Of those selected for the higher training, a portion were distributed among the households of the provincial governors and high officers at the capital.[198] These were probably brought up in much the same way as if they had remained with the sultan. The very choicest of the recruits, to the number of perhaps two hundred annually, or twelve to fifteen hundred in all,[199] were taken into three palaces of the sultan as _Itch-oghlans_, or pages. Three or four hundred were in the palace at Adrianople,[200] a like number in one at Galata,[201] and from five to eight hundred in the principal palace at Stamboul.[202] These were all handsome boys, physically perfect, and of marked intellectual promise. An excellent idea of the international character of the college is given by a Venetian writer, who said that the pages of the palace included Bulgarians, Hungarians, Transylvanians, Poles, Bohemians, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, a few French, many Albanians, Slavs, Greeks, Circassians, and Russians.[203] The _Itch-oghlans_ were dressed in suitable raiment and were well cared for without luxury.[204] That the sultan took a particular interest in the arrival of excellent specimens is evident from the reception that Menavino received.[205] The general Ottoman attitude toward the pages, and indeed toward all recruits, has been well expressed by a thoughtful observer: “The Turks rejoice greatly when they find an exceptional man, as though they had acquired a precious object, and they spare no labor or effort in cultivating him; especially if they discern that he is fit for war. Our plan [that is, in Western Europe] is very different; for if we find a good dog, hawk, or horse, we are greatly delighted, and we spare nothing to bring it to the greatest perfection of its kind. But if a man happens to possess an extraordinary disposition, we do not take like pains; nor do we think that his education is especially our affair; and we receive much pleasure and many kinds of service from the well-trained horse, dog, and hawk; but the Turks much more from a well-educated man (_ex homine bonis moribus informato_), in proportion as the nature of a man is more admirable and more excellent than that of the other animals.”[206]