After my return from Central Asia, when I found other spheres of work, I kept aloof from Turkey, and I only remained in touch with the Ottoman people in so far as my philological and ethnographical studies had reference to the linguistic and ethnical part of this most Westerly branch of the great Turkish family. In my political writings, chiefly taken up with the affairs of inner Asia, the unfortunate fate of the Porte has always continued to touch me very deeply. The land of my youthful dreams, to which I am for ever indebted for its noble hospitality, and where I have felt as much at home as in my own country, could never be indifferent to me. Its troubles and misfortunes were mine, and whenever opportunity offered I have broken a lance for Turkey; without keeping up personal relations with the Porte, I have always considered it a sacred duty with my pen to stand up for the interests of this often unjustly calumniated nation. My Turkophile sympathies could, of course, not remain unknown on the banks of the Bosphorus, and when, after the opening of railway communication with Turkey, I went to Stambul, I received from the Turks and their ruler a quiet, unostentatious, but all the warmer and heartier reception. Our mutual relationship only gradually manifested itself. On my first journey I remained almost unnoticed, for after a space of thirty years only a few of my old acquaintances were left, and the _ci-devant_ Reshid Effendi, under which name I was known at the Porte, was only remembered by a few. My second visit was already more of a success, and my reappearance in public revived the old memory, for my fluency of speech had lent "the foreigner" a new attraction in Turkish society. Wherever I appeared in public I was looked at somewhat doubtfully, for many who had not known me before imagined from my real Turkish Effendi conversation that I was a Turkish renegade. Thanks to my old connections, the problem was soon solved. The Turkish newspapers gave long columns about my humble person, and extolled the services which, in spite of many years' absence, I had rendered to the country.