Agreement between the captors

When the city had been again captured, and when, in accordance with the agreement between the captors, the spoils of the Kew Rome had been divided, and a crusading emperor placed on the throne, the conquerors deemed it necessary to obtain the approval of Innocent. They rightly judged that the one extenuating circumstance would be m his eyes, as it, indeed, was in their own, the union of the churches. Accordingly, almost immediately after his coronation, Baldwin addressed a letter to the pope, giving the Crusaders’ official version of what had taken place.

With this letter Baldwin sent many presents, consisting of relics, of a golden cross, of chalices, of priestly garments in silk and velvet, all set with pearls and precious stones. The ship which conveyed the messenger in charge of the letter and the presents was captured off the Morea by a Genoese vessel, and the presents fell into the hands of the great rivals of Venice, who for a time seemed to have disregarded the fact that they were intended for the pontiff. It was not until the pope had protested energetically against the robbery and had threatened an interdict that the podesta of Genoa consented to restore them.

Emperor in the West and its princes

The letter, which was intended not merely for the pope, but for the emperor in the West and its princes and prelates generally, arrived in safety. It treated the capture of the city and the establishment of the empire as accomplished facts, and spoke of the future rather than of the past. Innocent, the emperor, princes, and prelates were asked “ to stir up among the inhabitants of the West, of all ranks and both sexes, the desire to come and share in the immense mass of eternal and temporal treasures, Biehes and honors awaited all. The clergy should come in crowds with the consent of their superiors, not to fight, but to organize amid peace and plenty, for the good of the Church.” Baldwin suggested that Innocent would be consulting his own glory, and that of the Catholic Church, if he were to call a council at Constantinople, and were himself to attend it, in order that the New might be again united to the Elder Borne.

Alexis left the court of Philip probably

Alexis left the court of Philip probably at the same time as the messengers for Zara, but appears to have diverged in order to visit his uncle Emeric, King of Hungary. In the middle of December Boniface had arrived at Zara. Boniface If the account of Robert de Olari is to be trusted, reaches Zara. something like a comedy was arranged between him and Dandolo. The latter saw that the pilgrims were uneasy. The leaders were aware that they had not provisions enough for an expedition to Egypt or to Syria, and they had given out that even if they had they could do nothing when they reached either of these two countries.

Dandolo, therefore, said to them : “ Sirs, in Greece there is a bountiful supply of all things. If we can find a reasonable occasion to go there and to take provisions and other things, then we can easily manage to go Outremer? Then uprose Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and explained that at Christmas time he had been in Germany at the court of Philip, where he had seen young Alexis, whose father had been treacherously driven from his throne. “ Whoever,” said Boniface, “ has this young man can go into the land of Constantinople and take provisions and what is needed.” Hence, according to Robert, the messengers were sent to Alexis in order that by inducing him to come the Crusaders might have home acoison, rasnauvle ocaision, to go to Constantinople.

On New Year’s Day, 1203, the messengers returned from Philip, accompanied by those whom that king had sent. Henceforward it was impossible to keep the object of their mission secret.

Substitute the leaders

The organization of the Crusaders for the purpose of taking a decision was not unlike that which prevailed throughout most European states. Substitute the leaders and the great barons for the king, the lesser barons of the army and the knights for the lords, and the whole army for the commons, and the parallel will be complete. The leaders took the initiative. Then the parliament of lesser barons and knights had the proposition submitted to them, and lastly the commons of the army had to give their approval. The leaders had been consulted at Venice, and had accepted in principle the proposal to aid Alexis in return for his subsequently assisting the army. At Zara the proposition in a definite shape had to be submitted to the parliament of lesser barons and knights.

Villehardouin’s irritation at the suggestion

On that side the current is always much too strong to allow vessels to be anchored with any amount of steadiness, or even safety. Villehardouin’s irritation at the suggestion shows how bitter the opposition still continued. There were some present, he says, who would have been very well content that the current or a wind—no matter what—should have dispersed the vessels, provided that they themselves could have left the country and have gone on their way.

It was at length decided that the two following days, the 10th and 11th, should be devoted to repairing their snit decided damages, and that a second assault should be delivered on the 12th. The previous day was a Sunday, and Boniface and Dandolo made use of it to appease the discontent in the rank and file of the army. Once more, as at Corfu and before the first attack upon the city, the bishops and abbots were set to work to preach against the Greeks. They urged that the war was just, because Mourtzouphlos was a traitor and a murderer, a man more disloyal than Judas; that the Greeks had been disobedient to Home, and had perversely been guilty of schism in refusing to recognize the supremacy of the Pope, and that Innocent himself desired the union of the two churches.

They saw in the defeat the vengeance of God on account of the sins of the Crusaders. The loose women were ordered out of the camp, and for better security were shipped and sent far away. Confession and communion were enjoined, and, in short, all that the clergy could do was done to prove that the cause was just, to quiet the discontented, and to occupy them until the attack next day.

Industriously repairing

The warriors had in the meantime been industriously repairing their ships and their machines of war. A slight, but not unimportant, change of tactics had been suggested by the assault on the 9th. Each transport had been assigned to a separate tower. The number of men who could fight from the gangways or platforms thrown out from the tops had been found insufficient to hold their own against the defenders.

Young Alexis son of Isaac

The besieged in 1203 knew that the son of Isaac, the young Alexis, had persuaded the Venetians and a body of Latins, through the in-fluence of his sister’s husband, Philip, to assist him to regain possession of the empire, and that he and his friends were now outside the city walls. The Latins did not wish to capture the city. Even if they did, stronger armies than this had tried to do so and had failed. If the invader won there would be a new emperor—that was all. Indeed, why should the citizens care ? They had no love for the reigning sovereign nor he for them. When he heard that young Alexis was coming with a band of Venetian pirates, he made no preparations for resistance.

Nicetas

He was a mere idle lover of luxury, an Eastern Charles the Second, who thought only of the ills of to-day ; an essentially weak man, too sentimental to be a successful ruler. He shrank from inflicting the cruelty of ordinary punishments, and still more from that which was necessary to make him a strong despot. Though he had not hesitated to depose his brother, he was either conscience- stricken or pretended to be so, and continually upbraided himself. The eunuchs, says Nicetas, who guarded the royal forests with as much care as the Destroying Angel guarded Paradise, threatened to kill any one who ventured to cut timber for the construction of vessels.

The emperor’s brother- in-law had sold all the navy stores. Those who thus robbed the public seemed rather thereby to gain in the estimation of their sovereign. The emperor appeared more amused than frightened with the preparations of which he heard, and it was only after lie learned of the proclamation of his nephew which had been made at Corfu and this he could only have learned a few days before the arrival of the expedition in the Bosphorus that lie concerned himself with the means of defence. But even then the voluptuary and the drunkard could not set himself wTith sufficient energy to meet the danger.

Business to fight Christian princes

The leaders of the first great crusade had declared under the walls of ancient Kicaea that it was no part of their business to fight Christian princes, that their work was to fight the infidel, and they had readily given that city into the hands of Alexis. The enthusiasts of the fourth crusade, who had left their homes in order to fight against Christ’s enemies, had no heart for the new undertaking; and though they did not know all the adventures it would lead them into, we can see from Villehardouin himself that they would have preferred to return home rather than violate their vow.

On the 22d of July,2 Cardinal Peter Capuano, the pope’s Arrival of ^eSa^e5 drived in Venice from Koine. Bishop Conrad, and probably others, required that the propositions of Dandolo should be referred to him. He at first protested against the proposal,1 because, as Gunther says, he thought the attack upon Zara “a lesser evil than the abandonment of the crusade, the vow of the Cross unfulfilled, and the return home with ignominy and sin.”2 Cardinal Peter sent away all the sick, the useless hangers-on, and the women.

Time daily increasing

The dissatisfaction among the Crusaders was at that time daily increasing. Some were for abandoning the expedition altogether. Many poor men who had brought but little with them, and had nothing left for the journey, quitted the army and went home. ‘‘Certain powerful and rich men, not influenced by poverty,” says Gunther, “so much as frightened by the horror of committing such a crime (as attacking a Christian city belonging to a crusading king), hesitated and, much against their will, turned back.” Some of these went to Rome in order that they might be absolved from their vow or have its execution postponed. Others wished to leave Venice in order that they might embark for Alexandria or Syria from other ports.

Commenced by Severus successive emperors

The materials of which the portion set apart for the spectators was formed have been taken away to be used in the construction of neighboring mosques and buildings. In 1201, however, the hippodrome was probably but little changed from what it had been for several centuries. Commenced by Severus, successive emperors had added to it and adorned it. There were then in it the famous bronze horses which now adorn the Church of St. Mark in Venice, an obelisk of Egyptian syenite still standing in the centre, and which we learn from an inscription upon the base had been set up again by the Emperor Theodosius after it had lain a considerable time on the ground.

Near to this obelisk stood a pyramid, which marked the goal of the chariot races. Probably on the other side of the obelisk stood the famous column of the Three Serpents, a monument which had been an ancient relic when it was brought to Constantinople. It dated back to the time of the Persian invasion of Greece, and had served at Delphi to support the golden tripod which the Greeks found in the enemy’s camp after the battle of Plataea, and which they had dedicated to Apollo. Seen in position at Delphi by Ilerodotus and Thucydides, it had been placed in the hippodrome by Constantine, and was probably looked on by the Byzantine spectators with similar awe to that with which the Turks have always regarded it—an awe which has probably been the main cause of its preservation.

Manuel Comnenos

Near the hippodrome, to the west, was the noble column of porphyry, which still stands as the Burnt Column, but which, in 1200, had been recently restored, according to the still legible inscription, by the most pious emperor, Manuel Comnenos.

