medanism from Europe by driving out the Turks, and we should still less get rid of the Turks by abolishing their govern

ment.

So much for the main conditions on which the Turkish Empire in Europe. reposes. Turn next to the empire in Asia. Although this dominion may seem to be made up of heterogeneous races, it will have been seen that more than two thirds of them, or 10,700,000, are Ottomans. Most of the minor races are mere anomalous varieties. There are 2,000,000 Armenians; of Greeks, Kurds, and Arabs, about 1,000,000 each; and the remainder consist of insignificant divisions. There is no doubt that the foundation of the strength of the Turkish Empire in Europe is to be found in its Asiatic provinces. There the immense majority of the population is Mohammedan; and the whole Ottoman race are united as Sunnites. While the Turkish rule in Asia supports the Turkish rule in Europe, the former must always exist on distinct grounds. We can readily imagine the Christian population of the latter rising to assert their independence when they are capable of self-government, and able to resist the ambition of their neighbors. The public opinion of Europe would probably support such a movement. But in Asia, where there is little but an Ottoman people, there must still be an Ottoman government. Nor would there be even the pretext for a Russian acquisition in Asiatic Turkey that exists in the case of European Turkey. There would be no reason why Ottomans should not continue to govern themselves. The practical obstacle to the improvement of Western Asia would be, not so much in the existence of an Ottoman government, as in the habitation of that vast territory by Ottoman and other Mohammedan races. Public opinion would probably be slow, therefore, to tolerate a conquest in Asia, which, even if practicable, would confer no appreciable advantage on the territory itself. We may imagine the extinction of the Turkish rule in Europe, but we can hardly conceive its extinction in Asia.

If, once more, we divide the Ottoman Empire according to its principal religious distinctions, we shall gain a further view of the basis of the Government. According to the computation of Ubicini, the numbers stand thus:

Taking, therefore, the empire as a whole, the dominant religion is the religion of the majority. This circumstance, in former times, was of the utmost service to the Porte in its hostilities with foreign powers, and it remains of great importance in the maintenance of its domestic authority. And if we subtract from M. Ubicini's figures, the Mussulmans practically free of the Porte in Africa, on the one hand, and the Christians practically free in Europe, on the other, we shall find a similar result. There will then be more than 17,000,000 Mussulmans against less than 10,000,000 Christians of all denominations.

We

It will probably be acknowledged, therefore, that if the Turks and other Mohammedans in the empire were capable of becoming a great people, and their Government of becoming a good government, the races and religions would be so balanced as to impart strength and security to the whole fabric. What we may term political architecture, is much better observed in the Turkish Empire than in some great Christian monarchies. see Prussia, half Catholic and half Lutheran, ruled by a Lutheran Government, on the basis of a concession of corresponding rights to both classes. In the little State of Saxony, we see a Catholic Court ruling an almost exclusively Lutheran people, with their ready acquiescence. In Austria, in which the prevalent antipathies are national and not religious, we find the dominant race in an insignificant minority; yet it is generally acknowledged that, if the Austrian Government had been administered with moderate discretion, the moral union of the empire would have been preserved. Turkey has no sort of pretension to be the homogeneous empire that France is, or that Italy promises to be. But she is certainly better constituted in this respect than some European empires that scarcely appear to have been less despotically governed.

An empire undeniably weak and tottering, with all these fundamental conditions of strength in its favor, becomes

therefore a phenomenon. Speculative inquirers have been led accordingly to reflect upon the causes of this result, and to inquire whether there is any thing incurably vicious in Mohammedan institutions, or whether the Turkish mind is in itself radically sterile. Practical politicians have, not less naturally, been led to hope that the internal "balance of power" in the Ottoman Empire would impart to it a strength that would render it susceptible at any rate of temporary renovation. The question for the future is, whether its present condition springs from what may be termed superficial misgovernment, or from an essential antagonism to Western progress in the character and religion of the dominant people?

To determine how far civilization is dependent on Christianity is a very large inquiry. We can not forget, indeed, that the greatest monuments of art and literature which the world, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, has produced, sprang from Greeks, of whom the masses believed a superstition woven by the poets, and of whom the intellectual few wandered in a maze of their own creating. The greatest Government that the world has ever seen in colonization, perhaps, as well as in war, was that of heathen Rome. On the other hand, the Arab Mohammedans were the most elegant architects and the acutest mathematicians during many Christian centuries. Three such examples make it hard to determine that civilization, even in a high state of development, can not exist independently of Christianity. Much has been done without the aid of the Christian religion, and much has been done even by Mohammedanism itself. It is clear, however, that at this day there is no great people which is not Christian, and that there is no Mohammedan people which any longer make the figure which Mohammedanism once made. Let the cause rest where it may, it is clear enough that civilization under Christianity has meanwhile advanced, and that civilization under Mohammedism has invariably declined.

