Knowing that I was about to leave Constantinople and that I was personally acquainted with Prince Bismarck, His Majesty asked me to take a case of china ornaments—a pair of vases and a painted plaque—from the Imperial porcelain factory as a present from him to the Prince. The Sultan desired me to assure the Prince of his friendly regard and to tell him that he hoped he would always exercise his great influence in favour of Turkey, a country to which Moltke, his illustrious countryman, had in days gone by rendered valuable service. This commission I subsequently carried out on my way home through Germany.

When I left the Sultan and walked out into the open air, into the balmy calm of a starlit autumn evening, not a soul was to be seen. The splashing of water from a fountain which issued from a wall on the left was the only break of silence around, except the sound of our feet as they pressed the loose gravel. Nor did I meet a guard or soldier or any living soul as I passed the porter’s lodge out of the Palace. As far as I could tell there would have been nothing to prevent a determined band of half a dozen armed men from entering the Palace and kidnapping the Sultan there and then, as others had entered the Ottoman Bank, the porters of which, in their picturesque Albanian costume, were armed to the teeth.

I left Constantinople the next day, the 12th of October.

CHAPTER III
THE OUTBREAK OF THE GRÆCO-TURKISH WAR

Beauteous Greece,

Torn from her joys, in vain with languid arm

Half raised her lusty shield.

Dyer

In the winter of 1896–97 I had been acting as Special Correspondent for the New York Herald in Vienna, when, towards the end of February, things began to wear a sinister aspect between Turkey and Greece. Thus I left for Salonica on March 8, in order to await there the development of events. On that day Greece finally declined to accede to the demand of the Great Powers to recall Colonel Vassos from Crete. Thereupon Turkey began to mobilize her forces, and to push them forward towards the southern frontier of Thessaly. It was only subsequently, when Greece had also concentrated nearly all her forces on her northern frontier, and Greek volunteers, armed by the Ethnike Hetairia,[[3]] together with Greek regular troops, repeatedly made incursions into Macedonia, that Turkey declared war. Even then, however, there were hopes of peace left, for Turkey was still inclined to listen to the urgent request of the Great Powers not to assume the offensive.