YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

A JOUENAL

TTJEIEY AND GEEECE.

A JOUENAL

TUEKEY ANB GEEECE

IN THE AUTUMN OF 1857 AND THE BEGINNING OF 1868.

BY''

NASSAU W. SENIOR, "ESQ.

LONDON :
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, AND ROBERTS.
1859.

Eavero.. 8S7S

PREFAC

The following pages contain extracts from a Journal which
I kept in Therapia, The Troad, Smyrna, and Athens, in
the autumn and winter of 1857 — 1858. It wa.s written
with no view to publication; but, as it throws light on
questions of political importance, I think that I ought not,
under present circumstances, to withhold it.
The state of affairs in the East is strange, and is im
perfectly understood in England. We have had to take
part in them, we may have to do so again, and every one
must be anxious that our conduct should be governed by
as much knowledge as can be obtained.
I believe that the conversations, of which this Journal
mainly consists, are faithfully reported. "Whenever I had
an opportunity, I submitted the reports to the interlocutors
themselves. In preparing them for publication, I have
added nothing and omitted little, — only, in fact, the por
tions which I thought that the speakers might not like
A 3

vi PEEFACE.
to see in print. The reader will therefore find, on many
points, great difference of opinion. On a few, such as the
rapid decline of the Ottoman Empire in wealth and iy
population, the corruption of its officials, and the mischief
done to it by diplomatic interference, he will find nearly
unanimity. Nor will he find much discrepancy in the different;
pictures of the Greek Government, or inthe description of
the means by which a free constitution has been turned
into a corrupt despotism. As the Hatt-i-Sherif of Gui
Haneh and the Hatt-i-Hum^yoon are frequently referred
to, I have inserted the substance of their principal clauses.
The following are the most important provisions of the
Hatt-i-Sherif of Gui Hdneh, promulgated on the Srd of
November, 1839.
" For the last 150 years," says the Sultan, "our former
strength and prosperity have been changed^ into weakness
and poverty.
" Eelying on the assistance of God, and the intercession •
ofthe Prophet, we shall endeavour, by means of new insti
tutions, to give to our empire a good administration.
" The great objects of these in'stitutions are three : 
" A. Security of life, honour, and property.
" B. Eegularity of taxation.

HATT-I-SHEMP OF GUL HANEH. vii
" c. Eegularity of military service, as to both enlistment
and length of service.
" To effect these objects : —
" 1. Every Ottoman subject is to be taxed in proportion
to his means, and is to be liable to no further
taxation.
" 2. Military and naval expenditure are to be fixed by
law.
" 3. Every place is to furnish soldiers according to a
regular scale. Nothing is more unjust than to
raise men without regard to population ; military
service ought not to last more than four or six years.
" 4. Every accused person shall be tried publicly, with
due inquiry and examination. No one can be put
to death, by poison, or otherwise^ without a regular
judicial sentence.
" 5. No one is permitted to attack the honour of another.
" 6. All property may be enjoyed and disposed of with
perfect liberty. The property of a criminal is not
subject to confiscation ; on his death it descends to
his heirs.
" These imperial concessions are granted to all our sub
jects, of every sect or religion, without any exception. They
give to all our subjects perfect security of life, honour, and
property.

viii PEEFACE.
"The details of carrying out these general principles
shall be arranged by our council of justice, increased in
number and assisted by our ministers and eminent men. .
We promise to do nothing inconsistent with this proclama
tion. It shall be deposited with the relics of the Prophet,
amd sworn to by us, and by the Ulema and the great
men of the empire.
"Every one violating it shall be punished, whatever
be his rank, according to the provisions of a penal law
to be made for that purpose.
" A rigorous law shall punish the sale of offices and of
favor, which is one of the principal causes of the decline of
the empire.
" May all who violate these institutions be the objects
of Divine wrath, and be deprived of all happiness, and for
ever." The following are the principal provisions of the Hatt-i-
Humiyoon, or Imperial Order, issued in Constantinople on
the 18th of February, 1856.
1. Every non-Mussulman community is to appoint a
committee, which is to draw up a report on its existing
franchises, and to propose any alterations which it may
think expedient.
2. The ecclesiastical property of every Christian , com-

HATT-I-HUMitTOON. ix
munity is inviolable. It is to be managed by an elected
committee, partly lay and partly clerical.
3. Full liberty of worship is guaranteed to eyery reli
gious profession. No one can be forced to change his
religion. 4. No legal documents shall acknowledge any inferiority
of one class of Ottoman subjects to another, in consequence
of difference in religion, race, or language.
5. All Ottoman subjects, whatever be their nationality,
are eligible to every employment.
6. All Ottoman subjects are admissible to the civil and
military schools of the Govemment.
7. Every community may establish schools of every
kind. The choice of teachers and the course of in
struction being under the superintendence of a mixed
council of public instruction, to be appointed by the
Government. 8. All civil and criminal proceedings between Mussulmen
and non-Mussulmen shall be decided by mixed tribunals,
•in which the discussion shall be public, in the presence of
the parties; and the evidence of all witnesses shall be
received. Civil proceedings between persons non-Mussul
men may, at the request ofthe parties, be decided by their
own ecclesiastical officers.
9. The laws and the procedure of the mixed tribunals

X PEEFACE.
shall be immediately codified and published in all the
languages of the empire.
10. A reformed code of prison discipline shall be imme
diately drawn up.
11. All torture is radicaUy abolished.
12. The organisation of the police shall be revised and
reformed. 13. Non-Mussulmen being now subject to conscription,
a law respecting their military duties shall be immediately
drawn up. Eedemption and substitution shall be admitted.
14. A reform shall be made in the composition of the
provincial and communal councils, so as to secure free
dom of election, freedom of vote, and authentication of
decisions. 15. All foreigners may possess landed property, obeying
the laws, and paying the taxes; for this purpose, arrange
ments shall be made with foreign powers.
16. All persons, without distinction of class or religion,
shall pay the same taxes. The abuses in the exaction of
taxes, particularly of the tithes, shall be reformed. Direct
payment into the exchequer shall be substituted for the
system of farms.
17. Whilst farms exist they shall be granted publicly to
the highest bidder, and official persons, particularly the
medjils, are prohibited from becoming farmers.

hatt-i-hum1yoon. xi
18, Local taxation shall be arranged so as not to inter
fere with production or with internal trade.
19. Provision shall be made out of the public revenue,
and from local. sources for public works, particularly com
munications by sea and by land.
20. The budget of public receipts and expenditure shall
be fixed and published every year.
21. All salaries shall be revised.
22. The chiefs of each religious persuasion, and a de
legate from each, to be appointed by the Government,
shall take part in the deliberations of the Supreme
Council of Justice. They shall be convoked by the Grand
Vizier. The delegates shall hold their places for a year. Per
fect freedom of speech and of vote is guaranteed to them.
23. The laws against corruption shall be applied to all
Ottoman subjects whatever be their religion or race.
24. Banks and similar institutions shall be created as
means to reform the monetary and financial systeiris of
the empire, and to create capital and wealth.
. 25. Eoads and canals shall be made. All restrictions on
commerce and on agriculture shall be abolished, and the
sciences, arts, and capitals of Europe made use of for the
increase of the wealth of the empire.
26. The Grand Vizier is charged with the publication of
this firman, and with its full and punctual execution.

CONTENTS.

Page 1
Thekapia  . 154
¦The Dakdanelles ...•••' . 187
Smtena  . 229
Athens 

DIEECTIONS TO THE BINDEE,

Map of Bosporus  to face tule page ,
Drawing of Therapia  ^a^^ 7
Drawing of Stamboul  ]„.
Map of Troad .... ,-.
 ,,154

A JOFENAL

TUEKEY AND GEEECE.

THEEAPIA.

At about 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 12th, 1857,
we embarked on board the Austrian Lloyd's steamer, the
"Pluto." Her tonnage is IIOO, of which half goes to
engine room. Her power is 400. She was built by
Green in London, and cost 55,000Z. Her speed, under
favourable circumstances, is twelve and a half knots . an
hour; with a head wind and a heavy sea, nine or nine
and a half. She is the steadiest vessel that I ever steamed
in. She pitches little even in a gale, and rolls only when
there is a high wind on her stern.
During Saturday afternoon and all Sunday we ran along
the coasts of Croatia and Dalmatia, which looked culti
vated and populous. When I got up on Monday the
14th, we were coasting Albania. It is desolate and barren ;
evidences, perhaps, of Turkish rule.

2 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AJNU ujtJir,v/Ji.
At about 9 A.M. we passed the "infames scopulos Acro-
ceraunia," and sighted Corfu, which rose to us as it did to
Ulysses, " like a shield on the dark blue sea."
At ten we were in its capacious harbour, in front of the
promontory crowned with two peaks, on which the citadel,
the " Aeriee Phseacum arces " of Virgil, has stood from the
times of Alcinous. We remained at anchor until two;
but, as is usually the case with packets, there was an un
certainty about our stay, and we did not venture to do
more than wander over the dirty town, look at the inn.
Carter's, which seems to be a tolerable one, and climb to
the Fort Neuf, which crowns an eminence to the west of
the town.
The view of the green hills of Corfu, of the Albanian
mountains beyond, and of the land-locked channel between
them, which appears to be a great lake, is very fine.
In the middle of the harbour rises a rock with the out
line of an ancient galley, which probably suggested the
legend of the Phaeacean ship turned by Neptune into
stone. At about half-past eleven at night we were running
through the narrow channel which separates Ithaca from
Cephalonia. Bathy, the port of Ithaca, must be about
100 miles from Corfu, a distance which the Phaeacean
galley carrying Ulysses traversed in less than twelve hours,
starting at sunset and arriving at daybreak.
There can be little doubt, I think, that Malta or Gozo,
was Calypso's island. It took Ulysses ten days to drift
thither from Scylla. "WTien he was returning. Calypso
directed him to keep the Great Bear always on his left.

MOEEA. 3
that is to steer north-east; doing so he saw the hills of
Corfu on the eighteenth day. The distance from the Faro
of Messina to Gozo is about 200 miles, ^hat from Gozo
to Corfu is about 350 miles. His boat, which he made in
four d'ays, and which, as Homer tells us, was very broad,
was probably a bad sailer.
Tuesday, September 15th. — At six this morning, we
were running down the coast of the Morea. The first
interesting object that we saw, was Navarino. Its port
is protected by the island of Sphacteria, the scene of
perhaps the most remarkable events of the Peloponnesian
war; the old town was the sandy Pylos of Nestor, over
which rises the castle in which he received Telemachus.
A few miles lower, we passed Modon, the ancient MsOayvTi,
which, from our deck, looked considerable ; but, I believe,
is almost uninhabited.
The coast of the Morea, so far as we approached it, is
high and naked. On the plateaus, and in the valleys of the
interior, we could see villages^ among plantations of olives
and vines, in which the most remarkable buildings were
square towers. These are the habitations of the gentry,
whom the prevalence-of private war and of hereditary feuds
forces to lead a life of seclusion and of constant vigilance.
It is said, that there are families that have not ventured
to quit their towers for years.
We passed the three southern capes of Greece, Acritas,
Tsenarus, and Malea, at about noon, leaving the barren
rocky island of Cerigo (Cythera) to the south.
It was dark before we reached the Cyclades, and mid
night when we anchored in the harbour of Syra.
B 2

4 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Wednesday, September IQth. — We remained in the
harbour until eight this morning. The town is consi
derable and looks flourishing, much building seems to
be going on, and the new houses are large. We could
just see the low island of Delos, nearly touching that
of Ehenea, in which the inhabitants of Delos were born
and died.
We passed near the barren rocks of Gyarus, and
through the narrow channel that separates Tino and
Andro. Both are bare, and apparently uninhabited near
the coast, but may contain fertile slopes and valleys within.
The next land that we saw was Scio, but it was distant ;
and it was dark before we began to coast Mytilene. By
this time, the north wind had risen to a gale, and I went
to bed.
Thursday, Septemher llth. — At six this morning we
had just left GalHpoH. For about nine hours we steamed
up the sea of Marmora, passing no island except the appa
rently uninhabited one of Marmora, and at about three
saw faintly the distant minarets of Constantinople. Gra
dually the old town, Stamboul, displayed itself. First we
saw the Castle of the Seven Towers, which occupies the
western angle of the large triangle formed by the town.
Then we steamed along the old sea walls, passed the
gardens and the point of the Seraglio, over which tower the
minarets of Santa Sophia and the Achmedyeh, and anchored
at about four in the Golden Horn.
At this season, all who can afford it live in villas on the
shores of the Bosporus ; so, instead of establishing ourselves
in Pera, where we should have been alone, we resolved to

CONSTANTINOPLE. 5
inhabit Therapia, about ten miles from Constantinople,
and three from the Black Sea.
It is too late to reach it to-night, so we remain on
board, We could not be better placed to form a general idea of
Constantinople. On our right, as we look up the Golden
Horn, are the suburbs of Galata and Pera. The former at
the bottom, the latter at the top, of a hill rising from the
sea. Here alone foreigners are allowed to reside.
Galata, a frightful collection of stone hovels, mixed with
the old Genoese palaces, is the town of business. Pera
contains- the one good inn^ Miseres's, and the palaces of the
ambassadors. Two of them, those of England and Eussia,
were pointed out to me. Great square modern buildings,
towering over the low irregular wooden town beneath.
In front of us runs up the Golden Hom, intersected by
a floating bridge, and containing a large commercial fleet
below it, and a military fleet above. On our left are the
long fantastic buildings of the Seraglio, their domes and
minarets peeping out among planes, stone pines, and
cypresses. On all sides, where there is land, the horizon
seems to end in a forest of cypresses. They mark the
burial-grounds which surround the city. The candles and
lamps in the windows of the houses are the only lights, and
they are almost confined to Galata and Pera. Now, at half-
past ten in the evening, Stamboul is in utter darkness.
Galata is nearly so. Even Pera, which at about eight
o'clock looked brilliant, is now nearly dark.
The sounds are few, and differ from those of an European
B 3

6 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
city. There are no carriages or carts ; all transport is by
water or on men's shoulders. The dogs are never quite silent,
and from time to time the call to prayer is sounded from
all the minarets. These, and the splash of oars, have been
the only sounds, and by this time the prayers are over, and
the boatmen are asleep, so that the dogs alone show that
there is something living in the great city.
Friday, September ISth, Hotel d'Angleterre, Therapia.
— We sent up our luggage and servants by a caique, a
long, narrow, flat-bottomed boat, rowed by sculls. We
intended to follow by the steamboat.
The number that ply on the Bosporus is considerable ;
but, like everything in Turkey, they are subject to a
monopoly, and are inadequate to the demand. We found
the boat therefore crowded, and as the majority of the
passengers were filthy, and all were smoking, we left it,
and hired a caique. In these boats you do' not sit, but lie
down in the bottom, your head just above the gunwale,—
a position not favourable to sight-seeing; nor must you '
move, — a slight change of balance might overset your
light conveyance. The day is dull ; and though it is true
that the Bosporus, with its narrow channel and its rapid
current, resembles a magnificent river, . that its banks are
lined with palaces, and that the hills that rise above them
are covered with grand groves of cypresses, stone pines,
and oriental plane trees, still, after aU that I have heard
of it, I have been rather disappointed. As far as the
merely natural features ofthe scenery are concerned —that
is, the sea, and hills, and the woods, leaving out the build
ings and the associations, — they did not appear to me very \

THEEAPIA. 7
superior to those of the channel, Kyle Ehea and Loch Aish,
between Skye and Invernesshire.
The Hotel d'Angleterre rises from the sea on three sides
of a little promontory. Our rooms look to the north and
to the east, and to the south, with the sea on every side.
The custom, officers stopped our luggage-boat on the
water, and opened several of the trunks, but were appeased
by backshish. After breakfast I wandered over Therapia.
It will be seen from the drawing that the port is sur
rounded 'by the town, in which about 3000 Greeks are
packed in about 200 miserable houses, intersected by the
horrible flint lanes, which are the curse of every town and
village under Turkish rule. On each side of the town,
. along the shore, ai-e fine houses, built in the Turkish style,
the upper stories projecting far over the lower ones, and
surrounded, except where they abut on the sea, by terraced
gardens, planted in avenues of cypress, stone pine, and
oriental plane. The finest of them is the sultan's kiosk,
next to it, that of Mr. Baltazzi, a Greek merchant, said to
be one of-the richest men in Turkey. Then came the
summer palaces of the French and English embassies.
Immediately above Therapia, the Bosporus turns sud
denly to the north-east, and opens straight, without any
further bend, to the Black Sea. This renders Therapia
the coldest, and for some constitutions the healthiest, place
on the Bosporus. At this season it is constantly fanned
by the bracing winds of Scythia.
The inn is clean, and the cooking seems to be good.
But there are no fire-places, and, at present, we cannot get
a salon. B 4

8 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Saturday, Septemher 19*^.^— We dined with Lord Strat
ford, and met, among many other guests, the Austrian
Minister, Baron Prokesch, and the French Secretary, M.
de I'Allemand. The French Minister, M. Thouvenel, is
shooting in the island of Marmora.
The house is not large, but very agreeable. There are
two good drawing-rooms in the Turkish style. The room
A is entered only through the room B.
¦ 1 1 It has windows and divans all round
B A "^ it, and the projecting portion hangs
l| over the water and looks straight
up the Bosporus to the Black Sea.
Eoom B has divans and windows over them where I have
put double lines.
To-day has been fine, but I hear bitter complaints of the
weather of the last three months. So bad a summer, they
say, was never known ; the fruit has not ripened (which I
know from experience), there has been scarcely any sun,
and sometimes a week of rain. We ought now, and for
the next month, to have warm, clear, still weather, but they
see no signs of its approaching.
Sunday, Septemher 20th. — I met on board the Trieste
steamer a Mr. Binel, an intelligent French advocate. He
was the Crimean correspondent of the " Journal des
Debats " during the war, and when it ceased he remained in
Constantinople, practising as an advocate in the Consular
courts. He finds this a profitable business, and can make
without difficulty 200?. a month. He lives with two young
English merchants, Messrs. Ede, at Candilh, a village on
the Asiatic shore, just below the Sweet Waters of Asia.

