I went up to the Palace in the afternoon and found everybody in a state of great excitement. There could be no doubt of the helplessness of the authorities in the face of the action of the mob; but great stress was laid on the provocation given by the Armenian conspirators, which nobody could have foreseen and which the Armenian Patriarch Osmanian had publicly repudiated and denounced. The Turkish officials were indignant that it should be said the movement was inspired by hatred of the Christians as such, and the Sultan’s second secretary proceeded to draw up a list for my information of the large number of Armenians who occupied some of the best paid Ministerial posts and were among the Sultan’s own staff of Court officials. The list I was assured ran to about twenty per cent. of the higher employees at Constantinople. The Keeper of the Sultan’s Civil List—Ohannes Effendi—was an Armenian, as was also the chief Censor of the Press. Next morning I went by steamer to Buyukdere to see the Russian Ambassador, M. de Nelidow, who, through his chief dragoman, M. Maximow, had negotiated the escape of the Armenian bank-breakers. M. Maximow had gone up to the Palace, and by his language, the like of which had never been heard in the decorous precincts, frightened the Palace officials. There was some talk at the time of the British Fleet being ordered up to Constantinople, a rumour which I mentioned to the Russian Ambassador. It did not appear to please him, for he exclaimed rather excitedly: “Oh, par exemple! Nous ne rendrons jamais la clef de notre maison”—a remark the significance of which has never been absent from my thoughts from that day to this in connexion with Turkey and her future. I then called on Abraham Pasha at his summer residence, also at Buyukdere. I had made his acquaintance a few weeks previously at the Sultan’s Palace, and had been his guest at the Cercle d’Orient. A great landowner and sportsman, as I could see the trophies in the hall of his palatial konak, he was reputed to be the wealthiest and most influential Armenian notability in Turkey, and had always been on the very best terms with Abdul Hamid. He had even had the honour of entertaining his predecessor, Abdul Aziz, at his country seat. I found him in bed, guarded by a body of armed retainers, in a state of great trepidation. “What is this? What is it all coming to? It is really too bad!” he ejaculated as I was ushered into his bedroom. As a matter of fact Armenians had been killed at Buyukdere. So great was the terror among the Armenians of position that one of the wealthiest, the banker Azarian, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction from the London house of Rothschild, closed his place of business and fled to the Prinkipo Islands. It was a novel sensation to see millionaires, thus exposed to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, being pursued like rats, and if caught knocked on the head as little better than vermin.