rapidity, cultivation is daily extending into the wilds of nature, and the beautiful spectacle is presented to the eye of the charmed traveler of industry overcoming the difficulties with which it is surrounded, and man existing in simple innocence, surrounded with the comforts of unsophisticated nature. 14. Servians by M. Lamartine, whose brilliant imagination is accompanied with a close observaPicture of the tion of external things, and whose travels are suspected to be poetical Lamartine. dreams only because they exhibit sketches from nature, colored with the tints of his poetic mind, has given the following picture of Servia, where, ever since its formidable insurrection in the commencement of the present century, independence, under the tutelary arm of PRINCE MOLOSCH, has been practically established: "The population in Servia amounts now (1836) to 1,000,000 souls, and it is rapidly increasing. The mildness of the climate, which resembles that between Lyons and Avignon; the riches of the deep and virgin soil, which covers the surface every where with the vegetation of Switzerland; the abundance of rivers and streams which descend from the mountains, circulate in the valleys, and often form lakes in the spacious woods; the felling of the forests, which at once, as in America, furnishes space for the plow and materials for the houses of those who hold it; the mild and pure manners of the people; their wise and protective institutions, the reflection, as it were, of the best in Europe; the supreme power concentrated in the hands of a man worthy of his mission, Prince Molosch-all these elements of prosperity and happiness promise to advance the population to several millions before a century is over. Should that people, as it desires and hopes, become the kernel of a new Sclavonic empire by its reunion with Bosnia, a part of Bulgaria, and the warlike Montenegrins, Europe will see a new empire rise from the ruins of Turkey, and embrace the vast Voyages en and beautiful regions which extend L'Orient, vii. between the Danube, the Balkan, 1 Lamartine, 12. 15. the Euxine, and the Adriatic.1 "The traveler can not quit this beautiful region, as I have done, without saContinued. luting with regrets and benedictions its rising fortunes. Those immense virgin forests, those mountains, those plains, those rivers, which seem to have come fresh from the hands of the Creator, and to mingle the luxuriant youth of nature with the youth of man; those new houses, which seem to spring out of the woods, to stretch along the side of torrents into the most sequestered nooks of the valleys; the roll of the revolving mills, busied with the cutting of wood; the sound of the village bells, newly baptized in the blood of the defenders of the country; the songs of the youths and maidens, as they lighten their toil; the sight of the multitude of children who issue from the schools or from the churches, the roofs of which are not yet finished; the accents of liberty, of joy, and of hope in every mouth; the look of spring and gladness in every countenance; the sight of those mountains which stand forth shaded with primeval forests; the fortresses of nature, and of that Danube, which bends as if to embrace so beauteous a region, and waft its productions to the east and the north; the prospect of the mosque every where in ruins, and the Christian churches rising in every village-all those speak the youth of nations, and we mingle our prayers with the song of the freeman. "When the sun of Servia shines on the waters of the Danube, the river seems to glitter with the blades of the yatagans, the resplendent fusils of the Montenegrins: it is a river of liquid steel which defends Servia. It is sweet to sit on its shore, and to see it waft past the broken arms of our enemies. When the wind of Albania descends from the mountains, and engulfs itself in the forests of Schamadia, cries issue from them as from the army of the Turks at the rout of Mosawa. Sweet is that murmur to the ears of the freed Servians. Dead or liv- 1 Lamartine, ing, it is sweet after the battle to Voyages dans repose at the foot of that oak which L'Orient, viii. expands in freedom as we do." 41, 42. 