very best of odors with this same party that was so obstinately opposed to Reform. It had been his painful duty to reveal to the Sultan the disagreeable impression produced upon the Government and the people of England by the recent Armenian massacres, and knowing possibly more of the dessous des cartes than did certain amateur politicians who meddled with the matter at home, he had spoken with characteristic British frankness. Then, again, Said Pasha, the ex-Grand Vizier, commonly known as kùchuk (or little) Said, to distinguish him from that very jolly old gentleman, "Saïd the Kurd" (at that time Minister of Foreign Affairs), listening, it may be, to some such legends and rumors as those that had gathered about the poor corpse in its brougham and pair, and imagining himself to be in danger of assassination, had recently placed himself under the protection of the British flag, and had taken sanctuary, with his young son Ali, at the Embassy, and the Ambassador had steadfastly refused to deliver him up to the Palace officials that were continually arriving, at all hours of the day and night, with the object of inducing him to do so, and although the Imperial spies surrounded the house in a cordon, and remained there till we came to know all their faces by sight.

Anyhow, I took it into my head, with no more adequate reason than I have explained, my nerves being, possibly, shattered by massacres, earthquakes, and what not, that this might not, perhaps, be an altogether inconvenient moment to swing open the middle of the Galata Bridge, just as worthy Mr. McKay was about to dash over it in his accustomed fashion, and then to throw the blame upon the toll-keeper, and to sew him up in a weighted sack, and cast him into the Marmora, as was said to have been done upon the last occasion when the same sort of "acci

dent" had occurred. These disturbing thoughts, which increased as the days went by, caused me to look forward with much apprehension to the night upon which the Ambassadors of the Great Powers, together with the Ministers and diplomatic agents representing the lesser ones, were engaged to dine with our Persian colleague over the water.

The poor old Shah's Jubilee party never came off, as most of the readers of this Review will be aware. Before we had time to make ready to drive over the Galata Bridge, there came an official communication from the Persian Embassy: "My August Sovereign is deceased," the message ran, for it is not considered in good taste to make use of the verb "to assassinate" at Constantinople in any of its tenses. The Shah himself, I have since learnt upon good authority, had also received his warning. As he quitted the Palace at Teheran, upon the day that was destined to be his last, he sneezed violently three times-a certain sign, according to Eastern notions, of impending misfortune. The courtiers who accompanied his Majesty implored him to treat it accordingly and to return. But, whatever may have been his failings, he was no coward, and, laughing at this friendly advice, he went fearlessly on to his doom.

I had beheld the late Shah but twice, and only once had had the honor of speaking with him. This was upon the occasion of a garden party given during his last visit to London by Prince Malcom Khan (at that time Persian Minister) at his house in Holland Park. When I was presented, his Majesty graciously held towards me a short. thick, wax-colored hand, ornamented with an enormous ring, and having what is termed "a murderer's thumb" (out of which I feel sure that our poor persecuted palmists of to-day could have made something highly interest

ing), and asked me whether I had ever read the poems of Hafiz. I had no idea, however, that this brief and conventional handshake would have sufficed to establish a sympathetic affinity, or that the chord thus lightly touched would have gone on reverberating through the succeeding years with the result I have described. Somebody has since suggested that perhaps the ring, given to me by the abnormal Ambassador, might once have belonged to his royal master, and that thus some kind of mysterious rapport might have been established, or else that it might have been endowed with occult properties, said to be peculiar to some Persian turquoises, and that this may have accounted for my sensations. Be this how it may, it would seem that premonitions, like babies, are occasionally changed at nurse, and that one can no more have implicit confidence in them than one can in dreams. Perhaps some member of the Society for Psychical Research may be able to throw light upon this matter.

There was one person (or personage, rather), who, during the whole time of our residence in Constantinople, never once went over the Galata Bridge either on foot or on horseback, or even in a bomb-proof carriage, unless he did so when shod with slippers that rendered him invisible, like the prince in the fairy-tale, and that was the mighty Padishah himself; the august Sovereign who holds life and death even in the hollow of his hand.

Once, in every year, upon the occasion of the Festival of the Hirka-iSharif, or "mantle of the Prophet" (15th Ramazân), when the sacred mantle and other holy relics which are preserved in the Serai are exposed to view, it is incumbent upon the Sultan to visit Stamboul, and it is generally given out in the Levant Herald, and elsewhere, that his Majesty will proceed by way of the Galata Bridge. When the day

appointed for the ceremony arrives, the route is lined with eager spectators. Regiments, in gala uniforms, are drawn up with their bands, all ready to strike up the Turkish National Anthem. School children, of all the different religious denominations and nationalities that flourish at Constantinople— Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, even the little pork-fed orphans of the worthy Sisters of St. Jacob, await the procession upon either side of the road, bearing baskets, containing flowers, wherewith to bestrew the path of his Imperial Majesty, and with the hymns all learnt by heart which they have been instructed to sing upon his approach. The very road itself, for the first and only occasion in the year, has been rolled and mended, and even the rattling and jolting girders of the Galata Bridge have been plugged and bolstered up with hay and wadding, cunningly concealed with sand. But, for all this, the Commander of the Faithful fails to make his appearance, and the little black broughams of the ladies of the Yildez harem-from which one can just catch a glimpse of sparkling eyes and snowy yashmaks—pass over the floral offerings that were intended for their Imperial master.

