XIII.

1821.

CHAP. the Roman empire; the Arabs issued from their fiery deserts with the Koran in one hand and the scimitar in the other, penetrated through Africa and Spain into the heart of France, and were only arrested by the enthusiasm of the Crusades on the shores of Palestine; the Huns and Sclavonians spread over Eastern Europe, and settled themselves in the plains of Poland and Hungary; the Turks stormed Constantinople itself, and subdued the finest provinces of the Eastern Empire. Europe may boast its courage, its freedom, its enegry, and every quarter of the globe attests its industry or its prowess; but history tells a different tale, and points to the East as the cradle of the lasting conquerors of mankind. It required the genius of Alexander to advance his phalanx into the centre of Asia, the energy of England to urge her standards into the mountains of Cabul; but neither were able to effect a permanent settlement in the regions they had overrun; while, without military genius, discipline, or warlike resources, the Eastern tribes have in every age settled themselves as permanent conquerors in the European fields. Where will the traveller find, in the Asiatic realms, a trace of the European race-where, in the European, are the descendants of the Asiatic not to be found?

5.

Wars of

races in

Europe.

From this ceaseless pressure of the East on the West has arisen not merely wars of invasion, but social conflicts, the east of in the east of Europe, entirely different from those which have divided the Western nations. The barbarians who, issuing from Asia, succeeded in establishing themselves in Europe, formed permanent settlements, appropriated the land in whole or part to themselves, and transmitted it, as they hoped, in peace to their descendants. But they were not permitted to remain in quiet possession of their new acquisitions; another swarm followed in their footsteps, and they were themselves overwhelmed by the waves of conquest. Thence succeeded the fiercest and most enduring conflicts which

XIII.

1821.

have ever divided mankind-those where different con- CHAP.
quering races settled in the same territories, and con-
tended with each other for its government, its lands, its
revenues, its women. The strife of RACES is more last-
ing, their enmity more inveterate, their hostility more
persevering, than that of parties. The animosity of the
Magyar against the German, of the Pole against the Rus-
sian, of the Italian against the German, of the Celt against
the Anglo-Saxon, of the Greek against the Turk, is more
fierce and indelible than that of the democrat against the
aristocrat, or the republican against the royalist. Like
the colour of the hair or the tint of the visage, it is
transmitted unchanged from generation to generation;
unlike the fleeting fervour of cities, which is readily
diverted by new objects of pursuit, it slumbers undecayed
in the solitude of rural life, and, after the lapse of cen-
turies, bursts forth with undiminished fury, when circum-
stances occur which fan the embers into a flame. The
most animating and heart-stirring events which are re-
counted in the succeeding pages have arisen from the
conflict of races, which, as more widespread and lasting,
have in a great degree superseded that of social change.
Placed on the confines of Europe and Asia, the regions 6.
which formerly formed part of the Byzantine, and now
compose the TURKISH EMPIRE, have in every age been
the chief seat of these frightful contests. The coasts of ment in the

Strife of

ресиliarly vehe

cre

Turkish

the Euxine, the isles of the Archipelago, the shores of the empire.
Danube, the mountains of Greece, have from the earliest
times been the battle-field between Europe and Asia.
When the vast stream of the Crusaders poured across the
Hellespont, they wound unconsciously around the tombs
of Achilles and Ajax; they trod the fields of the Sca-
mander, they drank at the fountain at the Scæan gate.
The environs of Jerusalem have been the theatre of the
greatest and most heart-stirring conflict which has occurred
since Titus drew his trenches round the devoted city.
The plains of Bessarabia, broken only by the Scythian

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1821.

CHAP. tumuli, are whitened by the bones of those swarms of warriors whose names, as a Russian poet expresses it, "are known only to God;" the walls of Byzantium, which for a thousand years singly sustained the fortunes of the Empire, yielded at length to the fierce assault of the Osmanlis; the island of Rhodes has witnessed the most glorious conflict that ever occurred between the enthusiasm of the East and the heroism of the West; the straits of Thermopyla have in our day been signalised by second acts of devotion; the gean Sea has reddened with other conflagrations than that of Salamis; the Russians and the Turks are now combating on the banks of the Danube, at the same spots where, fourteen hundred years ago, the hordes of the Goths broke into the decaying fields of Roman civilisation; and the greatest armament, since the siege of Troy, which has sailed from Europe to Asia, has combated the forces of the East in our days on the shores of the Crimea, under the orders of a second King of Men on board the Agamemnon.

