. Travels and politics in the Near East. name of The Baby. From this Baby, born in 1863,grew up the splendid collegiate buildings on the heightsabove Bebek. Meanwhile Mr. Robert endeavoured toobtain from Sultan Abdul Aziz permission to found acollege on a considerable scale on ground of its a long time the Turkish Government refused, untilat last one day a happy accident led to the grant ofthe long-sought Iradi. It chanced that an Americanman-of-war was at Constantinople, and the commanderwas entertained at a dinner on shore, at which severalTurkish ofticials were present. During dinne
. Travels and politics in the Near East. name of The Baby. From this Baby, born in 1863,grew up the splendid collegiate buildings on the heightsabove Bebek. Meanwhile Mr. Robert endeavoured toobtain from Sultan Abdul Aziz permission to found acollege on a considerable scale on ground of its a long time the Turkish Government refused, untilat last one day a happy accident led to the grant ofthe long-sought Iradi. It chanced that an Americanman-of-war was at Constantinople, and the commanderwas entertained at a dinner on shore, at which severalTurkish ofticials were present. During dinner theAmerican ofticer innocently dropped the remark thatit was a pity that the Turks would not allow his fellow-countryman, Mr. Robert, to found an institution whichwould so greatly benefit the Turkish Empire. TheTurkish of^cials at the table, suspicious as usual, mistookthis casual remark for a threat, which would be backed bythe guns of the American man-of-war. They accordinglyreported the incident to the Sultan, who took the same 412. Travels and Politics view and at once gave orders for the Iradi- to be madeout. This was in 1869, and on July 4th of the same yearthe foundation-stone of the present College was laidon the lovely hill of Rumili Hissar, where still stand thegreat towers of the Castle of Europe, which Moham-med II. built the year before the capture of Con-stantinople in the form of the Arabic letters of his name,and where an earlier Emperor, Darius, watched hislegions cross from Asia. No more appropriate spotcould have been chosen for the site of an institutionintended to free Turkey from darkness and ignorance,and from no part of the Bosporus—not even from the Giants Mountain itself—is there a lovelier view ofthat river-like strait which separates Asia from the garden you can see on a Friday afternoonthe ca/qiies, laden with veiled women, on their way to the Sweet Waters of Asia opposite, and every day thescene is enlivened by the large Black Sea
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecteasternquestionbalka
