For hours they held me spellbound by their vivid descriptions of harem life, particularly the Sultan's, and of the "Terror" under Abdul Hamid. With this clever monster at the helm, the Turks suffered a hundred times more than the Christians. Whole regiments of Albanians ceased to exist; whole companies went off to Yemen and were forgotten; Ministers died suddenly, and private families disappeared wholesale. Yet they must be thrown out of Europe, "bag and baggage," because, in a minor degree, Christian Armenians, too, bled under Abdul Hamid!
After the departure of the two Hanoums (Turkish ladies), their father died suddenly. And though, when in Constantinople, I did my best to see and console their widowed mother, she persisted in regarding me as one of those giaours who had stolen away her daughters! And would listen to no defence or explanation.
It was then that I heard much of the coming Revolution: when and where "meetings" had taken place, who were members of the "secret societies," which of their friends in prison would be liberated. In 1908, the Day of Deliverance suddenly came, to the astonishment of the whole world, and I, too, rejoiced, as though my own country were now set free!
I was, luckily, again in Constantinople for those great days. I saw the hideous tyrant of a few years ago driven through the streets of Pera; I was present at the opening of Parliament; introduced to the Sultan Abdul Hamid and his Grand Vizier Kiamil Pasha.
It was the Vizier's charming daughter who soon became my dearest friend, and hostess for two subsequent visits. Once she spoke of me to Abdul Hamid's successor, Mohammed V., as her "English sister" (her favourite term of endearment), and the Sultan replied: "I did not know Kiamil Pasha had any English children." Poor man, he had a Turkish family of a score!
It was Hamid's fall that first revealed to me how much Turkey loved England, what she was ready to
