Turkey and its destiny: the result of journeys made in 1847 and 1848 to examine into the state of that country

Preface

. I would not, knowingly, have made a long journey to witness the dying agonies of an empire. I never should have thought of going to Turkey in 1 847 if I had not been induced to believe that, since my last sojourn there in 1827-8, the Government and the condition of the people had been greatly improved ; that an equality of rights had been established between the Mussulmans and the Chris tian and the othep Rayah subjects of the Sultan ; and that the tyranny, oppression, and corruption, on the part of the men in office and power, which had been so revolting during my former residence, had almost ceased since the accession of Sultan Abdul Medjid, and the rise of his present Vizier Reschid Pasha. Without be lieving all that was told to me by persons in the service of the Ottoman Government, and closely connected with Reschid, I felt confident, from their assurances, that Turkey had made, and was then making, a considerable progress in order, justice, and civilization.

I went honestly in search of this improvement ; but to see and judge for myself. The state of things which I found is explained in these volumes. My wishes, my interests, would have been best served if I could have found the very opposite of that which

PREFACE.

. I have described ; but, finding things as they were, I could not report them otherwise — nor would I have done so for all the diamonds the Sultan has ever given away in nishans and gold snuff-boxes. At this moment I consider it of the highest political importance to England that the true condition of the Ottoman Empire should be made known. I devoted eleven months, and no small labour, to the collection of the materials which I now offer to my countrymen. I occupied myself mainly in studying the condition of the people, or the various peoples, nations, or races, that live under the rule of the Ottoman. I have dis charged this work of almost everything that does not bear upon this one point. I , have experienced a difficulty in suppressing, or leaving for some future publication, many pages of my journal which relate to scenery, antiquities, architecture, Turkish history and legends ; and I still regret, having been obliged (for the present) to pass over in total silence several subjects which deeply interested me, and upon which I collected information from the best sources.

Among these last I would mention the Armenian schools esta blished by the American missionaries at Pera and Bebek ; the missionary labours and scheme of Bishop Southgate; the case of Dr. Millengen, of Constan tinople, whose children were kidnapped at Rome, and kept from him ten years (by the liberal, reforming Pope Pius IX., as well as by his predecessor Gregory XVI.) solely and avowedly because he was a Protestant ; the

PREFACE.

. V trade and resources of the island of Mitylene, concerning which much curious information was communicated to me by Mr. B. B , one of the oldest and best of my friends at Smyrna, who had been residing some years in that beautiful island ; and, lastly, a very curious and able (but long) paper on the deplorable state of agriculture and the vices of administration in the country round Smyrna, which has been sent to me since my return to England by Mr. J. Wilkin of Smyrna, a member of a family from which I received numerous kind offices in 1827-8. I trust, however, that all these subjects will be delayed only for a few months. People seem more than ever disposed to say that a great book is a great evil. I was afraid of making this too long, as also of spoiling its unity of design. Canterbury, Feb. 1st, 1850.

Chapter I

Voyage to Constantinople — Splendid Steamer — An Armenian Priest : his Scheme of amalgamating all Religions — Cape St. Vincent and a narrow Escape — Gihraltar — Souvenirs — The late General Sir George Don — Our Colonial Reforms — An old Friend — Malta — Beggars — Maltese Newspapers — The Grave of Sir Ralph Abercromby — The Doro Passage — Smyrna and its Changes — Turkish Recruits — The Golden Horn Page 1

Chapter II

Constantinople — Landing Recruits — Cleaning a Steamer — HadjEi the Aleppine — Old Tahir Pasha — Pera and its Abominations — Active Trade in Slaves, white and black — Reschid Pasha, the Grand Vizier and great Reformer — Fashionable Promenade — Fire ! — Fires ! — Antonio Stampa — New JBridges across the Golden Horn — Altered Dress and Appearance of the Turks — Armenian Arrogance — Pleasures of a Pera Lodging — The Princes' Islands — San Stefano, Dr. Davis, and the Sultan's Model Farm — Deplorable State of Agriculture — Insane Attempts at Manufactures — The Dadians — Mr. Carr — Bishop Southgate — Perotes — Therapia — A Russian Monument ... 36

Chapter III

Constantinople — Mild Administration of the Penal Laws — Executions now very rare in the Capital — Beheading an Armenian Renegade — An Armenian Murderer — Dr. Paleologus and his Intrigues with Turkish Ladies — Bishop Southgate — The Pashas in the Provinces as cruel as in 1828 — Increase of Crime at Constantinople — An infamous Law Court — The Priest-robber, Papas Lollio — The Passport System — Turkish Censorship on Books — Armenian War upon English Bibles — Custom-House Annoyances — Maximum Prices fixed by Government, &e. &c