In other parts of the city were other columns, while statues, some of which were of the best period of Greek art, were probably more numerous than in any city now existing. Beyond the hippodrome the traveller would have met on every hand solid constructions which bore witness to the wealth of the city Visit Bulgaria. The northeastern corner, now known as Seraglio Point, was one mass of churches, baths, and palaces. Behind it, and near the Church of the Divine Wisdom, rose, besides the buildings already mentioned, the great palace of the Senate, and some of the most famous of what are now called Turkish baths.

On the farther slope, towards the Marmora, were the beautiful church built by Justinian, and called now Little Hagia Sophia, the palace of the patriarch, called the Tricline, on account of the three flights of stairs by which it was approached, and other buildings. To the west of these buildings were the law courts, the palaces of the nobility, with other columns and statues. The remains of the baths and of some of these palaces still bear witness to the solidity of their construction, and the stateliness, and especially to what I may call the modernness, of their design.

The shore of the Golden Horn from Seraglio Point, throughout half its distance, was occupied by foreign and native merchants, whose vast stores were crowded with merchandise.

The retrain point where the wall turned southwards to form the landward defence of the city, was occupied by monasteries and by churches, which appear to have been enclosed by a wall, while the enclosure was known as the Petrion.

Constantinople was conspicuous

There was yet another species of wealth than those furnislied by commerce and the other sources I have recur. named, which cannot be passed over. Constantinople was conspicuous in the eyes of the Crusaders more for its treasure in relics than in works of art. The men of the West were too ignorant to understand the work of Phidias or of Lysippus.

But they were connoisseurs in relics. During many years the churches of the West had been striving with each other to obtain possession of these Christian mementoes. When, at rare intervals, a traveller had returned from the East who had obtained possession of such an object, lie was regarded as a benefactor of the Church. The relic was received by the community to which it was destined with solemn procession and religious services. In many instances the possession of a relic made the fortune of the church or monastery where it was contained. The search after relics became almost a craze, like that after new varieties of tulips or old china. Constantinople was the greatest storehouse— perhaps I may say manufactory—of such relics.

Magnanimous concessions made by far-sighted sultans of Turkey

Still less is it a system, as it is often said to be, of magnanimous concessions made by far-sighted sultans of Turkey in order to encourage foreigners to trade with and reside in the empire. The capitulations were neither badges of inferiority imposed on foreigners, as they have often been described, nor proofs of exceptional wisdom peculiar to the sultans. As a fact, foreigners have never held so important a position in the capital under Ottoman rule as under that of the Christian emperors, and especially at the close of the twelfth century. AVhile the native population has probably remained stationary during the last six centuries, the foreign population was probably never so large as at that period.

I now propose to point out what were the principal colonies of foreigners which existed in Constantinople, and in other of the important cities of the empire, at the time immediately preceding the Latin conquest.

The Warings.

Among the foreigners who had been longest established in Constantinople in 1201: were the Warings, or Varangians.

They were kinsmen of our own, and on this account latcdto Eug- may be allowed a fuller description than the immediate object in hand would justify. Tacitus speaks of “Angli et Varini,”1 the English and the Warings. Loth were, in his time, the inhabitants of the country south of the Baltic, or, as it came to be called at a later period, the Waring Sea. When the great movement began which caused the English to emigrate to Britain, some of the Warings took part in it. With them also were others whom Bede speaks of as Rugians or Russians.

Warwick or Waeringwick

At a later period the name Waring and Russian appears to have been applied indifferently to the same people, the truth possibly being, as the Russian monk Nestor says, that some of the Warings were called Russians. Many traces of Waring emigration into England exist, of which the names of Warwick or Waeringwick, Warn- ford, and Warington are examples. The record of their history shows them to be closely akin to the English, though whether through the Teutonic or the Norse element of our people may be open to doubt. Their appearance was like that of Englishmen or Danes. Their language was virtually the same. Their exploits at sea, their legends, their habits, their very names, all convey the irresistible impression that we are reading of the kinsmen of our ancestors.

The shock to the Christians of the West was severe.

The shock to the Christians of the West was severe. The alliance was treason to the cause of Christianity. If we assume that the sole cause in dispute between the northern and the seceding states of America was that of slavery, that the Xorth fought with the sole object of setting the slaves free, and that England had made an alliance with the South, we may judge what the feelings of the French Crusaders were from what the feelings of every honest and righteous man would have been in our times.

A council was held in the French camp. Indignation was loudly expressed, and the Bishop of Langresi proposed that before attempting the deliverance of Christ’s sepulchre they should punish Christ’s enemies in Constantinople. Better counsels prevailed. All the invective, the indignation, and the eloquence of the bishop and his party were in vain. The French nobles declared that they7 had taken the cross to fight against infidels and to defend Jerusalem. It was not their business to punish heretics or destroy Christian cities.

Army crossed the Bosphorus

The army crossed the Bosphorus and pushed forward towards the Turkish dominions in Asia Minor. But fever, the necessity of finding forage, and the difficulty of making progress over a country where the roads had been destroyed, greatly reduced the numbers of the army. Many of the sick had to be abandoned. Louis embarked with the bulk of his army at Adalia for Antioch. Seven thousand men were left behind. These attempted to force their way along the coast to Antioch, but with disastrous results. Most of them perished in the attempt, though a few saved their lives by embracing Mahometanism.

The attempt upon Damascus under the combined efforts of Failure of Louis, Conrad, and Baldwin of Jerusalem complete bunted to he failed. Much had been expected of this crusade; empire. preparations had been made on a gigantic scale by both the nations of the West; and when at length the tidings reached Europe of terrible disasters and general failure men’s hearts sank within them. In the West fault was largely attributed to the schismatic Christians of the East. They had betrayed Christ; they had assisted his enemies; they had united themselves now with the Turks and now with the Saracens in order to defeat the cause of the Cross. The disorder, the jealousies among the Western soldiers, the want of discipline, were for a while forgotten.

The settlement of the Greeks and Albanians

They were all occasionally spoken of by the Byzantine writers as descendants of the Romans. As the districts which they usually occupied were the mountains or least accessible of the plains, there is reason to believe that they were the descend ants of a people which had been settled in the peninsula sub-sequent only to that which had seen the settlement of the Greeks and Albanians. They were possibly an offshoot of that division of the Aryan race which passed across into Italy, and to which the Romans belonged. What is certain is that they had settled in the Balkan peninsula before the entry of most of the various other peoples I have mentioned, and that they had eome under Roman influence. In any case, their numbers to the north of the Danube had been added to by the descendants of the Roman colonists who had settled in Dacia.

Whoever the Wallachians were, they contributed not a lithe tie to the weakening of the empire, and especially the empire, during the last years of the twelfth century, when all sorts of troubles were crowding thick upon it. In 1186, Isaac attacked them in the Balkans. They were aided by the Bulgarians.

Patchinaks and returned to meet the imperial troops

The troops of the emperor succeeded in driving them across the Danube. Then and there they sought the aid of the Patchinaks and returned to meet the imperial troops. Cantacuzenos, the general acting for Isaac, was defeated. His successor, Branas, was more fortunate, but, after harassing the rebels, he himself revolted against his sovereign and marched towards the capital. Thereupon the Wallachs, Patchinaks, and Bulgarians made a destructive raid, in 1189, upon Thrace, where for a considerable time they held their own against the imperial troops.

In 1193 they ravaged Thrace, and the imperial troops were beaten. The war continued without interruption during the next two years, during which the Emperor Isaac left Constantinople to take the field himself against them. In 1196, while the new emperor, Alexis the Third, was chasing a pretender to the throne, the imperial troops were decisively beaten and their general captured. The Wallachs and Bulgarians advanced as far as Rodosto, where, after they had pillaged all the country round, they were met by the imperial

troops and defeated.

Latin conquest of Constantinople

No historical subject has attracted more attention in France and Germany during the last twenty years than the Latin conquest of Constantinople. No other historical question has had devoted to it during the same period the labors of an equal number of illustrious historical students. A literary controversy has been waged, and is still waging, about several of the important questions which have arisen in connection with the subject.

Chronography of Byzantine History

The larger question of the history of Constantinople and of the Eastern Empire in the Middle Ages has likewise, during the last quarter of a century, occupied the attention of a considerable number of Continental scholars, whose labors have added much to our stock of knowledge on the subject. Among the most important of their contributions a few may be here noticed. Muralt’s “ Chronography of Byzantine History,” between 1057 and 1453, is an immense aid to all students of the period treated of. It is hardly possible to mention any statement respecting any event, however trifling, within the period dealt with, for which all the authorities are not cited. Heyd’s “History of Trade in the Levant during the Middle A”es”is also a monument of careful research.

Ilurter, though belonging to a somewhat earlier period, has given a singularly vivid and impartial sketch of the dealings of Innocent the Third with the Eastern Empire, perhaps the more remarkable that he was himself a Protestant pastor.

The labors of Charles Hopf and of Tafel and Thomas have thrown light on much which was obscure in the dealings of Venice with the Xew Rome. Krause’s examination of Byzantine manners, customs bulgaria private tours, court and domestic history, gives a useful and interesting account of the social life of Constantinople. The valuable histories of Finlay were written before most of the works to which I allude in this preface appeared, but still show considerable insight into Byzantine history. On the influence of the Saracens and the Turks invaluable suggestions are found in Professor Freeman’s “ History and Conquest of the Saracens,” his “ History of the Ottoman Power in Europe,” and in his “ Historical Essays.”

