Speaking of royal appreciation, I cannot leave unmentioned the reception I had from the Sultan of Turkey, a curious contrast indeed to my former life in Constantinople.
My personal acquaintance with Sultan Abdul Hamid dates from the time that I lived in the house of Rifaat Pasha, who was related to Reshid Pasha. The son of the latter, Ghalib Pasha, who had married a daughter of Abdul Medjid, wanted his wife to take French lessons, and I was selected to teach her because it was understood that, being familiar with Turkish customs, I should not infringe upon the strict rules of the harem. Three times a week I had to present myself at the Pasha's palace, situated on the Bay of Bebek, and each time I was conducted by a eunuch into the Mabein, i.e., a room between the harem and the selamlik, where I sat down before a curtain behind which my pupil the princess had placed herself. I never set eyes upon the princess. The method of instruction I had chosen was the so-called Ahn-system, consisting of learning by heart small sentences, gradually introducing various words and forms. I called through the curtain, "Père—baba; mère—ana; le père est bon—baba eji dir; la mère est bonne—ana eji dir," etc., and the princess on the other side repeated after me, and always took trouble to imitate my pronunciation most carefully. Fatma Sultan, as the princess was called, had a soft, melodious voice, from which I concluded that she had a sweet character, and she was also considerate and kind-hearted, for after the lesson had been going on for some time she told the eunuch by my side, or more correctly, stationed in the room to keep watch over me, to bring me some refreshments, and afterwards she inquired after my condition and private circumstances. It was during these lessons in the Mabein that amongst the visitors who entered from time to time I was particularly struck by a slender, pale-looking boy; he often sat down beside me, fixed his eyes upon me, and seemed interested in my discourse. I asked what his name was, and learned that it was Prince Hamid Effendi, a brother of my pupil, and that he distinguished himself among his brothers and sisters by a particularly lively spirit. In course of time this little episode, like many others, faded from my memory.
After my return from Central Asia, when I found other spheres of work, I kept aloof from Turkey, and I only remained in touch with the Ottoman people in so far as my philological and ethnographical studies had reference to the linguistic and ethnical part of this most Westerly branch of the great Turkish family. In my political writings, chiefly taken up with the affairs of inner Asia, the unfortunate fate of the Porte has always continued to touch me very deeply. The land of my youthful dreams, to which I am for ever indebted for its noble hospitality, and where I have felt as much at home as in my own country, could never be indifferent to me. Its troubles and misfortunes were mine, and whenever opportunity offered I have broken a lance for Turkey; without keeping up personal relations with the Porte, I have always considered it a sacred duty with my pen to stand up for the interests of this often unjustly calumniated nation. My Turkophile sympathies could, of course, not remain unknown on the banks of the Bosphorus, and when, after the opening of railway communication with Turkey, I went to Stambul, I received from the Turks and their ruler a quiet, unostentatious, but all the warmer and heartier reception. Our mutual relationship only gradually manifested itself. On my first journey I remained almost unnoticed, for after a space of thirty years only a few of my old acquaintances were left, and the ci-devant Reshid Effendi, under which name I was known at the Porte, was only remembered by a few. My second visit was already more of a success, and my reappearance in public revived the old memory, for my fluency of speech had lent "the foreigner" a new attraction in Turkish society. Wherever I appeared in public I was looked at somewhat doubtfully, for many who had not known me before imagined from my real Turkish Effendi conversation that I was a Turkish renegade. Thanks to my old connections, the problem was soon solved. The Turkish newspapers gave long columns about my humble person, and extolled the services which, in spite of many years' absence, I had rendered to the country.
Sultan Abdul Hamid, a watchful and enlightened ruler, full of national pride, although perhaps a little too anxious and severely absolute, was certainly not the one to lag behind his people in acknowledging merit; and as an unpleasant incident prevented him from showing me his sympathies on my first visit, I was invited a few months later to pay another visit to the Turkish capital as his special guest. To make up for former neglect I received an almost regal reception. The slope up to Pera which in 1857 I had climbed a destitute young adventurer, I now drove up in a royal equipage accompanied by the court officials who had received me at the station; and when I had been installed in the apartments prepared for me by the Sultan's command, and was soon after welcomed by the Grandmaster of Ceremonies on behalf of the sovereign, that old fairy-tale-feeling came over me again. My first quarters at Püspöki's, swarming with rats; my rôle of house-dog in the isolated dwelling of Major A., my début as singer and reciter in the coffee-houses, and many other reminiscences from the struggling beginning of my career in the East, flitted before my eyes in a cloudy vision of the past.
