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.

Independent of individuals

What a contrast, for instance, to the German race! In the earliest history of that people, we discern an element of civilization, a vigorous action of the intellect residing in the body, independent of individuals, and giving birth to great men, rather than created by them. Again, in the first three centuries of the Church, we find martyrs indeed in plenty, as the Turks might have soldiers; but (to view the matter humanly) perhaps there was not one great mind, after the Apostles, to teach and to mould her children.

The highest intellects, Origen, Tertul- lian, and Eusebius, were representatives of a philosophy not hers; her greatest bishops, such as St. Gregory, St. Dionysius, and St. Cyprian, so little exercised a doctor’s office, as to incur, however undeservedly, the imputation of doctrinal inaccuracy. Vigilant as was the Holy See, then, as in every age, yet there is no Pope, I may say, during that period, who has impressed his character upon his generation; yet how well instructed, how precisely informed, how self-possessed an oracle of truth, do we find the Church to be, when the great internal troubles of the fourth century required it! how unam-biguous, how bold is the Christianity of the great Pontiffs, St. Julius, St. Damasus, St. Siricius, and St. Innocent; of the great Doctors, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine!

By what channels, then, had the divine philosophy descended down from the Great Teacher through three centuries of persecution? First through the See and Church of Peter, into which error never intruded, though Popes might be little more than victims, to be hunted out and killed, as soon as made; and to which the faithful from all quarters of the world might have recourse when difficulties arose, or when false teachers any where exalted them-selves. But intercommunion was difficult, and com-paratively rare in days like those, and of nothing is there less pretence of proof than that the Holy See imposed a faith, while persecution raged, upon the ecumenical body.

Myriads of the faithful

Rather, in that earliest age, it was simply the living spirit of the myriads of the faithful, none of them known to fame, who received from the disciples of our Lord, and husbanded so well, and circulated so widely, and transmitted so faithfully, generation after generation, the once delivered apostolic faith; who held it with such sharpness of outline and explicitness of detail, as enabled even the unlearned instinctively to discriminate between truth and error, spontaneously to reject the very shadow of heresy, and to be proof against the fascination of the most brilliant intellects, when they would lead them out of the narrow way. Here, then, is a luminous instance of what I mean by an energetic action from within.

Certain weapons of defence

Moreover, brutes differ from men in this; that they cannot invent, cannot progress. They remain in the use of those faculties and methods, which nature gave them at their birth. They are endowed by the law of their being with certain weapons of defence, and they do not improve on them. They have food, raiment, and dwelling, ready at their command. They need no arrow or noose to catch their prey, nor kitchen to dress it; no garment to wrap round them, nor roof to shelter them.

Their claws, their teeth, their viscera, are their butcher and their cook; and their fur is their wardrobe. The cave or the jungle is their home; or if they are to exercise some architectural craft, they have not to learn it. But man comes into the world with the capabilities, rather than the means and appliances, of life. He begins with a small capital, but one which admits of indefinite improvement. He is, in his very idea, a creature of progress. He starts, the inferior of the brute animals, but he surpasses them on the long run; he subjects them to himself, and he goes forward on a career, which at least hitherto has not found its limit.

Even the savage of course in some measure exemplifies this law of human nature, and is lord of the brutes; and what he is and man generally, compared with the inferior animals, such is man civilized compared with the barbarian. Civilization is that state to which man’s nature points and tends; it is the systematic use, improvement, and combination of those faculties which are his characteristic ; and, viewed in its idea, it is the perfection, the happiness of our mortal state.

Necessarily Christianity.

It is the development of art out of nature, and of self-government out of passion, and of certainty out of opinion, and of faith out of reason. It is the due disposition of the various powers of the soul, each in its place, the subordination or subjection of the inferior, and the union of all into one whole. Aims, rules, views, habits, projects; prudence, foresight, observation, inquiry, invention, resource, resolution, perseverance, are its characteristics. Justice, benevolence, expedience, propriety, religion, are its recognised, its motive principles. Supernatural truth is its sovereign law. Such is it in its idea, synonymous with Christianity; and, not only in idea, but in matter of fact also, is Christianity ever civilization, as far as its influence prevails; but, unhappily, in matter of fact, civilization is not necessarily Christianity.

The plain of the Clitumnus

Even as regards this low tract, he speaks Alison on of one portion of it, the plain of the Clitumnus, as being rich, as in ancient days, in herds and flocks; and he enlarges upon the Campagna of Naples as “ still the scene of industry, elegance, and agricultural riches. There”, he says, “ still, as in ancient times, an admirable cultivation brings to perfection the choicest gifts of nature. Magnificent crops of wheat and maize cover the rich and level expanse; rows of elms or willows shelter their harvests from the too scorching rays of the sun; and luxuriant vines, clustering to the very tops of the trees, are trained in festoons from one summit to the other. On its hills the orange, the vine, and the fig tree flourish in luxuriant beauty; the air is rendered fragrant by their ceaseless perfume; and the prodigy is here exhibited of the fruit and the flower appearing at the same time on the same stem”.