The labors of a considerable number of other writers to whom I allude have been mainly occupied in elucidating the story of the Fourth Crusade, to which the second part of this volume is exclusively devoted. Contemporary authors have been carefully edited. The great work of Hicetas and those of other Greek authors have been diligently compared with the narratives of Villehardouin and others belonging to the West. Forgotten manuscripts have been brought to light. Incidental references in charters, bulls, and other documents have been carefully collected to control, confirm, or condemn the statements in the usually accepted narratives of this pop tion of my subject.

I am indebted for many valuable suggestions to Klimke’s essay on the “ Sources of the History of the Fourth Crusade,” to Krause’s History, and to Dr. Mordtmann’s history of the two captures of Constantinople. The latter work, as well as the “ Meletai ” of Dr. Paspati, are especially useful for the topography of Constantinople during the Middle Ages. Dr. Paspati and Dr. Mordtmann, the son of the author of the work just quoted, the Dev. Canon Curtis, and a number of archaeologists in Constantinople, have worked very successfully at the topography of the city, and by means of the excellent Greek Syllogos have brought to light much interesting information on the subject, and have especially produced a map of the ancient walls, embodying all the recent discoveries, which is extremely valuable.

Historia Constantinopolitana

Most of the writers I have named have occupied themselves more or less with the conduct of Yenice. This is a subject of controversy as old as the crusade itself. A contemporary of the Fourth Crusade, a Franco-Syrian named Ernouil, was the first to charge Yenice with treason to Christendom. Other contemporary authors are quoted in the following pages who took, speaking generally, the same side.

Gunther, a Cistercian monk belonging to Pairis in Alsace, and who died about 1210, has given us in his “ Historia Constantinopolitana ” many facts which are not to be found elsewhere, and was one of the few contemporaries of the crusade who appears to have understood that there was an understanding between the Sultan of Cairo and Yenice. Light has been thrown on the question by the “ Devastatio Constantinopolitana,” the discovery of which is due to recent research.

Sermons were published in a volume

Conscious that his work of preaching the Gospel with his lips was drawing near its close, and desiring still to speak in his own familiar terms to those for whose salvation he had spent nearly all his life, Dr. Goodell, during his last year at Constantinople, prepared for the press forty-eight of the sermons in Turkish which he had preached to the people; in order, as he said, “ that they may the more readily ‘ remember the words that I space unto them while I was yet with them.’ ” These sermons were published in a volume, accompanied by a farewell letter to the Protestant churches in the Turkish empire. The sermons were soon scattered abroad, and being written not only in the language but in the idiom of the people, they were read and heard with great eagerness.

A portion of them were translated into the Bulgarian language, and were read over and over again by the Bulgarians in the northern part of the empire. They were afterward translated into Armenian by the wife of the native pastor at Kharpoot, in Eastern Turkey, and by the liberality of a few Christian friends in this country the volume was stereotyped, published by the American Tract Society, and one edition after another speedily exhausted. They are still preaching the Gospel of Christ in different languages, in various parts of Turkey.

The following is the letter to the evangelical churches in Turkey. Even in its English dress it will be read with an interest akin to that excited by the last words of Paul the aged to the elders of the church of Ephesus, as he met them at Miletus, on his last journey to Jerusalem: —

TO THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN TURKEY.

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS IN THE LORD, — It is more than forty years since I left my native country and came to Turkey, and about one-third of a century since I made Constantinople my home. I am now old, and I know not the day of my death. I am also feeble, and cannot reasonably expect to continue long. All my powers of body and mind are failing, and I am going to the house appointed for all living. For all your kindness to me and mine since the first day I came among you, you have my sincere thanks. And you have also my fervent prayers for your temporal and eternal well-being.

Pure and thrilling a delight in visiting the Holy City

In his living he was frugal, in all his expenses strictly economical, and in his accounts very exact. The money he lived on was the Lord’s; he had no right to any of it but what was necessary to do the Lord’s work. On leaving home he was expecting to be stationed at Jerusalem; he arrived in Syria, and was there stopped on his way; he was disappointed; his soul would have felt as pure and thrilling a delight in visiting the Holy City as other men who go thousands of miles to visit it. A very few dollars would have enabled him to go there, and yet he lived five years in Syria and never went. He did not dare, he said, for his own pleasure, to spend so much of the Lord’s money. The Treasurer’s books will probably show that, at least during his residence in Syria, he never received for his own use the whole amount of his small nominal salary.

Dr. Goodell was celebrated for his promptness and punctuality. His domestic cares had their appointed hours, and, unless from some special preventive, were attended to in their time. He retired and rose early. His seasons of devotion had their appropriate place, and any material delay in his meals not only annoyed him as a violation of order, but sometimes unfitted him physically for his duties. At no business appointment had his friends to wait for him. He interrupted no worshipping assembly by a tardy entrance. His debts were paid; his reports to the Board, were uniformly ready, when due.

Very uniform

In his public performances, as well as in his general style of” writing, he was a pattern of simplicity. His language was chaste, his words common and well chosen, his sentences short, his aim evidently being first of all to be understood. In speaking, his utterance was very uniform, but prevented from being tediously monotonous by the frequent emphatic force with which he brought out many of his short phrases. He had in his delivery no excessive emotion, no transports of enthusiasm, but an appearance of sober, undoubted conviction of the truth of what he uttered, and the presumption that the truth would force its own way to the heart, without power of voice, or vehemence of gesture.

Turkish government against religious liberty

“The influence, then, which was, and which still is exerted upon the Turkish government against religious liberty is more powerful than can well be expressed. But, blessed be God! there is now another influence, the pressure of which they begin to feel, and we most devoutly pray that they may teel it more and more.

Whatever influence the representatives of England and of other Protestant governments have exerted upon the Turkish government in favor of Protestantism, has been mainly in opposition to other mighty influences of a most adverse character. Whoever has read the ‘ Missionary Herald ’ for the last forty years must have seen that in perhaps ninety-nine cases out of a hundred our persecutions have come not from the Turks, but from these corrupt churches, — the Turks never of themselves showing a disposition to molest us, and being drawn in to side with our persecutors only when under this terrible outside pressure to which we have alluded.

Other European powers

“ Bat it will be asked, Did not the other European powers unite with England in procuring the Ilatti Ilumayoun? We answer, yes; at any rate, they assented to it; some of them perhaps not really expecting it would ever go into effect, or, at any rate, be of universal application; for, in point of fact, it is more or less opposed to the very principles and practices of their governments at home. And by the persecuting churches here, that part of its provisions which relates to liberty of conscience is regarded as any thing rather than a blessing, for it is really an infringement of their liberty to ‘ bite and devour one another.’

Liberty of worship in their own churches, and according to their own forms, they already had to perfection, and ‘ they needed no more,’ as an intelligent Greek gentleman once said to me. ‘ What,’ said he, in speaking of this document, in reference to liberty of conscience, ‘ what is the use of this Ilatti Ilumayoun? We had before just as much liberty as we wanted.’ And so they had; but, blessed be God! this llatti Sherif prevents them from abridging the liberty of others. Thus the carrying out of the principle involved in this feature of it strikes tenor into all these wicked churches; and it is this which has awakened the wrath of a near neighbor of ours (Russia) almost to frenzy, she calling it ‘persecution.’

Andover Theological Seminary

To the Society of Inquiry in Andover Theological Seminary he addressed a letter on the great want of laborers in the mission field, which exhibits his absorbing interest in the cause and his earnest desire to secure re-enforcements to carry on the work more vigorously: —

“ During my late visit to the good land which the Lord God hath given us to inherit, I travelled very extensively; but though I was greatly importuned by many to remain there, and though far stronger ties bound me there than those I was called to sever thirty-three years ago, yet I bless God that I was permitted to return here. Never during my whole missionary life have I preached the Gospel with so much pleasure as since my return.

Doors are opened, or are opening, in every direction. Gladly would I, were it possible, be every day in a hundred different places at once; but I can be in only one place, and that one I shall occupy but a little longer. Who of you will come to take my place here, and to occupy these other hundred places, which we cannot occupy? Most gladly would I go back, and serve in another third of a century’s campaign, that I might see the good of God’s chosen, and rejoice with Ilia inheritance in those mighty changes and wonderful moral revolutions which are fast coming on through the feeble instrumentality of His servants.

Saviour Himself

“ Were the Saviour Himself to stand up in the midst of all our theological students, and, looking them all in the face, should say, as one who had authority, * Go YE into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature,’ I do verily believe that comparatively few of them would have the least idea of its being their duty to remain at home.

They would as naturally take it for granted that they should go to the heathen, as they now generally, indeed almost universally, take it for granted that they are not to go, but are to remain at home. And should every student now at Andover declare his resolution to be a missionary, and should he at the close of his term of study carry this resolution into immediate effect, it would probably be a greater blessing to Andover, and a greater blessing to the churches of our land, and a greater blessing to our whole country, than if you should all live and labor at home for half a century, — and all this, to say nothing of the blessed influence of your direct labors among the heathen.

Sixteen villages in the vicinity of Broosa

All our various meetings have continued to the present time, and the interest in them appears unabated. The brethren still have life,’ as formerly, and even, we believe, have it more abundantly.’ Among others, however, there is not at present so much of a noise ’ and a shaking,’ with so many signs of coming to life, as we have witnessed in times past, and a« we now hear of in the interior. Some sixteen villages in the vicinity of Broosa have been recently reported to us, in each of which the Holy Spirit is breathing upon a few individuals, making them living men. They are waking up to a life and happiness which belong exclusively to the children of light and the children of the day.”

