Professor Vambéry relates the following incident as an illustration of the queer type of men that managed to gain the favour of Abdul Hamid: “Among these obscure worshippers round the Sultan was the famous Lufti Aga, in his official capacity of Master of the Robes, but in reality the most intimate confidant of the Sultan, in spite of his Turkish origin.[18] I had a rather curious adventure with this worthy. One day whilst walking with the Sultan in the garden I saw this man approaching His Majesty, and looking closer into his face, I recognized in him the servant of Mahmud Nedim Pasha, formerly Grand Vizier, distinguished by his Russian sympathies—hence his nickname, Nedimoff—in whose house in Bebek I acted formerly as teacher of French to his son-in-law, Rifat Bey. In accosting the said former servant somewhat boldly I noticed a perplexity on his face, but still more remarkable was the blushing of the Sultan, who asked me whether I knew his favourite man before. ‘Of course,’ said I, ‘Lufti was a servant in the house of Mahmud Nedim Pasha, and he often cleaned my boots.’ Tableau! The most intimate man of the Sultan a shoeblack by origin. But this intermezzo did not disconcert Abdul Hamid, for Lufti went on in his delicate service until the end of his life. Such is the East, and such are Orientals, however so much gifted.” Footnote 18: This refers to the Sultan’s well-known preference for Albanians, Circassians, and Arabs. Izzet Pasha was an Arab. We have only to review the course of affairs since his deposition to be forced to the conclusion that whatever Abdul Hamid’s mistakes may have been, he was yet able to postpone the catastrophe which, under any circumstances, must now be admitted to have been inevitable in the long run. To-day there can be no doubt that he was more or less driven into the arms of Germany by the attitude of England both under Mr. Gladstone and in a less degree under Lord Salisbury, more particularly during the period known as that of the Armenian atrocities. But even this should not have sufficed to endow him with the faith he undoubtedly possessed, where only the cleverness to take advantage of Germany’s assistance in a utilitarian spirit would have been justified. This credulity on his part was all the more remarkable seeing that it was never shared by the more sterling and astute political and religious elements around him. These never swerved in their preference for England and the English, even in the darkest days which followed upon the Armenian massacres in 1895 and 1896. They still held on to the Turkish traditions of the Crimean war of friendship between Turkey and England. In departing therefrom the Sultan may be said to have made the exchange familiar to us as children in Aladdin’s story of bartering old lamps for new. England’s goodwill was Turkey’s old lamp in spite of every misunderstanding.