CHAPTER XIII.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

I had great pleasure in renewing acquaintance with Lord Stratford de Redclyffe, and have to acknowledge a most kind and hospitable reception from his Lordship, and repeated attentions from my old Embassy friends.— Lord Stratford with his talents and his energy is a consummate statesman. He has given solid and repeated proofs of regard for the real welfare of the Turks. Without the smallest flattery of their pride and prejudices, nay with many a rude battle for the Christians, with no loud addresses, or indirect appeals to the Christians themselves expressive of his wish to support them, with no open demonstrations which might give them a pretext to slacken their allegiance to the Porte, Lord Stratford has always given an effective and unostentatious support to those Turkish statesmen who are convinced that the safety of the Empire, and the permanent political supremacy of the Turks, lie in sweeping away all oppression of the rayahs, and in procuring an effective, not nominal, equality before the law.

From this contrast of political system to that of Russia, as well as from a personal antipathy which the late Emperor Nicholas was strongly suspected to entertain to him, he had never been on terms of thorough cordiality and complete confidence with the Russian missions, and, having by nature more of the fortiter in re than of the suaviter in modo, Pera abounded with his enemies, and as his Excellency was a good hater there was no love lost. The fact is, that when he discovered a deception he was implacable, and he was at a post where intrigue and deceit spring up in incredible redundancy. The defect of Lord Stratford is a rather quick temper, but this is allowed by all that know him to have considerably diminished of

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late years. The great preservative against this too quick sense of injury was his long experience, and his perfect knowledge, even to a nicety, of what length, law and custom allowed him to go, with both the Porte and his Diplomatic colleagues.

The result of all this is, that Lord Stratford for many years enjoyed the greatest influence at the Porte. When I say influence, I speak of ordinary times. There are other times when the current of public will sweeps all along with it,-Sultans, Grand Viziers and diplomatists altogether, like a horse whose blood has got up and makes him take the bit in his teeth and bolt right forward in spite of rider and bridle. Altogether few men in the history of Britain have earned a Peerage by more accumulated efforts for the public service than Lord Stratford. He takes to business as irresistibly as a drunkard to dram drinking,-a power within him gravitates to hard work in spite of his other self, which is that of a wellread, accomplished, and social being 1.

I found quite a Congress of diplomatic and military functionaries at Constantinople, among others my worthy friend Sir Hugh Rose, in a position for which he was eminently fitted by his military training, his special knowledge of Turkey, and his conciliatory courtesy of manners, he having been attached to Marshal Saint-Arnaud as British Commissioner, a sort of pont volant between that commander and Lord Raglan. At his house on the Bosphorus I had the pleasure of seeing several of the staff of Marshal Saint-Arnaud and whom I judged to be men of undoubted capacity from their views as to the approaching struggle. On the day when I was to have been

1 Lord Napier was the secretary of Embassy and heads his clan with distinction. There is a Scotch phrase that, "There never was a Napier without talent and a bee in this bonnet." Lord Napier is a long-headed Scotchman, with an acute analytical turn of mind. But the bee must be very deep in the nook of this bonnet, for it is inaudible as well as invisible. Very few young men of his age have a larger capacity for dealing with the realities of political life, or have turned their varied experience to better account.

presented to the gallant Saint-Arnaud he was confined to bed, but his speedy and lamentable end was not then foreseen.

Having already in the "Goth and the Hun" introduced Baron Bruck, the Austrian internuncio, to my readers, it is not necessary to say any more of this clear-headed statesman. Russia was of course without a Representative. The minister of Prussia was my worthy friend, Baron Wildenbruch, who recommended a day at his villa on the Bosphorus as the best medical prescription for an invalid. So I again sought a little strength in the invigorating breezes of this matchless sound, and gliding from one retreat to another, I got strength enough for the voyage. Kurutcheshmeh is a Christian village for the most part, and here is the splendid residence of Duz Oglou, the wealthy Armenian banker of the Sultan; one branch of the family having a house below on the water's edge, and another a park above, on the table land; so that a Christian, and not a Turk, was the chief native proprietor of this part of the Bosphorus. From the nature of things, the Armenian will always have a better position in the Ottoman Empire than the Greek; his territory having been earlier absorbed by the Turk, as well as being geographically more remote from the influence of Europe, he conceives no political existence for his nation apart from the Ottoman Empire, whose very language is become vernacular to him. The Turk does not admit him to political and social equality, but he confidently trusts, and willingly favors him. The talent and European assimilation of the Greeks enable many of them to rise to considerable influence, but the relations are always measured, and latently mistrustful, except in the case of a man of undoubted probity and benevolence, such as the present distinguished Representative of the Ottoman Porte at the Court of London.

