“To have been an Ambassador at Constantinople,” one of the most distinguished of them once said to me, “is to have been _somebody_, at least for once in a lifetime. Compared with an Ambassador here, even an Imperial Chancellor, who is continually badgered and bullied by Press and Parliament, is almost a nobody,” he added with a self-satisfied smile. The diplomatic light who expressed himself thus was also quite frank in his estimation of the world in which he moved. Potentates he regarded as merely kings on a chess-board, to be separated from their protecting pieces, and, if of opposing colour, to be hustled, circumvented, and checkmated. He declared that he had become satiated with, and quite indifferent to, decorative distinctions. These had been showered upon him in such profusion that he now only prized those studded with brilliants, “avec de grosses pierres,” such as Gortschakoff asked for from Bismarck. The facilities for telegraphic and postal communication between the different Embassies at Constantinople and their Governments at home have hitherto not been of that perfect kind which reduces an Ambassador in some other countries to the status of a cipher at the end of a wire. Therefore, a wider field was open for personal initiative on the part of an Ambassador there than elsewhere. The complex personality of Abdul Hamid, round whom everything revolved, also afforded until quite recently exceptional scope to the abilities of an Ambassador, and lent great importance to the dragoman service, _i.e._ the man who holds the responsible post of official interpreter to an Embassy. His rôle demanded varied linguistic accomplishments, tact, and a liberal course of diplomatic education. Among the chief dragomans of the Embassies of the Great Powers were to be found some of the ablest, most astute and cultivated of men, particularly Levantines of Italian or Greek origin. The dragomans form so conspicuous a feature of diplomatic life at Constantinople that the Turks declare the souls of those who have passed away in the course of time flit on the waters of the Bosphorus in the bodies of the flocks of birds so often seen skimming the blue waters at sunset. Like Bucharest—another preparatory school of budding Ambassadors—Constantinople has long been a seminary, a high school for diplomatists of every country. Here it is that uncouth youths, taken raw from the Foreign Office, their hands everlastingly thrust in their pockets, a pipe in their mouth, with slouching gait and pitiable embarrassment, on entering the room of their official superiors come gradually to discard their angularities and are taught to behave themselves in accord with cosmopolitan usage. They are put through their paces, and finally learn to roar in true leonine fashion in the name of their country.