Show THE SULTAN AT HOME t How the Great Mohammedan I Caliph Rules Constantinople I HE LOOKS LIKE JAY GOULD With lIIlHous Year and Hundreds of Wives He is not Happy Something About Ills Power His Love for Horses CoxsTAXTixorLn September 7 ISSJ Special Correspondence of THE HEUALII On the 27th of next September Sultan AbdulHamid will be fortyseven years old He has an empire nearly half the size a y < f the United States ever which he is absolute solute ruler and HIS WOIID MEANS IIFE tVI DEATH IJ uoro than thirtythree million people iJo is the spiritual head of the great Mohammedan Mo-hammedan religion and 1300000000 lips speak his name in worship every day Multitudes in India North Africa China nod South Europe look upon him as the Shadow of God and like the Turks of Asia Minor regard him as the representative representa-tive of Mahomet He has an income of 10000000 u year His treasury is filled with diamonds His palaces are numbered I by scores and ho counts his Arab horses by the thousands He has countless servants ser-vants to satisfy every wish and his harem tilled with the beauties of the Orient is replenished re-plenished every year with the fairest of the young female slaves of Georgia aid Circassia If physical comfort sensual enjoyments and worldly power are the chief ends of life this man now in his prime ought to be the happiest man in the world He is on the contrary OXK Of THE MOsT MlbElUIlLK Every one of the roses of his life conceals a thorn and in each of his palaces the skeletons of fear hide in the closets stand behind the marble columns of the saloons and poke their heads out at him through the perfumed steam of his luxurious Turkish Turk-ish bath Having absolute control over t millions of lives he exists in daily fear of re the loss of his own and he trembles as her he-r spends his nights and days inside his great palaces surrounded by his guards He moves among his people only when he is forced to doso by the religious observances which are incumbent upon him as the head of tho Mohammedan religion and his only outing is on Friday afternoon when he goes in state to worship at the mosque This ceremony is one of the grand sights of Constantinople The people would rise in insurrection if the Sultan omitted it and it takes 7000 troops to guard him on his way from his palace to the place of worship THE rtVOIMTC JIOJQI OF THE SULTAN is that of Hamidiea It was built by him and it is a beautiful structure of white marble with great minarets rising hundreds hun-dreds of feet above its airy dome and looking look-ing over the Bosphorus Stamboul and the sea of Marmora It is near the Sultans great palace railed Yildji and it is in the English quarter of Constantinople known as Pera A wide winding road leads from the palace to the mosque and at the side of this house has been built by the Sultan for distinguished foreign guests This house is just opposite the mosque and its windows win-dows command a line view of it and the roads leading to it Armed with the card Jids American minister and accompanied Mohammedan guide I was received by the ofllccrin charge when I called atthis house yesterday I was given a seat atone at-one of tho windows and for two hours preceding pre-ceding the ceremony I was interested in the mussing of the soldiers and in the preparation pre-paration for the coining of the Sultan First came a little army of carts drawn by donkeys and led by HAKE LEGGED MEN IN TtltUAXS These carts were filled with soft yellow sand and this sand was spread over the road to the depth of several inches The Sultans royal bones are too holy to be I jolted over cobble stones or macadam and whenever he goes out to drive the road i over which he intends to march is covered with sand After the carts came water wagons and the sand was sprinkled to make it softer and firmer As time goes on the soldiers march up division after division and rank themselves along the highway There are regiments of cavalry on the finest of Arabian steeds each regiment regi-ment having horses of the same color and nearly every regiment uniformed differently differ-ently Here is a troop of Circassians with black caps six inches high upon the crown of which are white crosses They are dressed in European uniforms and upon their breasts are rows of cartridges Below Be-low them are cavalry from Asia Minor and coming down the hill in the distance arfjtroops after troops of bronze faced fine 100king men in turbans and caps on the finest of Arabian horses The soldiers arc fia fst j J d g tall broadshouldered and straight Down another road march long lines of infantry some in OKEEX COIOUS OF MAHOMET and others in clothes of blue trimmed with red As the hour for the coming of the Sultan approaches the roads turn into rivers of color and along the side of them back of the soldiers are seen the curious characters of a Mohammedan crowd There at the right is a patch of white and you note that tho hundred balloonlike bags of white cotton or silk which seem to Min I upright on the ground are alive and taking your glass you see that out of each bag near the top peeps two black eyes and you know that these are the ladies of several Mohammedan harems who have come out to get a view of the Sultan Now come the officers of the court They drive up in carriages drawn by magnificent horses Some of them come on horseback r and the breasts of all are covered with I medals while their clothes of European cut fairly blaze with gold lace Each man wears abright red fez cap which looks like a gigantic red tumbler inverted and these caps crown the heads of the soldiers as well matting the whole crowd look like a great human flower bed of red There is A CHEER FROM TEN THOUs IXD THROATS and the music is heard in the distance The cry goes up that the Sultan is coming and now around the corner preceded by a gorgeously dressed guard upon horseback surrounded by officers with drawn swords comes a low barouche drawn by the most t magnificent black horses you have ever soon These are driven by a coachman wbpse body is resplendent in a red velvet na embroidered in gold He has a fez capon cap-on