The Sultan was sitting at one end of it, on a throne formed like a four-posted bed, and superbly decorated. The seat, of black velvet, was covered with strings of fine pearls, and from the top were suspended many ostrich eggs, gilt and scattered with diamonds. The dress of the Sultan was also magnificent. His turban was surmounted by a splendid diamond aigrette and feather; his pelisse was of the finest silk, lined with the most valuable sable fur, and his girdle was one mass of diamonds. I thought him the handsomest Turk I had seen: his features were regular, his eyes piercing, and his countenance bore the character of fierce determination, which has since marked his conduct; it's deadly paleness was strongly contrasted with the deep blackness of his ample beard, produced probably by artificial dye; his age was then twenty-eight. The ambassador, standing close before him, recited his speech in French, which the dragoman of the Porte translated, and the reply was spoken by the kaimakam, and rendered in French to the ambassador, by the same interpreter. All this time, the Sultan scarcely moved, and only turned his head twice, but his eyes were very busy. All his attendants, not excepting the kaimakam, stood immoveable, with their hands before them, and their eyes fixed on the ground.

At the termination of the ceremony, which lasted about ten minutes, we all retired, the Capigi Bashees pushing us with great vehemence, lest we should turn our backs to the Sultan. We walked out of the two

inner gates, and there mounted our horses, but waited, according to custom, outside for the kaimakam, who kept us near half an hour, for no other object than to dazzle us with the pomp of his equipage and retinue. We followed him as far as the Porte, where he left us without any ceremony of taking leave; and we rode on to the water-side, where we found our boats, landed at Topehana, and proceeded on horseback, groaning under our fur pelisses, to the palace, which we reached at noon, each of us heartily glad to have finished his part in a scene, of which the curiosity ill compensated the fatigue, and of which the meanest among us could not but feel the degradation*.

*It is the more extraordinary that the governments of Europe should permit their representatives to submit to this degrading ceremony, as the observance of it does not appear to be at all necessary to forward the conduct of their affairs. Eton relates, that Mons. de Ferioles, French Ambassador at Constantinople in 1700, after being refused an audience of the Sultan, because he would not take off his sword, "remained a dozen years longer at Constantinople, and transacted the business of his office with credit to himself and advantage to his country."Survey of the Turkish Empire. And I myself witnessed, that M. d'Italinsky, the Russian Minister, who arrived at Constantinople in July, 1812, had not his audience of the Sultan till the end of March, 1814, shortly before his departure from Turkey, having, during the interval, conducted uninterruptedly the important affairs of his mission.

61

CHAPTER IV.

Both

OUR arrival was attended with curious circumstances of political coincidence. The British embassy was sent to secure and hasten the signature of peace, between the Porte and Russia. Buonaparte had sent another embassy for the purpose of preventing its conclusion; and General Andreossi, the French ambassador, reached Constantinople, by an over-land journey through Dalmatia, two days after us. embassies were too late for the object of their mission; the peace had been signed a few days before our arrival, and it was ratified on the 13th July following. It secured the most important advantages to the good cause, by enabling Russia to devote to the struggle against France 50,000 effective men, who had been posted on the Danube. The success of the negotiation for this important object, reflects the greatest honour on the British minister, by whom it was conducted, Mr. Stratford Canning. No one who is acquainted with the system of diplomacy which prevails at Constantinople, and contemplates the efforts incessantly exerted by France to prevent this result, the partiality of the Porte for the French interests, stimulated by their dread of Buonaparte's power, the insulated situation of Mr. Canning, which

cut him off from all assistance, and above all, the miserable establishment of interpreters with which the mission is provided*, the only engines he had to

On this subject I would willingly be silent if I could; but the evil is so crying, that it is even grown into a proverb among the Europeans at Constantinople, who say, that the three great evils of that capital, are plague, fires, and dragomans. It is indeed an absurdity to suppose, that the affairs of a great nation can be conducted with dignity or effect by a set of Levantines, who are equally ignorant of its politics, and strangers to its spirit; yet into the hands of these men every negotiation is necessarily and entirely thrown, for a minister has no other means of communicating with the members of the Turkish government, whose intolerant ideas of religion, forbids them to speak any other language than their own. I do not dwell on the general character of dishonesty, attributed to the dragomans; on this subject, I believe, unjust reproaches have been heaped on our interpreters, whose integrity** is in some measure attested by their poverty. But even if they were patterns of integrity, honesty is not the only requisite for the interpreter of an embassy. The effect of an ambassador's remonstrances must frequently depend on the tone in which they are pronounced, and it is impossible to deny, that the courage of the Christian natives of the Levant

** This honesty is, however, by no means general. In my tours I met with two merchants under foreign protection, one an Italian, the other a Levantine, who told me that they had applied to their missions at Constantinople, for assistance to recover some property illegally withheld from them by Turks, when the dragomans offered to do every thing to obtain for them restitution, on condition they should have half the property restored. They accepted the condition rather than lose the whole, and succeeded in their application. There is too much reason to believe that this system is general among the dragomans; however difficult proof may be rendered by the caution with which it is conducted, and the absence of written documents.

work with, can conceive by what means he succeeded in persuading Turkey to consent to a peace with

menace.

is not equal to speak to a Turk in a tone of firmness or of Born in a country where the Turks exercise unlimited command, accustomed from their infancy to hear tales of their power and their cruelty, they cannot hear them speak in a tone of anger without trembling. Their very attitude in their presence is a posture of humiliation. Every dragoman, every christian inhabitant of the Levant who wears the long dress, sits before a powerful Turk in a kneeling posture, leaning backward and resting on his feet. It is thus that he is to utter perhaps a menace of national resentment; and instances have been seen of the chief dragoman of an embassy, kissing the robe of a Turkish minister, a mark of submission which is not exceeded by the most abject of his petitioners. Add to this their connexions among each other. It is common to see relations by blood or marriage, even brothers, acting as the dragomans of two hostile powers. Is it possible, under such circumstances, that they can enter into the feelings of the nation they represent, or maintain the secrecy and reserve indispensable in public business? France, Russia, and Austria, are so convinced of the evils entailed by this system, that without entirely ceasing to employ natives of the country, whose natural talents for intrigue may be sometimes useful, they have an establishment of national interpreters. If it be asked, why does not Great Britain adopt the same remedy, the answer is easy: The dragomans are paid by the Levant company, whose finances are inadequate to give such

**

** Previous to 1812, the annual salary of the chief Dragoman was 3,000 piastres, about £150. It was then increased to 15,000 piastres. When firmans and barats of protection were sold to the subjects of the Porte by foreign embassies, the presents of these protégés to the dragomans was a considerable source of emolument; but this ceased with the abolition of this abuse by Mr. Liston in 1794.