CONSTANTINOPLE, 9
I crossed to Candilli in a caique this morning, and after
breakfast Mr, Binel and I took the steamer to the first or
new bridge, which joins Galata to Stamboul, near the
Seraglio, then a caique to the Stamboul end of the old
bridge, where we found horses waiting to be hired.
They asked a- hundred piastres (the piastre is worth nearly
twopence) for the use of two during the morning. We agreed
to give forty, and five to the guide, who walked by their
side. They carried us quickly and safely over the sfbny
lanes. We rode first along the shore of the Golden Horn,
through the long narrow street called the Fanar, the resi
dence, till within the last ten years, of the richer Greeks.
We passed many large stone houses, built round a court,
with one strong door in the middle, and every window
grated, each a small fortress. Such precautions were
necessary during the rule of the janissaries, when the
wealthy, especially the Christian wealthy, were always in
danger. Then we rode through the Jews' quarter, — in European
towns always the dirtiest, — but clean compared to any
thing Greek. We passed the gates and rode to the mosque
and cemetery of Eyub. Here we saw Turkish tombs,
apparently of persons of the higher classes, protected by
railings, covered with gilding and paint. One of the
commonest ornaments was a Fez proper (gules and azure),
on a short pillar. All the unoccupied ground was covered
by cypresses and flowers, and flowers were painted on all
the upright slabs. Mussulmen try to surround death with
cheerful associations, We met a funeral. The bearers

10 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
were running quickly, almost the only time that I have
seen a Turk run.
We then turned our backs on the Golden Horn, and
rode on the outside of the city walls, between them and a
forest of cypresses, for nearly five miles, until at the
Castle of the Seven Towers, we reached the sea of
Marmora. The walls of Constantinople are, I suppose, the finest
military ruins in the world. Before them is a broad
ditch, now cultivated as garden ground. Above this rise
three tiers of walls, each about twenty feet higher than
the one immediately below it. The two interior walls are
guarded by large towers, square or octagon, standing
chequer wise,
D D D D
D D D D D
so as to flank one another. In some parts, where rising
ground towards the country affords facilities of attack, the
towers are planted closely ; but in general they are about
fifty yards apart, perhaps a bow-shot. None appear to have
fallen ; many are quite perfect. Stone pines, planes, wych
elms, and chestnuts, rise from the gi-een platform that
divide the different tiers. There is little ivy, so that the
outline is never concealed. A triple line of this magni
tude, extending for four miles and a half, and sometimes
advancing and receding to suit the accidents of the ground,
must consist of more masonry than is to be found in all

CONSTANTINOPLE. 11
the ruined castles in Great, Britain put together. The
only work which I can compare to them is the wall of
Eome; but that wall is single, and being still used for
purposes of defence is kept free from trees. It is far
inferior in grandeur and beauty to the towered terraces
and abundant vegeta,tion of the Constantinopolitan wall.
The Castle of the Seven Towers has been restored, and
looked more modern than the walls. Some of the towers
are round.
The gate by which we entered the town is hung on
columns of red porphyry, stolen from some temple, and
over it are the shafts of similar columns, built into the
wall when it was last repaired by the Turks.
Stamboul is superior to its suburbs. The streets are in
some parts tolerably wide, and not quite so atrociously
paved ; some of them too are clean.
We rode nearly parallel to the sea, until we reached the
Atmeidan, the most interesting spot in Constantinople. It
is an oblong of about 250 yards by 150, a portion of the
old Hippodrome, of which the remainder has become the
site of Sultan Achmed's mosque.
We saw the Egyptian monolithe obelisk, not tall, but
with fine well-preserved hieroglyphics, supported by a base
of marble, with bas-reliefs of the 4th century ; the Greek
obelisk, built of courses of marble, a mere skeleton now
that its metallic covering has been removed ; and the bronze
twisted pillar, which, if it came from Delphi, must be one
of the oldest bronzes in the world.
From the Atmeidan we rode past Santa Sophia, now
inaccessible without a firman. The outside has no merit ;

12 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the low flat dome is lost among the cupolas and buttresses
which surround it, and its four minarets are poor, both ui
design and execution.
We entered the Seraglio by the Sublime Porte, a lofty
rather narrow archway, leading to a large oblong court,
containing fountains overshadowed by gigantic plane trees,
far older than the Ottoman conquest.
On each side of this gate are capacious niches, in which
the heads of those who had been decapitated in the morning
used to be exposed during the day.
We entered the next court by a similar gate on foot. It
is smaller than the first court, and square. On one side of
it is a kiosk, with the projecting eaves and filagree windows
of the earlier Turkish architectm'e, called the Hall of
Desires. Behind it is the long low range of buildings
wliich were the old harem, on one side of which is the gate
leading to the third court, containing the rooms which
were occu.pied by the sultan.
In the Hall of Desires, the ladies whom the sultan had
summoned from the harem, used to wait until they were
conducted through the third gate into his apartments^
This gate was burned down about a year ago, and has been
rebuilt in a showy pagoda-like style, and covered with
gold and bad architectural frescoes. We were not allowed
to pass through it, so we returned to the first court, re
mounted our horses, and rode down the steep road which
leads through a portion of the Seraglio gardens, among
cypresses, planes, and stone pines, by a beautiful soHtary
kiosk, by the long building in which are the divans of the
different mimsters, and by the marble and red porphyiy

BOSPOEUS. 13
tombs of the Greek emperors, until we at last left the
Seraglio by the stony lane which leads to the Galata
bridge. Here we dismissed our horses, and were carried
back by a steamer to Candilli.
The poop in these steamers supports a covered saloon,
in which the first-class passengers sit. Behind, close to
the helm, is the portion of the vessel set apart for Turkish
women ; it has no roof or awning. This evening it rained
heavily. Several women were in this enclosure, thinly
dressed, without umbrellas. There they remained in the
rain during the two hours that the passage lasted. There
was plenty of room for them in the saloon, but both
their own prejudices and those of the men rendered their
enteriog it impossible. Indeed their veils of thin muslin
are a slight covering. The veils of the Arabs and of the
Egyptians effectually conceal the face. Those of the Con-
stantinopolitans are scarcely thicker than an European
veil. I dined at Candilli, and intended to return at night to
Therapia ; but there are no steamers across the Bosporus,
and the caique men refuse to go out in the rain, so I
sleep here.
Monday, Septemher 21st. — The rain continued all the
morning. I took a steamer to Galata and stayed there until I found
one for Therapia.
During the interval, I hobbled and climbed up and
down some of the rough stony lanes of Galata.
I visited the Ottoman Bank; three or four miserable
rooms, for which the bank paid, when it was first esta-

14 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
blished, 500?. a year. The rent is now, I believe, rather
lower. ,
The greatest objection to residence in Turkey is the
state of the pavements of the towns. It is such as to
render the use of carriages almost impossible, and walking
painful, indeed dangerous. In Stamboul, which is com
paratively flat, you can get about on the sure-footed
Turkish horses, but Galata and Pera are too steep for
horses; there are no asses, so that walking is the only
resource, and there is so much torture and risk' in it, that
no one moves from place to place, unless absolutely forced
to do so.
Tuesday, September 22nd. — I went with Mr. Alison, the
Secretary of Legation, in one of the embassy boats, to dine
with Achmed Vefic Effendi, the minister of justice,- who
lives at Eumeli Hissari, a Turkish town on the European
side of the narrowest reach of the Bosporus.
The other guest was Prince Ghika, a Moldavian, the
Turkish governor of Samos.*
Samos contains about 320 square miles. It is eminently
fertile. Its inhabitants are Greeks, and it manages its own
affaii's under the superintendence of a Christian governor
sent to it from Turkey. In ancient times^ when its
religion was pagan, when it was cursed with slavery, when
it was constantly at war, sometimes governed by an
usurper, oftener by a foreign master, Athens, Sparta, or
Persia, it was rich and powerful. Its population exceeded
300,000 persons. Its capital was one of the finest towns
in Greece, it produced great statesmen, philosophers, and
* Now minister of the interior in Moldavia.

ACHMED VEFIC EFFENDL 15
artists. Now its population is reduced to 60,000, its towns
are wretched, it has neither wealth nor literature. It is
strange that its present state should be so inferior to its
ancient one, though the race continues the same, and
though the principal differences, Christianity and the
absence of slavery, are eminently favourable to civilisation.
The Prince is agreeable and unassuming.
Achmed Vefic Effendi is a man of about forty-five,
speaking perfect French and reading English. His li
brary, a respectable one, contains many English books.
On his table lay Lane's Arabian Nights. He has been
much in Persia, talked of Herodotus and Ctesias, and
would pass in Europe for a remarkably well-informed man.
On our arrival, at about half-past five, we had pipes and
coffee, and aniseed and water, which I thought strong, but
which om- host maintained to be very weak.
At dinner we sat round a large silver disk, placed on a
round table. First came soup, for which we had spoons,
but no plates. Then came half a roasted sheep, in which
our host made some incisions with his knife, and we tore
out with our hands morsels which were excellent. Mutton
chops stewed with abundance of vegetables, a pillau, and
stews of artichokes and of mushrooms followed, but only
one dish at a time. We had excellent Bordeaux wine, of
which our host took his share.
After dinner we returned to the library and resumed our
pipes, the Effendi enjoying a hookah.
He complained that the two hours after dinner were his
worst time.
"We all of us," he said, "eat too much, and I own that

16 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
I am somewhat of a boa constrictor. My natural state
after dinner is kief."
"What precisely," I asked, "is kief? "
" Kief," he answered, " is best described by negatives.
You are not unconscious, yet you do not think. You are
not awake, yet you are not asleep. Appearances' float
slowly before your eyes, which you know to be imaginary,
but cannot either call up or dismiss. They have a charm
about them which does not accompany anything real. No
music is so sweet as that which you hear in kief ; no women
are so charming as those who visit you in kief."
But notwithstanding we interrupted his kief, our host
was gay and amusing.
We talked of pictures.
" That is an expense," he said, " in which we do not
indulge, but I wiU show you our substitutes."
And he brought out three or fom- manuscript books,
small folios written on vellum in very black ink, and
adorned with arabesques in gold.
"These," he said, "are written by some of our old
masters in calligraphy, men whose names and whose
works are as well known as those of Eaffaelle or Titian.
They belong to the great 16th century, the golden age of
calligraphy. You will observe that there is not in any of
them a single erasure or interlineation, arid I can assure
you that there is not a single fault."
" I suppose," I said, « that when a fault had been made,
the leaf was cancelled ? "
" A great writer," he answered, "never makes a fault." ^
We talked about the state of the country. ".What we

VEFIC EFFENDI. 17
most want," he said, " are roads. We have nothing but
tracks filled with stones in our towns, so that it takes you
an hour to walk a mile, and, in the country, rocky, stony,
or boggy, according to the ground. Except in the im
mediate neighbourhood of our towns, the land is not half
cultivated, because the peasant cannot carry the produce
to market. He produces, therefore, only for his own con
sumption. He is truly a proletaire ; he contributes tp the
population of the countiy, but not to its wealth."
" It seems to me," I said, " that you neglect the great
sea-road which nature has given you. You have scarcely
any steamers across the Bosporus, and those which ply
laterally are not half enough for the demand, even at
their extravagant prices."
" That is quite true," he answered. " A company has the
monopoly, and finds it more profitable to have a few
steamers overcrowded at high fares, than many at moderate
ones. The monopoly has still some years to run."
"And will it be renewed ? " I asked.
" That will depend," he answered, " on what the mono
polists ai"e able or willing to pay, and who is in office.
With us government is supposed to exist for the benefit,
not of the governed, but of the governors. When the
question of renewing the monopoly has to be discussed, the
only party um-epresented will be the public."
"I was struck," I said, "when I walked the deck, of the
steamer off Stamboul, between ten and eleven at night,
by the repose of the town. I scarcely saw a light, and
scarcely heard a sound, except the barking of dogs^"
"Andj-et," said Vefic, "in this grekt, populous, un-
c

tne

18 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
lighted, and scarcely-watched town, there is little crime,
not a tenth of what prevails in the Frank quarters of
Galata and Pera. Stamboul is divided into districts;
the principal inhabitants of each district form a sort of
senate. They admit into the districts as residents only
those whom they approve. They turn out those whose
conduct is objectionable. We have not in Stamboul the
professionally criminal population, which renders many
gi-eat towns unsafe. Our classes dangereuses are the dogs ;
if it were not for them, you might walk through Stamboul
at any hour of the night."
Friday, September 25th. — We walked with A. B.
through Therapia, and then along the coast as far as Kal-
lender, passing in half an hour's walk a couple of the
Sultan's palaces.
A. B. has resided on the Bosporus for about a year. He
formerly inhabited Tripoli.
" Of course," he said, " the society is much better here
than in Tripoli ; and so are the climate, the soil, and the
scenery. Tripoli has scarcely any society ; is hot, and has
marshes in its neighbourhood; whereas here we have a
large and good society, and a country of which the
beauty, the healthiness, and the climate ai-e unequalled.
But for my own personal comfort I prefer Tripoli.
There is a much better native population. The Arab is
intelligent and refined. Though he detests and despises
Christians collectively, he can estimate an individual
among us, and feel towards him gratitude and attachment,
Turks and Greeks are a mixture of the hateful and the
disgusting; the hateful element predominating in the

TUEKS AND GEEEKS. 19
Turk, and the disgusting one in the Greek, We have just
picked our way through a Greek town, by no means a bad
gpecimen. Did you ever see streets so rocky, or so dirty,
houses so ruinous, rooms so much more resembling dens
than human habitations ? "
" The mud huts," I said, " in the suburbs of Cairo are
still ruder habitations,"
" Euder," he said, " but far cleaner, and you must recol
lect the difference in climate. The Cairenes enjoy perpetual
summer ; they scarcely want a house. It is cold here for
six months, and very cold for two or three. Yet not a
Greek or a Turkish house in Therapia has a fireplace
except for cooking. Where have you ever met with so un
civil a population, a population so regardless of others ? A
Turk rides at full speed through the streets, and over the
crowded bridges of Constantinople, and along this narrow
path, utterly careless whom he rides down, A man driving
a loaded mule, with baskets projecting on feach side, will
rather drive him against you than out of your way. If
you walk over the downs above us, and a shepherd's dogs
attack you, their master will not call them off. For this,
however, he thinks that he has an excuse. He believes
that their spirit would be cowed if they were prevented
from worrying strangers. And they are as dishonest as
they are ill-natured. I went the other day with a lady to
buy amber rosaries. They asked for a set of them 7000
piastres. She offered 1000, and got them for 3000.
Among the Arabs there is some kindness and some self-
respect." *«Is the Arab," I asked, " improveable ? "
c 2

20 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
" I fear not," he answered ; " at least, while he remains
a Mussulman, Polygamy, wanton divorce, the seclusioa
of women, fatalism, indifference to all knowledge, and to
all literature, except the nonsense of the Koran, and con
tempt and hatred of Christians ; all these are parts of his
religion ; they are instilled into him from his birth, and
they are all opposed to improvement, Bnt he is already
far more civilised than the Turks ever will be. Like them
he is stationary, but at a much higher level. His house is
twice as comfortable as any Turkish house; he has roads,
he has a police. You may travel in safety through all the
vast regency of Tripoli, Here you are not safe five miles
from the city; nor, indeed, in the city itself at night, orin
its remoter districts,"
" Is the government of Tripoli," I asked, " more or less
corrupt than that of Constantinople ? "
" It cannot be more so," he answered, " and I do not
think that it is less so. Some years ago I was intimate
with a man who was defterdar, or minister of finance.
He showed me two books, ' This,' he said, ' is a faithful
account of every sum which ought to be paid, and of every
sum which has been paid, I keep it for my own use; the
other is the one which I transmit to the Turkish Govern
ment, Every sum is reduced to one-half.' "
"What," I asked, "was the total amount of the receipts
acknowledged in the true book ?"
"About 50,000 purses," he answered, " 250,000?. ster
ling," "Do you mean," I said, "that he retained for himself
125,000?, every year ? "

