Not only difference of religion, but the Oriental form of government explains the antagonistic attitude of the Western world towards Turkey and her Sovereign. As Khalif of Islam, the Sultan, according to Ahmed Midhat, comes in for the ill-will harboured unconsciously for centuries towards Islam by the Christian world. As an autocrat he also incurs the jealous displeasure of a rival Power—not the King of England nor the President of the United States, but the real governing despots of England and America—the easily excited passions of the masses; far more powerful, more prejudiced and intolerant than any ruling Sovereign in our time. This is indirectly proved by the fact that hatred of the Turk has manifested itself most passionately in those countries in which public opinion, with all its ignorance of other lands, ministered to by a sensational Press, is most powerful. Neither Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, nor France shares this bias to the same degree; and yet who would assert that they are not intelligent, educated communities imbued with high standards of conduct? For many years past these passions have been fed by those who have had an interest in fanning them into open flame. According to Napoleon I, a lie needs but twenty-four hours’ start in order to become immortal. What are the chances of dispassionate truth when the start is one not of hours, but of generations? The Turk may continue to deny officially this or that; but who reads with an open mind what he has to say for himself? Only those who have seen with their own eyes—such men as Burton, Gordon, Hobart, and the late Admiral Commerell—have been fair-minded towards the Turk. The wealthiest men throughout the Turkish Empire are Greeks and Armenians; and yet we are asked to believe that these Christians, who probably own three-fourths of the real estate in the Turkish Empire, are sufferers under a grasping despotism! On one occasion I was conversing with the chairman of the Ottoman Bank, Sir Edgar Vincent, who has since resigned and returned to England. He was tired of Constantinople. An Englishman of social tastes, he lacked congenial intercourse in Turkey. But one thing he told me he felt he should miss terribly in returning to Europe—the extraordinary freedom in Turkey! And as if by the irony of fate, it is this very liberty, this tolerance in Turkey which has powerfully contributed to the downfall of the Turk in Europe. For it is from Robert College, the Christian educational institution on the Bosphorus, which owes its very existence to the tolerance and benevolent munificence of successive Sultans that a number of Christian subjects of Turkey have gone forth into journalism and persistently blackened the character of the Turks and their ruler.