16. But examples like that of Servia, of which there are several in the Turkish dominions, particularly in Bulgaria, General deand the valleys of Lebanon, are the crease of exceptions, not the rule. Generally population in Turkey. speaking, the country is retrograde, and exhibits the usual and well-known features of decaying societies. Roads there are none, except bridle-paths, often impassable for any save daring horsemen: harbors choked up; walls falling into ruin; bridges broken down, and never repaired; villages wholly deserted, or consisting of a few huts ainong extensive ruins; rich plains in a state of nature, or traversed only by the wandering Arab, who seeks shelter in the remains of former magnificence-are the general features of the country. The Turkish empire is perishing, literally speaking, from want of inhabitants; and while the philosophers of Europe were contemplating with dread the productive powers of its overflowing inhabitants, the travelers in Asia were anticipating the entire disappearance of the human race, in the regions where it was first created, and where the most ample means have been provided for its increase. The Ottoman dominions present from day to day a wide void for anarchy and barbarism to rule in; territories without inhabitants, tribes without rulers, plains without culture. No foreign interposition is necessary to complete its downfall; it is working out its own ruin; the colossus is falling without even a hand being stretched forth to hurl it to the ground. The population, thrown back upon itself, is expiring from its own impotence in many places it no longer exists. The Mussulman race is reduced to nothing in the sixty thousand square leagues which compose its immense and fertile domain; excepting in the capital, and a few great cities, there is scarcely a Turk to be seen. Gaze over that vast empire, its fertile fields, and seek the Ottoman raceyou will nowhere find it, except in large towns. The senseless, or rather murderous government of the Ottoman has in tine, Voymost places created a desert. The ages dans conquered races have generally in- L'Orient, creased, while the conquering is daily 332. disappearing.2 2 Lainar viii. 331, Statistical facts of unquestionable veracity prove that these observations are not the mere 17. deductions of reason. offspring of a heated imagination, but the sober | little more than three millions are 1 Malte Brun, The Ottoman Mohammedans, certainly not a vii. 842, 843; third of what it contained in an- Von Hammer, cient days.' Statistics dominions, which are nearly the same of Turkey. with those which, on the partition of the Empire, fell to the lot of the emperors of Constantinople, contain 60,000 square geographical leagues, or 540,000 square miles-above four times the size of Great Britain and Ireland, and more than three times that of France. The benignity of the climate, luxuriance of vegetation, and warmth of the sun, have rendered the plains of extraordinary fertility, often yielding eighty and a hundred for one, while in England ten to one is reckoned a large crop, and at the same time made the rocky slopes, here abandoned to furze or heath, capable of yielding the finest crops of grapes and olives. Magnificent forests, furnishing inexhaustible resources for ship-building, clothe the mountain sides; and the Egean lies in the midst of the empire, studded with islands of ravishing beauty, inhabited by skillful and hardy sailors, as if to furnish the means of communication between its most distant extremities. Its capital is Constantinople, the finest harbor in the world, and so advantageously situated for foreign commerce that it in every age has engrossed the most lucrative traffic which man carries onthat between the East and the West. The greatest rivers of Europe, Asia, and Africa— the Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile-are its streams, and waft the varied productions of its industry to distant quarters, where they may find a ready vent. Yet with all these immense advantages, which supported the Byzantine empire for a thousand years after the Western had fallen, the Ottoman empire now contains less than thirty millions of inhabitants, not a third of its population in former times, or a fifth of what it is capable of maintaining; and such as it is, this scanty population is daily declining. Turkey in Europe, with a territory more than twice as large as Great Britain, contains only ten millions of inhabitants, of whom * The following is the estimated population of Turkey ii. 273. sist? 18. There must have been some grievous faults on the part of government and institutions in Turkey, which, with In what does such advantages, has produced so Turkish opfearful a diminution of inhabitants. pression conNor is it difficult to see in what those faults consist. It is common to it with all the states in the East. There are no elements of freedom, no guarantees against oppression in the land. The rule of the Osmanlis is not more oppressive than that of other Asiatic states; but it is entirely despotic, and there is no check on the abuse of power by the sultan or the inferior governors of provinces. It is the practical application of the principles of government acted on in Turkey which has occasioned such a fearful chasm in the population, and weakened so remarkably the strength of the empire. 