TEIPOLI. 21
" He defrauded," answered A, B,, " the Turkish Grovern-
ment of 125,000?, every year, but he probably did not
retain for himself more than 50,000?. The rest he had to
distribute as hush-money among the other officials. 'I
should Hke,' he said to me, ' to be honest, strange as such
conduct would be in this country. But I could not re
tain my place for a month if I did not bribe all the people
around me, and a certain portion of the people at Constan
tinople. Those bribes are what they live on. If I were to
discontinue them I should soon be calumniated, dismissed,
plundered, perhaps bastinadoed. Then I must make a
little purse for the time when I shall lose my office. I
shall have to bribe in order to get another. How could I
do all this out of my salary ?' "
" What is the extent and population of the regency of
Tripoli?" I asked,
"The population," he answered, "is about two millions,
on a vague estimate. The extent is enormous ; as large as
France or Spain."
" Then 125,000?. a year," I said, " cannot pay the local
expenses." " Certainly not," he answered ; " the Turkish Govern
ment has to remit to Tripoli every year a considerable
sum." " And what does it get from Tripoli ?" I asked.
" Nothing whatever, " he answered ; " Tripoli, like many
other of the outlying pashalics, is a mere encumbrance
to the government. But individuals get something. The
bulk of all the official incomes in Constantinople consists
of bribes, and the bribes from Tripoli are worth having..
c 3

22 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
Another of my friends," he continded, "was the Cadi,.
the head of the law. He is sent from Constantinople, and
generally is allowed to retain his place for three years, but
must be annually confirmed. My friend was a gopd man,
and, if he had known Arabic, which he did not, would have
made a good judge. He told me that in his first year he
received 10,000 purses, or 50,000?., from the inferior judges
whom he appointed or confirmed."
"And how," I asked, " did they make their money ?"
" By fees," he answered, " and by taking bribes from the
suitors. He sold his patronage, they' sold, their decisions."
" Is Tripoli," I asked, " better or worse governed than
when the beyship was hereditary ? "
" Better," he answered, " in this respect, that there is
now an appeal to the Sultan, and a very bad Bey may he
recalled. Worse in this respect, that the Bey takes no inte-'
rest in his temporary subjects, and thinks only of squeezing
money out of them. On the whole, perhaps, there is Httle
difference,"
• We passed a fine house in partial decay. "It was
built," said A. B., " by an Armenian named Jesiarli. Its
magnificence excited the envy of the Turks, and also
pointed him out as a fit subject for plunder. An accusa
tion was got up against him of having defrauded the
government. The fact was probably true. Everyone who
has anything to do with this government defrauds it more
or less, that is, in proportion, not to his conscience, but to
his opportunities. He was exiled, his property confiscated,
and this house, nearly completed, was suffered to fall into

LAND AND HOUSES. 23
" When did this happen ? " I asked.
" About three years ago," he answered. " It was Je-
siarli's own fault. He ought to have known that if, not
enjoying foreign protection, he ventured to be rich, it was
his duty to conceal his wealth. One of the objections,"
he continued, " to this country, is the difficulty of obtain
ing a habitation. You are not allowed to buy, and the
Turks will let only from year to year. If you let your
house fall into decay, you may perhaps retain it at the
same rent ; but if you keep it up, and, still more, if you
improve it, your landloird raises the rent on every renewal.
Mr. Cumberbatch, the British consul at Pera, pays twice
as much now as he did a few years ago, and the rent will
be raised higher and higher in proportion as the owner
thinks that it would be inconvenient to Cumberbatch to
move." "The Hatt-i-Humayoon," I said, "declares that fo
reigners may purchase land and houSes."
" Yes," he answered, " but with this reserve, that the
details are to be arranged between the Sultan and the
foreign governments. That means that, in return for the
permission, the capitulations by which we are exempt
from the jurisdiction of the Mussulman courts, and subject
only to that of the consuls, are to be surrendered. I
would not pay such a price for land if nothing else were
asked for it. Nothing would tempt me to expose my
property, and perhaps my person, to the fraud, the in
justice, the venality, and the brutality of a Turkish court.
The capitulations alone make existence in Turkey en
durable or even possible," c 4

24 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
"And yet," I said, "I see Englishmen holding larid;
Mr. Hanson has a property at Candilli,"
" Such transactions," answered A, B., " are fraudulent
and illegal, Mr. Hanson, or rather Mr, Hanson's agent,
for his name was carefully kept out of sight, purchased in
the name of his wife,- describing her by her Christian name
of Marian, a Christian rajah, the daughter of Anna, a
Christian rajah. During Lord Stratford's reign Mr, Hanson
is perfectly safe, but if there were a war, or if we had an
ambassador less energetic, or less careful of British in
terests, I would not give much for his chance of keeping
his property. It would suit some pacha, JesiarH, among
his ostentations, had some fine mangals^- silver tripods
for holding embers — the way in which these people warm
their rooms, A great man heard of them, sent his
servants and porters, and had them removed from Jesiarli's
house to his own," '
Saturday, September 26th. — I called on C, D. We
talked of the expensiveness of Constantinople,
"I believe," he said, "that house rent is higher in
Pera than in any town in Europe, Two EngHsh ladies
have established a school. Such a thing is much wanted,
and theirs is a good one, so that I am anxious for its
success. But the expense of house rent makes it a losing
concern, and unless we can assist them by a subscriptioaj ¦
it must be given up. They have about forty-five boar
ders ; and for a house which will hold them, they have to
pay 530?, a year,"
" I wonder," I said, « that they do not remove to Stam- ,
boul, where houserent is much lower, and which is a more

ENGLISH AND FEENCH POLICY. 25
agreeable, or rather a less disagreeable, town than Pera.
The Hatt-i-Humdyoon has abolished the law which con
fined Christians to peculiar residences."
" The Hatt-i-HumS,yoon," he answered, " is a dead
letter, and will remain so, unless the foreign governments
enforce it. The six Powers who signed the Treaty of Paris
might insist on its execution ; even England and France,
if they would pull together, could do so. The policy of
England," he continued, "is perfectly pure. Its only
object is the welfare of Turkey. We want nothing from
her; our trade takes care of itself; we ask no peculiar privi
leges; indeed, she could gi'ant none, for her treaties with
every European Power contain a stipulation that it shall
be put upon the footing of the most favoured nation. We
would not accept an inch of her territory. All that we
wish is to avert, or at least to delay, the war which, when
she does fall to pieces, will inevitably arise for her spoils.
Never, perhaps, did one nation give to another support so
thoroughly disinterested.
" I wish that I could say the same for that of France,
but her policy is warped by her old traditions. She
wants Egypt, if not to possess it, at least to be dominant
there, in order to keep us out. She wants to be mis
tress in Syria. She is always intriguing with the Druses
and Maronites. She wishes her influence here not only
to be felt, but to be obvious, to be notorious. France and
England have both apparently the same objects ; they both
• wish Turkey to make the reforms which are necessary to
her prosperity, and even to her existence ; but all that we
wish is that those reforms should be made. France wishes

26 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
them to be made at her dictation. She would not be satisfied
if the sick man were to recover, unless she herself pre
scribed the medicine, and compounded it, and forced it
down his throat, and that it were known that she did so."
"What," I asked, "is her object in pressing for the
union of the Principalities? Is it merely in order to please
Eussia ? "
" No," he answered. " She declared herself favourable
to the union before the wishes of Eussia were known."
" Eussia," I said, " I suppose, desires the union, because
Austria opposes it,"
" That is one motive," he answered, " and perhaps a
strong one ; but a stronger is her belief that it wiU weaken
Turkey, As for Austria, I must say that all her propositions
respecting the Principalities, provided they be kept separatCj
have been kind, and sensible, and Hberal."
" I am told," I said, " that the clause in the Treaty of
Paris, which provides that in the matter of union or sepa
ration the wishes and the interests of the inhabitants shall
be consulted, was borrowed from one of the protocols of
the Conference of Vienna. It seems to me to go far in
deciding the question."
"As respects Wallachia," he answered, "they, as the
stronger people, desire the union; it gives them rather
subjects than fellow-citizens. But, as to the Moldavians,
though they have not ventured to refuse their votes, i«
doubt whether it has their wishes. They think themselves,
I believe with truth, more civiUsed than the Wallachians,:^
and dread them as masters. Certainly, at first sight,
the union appears to be plausible; but when you consider,

PEUSrCIPALITIES AND TUEKEY. 27
in the first place, the difficulty of arranging the details :
in the second place the probable inability of Tm-key to
maintain her authority over so powerful a vassal as the
governor of the united provinces ; and thirdlyy the ex
ample which the Principalities, if virtually independent,
would set to her other provinces ; you must own that the
objections to the union are very grave ; so grave, that I
beHeve that when they are seriously examined, they will
preponderate. Turkey resembles some parts of our
southern coast. A strong current sets against her, and
threatens to break through her sea-wall ; the loss of the
Principalities would make a frightful breach in it."
Soon after I left C. D., E. F. called on us.
"What impression," he said, "does the East produce on
you?" "The East," I said, "is not quite new to me, as I have
passed some months in Egypt."
" Egypt," he answered, " is not a fair specimen. The
government of Egypt is as superior to the Mahomedan
government as the docile laborious Fellah is to the brutal
Tm-k," " I have had time," I said, " only to look at the exterior.
I see a capital, the streets of which are impassable to wheels,
and scarcely to be traversed on foot ; I see a country with
out a road ; I see a palace of the Sultan's on every pro
montory of the Bosporus ; I see vast tracts of unoccupied
land, and more dogs than human beings ; these appearances
are not favourable to the government or to the people."
" If you have the misfortune," he answered, " as I have
had, to live among Turks for between two and three years.

28 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
yom- opinions will be still less favourable. In govern
ment and in religion Turkey is a detritus. All that gave
her strength, all that gave her consistency, has gone, what
remains is crumbling into powder. The worst parts of
her detestable religion, hatred of improvement, and hatred
ofthe unbeliever; the worst parts of her detestable govern
ment, violence, extortion, treachery and fraud, are all that
she has retained. Never was there a country that more
required to be conquered. Our support merely delays
her submission to that violent remedy."
" You think then," I said, " that it must come to that? "
" I can see," he answered, " no other solution."
" The Turk is utterly unimproveable. He hates change,
and therefore he hates civiHsation; he hates Europeans, he
hates and fears all that they propose. There is not a word
in the Hatt-i-Humayoon that does not disgust, or irritate,
or alarm him. Nothing but force will oblige him to give
to it even the appearance of execution. And what is the
value of apparent reforms in a people without an aristocracy,
without a middle class, without a public opinion, without
the means of communication, without newspapers, without
even a post-office; accustomed for 400 years to plunder;"
and oppress Eayahs, and to be oppressed and plundered by
sultans, pashas, cadis, and janissaries ?"
" Suppose," I said, " the Sultan to retire to Asia, could
European Turkey govern itself? "
" The Principalities and Servia," he answered, " migb^i-
do so. But Bulgaria and EoumeHa and Bosnia are com
posed of discordant materials. .They would fall into civil
war or anarchy." .

.ENGLISH AND FEENCH POLICY. 29
" We might give them," I said, " an European sovereign,
and a subsidiary force."
"That," he answered, "would be conquest, and I can
only repeat, that to conquest it must come at last."
Here I was interrupted by some visitors, and I lost the
rest o'f his Anti-Turkish invective.
Sunday, September 21 ih. — G. H., a Frenchman settled
in Galata, breakfasted -with us, and we walked over the
downs, which rise perhaps 1000 feet above the sea. The
Bosporus lay at our feet, and our view was bounded to the
north by the Black Sea, and to the south by the Bithynian
Mount Olympus, rising on the other side of the Sea of
Marmora, above Broussa, its top and sides white with
snow. I mentioned to him the substance of my conversations
yesterday with C. D-. and E. Fl " I quite agree," he said,
"with C. D. in beHevirig that unless Turkey can be
improved she is l*st, and that nothing but pressure from
without will force her to improve. I believe, further, that
that pressure could be applied by England and France, and,
further still, that it is the want of agreement between the
two governments, or rather between the two embassies, that
prevents their combined action. But it seems to me
that C. D. has told only part of the truth. It is true
that the French embassy is jealous and interfering, always
striving to influence arid to domineer, but so is the
Eussian, so is the Austrian, and so, eminently so, is the
British. If we -wish for a canal, England opposes. If you
wish for a telegraph, France opposes. If France and Eussia
wish the Principalities to be united, England and Austria

30 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
require them to be separated. If you support Eeschid
Pasha, we support Fuad Pasha, If Eussia builds at
Pera a palace big enough for a king, so do we, and so do
you. We are going to pull down our palace here, and to
erect a new one as large as one of the Sultan's, I have no
doubt that you will follow our example, and on your
¦^system of rivalry for influence you ought to do so ; for the
Turks estimate the power of a nation by its outward show,
,At a great expense of talents, diligence, paper, ink and
diplomacy, we produce only negative effects. We neutra
lise one another, and our influence, instead of raising
Turkey, tends to sink her still lower. There is no folly,
or injustice, or bigotry, in which some ambassador will not
support her,"
"And now," I said, "for E. R's views,"
"I think them," said G, H., "r9,sh and superficial.
Instead of untying the knot he cuts it. By conquest he
must mean partition ; and how can there be a partition; ;
without a general war? Who is to have Constantinople?
E, F,'s plan is merely to submit to the calamity which
France and England have spent 200,000 Hves to avert.
It is a mere repetition of Nicholas's scheme,"
" What then," I said, " is your own plan ? "
" My own plan," he answered, "is comparatively simple.
I wish France and England to insist on the clause of the
Hatt-i-HumSyoon, which provides that foreigners shaH be
allowed to purchase land in Turkey."
" But the Turks," I said, " make it a condition that we
shaU surrender the capitulations, which cannot be done,"

IMPEOVEMENT OF TUEKEY. 31
"I would reply," he answered, "to that demand by
promising to give up the capitulations as soon as the
Turks shall have established tribunals to which Europeans
may resort with safety, tribunals in which the judges
shall be leai-ned and upright. Even a Turk must admit
the reasonableness of this condition, and no one knows
better than a Turk does, that it cannot at present be per
formed. In the meantime, we have a right to insist that
the Hatt-i-Humdyoon shall be executed ; that it shall
not be rendered illusory by being made dependent on our
giving up our subjects to Turkish courts, such as Turkish
courts now are."
" And how," I said, "is the possessing of Turkish land by
foreigners to regenerate the Turks ? "
" My object," he answered, " is not to regenerate the
Turks, but to regenerate the Eayahs. Land is so fertile,
and so cheap in Bulgaria and EoumeHa, that emigrants
would pour in, not from France or from England, but
from the Sclavonic provinces of Austria, from Eussia,
perhaps from Poland. These men, protected by their
capitulations, would form an aristocracy. Eound them
the Christians of Turkey in Europe, four times as
numerous as the Turks, would rally. The Turkish power
more than any other depends on prestige. It is the
domination ofthe ruder over the more civilised people.
Four centuries of oppression have made the Bulgarian
believe that the Turk is naturally a master. Let him see
this master resisted and defied by the protected immigrant,
and he will begin to thiak of resisting himself. That was

32 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND' GEEECE.
sho-vm when the allies were in force in Constantinople.
The Greeks saw the French soldiers brow-beating the
Turks. At first they were astonished; but when the
example had been set to them for a few months, they
began to copy it. They assumed airs of equality, indeed
of superiority, and at last at Galata and Pera the Turks
were actually cowed. So it would be in Bulgaria and
EoumeHa, if the immigration were large enough, as I think
that it would be, to form a nucleus of resistance against
Tm-kish robbery and oppression. The Turks of Europe
are not producers ; they are a parasitical population, which
lives only by plundering the Christians. Letthis.be made
impossible, or even difficult, and they will emigrate or die
out. The Turkish power in Bulgaria and EoumeHa might
thus fall of itself without conquest, as it has already done
virtually in Servia, and in the Principalities."
" And what," I said, " do you propose to do with them,
when they have ceased to be Turkish ? "
" I would unite them," he said, " as a kingdom or a
confederacy to Servia and the PrincipaHties. They would
form a respectable community of about ten milHons of
souls. Macedonia and Thessaly must of course be
restored to Greece, from which they ought- never to
have been divided. In fact, they would give them
selves to Greece. Nothing but force separates them froffi-
their fellow-countrymen on the other side of the absurd
frontier line which the protecting Powers drew across
Greece." " What would you- do with Bosnia? " I asked. ' '-
"That is a more difficult question," he answered, ."for

