E-text prepared by Turgut Dincer, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original pictorial and musical illustrations. See 59130-h.htm or 59130-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59130/59130-h/59130-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59130/59130-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/turkishmemories00whituoft Transcriber’s note: Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). [Illustration: Ghazi Osman Pacha] TURKISH MEMORIES by SIDNEY WHITMAN Author of “German Memories” etc. With Frontispiece New York: Chas. Scribner’S Sons London: William Heinemann MCMXIV Printed in England ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF AHMED MIDHAT EFFENDI LATE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE IMPERIAL OTTOMAN BOARD OF PUBLIC HEALTH IN CONSTANTINOPLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE Our aim should be neither to mock, to bewail, nor to denounce men’s actions, but to understand them. SPINOZA THE following pages are the outcome of several prolonged visits to Constantinople, Macedonia, and Asiatic Turkey, covering a period of twelve years, from 1896 to 1908. Several of these were made under exceptional circumstances and embody experiences such as do not often fall to the lot of a traveller, some of which, I venture to think, are of lasting public interest. Anyone who has had personal relations with an autocrat—in this case the spiritual head of a faith in which in the course of centuries thousands of millions of human beings have lived and died—ought to have much to tell worth recounting. There were also the surroundings of the Monarch to be observed. Many a trait of deep human interest presented itself to him who was a privileged visitor: for instance, the ups and downs of fortune as they affected the all-powerful favourite whose good offices—as in the time of a Madame de Pompadour—powerful Sovereigns did not think it beneath their dignity to strive and compete for. Such a man I have seen in disgrace, shunned by those who had hitherto prostrated themselves before him. Finally, I have met him in the streets of London, living under an assumed name in fear of assassination.