1. The first of these principles is, that the sultan nominates at pleasure, and removes at will, all the civil and military functionaries of the empire. He is absolute master of their fortunes and their lives; but the difficulty of carrying his mandates into execution in the distant pachalics, renders this power often more nominal than real; and the sultan, destitute of adequate regular troops to enforce his mandates, is obliged to bribe one pacha to depose another, by the promise of his power, his treasures, his harem, and oblivion for his crimes. 2. The second principle is, that every depository of power can delegate it entire and uncontrolled to his subordinates in office; so that every aga or janizary within his territory is as despotic as the sultan in Constantinople. It is a common saying in Turkey, that the sword of the sultan does not fall upon the dust; and neither does it: but the sword of the sultan falls upon the pacha, and the sword of the pacha falls upon the aga, and the sword of the aga upon the janizary, and the sword of the janizary upon the peasant. Each is invested with uncontrolled power over all beneath him; and as there is no popular representation, or check of sort on power, any it may readily be imagined with what severity it falls on the humblest classes. It was well expressed in a letter, written by Odysseus to Mohammed Pacha, explaining the reasons which induced him to take up arms 79,500 at the commencement of the Greek Revolution: "It was the injustice of the viziers, way wodes, According to their races, the inhabitants stand thus: In Europe. In Asia. In Africa. in Europe, according to M. Hassel and Malte Brun: I. CHRISTIANS. 2,350,000 275,000 312,000 120,000 3,057,000 224,000 TOTAL. Syrians.. 900,000 Druses. 150,000 Kurds. 300,000 Turcomans.. 35,350,000 15,500,000 16,050,000 3,800,000 35,330.000 -UBICINI'S Lettres sur la Turquie, 25. -UBICINI, 22. Mussulmans. 4,550,000 12,650,000 3,800,000 21,000,000 1 Odysseus to Mohammed Pasha, Nov. don's Greek 466, Malte 19. Sultan. pire; but as it rests in the hands of priests and 1 Michelus, ttoman Empire, 178; Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, 270. cadis, and baloukbashis, each of whom closed the book of Mohammed, and opened a book of his own. Any virgin that pleased them, they took by force; any merchant in Negropont who was making money, they beheaded and seized his goods; any proprietor of a good estate they slew, and 15.1822 Gor- occupied his property; and every Revolution, i, drunken vagabond in the streets could murder respectable Greeks, Brun, vii. 706. and was not punished for it."1 3. A third principle of government, which proved not less destructive in pracThe lives and tice than the first, is, that the lives property of all and property of all the inhabitants belong to the in his dominions are by the right of conquest the property of the sul tan, and may be reclaimed by him at pleasure. It it true, this extreme right is kept in abeyance, and not in general acted upon; but its reality is never doubted, and it forms a fearful principle to fall back upon, when arbitrary acts have been resolved upon, or the public treasury stands much in need of replenishing. The whole Christians, whether Greeks or Armenians, and the Jews, as well as other similar" dogs," stand in this situation. They purchase their lives annually by payment of a capitation tax, known by the significant name, "Redemption Turkey, in consequence of this extraordinary of the price of heads;" but the application of and anomalous position of its land- 21. the principle to immovable property produces ed property, and of the want of Injury done to still more disastrous consequences. It is held any durable interest in the domi- Turkey by imthat no one, not even the Turks, can enjoy the nant race of the state in its pros- portation. hereditary right to landed estates; they never perity, has long been the victim of the old im can be more than usufructuaries or life-renters. perial policy, inherited by the Ottomans from If the owner dies without a male child, the the ancient masters of the world--that of sacrisultan is the heir, to the exclusion of the daugh- ficing the interests of production in the counters; if there are sons, their right of succession try to those of consumption in towns. is redeemed by the payment of a tenth of the magnitude and importance of Constantinople, value, but that tenth is estimated by the offi- the extreme danger of any serious discontent eers of exchequer. The persons holding office among its turbulent inhabitants, the number of under the sultan in any degree are