DESTINY OP TUEKEY. 33
there the Turks are as numerous as the Christians. It
might, perhaps, be left in its present state, noininally de
pendent on Turkey, but -with little real subjection. It is
a sihall population, in a semi-barbarous corner of Europe."
"Your policy," I said, "is the reverse of that avowed
by the cabinets of Europe. Their object, at least what
they proclaim to be their object, is the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire. Your object is its dissolution ? "
" Certainly," he answered ; " but you must remember
that what you call objects are merely means to an end.
That end, on which all agree, being the prevention of a
general war for the partition of Tm-key. I wish the
Turkish Empire to be peacefully dissolved bythe inde
pendence, not by the conquest and appropriation, of its
different provinces. I should like to see Egypt an in
dependent country, TriJ)oH another, the Principalities
another^ Servia another, EoumeHa another, and Bulgaria
another, with Constantinople for its capital. Syria ought
to be joined to Egypt, as it would have been but fdr your
interference. " Asia Mirior the Turks riiay keep, until the Christians
become too strong fpr them, and they have to go back to
Tai-tary, which they ought never to have left."
Monday, September 28th. — I walked with Mr. Calvert
along the coast until we reached the long broad valley
which separates the hills of Therapia from those of Buyuc-
dereh, and runs up to the forest of Belgrade. At its
entrance, about a hundred yards from the sea, stands the
great plane, under which Godfrey de Bouillon is said to
D

34 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
.have pitched his camp in the 13th century. It consists of
nine large trees, six of which rise from the same low stem
and may be considered as the gigantic branches of a single
ti-ee. The three others are more detached from the great
trunk, but may have been once united ; the whole is about
sixty paces in circumference. It may well be older than
the first crusade.
Mr. Calvert belongs to a consular family. His brother
is the well-known British consul at the Dardanelles ; he
himself was born at Malta, and has passed- nearly all
his life in European or Asiatic Turkey, We talked of
the feelings of the different populations of Turkey in
Europe, "They all," he said, "without any exception, hate
Eussia, and look for support and protection to England."
" I thought," I said, " that they looked rather to France,
France played a more important part during the war than
England." " It is true," he said, " that her armies were larger, but
the Turks think more of fleets than of armies ; they know,
too, that we were able, and, indeed, anxious to continue
the war when France would have withdrawn from it, before
any of its objects had been attained, — did, in fact, terminate
it when those objects were imperfectly obtained, and if we
had not interfered, would have surrendered, by the definitive
treaty, half of the advantages which were promised by the
preliminaries. Our diplomacy, too, has been managed by
a much firmer and abler hand than any of those to which
French interests have been entrusted. It has -been not
only more energetic, and more successfal, but also far more .i

PEELINGS OP THE EAYAHS. 35
disinterested. The French protectorate of the Latins pre
vents their Turkish policy from being frank and consistent,
and is opposed to the prejudices and wishes of all the
Mussulman population, and to those of nine-tenths of the
Christians." " The Bulgarians," he added, " hate not only the Eus
sians, but the Greeks, and so do the Eoumelians, until you
reach Thessaly, whe.re the Greek race prevails, and a desire
for union with their brethren in the war of independence is
naturaUy felt."
, " What is the feeling," I asked, " of Servia, Bosnia, and
the PrincipaHties ?"
" A general hatred," he answered, "of aU their neigh
bours. They hate the Eussians, the Austrians, the Greeks,
and the Turks. What they really wish for is independence,
at least the virtual independence which has been gained by
Servia." " Could they form," I asked, " an independent confede
racy ? "
" Not a confederacy," he answered, " they are too un
civilised. You never could trust them for any combined
action. If the rest of the world would let them alone, they
would like to remain semi-barbarous aristocracies, enjoying
rude plenty, contributing little to the wealth of Europe,
and nothing to its security."
Tuesday, Septemher 29th. — Miss Canning took us in the
great Embassy caique, rowed by ten men, to Stamboul, to
visit the bazaars. Assisted by the strong current, we ran
down, from Tlaerapia to the Galata bridge in about an hour,
the guai-ds at all the forts presenting arms as we passed.
D 2

36 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
With infinite toil and bargaining we managed in about
three hours to buy some Otto of roses, some thin woollens,
manufactured in Vienna for the harems, and to be bought
only in Constantinople, and some sandal wood rosaries. Our
return against the stream was of course slower, but perhaps
still more agreeable, as we could observe better the details
of the fantastic architecture, and of the magnificent vegeta
tion of its terraced gardens.
Wednesday, Septemher ZOth. — We were to have dined
again with Achmed Vefic Effendi, but since I saw him he
has lost his office. Under such circumstances it would be
indecent in a Turk to give a dinneis.
He is supposed to be overwhelmed with grief. I hear
different opinions as to whether he was turned out or
resigned. But it is admitted that he has ceased to be a
judge, because he dared to be an impartial one.
I walked over the hills to Eoumeli Hissari to visit him,
guided by Alison, for there was no road, and seldom a
path, and scarcely any cultivation, though within ten miles
of the capital. We found the disgraced minister in very
good spirits, reading Captain Slade's " Turkey," of which
he praised the fidelity.
But before our first pipe was out, we had to leave him to
catch the only remaining steamer.
Friday, October 2nd. — We started this morning with
Lord Stratford, Miss Canning, and Madame Von Zuylen,
the wife of the Dutch minister at Athens, ia the Embassy
caique, to visit the Sweet Waters of Asia. Lord Stratford,
however, left us as we passed the palace of Aali Pasha, the,

SWEET WATEES OF ASMl. 37
Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom he wished for a
conference, which he expected to be short.
— - The Sweet Waters of Asia ai-e a stream which runs into
the Bosporus, under the -walls of the old castle of AnadoH
Hissari, about half a mile above CandilH. At its mouth is'
a meadow a quarter of a mile each way, in which is a grove
of ancient planes and ashes surrounding a fountain. Along
the shore were hundreds of caiques, which had brought
thither the female beau monde of the Bosporus and of
Stamboul. The greater part of them had established them
selves on mattrasses, with carpets and cushions, on which
they were squatting, carefully concealing their feet, eating
fruit, bread, and sweetmeats, and drinking the water of the
fountain. Others were in vehicles drawn by cows with high
red fantastic trappings, or by horses, or more frequently by
a single horse. One or two of these vehicles were EngHsh
broughams or britzkas, more were the small gaudy arabas
of the country, in which four persons can be crammed and
unmercifully jolted ; many were carts, holding parties of .
nine or ten women and. children, followed by a harper and
a fiddler on foot : the veils of the women consisted of two
pieces of muslin, drawn, one across the eyes and forehead,
the other across the mouth and chin, but too thin to con
ceal the featui-es, or even the complexion. These thin
veils, I am told, were introduced during the occupation by
the alHes, and, before it, was over, had become as thin as
those worn in Europe. But when the armies went, the
poHce ordered them to be doubled, and took all ladies in
single musHn to the watch-house. Many of the younger
women were painted: their eyelids and eyebrows -with
D 3

38 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
khol, their faces with rouge and white paint, I was not
struck by their beauty; but when they walk, notwith
standing their shuffling gait, there is a delicacy and
timidity among the girls of the higher ranks which is
engaging. We left them as we found them, squatting in
groups under the trees, or driving at a foot's pace round
and round the meadow.
Lord Stratford's conference lasted until we took him up
on our return.
Saturday, October 3rd. — ^We went -with some of our
hotel friends, under the guidance of Mr. Zohrab, an Arme
nian, for many years Turkish Consul in LondoUj to the
bazaars of Stamboul.
We bought Damascus silks, thin woollens, sHppers, and
amber. When we had done, tired -with the crowds, the
sharp stones, the bustle and the wrangle, we returned to
rest ourselves at the most fashionable restaurateur's in Stam-
bouh His establishment consisted of a room below, open
to the kitchen. He stood before a hot plate, with little
charcoal fires, over which he was turning small square hits
of mutton on iron skewers. These are called cabobs.
We mounted a rickety staircase to a room above, where
we found a table, and about a dozen chairs with the bot-*
toms out. We sat down, and ordered a plate of cabobs, and
found it and the bread and water so good that we disposed
of it, and then of another, and then of a third, until we
began to fear that we were making a dinner. The cost was
about a shilling a head.
We walked back to the bridge from whence the steamers
start, thrpugh the Atmeidan and a part of the SeragHos

MEHMET KUPEISLI PASHA, 39
In one of the large niches, on each side of the Sublime
Porte, destined to receive heads, Zohrab told me that he
remembered seeing the heads of Ali Pasha of Janina, and
of his sons and grandchildren.
At half-past nine in the evening, my room on the second
floor shook violently for a few seconds. It was an earth
quake. The third that has occurred since we have been
on the Bosporus, but the first that I have noticed,
Sunday, October Ath. — I crossed the Bosporus, and
breakfasted -with the Edes at Candilli. I found there my
French friend G, H,
After breakfast I visited Mehmet Kuprisli Pasha, an old
London acquaintance, at his charming house on the shore,
close to the Sweet Waters, He was educated in France,
and speaks French perfectly. He has been minister in
Berlin and in London, and was acting Grand Vizier when
Aali Pacha was in Paris at the conferences. He talked
gaily of London and London people, and begged that
Mrs, Senior would visit his wife. We talked of the late
war, " Though it was enormgusly expensive to the govem
ment," he said, " which raised 300,000 men, Turkey profited
by it, and was the only country that did so. Thirty millions
sterling, perhaps more, were spent in Constantinople ; and,
if we had had the means of transport, we might have sold
to the armies two or three times as much as we actually
did," "By means of transport," I said, "your Highness pro
bably means roads,"

40 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
"Certainly I do," he answered, "We have not in
Turkey a single real road, except a bit about five mUes
long which the French made for us. One of our difficulties
is the unwillingness of the Eayahs to contribute to .the ex
pense ; they expect everything to be done for them .by
the govemment: but the government, even if it could
undertake so gigantic an operation as the intersecting this
vast, thinly-peopled empire with roads, would make them
badly and expensively."
" I hope," I said, " that when the government thinks of
roads it will not forget pavements."
" We have been thinking of them," he answered, " for
many years. There is even a contract for paving Con
stantinople ; money has been raised, and stones have been
cut and deposited for use, but nothing, more has been
done." After leaving him I walked with G, H, through a cypress
wood to a ruined kiosk on a hill, from whence we saw
over Constantinople into the Sea of Marmora to the south,
and up to the last range of hills that bound the Black ,Sea
to the north. Below us was the Bosporus, as blue as the
Lake of Geneva, converted by the projecting headlands into
a series of lakes, fringed with palaces, rising from the
water's edge, and backed by a forest of cypress, chestnut, ash,
plane and stone pine,
" In this kiosk," said G. H,, " Sultan Mahmoud died.
He had dared to express a hope that in a few years
Mussulmen, Christians, arid even Jews would enjoy equal
political rights. He drank coffee in his palace at Bebec,
was taken ill while he was crossing to Candilli, was carried .¦

EESOUECES OF TUEKEY. 41
up to this kiosk, and died during the night with the symp
toms of arsenical poisoning.
We walked on over the hills to Mr. Hanson's house, on
a crest of land which projects into the sea. From his
garden the view is still finer than from the kiosk, as the
water on three sides is more immediately below you. A
most inadequate notion of the Bosporus is formed by those
who see it only from a boat. From the heights you have
a magnificent foreground in the bank below, you catch, as
you look up it, or down it, reach after reach and wooded
promontory after promontory, until the Giant mountain or
the Black Sea to the north, and the domes and minarets
of Scutari and Constantinople to the south, give dignity
and completion to the landscape.
Mr. Hanson talked of the resources of Turkey. " They
ai-e enormous," he said; "but the mere want of roads
renders them comparatively useless to all except the pea
sants, who scratch the soil, or as much of it as they think
necessary, to feed their families. For the last twenty
years we have been imploring the government to make
roads. They are promised, they are planned, money is
even raised for them; but it is stopped as soon as it
reaches official hands. Some time ago a road was to be
made from the coast to Broussa; the Pasha kept taxing
the inhabitants of the district for years, until the very
name of a road was hateful to them, but none has been
made." " Would it not be possible," I said, « to allow indivi
duals or a company to make roads, and to repay them
selves by tolls ? "

42 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" If an English company," he said, " proposed to do so,
M. Thouvenel would warn the government of the danger
of letting foreigners acquire a new footing in the country.
If it were a French scheme, the English minister,
whoever he were, would protest against it. The Turks
wish for nothing but to be let alone, and to be allowed tq
go quietly to ruin. The embassies all join in abusing thein
for their inactivity ; but as soon as one foreign minister
proposes anything that is specific and practical, the others
Combine to oppose it."
Iri the evening we walked ''again over the same ground
by a bright moonlight. The vast white towers of Eumeli
Hissari, surrounded by cypresses, and looking pale and in-"
distinct, like the ghosts of a barbarous fortification, and
the lights of the palaces below, reflected in long waving
lines from the water, were beautiful and strange ; but no-*
thing could supply the bright colouring of an Asiatic sun.
We lost the details of the near objects, and the distant
ones were misty- and confused. Mr. Ede pointed out to
us a mountain called the Bobber's Mountain, four or five
miles from the village.
" There," he said, " about fom- years ago, a band ester
blished itself, which rendered the neighbourhood of Kan-
diUi insecure for many months, until, at last, when the
allies came, it was hunted down and destroyed. We could
not then have taken this walk. We owe to the alUes all
the improvements that we have made, and, when they
left us, all progress ceased. They committed a fatal error
in going before they had forced us to make some real
reforms,"

HATT-I-HUM^CyOON,- ¦ 43
" Is not the Hatt-i-HumSyoon," I said, " a real reform ? "
" It is waste paper," he answered, " So far from acting
On it, the Turks cannot even understarid it. It consists of
a set of French maxims of government translated into
Turkish, with a verb in the imperative mood prefixed to
each of them. It is a year and a half old. You cannot
point out a single clause to which any effect has been
given," " At least," I said, " it deprives the Turks of one ob
jection to i-efoi-ms. They cannot say that they are against
the laws of the empire. The Hatt-i-Humayoon may be a
Collection of generalities, but it is something to have the
general rules of good govemment prescribed by the high
est authority. In time, some fruit will come of them,"
"No fruit," said G. H., "has come of the Hatt-i-
Sherif of Ghil Haneh, of which the Hatt-i-Hum&yoon is
little more than a paraphrase. Unless England and France
unite to force real reforms on Tm-key, I fear that we have
only delayed her subjugation by Eussia, We say that we
have given Eussia a lesson. We have, and she will profit
by it. She soon -will have railroads. Under the disguise
of a commercial fleet, which is to rival and to supplant
the Messageries and the Austrian Loyd, she is creating a
steam navy which could, in a few hours,- transport an
army from Odessa to the entrance of the Black Sea, land
30,000 men on each side, march into the batteries, which
are all undefended towai-ds the land, and occupy the
Bosporus and Constantinople in a week, I do not say
that she will do this in ten years, or in twenty years ; but if
we suffer the decomposition of Turkey to go ori, it will

44 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
assuredly take place within thirty yeaa-s. Our statesmen,
however, are too old to care about what is to happen
thirty years hence. It looks to them an eternity, and
' apres nous le deluge.' "
"It is very well," I said, "to talk of forcing reforms in
Turkey, but such talk is a generality like those of the
Hatt-i-Humayoon. How can you force a government to
make active reforms ? You can force them to make
negative ones ; that is, you can prohibit their doing such
arid such things, but how can you oblige them to do any
thing?" " You cannot oblige them," he answered, " to do things
themselves, but you can oblige them to let them be done
by other people. You can forbid them to impede, though
you cannot force them to act. I can only repeat what I
said the other day. Force them to abolish the monopolies
which interfere with every business and every trade ; force
them to give effect to the clause in the Hatt-i-HumS,yoon,
which permits foreigners to buy land. Force them to
allow foreign companies to make the roads which they wUl
not make themselves, and to be repaid by toUs. Turkey
once opened to European enterprise, industry, and capital,
will be a new America, -with a better climate and abetter
soil. Anglo-Saxons and Germans will soon improve these
savages off the face of the country- They hold it only by
frightening, plundering, and oppressing the civiHsed races.
Even the Greeks and the Slaves, armed -with equality, of
rights, would drive them out. StiU more easily, if they had
the example and the support of men of more energ
blood.