Chapter IV

Constantinople — Fast of the Ramazan — Fashionable Promenade and Turkish Ladies — Depopulation and Poverty in the City — Rapid Extinction of Turkish Gentry — The Levelling System and its Effects — The Mausoleum of Sultan Mahmoud II. — Personal Appearance of Sultan Abdul Medjid — His regular Army — A Review — His Navy — Admiral Walker — European Adventurers and their Projects — Pera Ladies and their French Dresses — A Dancing Bear — Grand Festival on the Circumcision of the Sultan's eldest Son — The Cholera — Activity and Extent of Steam Navigation — Our Departure for Brusa Page 100

Chapter V

Journey to Brusa — Gulf of Moudania — The Town of Ghio or Ghemlik — Kir- Yani — Greek Hospitality — Greek Monastery — Agriculture — Dinner and clean Lodging — A Toilette in the Garden with Horses and Mules — English Farm at Tuzlar — Monsieur Charles, the Belgian Tailor, Hotel-keeper, and Traveller — The Road — Village of Omer- Bey — Sad Depopulation — Mount Olympus — Arrival at Brusa — Comfortable Hotel — Old Friends — The English Consul at Brusa — Mr. R. Thomson — John Zohrab 120

Chapter VI

Brusa — The Bazaars — Civility of the Turks — Moutons Dores — Poverty and Decay — The last Night of Ramazan — The Feast of Bairam — Kiosk of the Sultan — The Great Dere" and its Bridges — Filth ! — Silk Factories — .Amazing number of Mosques — Wretched State of the Villages in the Plain of Brusa — The Brusa Baths — Tchekgirgh6 the Cheltenham of Turkey — John Zohrab's Farm, or the Chiftlik of Hadji-Haivat — Execrable Roads and splendid Chesnut Trees — Fountain of Kara-Bunk — A marvellous Corn Mill — Introduction of Potatoes — The Curse of fixed Maximum Prices — The dreadful Famine of 1845 — The Cultivation of Rice prohibited — The Tanzimaut — Squirrels — Village of Sousourluk — Industrious Greek Fanners — The Injustice and Oppression of the Farmers of the Revenue — Excessive Taxation — Corvees — Turkish Buffaloes — Ruins of Kestel — Robbers — Village of Dudakli — Ibrahim and his Farm Malaria Fevers — Ibrahim and the Tax Gatherers — Lake of Dudakli The Yerooks, or Wandering Pastoral Tribes — A sick Stork Village of Narle'dere-keui — Ibrahim and his Wives — Rain Storm Storks' Nests — Decay of Honesty — Splendid Mulberry Tre«s ....

Chapter VII

Brusa — A great Fire at Pera — Festival of the Circumcision — More Corvfies — A Hunt after Horses and Mules, and the Snow of Olympus — Tyranny of the Pasha — Constant Arrests — The Pasha's horrible Prison, which is his Mint — Denial of Justice to the Christian Rayahs — The Tanzimaut, the Turkish Magna Charta and Bill of Rights, and how observed — How Turks return the Civility and the Hospitality they have received in England — Mustapha Nouree, the Pasha of Brusa, his Character and Conversation — The Sultan's Merinos Sheep — The Backshish Persecution — Khodja Arab, the Chief of Police — Robbers — The Baths at Tchekgirghe — More Oppressions — Remarks on our Consular Establishments — Armenian Rudeness — An Armenian Soiree — Village of Dobrudja — Ruins — Village of Missi — Ghieuk-Dere — Bourna Bashi — Dancing Dervishes — Drunken Sheik . . . Page 175

Chapter VIII

Philladar — Barbarous Persecution of Albanian Christians in 1845-6 — Hadji Mustapha — Dilapidation — Padre Antonio — Hidden Treasures — Professional Treasure-Seekers — " The Being that is afar off," or the Devil — Particulars of the savage Persecution as given by Padre Antonio, the Priest of the Albanians — Malik-Bey * — Tahir-Effendi — Selim Pasha — Interference of Sir Stratford Canning — Services rendered to the Sufferers by John Zohrab — Present Condition of the Albanians at Philladar — Their Eagerness to return Home — Turkish Villages — The Vintage at Brusa — Petmez ......... 202

