Fifty Years in Constantinople And Recollections of Robert College

ng down about one hundred feet through solid rock without finding water I gave it up, and there it remains to this day. When Dr. Hamlin was left alone by the resignation of the two professors, 1865, I taught several classes until the end of the college year. When he was trying to secure permission to build at Hissar I was living in Pera, and for about two years I had charge of all the negotiations with the American Legation and with the British Embassy. We depended chiefly at that time upon Lord Lyons, who had just come from Washington, who was an enthusiastic friend of America and who saw clearly that Robert College would strengthen English influence in Turkey. Dr. Hamlin was so disgusted with what he felt to be a want of sympathy on the part of the American minister that he had broken off personal relations with him, and the situation was farther complicated by the fact that the minister and his first secretary and dragoman were not on speaking terms. Yet all the official communication with the Porte had to be carried on through the American Legation. Happily I was on good terms with all the parties concerned. Dr. Hamlin told me what he wanted and I went first to the minister and got his promise to act; then I went to the dragoman and persuaded him to act on the same line, in both cases listening to the complaints which the one had to make against the other. It was the most curious experience that I ever had in diplomacy. In 1868 Dr. Hamlin resumed direct int...