On the morning after my arrival I could have stood for hours gazing out of the window on the Bosphorus, recalling a hundred different episodes enacted on this spot, but I was wakened out of these sweet dreams by an adjutant of the Sultan who called to conduct me to an audience at the Yildiz Palace. As I passed through the great entrance hall of the Chit-Kiosk, where the Sultan was wont to receive in the morning, marshals, generals, and high court officials rose from their seats to greet me, and on many faces I detected an expression of astonishment, why, how, and for what their imperial master was doing so much honour to this insignificant, limping European, who was not even an ambassador. When I appeared before the Sultan he came a few steps towards me, shook hands, and made me sit down in an easy chair by his side. At the first words I uttered—of course I made my speech as elegant as I could—surprise was depicted on the face of the Ruler of all True Believers, and when I told him that I remembered him as a twelve-year-old boy in the palace of his sister, Fatma Sultan, the wife of Ali Ghalib Pasha, attending the French lesson which I was giving the princess, the ice was broken at once, and the otherwise timid and suspicious monarch treated me as an old acquaintance. At a sign the chamberlain on duty left the hall, and I remained quite alone with Sultan Abdul Hamid—a distinction thus far not vouchsafed to many Europeans, and not likely to be, as the Sultan is not acquainted with European languages, and therefore, according to the rules of court etiquette, cannot hold a face-to-face interview with foreigners. The conversation turned for the greater part upon persons and events of thirty years past, upon his father, Sultan Abdul Medjid, to whom I had once been presented, Reshid Pasha, Lord Stratford Canning, whom the Sultan remembered distinctly, and many other persons, questions, and details of that time. As the conversation progressed the splendour and the nimbus of majesty disappeared before my eyes. I saw merely a Turkish Pasha or Effendi such as I had known many in high Stambul society, only with this difference, that Sultan Abdul Hamid, by his many endowments, a wonderful memory, and a remarkable knowledge of European affairs, far surpasses many of his highly gifted subjects. Of course I became gradually freer in my conversation, and when the Sultan offered me a cigarette and with his own hand struck a match for me to light it, I was quite overcome by the affability of the absolute Ruler, Padishah, and Representative of Mohammed on earth, or "Shadow of God," as he is also called.
The first audience lasted over half an hour, and when, after being escorted to the door by the Sultan, I again passed through the entrance hall crowded with high dignitaries, the surprise of these men was even greater than before, and for days together the topic of conversation in the circles of the Porte at Stambul, and in the diplomatic circles of Pera, was the extraordinary familiarity existing between the generally timid and reserved Sultan and my humble self. As this intimacy has also been commented upon and explained in various ways in Europe, I will shortly state what was the real motive of the Sultan's attentions to me, and why I have been so anxious to retain his favour.
First of all I must point out that I was the first European known to the Sultan who was equally at home in the East as in the West, familiar with the languages, customs, and political affairs of both parts of the world, and who, in his presence, was not stiff like the Europeans, but pliant, like the Asiatics of the purest water. I always appeared before him with my fez on; I greeted him as an Oriental greets his sovereign; I used the usual bombastic forms of speech in addressing him; I sat, stood, went about, as it becomes an Oriental—in a word I submitted to all the conventionalities which the Westerner never observes in the presence of the Sultan. Moreover, he was impressed by all my experiences, and in his desire for knowledge he was pleased to be instructed on many points. All these things put together were in themselves enough to attract his attention towards me. The second reason for the friendship and amiability shown me by Sultan Abdul Hamid was my Hungarian nationality, and the Turcophile character of my public activity, of which, however, he did not hear more fully till later. The friendly feelings exhibited by Hungary during the late Russo-Turkish war had touched the Sultan deeply, and his sympathies for the Christian sister-nation of the Magyars were undoubtedly warm and true. Now as to the possible merits of my writings, the Sultan, like the Turks in general, was well aware of my Turcophile journalistic activity, but none of them had the slightest conception of my philological and ethnological studies in connection with Turkey. They had never even heard of them, and when I handed the Sultan a copy of my monograph on the Uiguric linguistic monuments, he said, somewhat perplexed, "We have never heard of the existence of such ancient Turkish philological monuments, and it is really very interesting that our ancestors even before the adoption of Islam were many of them able to write, as would appear from these curious characters." With regard to the skill and tact of Sultan Abdul Hamid I will just mention in connection with the subject of the old Turkish language, that he, recognising at once my keen interest in everything of an old Turkish nature, drew my attention to some pictures in his reception-room, the one of Söyjüt in Asia Minor (the cradle of the Ottoman dynasty), and the other of the Mausoleum of Osman; and he told me with some pride that these pictures were the work of a Turkish artist. He also told me that in the Imperial household, which lives in strict seclusion from the other Osmanli, a considerable number of Turkish words and expressions are used quite unknown to the other Osmanli more accessible to outside influences. The Sultan quoted some specimens, and, as I recognised in them Azerbaidjan, i.e., Turkoman linguistic remains, the Sultan smiled, quite pleased, thinking that with these monuments he could prove the unadulterated Turkish national character of the Osmanli dynasty. This vanity surprised me greatly, as a while ago the Turks were rather ashamed of their Turkish antecedents, and now their monarch actually boasted of them!
