There was nothing to take over but a flag, which the vice-consul, a Smyrniote Greek, and an honest one, as I was glad to find, but who knew nothing of the business of a consul, had been hoisting on all fte days for two or three years, waiting for a consul to come.

I was received with great festivity by my protgs, the family of the vice-consul, and with great ceremony by the pasha, a renegade Greek, educated in medicine by the Sultana Valide, and in the enjoyment of her high protection; an unscrupulous scoundrel, who had grafted on his Greek duplicity all the worst traits of the Turk.

As, with the exception of the Italian consul, Sig.

Colucci, not one of the persons with whom I acted or came in contact in my official residence survives, unless it may be the commander of the Assurance, an English gunboat, of whose subsequent career I know nothing, I shall treat them all without reserve.
The Pasha, Ismael, I at once found, considered it his policy to provoke a conflict with any new consul, and either break him in or buy him over; and the occasion for a trial of strength was not long coming.

The night patrol attempted to arrest the son of the vice-consul in his house, in which I had been temporarily residing while the house which I took was being put in order, and over which the flag floated.