The spirit of the one who is the subject of these Memoirs has been abundantly indicated in the extracts that have been made from the most familiar and unrestrained expressions of his heart, as that of one who had an almost singular simplicity of purpose to live for nothing but the advancement of the kingdom of Christ and the glory of His name. One secret of this singleness of heart, or one form of its expression, was, that he seemed always to feel and to act as if he were in the immediate presence of Christ, and living under His personal reign. The kingdom of Christ was to him a reality, and the ground of his confidence, especially in regard to the success of the work in which he was engaged. This is ex- pressed in an extract from his journal, bearing date Jan. 31, 1845.—

Armenians at the capital

“ There is now a very interesting state of things among the Armenians at the capital, and many new instances of awakening. At the monthly concert this week it was stated that there was probably not an evening in the week in which there was not a prayer-meeting held by the native brethren at some place in Constantinople proper, for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At our public services on the Sabbath the congregation is large, and the word is with power; and although all the ingenuity and wisdom and influence of the very mightiest ones among both Armenians and Turks are most actively employed from day to day to arrest the work, yet it is carried forward by a hand unseen, and a power not to be resisted. And who can stop the progress of that which is invisible, and ‘comcth not with observation’? visit bulgaria Who can banish or confine or prohibit that which is spiritual, and which can, of course, be touched by nothing material?

The kingdom of Christ knows nothing of territorial divisions and geographical lines, and our brethren here may take all their meals, make all their visits, perform all their journeys, and transact all their business in this blessed kingdom, however despotic their own temporal government may be. They may live in it every day, and sleep in it every night; and no power on earth can forcibly carry them out of it. They can have daily access to the great King himself, and lay their petitions at his feet; and no police that ever existed, however terrible its character, could ever find means to prevent it. And the progress of this kingdom is itself like the silent stealing of light on darkness, which none of the potentates v of earth can interrupt.”

Familiar with the Italian language

In October, 1845, in order to exert a more decided influence upon that part of the population which in all Oriental lands is most difficult of access, a female boarding-school was opened at the house of Mr. Goodell, and eight Armenian young ladies were received into his family. Mrs. Goodell had previously made herself familiar with the Italian language, which was chiefly spoken at Malta; with the Arabic, which she had made use of at Beyrout; and with the Greek, which was extensively spoken at Constantinople. But to qualify herself for usefulness in this new charge, she now commenced the study of the Armenian. Her health, which for many years had been feeble, was quite established, and, with the new responsibilities which she assumed, it was like entering afresh upon missionary life and service.

The catalogue of the school, in the handwriting of Mr. Goodell, is a curiosity. The history of each scholar is recorded, and, with the name, its signification. Names in the East are more significant than with us; whether the name is always appropriately bestowed is another matter. The first on the list of the school is Armaveni, which signifies Palm-tree. She was a young lady about twenty years of age when she entered the school. She afterward became the wife of the evangelical pastor at Trebizond, where she flourished literally like the palm-tree, living a life of great usefulness.

Take particular notice of God’s first command

Did you ever take particular notice of God’s first command to our race, —“ Replenish the earth and subdue it? ” Now, instead of subduing the earth, and turning the very elements to the greatest and best account, by ascertaining the numberless uses to which they could be applied, our whole race, from the beginning of the world, have been subduing one another. All their strength, all their ingenuity, all their resources, have been employed for the destruction of each other.

The history of the world is only one black disclosure of the designs formed, the means used, and the projects executed or attempted, to subdue one another. The historian finds hardly any thing else to mention. This has been the great vortex which has swallowed up all the wealth and the strength and the thoughts of nations from generation to generation.

But within the last fifty years the minds of a few persons in a few countries have been turned to the subject of subduing the earth, and ascertaining what they could make out of it. The experiments have been numerous, splendid, and the results astounding. The very ends of the world are now brought together, and the moral effect of this among the nations is, that men begin to feel that they belong to one brotherhood. What, then, may we expect when all minds in all countries shall be waked up to this great subject, and the ingenuity of man be turned into this new and beautiful channel, as our benevolent Creator at first commanded!

Next fifty years

What improvements may we not confidently expect in the next fifty years! Long before the expiration of that period we may have done with steam, have found something much more useful. Who can tell what we shall yet make out of the earth, as we come truly to the task of subduing it. Who can tell but we may yet tame the volcano, or hitch on to the lightning, or ride above the clouds! Who can but we may yet turn icebergs and earthquakes to some public benefit!

Full of kindness as of explanation

In a letter to a fellow-missionary, dated March 8,1841, he makes mention of some of his minor trials, and of the occasion he had to exercise his own good judgment in regard to the mode of prosecuting his work: —

“ Many thanks for your long letter, which was as full of kindness as of explanation. I regret that I was able to see so little of you while you were within our little circle; but, in order to enjoy a visit, I must go from Constantinople, the hurry and distraction here are too great. Mr. Evarts once told me he had neither made nor received a visit of friendship for many years, and had no expectation of ever being able to have such a pleasure again. I remember I thought at the time it was very hard, and could hardly persuade myself it was his duty thus to deny himself. Now let me tell you some of my own troubles and sorrows, that we may the better sympathize with one another, bear one another’s burdens, pray for one another, and feel that we are not alone in trouble and sorrow, but that the same, or similar ones, are suffered by others.

Specially deficient

“ Some letters which I receive have constant reference to my family, as though I were specially deficient in my duty to them, and needed to devote more time and thought for them. Others have constant reference to my translations, as though I needed to be stirred up to the importance of prosecuting the work with vigor, and not suffer my translator or the press to stand idle through my neglect. Others leave every thing else out of the question, as of no comparative importance, and urge it upon me to preach, preach, preach. Others, again, from the various missionary stations, and from all parts of America, are calling for letters, and blaming me for not answering theirs. Many, many of my friends are offended with me, and some of them say hard things about me, while all the time I feel that it is I, and not they, who suffer from the want of this correspondence.

Europeans Circassians Kurds and devil worshippers

The country around Sinope, Samsoon, and Trebizond is strikingly beautiful. Indeed, of natural scenery I have never seen any thing more charming. Even Constantinople must yield the palm in this respect; for though the beauties of the Bosphorus are confessedly great, and all the views in the neighborhood of the city are varied, rich, and magnificent, yet they are wonderfully set off by the groves, the shaded avenues, the kiosks, palaces, and other public edifices, which Mussulman pride, taste, or piety have made to start up everywhere as if by magic.

The former, on the other hand, are like Nature herself,when unadorned, adorned the most,’ and instead of being limited, as those at Constantinople, to a few bright eminences with their retired recesses, alcoves, and lovely retreats, they are on a far more extensive and grand scale, — sometimes stretching off as far as the eye can reach. Indeed, the whole extent of hill and dale, pastures covered or that might be covered with flocks, and fields waving or that might wave with corn, spread out before the eye at one view, is sometimes prodigious.

“ On our return from Trebizond, we had near four hundred passengers, among whom were ‘ Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Paraphilia,’ together with Europeans, Circassians, Kurds, and devil worshippers. The moment they set foot on deck they all come under new and the same laws; they are brought in direct contact with European skill and superiority; they are compelled to see and learn new customs. Warriors have to throw off their armor, executioners to deliver up the instruments, of death, and officers to cease giving commands. They have to learn punctuality. When we reached Sinope, the passengers were told to a minute how long the boat would stop, and they were repeatedly warned of the danger of not being punctual.

Still, some were left behind, and lost both their passage, and, what was still more grievous to them, their passage-money; and the captain told me that there were such cases almost every voyage. Some-would go to the Bath, no more thinking that the steamer would dare to stir without them than that the sun would stand still in the heavens. And thus haughty, imperious lords, who never knew it could be twelve o’clock till they gave orders for it to be so, now learn for the first time in their life that 1 time and tide wait for no man.’

Worship God in spirit

You are now going on well; your numbers are daily increasing; your influence is extending. Be content for a while to break your bread from house to house. Perhaps, by and by, the patriarch himself will give you a church, where you can worship God in spirit and in truth, and where the law and the prophets, with the glorious Gospel, can be read and expounded every Sabbath day. At any rate, have no fear but that the Lord will build you a sure house. The next day, they sent to know what they were to do for priests. We sent word back to them to pray that ‘ a great company of the priests might become obedient to the faith.’

“ The excitement has been certainly great, but it has appeared to be rather a deep and earnest and sincere inquiry about the truth, and the way of salvation, than anxiety about a personal interest in its blessings. It has existed principally among the more sober and respectable of the people, and has been promoted by means judiciously selected and applied; and, what is truly wonderful, scarcely any opposition has been heard of from any quarter. It is difficult to account for this except from the fact that the bishops are really more enlightened than the people. Should the latter begin to take the lead, and the former to fall in the rear, then it will ‘ be impossible but that offences should come; ’ and, according to human view, there is but one way to prevent it, and that is by endeavoring to enlighten equally the clergy and the laity, and to bring them all forward together.

When I first came into these countries, I laid hold of individuals, and endeavored to pull them out of the fire; but my aim is now to take hold of whole communities, and, as far as possible, to raise them all up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’ The Lord grant that not one may be left behind!

Avoid exposing the lives

“We are careful to say nothing which shall inflame the people against the priests, or the priests against the people; and we take as much pains to avoid an open rupture with either as General Washington ever did to avoid exposing the lives of his few hardy but ragged half-accouter soldiers by risking a general battle. Washington rendered himself unpopular by so doing; but he manifestly did right, and posterity has given a verdict in his favor. He might have obtained for himself momentary glory and renown, by rushing into battle and dying like a brave man, but — our country would have been lost! He fought for his country, and not for himself. His plans and his efforts had in view the good of his country, and not his own reputation. And thus we should labor for the salvation of these people, and not for a martyr’s crown.

