Page:The Book of Orders of Knighthood and Decorations of Honour of All Nations.djvu/734

Rh The entrance fee of the first class is 2500 piasters (£25), or the second,1500 (£15), of the third 750 (£7 10s.), and of the fourth and fifth classes 200 (£2). Foreigners and the military are exempt from these fees.

MEDAL.

In 1833, when Mehemet Ali was rapidly advancing with his victorious army under Ibrahim Pasha, upon Constantinople, which was only saved from falling into his hands by the arrival of a Russian army at Unkiar Silesia, by which a more favourable turn was given to the Sultan's prospects in the East, the latter distributed, amongst the Czar's troops, medals of gold, set round with diamonds to the Generals and Admirals, as also to the Ambassador of Russia; of gold, in different sizes to the officers; and of silver, to the military of inferior degrees.

All these medals represent, on the obverse, the initial of Mahmud between two laurel branches, and below it, the year 1249 of the Hegira, in Turkish characters and cyphers, while the reverse shows the crescent between laurel branches, with the year (1833) of the Christian Era.

ORDER OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

We are led to introduce this Christian Order here, from the circumstance that it has now no other seat than Jerusalem which belongs to Turkey.

This Order may justly rival in antiquity that of St. Lazarus, credible authors dating its origin as early as the year 69, when St. James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, entrusted the guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre to a number of men, distinguished