Government, and a reformation of the people; and by implication, therefore, a reformation of Mohammedanism itself. The Government is to be made Christian in essence, though it is to remain Mohammedan in name. The people are to live as Christians live, but to go to mosque if they choose, as Mohammedans go. They are to put their religion into their pockets, and mind what the ambassadors say. If the European reformers of Turkey and the Turks can pursue their course until they have made both the State and people Christian alike, it is possible that they may succeed beyond their wildest aspirations. But the probable contingency to which we have to look is, that of their sticking halfway in this career. What then?

During the last thirty years, a species of political reform has gone on, in one shape or other, at Constantinople and in the provinces. The army was conformed as much as possible to a European army; but it did not appear during the last Russian war that the Turkish army grew the more efficient for the transformation. In the navy, the sailors were allowed to wear trowsers and shoes, instead of a Turkish dress and slippers, (each about equally unsuitable for going up aloft ;) but it is simply to our destruction of the Russian fleet that the present maritime superiority of the Turks over their enemies in Eastern waters is to be ascribed. In the administration of the provinces a great change has taken place, at the recommendation of the Western Powers. But the tendency of this is so dubious and conflicting, that no one is able to affirm that it has strengthened the Empire. This alteration was effected in the interest of centralization. As the evil of Asiatic rule was to be corrected by the introduction of European rule- and as European rule could only be directed from Constantinople-it was necessary so to centralize the Government as to make the capital the immediate seat, as far as time and distance allowed, of all authority. Distant pashas, who previously enjoyed great power, now became the immediate agents of the Porte, with fixed salaries. This

The scheme for this object embraces a double reformation-a reformation of the

people from oppression, and to facilitate the introduction of European improvements. Whether the fault really is that this Western intervention has stopped midway in what ought to have been its career, or that it proceeded on a mistaken

principle from the outset, the practical result is that, in the remoter districts of the empire, the change has coïncided with a decline in the agricultural condition of those pashalics. Travelers in Mesopotamia and Assyria declare that they now find barren, and even covered with swamp and morass, large tracts of country which were thirty years ago drained and cultivated under the influence of the governors who preceded these reforms. We believe the explanation of this remarkable but important result to be very simple. Under the old system, the local governors, being in greater authority and less temporary office, possessed a direct interest in the cultivation of the lands within their respective pashalics. The lands yielded more; the taxes, whether farmed out to local capitalists or directly collected by the pasha's officers, yielded more revenue; the results exceeded the anticipations, and consequently the demands of the Porte; and thus the pasha made a purse for himself. Now, however, while the government is more direct, the condition of the country is in many parts the worse for the administrative reform. Whether this defect is susceptible of rectification under the present system of government, is a great question. We do not pretend to say that it is not. But the evil is now one of long growth, and presents another instance that the celebrated "Mahmoud Reforms" have done no certain benefit to the empire.

These administrative or constitutional changes were, however, succeeded by a state of war; and the state of war was followed-probably also attended-by the most profligate extravagance on the part of Sultan Medjid, and a corresponding corruption on that of his ministers and superior officials. We must acknowledge, therefore, that the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud, from their commencement in 1830 to his death in 1840, have not in recent times had a fair trial. The expectations which he formed, under counsel of his European allies, were totally disappointed. He had transferred all authority to Constantinople. When this was the case, more depended than before on the character of the central Government. The deterioration of a centralized Government involved deterioration everywhere. When the central Government robbed, its robbery extended into every province. Stamboul (Constantinople proper) became the

It

worst enemy of the Turkish Empire. was preying upon its vitals far more than the Russians ever were, or than the Greek priests in the empire, acting under Russian instrumentality.

But while all these equivocal changes went on at Constantinople, and throughout the government of the empire, an alteration of a less mixed character, it ought to be acknowledged, gradually crept into Turkish society. And here we must censure Mr. Madden for presuming to write a book about Turkey (parading all the while his professed knowledge of his subject) while he is yet wholly ignorant of the social changes that have been gradually creeping in where Western influences are felt. We allude to the remarkable decline of polygamy, wherever there is much intercommunion with European nations. Yet he actually speaks of polygamy as an unabated evil! He quotes and adopts Mr. Macfarlane's words, in those highly-colored sketches which have long been forgotten, and were never of any authority. Thus, we read: "That until this accursed harem system be abolished, of which there is at present not the slightest sign, there is not the shadow of a hope for that social regeneration, without which Turkey must perish, amid the scorn and contempt of the world." Now, it happens that it is in this very respect that the greatest social change on the part of the Turks was manifested, long before Sultan Aziz came to the throne. In the great seaports, and within their influence even in the interior, the better class of private Mohammedan gentlemen have, in very many cases, abandoned polygamy. They have retained, indeed, the practice of secluding their wives, so that the harem building is retained; but, in many cases, it contains but a single lady, who is the wife; and, in other cases, two or three other Turkish ladies, each as a sort of Sultana Validé, inhabit other portions of the building, in seclusion from their nominal lord. When the latter die, they are not replaced by any fresh purchases.

We are, of course, here speaking of exceptional instances, in exceptional localities; but the rule certainly holds in respect of many who are understood to possess wealth necessary for extensive harems. Those, also, who are thus far approaching Christian usage are commonly reckoned among the best educated, the most refined, and the most honorable of