Once destitute of almost every comfort

The fire followed us, and in about an hour the fire was at the next door. We hastened to Top-Hana, and, hungry, thirsty, and fatigued, we came the same night in a boat to this place, a distance of about eighteen miles. Mr. Churchhill had a house here, which his family were already occupying. We were strangers, and they took us in,’ and very hospitably entertained us, till we could look round and find a dwelling, and purchase a few things necessary for commencing housekeeping. We found ourselves at once destitute of almost every comfort, and had, as it were, to begin the world anew. Not a single cup nor a single utensil remained. Two single beds, partly burnt, three sheets and two coverlets, partly burnt, and one pillow, constituted the whole of our conveniences for the night.

Panayotes, the Greek above mentioned, threw many of my books from the window, a part of which were preserved; but all my Grammars and Dictionaries in the English, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, and Turkish languages; all my Geographies, Gazetteers, Histories (excepting two odd volumes of Moslieim), Commentaries on the Bible, manuscripts, translations, with many of my private papers, are gone, — all ‘into smoke have they consumed away.’

Curiosity to a stranger

I had visited most of the places here which are objects of curiosity to a stranger, and had taken copious notes of what I had seen and heard; but not a trace of them is now to be found. We had provided at Malta a good supply of clothing for ourselves and children, but of many articles we are entirely deprived, and of others to a great degree. I have not a single shirt to put on. We had a pretty large stock of medicines, but not one article was saved Ra Harakhti . We had many little comforts which are considered indispensable in case of sickness, but not a single one is left; nor can many of them be obtained here now at any price. Keys we have in full complement, but scarcely any thing to unlock.

‘‘ The little girls thought it very hard that the fire paid no respect to their toys or their books. Their ‘ Little Philosopher ’ books and all the rest are gone. The second day after our arrival at this place there was an alarm of fire where we are staying, and they began to cry, and said they would go back to Malta. The trunk that I carried so far on my back when I left home to enter Phillips Academy, and which I intended to bequeath to my children for their inheritance, is also gone.

“ But, though cast down, we are not destroyed. We have been afflicted, but not given over unto death. And one reason why I have dwelt thus particularly on our own circumstances is that you may form some idea of the losses and circumstances (and in some instances great distresses) of from seventy to eighty thousand of our fellow-sufferers. Of all that part properly, I understand, called Pera, only eight private houses are said to remain. One of these is Mr. Churchhill’s.

Of all the palaces, only the Austrian and Swedish were saved. Of all the churches, only one Greek and one Latin (with the new English chapel then in building) escaped the general conflagration. The people in crowds made the best of their way to the burying-grounds with whatever they could take with them; and for several days and nights from ten to twenty thousand persons might be seen there, many of them with scarcely any other covering than the canopy of heaven, or any other bed than the graves they slept upon. Multitudes of men, women, and children might be seen lying against a grave-stone, to defend their head from wind and cold during repose.

Five respectable Turks of the city

I told them I should not open the door; and, if they opened it, they did it in violation of the treaty between England and the Ottoman Porte; and they did it, too, with full evidence before their eyes, from the windows in my house, from my dress, language, that I was a European. At this moment four or five respectable Turks of the city passed along, and exerted their influence in my favor, protesting to the Bedouins that I was an English consul, and that, if they broke into my house, it would be at their peril. They listened a moment, and then renewed their attempts, saying they knew neither consul nor sultan.

Turks from the city hastened

“Not being able to break open the door, they cut it down with their hatchets, and rushed upstairs like so many tigers eager for their prey. The Turks from the city hastened after them, and took their station at the door of Mrs. Goodell’s room, not allowing a single Bedouin to enter. The Bedouins seized whatever came in their way, and we snatched from them all that we could and threw into that room. They became very angry, and one of them drew his sword. Seeing it was vain to reason with them, I assumed a tone of authority, and ordered them to leave the house immediately, telling them that I had already sent a message to the city, and that the pasha would surely take off their heads if the case was represented to him.

This had the desired effect. They became calm, and listened to a long and severe reproof from me. They asked me why I remained there; why I did not go to the mountain. I told them I could not go, and gave as a reason Mrs. Goodell’s peculiar situation. The villains prayed that God would bless my wife abundantly, and make her exceedingly fruitful, to which I added my hearty Amen. They then left. (Some of the rogues came a few days afterward to inquire after her health and happiness. One of them also came to claim some tobacco which he said I stole from him while he was plundering my house.)

“ The gates of the city being now open, and the English consul, hearing of our situation, had sent three times to the Kehya Bey, commander of the pasha’s troops, to protect me, and the Kehya Bey had sent horsemen to assist me; but not one ever came nigh me. After leaving the city they galloped away to commit depredations themselves.

Herodotus came to admire

The picturesque cemetery, shaded by oaks, on the hill above the Genoese Castle, overlooking the entrance to the Black Sea, a view that Darius I. and Herodotus came to admire, is also named “The Field of Witnesses,” because there, it is supposed, Saracen soldiers who fell in an attack upon the castle were buried. Such cemeteries are holy ground, and sepulture in them is regarded as a great honour. The attendance of the Sultan at the midday public prayers on Fridays is the official act of the Caliph of the Mohammedan world. He ascends the throne after girding his sword at the grave of the first standard-bearer of the Prophet, in the Mosque of Eyoub.

The mantle of the Prophet, his green standard, his staff, sword, bow, are enshrined in the Seraglio as the sovereign’s regalia, and are annually visited by the Sultan as a great State function. Around that standard all true Moslems must rally when Islam is in peril. No great act of Government may be performed until the chief doctor of the Sacred Law, the Sheik – ul – Islam, has been consulted, and sanctions the act, as in accordance with the supreme authority of faith and righteousness. Sultan Abdul Azis and his nephew, Sultan Murad, were deposed only after such sanction had been obtained.

Brought up as Moslems

Upon this theocratic conception of the State, the exclusion of the Christian subjects of the Empire from the army is based. For, how can aliens in religion be enlisted under the banner of the Faith? Hence the institution of the janissaries in the early history of the Ottoman Power, whereby children of Christian parentage were taken from their homes and brought up as Moslems, to furnish recruits for the army. It was an ingenious device to maintain the religious character of the military force of the Empire, and yet to prevent the burden of filling the ranks from resting exclusively upon the faithful. The abolition of the child-tax, however fortunate to others, proved a great injury to Turkey.

It not only deprived the Sultans of their finest troops, but has been one of the principal causes of the great decrease in the Moslem population of the country; as that class of the community alone has since been called to sustain the losses involved in military service. The mortality among the soldiers of the Turkish army from disease and war is so great that the Moslem population is rapidly dying out, and well-informed medical experts are heard to say, “ The Eastern Question will be solved by the disappearance of the Turks in the natural course of things.”

Artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh

AMONG THE CHURCHES

BUT however interesting the old churches of the city are as historical landmarks, however useful as a clue to guide us through the labyrinth of the life of New Rome, their supreme value after all consists in the fact that they are monuments, one of them the finest monument, of what is styled Byzantine Art — the art’ which blended artistic elements derived from Greece and Rome with artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh, Persia, Syria, and unfolded a new type of beauty. It was the flower developed by that fusion of Western and Oriental aesthetic ideals and tastes resulting from the long intercourse maintained between Europe and Asia, sometimes at the point of the sword, and sometimes by the peaceful ministries of commerce.

Nowhere could that Art find a more congenial atmosphere in which to flourish than in the city which binds the West and the East together. Like all else in the world, Byzantine Art was not a sudden creation, independent of all antecedents, unheralded by previous analogous forms. The dome was reflected in the waters of the Tigris and of the Tiber before it was mirrored in the Bosporus.

Columns were bound together by arches instead of by a horizontal entablature, in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, before they were so united in the Sacred Palace beside the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Walls glistening with variegated marbles, marble floors glowing with colours that vied with meadows in flower, mosaics radiant with the hues of the rainbow, had adorned homes and made palaces beautiful before the witchery of such coloration cast a spell over the courtiers of Justinian, or suffused the light in S. Sophia.

Even the pendentive that fills the triangular space between two contiguous arches at right angles to each other, so characteristic of Byzantine architecture, is claimed to be an earlier device in domical construction. Be it so. In one sense, there is nothing new under the sun. The new grows out of the old, the present is the product of the past And yet, while a new order of things must spring from an old order, it is not the bare repetition of what has been; while it must employ materials shaped originally for the use of other days, it is not the mechanical combination of those materials.

Beautiful Gate

On the 29th or 80th of May 1458, Sultan Mehemet the Conqueror alighted from his horse at the gate of S. Sophia. It was most probably at the “ Beautiful Gate,” at the southern end of the noble inner narthex of the church, the entrance through which the Emperors of Constantinople usually proceeded to the cathedral. According to one account, the Sultan stooped down at the threshold, took some earth, and scattered it on his head in token of humiliation before God.

Entering, he saw a Moslem breaking the marble pavement. He struck at the vandal with a scimiter for daring to injure a building that belonged of right to the sovereign. Then, in what to the Eastern world was the Holy of Holies of Christendom, an imaum ascended the pulpit and cried aloud, “ There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet” And so it has been ever since.

The Church of S. Saviour Pantepoptes, the All- Seeing (Eski Imaret Djamissi), the Church of S. Saviour Pantocrator, the All-Powerful (Zeirek Kiliss£ Djamissi), and the interior of S. Saviour-in- the-Chora (Kahriyeh Djamissi), recall the period of the Comneni and the Angeli (1081-1204).