TUEKISH LAW. 45
Monday, October &ih. — M. Binel joined us at breakfast.
We talked of the law in Turkey. " Both civil and criminal
matters," said M. Binel, " between foreigners are decided
exclusively in the Consular courts ; the court to which the
defendant or the accused belongs having the jurisdiction.
" Civil questions between Turks and foreigners are de
cided by a mixed tribunal of Turks and foreigners, called
the Tidjaret, tbe law that is applied being the law of the
country to which the defendant belongs.
" In this court there are neither attornies nor advocates ;
but the foreigner has a great advantage. He, being supposed
to be ignorant of Turkish, is represented by a dragoman.
When the judges deHberate on thefr judgment the court is
cleared of all strangers except the dragoman. He hears
their discussions, takes part in them, and, being unopposed,
can often influence the decision.
" In criminal matters between Turks and strangers the
court of the country to which the accused belongs has juris
diction. If, therefore, a Frenchman has murdered a Turk,
the Turkish minister of foreign affafrs gives notice to the
French ambassador, who has a poUce and a prison of his
own. The ambassador arrests the accused, and the consul
is the juge d'i/nstruction ; that is, he collects all the evi
dence, reduces it to writing, and sends the depositions and
the accused to Marseilles, whence they are removed to Aix
en Provence ; the cause is tried before a jury, to whom the
depositions are read, and the sentence is given and carried
into effect in France.
" If a Turk murders a Frenchman, the French ambas
sador sends notice to the Turkish minister for foreign

46 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
affairs ; the minister sets in motion the minister of police,
the accused is arrested, and tried and sentenced according
to Turkish law.
" I can best explain and illustrate the proceedings by
giving you an outline of a cause in which I am now
engaged. " Suleiman, an Algerine Arab, and therefore a French
subject, followed in Stamboul two trades, often united, and
both very respectable in Turkey, that of a dealer in horses
and of a dealer in women. A Frenchman was killed in a
coffee-house frequented by Tunisians. The Turkish poHce
were unable or unwilling to detect the assassin, Suleiman,
as an Algerine, was acquainted with all the Tunisians, and
he uncautiously let out that he knew who was the mur
derer, " M, Thouvenel sent for him. He was willing to give
private information, but refused to deHver evidence in open
court against a Mussulman accused of having killed
a Christian, His life, he said, would not be safe,
Thouvenel insisted ; Suleiman could not disobey his am
bassador, and on his evidence the murderer, who turned out
to be a near relation of the Bey of Tunis, was convicted.
A few days after, a mob, headed by the imaum of his parish,
broke into his house, destroyed his furniture, and would
have killed him if they had found him there,
" He had recourse to Thouvenel, who forced the parish
to pay him 10,000 francs as damages,
" A rich young Turk, named Giaffar, was in love with
one of Suleiman's women. They quarrelled, and she re-

SULEIMAN AND GIAFFAE. 47
fused to see him any more. One evening, about nine
months ago, as Suleiman was returning home, he heard
cries from his house, and found Giaffar in the act of break
ing into it, in order to seize the woman. On his approach
Giaffar drew his yataghan, and attempted to kill him.
Suleiman, who was very strong, disarmed him, and dragged
him to the guard-house of the disti-ict. The officer in
commaild, who, like the rest of the inhabitants, detested
Suleiman, as the man who had given evidence against a Mus
sulman, and had caused the parish to be fined, pooh-poohed
the affafr as a drunken quarrel. Suleiman maintained that
it was an attempt at housebreaking and murder, and, as
e"vidence, handed to the officer the yataghan which he had
taken from Giaffar.
" ' Is this your yataghan ? ' said the officer to Giaffar>
holding it by the blade, with the handle towards him.
"Giaffar seized it, stabbed Suleiman to the.. heart, and
walked away, the guards not interfering to prevent or to
detain him. A few hours after, Suleiman's widow came to
me. I went to M. Thouvenel, who appHed to the Minister
of Police, and Giaffar was arrested, and, of course, as the
facts admitted of no dispute, convicted.
"So far the story is a simple one, and might have
occurred, not perhaps in France, but easily in Spain. But
what followed, both in the civil and in the criminal court,
could take place only in Turkey,
" Suleiman left an only child, a month old. The bulk of
his property consisted of an undivided fourth part of four
houses. The Turks proposed to confiscate them, on the

48 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
ground that Suleiman, a Frenchman, could not hold landed
property in Stamboul. We answered that, as they had.
allowed the property to be registered in his name, they had
admitted his right to hold it, and that it had descended to
his heirs, who were his -wife, who had become French hy
her marriage, and . his child. The law, perhaps, was
against us ; but M. Thouvenel supported us, and they sub
mitted, as Turks always must do when ari ambassador
interferes. " We next required the houses to be sold ; against this
the other co-proprietors protested. We answered that one
undivided eighth part of them belonged to the child ; that^.
being French, it was entitled to all the rights of a French
infant, and that one of those rights was to have any pro
perty in which it had an interest, however small, sold,
and its share of the purchase-money invested for its
benefit." . .
" Here again," I said, " your law seems to me to have
been wrong ; landed property ought to follow the lex lod."
"Perhaps so," he answered, "but we prevailed; the
houses were sold, and one eighth of the purchase-money
was invested for the child's benefit."
"So much," I said, "for the civil consequences of
Giaffar's crime. Now for the penal ones. We left him in
prison convicted of murder."
" There he is," answered Binel, " and there lite may
remain for nineteen years and three months. At the end of
that time he will be hanged, or pay 33,000 piastres (220?.),
at the option of Suleiman's child.

PEICB OF BLOOD. 49
"According to the Koran, a man convicted of murder
is to be hanged or to pay 3000 drams of silver to the
heir of the murdered man, at the election of the heir. ' It
is supposed to be a dram of silver for every dram of blood.
Some time ago, when the value of the piastre was higher
than it ia now, the 3000 drams of silver were rated at
33,000 piastres. But, if the heir be an infant, he cannot
declare this option until he is of age; that is, until he is
twenty years old. Suleiman's child being now nine months
old, Giaffar may have, as I said, nineteen years and three
months to wait in prison. But, if the child dies, the option
is with the murderer, and he may release himself by
paying the 220?.
" Giaffar, as I said before, is rich. We are in constant
fear of his getting the child poisoned, or carried away to
some place from whence it will never return. The mother
has rempved it to Pera, and is living in a Christian house,
and as yet has baffled several attempts of the kind."
" Are such things," I said, " done easily ? "
" With money," answered M. Binel, " very easily. There
is not a slave or a servant whose services for any purpose
whatever may not be purchased. The mother herself may
be purchased. M. Thouvenel, therefore, has offered Giaffar
his release if he will pay for the benefit of the child
200,000 piastres (about 1500?.) ; he offers 60,000 (about
450?.), and so the matter rests."
" And in what sort of a prison is he ? " I asked.
" In the best that Stamboul can afford," answered Binel ;
" but it is a horrible one. The Turkish minister of police
knows that if Giaffar escapes we shall accuse him of con-
E

50 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
niviag, of having been bribed, and perhaps ruin him. So
he keeps him in chains, and we send once or twice a fort
night to see that he is safe."
" But," I asked, " is your proposed compromise legal ? "
" Of course not, in strictness," he answered ; " but any
thing is legal that an ambassador proposes, especially if it
is in favour of a Turk."
" The Turk," I said, " does not think the proposal a
favourable one, for he refuses to accept it."
"He hopes," said Binel, "to weary us out into better
terms. Voila comme ils sont faits tous. They will waste
thousands on thefr pleasures or thefr vanities; but they
will submit to any suffering to avoid paying a fine or a
debt. This man is young and rich and expensive. He
has suffered himself to be kept for eight months in a
horrible, crowded, unventilated prison, among the lowest
ruffians, in chains, covered with vermin, frozen in winter
and melted in summer, in the hope of saving at the very
utmost 1000?., for that is the difference between the
200,000 piastres that we ask and the 60,000 that he offers.
"The absurdities," he continued, "of the Turkish
criminal law are not to be compared to those of their civil
law. For instance, the costs are all paid by the successful
party." " Are they considerable ? " I asked.
" They are three per cent.," he answered, " on the sum
in dispute."
" How," I asked, " happens it that they always bear the
same proportion to the disputed sum ? "
"Because," he answered, "there are no advocates, no

TUEKISH LAW. 51
attorneys, no procedure, no fees of court, nothing is paid
for the expenses of witnesses. You tell your story, the
defendant tells his; and the witnesses, if any are sum
moned, come at thefr own expense. You have often to
bribe them, as you have always to bribe the court; but
those are expenses that are not included in the term costs.
The costs consist of one per cent, on the sum in dispute,
which you pay to the greffier, or scribe, who writes down
and sends to you the oral decision of the court ; and two
per cent, on the sum in dispute, which you pay to the
huissier, or officer of the court who brings you the decision.
These sums were probably an abusive extension of the
backshish, which everybody in the East claims from every
body on every possible pretence ; and they are exacted from
the winner because he wants the decree, and can be made
to pay for it by the threat of its being withheld."
"It follows," I said, "that a man who wishes to spite
his neighbour has only to demand from him a million of
piastres, and that without any expense to himself he can
force him to pay to the greffier and huissier 30^000
piastres." " Certainly," answered Binel.
" It follows, too," I said, " that if he wishes to gratify
his avarice as well as his hate, he may say to his neigh
bour, 'I intend to bring an action against you for a
million piastres. It will cost you 30,000 besides what
you will have to pay in bribes : give me 20,000 piastres
and I will not molest you.' "
"He certainly can do so," said Binel and Ede.
E 2

52 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" Then how," I said, " does any man remain rich, if he
can be so easily plundered ? "
" A poor man," they answered, " would not venture to
play such a game. The rich man would have him poisoned
or beaten to death ; persons are easily found to perform
such services. If a rich man, one who could purchase the
means of protection, were to attempt it, he would be
restiained by public opinion. That such things are done,
particularly by Turks against Eayahs, there is no doubt;
but no one ventures to make an industrie ofit, — to do it
repeatedly, and on a large scale,"
On my return to Therapia, I walked with Zohrab in the
avenues of his garden overlooking the Bosporus and the
town, " How," I said to him, " is an Eriglish subject who has
committed a murder punished ? "
" He is not punished," he answered ; " we do not allow
the Turks to try him, unless the mm-dered man be a
Turkish subject, and then the consul gets him off. The
consul cannot try him, and if he is sent, as has sometimes
been done, to Malta for trial, the witnesses can seldom be
sent, and, even if they go, a Maltese jury acquits him,"
" The occm-rence," I said, " is, I suppose, rare ? " *
" By no means rare," he answered,, " There, is not a
worse set of ruffians than the lonians and Maltese who
wander over the East, and bully and defraud and assas
sinate under British protection,"
M, Thouvenel met us as we left Zohrab's garden, and
walked with us over the pleasure-grounds of the Embassy.
They run up the hill in avenues of cypresses and planes,

DIPLOMACY IN TUEKEY. 53
and end in a lofty and broad platform projecting over the
Bosporus, planted -with a grove of high and spreading
stone-pines, and looking straight up to the Black Sea.
"I repafred the house," he said, "pat the garden in
order, and rebuilt the quay in front, at an expense of only
2000?, If I had employed the workmen of the country it
would have cost 8000?, But I did it with our soldiers.
The French soldier is Hke the Eoman, he goes habituaUy
from the gun to the spade. The work keeps him in health,
it keeps him out of mischief, and even the eight sous a day
which he is aUowed when on Government work is an enor
mous addition to his comfort. It more than doubles his
pocket-money. He is anxious for work, and his officers
always wish to set him to work. Wherever there has been
a French army you see pubHc works. We made a few
roads here, the only ones in Turkey. We made pne from
the Pfrseus to Athens, which, I believe, is the only one in
Greece." Tuesday, October Gth. — Yesterday was an anxious day
at our Embassy. Lord Stratford has been insiaructed to
request the Sultan to order Said Pasha, to allow the
passage of British , forces to India through Egypt. I
suspect that it was on that matter that he visited AaH
Pasha, the minister of foreign affafrs, on Friday. The
ministers consented, but it seems that they seldom see the
Sultan. They sent on Saturday to the Sultan a recom
mendation that the order should be given, and a warrant
for the Sultan's signature, authorising the grand-vizier to
issue it. He is supposed to have been drunk whea it
E 3

54 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
reached him, arid rose late yesterday morning, not in a
very fit humour, for business.
A dragoman was sent to the palace -with orders to
watch for the warrant, to follow it to the grand-vizier's,
arid to obtain from him the Order ; and the Ospreyj the
British despatch-boat, was kept the whole morning with
hea: steam up. It was not, however, until the afternoon
that the warrant reached the grand-vizier, or until the
evening that the order signed by the grand-vizier was
carried by the dragoman to the Embassy. As soon as it
had been copied, the Osprey steamed out towards Alexan
dria with the original.
This afternoon I went -with Mr. Sarell, the second drago
man of the Embassy, to dine with Eeschid Pasha, at his
palace between Stenia and Eumeli Hissari, about six
miles by water from Theraipia.
Mr. Sarell was the dragoman employed yesterday, and
he complained that the pipes and the anxiety of the
previous day had disordered him.
" I had to see," he said, " the sultan's private secretary,
and to explain to him over a pipe, the urgency of the
business. Then while I was waiting^at the sultan's, and
afterwards at the grand-vizier's, it was not in a naked
apartment, like the waiting-room at an Eriglish govern
ment office. I had to sit with my feet under me on a
divan, and talk to my friends who came in and out, and
to smoke pipe after pipe with them, and to drink coffee
after coffee."
Eeschid Pasha's palace consists of a long range of
buildings, two stories high, rising from the water, and a

EESCHID PASHA, 55
garden and pleasure-ground of about fifteen acres, running
up the hill, with a kiosk or small palace at the top. He
is a short man, apparently about sixty, with very mild,
kind, gentlemanlike manners. We reached him at about
half-past four, walked with him for an hour over his
gardens, smoked for half an hour while he, was dressing,
and sat do-wn to table at about sunset, the usual dinner
hour of a great man in Turkey. His sons, fine young
men, about two or three and twenty years old, were
presented to us in the garden, but did not dine -with us.
We were ten at dinner. The greatest man was Abdallah
Pasha, the son and the probable successor of the Sheriffe
of Mecca, He is a handsome young man, of about thirty,
grave and dignified. I asked why, being a sheriffe, he did
not wear the green turban.
"I wear it sometimes," he answered, "but our pedigree
is too well known to need a badge."
He sat on Eeschid Pasha's right hand ; next to him
was a man whose name I forget, of great learning, who
aspfres to be in time Sheick-ul-Islam, or head of the
Ulema, There were two other men in turbans and fur
pelisses, whose names and characters I did not hear. I
sat on Eeschid's left, next to me was Mr. Sarell, then sat
Eeschid's physician, then another man, who said little, in
a fez, Eeschid whispered something to Abdallah, which I
found was a request that he might be .permitted to give
us wine. So Sarell and I and the physician had a bottle
of excellent Bordeaux. No one else touched it. The
dinner was good, consisting principally of stews of meat
and vegetables arid a magnificent pillaw. The service was
E 4

56 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
a,ltogether European, except that the servants were un
usually numerous, and that they gHded about noiselessly,
their slippers being thin and the floor thickly matted.
After we had dined and washed, we moved to a large
drawingroom, furnished with chairs and sofas, and a high
divan of yellow silk running along one side. On this
divan the Sheriffe squatted, his feet concealed by his peHsse,
and he was honoured with a long nargilly. The rest of
us sat on chairs and had pipes. A dervise, a great traveller
and somewhat of a buffoon, came in, and squatted on the
floor. He talked of India, of Egypt, of Germany, and of
England, where, as he affirmed. Queen Victoria made him
a present of 400?.
The conversation, in compliment I suppose to the
Sheriffe, took a religious turn. As itwas carried on chiefly
in Turkish, I could follow only its general drift. First
they talked of the Trinity, and compared the Buddhist,.;
the Brahminical, and the Christian Trinities, Eeschid,
who apparently is not deep in ecclesiastical history, asked
me about the differences between the Greek and Latin
churches, " Qu'est que c'est," he said, " que la Procession du St.
Esprit ? Qu'est que veut dire le mot Procedant ? "
I answered that I had not the slightest notion; and
that I thought it probable that if the same question were
asked of beings with intellects capable of comprehending
such mysteries, they would answer that the words " Pros. ;,
cession and Procedant," as used by men in theological
controversy, had no meaning whatever,
" And yet," he said, " those words separate the Christian
world into two hostile camps,"

EESCHID PASHA. 57
" Just," I said, " as the question. Who was the lawful
successor of the Prophet, separates into two hostile camps
the Mussulman world." ^
" You Protestants," he replied, " care Httle about the
controversy between the Greeks and the Latins ; for you,
I believe, are Arians."
" Very few of us," I answered. " Luther was a strong
Trinitarian." " I supposed him," said Eeschid, " to have been an
Arian, because a reformer is generally a simplifier ; and
certainly the Arian doctrine, that the Begetter preceded
the Begotten, is simpler than the Trinitarian one, that
they have been eternally co-existent."
" Were the Wahabees," I asked, " simplifiers ? "
"To this extent," he answered; "that they discarded
the traditions, to which we attach great importance. In
fact the Mussulman creed, that God is one, and that Ma
homet was divinely commissioned to reveal that doctrine,
is too simple to be simplified. The rules which Mahomet
laid down for our domestic habits and for our conduct
towards others, and which are preserved in our traditions,
and still more the commentaries on those rules, are the
compUcated parts of our reHgion. The Wahabees so far
simplified it that, as I said before, they rejected tiadi-
tion, and paid little attention to commentaries."
" Is the Whahaby reform, or heresy," I asked, " ex
tinct ? "
"By no means," said one of the party, who spoke
French, and joined in our conversation.
" It has extended to India, and is not without followers

58 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
in Africa, It is ascetic, and uneducated persons seem to
have a cra-ving for asceticism. Somewhere near the site
of this palace stood the column on which Simeon the
Stylite, and others after him, thought fit to pass their
lives," *
It was a warm soft night, and the moon was fuU. We
rose between eight and nine. The Pasha asked how we
intended to return.
We answered that we looked forward with great pleasime
to a moonlight walk home.
He answered that it was out of the question ; that he
would send us home in a caique, or on horseback : but
that, if we attempted to walk, we must go either through
Stenia and the other to-wns and viUages on the coast,
in which case we should be devoured by the dogs in the
dark unlighted lanes; or over the hills, which no one
ventures to traverse at night, except in a strong pai-ty,
and with arms,
"If this were an exclusively Turkish population," he
said, " I should have no fears for you. But Greeks and
Bulgarians are not to be trusted,"
Sarell and I had talked over the matter before,, and he
assured me that he had several times walked over the hills
at night, and had never been interrupted. So we refused
Eeschid's horses and his caique, and crossed the hills
without meeting, in an hour and a half s walk, a single
person, h -_ _
* Tiiis is a mistake of my Turkish acquaintances. The column -was in
the neighbourhood of Antioch.

