which, as far as the words go, would have been appropriate, as the Sultan had just been girded with the sword of his predecessors. This sudden ghost of the Second Empire contrasted sharply with the spectators with whom I was standing. They belonged to the Arabian Nights, to infinitely old and far-off things, like the Old Testament. They became solemn when the Sultan passed, and murmured words of blessing. But there was no outward show of enthusiasm and no cheering nor even clapping.
I wondered whether the ghost of the Second Empire, which had seemed to be present, were an omen or not, and whether the ceremony which marked the inauguration, not only of a new reign but also of a new régime—a totally different order of things, a fresh era and epoch—were destined to see its hope fulfilled, or whether under the gaiety and careless lightness it was in reality something terribly solemn and fatal of quite another kind, namely, the funeral procession of the Ottoman Empire.
Towards the end of my stay I was taken by the British Ambassador and Lady Lowther in their yacht to Brusa, where we spent three nights. Brusa in spring is one of the most lovely places in the world. It is nested high on a hill, which you reach after a long drive from the coast, and before you towers Mount Olympus. Brusa is a place of roses and streams and elegant mosques, and baths built of seaweed-coloured marbles. The cool rivulets flow down the hill like the little streams described by Dante:
“Li ruscelletti che de’ verdi colli
Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno,
Facendo i lor canali e freddi e molli,”
The water of the springs and streams at Brusa seemed to have a secret freshness of their own. The roses were in full bloom; nightingales sang all day; and the cool sound of running water was always in one’s ears.
I left Constantinople in the middle of June, convinced of one thing, that the new Turkish régime was not unlike the old one, and that what a man who had lived for years in Constantinople had told me was true. When I had mentioned the Young Turks to him, he said: “Qui sont les jeunes Turcs? Il n’y a que les Turcs.”