In some respects the ex-Sultan shone to advantage as compared with many rulers of the past and some of the present. Notably was this the case as regards his sense of gratitude for services rendered and of loyalty to those who he believed had served him well. My own sporadic relations with His Majesty have furnished me with evidence that his wish to benefit others could even outweigh a consideration for his own interests. For supposing that my position as correspondent of the _New York Herald_ at Constantinople was really of any value to him, as he plainly believed to be the case, his proposal to me to leave that paper and enter his service was obviously contrary to his own interests. The guiding principle of others in the Sultan’s position would have been to continue to utilize a man’s services at no cost to themselves and then to throw him over. How different was Abdul Hamid’s conduct in this as in so many other cases! The late Mr. Whittaker, for many years correspondent of the _Times_ at Constantinople, received signal marks of favour at the Sultan’s hands, in spite of the anti-Turkish attitude of that paper. He was, I think, acceptable to the Sultan as a man of culture and a talented musician, and was now and then asked to come up to the Palace to play the piano. When a rupture finally took place, it came about through Mr. Whittaker himself, who was exasperated at the restrictions placed by the Censor upon the _Levant Herald_, of which he was the proprietor. Barely has a sovereign distinguished a private individual, without wealth or rank, and a foreigner into the bargain, with his intimacy to such a degree as the Sultan did in the case of Professor Arminius Vambéry, whom he used to address by the familiar, almost endearing, term of “Baba.” This friendship had its source in his appreciation of the Professor’s distinction as an Oriental scholar and his well-known sympathies with Turkey, her people, and her religion. Here, again, the estrangement was, I believe, due to the Professor himself, who became dissatisfied with His Majesty’s political tendencies, which he could not see his way to share or champion.[19] Footnote 19: See Appendix, pp. 287–288.