Anecdote--His Birth--Reforms--Sultan Mahmud--Enlistment in the Turkish army--His application--Expeditions among the wild tribes --Appointed Generalissimo--Present high position--Domestic life --Marriage--Personal habits--Kossuth and Hungarian refugees--War on the Danube--Battle of Oltenitza. The life of Omer Pacha is connected with perhaps the most important period in the history of Turkey--an epoch of transition from the old state of things to the new. About twenty-five years ago a young man arrived at Widdin, and asked to see Hussein Pasha, the commander of the place. His personal appearance was unusually prepossessing, being at once handsome and majestic. His complexion was fair and clear, his eyes soft and penetrating, and his limbs pliant and athletic. The Turks, who have a superstitious veneration for a fine physiognomy, and to whom, therefore, good looks are pre-eminently, as Queen Elizabeth said, an excellent letter of recommendation, received him with great cordiality and respect. Hussein was at this time encamped before Widdin, and living in a superb tent, to which the young stranger was directed. He happened unfortunately to get there just as Hussein was waking up in no very good humor. [Illustration: OMER PACHA.] “What do you want?” said he, impatiently, to the intruder. “To enter your excellency’s service,” was the reply. “I have too many attendants already. Go away.” In Turkey it is allowable for people in the humblest condition to offer presents to a distinguished personage without any offence. Accordingly, the young man pulled a small parcel, carefully done up, out of his pocket, and presented it to the pasha, begging him to accept it. “What is this?” said the pasha, when he had opened the parcel. “Gloves, your excellency.” “And what use are they?” “When you go out in the sun, they will preserve the color of your hands (the pasha’s were very white), and when you are riding, they will prevent them from being blistered by the bridle.” “But how do you put them on?” The young man answered by putting one on the pasha’s hand. “Now the other.” This also was put on. Hussein then clapped his hands three times, and raised them above his head, just as the officers of his suite were entering the tent. Thanks to this pair of gloves, which were the admiration of the pasha and his staff the stranger was admitted into Hussein’s service. Now this stranger was no other than Latkes, now Omer Pasha.