days of Ottoman rule, the reigning sovereign, as is still the
case in some parts of the East, held courts of justice and levees at the
entrance of his residence. The palace of the Sultan is always surrounded
by a high wall, and not unfrequently defended by lofty towers and
bastions. The chief entrance is an elevated portal, with some pretensions
to magnificence and showy architecture. It is guarded by soldiers or
door-keepers well armed; it may also contain some apartments for certain
officers, or even for the Sultan himself; its covering or roof, projecting
beyond the walls, offers an agreeable shade, and in its external alcoves
are sofas more or less rich or gaudy. Numerous loiterers are usually found
lingering about the portal, applicants for justice; and there, in former
times, when the Ottomans were indeed _Turks_, scenes of injustice and
cruelty were not unfrequently witnessed by the passer-by.

This lofty portal generally bears a distinct title. At Constantinople it
has even grown into one which has given a name to the whole government of
the Sultan. I am not aware, however, that the custom here alluded to was
ever in force in that capital, though it certainly was in other parts of
the empire of Othman. It is not improbable that it was usual with all the
Sultans, who, at the head of their armies, seldom had any permanent fixed
residence worthy of the name of _palace_. Mahomet the Second, who
conquered Constantinople from the degenerate Greeks, may, for some time
after his entrance into the city of Constantine--still called in all the
official documents, such as "_Firmans_," or "Royal Orders,"
_Kostantinieh_--have held his courts of justice and transacted business at
the elevated portal of his temporary residence. The term "Sublime Porte,"
in Turkish, is _Deri Alieh_, or the elevated and lofty door; the Saxon
word door being derived from the Persian _der_, or _dor_, in common use in
the Ottoman language, which is a strange mixture of Tartar, Persian, and
Arabic. The French, or rather the Franks, in their earlier intercourse
with Turkey, translated the title literally "La Sublime Porte," and this
in English has been called, with similar inaccuracy, "The Sublime Porte."

Long since, the Ottoman Sultans have ceased administering justice before
their palaces, or indeed any where else, in person. The office is
delegated to a deputy, who presides over the whole Ottoman government,
with the title of Grand Vezir, or in Tu