subject to sultans who have fallen victims to insurrections still greater uncertainty; all their property of among the janizaries, have contributed to imevery description belongs on their death to the press upon the Ottoman government, at all hazsultan, and must be redeemed at an arbitrary ards, the necessity of keeping down the price rate. So great is the apprehension entertained of provisions. Every thing is sacrificed to this of this right, that no one ventures to expend object. Goods of every sort, including grain, money on heritable property. If a house, a imported, pay an ad valorem duty of 5 per cent.; roof, or an arch fall, it is suffered to remain in all goods exported pay an ad valorem duty of 12 rains. Whatever property can be accumulated per cent. This strange policy, akin to that of is invested in movable effects-jewels or money the Popes in modern, and the Emperors in an2 Volney, Voy- —which, being easily concealed, cient Rome, springing from dread of the old ages en Syrie, are more likely to escape the Ar- cry of "Panem et Circenses" of the Roman popchap. . Lu- gus eyes of the tax-gatherers. The ulace, is of itself sufficient to account for the only way in which property in ruinous state of agriculture in the Turkish emperpetuity can be settled in Tur- pire. Constantinople is fed from Alexandria, Mary Wortley key, is by bequeathing it for pious Odessa, and Galatz, not Roumelia. The TurkMontague's purposes to a mosque, the direct-ish government at one period went so far as to Letters, ii., Letter 32; ors of which, for a moderate ran- prohibit exportation from Wallachia and MolMalte Brun, som, permit it to be enjoyed by davia to any other place than Constantinople; vil. 706, 707. the heirs of the testator.2 and yet so great are the agricultural resources In consequence of this insecurity of land-ten- of these provinces, that, since this restriction ure in Turkey, and of the mosques has been removed, the exportation of grain Great extent of affording the only security that can from Galatz and Brahilow, the chief harbors, land in Turkey be relied on, a very large propor- has increased at the rate of 2 Ubicini, Letheld in mort- tion of the heritable property in the 700,000 quarters a year, and now tres sur la Turcountry has come into the hands amounts to 5,000,000 quarters an- quie, 280, 281, of these ecclesiastical trustees; some estimate it nually.2 as three-fourths, none at less than two-thirds There results from this general life-tenure and of the entire surface. This species of property, insecurity of property in Turkey the most being subject neither to taxes nor confiscation, scandalous venality on the part of persons holdis largely resorted to in every part of the em-ing office, and the most rapacious exactions decke, Relation main. 20. 285. The fice. 22. on the unfortunate persons subjected to their 707. 23. Ruinous weakness ecutive. self in his turn the victim of the jealousies of the government. It is evident that, though this system conduces at times to the signal punishment of a guilty or rebellious satrap, it is utterly inconsistent with any thing like regular or good government, and only chastises crime by providing for its unpunished continuance in future times. tice. 24. Justice is venal in the Ottoman, as, indeed, it is in all Oriental states. The judges, both high and low, are taken Venality from the Oulema, a sort of incorpora- and corruption of persons learned in law and tion of jusjurisprudence; and if they were persons of probity, their influence would be very great. But they are so venal in their conduct, and so arbitrary in their decisions, that no weight whatever can be attached to their judgments. All judges-the mollah, the cadi, and simple naib-pronounce sentences, both in civil and criminal cases, without appeal; thence, of course, an infinite variety in the judgments pronounced, and an entire impossibility of rectifying an unjust decision. The cadi, in flagrant cases, may be deposed, bastinadoed, and his fortune confiscated; but the only effect of that is to enrich the sultan or the officers of his treasury, but by no means to rectify the injustice done to the unhappy suitor. The Turkish jurisprudence consists in a few maxims from the Koran, and a few traditionary principles handed down in the courts; written statutes, collections of decisions, they have none; witnesses are examined, and oaths administered on both sides, and at the end of a few minutes or hours the decision, which is final and irreversible, is pronounced. The defendant or culprit, if poor, is bastinadoed; if rich, or a Frank, he is amerced in a pecuniary fine called an "avaria;" if a thief or a robber, he is hanged. Every thing is done as swiftly