At the very last moment the Sultan has decided to go by a different route, either walking down through his garden at Yildez to his private pier and embarking there, or else at the Palace of Dolmabaghcheh, and then slipping quietly across the Golden Horn in his steam-launch. The same impromptu programme is followed upon the homeward way. One thing only is certain, that his Imperial Majesty will never proceed by the road that has been previously designated to his loyal subjects. His loyal subjects do not like to to be cheated out of their pageants, and so there are those amongst them who pretend to see in this unwillingness to face the public the evidences of personal

timidity. It is whispered that the Imperial plans are changed thus at the eleventh hour from fear of the assas sin's bomb, and that the Palace spies endeavor to encourage these apprehensions for their own private ends.

A certain absence of robustness in the Sultan's appearance may have encouraged the supposition that he possesses a nervous and sensitive temperament, but some remarks which his Majesty addressed to me one evening at Yildez, upon the occasion of our attendance at Iftar, led me to believe that he is not apprehensive in the ordinary sense of the word.

.

Iftar is the name of a meal which is partaken of among Mohammedans at sunset during Ramazan, and which represents the first breaking of the daily fast, which has lasted since sunrise. It commences, usually, in a Turkish household, with olives, sardines, salad (what we should term hors-d'œuvre), and sweetmeats, served in small silver dishes or saucers, and later on develops into a meal of a more substantial kind. No Christian can, properly speaking, be said to partake of Iftar at all, as the term is suggestive of a pro. vious fast in which he has had no part. To all who are not Mohammedans, Iftar is simply a dinner or supper party, without any religious signifi

cance.

When it takes place at the Palace, it is accompanied by none of the gorgeous accessories which are indispensable upon more formal occasions. The Court officials do not wear gala uniforms, the full force of the electric light is not turned on, and the guests are expected to array themselves neatly and respectably, but not in their very best.

Upon their arrival at Yildez, punctually at sunset, they are received and welcomed by sundry high Imperial functionaries, who, for the time being, have laid aside the starry constellations that are wont to glitter upon their

manly breasts. After waiting about for some time, and passing from one small apartment to another (with the exception of the State dining-room, the apartments at Yildez Kiosk are all of modest dimensions), they are eventually conducted to the room in which Iftar is about to be served.

When foreigners are invited to Iftar the Sultan does not preside at the meal in the character of host, his place being taken by one of the high Court officials, but yet are the guests prone to sit upon the very edges of their chairs, to crumble their bread, and to converse in subdued voices, as they glance, with mingled feelings of awe and respect, in the direction of a large black and gold screen, which only partly conceals an open door leading to an inner apartment. For within this: apartment-or so it is whispered and suspected, though nobody can be quite sure as to what does or does not happen at Yildez-his Imperial Majesty the Sultan, "holding life and death even in the hollow of his hand," is partaking of his own Iftar (the real Iftar, following upon a conscientious fast), after his own fashion and in solitary grandeur. No wonder therefore that the guests in the adjoining room are wont to sit upon the very edges of their chairs, to crumble their bread, and to converse in subdued voices as they glance towards the open door that is only partly concealed by the large black and gold screen!

After Iftar, upon the last occasion upon which we were invited to partake of it at the Palace, the high Court official again conducted us through narrow tortuous ways until we suddenly found ourselves opposite the embrasure of a small door, in which the Sultan was standing. Having made our obeisance, his Imperial Majesty offered me his arm, and proceeded, with a much longer stride and firmer step than might have been expected, considering

his somewhat chétif and fragile appearance, to a small wooden circus, connected with the Palace, where an entertainment, consisting of dancing dogs and performing ponies, had been provided for our amusement. This was just after the unpleasant visitation known as "the Great Earthquake," when part of the old bazaar and several other buildings were levelled with the ground, and when all sorts of stories were current, descriptive of the blind terror with which the event was supposed to have inspired the Sultan.