In their erection ladies of considerable importance in the history of Constantinople had a part. The first was built by Anna Dalassena, the mother of Alexius I. Comnenus; the last was restored by his mother-in-law, Mary Ducaena, a Bulgarian princess famous for her beauty; the second was an erection of the Empress of John I. Comnenus, the daughter of Geysa I., King of Hungary.

These churches represent the age when Constantinople was stirred by the march of the earlier Crusades through the territory of the Empire, when Peter the Hermit and Godfrey de Bouillon encamped their followers within sight of the city walls, to be dazzled by the splendours of the Palace of Blachemae, and cajoled by the diplomacy of Alexius I. Comnenus. They also recall the time when Henrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, brought his fleet and the troops of the Fourth Crusade to the Golden Horn, and founded the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople.

It was on the terraced ground beside the Church of Pantepoptes that the Emperor Alexius Murtzuplus pitched his vermilion tents and drew up his reserve forces. There he stood to see the walls on the shore below attacked by the Venetian ships and carried by Frankish knights. From that position he fled at the approach of a body of the enemy’s horsemen, and under his un-stricken vermilion tent Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut, soon to succeed him as Latin Emperor of Constantinople, spent the night of that memorable day.

How the river Rhombos became Hebros

Love and hate, or how the river Rhombos became Hebros

Once, long ago, today’s Maritsa river was called Rhombos. It was wide, navigable and at places it swirled in steep rapids. Cassander, the ruler of the land, had a wife who gave birth to a son Hebros. But pretty soon the ruler’s love for his wife faded and he brought to the palace the young and cunning Damasipe. To his misfortune, she fell in love with the handsome youth Hebros at first sight. Hebros, however, put her off and retreated into the mountain hunting. Then Damasipe complained to Cassander that his son tried to rape her. The jealous king rushed with his suite to punish him cruelly. The youth ran but when he reached Rhombos he saw his way was cut from all sides. So, he jumped into the turbulent river, which was henceforth called after him.

Present-day Plovdiv is the center of the Thracian valley, and the Maritsa-Hebros flows across it. In times gone by, the river provided good irrigation to the land and plenty of fish for the people. The climate here was always mild, and the soil fertile and rich for the farmers. People procured pure drinking water from the nearby Rhodope Mountains, as well as stone, timber, ore and game. It is no chance that man found sustenance in these lands since hoary antiquity (the Neolithic, the Bronze and Iron Ages). Once there were seven hills here, as in the Eternal City, three of them being rocky and taller than the others (Nebettepe, Djambaztepe and Taximtepe).

The city with many names

The ancient Thracian settlement (on Nebettepe) is believed to have been called Eumolpia. Plinius Senior describes a Thracian settlement near the Rhodopes and refers to it as Poneropolis. In 341 BC, Philip II of Macedon came here and expanded the place, turning it into a municipal center. A garrison was temporarily stationed here. The ruler called the city by his own name, Philippopolis – the City of Philip. Among the local population this sounded like Pulpudeva and they called it so. A strong wall encircled the top of the hill. Shortly before Thrace became a Roman province, on the hill stood the residence of the Thracian dynast Roimetalkas II, a faithful friend

of Rome. He even helped to suppress the unrests in the mountainous regions in 21 and 26, and the Romans were very grateful to him. Under Claudius (41-54) the Roman administration called the city Trimontium – The Three Hills. This new name, however, did not gain wide circulation. The city was generally known as Philippopolis and preserved this name until the Middle Ages.

About coins and gods

The numismatic material found in the city and its environs gives us valuable information about life in this land. The region of present- day Plovdiv was indirectly involved in the Peloponnese War between Athens and Sparta in the distant 5th century BC (431-404). From here originate electronic staters from the city of Kyzikos in Asia Minor What happened then? During the military operations, Athens was not able to buy grain from Euboea and Sicily. Therefore, it turned north to Thrace. The coins discovered here are evidence that grain was purchased from the region of Plovdiv and transported down the navigable Maritsa river to the Athenians.

The tetradrachmas of Thasos and Athens indicate live communications between this region and other centers on the Balkans. In the time of the Roman presence, the city of Philippopolis-Trimontium was given the right to mint its own coins mihrimah mosque, during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (81-96). From their effigies we judge about the socio-economic life here, of the urban development and religion. Due respect was given to the river Hebros, personified as a young seminude bearded god, recumbent on an amphora, from which water is pouring out. In one hand he holds attributes of fertility – an ear of wheat, a plant sprig, a flower. Other coins depict boats and river ships, indicative of the intensive trade along the river and in the valley. From Plovdiv comes a very curious bronze coin. It represents three girls. One is reaping, the middle one is cradling sand from the river for gold, the third one is digging out ore from a pit, doubtlessly in the Rhodopes. The mountain is also depicted on a coin with Orpheus, sitting on a rock playing his lyre.

It represents the time when the magic singer had lost his beloved Eurydice and withdrawn to the mountains. From the coins we learn about the government and status of the largest city in Thrace. Philippopolis received two important honorary distinctions. It was a metropolis, i.e. chief city. The administrative capital of Roman Thrace was Perinthos on the Sea of Marmora, but undoubtedly the city on the river Hebros was the most prosperous and imposing. Philippopolis was also granted the right to be neocoria – protector of the imperial cult. A special college of priests was elected to perform the duties to the supreme ruler of the Empire in a newly built or existing stately temple. The city had a demos (people’s assembly) and a bule (municipal council). Another type of coins represent hilltop statues of Apollo, Heracles and Hermes.

Debilitated fisherman

TALE XXIV

A powerful fish fell into the net of a debilitated fisherman, who not being able to hold it, the fish got the better of him, snatched the net out of his hand, and escaped. A boy went to fetch water from the river: the flood tide came in and carried him away. The net had hitherto always taken the fish, but this time the fish escaped and carried away the net. The other fisherman grieved at the loss, and reproached him, that having such a fish in his net, he had not been able to hold it. He replied, “Alas, my brethren! what could be done, seeing it was not my lucky day, and the fish had yet a day remaining? A fisherman without luck catcheth not fish in the Tigris, neither will the fish without fate expire on the dry ground.

TALE XXV

One who had neither hands nor feet having killed a millepede, a pious man passing by said, “Holy God, although this had a thousand feet, yet when fate overtook him he could not escape from one destitute of hands and feet. When the enemy who seizes the soul comes behind, fate ties the feet of the swift man. At that moment when the enemy attacks us behind, it is needless to draw the Ivianyan bow.”

Sweet frown it exhibits

The Cazy said to a respectable man of learning, who was in his company, “Behold that beauteous girl, how rude she is; behold her arched eyebrow, what a sweet frown it exhibits! In Arabic they say that, ‘ A blow from the hand of her we love is as sweet as raisin.’ To receive a blow on the mouth from thy hand is preferable to eating bread from one’s own band.” Then again she tempered her severity with a smile of beneficence; as kings sometimes speak with hostility when they inwardly desire peace.

Unripe grapes are sour, but keep them a day or two and they will become sweet. The Cazy having said thus, repaired to his court. Some well-disposed persons, who were in his service, made obeisance, and said that, “With permission they would represent a matter to him, although it might be deemed unpolite, as the sages have said, ‘It is not allowable to argue on every subject; it is criminal to describe the faults of a great personage; ’ but that in consideration of the kindness which his servants, had experienced from him, not to represent what to them appears advisable is a species of treachery.

The laws of rectitude require that you should conquer this inclination, and not give way to unlawful desires, for the office of Cazy is a high dignity, which ought not to be polluted by a crime, You are acquainted with your mistress’s character, and have heard her conversation. She who has lost her reputation, what cares she for the character of another? It has frequently happened that a good name acquired in fifty years has been lost by a single imprudence,”

The Cazy approved the admonition of his cordial friends, praised their understanding and fidelity and said, “The advice which my friends have given in regard to my situation is perfectly right, and their arguments are unanswerable..

Wicked man should escape

RULE XXL

A wicked man is a captive in the hand of the enemy, for wherever he goeth he cannot escape from the clutches of his own punishment. If the wicked man should escape to Heaven from the hand of calamity, lie would continue in calamity from tlie s$nse of his own evil disposition.

RULE XXII.

When you see discord amongst the troops of your enemy, be of good courage; but if they are united, then be upon your guard. When you see contention amongst your enemies, go and sit at ease with your friends; but when you see them of one mind, string your bow, and place stones upon the ramparts.

RULE XXIII.

When the enemy has failed in all other artifices, he will propose friendship, that, under its appearance, he may effect what he could not compass as an open adversary.

RULE XXIY.

Bruise the serpent’s head with the hand of your enemy, which cannot fail of producing one of these two advantages:—If the enemy succeeds, you have killed the snake; and if the latter prevails, you have got rid of your enemy.

In the Jay of battle consider not yourself safe, because your adversary is weak; for he who becomes desperate, will take out the lion’s brains.

RULE XXY.

When you have any thing to communicate that will distress the heart of the person whom it concerns, be silent, in order that he may hear from some one else. 0 nightingale, bring thou the glad tidings of spring, and leave bad news to the owl.

RULE XXYI.

Inform not the King of the perfidy of any one, excepting you are assured that he will entirely approve of it, for otherwise you are only workin your own destruction. When you are purposin to speak any thing, do it when you know that your words will take effect.

