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Not the least of the many features that differentiated the Constantinople Embassy from all other embassies was the institution of the Dragomansssss1—persons through whom all transactions with the Porte were carried on and upon whom therefore the Ambassador had to depend for the most essential part of his work. The Dragomans, in their dual capacity of Intelligencers and Interpreters, had always been important members of the Embassy staff. But their importance had increased immeasurably since the Elizabethan tradition of appointing ambassadors who had served their apprenticeship as secretaries to their predecessors had yielded to the practice of sending out diplomats new to Turkey, her language, and her ways. Cut off from direct contact with the country, the Ambassador now relied almost entirely upon his Dragomans’ reports. The Dragomans were his eyes and his ears, as well as his mouth: they were, in fact, absolute masters of business and of their employer.

The system laboured under the usual disadvantages of dealing by proxy, and a good many more peculiar to Turkey. As Intelligencers the Dragomans were not all that might have been desired: their information was often inaccurate, and sometimes, when information failed, they, in order to keep up their reputation for omniscience, had recourse to invention. Our Ambassadors had already learnt from experience to receive their news with extreme caution.ssss1 Hardly more satisfactory were the Dragomans in their character of Interpreters. Absurd as it may sound, the persons who performed this most delicate and confidential function were not subjects of the sovereign they served, but of the Grand Signor: natives of Pera, mostly of Italian extraction. This rendered them very indifferent vehicles of the ambassadorial mind. When the message with which they were charged happened to be disagreeable to the Porte, they manifested the strongest disinclination to deliver it. Fear tied their tongues: they would much rather risk their employer’s displeasure than the brutal fury of an angry pasha. There was nothing to wonder at in this: Dragomans had often been drubbed, sometimes even hanged or impaled, for doing their duty. So real was the danger and so powerless was the Ambassador to protect his own servants against the savagery of their liege lords that even in his presence the Dragomans dared not translate faithfully his words, if they were of a nature to irritate his Turkish collocutor. At the mere sound of such words, they were seized with panic: their faces grew red and white by turns, their foreheads were covered with beads of sweat, their limbs trembled, their mouths went suddenly dry—as if they already felt the stick on the soles of their feet or the halter round their necks. It was no unusual thing to see the Dragoman of a European Ambassador, after stammering out an expurgated version of the message, drop on his knees before the Turkish Minister and burst into abject apologies for his temerity. At times, ingenious interpreters gifted with presence of mind were known to improvise imaginary dialogues—to substitute speeches of their own inspiration for those really made by the parties on whose behalf they acted. The position was both tragic and ludicrous; but no ambassador not utterly devoid of reason and humanity could complain. He himself, if he were in the Dragoman’s shoes, would behave as the Dragoman behaved. Even as it was, despite his non-subjection to the Grand Signor, despite also the theoretical inviolability of his person, a prudent ambassador shrank from irritating a Turkish pasha: envoys of various Powers who had forgotten to hold their tongues had been affronted, assaulted, dragged down the stairs by the hair of their heads, imprisoned in noisome dungeons. All things considered, the wonder is not so much that the Dragomans fulfilled their perilous task inadequately, as that they dared undertake it at all.