Chapter IX

Journey to Kutayah — The Pasha's Cavass — Ak-Sou — Decreasing Population — Merry Halil — Plain of Yeni Ghieul — Hills of Gypsum — Town of Yeni Ghieul — Dinner and Lodging at the Governor's — The Agha of Yeni Shehr, a Turkish Antiquary — The sour Kadi — The Conscription and forced Abortions — A glorious Coimtry depopulated — Village of Musal — More Poverty and Oppression — Tales of the Turkish Villagers — Sir Stratford Camiing — Mr. Sang and his Calculation — Hospitality of Turkish Peasantry — Solar Eclipse — Hot Springs — Terrible Mountains — Villages of Domalich — Yerook Encampment — Kukoort-keui, or the Sulphur Village — More Misery — Two Trebizond Tinkers — Ancient Remains — Plain of Kutayah — Depopulation 22^ VOL. i. b X CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Chapter X

City of Kutayah — Carrots — Wonderful Cabbages — Dr. Bozzi — The Greek Bishop : his House — The Bishop's Dinner — A merry Evening — Holloway's Pills — Achmet Pasha — The Barracks, the Troops, the Military Hospital, &o. — The Pasha a keen Sportsman — What the Bishop paid for his Bishopric — Cold Weather — Journey to Aizani — Volcanic Mountains — Goats' Flesh — Wretched Horses — More Desolation — Village of Hadji-keui — Taxes and crushing Weight of Interest — Ruins of Aizani — Latif Effendi and the Monopoly of Opium — Tarkhana — Wretched Condition of the Turkish Peasantry — An awful Old Woman — Return to Hadji-keui — Burrow underground like Jackals — Our Fellow-lodgers — Hatred of the Peasantry to the Army — Back to Kutayah — Castle of Kutayah — Ibrahim Pasha and the Army of Egypt — The Arnaouts — The Sabbath Morning in the House of the Bishop spent in collecting and counting Money — Population of Kutayah — Greek School — The State with which we departed from Kutayah — The last words of the Bishop . . . Page 265

CHAPTER XL

Journey back to Brusa by Nicæa — Desolate Country — Log-huts — Great Abundance of Game — Village of Dere-Lailek — Hospitality of the Peasants — Decay of religious Feeling — Uren-keui — Pine Forests — Boseuk — A Theft — The Kara-dere or Black Valley — Village of Kara-keui — Turkish Deserters — The Mason and the Imaum — Splendid Scenery — Bash-keui — Wooden Legs — Keuplu — Silk — Billijik — M. Garabet, our hospitable Armenian Friend — The Khans — Sandalji-Oglou and his improvements — ■ A terrible Dere-Bey — An accomplished Turk — Rait Bey — Ancient Tombs near Billijik ■ — Spirit of Destruction — A Turk cruelly insults the Armenians — Barbarous Treatment of a poor Greek — Old Castle at Billijik — Dinner at Rait Bey's — Wretched Turkish Villages — Dangerous Mountain Pass — Nicæa — Unhealthiness of this plaoe — Vast Ruins ■ — Innumerable Otters — Symptoms of Malaria Fever* — Charms — Lake of Nicæa — Yeni Shehr — A Turkish Agricultural Improver — Ghimbos — Village of Kestel — Hadji-Haivat ........ 312

Chapter XII

Hadji-Haivat — Agriculture of the Plain of Brusa — No Hay — Sad consequences of this want — Bad Oil — Oil-mills a Government Monopoly Vin d'Olympe — Silk — Villages on Mount Olympus — Ibrahim's Farm at Dudakli — The sick Stork — Our sleeping Apartment, and how we lived at the Farm — Ibrahim's domestic Economy — Immense Quantity of Game — Lake of Dudakli abounding with Fish — Draining Project — Every Improvement discouraged by Government — Dreadful State of the Roads — Ibrahim's Wife — Ibrahim's Devotions — Arrival of wild Swans — Sousourluk and our Greek Host there — More Oppres sion — A rough Ride — Back to Hadji-Haivat — Squirrels — An Hyæna — A murdered Arab — The ruined Khan — Taxes, and more Oppression Page 369