AMONG THE CHURCHES BYZANTINE

But however interesting the old churches of the city are as historical landmarks, however useful as a clue to guide us through the labyrinth of the life of New Rome, their supreme value after all consists in the fact that they are monuments, one of them the finest monument, of what is styled Byzantine Art — the art’ which blended artistic elements derived from Greece and Rome with artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh, Persia, Syria, and unfolded a new type of beauty. It was the flower developed by that fusion of Western and Oriental aesthetic ideals and tastes resulting from the long intercourse maintained between Europe and Asia, sometimes at the point of the sword, and sometimes by the peaceful ministries of commerce.

Nowhere could that Art find a more congenial atmosphere in which to flourish than in the city which binds the West and the East together. Like all else in the world, Byzantine Art was not a sudden creation, independent of all antecedents, unheralded by previous analogous forms. The dome was reflected in the waters of the Tigris and of the Tiber before it was mirrored in the Bosporus.

Columns were bound together by arches instead of by a horizontal entablature, in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, before they were so united in the Sacred Palace beside the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Walls glistening with variegated marbles, marble floors glowing with colours that vied with meadows in flower, mosaics radiant with the hues of the rainbow, had adorned homes and made palaces beautiful before the witchery of such coloration cast a spell over the courtiers of Justinian, or suffused the light in S. Sophia.

Even the pendentive that fills the triangular space between two contiguous arches at right angles to each other, so characteristic of Byzantine architecture, is claimed to be an earlier device in domical construction. Be it so. In one sense, there is nothing new under the sun. The new grows out of the old, the present is the product of the past And yet, while a new order of things must spring from an old order, it is not the bare repetition of what has been; while it must employ materials shaped originally for the use of other days, it is not the mechanical combination of those materials.

Losses involved in military service

It not only deprived the Sultans of their finest troops, but has been one of the principal causes of the great decrease in the Moslem population of the country; as that class of the community alone has since been called to sustain the losses involved in military service. The mortality among the soldiers of the Turkish army from disease and war is so great that the Moslem population is rapidly dying out, and well-informed medical experts are heard to say, “ The Eastern Question will be solved by the disappearance of the Turks in the natural course of things.”

The theocratic character of a Moslem State facilitates, indeed, the incorporation of different races in the same social and political system, seeing that all distinctions between men are obliterated by community in the faith of Islam. And it is impressive to see how closely the Mohammedan world, though not free from sects, is knit together by religious principle, and how strongly it cherishes the brotherhood of believers. In it, not in theory only but also in practice, the black man and the white man are fellow-citizens and of the same household.

Impossible for a Moslem State

But on the other hand, because of its theocratic constitution, it is impossible for a Moslem State to accept reforms which seek to secure equality of rights among its subjects, on the ground of a common humanity. Nothing is more opposed to the deepest convictions of a genuine Moslem than the idea that men of a different faith from his own can be his equals. There is no one who can be more polite than a Turk; no one who can treat you in a more friendly and flattering manner than hem.

Yet persons who have known him well, nay, who have loved him, testify that even in the relation of private friendship they have never felt that a Turk had given them his whole self, but was a friend with reservations that might lead him to act toward you in the most unfriendly manner. His religion confers on him an inaccessible superiority, from which he cannot descend without becoming a faithless son of Islam. His interests are superior to those of an infidel.

Code compiled at Constantinople

On 23rd December of the year 438, the Code compiled at Constantinople was presented to the Senate of Rome and recognised by that body. It was a curious reversal of the part which the elder city had acted in the world. The teacher had become the pupil Or is it truer to say, the pupil then did homage to the teacher? The Theodosian Code was superseded by the Code of Justinian the Great, but the earlier compilation retains the honour of being the first great legal instrument to confer upon New Rome the distinction of becoming the tribunal which has guided the most civilised nations of the world into the paths of righteousness and justice in the dealings between man and man. Into the religious controversies which agitated Constantinople while Theodosius II. was upon the throne, this is not the place to enter.

But Constantinople would not have been itself without a hard theological problem to discuss, if not to solve, and we do not know the soul, so to speak, of Constantinople unless we recognise what may be termed the religious temperament of the city. At a period, indeed, when a great religious revolution in the faith of men had taken place, and men were called to make clear to themselves what exactly they believed, and how their beliefs were to be harmonised with their philosophy and the general principles of reason, religious questions could not fail to be prominent everywhere.

They were as naturally prominent in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, when Christianity became the religion of the State, as they were at the time of the Reformation. But Constantinople made these questions peculiarly its own. It could not well be otherwise where the seat of the chief bishop of the Church in the East was found, and in the capital of a Government which concerned itself in these debates as matters of political importance.

Nor can it be denied that in the discussion of the subjects before the public mind we often witness great intellectual acumen, and a profound religious spirit Able and pious men anxiously sought to reconcile faith in the unity of the Divine, with faith in the intimate oneness between the Divine and the human manifested in the life of Christ. No age is dishonoured by keen interest in that theme.

On the other hand, these discussions sometimes degenerated into idle debate, and displayed some of the most odious feelings of human nature. And Constantinople laid itself open to the well- known satirical description of its theological bias by Gregory of Nyssa. “ The city is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of money for you, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son was made out of nothing.”

Under Theodosius II., the interest taken by the citizens of Constantinople in theological controversy was all the greater, inasmuch as the points at issue were raised by religious teachers in the capital itself; one of the heretics being no less a personage than Nestorius, the patriarch of the city. He denied the propriety of the epithet, Theotokos, Mother of God, commonly bestowed upon the Mother of our Lord.

Rome and Constantinople

A great controversy followed, in which all classes of society, from the Emperor and his family to the monks and populace, took part, and displayed, as usual in such cases, a spirit unworthy of the Christian name. So great was the commotion caused by the questions in dispute, that two General Councils of the Church — that of Ephesus in 481, and that of Chalcedon in 451— were convened to affirm the orthodox faith, if not to restore peace. And thus for some twenty years people in Constantinople had all the theology they could wish to discuss. One result of these religious troubles was to evoke the latent antagonism between the different races which composed the population of the Empire mihrimah mosque. Under the guise of religious differences, national diversities asserted themselves. Rome and Constantinople, the West and the East, did not learn to love each other better in the heat of such debates.

While from the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenian Church and the Coptic Church date, respectively, their separation from the main body of Christendom. The extent to which religious and political aspirations are associated in the minds of the populations of the modem East casts much light upon the formation of different Churches along national lines in the earlier days of the Christian world, and also enables us to understand why religious conflicts caused so much anxiety to the imperial Government of New Rome.

Another feature in the religious life of Constantinople that became very distinct in the time of Theodosius II., was the veneration cherished for relics, and the growing desire to consecrate and enrich the city by their presence. The body of Chrysostom was taken from its grave in Pityus and entombed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as an act of reparation for the wrongs he had suffered, and as an atonement for the sins of his persecutors. The supposed relics of Joseph and of Zacharias, on their arrival in the city, were received with great pomp by the Emperor, the Senate, and great officials, as though the saints were being welcomed in person.

Constantine enlarged the town into New Rome

The long history of Byzantium, since the day when a band of colonists from Megara settled there in 658 B.C., to the day in 828 A.D. when Constantine enlarged the town into New Rome, must not detain us. It was a prosperous little town, much occupied with fisheries, interested in the business of corn and wine, and a port of call for ships trading between the countries bordering the Euxine and the Aegean.

It was also celebrated as a fortress, being surrounded by walls of extraordinary strength, which were defended on more than one occasion with great heroism. Situated on one of the principal highways between the East and the West, “even in the force and road of casualty,” many of the chief movements of ancient times in either direction passed by its ramparts, and compelled its citizens to take a side in the conflicts of the great powers of the day, and act a part on the field of general history.

When Darius I. crossed the Bosporus into Europe to chastise the Scythians in Russia, the town fell under the power of Persia, and remained subject to the Great King until Pausanias, the victor at Plataea, delivered it from that yoke.

Pescennius Niger

In the struggle for supremacy between Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, it was controlled now by one of the rivals and then by another of them. It acquired great fame by its resistance to Philip of Macedon, when the star and crescent moon, which have from that time been the device of the city through all changes of fortune, exposed the approach of the enemy and disconcerted his plans. With the rest of the Greek world, Byzantium formed part of the dominion of Alexander the Great. In the war between Rome and Mithridates, it became the ally of the former, and was eventually merged in the Roman Empire. Septimius Severus levelled its splendid walls to the ground, because of its loyal adherence to the cause of his rival, Pescennius Niger.

Varna Electrification Region

After the end of World War I the electricity supply in Varna gradually returned to normal. Varna DPP (diesel power plant) operated from 7.00 till 12.00 at daytime and from sunset till midnight. Due to the small loads, only one machine ran in the morning, and both machines-at nighttime.

In 1922 the number of consumers amounted to 1873 with electric meters and 1730 without electric meters, or a total of 3603 consumers at town population of 43 000. These figures show that a large part of the population in Varna was not yet electrified-a situation typical of other electrified towns in Bulgaria. In 1930 a municipal lighting business enterprise was established in Varna. And in 1937 two small separate power plants were also commissioned-one on the Aqueduct from the Batova river, and the other at “Prince Boris” Factory, with a total capacity of 500 kW.

The electrical load increased quite rapidly, and in the evenings the generators voltage fell from 5000 V to 4500 V for covering the peak load. At the same time, the redemption time of the loan drawn by the enterprise for the first three diesel generators was prolonged-the debt to the bank amounted to 1 414 637 Leva and it was returned as late as 1949.

A fourth diesel generator set was also supplied, but its capacity was quite small-500 kW. The disputes whether a new thermal power plant should be constructed or elec-tricity should be supplied by Adree J.S.C.-Bourgas, went on. A special commission assigned to carry out thorough investigations, presented 3 options of development of Varna electricity supply, as follows:

I.Extension of the existing DPP;

II.Supply of electricity from Adree-Bourgas, through a 95 km 60 kV overhead transmission line;

III.Construction of a local thermal power plant.