as it was in the camp of Othman; and so strongly is the military impress 1 Volney, still retained in the empire, that ii., Letter the chief judges of the empire in TourneEurope and Asia bear the name re- Letter xiv. ; spectively of Kadi-laskar, or judge Malte Brun, of the army. 1 fort, ii., vii. 709. To these manifold evils must be added another, which, in its practical results, is often the greatest of the whole; and that is, that the central governof the Ex- ment at Constantinople has no adequate force at its command to enforce its mandates, or compel a just administration on the part of its remote satraps. The regular military force at the disposal of the sultan is so small, in comparison to the immense extent So powerful are these causes of evil, that of his dominions, that he is often unable to find they must long since have led to the 25. troops under his immediate control to punish entire dissolution of the Turkish em- Contrary or restrain his rebellious or oppressive vassals; pire, were it not that they have been principles of good in and thus he has no resource but to punish one combated by circumstances, which Turkey. pacha by the forces of another-that is, to de- have, in a great degree, neutralized Weakness stroy one culprit by creating a second. This their influence, and prolonged its ex- of power. can only be done for an adequate considera-istence long after, under other circumstances, it tion; and that consideration in general is, either the gift of the culprit's pachalic, or oblivion for some huge delinquencies on the part of the officer to whom the execution of the sultan's decree has been intrusted. In either case, the system of oppression continues, or rather is increased; for the executioner is secured of long impunity by the lustre of his recent victory over his victim. This system, so well known in Scottish history, and, indeed, in that of all the feudal monarchies of Europe, is still in full vigor in Turkey, and was exemplified early in the Greek revolution, by the dethronement and decapitation of Ali Pacha by the forces of his rival, Kourchid Pacha, who hoped to succeed to his pachalic, but was him must have terminated. The first of these is the weakness of government itself, the principal, often the only, shield to innocence and industry in the East. As much as this weakness impedes the regular administration of affairs, and often secures impunity to crime in the depositaries of power, does it prevent their previous abuse of its authority, and shield the people when nothing else could save them from its excesses. The inhabitants are often saved from oppression, not because the pachas want the inclination, but because they want the power to oppress. Industry is sometimes left at peace, because the tyrants can not reach it. The military force of the empire being entirely confined to the Osmanlis, and they being in many places, especially in the rural districts, not a tenth, sometimes not a twentieth part of the entire inhabitants, they are often without the means of enforcing their exactions; without any regular force to levy taxes or carry into execution their mandates, without money to equip a body of troops from the Turks in towns, they can not make their power felt in the remoter parts of their provinces. 26. The very desolation and ruin of the country, the want of roads, harbors, or And want bridges, the difficulty of reaching of the means the distant places with an armed of communi- force, often proves the salvation of cation. the inhabitants. This is particularly the case in the mountain districts, which form so large a part of the territory of Turkey, both in Europe and Asia. Hence the smiling aspect of the villages and valleys in Servia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, the Lebanon, the Taurus, and some parts of Macedonia, which contrast so strangely with the desolation and ruin of the plains in their vicinity. The cavalry of the pachas pause at the entrance of the rugged valleys, where nothing but break-neck bridlepaths are to be seen, and sturdy mountaineers, armed with their excellent fowling-pieces, are ready to pour death upon the reckless invaders. They are happy to exchange the doubtful chances of warfare for the certainty of a regular tribute. The inhabitants of the plains, especially if they have made any money, flock to these asylums of industry in the midst of a wasted land; and hence the constant increase of inhabitants in the mountains, contrasted with the general depopulation of the plains, which has been observed by all travelers, and led to such opposite conclusions as to the ultimate destiny of the Eastern Empire. In the north of Europe, where commerce is indispensable to comfort, industry