The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-03-02
An AMBASSADOR Life In Turkey.

The special correspondents Of tho Lon:
don Times, at Para, writes m article on
diplomacy with the following sketch: 4
d" For the finest town mansion In Parry
and the loveliest paradise bn the B6spho:
rus, even with G1O. 900 or ei2. 900 ID MI.
ary in the bargain, would not IS an Am.
bssssdor in Turkey. We have i've Of
these exalted personages in this place. and
all Of them are amiable, estimable. hos.
pitable gentlemen. try to put myself in
their place with all my power of imaoina.
ton, but warmly q sympathixe with
them, confess that I see reason rather
to pity than to envy them. Not even the
proud consciousness Of helping u WELD
the destinies of empires would reconcile
me to the sights. sounds and smells Of this
execrahle residence. Outside the lofty
gates of her palace home the daintiest1 adv
ambassadors must needs find herself amid
the horrors of the Grand Rue de Pera.
saw one of them the other day picking her
way from stone to stone ~ If she had been
wading through the half.drained bed of
the foulest canal. She was preceded by
her swarthy cauaes, formidable guard,
with thick moustaches almost halfway
down to his belt, Damascus scimeter
dangling on his thigh, and in his hand q
long, heavy horse-whip to awe the multi.
tude and clear the way before his mistress.
But what could that brave man do to pro.
tect the lady's silk skirts unless he lifted
her bodily out of the mire and carried her
the shortest way to the place she came
from? How could even the escort of q
squadron of horse screen her from that
jostling throng of horrid men and beasts,
who cross and press upon each other with
as helpless . struggle as if they
were all walking blindfolded, She
was brought face I face with
one of her sex, and Of her own,
or of scarcely IN inferior rank,
when desperate attempt at conversation
was made. The first words were hardly
spoken when. with uncouth shouts of
'Guarda? Guarda!' a string of laden
mules with huge panniers came tramp
the crowd, and ladies, ladies' maids,
street porters and beggars, all had to
make, pell-mell, for the refuge of the
nearest shop-a shop, as it CHANGED,
where there were many simmering brass
pots on the fire, as in patent kitchen,
but in which, instead Of pillau or cour-
ceusou, the greasy fezzes or wooden skull
caps of Mussulmans, Greeks and Alba
mans were being boiled into brand-new
scarlet purity. The poor ladies must
breathe the outer air; carriages they have,
and sedan chairs one or two of them ride
out; to say nothing of danger to life or
limb, nothing can save them from such
dead locks as the swarming mass of un-
washed beings in the Grand rue is every
moment brought to; nothing can drive
from them the loathsome hands thrust
into their coach windows by the mendi-
cants, who have them at their discretion,
and know that they can extort by their
contact the aims which are denied to their
whining voice.
Indoors, however, the lives of the wives
and families of foreign representatives is
not SO much to be deplored. They dwell
in large, warm, well-aired, sumptuously-
furnished apartments, with servants of all
colors, with boudoirs, billiard and smok-
ng-rooms, and windows with views of
the Bosphorus; the ladies have their books
and music, their flowers - light and
sweetness-their modes de Paris, their aft
ernoon tea and gossip; the men their
clubs and cards; and all dinner and
dancing parties, with ices and after mid
night suppers. Nothing more quantity
entertaining than European society in q
Levant provincial city-and Pera, be it
remembered, is only a suburb, and has at
night no intercourse with metropolitan
Stamboul-can be easily imagined"