The Sultan’s extreme sensitiveness to European newspaper opinion afforded a wide scope for intrigue at the Palace, inasmuch as Abdul Hamid attached exaggerated importance to newspaper articles the relative value of which he had no means of verifying. This idiosyncrasy was traded upon by a cohort of adventurers of different nationalities, some of them of most shady antecedents. They were supplied with funds in return for their supposed influence with the Press in England, France, and Germany. Some were paid a fixed salary by the Sultan; others were fed by occasional doles from his different favourites, acting on the supposition that they—the favourites in question—would be credited with the effusions of these minions as proofs of their own zeal in the interests of his Imperial Majesty. Rarely could Oriental astuteness be found together with such childlike gullibility as was evident in this connexion. The representative of a powerful journal would be snubbed, whilst the correspondent of some obscure sheet would be extravagantly rewarded for some supposed service rendered to the cause of Islam. It has been stated that European newspapers were regularly subsidized by the Palace; but, except in the case of an obscure periodical, _L’Orient_, which appeared in Paris, and a Vienna compilation of news items drawn from telegraphic agencies and called the _Courrier de L’Est_, I never met with any tangible evidence in support of this assertion. Another feature of lavish expenditure was connected with the Ramadan festival. On this occasion every official at the Palace, including all the pashas in Constantinople, received an extra month’s salary, which amounted to about one hundred and fifty thousand Turkish pounds. It was sometimes necessary to borrow this amount from one of the banks or to withdraw it from the funds of the customs. The more one saw of this state of things, the easier it was to understand the eternal impecuniosity at the Palace, and the more one wondered how the Sultan ever managed to make both ends meet. Towards mid-day an endless stream of Turkish visitors, fat and lean intermingled, dressed in the black frock-coat termed stambolin, could be seen toiling up the hill in the broiling sun to partake of the hospitality indiscriminately offered to the thousands feasting daily at the Sultan’s expense.