WALK BY NIGHT, 59
" It might not," said Sarell, " be safe for a native to do
this. They carry their money on thefr persons, and the
Turkish Government gives itself no teouble about thefr
safety ; but every one knows that Englishmen carry little
money, and that, if we were attacked, the whole police
of Constantinople would be at work to detect the robbers.
No one, therefore, from the neighbouring villages would
follow and stop us ; and no one else knows of our being
here, I would not do it, however, every night at a fixed
hour, I should probably be waylaid,"
We found Zohrab drinking tea with Mrs, Senior. He
shook his head at our walk. "I have often," he said,
" travelled that road at night, but it has always been on
horseback and armed. In your place, I should have ac
cepted the Pasha's horses or boat, or have encountered the
dogs of Stenia. The risk, perhaps, was trifling, but it is
impossible to deny that there was risk."
Wedniesday, October 1th. — We dined -with M. Thou
venel, the French Ambassador. The party was very large ;
among them were the Prince and Princess Sturtzo and
M. Condurreotti, the Greek Minister, and his wife. I sat
next to her. She is about seven or eight and twenty, from
Argos, and never left Greece until she came hither two
years ago. She might, however, as far as language and ap
pearance and manner are concerned, have been a Parisian,
After dinner, the men, with very few exceptions, retired to
smoke, I sat with a Frenchman, who has recently left
Moldavia, He described it as more ci-vUised than Wal
lachia, I asked if it had an aristocracy.

60 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
*"No," he answered, "there is rio hereditary riobiHty,
and there are few families -with much hereditary property.
The Boyars are named by the Hospodar, but only for life.
This Prince Sturtzo calls himself Prince because his father
was Kaimakan, or Vice-Hospodar, but his son wiU have no
rank beyond that of any other proprietor.
" The Eussians," he added, " when in the occupation of
the country, strove to reduce the peasants to the condition
of serfs. They forbade them to quit the estates or the -vil
lages in which they were settled. They assisted their
landlords in oppressing them. Most of the peasants in the
PrincipaHties hold their lands of the greater proprietors,
on the condition of contributing a certain number of days'
labour. The Eussians taught the proprietors to exact the
labour by taskwork, and to exact as a day's labour a task
which a man could not perform in a week or a fortnighi
They did the same in the portion of Turkish Ai-menia
which they occupied. They have thus acquired popularity
among the rich proprietors at the expense of what appears
to us cruelty and injustice. But it does not appear so to
them. Serfdom seems to a Eussian to be the natural and
proper state of the bulk of mankind."
Thursday, October Sth. — We left Therapia at a quarter
to ten, got to Constantinople at eleven, spent four hom-s in
visiting the SeragHo, Santa Sophia, and the mosque of Sultan
Achmed, and returned by the three o'clock boat.
The expense has been exaggerated. The firman cost
250 piastres, and the fees 350, in all 600 plasties,
or 4?. We enjoyed the protection of Mr. Sarell, who
obtained the firman, and of Mr. Zohrab, who accompanied

SEEAGLIO. 61
US and paid the fees. Perhaps if we had been in the
hands of a valet de place, it would have cost us, as it cost
Lord Carlisle, 10?.
We entered the Seraglio by a gate near the water, and
traversed long soHtary avenues of cypress and pine trees
which the Mussulmen prefer for thefr gardens, as affording
a permanent screen to their women. The first building
that was opened to us was the kiosk of Gui Haneh, near
the Point of Stamboul, commanding on three sides the Sea
of Marmora, the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn. The
main rooms are large, but rather too low for thefr size and
•too long for their breadth ; but those which project from
them in this form —

¦with a double tier of -windows on three sides, the lower
oblong, the higher oval — are well proportioned, Hght, and
cheerful. Many of them have fireplaces, high open grates^
but Httle furniture except divans and clocks, of which I
counted six in one room. Two rooms, all of marble, were
dedicated to the bath. In this kiosk the celebrated Hatt-i
Sheriff of Gui Hdneh was signed.
From this palace we went through long corridors, the
waUs of which are covered with coloured prints, principally
French, and up a flight of steps, to an older palace, or
cluster of pavilions. One of them, wainscoted -with china
and mother of pearl and surmounted by a beautifuUy

62 A JOUENAL KEPT ET TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
painted dome, contained a small collection of books, all
manuscript.-. Near these pavilions are the ranges of apart
ments formiag^he harem, now tenanted only by a few of
the women of the late Sultan, who have to pass a dull
widowhood in seclusion.
We stUl mounted the hill, on the slope of which the
buildings intended for residence are placed, till we came to
the plateau, on a level -with the Hippodrome, in which are
the public buildings of the Seraglio, arranged round three
courts opening into one another. As we came from the
sea we entered by the innermost courts which to those who
enter on the land front, by the Sublime Porte, is the last.
Here is the mosque which contains the relics of the
Prophet, the treasure chamber in which the regalia are
kept, a small square building called the library, containing
seven or eight hundred volumes in manuscript, and another
small square building, which was the audience chamber.
Its only furniture is a large square bedstead, the posts
inlaid -with precious stones, on which used to be laid the
cushions forming the divan on which the Sultan squatted
during his formal audiences.
Beyond this court are the two outer courts, which may
be entered -without a firman, and which I have already
described. We wasted half an hour in going to a set of rooms in
one of the kiosks, which contains wax figures of the janis
saries in thefr different uniforms, all ugly and inconvenient.
On the whole the Seraglio is well worth visiting. The
situation is unrivalled. The gardens, or rather the pleasure-
grounds, derive a melancholy grandeur from thefr tall aged

SANTA SOPHIA. 63
pines and cypresses, many of the latter sixty or seventy feet
high, and from their neglect and solitude, though separated
by only a wall from the busy port and city.
The buildings are thrown about without arrangement,
often -without reference to one another. They are fantastic
in their forms and in their decorations ; but they all have
an afr of originahty and freedom. The projectors and the
architects seem to have revelled in the absence of restraint
on their imaginations or on their expenditure; and with
the sensibUity to beauty, both of colour and of form, which
belongs to Orientals, they have produced a collection of
fairy palaces strikingly appropriate to the exquisite scenery
and noble groves among which they are scattered.
From the SeragHo we went to Santa Sophia.
The only buildings that I have seen which resemble
Santa Sophia are the mosques which the Turks have built
in imitation of it, such as those of Sultans Achmed and
Suleiman in Constantinople, and that of Mehmet Ali in
Cako. It is a square, roofed by one central dome, to the
east and west of which are two lower half domes, each of
which has g. still lower segment of a dome to the north and
south. The cential dome, with its semi-domes at each end,
covers a space which may be called the nave or the choir.
The cential dome is 107 feet in diameter, which is there
fore the breadth of the nave at its narrowest part. Under
the semi-domes the breadth appeared to me to be about
140 feet. The length is about 260 feet. On each side is
an aisle about 55 feet broad, in two stories, supported by
pillars.

64 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
The result is, that, as you enter, you see the whole.
A Gothic cathedral opens gradually,. Until you have
passed the centre, you do not see the transepts. The chofr
is richer and often loftier than the nave. Beyond it is
the Lady Chapel, sometimes in the centre of a range of
smaller chapels,, Santa Sophia bursts on you at once.
The flatness of the dome adds to its apparent size, as the
segments of domes below it add to its height,,
During the 900 years that it was a Christian church, its
colouring -was perhaps as striking as its architecture. The
piUars are of porphyry, of syenite, of verde antique, and
of other coloured marbles, and so are the lower parts of the
walls. All is now dim from dirt and neglect. -The roofs
and vaults were covered with gold and mosaics, of which
only a pai-t remains. The portions which have fallen out
have been repaired with yellow paint.
The colossal seraphims worked in mosaic on the spandrils
of the great dome have been defaced by the obliteration of
their heads, but their vast -wings, fifty feet long, remain,,
and so do some other Christian mosaics.. The capitals of
the piUars and the ornaments of their architraves are in
the Byzantine or Egyptian style, cut into the stone, instead
of rising above its surface, as they do in Greek and Eoman
architecture. They are exceedingly fanciful and rich.
Altogether Santa Sophia is the most beautiful interior ,,
that I have seen. It is not so grand as the Great HaU of
Karnak or the Pantheon, or so awful as the Duomo of
Florence; but it is superior even to them in grace,4ii.
elegance, in proportions, and in skill and boldness of con-

MEHMET KUPEISLl'S HAEEM. 65
ception and execution, and far superior in everything to
St. Paul's, and, to my taste, to St. Peter's.
We ended the day by Sultan Achmed's mosque, the
last built of the great mosques of Constantinople belonging
to the be^nning of the seventeenth century. It is sur
rounded by six minarets of great beauty ; no other mosque
has more than four. The arrangement of the roof is ex-
. ceedingly beautiful. But the four enormous pillars, thirty-
six feet in diameter, which support the central dome,
are heavy, and the white walls and domes looked cold to
us who came fresh from- the gold and mosaics of Santa
Sophia. Friday, October 9th. — We rowed across the Bosporus
this morning, to visit the -wife of Mehmet Kuprisli Pasha,
at his charming villa near the Sweet Waters of Asia. He
received us at his water gate, and gave us sweetmeats and
sherbet, but no pipes. His youngest daughter, a nice child,
four years old, covered with sUks and diamonds, came in,
saluted us orientally, and kissed our hands -with great
grace and self-possession. After about half an hour, he
took Mrs, Senior into the harem; I wandered over the
garden, and then read the only book that I found, Guizot's
Gibbon, The Pasha remained -with Mrs, Senior in the harem for
about an hour ; a very tall black, probably a eunuch, was at
the door, and about twenty female slaves, one or two of
them black, showed themselves. Not many of them were
handsome. The ladies were Kuprisli's -wife, a woman of
about forty, -with fine eyes, an agreeable countenance, and
a good brunette oomplexion-, and his daughter, seventeen

66 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
years old, married -within the last three or four weeks.
She has beautiful dark eyes and hair, good features, a pale
complexion, and a good figure ; she wears stays. They
were dressed in splendid silks, the daughter's brocaded
with gold ; wore a profusion of gold and diamonds, but no
paint, or even khol or henna: neither ladies nor slaves
were veiled.
Instead of the oriental salute, they shook Mrs, Senior
vei-y cordially by the hand, asked about London, and were
much amused by her description of the Pasha's gay life
there, of the balls that he gave, and of the ladies that he
visited, Mrs, Senior said that she hoped that he would return
thither. He answered that he hoped so too — and that
when he came next, he should bring his family with him,
" And your wife," said Mrs, Senior, " must receive the
EngHsh ladies."
" Certainly," he answered.
" And visit them."
" Certainly.
" And go out -without a veil."
" No," he replied ; " that cannot be done. We can leave
off many of our habits, but never the veU."
The wife here said something which the Pasha would
not interpret. The daughter played two Turkish afrs, and
a French one, with good execution. In about an hour
coffee came, and the visit was over.
From the Pasha's we went to the Sweet Waters, and found
the usual crowd of veiled and painted women and children, ,
on beds and cushions, and in carriages and carts, the duB

CEIME IN STAMBOUL. 67
monotonous Turkigh music, and the slow procession of
shabby vehicles round and round the meadow.
We rowed close in to the Asiatic coast on our return.
It is far superior to the European coast. The hUls are
higher, the promontories are bolder, and the vegetation is
more luxuriant. There is a little bay caUed Koorfess,
about a mile above the old Castle of AnadoH Hissari,
fringed -with fantastic kiosks, -with green terraced groves
above them, and the purple stieam below them, more
beautiful than any composition that any painter ever
invented, Dr, Dickson, Major Gordon, and Mr. Zohrab drank tea
-with us. Dr. Dickson is physician to the Embassy, and
formerly lived in Tripoli. I repeated Achmed Vefic's state
ment that there was Httle crime in Stamboul.
" I dare say," said Dickson, " that Httle crime is detected
in Stamboul, but that does not prove that Httle is com
mitted. When I was in Tripoli, while we had a sot and a
fool for Pasha, the records of the courts of justice showed
that there was little crime. When Omar, an excellent man,
succeeded him, it seemed suddenly to increase ; the fact
being that it was detected. When you consider the fierce
ness and brutality of the people, and the weakness of the
repression, it would be wonderful if crime were not preva
lent. "A week ago, a Greek woman was found murdered
.near the little coast battery of Telli Tabia, a couple of miles
above Bujucdereh. A soldier belonging to that battery had
been absent during the previous night. His breast and
arms were covered -with bites, as if he had had a long
struggle -with an unarmed person. He could not account
F 2 '

68 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
for the whole of his time during the night. There can be
little doubt of his guilt. But he -will be released; no
Mussulman cares about the murder of a Eayah."
" Omar Pasha," "he continued, " who was earnest in his
endeavours to prevent crime, directed that the body of
every one who died in Tripoli should be examined by me.
I detected many violent deaths ; but no one was punished
for them, except that in some cases blood money was
paid. " One of the first men in TripoH had a brother ia Tunis.
The brother died, leaving his wife pregnant. The brother-
in-law enticed her to Tripoli, and after having remained
three months in his house, she died. The Pasha's orders
were that no corpse should be dressed and prepared for the
grave until I had seen it. After that has been done, a
corpse becomes an object of great respect among the Mus
sulmans — much more so -than the living person was. This
body, however, was dressed. I desfred it to be uncovered,
and found in its lap a new-born infant, and marks of
violence over the whole person. I could learn nothing im
the house; but the neighbours told me that for three
months they had heard screams almost every night ; that
they believed that the brother-in-law had been trying all
that time to murder the woman, and at length, when she
was helpless from the pains of labour, had succeeded. I
reported the facts. The Pasha was indignant; the man
was arrested — but he was rich and powerful. He was very
soon released, and went to Tunis to take possession of his
brother's property."
"I wiU tell you," he added, " another story, which illus-

MUSSULMAN LA^W. 69
trates Mussulman manners and Mussulman law. Abdallah
Effendi, one of the richest men in Tripoli, was much re
spected for the severity of his mofals. His wife and his
eldest daughter died after short illnesses. It was whispered
that he had poisoned them both on suspicion of unchastity.
His remaining daughter was exceedingly handsome. Sud
denly we heard of her death. I went to visit the body, and
found it tied up. I ordered the coverings to be taken off.
The father was present, and objected ; so I tore off the first
covering myself I found her hands tied by a cord. I
took the veU from her neck, and found the livid circle pro
duced by strangulation. A smaU rope was lying near, which
fitted to the marks.
"Your daughter," I said to the father, "has been
strangled with this rope."
"He made no answer, and indeed looked on in silence
at all my examination of the coi-pse. I left the house and
made my report to the Pasha. The father was arrested,
but as soon as the Ulema heard of it, they ordered him to
be released.
" It appeared that there had been an Intimacy between
the girl and a young Turk ; that the father had cited the
young man before the Ulema; that the Ulema had
ordered him to marry her ; that he so far obeyed that he
signed the fetvah, or declaration of marriage, but that
having done so, he instantly required a declaration of
divorce to be drawn up, signed it, and left the tribunal,
having been married and divorced at the same sitting.
" This was a disgrace which could be -wiped out only hy
F 3

70 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the daughter's death, and the Ulema declared that the
father had done only his duty when he inflicted it.
" There are certain classes of crime," he added, " which.
enjoy almost perfect impunity. Such is the murder of a
Eayah by a Turk ; such also is the murder of a Turk, or'
a Eayah, by anybody — an Algerine, or an Ionian, or a Jew
from Gibraltar, enjoying consular protection. Every consul
seems to make it a point of honour that no one whom he
protects shall be punished, whatever be his offence. The
only exception is, when one protected person murders
another; the consul whose protSgS has been murdered,
generally tries to avenge him, and sometimes, though very
rarely, he succeeds."
Major Gordon is here, employed by the Turkish govern
ment to improve their prisons.
" I suppose," I said to him, "that they are horrible?"
" Of course they are," he answered; " Everything here
is neglected ; and to make a prison a heU, you have only
to neglect it. One of the best is the Bagnio. It is a
long room, in two stories, into which, if well drained and
ventilated, we might put seventy persons. It has scarcely
any apertures for air; an open sewer runs along 'one side
of it, and in it are three hundred persons. There is no in
ternal police. The strong and the healthy bully and tyran
nise over the weak and the sick. It is a place that would
kill an Englishman in a week."
" And how long," I asked, " does it take to kill a Turk ? *'
"Apparently," he answered, " a longtime. The reports
show a less per-centage of deaths there than in our well-
managed prisons."