protected, and an exchange of surplus rude produce Vide Mante's for foreign luxuries is essential to ney's Travels, civilization, the formation of roads Porter's Trav is always the first step in improveels, Clark's ment; but in the East, where martine's Voy- wants are few, and the benignity of the climate furnishes every L'Orient, Cha- luxury that man requires, this luneraire de want is not experienced, and roads Paris a Jerusa- are rather dreaded as affording an lem, and Urqu- entrance to oppression, than dehart's Spirit of the East. sired as giving the means of export to the productions of industry.1 Further, the character of the Turks, taken as individuals, has many estimable qualities, which have gone far to qualities in counteract the disastrous effects of the Turk- their system of government. That ish charac- they are brave and determined, and at one period were most formidable to Europe, from their military prowess, need be told to none; but it is not equally well known how worthy they are, and how many excellent traits of character are revealed in their private life. They are not in general active or industrious-they have left the labors of the fields to the natives of the soil-the cares of commerce to the Armenians, and the islanders of the Archipelago. Like the ancient Romans or the medieval Knights, they deem the wielding of the sword or managing a steed Travels, Vol Travels, La age dans teaubriand's 27. Excellent ter. the only honorable occupation, and worthy of a freeman. But no one can mingle with them, either in business or society, without perceiving that few races of men are more estimable in the relations of private life. Fearless, honest, and trustworthy, their word is their bond, and they are destitute of the restless spirit and envious disposition which so often in western Europe and America at once disturb happiness and provoke to crime. Inactivity is their great characteristic, repose their chief enjoyment. Their wants, generally speaking, are few; their enjoyments such as nature has thrown open to all. To sit on a carpet, smoke a scented pipe, and gaze under shade on the dancing of the sunbeams on the waves of the Bosphorus, is their supreme enjoyment. Satisfied, if wealthy, with his own harem, which combines the ideas of home and pleasure, the Turk has generally no ambition to invade that of his neighbor; and the enormous mass of female profligacy which infests the great cities of western Europe is unknown. Nothing excites the horror of the Osmanlis so much as the details of the foundling hospitals, and fearful multitude of natural children in Paris and Vienna; they can not conceive how society can exist under such an accumulation of evils. Though capable, when roused either by religious fanaticism or military excitement, of the most frightful deeds of vii. 702, 704; cruelty, they are far, in ordinary Urquhart's times, from being of a savage dis- Spirit of the position; they are kind to their East, 1. 420, wives, passionately fond of their tine, Voyages children, charitable to the poor, dans L'Oriand even extend their benevolent ent, viii. 356, feelings to dumb animals.1 1 Malte Brun, 427; Lamar 357. 28. To this it must be added, that though in practice the administration of government by the pachas is generally The theory of to the last degree oppressive and the central govdestructive, yet the system of government is comernment is by no means equally paratively mild. tyrannical, and in some respects is wise and tolerant, to a degree which may afford an example to, or excite the envy of the Christian powers. Though the Turks, when they stormed Constantinople in 1453, established the religion of Mohammed as the creed of the empire, yet they were far from proscribing other tenets, and to the religion of Jesus in particular they extended many immunities. They admitted its divine origin, confessed that the Koran embodied many of its precepts, and claimed only for their own faith that of being the last emanation of the Divine Will. They did not at first trample upon or oppress their Christian subjects merely on account of their faith; on the contrary, the heads of the Greek Church were treated with respect, and its clergy maintained in their chapels and other places of worship. Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants were alike tolerated, though not admitted to power; it was the long, obstinate, and at last disastrous wars with the Christians, which rendered the "Giaour" so much the object of aversion, and led to so many instances of savage oppression. Still the original tolerant principles of the government have again asserted their supremacy over these transient ebullitions of rage, and by 2 Malte Brun, vii. 712. |