THE SULTAN’S DAY’S WORK.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5203, 24 November 1877, Page 3

THE SULTAN’S DAY’S WORK.

(From the Manchester Evening News.) A salary of £2OOO a day will appear to those who have but few wants a nice competency. That is the daily wage of Abul Humid, tlie present Sultan of Turkey, and no sovereign alive earns his money harder. Out of that sum he has, moreover, to pay for his own board, fire, and candles ; his lodgings alone are free, so that, considering the footing on which his establishment is placed, he must be a man of order and economy to make both ends meet with so small an income at his command. There is, indeed, no more dilligent or active man in his empire than the Sultan ; and it is literally true of him to say that he eats his bread in the sweat of his brow*. He gives personal audience to everyone that applies for it, whenever it is possible ; when not, his fust adjutant gives audience for him. The six hundred wives of Abdul Aziz have vanished, and Abdul Hamid finds it as much as he can do to meet the milliners’ bills of a poor three dozen spouses. This scanty harem leaves him a good deal more time for devotion and State business. He leaves his apartment betimes, and bathes the prison of his soul in tepid water, after which he stretches himself full length upon a carpet, and breathes a silent morning prayer. He then drinks a cup of chocolate, and proceeds immediately after to the affairs of the State. Despatches are received and sent, reports examined and approved of, expenses consented to, decorations granted, ministers and ambassadors received, and that goes on for several hours. Towards noon a second carpet is spread at the feet of the Ruler of the Faithful, whereon he prays again, and then takes his second breakfast. After that be goes out for a ride or a drive, and when he returns he is at the disposal of his family and the inhabitants of the palace. He give audience to his brothers and sister, listens to the report of the household officers, confers with the chief of the eunuchs on all sorts of delicate subjects, and gives him his orders. The chief of the eunuchs ranks next after the Grand Vizier, and whenever a despatch containing good news from the seat of war comes in, it is he that is charged to read it to the ladies confided to his watchful care. The Imaum, or chaplain of the palace, also comes in the evening, and the Sultan prays or reads some pious book with him. Three times in the week the Sultan takes lessons on the piano from a French teacher, M. Paul Dutsap—that is, he listens to his teacher playing a few morccaux, but never plays a single scale himself. Later in the evening he despatches more State business, and then, an hour before midnight, accompanied only by the chief of the eunuchs, he retires to the mysterious recesses of the harem, where it is forbidden us to follow him.