Barely has a sovereign distinguished a private individual, without wealth or rank, and a foreigner into the bargain, with his intimacy to such a degree as the Sultan did in the case of Professor Arminius Vambéry, whom he used to address by the familiar, almost endearing, term of “Baba.” This friendship had its source in his appreciation of the Professor’s distinction as an Oriental scholar and his well-known sympathies with Turkey, her people, and her religion. Here, again, the estrangement was, I believe, due to the Professor himself, who became dissatisfied with His Majesty’s political tendencies, which he could not see his way to share or champion.[[19]]
[19]. See Appendix, pp. [287]–[288].
The Sultan possessed a rare delicacy of feeling, which he now and then showed in small things, doubly remarkable in a man in his exalted position and, moreover, always overburdened with work. Thus when Sirry Bey, one of the Sultan’s secretaries, accompanied us as chief of our expedition through Anatolia, and was taken seriously ill between Erzeroum and Bitlis, the Sultan was apprised of the fact. He was most anxious to keep the news away from Sirry Bey’s wife, and made a point of sending to his konak from time to time with cheering news and a present of money, for fear the Bey’s salary might not have been paid to his family in his absence through the ordinary channels. In conferring the Order of the Chefakat on a lady, he caused the following words to be inscribed in the brevet: “Sa Majesté Impériale accorde cette décoration à Madame X pour faire plaisir à son mari.” It seemed to afford him gratification to give pleasure to others.
Comparatively few people are aware of the refined nature of one so much maligned; and yet testimony to this effect rests on irrefragable evidence. I need only mention the Sultan’s intense love of music, his munificent remuneration of artistes who had been asked to perform at the Palace, and the deep interest he took in Nature, whether animals, birds, or flowers. One day the Turkish Ambassador in London asked me to assist him to procure a book dealing with Australian birds. The Sultan had heard that such a work existed and would like to have a copy. All this may well lead us to inquire how such facts are to be reconciled with the popular conception of his treachery, his blood-guiltiness? The answer is self-evident.
The Sultan was anxiously bent on keeping in touch with the happenings in the outside world. Thus, in addition to reading translations of foreign newspaper articles, he looked through several English illustrated weeklies regularly, the letterpress of which was translated into Turkish expressly for him by his secretaries. One of the first questions he would ask a visitor, after the usual inquiry regarding his welfare, would be concerning some important current event: what might be the outcome of the Russo-Japanese war, the Russian revolution (1905–6), etc. On one occasion he expressed his belief to me that both the Mohammedans and the Jews would outlast the Christian world.
I have often seen it stated in print that the Sultan wore an habitual look of melancholy—in other words, that his main characteristics were sadness and nervousness. Neither my own experience, nor the testimony of others best in a position to form a reliable opinion, bears this out, although the tragic circumstances under which, very much against his will, he came to the throne may well have left their impress on his mind. The Sultan was of an exceedingly sensitive nature. He was a man in whom the domestic affections were very strong; thus a blow, such as the loss of a daughter, might well have had a cruel effect on him, as only those can understand who have loved and lost children of their own. But I do not believe that the Sultan’s temperament was one of habitual melancholy. On the contrary, I know that His Majesty could enjoy a joke as heartily as ever did Martin Luther; though the nature of some of the doughty Reformer’s sallies would hardly have suited the refined taste of the Khalif of the Mohammedans.
The Sultan on one occasion was inquiring of one of his confidants about a stranger whose personality interested him. His Majesty’s informant told him that the individual in question was never seen in coffee-houses or theatres, much less in places of doubtful repute or in suspicious company; that he was most moderate, even abstemious, in his habits; that he sat at home working most of his time, and if he went out, it was to visit a mosque and watch the Faithful at prayer. “Truly a remarkable man,” broke in the Sultan; “he might almost be an Osmanli” (for among themselves the Turks never use the word “Turks”). The other, feeling that he had drawn an impossible picture of perfection, which might perhaps encounter the Sultan’s incredulity, here rejoined that truth compelled him to confess to His Majesty that he had seen the stranger walk up and down in his room during the hot weather with next to no clothing on—almost naked. This caused the Sultan to burst out laughing. On such occasions—and they were by no means rare—when the Sultan was in good spirits, the monarch’s merriment, as if by magic, was reflected in his surroundings. I have seen all Yildiz in the best of good humour, for the word had gone round that “Sa Majesté est de fort bonne humeur,” and the news spread far and wide; it even found expression in the broad grin of the hamal who carried the fat pasha’s dinner-tray from the Imperial kitchen on his head.
It would, indeed, be no cause for wonder if the Sultan had been occasionally in a serious mood. There are other monarchs besides the Sultan whose humour is not always couleur de rose. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” is not a Mohammedan proverb. But the Sultan’s strength of purpose, his truly phenomenal powers of work, his abstinence from every form of nervous stimulant except an occasional cigarette and a cup of coffee, are irreconcilable with the idea that he could have been of a morbidly nervous disposition. As to the Sultan’s working habits, I have known him to be at work at five in the morning and at that hour keep going a whole staff of secretaries, who had slept overnight on couches in the rooms in the Palace in which they habitually worked. Munir Pasha once said to me: “There is one characteristic of His Majesty which conveys a lesson to us all: it is his extraordinary self-control—his impressive calm. It is almost sublime—no contrariety, no trial seems to ruffle his perfect self-possession. It is truly marvellous.”
Making every allowance for the enthusiasm of a devoted servant and a prince of courtiers, I am yet inclined to believe, on the strength of other evidence, as well as from my own personal observation, that Munir Pasha’s estimate of his master’s nerve was by no means exaggerated. Certain Ambassadors, who had abundant opportunity of testing the Sultan’s self-control, might, if they were still among the living and inclined to make revelations of incidents in which they did not come off with flying colours, give even better corroborative evidence than I am able to do.
It has been said that the Sultan was constantly surrounded by a fierce soldiery armed to the teeth, and that sudden death awaited the hapless creature who should venture to intrude unbidden within the sacred precincts of the Imperial Palace. As a matter of fact I doubt whether there is any other palace into which it would be so easy for a stranger to penetrate as it was into the Yildiz Kiosk. All sorts and conditions of men—but no women—used to find their way in and out. As already mentioned, I have known the Pera shopkeeper of English nationality enter the Palace and walk unbidden into the sanctum of the Sultan’s all-powerful secretary, take his seat among the Ambassadors, Pashas, and Ministers, sip his coffee and smoke his cigarette, and sit there for hours together as if “to the manner born.” So much for the exclusive character of the Sultan’s Palace.