The climate, of course, has a great deal to do with it. One may sleep in the open air most of the year, and if one does little work, a bit of water-melon and slice of bread dipped in salt and water is an excellent repast. Temperance is hardly a virtue where rich food could only make one unwell.
Whatever be the attraction--the tenets of the Faith, or the leisurely life, or the desire to live in Turkey without the inconveniences of nonconformity--conversion to Mahommedanism is a very common thing. I have met several French renegades, and some English have been pointed out to me. Our frigates have frequent quarrels with the Turks on this head; and even of the Spaniards, who are supposed to be so bigoted, an incredible number turned Turks at the time that their ships of war first came up here.
As for society amongst the foreigners, diplomatic and others, although there is a complete Frank quarter, and it is said to have been at one time very pleasant, there is hardly any now. For one thing, in these times of general war, the ministers of countries at variance at home now hold no communication, nor do their families; in the case of the French this is by a peremptory order of their Government. So there is little meeting and next to no entertainment, and for lack of other amusement a vast deal of scandal, of mining and countermining of each other's reputations, with the result that they come to be nearly as mean in character as they try to make each other out to be; and another reason is that among the merchants who formerly vied in magnificence with the ministers, there is now great distress, and hardly one could give a decent dinner. Their ships lie rotting in the ports, and the hands, Ragusans mostly, hang about gnawing their fingers with hunger.
Among the few families one could visit was that of the Charnowskis, Poles, the ladies of which are the admired of all the English here, and especially of my two companions, Sir W. Ingilby and Foster, who have fallen completely under the thumbs of these beautiful sirens. I saw enough of them to feel compassion for my friends and almost to need it myself.
Another family we know, of the name of Hubsch, who are amusing. The Baron, as he styles himself, is a sort of minister of a number of little Powers which have no earthly relation with the Turks, as Denmark, Prussia, Norway, &c., and as he hoists all their flags over his house, the Turks believe him to be a very mighty person. He affects to be in the secrets of all the Cabinets of Europe, and assumes an air of prodigious mystery in politics. He is banker and manager of all things and all persons who will be imposed upon by him.