7.

rices in the

minions.

From this peculiarity in their geographical history has Variety of arisen the great variety of different races who now inhaTurkish de- bit the vast provinces of the Turkish empire, and the inextinguishable hatred with which they are animated against each other. The Persians, the Romans, the Goths, the Russians, the Arabs, the Vandals, the Franks, the Venetians, the Christians, the Mahommedans, have at different times contended, and alternately obtained the mastery in its vast dominion. They have all left their children in the land. Besides the descendants of the original Greeks, whom the King of Men ruled at the siege of Troy, or Alexander led to the conquest of Asia, there are now to be found in it the bold Wallachian, who has fearlessly settled in the land which has been desolated by the wars of three thousand years; the free and independent Servian, who has never ceased to contend, even amidst Turkish bonds, for the freedom of his native steppe; the patient and industrious Bulgarian, who has often found protection and happiness in the recesses of

XIII.

1821.

the Balkan; the fierce and indomitable Albanian, who, CHAP. since the days of Scanderbeg, has maintained a desultory warfare with his oppressors in his native mountains; the effeminate Syrian, who bows his neck, as in ancient days, to every invader; the unchanging Israelite, who has preserved his faith and usages inviolate since the days of Abraham; the wandering Arab, whose hand is still against. every man, and every man's against him; the passive and laborious Egyptian, who toils a slave on the banks of the Nile, from whence his ancestors, under Sesostris, issued to conquer the world. And over all are placed as rulers the brave and haughty Osmanlis, who govern, but do not cultivate the land, and who, in Europe, not more than three millions in number, maintain their sway over four times that number of impatient and suffering subjects.

8.

the Chris

Mussul

mans.

To govern dominions so vast, and inhabited by so great a variety of different and hostile nations, must, under any Division of circumstances, have been a matter of difficulty; but in tians and addition to this there was superadded, in the case of Turkey, a still more fatal and indelible source of discord, which was the difference of RELIGION. Turkey, even in Asia, is not, properly speaking, a Mahommedan country. The Seven Churches were established in Asia Minor in the days of the Apostles; the Empire of the East had embraced the faith of the Gospel four centuries before Christianity had spread in Western Europe. We are accustomed, from its ruling power, and its position in the map, to consider Turkey as a Mahommedan state, forgetting that Christianity had been established over its whole extent a thousand years before Constantinople yielded to the assault of Mohammed, and that the transference to the creed of Mahomet was as violent a change as if it were now to be imposed by foreign conquest on France or England. Even at this time, after four centuries of Mahommedan rule, Christianity is still the faith of three-fourths of the whole Turkish empire in Europe, and one-fourth in Asia. Cast down, reviled, persecuted, the followers of Jesus, from generation to generation, have

CHAP. adhered to the faith of their fathers: it still forms the

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1821.

9.

Turkish

system of government.

distinguishing mark between them and their oppressors: more even than difference of race it has severed the two great families of mankind; and when the Greek revolution broke out, the cry was not "Independence to Greece,” but "Victory to the Cross."

The system of government by which the Turks for four centuries have maintained themselves in their immense dominions, and kept the command of so many and such various races of men, is very simple, and more suited to Oriental than European ideas. It is neither the system which distance and the extreme paucity of the ruling nation has rendered a matter of necessity to the English in India—that of conciliating the great body of the rural cultivators, and drawing from them disciplined battalions which might establish their dominion over their former oppressors nor that of penetrating the wilds of nature with the light of civilisation, and conquering mankind to pacify and bless them, like the legions which followed the eagles of Rome to the extremities of the earth. It is more akin to the establishment and system of government of the Normans in England, where the people were not only conquered, but retained in subjection by force, and sixty thousand horsemen annually assembled at Winchester to overawe and intimidate the subject realm. Their number is small compared to the entire population of the country. Three millions of Osmanlis in Europe are thinly scattered over a territory containing twelve or thirteen millions of Christian subjects; but they are all armed, and ready to become soldiers; they are in possession of the whole fortresses, harbours, and strongholds of the kingdom; they have the command of the government, the treasury, the capital, and the great cities. The Christians are scattered over the country, and depressed by centuries of servitude; the Turks are concentrated in towns, and rendered confident by the long exercise of power.