unfounded. The Turks require only time, example, and a perfect confidence in their European allies, to become a polished as well as a civilized nation; they possess all the elements of civilization, but they are flung back by events—they are blinded by subtlety—they are hoodwinked by deception. Were they suffered to act upon their own untrammelled impressions, they would not long remain even in their present state of partial inertness: but Turkey is now in the position of a child, to whom its nurse, in order to cajole it into quiet, presents a mirror, which, viewed in one direction, widens the object that it reflects; and it has been taught that this magnified mass represents its own strength and beauty; and when it has been suffered to sate itself with the false image that has thus been placed before it, the glass is reversed by its wily Mentor, and the shrunken, wasted, and almost shapeless thing that succeeds is made object of wonder and of pity, as the narrow and despicable policy which would fain persuade the Turks that they have need of counsel and of help. The more enlightened among them do not believe this; they are even convinced to the contrary: but the argument produces its effect upon the mass, and the arm of power is weakened and paralyzed by the weight of public opinion.