As this gentleman will be mentioned several times in the course of these pages—for to my subsequent relations with him I am indebted for much of my insight into the Turkish character—a few words concerning him may not be out of place. The story of his early life and of his subsequent relations with Sultan Abdul Hamid is an interesting one, and calculated to throw a sympathetic light on the character of the Sovereign. Born of humble parents in the Island of Rhodes, his father was either a dealer in cloth, or, like President Andrew Johnson, a tailor; and he himself was apprenticed to the calling. Being, however, imbued with a taste for literature, Ahmed Midhat went into journalism and subsequently politics. Here he came into contact with the Young Turkish Movement of Midhat Pasha, and became implicated in the movement which led to the impeachment of that statesman in 1877. One day the Sultan sent for Ahmed Midhat, as he afterwards told me, and quite charmed him by his gracious manner, turning him from an opponent to a champion, convinced that his master’s one aim was the good of his country, so that he finally burst forth with the declaration that the Sultan could reckon on him as one of his devoted slaves. “I do not want you as a slave; I ask you to be my friend,” the Sultan replied, finally captivating the generous-minded, confiding man. Ahmed Midhat thus became an ardent and sincerely convinced adherent of the Hamidian régime, and from all accounts he was one of the few who never turned their influence to unworthy ends. His position as part proprietor of the _Terdjumani Hakkikat_, a Turkish newspaper, secured him independence. In his spare time he turned to literature, and eventually became known and honoured throughout the Turkish Empire as a regenerator of the Turkish language. He had been to Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Victor Hugo and other literary notabilities, and several of his novels—of an almost childlike simplicity of thought—were translated into French and German. When I made his acquaintance he was the virtual head of the administration of public health, and one of the very few Turks who were given a private seal, which assured that whatever communication he might wish to make to the Sultan would immediately reach His Majesty. In spite of all these advantages Midhat was hardly ever to be met at the Palace. His private life was in harmony with his public conduct. He lived with his family in his own konak at Beikos, on the Bosphorus, not far from the Black Sea, under plain but patriarchal conditions, and there I was his guest on several occasions. He had two wives and sixteen children, six of whom were Christians he had taken into his family because they were poor and destitute and had brought up as his own. I asked him how he came to take such a course, and why he had not preferred to adopt Mohammedans. “They were my neighbours,” he said. “They were poor and had nobody to look