Now, if there had only been questions of purely Turkish interests, internal reforms and improvements, there would have been no occasion to shake the Sultan's confidence in me, but Sultan Abdul Hamid's mind was always busy with foreign politics, and because in regard to these I could not always unconditionally agree with him, this was bound to lead in process of time, if not to an absolute rupture, at any rate to a cooling of our former warm friendship. For some time the Egyptian Question was the chief point of discussion. The Sultan often complained to me about the unlucky star which ruled over his foreign politics; that he had lost so many of the inherited provinces, that the loss of the Nile-land, that precious jewel of his crown, was particularly grievous to him, and that the faithlessness of the English troubled him above all things. As a matter of course he vented his wrath especially upon the English Government; and although he was not particularly enamoured of any of the European Cabinets, nay, I might say, hated and feared them all alike, it was the St. James's Cabinet which, whether Liberal or Conservative, had always to bear the brunt of his ire. He was on very bad terms with the two English Ambassadors who shortly before and shortly after his accession to the throne represented the Cabinet of St. James's in Constantinople. Once, Lady Layard sent me for presentation to the Sultan, a picture of herself in a very valuable frame, and when I delivered it on the occasion of an evening audience the Grand Seigneur, generally so completely master of himself, became quite excited, and pointing to the portrait he said to me, "For this lady, whom you see there, I have the greatest respect; for during the war she has tended my wounded soldiers with great self-sacrifice, and I shall always feel grateful to her; but as for her husband," he continued, "I have torn him out of my heart, for he has shamefully abused my confidence." Thereupon he tore at his breast as if he would pull something out, and slinging his empty hand to the ground, he tramped excitedly on the floor, as if he were demolishing the heart of the absent delinquent. This act of passionate emotion I have noticed more particularly among Turkish women, and there are many traits in the Sultan's character which speak of the harem life. I tried to pacify the angry monarch by reminding him that Layard, as ambassador, had but done his duty in delivering the message, and that those gentlemen alone were to blame who had allowed such confidential communications to become public property. I quoted, moreover, the Koran passage which says, "La zewal fi'l sefirun" ("The envoy is not to be blamed"); but it was all in vain, the name of this deserving English diplomat had quite upset the Sultan; he was unwilling and unable to distinguish between the actions of the statesman and of the private gentleman.