Chapter IX: Constantinople in 1884 (3)

“While we were talking, Aarif Bey came in with a message from Ahmed Bey to the effect that they had been afraid to present my request of an audience to the Sultan; but that they had spoken of my wish to see the horses, etc., and that the Sultan had been most gracious, and would send an aide-de-camp to-morrow to show us over the stables and the palace. I confess the story did not sound to me quite coherent, and Selim Faris, who looked in later, tells me that he has just been to the palace, and that the true account of it is that Munir did give my letter to the Sultan, but that he wishes to put off on others the responsibility of not answering it, that he is as usual undecided, and would like to find out a little more about me first, and he will probably send an aide-de- camp on purpose to report concerning me to-morrow. He will see me later if I will only wait. But I can’t wait. The Sultan asked Zaffir about me on Friday, but Zaffir pretended he had never heard of me. This invitation to the palace and stables is at any rate a proof that he is not ill-disposed, and we must make the most of it. The idea of the palace at present is that nothing new will come on in Egypt till next summer, and he thinks if I come back then I shall be able to do a great deal. Perhaps he is right. In any case we shall not have wasted our time here.

“Our last visitor was Mr. de Leon, formerly American Consul-General at Cairo, now agent of a company for making a ship-railway over the isthmus of Akaba. The scheme seems to me chimerical from the fact that Suez is a far easier, shorter, and more direct route.

“_4th Nov._—Ismaïl Jowdat came in the morning, having written out the evidence given us by Minshawi in Arabic for him to sign. But Minshawi did not appear till too late, for we had to go out at a quarter to one to the old Seraglio, where the Sultan had appointed an aide-de-camp to meet us and show us everything. This _Serai_ is a delightful old place, and the position the finest, without exception, in the world. By good luck the aide-de-camp on duty was old Vefyk Pasha’s son, an extremely nice, intelligent young man, who knew the history of the various Sultans well, and so was able to explain us everything. We were received in State and conducted round by the whole staff of the Palace. The Treasury is full of interesting things which belong to the domain of Murray. But what was to me most attractive was the series of effigies of the Sultans dressed in their actual clothes. This recalls past glories better than anything else could do. Mahmud’s miserable hussar jacket closes the series, but there are lower depths still since, left unrepresented. The young man confessed himself ashamed of his wretched uniform and fez, a rare instance of good taste in a modern Oriental. In the kiosk we drank the Sultan’s coffee, which I confess I only sipped, remembering its fatal name. The Dolmabakji to which we were next taken is without interest inside, and we were disappointed of our promised visit to the stables, as the Sultan was having the horses paraded at the Yildiz Palace in order to choose one for an Ambassador. At least such was the excuse given—but I half suspect they were afraid of our criticism. The visit to the palaces is, however, a proof of the Sultan’s goodwill, and when I thanked the young man and gave him a message of thanks to the Sultan he told me that they all knew of me as a defender of Islam and a friend.

“Selim Faris, who came in the evening, tells me it was Musurus (the Turkish Ambassador in London) who set the Sultan against me, telling him that I was seeking to found an Arabian Empire; but he is now undeceived. He advises me to write a memorandum of my ideas to the Sultan.

“_5th Nov._—Ahmed Minshawi came and signed his evidence (see Appendix). Mustafa Bey Nejdi also called, and then Count Corti, to wish us goodbye, and we went on board the French steamer, having spent three weeks at Constantinople, an interesting visit, though our main object of seeing the Sultan remained unachieved. It was a dark evening with a huge bank of black clouds to the north, signs of winter in the Black Sea, when we steamed out of the Golden Horn and passed Seraglio point and the city walls on our way home. Ismaïl Jowdat goes with us.

“_6th Nov._—Really there never was such good fortune. On board there is an acquaintance of Ismaïl’s, Mohammed Assad Bey, Muteserif of Candia, on his way to his post, uncle-in-law of our friend Aarif Bey. He is by birth one of the hereditary Kurdish chiefs, but exiled at the age of seventeen (he is now fifty-seven) on account of his father’s rebellion—a most interesting man. He has been many years in Crete, and has seen many changes in the Empire, all for the worse. He lamented the quarrels between England and Islam, which he attributed to its true causes, first, the obstinacy of the Porte in effecting no reforms, and secondly, the dishonesty of England in regard to Egypt. In regard to the latter, he said what they all say and to which there is no answer, that the English caused misgovernment in Egypt so as to have an excuse for taking it. He said that all his life he had been accustomed to respect Englishmen as men of just dealing, but they were changed and he respected them no more. If he had not seen Ismaïl Jowdat with us, he should not have cared to make our acquaintance. From having the best reputation in the East the English had now the worst. About his own country, Kurdistan, he talked much in the sense that Aarif had done—only he seemed to see less hope in the trouble which was coming. The Russians he said were very busy stirring up the Christian Armenians, and the thing would break out in the spring. It would begin with the Armenians, then the Kurds would take up arms in self-defence. There would be stories of bloodshed and massacre greatly exaggerated, and the Russians would take it as a pretext for intervention. The Turks had about 150,000 Nizams in Asia Minor, and the Kurds could put a far greater number under arms. But he augured ill for the result. The Russians wanted Mesopotamia and Bagdad and Bussora. The Turks could fight well, but they had no leader. All the Turkish commanders were corrupt and selfish, and they would be bribed again by the Russians. I asked him who was the natural Kurdish leader, and he said: ‘There are several hundred Kurds in the Custom House at Galata. Yesterday, when I passed through, they all bowed.’ His elder brother, however, would seem to be the man, and this agrees with Aarif’s account. Obeidallah is the religious chief only. In the evening Ismaïl Jowdat gave a full account of all he knew in connection with Arabi and the events of 1881. [The substance of what I learned from him is embodied in his statement (see Appendix).]

“_12th Nov._—We arrived without incident at Marseilles and went on immediately to Paris.”