his head and as he holds the reins tight his gold sleeves hang down like those of the ladies fashionable dress of some years ago The carriage is black but the trimmings arc gold The lamps at the sides are gold and the horses are resplendent in gold buckles and trimmings In the carriage itself three persons arc seated On the front seat I note a fine graywhiskered old man It is OSMAK IMIIA THE limo OF PIKVX and beside him is a younger man a favorite of the Sultan On the back seat sits the Sultan himself He is more simply dressed I thnany one of the lOoou people surroi nd I inf him and his clothes are the morning suit of a gentleman the coat cut high at the neck like that of an Episcopal clergyman clergy-man what out of the pulpit His coat is eJged with red cord and he wears the same kind of a boiled shirt and turnover cellar that you do His head is covered with a red fez cap which you could buy for a dollar dol-lar and below this look out a pair of large liquid dark eyes through a face which is of the same sallow hue and which has the 1 same features as that of Jay Gould Jay Goulds face is tho twin of tile Sultans The two men have the same nose and tile same nervous worn features The Sultan is perhaps a trifle taller than Gould and I jsoold fudge that ho weighs perhaps twenty r3 aEbOefi i1 efi jeundsmore He is I judge about five filet nine inches lush and he weighs about one hundred and fifty pounds His face is T TilE corOJ OF OLj 4ER3F1 CKEAM and his eyes are large black and restless He has a high narrow forehead a long zj 4f i r L thin face a nose just slightly inclined to the Roman and he wears a full set of short luxuriant glossy black whiskers His hands are long and thin and he has the look of a man who lies awake at nights He does not look like a happy mm and his eyes wandered here and there as he rode slowly over the sanded way to the gates of the mosque As he passed the house of entertainment he looked up and raised his hand to his fez cap in salutation He then drove on to the mosque and going up a private pri-vate stairway was soon hid from view As he entered the gate the soldiers all turned around in order that their faces might be towards him and when in the course of a halfhour he appeared again they resumed their old position The Sultan seldom goes to mosque twice in the same way Yesterday a magnificent riding horse was led behind the carriage and shortly after his majesty arrived a low carriage drawn by a pair of milkwhite ponies was driven up to the front of tho mosque The servants of the Sultan had not been told as to how he proposed to go i homeward and these three different equipments equip-ments were present in order that he might i ride on horseback drive his ponies or go b k F back in his barouche as he saw lit HC 1iiCFEimcu Till Posies and I had a good chance to see him as he drove back up the hill with the ribbons in his hands Behind him came several carriages car-riages containing ladies of his harem and I i noted that a dozen beggars followed these and that the ladies within them threw out handfuls ot coin to them over which they fought as it fell upon the sanded road I have seen the Sultan several times during dur-ing my stay in Constantinople I saw him I twice at the mosqCc and I saw hiui when he made his annual procession across the Golden Horn to Stamboul kiss the mantle of Mahomet which is preserved in the old seraglio I have met some of the most noted of his officials and have had numer oas conversations with men who have been connected with his palace for years The Sultan likes to wall his doings with secrecy and only the barest details of his private life are known to the general public Within the gates of his great palaces only his intimate friends and his most trusted servants come and I am told that he has such a fear of assassination that he has men continually on guard both about his person at his doors and about his watchtowers watch-towers THE 1AllCES or 1IIIMZ are all built on hills Their grounds contain con-tain many acres and they consist of ravines through which flow bubbling brooks of forests and lakes of parks and of gardens They rise almost straight up from the beginning be-ginning of the Bosphorus and thu thirty or forty palaces which his majesty owns here all command views of the surrounding country Notwithstanding this elevated position the Sultan still fears piottings and assassinations He trusts few people implicitly im-plicitly and he seldom goes to bed at night He sits up until 1 oclock amusing himself as best he can and then throws himself into a cushioned chair and dozes on till clay break when he retires to his bed to sleep He has those about him in whom he thinks he can confide but the fate of his predecessors predeces-sors warns him to beware During the thirteen years of his reign he has had several revolutions and he was frightened almost to death when the Czar of Russia was assassinated He has a number of other palaces outside of this one in which he lives but he seldom occupies them for more than a few hours at a time One of his largest palaces is that of Dolma Bagtche which seems to rest on the waters of the Bosphorus and which is a great airy structure of stone and stucco painted so that it looks like marble It is surrounded by beautif ul gardens and parks and is gorgeously furnished with carpets crystal chandeliers and with all the JIEUTIFIT1 THING THAT MONB1 AX Itt CIUC This palace was that in which Sultan Abdul Ab-dul Azziz lived and the upper part of it was devoted to his harem When it is remembered re-membered that this man spent nearly three million dollars a year on this part of his household alone some idea of the grandeur of the furniture can be conceived In one year Abdul Azziz spent IX0000 for pictures and there was nothing too costly for his palace I went through this palace by means of a special permit of the Sultan and I saw great crystal posts as big around as the body of a man and more than six feet tall on the top of which were immense candelabra can-delabra the prismatic crystals of which sparkled like the diamonds of Sinbad the sailor under the rays