The villa Wildenbruch had a large garden behind, and above, terrace on terrace, till the plateau was reached, from which was a splendid view of wooded creek and

bold promontory. Kandili, on the other side, the choicest of all the choice seats of the Bosphorus, recalling the pleasant hours passed with the accomplished Layard many years ago while downwards Olympus and the sea of Marmora were seen in the azure distance. In Baron Wildenbruch I have always found a union of the athletic Cuirassier Colonel, the extensive information of the diplomatist, and the recondite taste of the antiquary and dilettante. I confess the mind reposes pleasantly on this polygon form of mind, (I speak apart from all the debated questions of the day,) and in the late lamented Baroness Wildenbruch I have always found a lady familiar with the literature of Europe, without the pretensions of the bluestocking. Their retreat was a charming one, and the Bosphorus, with the rustle of its green leaves, and the ripple of its blue waters, is certainly more propitious to the man of business who charms his leisure with letters, than the dusty stifling air of Pera.

Further up the Bosphorus I found Mr. Henry Skene, whose time is well employed and who is one of those men to whom the public is indebted for much valuable service in various capacities. A friendly visit to my bed of sickness in Pera had renewed and recalled an acquaintance that began thirty years ago at school, and therefore was mingled with some unpleasant reminiscences of short comings in classical lore! I recollect as if it were yesterday the Wizard of the North with his white locks and tortuous limb hobbling into the new academy of Edinburgh to examine us. Archibald Tait, now Bishop of London, was as usual Dux and I was as usual booby. Our task was the perusal of Virgil or Homer, I forget which, "ad aperturam libri". - Looking at the number above me, I calculated what lines would fall to my share; and quite big with expectation, thought I had penetrated the author's meaning. Tait, Skene, Swinton (brother of the artist-and now Professor of Law in Edinburgh), and the other clever boys had got through with éclat; but the master, archdeacon Williams, kindly thinking to save

me a breakdown, or perhaps to save himself from the discredit of such a pupil, waved me to my seat and turning to Scott, said: "You see how far it can go." "The devil he does," thought I, and Scott gave me a shake of the head, and a droll reproving grin, while I thought myself for a moment a martyr; and I almost suspect that I long owed the master a grudge for it.

At Balta Liman I presented letters to Reschid Pasha and his son Ali Ghalib Pasha, then about to espouse a daughter of the Sultan. This statesman, the most enlightened of all the modern Turks, I found in feeble health, much exhausted with the fatigues of the long twelve months' crisis,-which began with Prince Menschikoff's mission; and taking a little ease from the weight of state business, in a cool lofty apartment, simply furnished, and looking out on the broad part of the Bosphorus, below Therapia where it appears a lake.

man.

With an intelligent eye, a mild expression of countenance and a bushy white beard, his look was venerable; and although no longer in the enjoyment of the bodily strength of youth, his intellect was quite clear and it was at once apparent that he seized his points like a true statesHe spoke French admirably, and he had thus the advantage of always being able to communicate directly with the Foreign Ministers accredited to the Porte. The great merit of Reschid Pasha was that without seeking to change the obviously essential doctrines of Islamism, he had boldly thrown himself in the breach in order to render Turkey a possible member of the European family; and the Turkish Revolution, which was begun by the destruction of the Janissaries, has been carried on by Reschid Pasha's persevering war with the intolerant section of the Ulema, -those moral Janissaries, of the hosts of pride and prejudice; and if his task is incomplete, it is for want of neither the intelligence nor the will, but of that lapse of time which is needed for the consolidation of the stages already reached, the settling of foundations,-the cohesion