The fixed income of the sovereign is supposed to be £50,000 a month. The Sublime Porte had at one time the courage to reduce it to £30,000, but, as I explained before, the Porte is now only nominally existent For the last twenty years or more, during which the revenues of the Civil List have increased enormously, the officials at the head of the department have, without exception, been of Armenian nationality. The first of these Armenian officials, a certain Aghob Pasha, was the man who suggested to the Sultan the idea of appropriating the property of the prominent Mussulmans in the province. The Civil List is never in need of money, as is the public exchequer of Turkey, yet many officials who serve solely for the palace, and do practically nothing for the public welfare, get their salaries from the public exchequer. The sum which the exchequer has to contribute to the fund of the Palace espionage system alone is estimated to be £90,000 a year. Besides the expenses of the Imperial household, only the salaries of the immediate officials of the court, and the cost of the Sultan's largess of money, presents, and gifts, are defrayed by the Civil List Even the allowances of the Princes and Princesses of the Royal House are paid by the public exchequer, and it is for this reason that the members of the Dynasty (who, by the way, live in separate minor palaces, in compulsory seclusion, and whose intercourse with the nation the Sultan's jealousy and suspicion has cut off), like the officials of the State, always find their salaries in arrears, to their great inconvenience. CHAPTER IX. THE CEREMONY OF THE SELAMLIK. The old right of appeal to the Sultan's person a thing of the past--He only leaves his palace once a week--The selamlik--Religious ceremonies and the sacred caravan--Its departure for Mecca--A military display-- Abd-ul-Hamid's mosque--Its convenient proximity to the palace--A study in precaution--Dwarfs in the palace.