hat of an English
clergyman, but ornamented by a string of tiny decorations attached to
the buttonhole on the left side. Gregorios Balsamides is of middle
height, slender and well built, a matchless horseman, and long inured to
every kind of hardship, though his pallor and his delicate white hands
suggest a constitution anything but hardy.

He is the natural outcome of the present state of civilization in
Turkey; and as it is not easy for the ordinary mind to understand the
state of the Ottoman Empire without long study, so it is not by any
means a simple matter to comprehend the characters produced by the
modern condition of things in the East. Balsamides Bey is a man who
seems to unite in himself as many contradictory qualities and
characteristics as are to be found in any one living man. He is a
thorough Turk in principle, but also a thorough Western Frank in
education. He has read immensely in many languages, and speaks French
and English with remarkable fluency. He has made an especial study of
modern history, and can give an important date, a short account of a
great battle, or a brief notice of a living celebrity, with an ease and
accuracy that many a student might envy. He reads French and English
novels, and probably possesses a contraband copy of Byron, whose works
are proscribed in Turkey and confiscated by the custom-house. He goes
into European society as well as among Turks, Greeks, and Armenians.
Although a Greek by descent, he loves the Turks and is profoundly
attached to the reigning dynasty, under whom his father and grandfather
lived and prospered. A Christian by birth and education, he has a
profound respect for the Mussulman faith, as being the religion of the
government he serves, and a profound hatred of the Armenian, whom he
regards as the evil genius of the Osmanli. He is a man whom many trust,
but whose chief desire seems to be to avoid all show of power. He is
often consulted on important matters, but his discretion is proof
against all attacks, and there is not a journalist nor correspondent in
Pera who can boast of ever having extracted the smallest item of
information from Balsamides Bey.

These are his good qualities, and they are solid ones, for he is a
thoroughly well-informed man, exceedingly clever, and absolutely
trustworthy. On the other hand, he is cold, sarcastic, and possibly
cruel, and occasionally he is frank almost to brutality.

On the very evening of our arrival in Pera I