The third, and perhaps the most valid, reason for the Sultan's attentions to me lay in the international character of my pen, and more especially in the notice which England had taken of my writings. Sultan Abdul Hamid, a skilful diplomatist and discerner of men, one of the most cunning Orientals I have ever known, attached great importance to the manner in which he was thought and talked of in Europe. Public opinion in the West, scorned by our would-be important highest circles of society—although they cannot hide their chagrin in case of unfavourable criticism—has always seemed of very great moment to the Sultan; and in his endeavours to incline public opinion in his favour this clever Oriental has given the best proof that he has a keener insight into the political and social conditions than many of his Christian fellow-sovereigns. Fully conscious that his ultimate fate depends on Europe, he has always endeavoured to make himself beloved, not at one single court, but by the various people of Europe, and is anxious to avoid all cause of blame and severe criticism. England's opinion he seemed to think a great deal of; for although he simulated indifference and even assumed an air of hostility, in his innermost mind he was firmly convinced that England from motives of self-interest would be compelled to uphold the Ottoman State, and at the critical moment would come to the rescue and lend a helping hand. To hide this last anchor of hope he has often coquetted with France, even with Russia, in order to annoy the English and to make them jealous; but how very different his real inmost feelings and expectations were I have often gathered from his conversations. Sultan Abdul Hamid has always been of a peculiarly nervous, excitable nature; against his will he often flew into a passion, trembled in every limb, and his voice refused speech. On one occasion he told me how he had been brought up with the warmest sympathies for England, how his father had spoken of England as Turkey's best friend, and how now in his reign, through the politics of Gladstone and the occupation of Egypt, he had had to undergo the most painful experiences. Then every appearance of dissimulation vanished, and I could look right down into the heart of this extraordinary man.
It was during a conversation about the advisability of an English alliance in the interests of the Ottoman State, that the Sultan in the fire of his conversation told me the following: "I was six or seven years old when my blessed father commanded my presence, as he was going to send me to one of my aunts. I found him in one of his apartments, sitting on a sofa in intimate conversation with an elderly Christian gentleman. When my father noticed me, he called to me to come nearer and kiss the hand of the stranger seated by his side. At this behest I burst out in tears, for the idea of kissing the hand of a Giaour was to me in my inexperience absolutely revolting. My father, generally so sweet-tempered, became angry and said: 'Do you know who this gentleman is? It is the English Ambassador, the best friend of my house and my country, and the English, although not belonging to our faith, are our most faithful allies.' Upon this I reverently kissed the old gentleman's hand. It was the Böyük Eltchi, Lord Stratford Canning. My father's words were deeply engraved upon my mind, and so I grew up with the idea that the English are our best friends. How bitterly I was disillusioned when I came to the throne! England left me in the lurch, for the demonstration of the fleet in the Sea of Marmora, as was said in Constantinople, was instigated more by the interests of England than of Turkey, which is not right. Her ambassadors—i.e., Elliot and Layard—have betrayed me, and when I was in want of money and asked for a small loan of £150,000, I received a negative reply. So that is what you in the West call friendship, and thus the beautiful dreams of my youth have come to naught," cried the Sultan with a deep sigh. My explanation that in England, without the consent of Parliament, no large sums of money can be lent or given away did not in the least enlighten the Sultan. Oriental sovereigns do not believe it even now, for to them constitution and Parliament are mere names, invented to mislead the public. To born Asiatics, moreover, the liberal methods of Governments of the West are altogether unreasonable, and Feth Ali Shah said to the English Ambassador, Malcolm, these well-known words: "And you call your sovereign a mighty ruler, who allows himself to be dictated to by six hundred of his subjects (the members of Parliament), whose orders he is bound to follow? A crown like that I would refuse," said this king of all Iran kings; and my friend Max Nordau is much of the same opinion, for in his Conventional Lies he suggests that all genuine constitutional sovereigns of Europe should be sent to the lunatic asylum, because they imagine themselves to be rulers and are ruled over by others.
Like Feth Ali Shah, and even more than he, Sultan Abdul Hamid hated all liberal forms of government. He never made a secret of this opinion, and during the many years of our acquaintance the Sultan repeatedly expressed his views on this matter frankly and without palliation. In one way, as already mentioned, it was my thorough Turkishness in language and behaviour—he always addressed me as Reshid Effendi and also treated me as such—which led him to make these confidences and to overcome his innate timidity and suspicion. Then, again, my relations with the successor to the English throne carried weight with him, and the invitation I had received from Queen Victoria induced him to see in me something more than an ordinary scholar and traveller; in fact, he looked upon me as a confidant of the English court and Government—two ideas which to him were inseparable—to whom he might freely and safely open his heart.