Their patriarch was a great personage,practically appointed, however, by the Sultan, and resident in Constantinople.

The patriarch was a handsome, powerful old man, sixty years of age, and the father of my guide, which I had learnt before, as he was one of our travelling party; he was a terrible scold, and wrangled about every trifle; the son seldom contradicted him, and gave way to all that his father wished.

But from the first days of the Ottoman conquest until very recent times all the Christian population, irrespective of denominational differences, was assigned by the Sultans to the Greek millet, of which the patriarch of Constantinople was the head.

'If she has a chance.' 'What do you mean?' 'Do you happen to know what sort of man the present Patriarch of Constantinople is?' Logotheti's jaw dropped, and he slackened his pace.