Chapter XIII

Journey to the Westward of Brusa — Cemeteries — Fountains in Ruins — Horrible Roads — Ruined Bridges — The Vakoufs of the Mosques seized by Government — The Funds left for the Repair of Roads, Bridges, &c. seized by the Reformers — Decay of Colleges and Mosques — French Levelling and Irreligion — Yerookler — An Albanian Mason — The Albanian Insurrection in 1847 — How the Albanians deal with Tax-gatherers — Dansera — Phistiko Village of Chatalagha — The Phistikos, a Colony from Mama — A Cossack Colony — Lake of Apollonia — The Rhyndacus — The Town of Lubat — Our Consolos Bey — Mr. G. T. Vigne — Greek Superstition — Colony of Circassians — Horse-stealers ■ — Plain of Mohalich — A Tatar Story — Town of Mohalich — Turkish Indolence — Manchester G oods — Decay of the Town — Burying-place of the Albanian Martyrs — Drunkenness — The Bektash ■ — A perilous Journey — Inundated countiy — Bog at Duva-Hissar — The Pasha of Brusa's Chiftlik — Antonacki's Farm at Balukli — A Philosopher — A Revolt of Bulgarians — Agricultural Improvements — Tombstones of the Panduz-Oglous — Economy of the Farm — The pastoral Bulgarians great Robbers — Increase of Stock .... 393

Chapter XIV

Fine Country, but uncultivated — Lake of Magnass — A Turkish Wedding Drummer — Pandermk — Sea-port Morality — Cyzicus — Ruins — Bishop of Cyzicus — Modem Town of Erdek, or Artaki — Decrease of Turkish Population — Some effects of the Maximum — Ionian Greeks : their Remarks about British Consuls, &o. — Journey to the end of the Peninsula of Cyzicus — A Greek Funeral — Gonia — Break-neck Road — Rotha — Islets — Ruinous Rate of Interest — Pilgrimages to Jerusalem — Remains of the ancient Cyzicus — Edinjik — Delhi-Ismael, an ex-Robber — Bey-keui, and our party there — A runaway Turkish Debtor, &c. — The Lake of Magnass and the Colony of Cossacks — Untiling Houses for Taxes — Return to Balukli — Antonacki a Bektash Bashi — History of the Panduz-Oglous, or a Specimen of the Decline of Turkish Families — A great Turkish Farm abandoned — Village of Kelessen — Sect of the Bektash — Deplorable State of Agriculture — Decline of religious Feeling among the Turks — Leave Balukli . CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Chapter XV

From Balukli to Brusa — Death of poor Antonacki — Crossing Rivers — Toumefort's Granicus — The Sultan's Merinos Sheep and their forlorn Condition — Town of Khinnasti — A Sale of Turkish Justice — Our Athenian Hekim Bashi — The Rhyndacus — A dangerous River — Fearful Inundation — Village of Kara-Oglan — Lake of Apollonia — Magical Scenery — Town of Apollonia : its filth and its ruins — Turkish Oppression — Scamps of Atchelan — The Tanzimaut — ■ Ancient Remains — Taxes — Colonel Leake on the Geography of Asia-Minor — Fish of the Lake of Apollonia — The Phistiko Greeks and their Prosperity — Further Account of that Colony — Baths of Tchekgirghe — ■ An Armenian Pleasure-party — Armenian Coarseness and Depravity . . . Page TURKEY AM ITS DESTINY.

Chapter I

Voyage to Constantinople — Splendid Steamer — An Armenian Priest : his Scheme of Amalgamating all Religions — Cape St. Vincent and a narrow Escape— Gibraltar — Souvenirs— The late General Sir George Don — Our Colonial Befwms — An old Friend — Malta — Beggars — Maltese Newspapers — The Grave of Sir Ralph Abercromby — The Doro Passage — Smyrna and its Changes — Turkish Recruits — The Golden Horn. It was on Tuesday the 20th of July, 1847, at 9-25 a.m., that we weighed anchor at Plymouth, and made a fair start for Constantinople. We were on board the Vas sitei Tidjaret, a splendid new steamer, built for the Sultan or for a Turkish-Armenian company, patron ized by His Highness (and in which his mother the Sultana Valide had an interest), by Messrs. White, of Cowes, and fitted up in the London river, at Blackwall, under the care and active superintendence of Mr. Ed ward Zohrab, the Ottoman Consul-General.

Messrs. White, though famed for the beauty of their hulls and for the many model-yachts and ships they have built, never launched a more graceful, beautiful vessel than this steamer. At the launch, and afterwards in the river, she attracted universal admiration ; and this was bestowed upon her at every port we entered during our VOL. I. b TURKEY AND ITS DESTINY. Chap. I. voyage. She was fitted with beautiful engines (con taining all the recent improvements), by Messrs. Mauds lay. The Vassitei Tidjaret was too good and far too beautiful for the service to which she was destined ; she ought to have been kept as a royal pleasure yacht. We had her after-deck and elegant cabins almost entirely to ourselves, there being no other passenger admitted aft except a little Armenian priest. These floating apart ments were infinitely more comfortable than any we ever found on shore, either in the Sultan's European or in his Asiatic dominions.