TUEKISH PEISONS. 71
" A Turk," I said, " is sober, and does not fret. Starva
tion, buUying, aU sorts of calamity and oppression, he
takes as a matter of course. 'It was -written,' he says,
' that he should endure them.' Half of an Englishman's
sufferings ai-ise from his indignation when he thinks that
he is oppressed."
" I dare say," said Dr. Dickson, " that a Turk's fatalism
.renders him less sensitive to evil than we are; but you
must not trust to the retums. I know that in the prisons
of Tripoli, which are about as bad as these, the deaths
are forty per cent, per annum. I would venture to bet
that they are not much fewer in the Bagnio."
"Two youths," said Zohrab, "sons of one of my tenants,
were arrested six weeks ago, when Mr. Colnaghi's room
was robbed at the Embassy. I do not beHeve that they
had anything whatever to do -with it ; but they had been
seen near the place, suspicion fell on no one else, and the
police thought it absolutely necessary that .somebody
should be taken hold of. The Embassy made no complaint
against them ; no evidence inculpating them could be
obtained. I kept besieging the offices, in order to get
them out, and at length I succeeded. They had been in
prison thirty-one days. They came out, pale, thin, hag
gard, and covered with vermin."
"How long," I asked, "would they have remained, if
you had not interfered ? "
" No one can tell," he answered ; " perhaps six months,
perhaps a year-, perhaps till the very cause of their im
prisonment had been forgotten."
Saturday, October 10th. — I sat for a couple pf hpurs
F 4

72 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
with a Turkish friend, J. K. ; a Frenchman, a M. Noguez,
editor of one of the Constantinopolitan journals, joined us.
" I have no patience," said J. K., " with the authors of
the Hatt-i-Hiimdyoon ; we were going on rapidly -with
our reforms, and now comes this silly false move, and, per
haps, spoils the game of the improvers for twenty years."
" The Hatt-i-Humfi,yoon," I said, " may be impracti
cable, but how is it to do harm ? "
"By the jealousy," he answered, "indeed, the alarm
which it excites. I tried to have some of its minor pro
visions carried out at Broussa. It almost occasioned an
insurrection. The people who sent it to us from Paris
know nothing of our institutions. It declares, for instance,
that foreigners may purchase lan din Turkey. They could
always do so."
" I thpught," I said, " that they were forced to take it
in the name of a Turk, or of a Eayah."
" If they consented," he answered, " to be governed by
the laws of the country, as every proprietor of land ought
to be, they could always take it in their own names. There
are Eriglish families who have possessed land in Turkey
for the last hundred and fifty years ; but while they held
to their absurd capitulations, of course we could not have
a landed proprietary that repudiated our laws ; nor shall
we permit it now. In this matter, as in many others, the
Hatt-i-Humdyoon affects to make an improvement, and
does nothing.
" If you -wish," he continued, " to see the effect of the
capitulations, look at Pera. It is the creature of the
capitulations. The foreign ambassadors reign there. You

PEEA. 73
have streets in which you caimot walk, houses jammed to
gether without a plan, and a population which is la crime
de Id canaille. For one crime that is committed among
the 600,000 inhabitants of Stamboul, twenty are com
mitted by the 200,000 in Pera. It is rash to go out there
at night, and not very safe by day : I delight in Pera. It
shows what is gained by withdrawing people from their
natural rulers."
" We had a tiagical illustration," said M. Noguez, " of
Pei-ote feeling, in my family last week. My mother-in-
law went out alone, about noon. Hour after hour passed,
and she did not return. We went to look for her, and
after long search found her insensible, with her leg broken,
in a Mussulman house. It appeared that, in the crowded
thoroughfare of the Petits Chatnps, she had been knocked
down by one of the carriages which drive so recklessly
about Pera ; that she lay in the stieet, opposite to a coffee
house full of people, for an hour and a half uncared for,
until at length some Mussulmen, from a neighbouring
poor-house, raised her up, and carried her to an Armenian
hospital ; that the Armenians refused to take her in ;
that she was carried about the streets of Pera for some
time, no one opening a door to her, until at last she was
received in the Mussulman house in which we found her.
She died the next day."
" Nothing of the kind," said J, K,, " could have hap
pened in Stamboul. Mussulman coachmen ai-e careful of
the lives of passers-by; and, if she had been knocked
down, all the persons that saw the accident would have
flown to her assistance."

74 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
" What induces," I asked, " the ambassadors and consuls
to inhabit so detestable a place as Pera ?"
" The desire," said M. Noguez, " to domineer — to in
habit a place in which they can insult the Turks,"
"I hear," said J, K., "that the ci-vil jurisdiction of the
consuls is to be extended ; but that the European govern^
ments, especiaUy that of England, refuse to give to them
wider criminal jurisdiction."
" Of the two," I said, " criminal jurisdiction seems the
most important. Some tribunal -with criminal jurisdiction
is essential to the existence of society."
" Those who enjoy the capitulations," said J. K., " can
scarcely be said to be under the restraint of a criminal tri
bunal. If they are sent to England for trial they are
acquitted for want of e-vjdence. In France the jury
acquits or finds ' des circonstances attenuantes.' "
" ' Circonstances attenuantes,' " said Noguez, " are now
an element in every conviction. A man thinks that his
mother has Hved too long ; he decoys her into a barn and
beats out her brains. The jury find him guilty, 'avec des
circonstances attenuantes,' It is the result of a pseudo-
phUosophical aversion to capital punishment,"
" I have no patience," said J, K,, " -with these sentimen
talists. They must know that, for every murderer whom
they let escape, ten persons the more are murdered. They
had rather that the innocent should be the victims. of
rapacity or vengeance, than that the guilty should fall
under the calm impartial sentence of a judge,"
" There seems to be some of this sentimentalism," I said,

TUEKISH CEIMINAL LA-W. 75
" in Turkey, for your executions are rarer, in proportion to
your population, than ours,"
" The avowed executions," he answered, " are rarer. But
there ai-e accidents, which come to the same thing. Two
years ago some bariditti, who had rendered Smyrna unsafe
for years, were caught hold of : they were found drowned
on the shore beneath thefr prison. We are told that they
perished in trying to make their escape. So the three chiefs
of the Thessalian insurrection died of cholera on their
way as prisoners to Constantinople, But the great cause
which diiriinishes capital punishments with us is leprix du
sang. It is an institution which cannot be defended. It
destroys the certainty of punishment, and gives to an
individual or a family the prerogative of mercy, to be ex
ercised or not, as avarice or revenge may be stronger. But
its object was laudable. It was an attempt to pro-vide an
indemnity for a widow and chUdren suddenly deprived of
their supporter,"
"Its worst fault," I said, " seems to be that it saves the
rich offender, and leaves the poor one to suffer,"
" No," he answered, " it saves all equally. If a prisoner
cannot pay it, his relations or his parish raise it for him.
He may offer to pay it by instalments. The instant that
it has been accepted he is safe from execution. But it is
a mistake to suppose that he is safe from punishment. The
court cannot behead him, but it can imprison him ac
cording to the gravity of the crime, for five, or ten, or even
twenty years. It seldom does so, indeed, because impri
sonment is costly, and our prisons are insufficient, A man's

76 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
place is wanted. So that, unless he happens to be forgotten,
he is rarely imprisoned for more than a year or two."
The " Journal de Constantinople " was brought in.
" I see," said J. K., " that the appointment of 
Pasha as Pasha of  is announced. A few months
ago I proposed that he should be hanged."
" What are his claims," I asked, "to the gibbet or to
the pashalic?"
" He was Pasha of  ," said J. K., " for a few
years. He had nothing when he went thither, and he re
turned with a colossal fortune. The complaints of the
province were such that he was required to answer them
before the Council of Justice. They appeared to me to
be so well founded that I voted that he should be con-
¦victed and punished. But the majority of the judges were
pashas past or expectant. They did not like to set the
bad precedent of punishing a pasha for merely using to.
excess the ordinary pri-vileges of his office. So they white
washed him. And now he is sent to govern  » — ."
" Is it an important province ? " I asked.
" A very important one," he answered, " near the capital,
and in a district in which there has been much excite
ment. But when a man is so bad that he ought not to he
kept at home, and has so many friends or dependents that
he cannot be hanged, he is sent to be the ruler of a pro
vince.  , however, is a clevei: fellow ; he has made
his fortune. He may, perhaps, have had to spend some of
it in bribes. Still he must have a great deal left. And
having got money in  , he may try to get repu
tation in  ."

FEENCH AND ENGLISH IN CONSTANTINOPLE. 77
Saturday, October 10th. — L, M,, an Englishman, N, 0,,
a Hungarian, and Mr, Hornby, the new judge in the Con
sular court, drank tea -with us.
We talked of the impression produced on the Turks by
the French, and by the English occupation of Constan
tinople. "It was far more favourable," said N. 0., "to the
EngHsh." "I am surprised," I said, "at that. The French are
generally more successful in conciHating foreign popula
tions than we are. The French troops in Eome, though
performing the most odious of offices, are indi-vidually
popular." " The Eomans," said N. 0., " know that the French
soldiers, though forced by military discipUne to support the
Papal tyranny, in thefr hearts hate it and despise it as
much as they themselves do. The French and Eomans
are of the same race, of the same creed, and differ Httle in
civiHsation. But the French here came in contact with a
dominant race as proud, or rather as conceited, as they are
themselves, and differing from them in everything else, in
trifles and in essentials, in manners,, in habits, in feelings,
in morals, even in iatellects. Everything that a Turk does,
or says, or omits to do, or even appears to think, excites
contempt or disgust in a Frenchman."
" So it does," I saiid, " in an Englishman.''
" But an Englishman," he answered, " conceals his con
tempt better; the French paraded their superiority and
thefr dissimilarity. They estabUshed an orchestra and a
¦band in a cemetery, they entered mosques with dirty shoes.

78 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
they roamed drunk through the streets of Stamboul. A
-hamal, or porter, pressing forward, head foremost, under
his immense burden, is sacred among the Turks, Every
one makes way for him ; they know that a touch -will over
set him, and that if he falls he can scarcely rise. The
French seemed to have a pleasure in jostling him. They
cudgelled the men, they stoned the dogs, they stuck up
names in the streets, and numbers on the doors. They
treated the Turks, in short, as Turks treat Eayahs, The
English had the advantage of being fe-wer. Their men
were under better discipline, thefr officers belonged to a
much higher class, thefr coldness and gravity was Turkish ;
though they had, as' every European must have, a profound
contempt for the Turks, they did not think it necessary to
be always putting them to rights. They let them go to the
devil in their own way, and, what was perhaps the most
important, they had more money, and spent it more freely.
Certain it is that they have left a good reputation, and the
French a detestable one,"
Mr, Hornby arrived from England this morning to fill
his new office of judge in the Consular court,
" Have they given you," I asked, " any further criminal
jurisdiction ? "
" Not much," he answered ; " the want of it is admitted,
but Mr, Hammond has scruples,"
« What sort of a thing," I asked, "is a Turkish tiial?"
" It is not very formal," answered L, M, ; " everybody
present seems to think that he has a right to take part in
it. The great object of the judge is to get the prisoner to
confess," '.•

TUEKISH JUSTICE, 79
" The judge," said Hornby, " is trammelled by rules as
to evidence more technical even than ours ever were. In
most cases two -witnesses are requisite, or a confession.
When the judge sees clearly that the prisoner is guUty or
innocent, or that the plaintiff or the defendant is in the
¦wrong, but the technical proof is deficient, he is tempted
to get that proof by means which seem to us strange.
" I remember the surprise of a friend of mine who was
present at a trial in the court of the Zabit of  . The
judge, with the utmost bonhorwrnie, exhorted the prisoner
to confess, assuring him that he would not suffer for it.
The Cavasses kept patting him on the back, advising him,
as his real friends, to make a clean breast, and not to
injure his cause by trying to conceal what after all was well
known, as it had been afready confessed by his accomplices.
The man was sulky and silent, and seemed not to believe a
word. The promises of pardon and of immediate release
were repeated again and again. At last he said that if the
promise were made in -writing, he would tell something. So
the Zabit's clerk -wrote out a promise of pardon, and the
Zabit applied to it his signet, smeared with ink. Then the
man admitted that he, together -with certain other persons,
had committed the crime.
"'I am sorry,' said my friend to the Zabit, 'that you.
are going to let this man out again. You might, I think,
have convicted him -without his confession.'
" ' We shall behead him,' answered the Zabit, ' in the
'course of the day. Did you suppose that my promises
' of pardon were anything except a means to get his con-
' fession ? We always make them ; and in this case it was

80 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
' absolutely necessary, for we have no information, except
' what he has given to us.' "
" The wonderful thing," said L. M., " is that this trick
is always repeated and always succeeds. Though there
are vestigia nulla retrorsum, every criminal walks into the
trap. He is frightened, he is confused, he kno-ws that
proofs of his guilt exist, he thinks that confession may
give him a chance, that the judge, who never yet per
formed a promise, -will do so this time ; he is wearied out
by the importunity of all around him, he confesses and is
executed." " When a confession cannot be ohtained," said Hornby,
" it is easy to get evidence. I was talking, just before I
left this country some months ago, to a Mooilah, or judge
of one of the principal courts in Asia Minor. ' We have,'
he said, ' in my court a set of witnesses as well drUled
' as any of the Sultan's regiments. It is a regular pro-
' fession. Day after day, I see the same persons get up
* and hear them swear that they saw the money which
' the plaintiff claims, lent to the defendant, or that they
' saw the defendant repa y it to the plaintiff, or that
' they saw A. B, assault C, D,, or that they saw A, B.
' in Smyrna on the very day that he is accused of ha-ving
' beaten C. D. in Scala Nova, In short, that they saw
' whatever either party -wishes them to have seen. Of
' course I do not beUeve a word that they say, but yet
' their evidence is usefal ; I doubt whether we could get
' on without it. When the moral proof is complete, hut
' the technical proof is deficient, they supply it. They
' enable me to con-vict a man, whom I know to be guilty,

GEEECE. 81
' but against whom perhaps -without them there would be
' only circumstantial evidence. They enable me to decide
' that the defendant has repaid the money, which I know
' was never lent to him.' In fact," continued Hornby,
" the evidence of these professional witnesses is a legal fic
tion. It is a rough way of giving to the court a sort of
barbarous equitable jurisdiction."
" And it has the further advantage," said L. M., " of
enabling the court to decide in favour of the party who
bribes the highest."
We talked of the kingdom of Greece.
"The boundai-y of Greece," said L. M., "if such a
kingdom was to be created, ought to have been the HaH-
acmon, the modern Indge Karasu, which separates Thes
saly from Macedonia. Mount Othrys, the present frontier,
excludes Thessaly, the inhabitants of which are Greeks in
race and feeling. On the other hand, to include in Greece
Macedonia, would be absurd. The Macedonians are Bul
garians. They hate the Greeks, and would have been
more troublesome to Greece than Thessaly is to Turkey."
"The anti-Turkish feehng of the Thessalians," said
N. 0., "has been exaggerated, or has much subsided.
The Thessalian insurgents at the beginning of the war
were immigi-ants from Greece. Theii* real object was
cattle and sheep steaHng, and an enormous booty they
made. Turkish administration on the frontier has been
improving; that of Otho continues to be rapacious and
weak. I doubt whether much good would be done now
by giving Thessaly to Greece."
"In reality," said L. M., "the vehement desire of the

82 A JOUENAL KEPT m TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Greeks to be reunited to the Thessalians, their yearning
after their- brothers in race and in arms, was a vehement
desfre, a yearning of the Greek bureaucracy for a new
country pour exploiter, with governorships, and deputy-
governorships, and police courts, and custom-houses, and
other snug berths worth a patriot's acceptance."
"Those Thessalians," said N. 0., "who are anxious to
become Greeks, can do so very easily. About one-thfrd of
the soil of Greece belongs to the Government. It lets it
cheap ; there are vast tracts of fertile land unoccupied,
The Thessalians have only to cross the frontier and settle
on it ; but they do not do so. On the other hand, the
emigration from Greece to Thessaly is very great.' The
faults of the Turkish character, their ignorance, careless
ness, and intolerance are in some respects favourable to
the Eayahs. The Turks do not like to live among them,
they keep to the plains, and allow large -villages of Greeks
among the mountains to manage their own affairs, and
raise and apportion their tithe and haratch without ever
seeing a Turk. The Turk despises the Christian too much
to take any trouble to oppress him, or even to make him
pay what he owes. The Greek government is a teasing,
exacting master. I was in Thessaly during the insurrec
tion; there was neither enthusiasm nor courage among
the insurgents. A dozen of them would run away from a
single Turk. Their only object seemed to be to plunder
the inhabitants, and to get pay from the Queen."
Sunday, October llth. — An event took place yesterday, ¦
which has excited the diplomatic world. *'"^
M, Thouvenel gave a dinner to the Tm-kish ministry.

