business. At four o'clock dinner was usually served in the airy
vestibule of the embassy villa, and with the occasional accession of
other members of the diplomatic corps we usually formed a large
party. A couple of hours before sunset a caique, which from its size
might have been the galley of a doge, was in waiting, and Lady C----
sometimes took us to a favourite wooded hill or bower-grown creek in
the Paradise-like environs, while a small musical party in the evening
terminated each day. One of the attaches of the Russian embassy, M.
F----, is the favorite dilettante of Buyukdere; he has one of the
finest voices I ever heard, and frequently reminded me of the easy
humour and sonorous profundity of Lablache.

Before embarking the reader on the Black Sea, I cannot forbear a
single remark on the distinguished individual who has so long and so
worthily represented Great Britain at the Ottoman Porte.

Sir. Stratford Canning is certainly unpopular with the extreme
fanatical party, and with all those economists who are for killing the
goose to get at the golden eggs; but the real interests of the Turkish
nation never had a firmer support.

The chief difficulty in the case of this race is the impossibility of
fusion with others. While they decrease in number, the Rayahs increase
in wealth, in numbers, and in intelligence.

The Russians are the Orientals of Europe, but St. Petersburg is a
German town, German industry corrects the old Muscovite sloth and
cunning. The immigrant strangers rise to the highest offices, for the
crown employs them as a counterpoise on the old nobility; as burgher
incorporations were used by the kings of three centuries ago.