has XIII. 1821. races in renders go more easy. What renders the government of the Christians, though CHAP. so superior in number, by the Mahommedans more easy in Turkey, is the variety of tribes and races of which the 10. subjected population is composed, their separation from Division of each other by mountains, seas, and entire want of roads, Turkey and the complete unity of action and identity of purpose vernment in the dominant race. The Greeks are not only a different race, but speak a different language from the Bulgarians: the Servians are a separate tribe from the Wallachians, the Albanians from both. The Greek of the Phanar nothing in common with the peasant of Roumelia; the Armenian with the Syrian; the Egyptian with the Cappadocian; the Jew with the Albanian. These different nations and tribes have separate feelings, descent, and interests; they are severed from each other by recollections, habits, institutions; vast ranges of mountains, in Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor, part them; roads, or even bridges, there are none, to enable the different inhabitants of this varied realm to communicate with each other, ascertain their common wrongs, or enter into any common designs for their liberation. On the other hand, the Turks, in possession of the incomparable harbour and central capital of Constantinople, with the Euxine and the Sea of Marmora, for their interior line of communication, are a homogeneous race, speaking one language, professing one religion, animated by one spirit, swayed by one interest, and enabled, by means of the government couriers, whose speed compensates the difficulty of transit, to communicate one common impulse to all parts of their vast dominions. The example of the English in India is sufficient to show how long the possession of these advantages is capable of enabling an inconsiderable body of strangers to subdue and keep in subjection a divided multitude of nations, a thousand times more numerous. The military strength of the Turks, which was long so The quarter of Constantinople where the richest and most intelligent of the Greeks reside. XIII. 1821. 11. tarystrength from the Turks. CHAP. formidable to Europe, and more than once put Christendom within a hair's-breadth of destruction, is derived entirely from the Osmanlis. It is a fundamental maxim The mili- of their government, that the Mussulmans alone are to be of the em- armed, or called on to combat either foreign or domestic pire entirely derived enemies; the Christians are to be made to contribute to the expense of armaments, and uphold by their industry the strength of the empire, but by no means to be intrusted with the duty of defending it in the field. The former is the generous war-horse, which, sedulously trained to military exercises, is released from all toil till the glorious dangers of war commence; the latter the humble beast of burden, which is worn out in the meaner occupations of peace, and follows at a distance his proud compeer to the field, to bear his burdens and provide for his subsistence. As the military strength of the empire thus depends solely on the Osmanlis, it is drawn from a comparatively limited body, and depends entirely on their spirit and courage. Yet is this difference between the Turks and other homogeneous nations greater in appearance than reality. Except in periods of extraordinary excitement, when the whole nation, under the influence of an ungovernable impulse, runs to arms, the military strength of every people is derived from a portion only of its inhabitants. The military caste is seldom more than a third or a fourth of the whole number; and if, as in Turkey, that proportion is all trained to arms as a profession, and engages in no other, it is fully as much as the labour of the remainder of the people can maintain in idleness, ever ready for the toils of war. 12. civil busi As the Turks are the military caste upon whom the The whole whole strength in war of the Ottoman empire depends, ness of the so the Christians are the industrious class upon whom its country is whole riches and material prosperity rest. The natural and inevitable ascendancy of mind over matter, of intelligence over strength, never appeared more strongly than in the destinies of the Greek people. Still, as in ancient conducted by the Greeks. CHAP. XIII. 1821. times, they have asserted the dominion over their conquerors; if the sword of the Osmanlis, as of the Romans, has subdued their bodies, their minds have again reasserted the ascendancy over their oppressors. The Greeks at . Constantinople seem rather the allies than the subjects of the Turks. The same is the case in most of the other great towns of the empire; and their presence is indispensable, their superiority still more manifest, in the divans of all the pashas. The Turks, who long, above all things, after repose, and know no excitement but love and war, leave the whole management of affairs to the Greeks: civil administration, negotiations, pacific situations, letters, the arts, commerce, manufactures, industry, navigation, all are in their hands. The Turks command, and are alone intrusted with military power; but the Greeks direct the commander, often in military, always in civil affairs. The seamen of the Archipelago, skilful now as when they rolled back the tide of Persian invasion in the Gulf of Salamis, have the entire commerce of the empire in their hands; for although the Turks are admirable horsemen and most formidable soldiers by land, they have a superstitious aversion to the sea, and often find it easier, as Gibbon observes, to overrun an empire than to cross a 325, 326. strait.1 1 Lam, vii. rapid in compared Turks. As the Turks are thus the indolent, luxurious, dominant 13. race, and the Greeks, Armenians, and other Christians Great and the laborious, hard-working, servant race, they have re- crease of the spectively undergone the usual fate of mankind in such Christians positions in society. The masters have diminished, the to the slaves have multiplied. The lazy rulers, with their sabres, their horses, their harems, their coffee-houses, their life of repose and enjoyment, are unable to maintain their own numbers; the despised and insulted subjects, with their ploughs, their shuttles, their oars, their single wives and cottages, have overspread the land with their descendants. They have increased in some places as fast, and from the same cause, as the reviled Catholic Celt under Protestant XIII. 1821. CHAP. and Orange domination did in Ireland. In the level country, indeed, where the horsemen of the Osmanlis have found it easy to extend their ravages, and the pashas their oppression, the human race has in many places wholly disappeared, and the mournful traveller, after traversing for days together the richest plains, studded with the ruins of ancient cities, now left without a single inhabitant, has repeatedly expressed a dread of the entire extirpation of the human species in the very garden of nature, the places in the world best adapted for its reception. But this is sometimes the result rather of a migration than an absolute diminution of inhabitants. In the mountains where the janizaries have not been able to penetrate, or the regions where the tyranny of the pashas has been exchanged for a fixed tribute-in Servia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, the fastnesses of Albania, the Taurus, and Lebanon-the human race is increasing with great rapidity, cultivation is daily extending into the wilds of nature, and the beautiful spectacle is presented to the eye of the charmed traveller of industry overcoming the difficulties with which it is surrounded, and man existing in simple innocence, surrounded with the comforts of unsophisticated nature. 14. M. Lamartine, whose brilliant imagination is accomPicture of panied with a close observation of external things, and the Servians whose travels are suspected to be poetical dreams only because they exhibit sketches from nature, coloured with by Lamartine. * “ En général, pour les productions, le paysan en Turquie ne demande à la terre que ce dont il a rigoureusement besoin pour sa subsistance, et le reste est livré à l'abandon. La partie qui avoisine les côtes, jusqu'à une distance de quinze à vingt lieues, est plus généralement la mieux cultivée ; mais au-delà l'on marche souvent, pendant plusieurs heures, à travers de vestes espaces en friche, remplis de broussailles et de mauvaises herbes, dont la vigueur de végé tation atteste la fécondité et la richesse productive du sol. A voir ce délaissement de l'agriculture dans la Roumélie, on serait tenté de croire à la réalité de ce dicton, beaucoup plus commun parmi nous qu'en Turquie, que les Turcs ne se considèrent que comme campés en Europe, et qu'ils détachent, peu à peu, leurs pensées des provinces qu'ils sentent leur échapper pour les rapporter de préférence sur cette terre d'Asie, qui fut le berceau de leur nation. Cependant, si nous portons nos regards de l'autre côté des détroits, l'aspect ne change pas même fertilité partout, et même désolation. Si l'on excepte quelques riches plaines de l'Asie Mineure, vous n'apercevez presque nulle те XIII. 1821. the tints of his poetic mind, has given the following pic- CHAP. part quelque trace de culture. De vastes solitudes, coupées de lointains I Lamar l'Orient, |