During the reign of Sultan Mahmud II., who ruled from 1808 till 1839, there took place an imperial wedding at Constantinople to which persons of distinction in all classes of society throughout the country were invited. The chief physician of the Sultan (whose grandson is at present attached as councillor to the Ottoman Embassy in London), who had been a pupil of my grandfather's, noticed that his name was not on the list, and strongly recommended his sovereign to invite him. A courier set out for Asia Minor at once, and brought my grandfather to the capital. A great banquet was given in the palace in honour of the event to all the religious dignitaries and principal _Ulema_, that is to say, the learned hierarchy of the realm. Mahmud II. devised a curious plan for testing the fortitude and strength of character of these pious people. During the banquet servants brought in bottles filled with a red-coloured liquid. Several guards with drawn swords in their hands followed the attendants, and stood in the entrance. The bewildered guests naturally did not know what to make of it, and awaited events in anxious silence. Then, to their consternation, it was solemnly announced that the liquid in the bottles was wine. Wine! an abominable intoxicant, of which it is strictly forbidden to the faithful to touch even a single drop! The pernicious fluid, which has received from the Prophet himself the name of the "mother of evils"! (I must explain, by the way, that Mahmud wished to remodel his empire. After getting rid of those formidable opponents, the Janissaries, he adopted not only some of the European methods of administration, but also some of the Western customs and modes of life, and among other things he ordered his officials and army to wear costumes and uniforms made after the European style. This policy had already occasioned disquietude and suspicion in the pious heads under turbans in Asia.) When the wine was brought before that religiously sober assembly, an announcement was made that "as the Sultan ruled on European soil he wished to bring his country more into harmony with the Franks (all the people of Western Europe are so called), and any unwillingness on the part of his subjects would possibly hasten the decay of his empire. It was, moreover, the desire of the sovereign that narrow-minded superstition and the dislike of new things, even though they were borrowed from the Franks, should disappear." The announcement was concluded by the warning that those guests who should refuse to drink wine would be regarded as rebellious against the will of their sovereign. Face to face with this somewhat startling alternative, the guests became pale of countenance and mute of tongue, for, be it remembered, he who gave this order was a real autocrat, who had even exterminated the awe-inspiring Janissaries. However, my grandfather sprang up from his seat and said, "could not our sovereign find any other virtues among the Franks worth imitating?" He pointed out, moreover, that the law against drinking wine, the ordinance of the faith, was given to them by an authority superior even to that of his Majesty. He then started to go out, and while he was forcing his way through the servants and guards, Sultan Mahmud, who was watching this comedy literally from behind the scenes, suddenly stepped in smiling, and, in order to dispel the fear of the white-bearded, green-turbaned gentlemen, he said he simply meant to test the fortitude and character of the people who were to guide his subjects in the paths of religion and rectitude.