of the light I passed through room after room finished in gold and walled with satin I entered the most luxurious of bath rooms and spent some time in the grand audience hall where the Sultan holds his receptions at Baitam or the Mohammedan easter I walked upon the court in front of the palace along the beautiful waters of the Bosphcrus and looked at the yacht of the Sultan which with steam up stands unused in front of the palace and as I did so I remembered the story which one of the Sultans officials told me as to why his majesty never occupied occu-pied this grand building over night It is said the official because of a warning which the last Sultan gave him grills SlLTAX WOKE UP ONE MOHXIXC to find the gun boats which he had built to guard himself turned against him and he advised Abdul Hamid never to occupy a palace which could be so easily stormed as this one The Sultan of Turkey is very fond of horses He has about two thousand in his stables and these have been brought here from all parts of the world His finest horses are of Arabian blood and you will find nowhere in the world such horses as are seen upon the streets here in Constantinople Constan-tinople The street car horses have the finely arched necks characteristic of the Arabian and in every troop of cavalry there are hundreds of horses which would bring the highest prices in America It is against the law of Turkey to export Arabian Arab-ian horses and when Senator Palmer wanted a couple of stallions for his breeding breed-ing farm near Detroit he had to get the permit of the Sultan to buy them The Sultan himself is a good rider and he is much IXTKItESTEI IX 110nE THUXIVO AND UnKEII IXG His stables cover many acres and there is a great training place connected with them where his majesty sometimes comes and watches the exercising of his horses He prefers the Arabian horses for riding horses and his favorite mount is a beautiful beauti-ful bay His rides are taken in his parks which surround his palace aud which are I of a great extent His friends often ride I with him and General Lew Wallace rna he often rode together He sometimes hunts upon horseback and I am told that he is agood shot He once told General I Wallace that he had broken half a dozen vases with a revolver while galloping past them on horseback and he often hunts i deer and duckin his parks The Sultan is thoroughly posted on all matters relating to horses He keeps track of the military affairs and is posted on all new inventions in arms Not long ago there was sent to him from America a set of the Mu bridge photographs consisting consist-ing of instantaneous pictures of the horse in action The American minister and the men of our legation looked at these pictures but did not see much utility in them The moment the Sultan saw them he grasped at the advantage they would be to horse training and he explained to the minister whet then meant He aftcrivartis offered Mr Straus a present of n A COUPLE OF FIXE ARAB IIOUsE nit the minister explained that he did not think it would be right for him to accept presents and he declined the gift He rave presents to General Grant and to several other Americans and he has made some presents to Abram S Hewitt He is very fond of America and I am told that he is anxious to have American capital brought into tho development of his country coun-try When Vanderbilt visited Constan inople he gave him an audience and proposed pro-posed to him tho investment of some of his millions in Turkey Mr Vanderbilt explained ex-plained he had other uses for his money lust at that time and it was the same with i Stanford Senator Stanford however told the Sultan that he would be glad to build railroads in Turkey if he were a ounger and a poorer man and that he would ask nothing better than the chances which the Turkish empire offered for American money making It will be seen from this that the Sultan is interested in the development of his country He would I doubt not make an able ruler if his people and his creditors would let him Through the extrava B a In h x iii gances however of the Sultans of the pastes TCUKEY IS LOADED DOW WITH DE11T and the empire is practically bankrupt The foreign bondholders regulate the collection col-lection of the taxes and foreign officers sit at the seat of customs The Sultan never I I sees the tribute which Egypt pays to him yearly and his every act is tempered bj foreign influence Surrounded as he is he I does the best he can hoping against hope I and he is much more of a ruler in fact I than is generally supposed He does a I great deal of work He looks over a great part of his correspondence and dictates matters to his various officials He has the I veto power on all things relating to his people peo-ple and he now and then takes matters into his own hands and countermands the acts of his grand vizier Tin has the absolute abso-lute appointment of all the officers in the empire but he has to trim his sails very carefully for fear he will get the fanatical party of Turkey down upon him I THE GUAXn IZIEU IS HIS PREMIER and he has his cabinet of advisers as has the President at Washington He reads the Turkish newspapers alid has men who translate such articles from the foreign papers as bear upon Turkey He wants to know everything that is said about his country whether it ib good or bad and he was lately very much interested in an article on his kingdom published in the Now York newspapers He gives his people peo-ple ample chance to bring their grievances before him and every time he goes to prayers petitions are presented to him They are held out by the petitioners and one of his aidde camp takes I them and his lI1lIC majesty looks over them when ho returns to his palace Such as merit inquiry are investigated and their wrongs are righted The most interesting thing in connection with the Sultan however is his life inside the roi al palace The stories of his harem of how lis wives are chosen and of the ups and downs of married life in Turkey will always be new to the people of the Christian world and of these I will treat in my next letter FKAXK G CAWEXTLK |