Captain R , the most watch ful, most active, most cautious, and safest skipper I ever sailed or steamed with, was the son of a worthy admiral in Her Majesty's service, was a gentleman and a pleasant companion. Good, hearty, merry Mr. H , who acted as first mate, was also an excellent sailor, a man of superior condition, and altogether as pleasant a com rade as well could be met with afloat or on shore. With both of them it was more a summer trip of pleasure than anything else. They were to deliver the ship up to the company at Stamboul, and the amount of their reward would about pay the expenses of their homeward journey through the continent of Europe. Our little Armenian priest was a more complete character than I had met with for many a long day. Narses L (Narses being Armenian for Narcissus, although our mate would have it that the English of the name must be " Nasty ") was the dirtiest of all dirty little Oriental priests.

He was very short in stature, very thin and wizen, very sallow, much wrinkled, and very grey about the beard and mustachios; but he had a quick, cunning eye, a most fawning address, Chap. I. AN ARMENIAN PRIEST. and an expression of countenance which said, in a man ner not to be mistaken, " Beware of me, for I am a deep one." He had been passing six or seven years in England, and had contrived to make a good deal of money by doing odd jobs about the Turkish Embassy, by helping such of the Ambassadors as were true Turks to kill time during our long winter evenings, by giving lessons in the Turkish language to Englishmen, by working upon the credulity and generosity of some of our Dissenting sects, and by writing and publishing what he called a " religious work." Yes ! Narses was one of our guild !

N arses was an author — and the author of one of the strangest books that were ever written. The then Ottoman Minister, Prince Callimaki, who knew not what to make of it, had shown me this precious produc tion in London ; and, before we were well out of Plymouth Sound, the author presented me with a copy, and earnestly entreated me to read it and ponder well upon it, admitting that it was abstruse, difficult to be under stood by cultivated intellects, and not to be understood at all by the vulgar herd. The title of the book was ' Analogical Conversations.' The purport of it was to recommend, and in fact introduce and impose, a mixing and blending of all the confessions and beliefs of the world into one composite religion, wherein every man, whether Christian, (Protestant, or Catholic, or Greek,) Turk, Chinese, Hindoo, Budhist, worshipper of the Delhi Llama, or pagan of the South Sea islands, or of whatsoever corner of the globe, or of whatsoever faith, should find his own belief together with the be liefs of all the rest of mankind.

Men were to take and swallow all this together, just as the Chinese are said b Chap. I. 4 TURKEY AND ITS DESTINY. to mix and gulp down all the medicines prescribed by conflicting physicians. A revelation from Heaven had assured him, in his London garret near Bryanston Square, that the great and glorious mortal had come into the world who would bring about and see fully accomplished this fusion of beliefs, faiths, and confessions, and that this glorious mortal was Queen Victoria's eldest son, the little innocent Prince of Wales. The greater part of the small volume was occupied by extra vagant and almost blasphemous laudations of the young heir to the British crown; and His Boyal Highness's effigies figured in the rudely engraved frontispiece, with the sun and moon at his feet, and the stars of the firma ment at his right hand and at his left, like balls for him to play with.

Narses complained that the artist had not sufficiently embodied his ideas, and said that, if properly executed, that little engraving on wood would have ex plained nearly all his mystical meaning. I describe from memory ; I have not the strange book. My copy was lost during the confusions and purloinings of one of the many fires at Pera. He had engaged some despe rado in literature to help him to put it into English. This translator must have been a congenial spirit. Be tween them they had invented a variety of the longest and most astounding and unintelligible of words. Few were of less than ten syllables. The words had no dis coverable roots or types. Narses and his colaborateur must have made them as they did terms and sentences at Laputa. Of the last paragraph of all in the book our little priest was uncommonly proud, boasting that that one thought would give immortality to the name of Narses L. The preposterous, irreverent, sacrilegious Chap. I. AN ARMENIAN PRIEST. 5 idea was simply this — That Eternity was greater than God, and more than God, as it comprehended Man as well as God.

