6 PUBLIC LIBRARY AT RHODES. 



them on record. All that Sir Charles Fellows 

 has said in favour of the Turks of Asia Minor 

 we can fully bear out. What we saw — and, 

 what is more to the purpose, what Mr. Sand- 

 ford knew — of the higher ranks of Turks in 

 Rhodes, strengthened the good opinion we had 

 contracted of their nation, and raised consider- 

 ably our estimation of their intelligence and 

 acquirements ; which are certainly quite equal 

 with, if not superior to, those of most Le- 

 vantine Franks, though the latter be clad in 

 European costume and familiar with European 

 customs. 



That the good points of the Turkish cha- 

 racter, such as it displayed itself to us, lie 

 deeper than in mere external politeness, natural 

 mildness of disposition, and dislike of exertion, 

 is evident, if we inquire into the provision 

 made for the instruction of the rising genera- 

 tion among them. In the town of Rhodes 

 the Osmanlis have a public library, containing 

 about one thousand volumes, and placed in a 

 neat building erected for the purpose, founded 

 about fifty years ago by Turbend Agasi Achmet 

 Aga. We had an interview with the present 

 librarian, Hadgi Mehemet Effendi, a highly 