Great plain is so level

So much for that portion of Italy which owes least to the labours of the husbandman: the second portion is the plain of Lombardy, which stretches three hundred miles in length by one hundred and twenty in breadth, and which, he says, “ beyond question is the richest and the most fertile in Europe”. This great plain is so level, that you may travel two hundred miles in a straight line, without coming to a natural eminence ten feet high; and it is watered by numerous rivers, the Ticino, the Adda, the Adige, and others, which fall into the great stream of the Po, the “king of rivers”, as Virgil calls it, which flows majestically through its length from west to east till it finds its mouth in the Adriatic. It is obvious, from the testimony of the various travellers in the East, whom I have cited, what would be the fate of this noble plain under a Turkish government; it would become nothing more or less than one great and deadly swamp.

But Mr. Alison observes: “It is hard to say, whether the cultivation of the soil, the riches of nature, or the structures of human industry in this beautiful region, are most to be admired. An unrivalled system of agriculture, from which every nation in Europe might take a lesson, has long been established over its whole surface, and two, and sometimes three successive crops annually reward the labours of the husbandman. Indian corn is produced in abundance, and by its return, quadruple that of wheat, affords subsistence for a numerous and dense population.

Change of habits and promising no permanent stability

It was a sudden Tartar descent, accompanied with no national change of habits, and promising no permanent stability. Nor would they have remained, I suppose, as they did remain, were it not that they have been protected, as they were originally introduced, by neighbouring states which have made use of them. There, however, in matter of fact, they remain to this day, in Armenia, in Syria, in Asia Minor, even as far west as the coast of the Archipelago and its maritime cities and ports, being pretty much what they were a thousand years ago, except that they have taken up the loose profession of Mahometanism, and have given up some of the extreme peculiarities of their Tartar state, such as their attachment to horseflesh and mares’ milk. These are the Turcomans.

The writer in the Universal History divides them into eastern and western. Of the Eastern, with which we are not concerned, he tells us that “they are tall and robust, with square flat faces, as well as the western; only they are more swarthy and have a greater resemblance to the Tartars. Some of them have betaken themselves to husbandry.

Profess Mahomedanism

They are all Mohammedans; they are very’ turbulent, very brave, and good horsemen”. And of the Western, that they once had two dynasties in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and were for a time very powerful, but that they are now subjects of the Turks, who never have been able to subdue their roving habits; that they dwell in tents of thick felt, without fixed habitation; that they profess Mahomedanism, but perform its duties no better than their brethren in the East; that they are governed by their own chiefs according to their own laws; that they pay tribute to the Ottoman Porte, and are bound to furnish it with horsemen; that they are great robbers, and are in perpetual warfare with their neighbours the Kurds; that they march sometimes two or three hundred families together, and with their droves cover sometimes a space of two leagues, and that they prefer the use of the bow to that of fire-arms.

This account is drawn up from writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Precisely the same report of their habits is made by Dr. Chandler in his travels in Asia Minor in the middle of the last century; he fell in with them in his journey between Smyrna and Ephesus Jugoslavia. “We were told here”, he says, “ that the road farther on was beset with Turcomans, a people supposed to be descended from the Nomades Scythse or Shepherd Scythians; busied, as of old, in breeding and nurturing cattle, and leading, as then, an unsettled life; not forming villages and towns with stable habitations, but flitting from place to place, as the season and their convenience directs; choosing their stations and overspreading without control the vast neglected pastures of this desert empire. …

We set out, and . . . soon after came to a wild country covered with thickets, and with the black booths of the Turcomans, spreading on every side, innumerable, with flocks and herds and horses and poultry feeding round them”.

Zingis or Timour

Of these the first in order is the Hunnish Empire of Attila, and if I speak of it and of him with more of historical consecutiveness than of Zingis or of Timour, it is because I think in him we see the pure undiluted Tartar, better than in the other two, and in his empire the best specimen of a Tartar rule. Nothing brings before us more vividly the terrible character of Attila than this, that he terrified the Goths themselves.

These celebrated barbarians at the time of Attila inhabited the countries to the north of the Black Sea, between the Danube and the Don, the very district in which Darius so many centuries before found the Scythians. They were impending over the Roman Empire, and threatening it with destruction; their king was the great Herman- ric, who, after many victories, was closing his days in the fulness of power and renown. That they themselves, the formidable Goths, should have to fear and flee, seemed the most improbable of prospects ; yet it was their lot.

Crushing force of a remorseless foe

Suddenly they heard, or rather they felt before they heard, so rapid is the torrent of Scythian warfare, they felt upon them and among them the resistless, crushing force of a remorseless foe. They beheld their fields and villages in flames about them, and their hearthstones deluged in the blood of their dearest and their bravest. Shocked and stunned by so unexpected a calamity, they could think of nothing better than turning their backs on the enemy, crowding to the Danube, and imploring the Romans to let them cross over, and to lodge themselves and their families in safety from the calamity which menaced them.

Indeed, the very appearance of the enemy scared them; and they shrank from him, as children before some monstrous object. It is observed of the Scythians, their ancestors, who, as I have mentioned, came down upon Asia in the Median times, that they were a frightful set of men. “ The persons of the Scythians”, says a living historian, “ naturally unsightly, were rendered hideous by indolent habits, only occasionally interrupted by violent exertions; and the same cause subjected them to disgusting diseases, in which they themselves revered the finger of heaven”. Some of these ancient tribes are said to have been cannibals, and their horrible outrage in serving up to Cyax- ares human flesh for game, may be taken to confirm the account.

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.

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..