He thought that all the passages about the little Prince of Wales were very fine, and that they ought to have procured from Her Majesty Queen Vic toria a reward very different from that which had been meted to him. It was quite clear that he had written those extravagant, revolting passages in the hope of obtaining much money. He told us that he had sent three copies, beautifully bound, to Buckingham Palace ; and that all he had received in return was a letter from the Lord Chamberlain's Office acknowledging the receipt of the books. Day after day, week after week, he had expected to be summoned to the palace, there to obtain his due reward from Majesty in person. The ' Analogical Conversations ' were not likely to dispose me very favourably to the society and conversation of their author ; but we were in the same ship, and he fixed himself upon me as a fellow-craftsman.

As we were steaming fast away from the shores of Cornwall, and beginning to lose sight of the Land's End, I asked Narcissus to what church he belonged or had originally belonged. He shirked the question, and referred me to his book, telling me that there I should find that in the eyes of philosophy all religions were pretty much alike, and ought to be one and the same. "I will read your book to-morrow," said I, "but you call yourself a priest, and say you have been brought up as a priest. Do you belong to the Eutychean or ancient Armenian church, or are you a Roman Catholic Armenian ? " His answer was now very quick and sharp : " No ! no ! " said he, " not Roman ! not Catoleek ! TURKEY AND ITS DESTINY. Chap. I. Catoleek not good! Bad by self; possible, good when mixed. See my book." "Then," said I, "you are a priest of the ancient Armenian church."

Narses turned his cunning eyes from me as he said, " Good ! your understanding good! Ancient Armenian church very good. No pope! More like as good English Protestants. Priests have wife. Good ting priest have wife. No touch other man wife. Old Armenian church, English church much same — soon be all one. I am clergimanno in old Armenian." The little rogue was bold in his mendacity. He had evidently taken it into his head that Papistry was gene rally unpopular at that moment among Englishmen, and that he should occupy a better place in my good graces by passing himself off as a member of the Eutychean church. Yet was his falsehood sure to be followed by almost immediate detection. When I spoke to him of that ancient Oriental church — a curious subject, on which I had bestowed some attention while residing at Constan tinople in 1828 — I found he was totally ignorant of its history, doctrines, and ritual.

His English was very im perfect, but he had wandered a good, deal in Italy, and spoke Italian very fairly. I therefore conversed with him in that language, when questioning him about the Eutychean Confession. The ignorance he betrayed was not therefore through misconceptions of language. To mask this ignorance he flew off into a lamentation about the intolerance and hatred of literature and philosophy of priests in general, and of those of the ancient church of Armenia in particular. Part of this speech sounded very like a translation from Voltaire or Diderot. The Chap. I. AMALGAMATION OF RELIGIONS. 7 plain truth was, that Narses our priest had no religion at all. To the Eutychean church he certainly did not belong. Soon after our talk on the quarter-deck, I learned in the cabin that on the preceding day he had gone eagerly in search of a Catholic chapel at Plymouth ; that he had genuflected and crossed himself, and done all that Catholics do in a chapel ; that in a school at tached to the chapel he had examined some children in the catechism of the Roman faith, and that he had taken leave of the two respectable priests there, as a co-religionist and brother — as a wandering, much-enduring, afflicted member of the holy Roman Apostolical church in the East.

C , a very intelligent young man, who had served at the Ottoman Embassy in London seven years, who was now acting as our cabin steward — going to Con stantinople in search of an improvement in circumstances, which, poor fellow ! he did not find, although his in tegrity, industry, and talent well merited it — told us that he had always known Narses as a Roman priest, and that he had more than once seen him publicly offi ciate in a Roman Catholic chapel at the west end of town. C said, de plus, that he was the most perfect parasite living. One morning when this priest was wearying me with his ' Analogical Conversations ' and his brazen efforts to extort some praises of his book, I asked him what he was going to do at Constantinople. He replied that he intended to disseminate among all classes the amalgamation doctrines contained in his book, and to open a school, or academy, or College for the education of young Armenians of both churches.

I hinted that the first might be found to be a dangerous process ; that the Turks might lay him by the heels, Chap. I. TURKEY AND ITS DESTINY. that the Greeks would be sure to take up the cudgels against him, and that neither the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Armenians nor the Patriarch of the an cient Armenian church would ever allow him to keep such a school. He replied that the Turks had lost their fanaticism ; that he had many great friends among the Turkish Pashas of the new school, who, as was well known, had no religion at all ; that the Grand Vizier, Reschid Pasha, was his friend, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs likewise, and that they were no more Mussulmans than he was, and cared no more for Ma homet and the Koran than he did. " Besides," said he, " the Vizier is all for amalgamation — an amalgamation of races as well as of religions." [Of this amalgamation scheme I had heard something before, and I was soon assured, at Constantinople, that it was the one idea of Reschid Pasha.]