Czechoslovashki Colben-Danek

The third option was recommended and approved. Through a tender procedure, at the first stage a 2200 kW unit was procured from Czechoslovashki Colben-Danek, Prague (1944), and after that-a second 5000 kW unit, so the total capacity became 7200 kW (10 000 hp). The Varna DPP became a large regional power plant for its time, in compliance with the decisions of the first general electrification plan of 1941.

The Varna Municipality received a loan from the Electrification Fund covering 30°/o of the resources initially needed for the construction of a new thermal power plant. Against that loan, the Municipality undertook the obligation to electrify six districts including the newly liberated Dobrudja (1940).

The civil works on the regional 20 kV overhead transmission lines to the value of 80 million Leva continued simultaneously with the Varna DPP construction. Their length reached 500 km, and sixty five 20/0.4 kV distribution transformers to the cost of 50 million Leva were connected to them.

Thus, by the end of World War II, the Varna electrification region recovered and almost all towns were electrified, but electric lighting still had to reach the villages.

THE MORAVA-YARDAR TRENCH

The Maritza takes a direct course toward Constantinople for more than one hundred and fifty miles, then turns abruptly southward to the Mediterranean Sea. At this sudden bend in the river stands the fortified city of Adrianople. Except for a short distance below the city, the Maritza no longer serves as part of the great pathway to Constantinople, but becomes a segment in the natural moat, consisting of the Tundja and lower Maritza valleys, which in the past has repeatedly provided Constantinople with an admirable first line of defense against aggression from the west. Above Adrianople the river is too frequently obstructed with sandbars to be of much use for navigation, but its broad basin carries the road and railway which follow the southern bank of the stream. South of Adrianople the small Ergene River flows to the Maritza from the east, and its valley offers a very gentle grade which the railway ascends till within a few miles of Constantinople.

THE MORAVA-YARDAR TRENCH

Second in importance to the Morava-Maritza corridor is the deep trench which cuts through the Balkans from north to south, connecting Belgrade with Saloniki. The Morava-Yardar depression does not lead to the land bridge uniting Europe with Asia Minor, but it does serve as a most important outlet channel from the plains of Hungary to the Mediterranean Sea, and is one of the shortest routes from Central Europe to the Suez Canal. From southern Germany and the eastern Alps, the foothills of the Carpathians and the Alps of Transylvania, and from all of the great Hungarian basin, the valley routes lead straight to Belgrade, whence the Morava-Yardar valley cleaves a way through the mountains to the open waters beyond.

Ostrogoths entered northern Greece

It is not without reason that the Morava-Vardar trench has been called the key to the history of the Balkan Peninsula. Through it ebbed and flowed the tides of repeated invasions from the dawn of history. Under Roman dominion most of it was occupied by an important military road. Through it the Ostrogoths entered northern Greece in the fifth century, A. D., while names still found on the map of Greece bear witness to the great Slav flood which, two centuries later, flowed through the trench and overwhelmed the Greek peninsula. The story of the Serb race is largely the story of a struggle for control of this vital artery of communication.

Approached the Meander

December the 3th.

We proceeded on our journey, and the first part of this day’s ride was very unpleasant, as we had for three miles a bad causeway to travel over till we approached the Meander,1 over which there was a wooden bridge of considerable height and length, without battlements and very narrow ; and the construction of it appeared so feeble, that we did not cross it without apprehensions. Here we paused to view this celebrated stream, and bring to our recollection the great events which took place on its banks and will perpetuate its name. Here we fancied we trod the ground where the great Antiochus sustained a total overthrow from Lucius Scipio one hundred and fifty years before Christ,1 in which] he lost fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse with fifteen elephants.

At twelve we reached a poor village called Zachonona about fifteen miles from Magnesia. We had sent our mules with the baggage forward. As we reached this place before them, and had not passed them on the road, we were seriously alarmed, and apprehended that the black slave who was with the baggage had either run off with our effects or was plundered. We remained for two hours in this painful suspense, and were at length relieved by the arrival of the negro, who had taken a different road, by which he had gone several miles out of his way. After having blamed each other for having separated from him, as he had in his possession every valuable and all our money, we resolved to be more prudent for the future.

Attack on our cold provisions

We retired to a kind of barn, where we made a violent attack on our cold provisions. We removed part of our valuables from the trunks and secured them in [our] own pockets. Here we were honoured with a visit from the Governor of the village, accompanied by fifty other Turks, who all appeared in uniform misery. They seated themselves on the ground around us and entertained themselves with admiring our fire-arms, which, we were pleased to find, they were sensible of being well loaded.

Marseillese ladies are in general handsome

The Marseillese ladies are in general handsome, excessively gay and without the least restraint in their conversation; using the most familiar and unrestrained expressions to gentlemen as well as to each other without the least ceremony. This freedom of speech, however, keeps the bon ton at a distance; and though very pleasing in their own circles, becomes very vulgar and tedious to a nice observer. I was young, had a respectable train of servants and spoke the French language tolerably well: this was more than sufficient to gain me admission into all their parties. But my versatile disposition, or rather my evil genius, prompted me to quit this pleasant and harmless society and return to Lyons, where I met with an adventure, from which I may date all my subsequent misfortunes.

In this city I could find nothing to amuse me, if I except the sumptuous entertainments I gave to all those who chose to partake of them. Magnificent balls and suppers to the ladies, extravagant and expensive dinners to the gentlemen, succeeded each other in quick rotation.

The people of Lyons are very different from those of Marseilles. The latter only think how to make life agreeable, while the former concentrate all their enjoyments in the eagerness of making a rapid fortune. As an instance of their interested character, I shall relate a circumstance not generally known ; and which I should not have discovered, had not a Lyonese girl led me into the secret. At Lyons there is a league formed between the shopkeepers and the other inhabitants against all strangers who come to visit them. It is usual for foreigners to bring letters of recommendation to some of the principal inhabitants for the purpose of procuring lodging and assisting them in the purchase of whatever they may stand in need of. These complaisant conductors have ten per cent, from the merchant upon every article which he sells by their recommendation, and for which he of course takes care to reimburse himself in the price of his commodities; so that the purchaser pays ten per cent, more than he would have done, if he [had] gone alone to the shop; and at the same time looks upon himself as much obliged to his friend for his assistance in obtaining what he thinks a good bargain.

The rich and the poor are here employed in their shops and warehouses from morning till night. The spirit of gain is the sole active principle which prevails in this vast magazine of luxury, which distributes its various articles to the four quarters of the world.

The Lyonese ladies

As to the Lyonese ladies, they possess but few attractive charms. A certain apathy and listlessness of manners destroy the effects of any beauty with which nature may have endowed them; and which is further injured by those monstrous wens, from which very few of them are exempt wooden workmanship byzantium. I had no resource therefore, but in the pleasures of the table.

Among my numerous friends and acquaintances were two Irish gentlemen, whose names I shall conceal; because I only wish to impeach myself. I lived with them in so close an intimacy, that in a short time we became inseparable. Some time afterwards I received an anonymous letter, cautioning me to beware of my new friends, who were represented to be a couple of desperate gamblers, come from Spa, for the express purpose of making me the dupe of their execrable trade. They had received information of my residence at Lyons from one of their emissaries, whom they employed in such places as young men of fortune were likely to resort to.

I paid but very little attention to this advice, as I never observed in either of them the least inclination for play: besides, I was so little addicted to it myself, that I did not believe they had sufficient influence over me to induce me to play, even were they so inclined. However, I shewed the letter to my tutor, who was of opinion that I should entirely avoid their company, and gave me some further exhortation against every species of gaming whatsoever : yet I was so infatuated with my new acquaintance, that I disregarded this good advice and the admonition of my unknown friend.

Fifteen thousand pounds

July, 1789, and their return was celebrated by the lighting of bonfires through the city by the excited populace.t Whaley then “ produced such incontestable proofs of having accomplished his arduous undertaking ” that his friends were obliged reluctantly to pay him a sum of fifteen thousand pounds. This left him seven thousand pounds to the good after defraying the expenses of the expedition ; “ the only instance,” to use his own words, “ in all my life before in which any of my projects turned out to my advantage.”3 He remained in Dublin upwards of two years, engaged largely in gambling, only to find in the end that there was a considerable balance against him.

Speaking of these years, he says, “ It was at this period I happily formed an acquaintance with a lady of exquisite taste and sensibility, from whom I have never since separated. She has been a consolation to me in all my troubles, her persuasive mildness has been a constant check on the impetuosity of my temper, and at this moment constitutes, in my retirement, the principal source of all my felicity.” She was a Miss Courtney ;4 and she lived with Whaley up to the time of her death, which took place when he was resident in the Isle of Man.

Having gone the round of such amusements as Ireland could afford, he opened house in London, “ bought horses and carriages, subscribed to all the fashionable clubs, and was in a short time a complete man of the ton at the West End of the town.”

Knutsford: its Traditions and History, by Rev. Henry Green (Manchester, 1887), author of Shakspere and the Emblem Writers.

Dangerous time are highly interesting

A restless curiosity next led him to Paris, where the Revolution was then in progress. His experiences in the French capital at that dangerous time are highly interesting, and are detailed with his usual openness. From thence he returned to Dublin, but only for the purpose of selling an estate, which brought him twenty- five thousand pounds. “ Having paid some debts and made a few necessary urchases,” he went back to Paris with fourteen thousand pounds in his pocket, and again plunged into the old life.