The Sultan is ill. The Sultan has been alarmed by
a new plot, and has dismissed the Minister of Police, and has ordered the guards to be changed every day. The Sultan has received- the draft of the Anal Treaty with Russia, but delays signing it. The Sultan objects to the arrangement with Greece suggested by his Ministers, and says he is asked to sign away some territory or other every day. The Sultan is anxious about the caim6s, and has dismissed Zu.bdi Pasha, Minister of Finance, who promised to bring them up to par, but who has
brought them down to less than one-fain-th of their nominal value. These are the prominent items of intelligence from Con- stantinople this week, and they all mean the same thing,—that the only source of power left in Turkey is the Sultan, and that he is entirely incompetent- to cope with his position, or, indeed, to understand it. He is Khalif, —why does not the paper currency rise to par, when he orders that it should P Some faint idea of what his position should be, as Head of Islam, is,however, never quite absent from Abdul Hamid's mind. He is again asking Sir 'Henry Layard for English money, but cannot bring himself to sell Cyprus outright, even to put the mimes straight. At least, that is the most reasonable interpretation of the statement that the British Government had offered to buy Cyprus, and the official denial that any such offer had been made. It never was made, because it was ascertained that it would. not be accepted.
Previous page
