This defect also shows itself in the nondescript character of the cookery at the principal hotels and restaurants, as already stated. A strange and wondrous world this, and, what is equally remarkable, a free-and-easy one into the bargain. To all appearances it is Liberty Hall right round the compass. More particularly does this apply to the stranger within the gates. And all are strangers here who by their pseudo-nationality can claim to come under the privileges of the Capitulations which the Sultans, even in the plenitude of their power, tolerantly allowed to continue in force. Strangers pay no taxes either as individuals or as house-owners. It was only quite recently, and with the greatest difficulty, that the Turkish Government succeeded in making foreigners pay a small stamp duty for receipts on bills, etc. There is full liberty to revile the authorities as much as you please, and even now and then to introduce bombs and explosives with the connivance of a certain Great Power. No wonder that the late Sultan was driven in self-defence to keep a huge staff of professional spies in his service. Nevertheless, there are no police to be seen, and no regulations in force when to close or when to open your business, whatever its nature. If you sit in a café or a brasserie, there is really no valid reason why you should ever get up, unless to go to the hospital, of which there are any number—to die! No boards are to be seen informing you that you will be prosecuted in case of trespass, no walls (except those round the Imperial Palace) to shut out the sight of the beautiful country, which apparently belongs to all alike. Indeed, there seems no reason why the mule-driver with his load of bricks should not unload where he stands and begin to erect a palazzo of his own on the spot, for the land would appear to belong to anybody, to judge by the absence of enclosures. There is also liberty to cheat to your heart’s desire and go bankrupt ad libitum. An English financier who had lived in Constantinople for years once told me that the one thing he regretted on leaving the city was the sense of unlimited personal freedom he had enjoyed there.