First of all I must point out that I was the first European known to the Sultan who was equally at home in the East as in the West, familiar with the languages, customs, and political affairs of both parts of the world, and who, in his presence, was not stiff like the Europeans, but pliant, like the Asiatics of the purest water. I always appeared before him with my fez on; I greeted him as an Oriental greets his sovereign; I used the usual bombastic forms of speech in addressing him; I sat, stood, went about, as it becomes an Oriental--in a word I submitted to all the conventionalities which the Westerner never observes in the presence of the Sultan. Moreover, he was impressed by all my experiences, and in his desire for knowledge he was pleased to be instructed on many points. All these things put together were in themselves enough to attract his attention towards me. The second reason for the friendship and amiability shown me by Sultan Abdul Hamid was my Hungarian nationality, and the Turcophile character of my public activity, of which, however, he did not hear more fully till later. The friendly feelings exhibited by Hungary during the late Russo-Turkish war had touched the Sultan deeply, and his sympathies for the Christian sister-nation of the Magyars were undoubtedly warm and true. Now as to the possible merits of my writings, the Sultan, like the Turks in general, was well aware of my Turcophile journalistic activity, but none of them had the slightest conception of my philological and ethnological studies in connection with Turkey. They had never even heard of them, and when I handed the Sultan a copy of my monograph on the Uiguric linguistic monuments, he said, somewhat perplexed, "We have never heard of the existence of such ancient Turkish philological monuments, and it is really very interesting that our ancestors even before the adoption of Islam were many of them able to write, as would appear from these curious characters." With regard to the skill and tact of Sultan Abdul Hamid I will just mention in connection with the subject of the old Turkish language, that he, recognising at once my keen interest in everything of an old Turkish nature, drew my attention to some pictures in his reception-room, the one of Söyjüt in Asia Minor (the cradle of the Ottoman dynasty), and the other of the Mausoleum of Osman; and he told me with some pride that these pictures were the work of a Turkish artist. He also told me that in the Imperial household, which lives in strict seclusion from the other Osmanli, a considerable number of Turkish words and expressions are used quite unknown to the other Osmanli more accessible to outside influences. The Sultan quoted some specimens, and, as I recognised in them Azerbaidjan, _i.e._, Turkoman linguistic remains, the Sultan smiled, quite pleased, thinking that with these monuments he could prove the unadulterated Turkish national character of the Osmanli dynasty. This vanity surprised me greatly, as a