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Constantinople April 4th 95
Dear Miss Adelle
Your letter was indeed a pleasant surprise, and I greatly prize it. Usually these days when I open a letter I feel sure in advance that somebody wants me to do something. Now, I have so much to do, and usually so little time to do it in, that opening a letter usually produces a feeling akin to sadness. Judge of my surprise in receiving a long, newsy, social letter, and from a lady friend who did not express an anxiety for me to do something for her!
I grieve that I cannot reciprocate with such a letter; for what most concerns me I cannot talk or write about. The Armenian question must be a sealed book to my correspondents for the present. I can however say something about conditions here, that may interest you.
Our Missionaries here and in the interior of
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2 Asia do not feel comfortable. They fear the outburst of fanaticism after the Commission now investigating alleged atrocities at Sassun or Mush were(?) reports. They and have recently observed unusual symptoms of a feeling of prejudice. One cannot forget that outburst of fanaticism in Lebanon where 10,000 were killed in a few days; nor the terrible sacrifice in two days of over 5,000 Greeks in this city during the revolution in Greece, nor yet the more recent atrocities in Bulgaria.
It is the same race that propagated its faith with the sword, and in spite of much that we sees {sic} in them to admire, is bloodthirsty and cruel when excited by fanatical hate; for they look on all others as "infidels" and attach to that word a more hateful meaning than Christians do.
As late as 1876 two consuls at Salonica (French -- and German,) were murdered by a mob, in an hour after it started; and yet it ended in no war, but an apology and the hanging of a few Turks.
They have however lost so much territory in late years that they will not venture now I think to provoke the hostile resentment of United Christendom.
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3 April 5.
I must finish this letter as I can in intervals of leisure. We have had shiploads of globe trampers(?) from New York, Boston and Chicago, chiefly in the last two weeks. One cannot show much courtesy to two or three hundred who come to stay not two or three days. When they call at the Legation, I first find out if some women are not aboard with no male relatives (once I found too many of that sort) I then propose to supply the place of a big brother, and take them in in my carriage to the Treasury, or palaces, and let others get their own conveyances & follow, This gratifies my own feelings, and prevents others from suspecting that I am partial in my courtesies as to them.
Gov(?) Alger was here last week -- the one who pocketed the negro vote in Convention, & came so near being nominated in place of Harrison. I did not intend that he should go home and accuse me of ignoring him, because he was a republican. So I arranged to present him at the palace to the Sultan -- a thing seldom done
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4 for this court has more exclusiveness and red tape than are sufficient for half a dozen.
They most pleasant voyager however I have met, was Mrs Potter Palmer. She staid here with Mr Palmer for 10 days, and is without any exception the most intelligent and best informed woman I have met any where. No blue stocking either -- just a charming, natural and thoroughly well educated woman. She takes home with her more knowledge of what should interest here, than any one I have seen. On the go all the time, & knew (far beyond any guidebook), all those things that give historic interest to the city. Thus she knew what she wanted to see. I took her to tea with the Grand Vizeir (a charming man) who fell in love with her, as he told me. Then, next day she dined with the Grand Vizeir's wife in a portion of the palace of which I knew nothing. I just received a long letter from her at Rome, giving me an account of her audiences with the Pope, and with the Queen of Italy who she describes as a sweet(?) intellectual woman
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5 I was especially gratified when she wrote to me that though she had been often in Europe I had made her stay in Constantinople more pleasant than any visit she had ever made to a European city! Now, don't think I have turned to be a vain old fool, for the compliment was not on account of my extreme youth -- or personal appearance, but because I was able to able to {sic} gratify her curiosity, regarding localities and things to be seen, connected with the Byzantine period of which the ignorant guides knew nothing. You will see from the space I have given her that she made an impression.
I wish so much that some of the people I know and like would come here in the summer. I have a steam launch there -- about the only emblem of rank our Gvrmt allows me -- -- the climate is simply splendid on the Bosphorus there -- its salt waters, almost cold as ice, as they flow swiftly from the Black Sea. All sorts of fruits + flowers, -- gilded kiaks with Greek + Turkish beauties with song and guitar, every night gliding over its waters