It was during a conversation about the advisability of an English alliance in the interests of the Ottoman State, that the Sultan in the fire of his conversation told me the following: "I was six or seven years old when my blessed father commanded my presence, as he was going to send me to one of my aunts. I found him in one of his apartments, sitting on a sofa in intimate conversation with an elderly Christian gentleman. When my father noticed me, he called to me to come nearer and kiss the hand of the stranger seated by his side. At this behest I burst out in tears, for the idea of kissing the hand of a Giaour was to me in my inexperience absolutely revolting. My father, generally so sweet-tempered, became angry and said: 'Do you know who this gentleman is? It is the English Ambassador, the best friend of my house and my country, and the English, although not belonging to our faith, are our most faithful allies.' Upon this I reverently kissed the old gentleman's hand. It was the Böyük Eltchi, Lord Stratford Canning. My father's words were deeply engraved upon my mind, and so I grew up with the idea that the English are our best friends. How bitterly I was disillusioned when I came to the throne! England left me in the lurch, for the demonstration of the fleet in the Sea of Marmora, as was said in Constantinople, was instigated more by the interests of England than of Turkey, which is not right. Her ambassadors--_i.e._, Elliot and Layard--have betrayed me, and when I was in want of money and asked for a small loan of £150,000, I received a negative reply. So that is what you in the West call friendship, and thus the beautiful dreams of my youth have come to naught," cried the Sultan with a deep sigh. My explanation that in England, without the consent of Parliament, no large sums of money can be lent or given away did not in the least enlighten the Sultan. Oriental sovereigns do not believe it even now, for to them constitution and Parliament are mere names, invented to mislead the public. To born Asiatics, moreover, the liberal methods of Governments of the West are altogether unreasonable, and Feth Ali Shah said to the English Ambassador, Malcolm, these well-known words: "And you call your sovereign a mighty ruler, who allows himself to be dictated to by six hundred of his subjects (the members of Parliament), whose orders he is bound to follow? A crown like that I would refuse," said this king of all Iran kings; and my friend Max Nordau is much of the same opinion, for in his _Conventional Lies_ he suggests that all genuine constitutional sovereigns of Europe should be sent to the lunatic asylum, because they imagine themselves to be rulers and are ruled over by others.