But, upon this night of Iftar, no traces of any such terror were visible. His Imperial Majesty appeared to be in the most genial and affable of moods, conversing agreeably, and laughing heartily at the antics of the performing dogs and ponies, which, he informed me, had been trained under his own personal supervision. By-andby a clock in the adjacent corridor struck the hour, to the accompaniment of musical chimes. The Sultan, who had placed me upon his right hand, took out his watch, shook it, held it to his ear, and then, after calling my attention to it with an arch smile, said something, in a low voice, to the Master of the Ceremonies (poor Munir Pasha, now dead and gone, and, even then, suffering terribly from asthma), who was acting as dragoman. (It is more than suspected that the Sultan is acquainted with other languages besides his own, but it is his custom to converse with his guests in Turkish, making use of an interpreter when necessary, who translates the Imperial utterances into French. At first, this method reminds one irresistibly of the famous conversation, through an interpreter, described in Kinglake's Eothen, but, by-and-by, one becomes quite used to it-compliments and all-and the seeming difficulties entirely disappear. When the subject matter is of importance, it is usual for each Am

bassador, or Minister, to be accompanied by his own dragoman, which is supposed to guarantee the absolute correctness of the translation.)

"His Imperial Majesty desires me to inform your Excellency," said Munir Pasha, pressing the lower portion of his chest with both hands in token of inexpressible respect, "that this is the precise moment at which a renowned prophet has predicted the total destruction of the city of Constantinople by an earthquake, together with every one of its inhabitants, including the August Sovereign himself."

While this speech was being delivered, the Sultan followed it with eyes that positively twinkled. Nothing could have been less suggestive of the abject terror to which, we had heard it affirmed, he was still a prey. As in duty bound, I replied somewhat as follows:

"Your Excellency will greatly oblige me by making known to his Imperial Majesty how sincerely touched I am at the proof he has deigned to give me of his confidence by informing me of this interesting circumstance, and pray have the goodness to add that, in my humble opinion, the natural alarm which such convulsions of Nature are wont to produce is largely due to the fact that they are of such uncertain occurrence, no man having as yet been able to predict correctly when they are likely to take place." This answer (rather a typical one of its kind, I flatter myself) was duly translated to the "August Sovereign," who again smiled and muttered something in a low voice.

"His Imperial Majesty desires me to say," wheezed poor Munir Pasha, "that your Excellency is, as ever, entirely in the right. No man is able to predict, to a certainty, when an earthquake is likely to occur, as the time appointed for all such visitations. is absolutely in the hands of God."

I have since been reminded, by one who is not an unqualified admirer of either his Imperial Majesty or of all his works, and who has, moreover, no very high opinion of his personal courage, that when these pious sentiments were uttered, we were seated in a temporary building, constructed chiefly of laths and plaster, supplemented by sailcloth, which, even if the soothsayer's prognostications had come to pass, might have descended upon our heads like a house of cards, without doing us any very serious injury; and it was suggested to me that this place might possibly have been selected at that particular moment as a precauThe Nineteenth Century and After.

tionary measure (to which, even assuming that this insinuation had any truth in it, I could scarcely have taken exception, seeing that I had been thus graciously accommodated with a seat in what may have been meant for an ark of safety). As a matter of fact, however, the Sultan appeared to be quite in a mood to snap his fingers at the earthquake, and the man who can snap his fingers at an earthquake, in spite of its divine origin, must be possessed of a certain amount of courage, even if, for private reasons of his own, he may not often care to ride or drive over the Galata Bridge.

Mary Montgomerie Currie.

"Bon voyage! and may Vienna be propitious to you!" said Lieutenant Bergl to Lieutenant Radler through the railway-carriage window.

"My compliments to the Stefansthurm!" cried another.

"And to the opera-house!"

"And to every stone in the capital!" laughed the traveller as he pulled up the window. "All right. I'll give the messages faithfully."

The train was moving already as he sank back into his corner, beaming all over his young, sunburnt face. And no wonder either, considering the circumstances. Exile in a distant east Galician station, in which such things as theatres and ball-rooms were equally unheard of, had been his lot for two years past-an uninterrupted exile, too, since empty pockets render even furloughs futile, and Lieutenant Radler's pockets were chronically empty.

It was to a certain chestnut mare that he owed his present prospects. The German horse-dealer who had turned up last week at Hamienow ap

peared to the impecunious hussar to have dropped straight from heaven, hooked nose and all. Now, as he sat in the Vienna express, with six hundred florins in crisp bank-notes, as well as his two months' leave of absence, in his pocket, he did not know whom to bless more fervently-Suleika or Herr Kornberger.

What a time he was going to have of it! the only difficulty being to decide whether the ballet or the Orpheum, the night cafés or the public balls, were to enjoy the most of his patronage; and with never a single stupid recruit or a solitary ill-strapped saddle to try his temper.

In all the long train there was probably no lighter heart than the one with which Lieutenant Radler at length fell asleep to dream of electrically lighted rooms and rose-colored skirts.

When he awoke the gray morning light peered in at the carriage window, together with the snow-flakes that beat against it; for although March was waning, the Polish winter still reigned