influence over him, but at last I had to realise that all my trouble was in vain, and that my efforts would never bear any fruit. And it could not well have been otherwise. His policy was partly of a purely personal nature, as with all Oriental despots; such policy, strictly conservative in tendency, was concerned with the maintenance of an absolutely despotic _régime_. Partly, also, it was of necessity influenced by the temporary political constellations of the West. The indecision which characterises his least action is a result of the spirit which prevails in the imperial harem, where no one trusts another, where every one slanders his neighbour, and tries to deceive and annihilate him, where everything turns round the sun of imperial favour. Our diplomatists on the Bosphorus have often had to pay dearly for this characteristic of Abdul Hamid. At the time of the negotiations about the Egyptian Question Lord Dufferin once had to wait with his secretary in the Yildiz Palace for the Sultan's decision from ten o'clock in the morning till after midnight. Six times the draft of the treaty was put before him to sign, and each time it was returned in somewhat altered form until the English Ambassador, wearied to death at last, lost his patience, and at two o'clock in the morning returned with his suite to Therapia. Lord Dufferin had already retired to bed, and was fast asleep when he was roused by the arrival of a special messenger from the Sultan to negotiate about another proposal, but the English patience was exhausted and the fate of Egypt sealed. On other occasions there were similar and often more dramatic scenes, and even with simple dinner invitations it has often occurred that the ambassadors in question received a countermand only after they had already started _en grande tenue_ on the way to Yildiz. As regards the distrust displayed by the ruler of Turkey, worried as he was on all sides, some excuse may be found for him, for true and unselfish friendships are unknown quantities in diplomatic intercourse. But Sultan Abdul Hamid behaved in the same manner towards his Asiatic subjects. He has always been a pessimist of the most pronounced type; he scented danger and treason wherever he went, and everything had to give way before his personal interests. "The future of Turkey and the well-being of the Ottoman nation are always being discussed, but of me and my dynasty nobody speaks," he said to me one day. To all intents and purposes he always behaved as if he were master and owner of all Turkey, and as nothing in the world could make him see differently, I very soon saw the fruitlessness of my endeavours, and in future I acted only the _rôle_ of onlooker and observer.