THE sultan's visit TO EESCHID. 83
All were present except Fuad Pasha. He excused himself
on the plea of illness.
The Sultan selected that day to pay a visit to Eeschid
Pasha. He went in great pomp in his state caique soon
after noon, walked -with Eeschid over his garden, dined
with him, spent in short eight or nine hours with him, and
tMd not return till night.
It is the only visit that this Sultan has ever paid to any
but Ms own sisters or daughters, and on these occasions it
ha,s been to the harem only, and the husbands have been
excluded. The ministers, on their way to M. Thouvenel's,
passed the sultan's caiques moored' before Eeschid's door.
It is said that this was the ffrst intimation of the -visit
which reached them. It seems probable, however, that
Fuad knew of it, and therefore excused himself.
In this country political changes are generally abrupt.
A ministry believes itself to be basking in the Sultan's
favour, and receives notice, through the imperial cavasses,
that they are out of office. Often they themselves are
unable to discover the cause of their fall. Sometimes
they cari trace it to an intrigue in the harem ; sometimes
it is the revenge of an ambassador, whose demands they
have resisted; sometimes it is a drunken caprice of the
master. Many people tell me that Eeschid -will be grand
vizier again before I go. The Sultan, they say, is waiting
only for the fortunate period of a new moon to recall
him. Monday, October 12th.— I walked before breakfast -with
P. Q., an Englishman, who has long resided in the Levant,
to Yenekpi, an old Turkish, Greek, and Armenian viUage,
G 2

84 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
nestled in at the opening of a long deep valley. On the
side of the hill above it is a holy well, in a small grotto,
before which a lamp is kept alight. Little bits of white
rag and locks of hair are nailed about on the roof, probably
charms or votive offerings. There are several large houses,
painted -with the dingy red or grey, which till -within the
last twenty or thirty years were the only colours allowed to
unbelievers. It is a more decent village than Therapia.
The streets are less horribly paved, and the roads leading
up to the hills are tolerable, and wind among picturesque
coffee houses, overshadowed by gigantic walnuts and stone
pines. I am told that on Sunday the neighbourhood in
thefr best clothes flock to these coffee houses, and establish
themselves under the trees in family parties, on extempo
rised divans. On our return we were joined by W., an
English merch-ant settled in Galata.
" Turkey," said W.., " exists for two purposes. First,
to act as dog in the manger, and to prevent any Christian
power from possessing a country wMch she herself in her
present state is unable to govern or to protect. And
secondly, for the benefit of some fifty or sixty bankers and
usurers, and some thfrty or forty pashas, who make for
tunes out of its spoils. It is the land of jobs. All these
palaces, aU these terraced gardens, are the fruit of jobsj
when they are not the fruit of something worse. All the
most respectable statesmen are jobbers. Eeschid Pasha
during his different vizierships sold to himself at low prices
large tracts of public land. He built a palace at Balti
Liman, and sold it for 200,000?. to the Sultan, who made
a present of it tp his daughter married to Eeschid's son."

POLITICAL CAEEEE OF A TUEK. 85
" He must be rich," I said.
" You cannot call a man rich," said W., " who every
five or six years is in distress, and is relieved by a present
from the Sultan of fifty or sixty thousand pounds ; but he
has a large income, though apparently not equal to his ex
penditure. In general," he continued, " a man here makes
his fortime, not by sa-ving and investing money, but by bor
rowing. The great Armenian bankers, in -vyhose hands the
court always is, are on the look out for young men fitted to
get on ; that is, young men with good talents and persons
and connections, and few scruples. To such a man they
will lend ten thousand pounds or twenty thousand pounds,
to be spent in bribes and ostentation, arid the other modes
in which money leads in Turkey to power. While he is
struggling on he can pay little interest ; but as soon as he
gets a place, or a contract, or a monopoly, he pays ten, or
fifteen, or twenty per cent. In the meantime, the banker
is his protector, . advances him money when a patron wants
backshish, or an accusation, or a witness is to be bought
off, or a judge is to be bribed, and is reimbursed not
only by usurious interest on the loan, but out of the
patronage or the jobs at the disposal of his creature."
We talked of the Principalities.
" Austria," said P. Q., " is right in opposing their union.
There is a young Wallachia and a young Moldavia, demo
cratic and socialist, which want .only a little more strength
to make them hotbeds of sedition and revolution. That
strength they would get if they could obtain a majority, or
even a considerable minority in the national assembly of
G 3

86 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the united provinces. Such an assembly would be free
from the control of Turkey. The Slavonic population of
Austria, in which, in her hatred of the aristocracy, she has
herself propagated socialist opinions, would sympathise
with them ; the lower Danube might be another Lombardy
to Austria."
'' These motives," I said, " ought to make Eussia fear
the union."
" Perhaps," he answered, " she is too strong to fear any
thing. Perhaps she hopes that the United Pro-vinces may
become so unruly that she may have a pretence for enter
ing them, in order to keep the peace."
" What," I said, " would you do vrith them ? "
"I," he answered, "would give them at once to Austria;
they must eventually belong to her or to Eussia, Turkey
cannot govern them ; they ha-ve not strength or ci-vilisation
enough to be independent, Austria could hold them
against Eussia, Her interests are naturally the same as
those of England, She is, as respects Western Europe,
a pacific, unaggressive power. We cannot strengthen
her too much,"
" As for the integrity of Turkey," said W,, '' as a per-*
manent arrangement, it is impossible. We may dose her
with Hatt-i-HumSyoons, but she is past physic, ' nullum
remedium agit in cadaver,' She is worse than a corpse;
she is a corpse in a state of decomposition,"
"There is an objection," I replied, "to this plan, which
seems to me fatal : the Austrians are detested in the Prin
cipalities, Their rule was much worse than that of Eussia
or Turkey, They could only hold them, as they hold

EEMEDIES POE TUEKEY. 87
Venice, by the sword, at an. expense beyond thefr revenue.
Austria ought to refuse them."
" It is tiue," answered P. Q., " that they detest the Aus
trians ; but it does not follow that to govern them would
cost Austria more than their revenue. They are a miser
able mixed population of Croats, Serbs, Eoumans, and
Moldavs, without cohesion or leaders, who will crouch
, , before any master whatever. They are sheep. Whoever
¦ 'has them wUl shear them ; and we ought to entrust that
office to a sovereign strong enough to hold it, but not
strorig eriough to be dangerous."
" You have lived many years," I said to W., " in this
country ; you know its deficiencies and its capabilities ; you
say that it is in a state of decomposition. Can you suggest
any means by which that decomposition can be arrested ? "
" I can suggest none," he answered, " by which it can
be completely arrested. I can suggest no measures by
which the Principalities, or Servia, or Egypt, or perhaps
Thessaly, can be permanently united to Turkey ; but I
thirik that there are means by which the disorder might
be prevented from spreading further."
"Suppose yourself," I said, "Sultan, what measures
would you take for that purpose ? "
" The very first thing," he said, " that I would do, would
be to send away all the ambassadors. No country can
prosper whose administration is perpetually interfered with
by foreigners ; who, even if they were honest and well-
intentioned, would make mistakes, and being, as they are,
dishonest, selfish, and often ill-disposed, make mischief in-
. . tentionally.. Take the simple matter of roads, the thing of
G 4

88 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
all others most needful. Lord Stratford with great difficulty
persuaded the Turks to make a road from Trebisond
towards the Euphrates."
"This," I said, " was not one of the evils of foreign in
terference." " No," he answered. " Lord Stratford really wishes to
improve Turkey; but he is an exception to all rules.
Well, the Eussians felt that the road would divert the
commerce of Turkey with Persia from its present route
through Teflis and Georgia ; so they resolved to prevent
it. They got  Pasha sent to Trebisond to manage it,
and let him know thatif he would stop the road-making he
should be protected. He was there for two or three years,
took care that not more than two .pr three miles of road
shpuld be made, pocketed all the money, and returned
when the road was forgotten. So it is with everything
else. Every ^and vizier has his foreign supporters and
his foreign opponents. His supporters try to turn his
administration into a job for their o-wn petty interests, or
for their own petty vanities or hatreds ; his opponents try
to make it a failure. They strive, often with success, to
render all his measures fruitless, or even mischievous.
How, I repeat, can a country flourish which is so teased,
and worried, and perplexed ; which is sometimes bulHed,
sometimes deceived, and almo-st always misled ? "
" And what," I said, " would be your next step ?"
"The next step," he answered, "would be to tear
the capitulations. The capitulations withdraw from the
Turkish law a set of lonians, Maltese, Algerines, and
Croats, the refuse of their own semi-barbarous countries.

EEMEDIES FOE TUEKEY. 89
who cheat, rob, and murder -with impunity, under the segis
of consular protection. A Maltese killed a man in Bu
jucdereh four days ago. So Httle did he fear the conse
quences, that within an hour after the murder he was
transacting business in the office of the British consul.
He knows weU that the worst that can happen to him is
to be sent to Malta to be acquitted by a Maltese jm-y.
If his neighboui-'s cattle stray into an Englishman's
•vineyard, he runs straight to Lord Stratford. 'Here,'
he says, 'is a pretty piece of business! We have
' been shedding our blood for these damned Turks, and
' they drive their bullocks among my vines ; they have
' done me a thousand pounds' worth of damage.' Lord
Stiatford complains to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The minister cannot find out whose cattle were the cul
prits, or he says tihat it was the Englishman's fault for not
keeping up his fences, or he estimates the damage at five
shiUings instead of a thousand pounds. A correspondence
follows, which swells into a blue book, and the ultimate
result is that the vUlage is taxed to pay a himdred
pounds for half-a-dozen vines. Of course the Turks try
to keep out these privileged intruders. Any one who sells
land to a foreigner is execrated by his neighbours for
bringing among them a litigious tyrant, above their laws,
and indifferent to thefr opinions. But if the capitulations
were destroyed, if Turkey were to reassume the rights
which are enjoyed by every European state, if all who
inhabit her soil were subject to her laws, both the go
vernment and the people would endeavour to attract
strangers."

so A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" But will strangers come ? " I asked ; " will they expose
themselves to the injustice and corruption of Turkish
courts ? "
" They will come," he answered. "• The cUmate and
¦soil of many parts of Turkey are so admfrable, and the
price at which land can be obtained is so moderate, that as
soon as the obstacles now opposed by the Turks to immigra
tion are removed, immigrants will flock in in thousands.
They are wanted for their capital, they are wanted for
their diligence, they are wanted for their skill, they are
Wanted even for their bodily services. All Turkey is
under peopled, there are whole districts fertile and healthy
almost deserted."
" But what Christian," I asked, " will inhabit a country
in which his oath cannot be received against a Mussulman's?
What safety can there be there for property or for life ? "
" The Hatt-i-Humfi,yoon," answered P. Q., " forbids any
distinction between the oath of a Mussulman and that Of a
Christian. We can insist, and we must insist, on the
observance of this clause in the Hatt-i-Hum5,yoon."
"And what," I asked, "would be your next measure?"
" I believe," answered W., " that this would be enough.
I believe that Turkey, relieved from foreign interference
and animated by foreign immigration, would improve
herself." " You must be aware," said P. Q., " that your measures
are impracticable ; that the Christian powers will not allow
their ambassadors to be dismissed, nor their capitulations
to be abolished. Can you suggest anythirig that i?
practicable ? "

DESTINY OP TUEKEY. 91
'' I have nothing else to suggest," answered W. ; " nor do
I believe that anything can be suggested that would be of
real use, while Turkey is under the diplomatists and the
capitulations." "And what," I said, "is to be the result? "
" I -wUl not prophesy," answered W., " more than this,
namely, that Turkey, if she goes on as she is going on,
wUl break to pieces ; though how or when I cannot fore
tell. The railroads -will accelerate the catastrophe. They
will give foreigners, principally Englishmen, a hold on the
soil. Probably they will be bullied and cheated; most
certainly they -will bully and cheat. There will be more
and more blue books, and some fine day we may be forced
to take the country."
" We shall not take it," I said, " nor will France. As a
distant dependency it would not be worth holding, even if
it could be held. It can be taken only by the contiguous
governments, by Austria, or by Eussia. Eussia, which has
so well assimilated Bessarabia, could easily absorb and
digest Molda-via, Wallachia, and Bulgaria, and perhaps
EoumeHa. So could Austria (if she were not so stupid
and brutal a mistress) Servia, Bosnia, and Albania,
France, of course, -will add to Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli."
" And we,'' he said, " shaU take Egypt."
" I think not," I answered ; " we shall not be parties to a
partition, and it is only by a partition that we could get
Egypt. I hope that we shall do much better ; that we
shaU make it an independent kingdom, or perhaps a
dependency of the great Powers, under their joint protec
tion."

92 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.,
Wednesday, October 14th. — We dined at the embassy,
and met Mr. and Mrs. Hornby, and Prince Kurradgee, a
Fanariot. Mrs. Hornby talked of the Turkish ladies.
" The wives," she said, " of two pashas called on me,
when we lived near Eumili Hissari. They were .attended
by two slave-girls, and by an old negress who seemed to
act as duenna. After they had smoked their chiboocks,
turned over all my clothes, and examined every corner of
the room, one of them said, ' Now we want to see your
' men, for I hear that you have three.' This was true;
there was my husband, Mr. Mansfield, and a cousin.
I answered, ' that only one was at home, and that he was
'in the garden. It was my cousin, a handsome young
' man.' ' Send for him,' she said. The old negress looked
as if she could have eaten her. I remonstrated. 'You
' know,' I said, ' that your husbands would not approve of
' it, and I am sure that that old woman -will report you.'
She insisted, and I was firm. She got angry, turned
her back to me, sat down to the piano and thumped it
violently ; in short, behaved like a spoilt child in a passion.
, At last she said, ' that she would not go away till she
' had seen him, if she stayed all night.' I proposed that
they should put on their veils, go into the next room, let
the door be open, and peep at him through it. This was
accepted. " So I went for him, and he came up pretending to be
bashful, and covering his face -with his handkerchiefi
They desfred him to take it off; and, if I had not stopped,
them, would have gone out to him into the room, in breach

TUEKISH LADIES. 93
of our agreement. They kept staring at him for half an
hour, and I beHeve would have done so for a couple of
hours, if I had not sent him away.
"A young Armenian friend of mine," she continued,
" whose family have been suddenly reduced to poverty, is
an excellent musician. He gives lessons. The -wives of
some of the pashas employ him. He finds them closely
veUed, and attended by eunuchs. But when the lesson is
long, the eunuchs get tired, and go into the next room and
sleep on the divan. Thereupon the ladies unveil, and
amuse themselves by teasing him, for he is a married man
with children, and has no desfre for the romance of an
intrigue, or indeed for its danger. One of them gave him
a rose. ' Pig,' she said to him, ' do you know what that
' means. It means that I love you. Pig.' ' Pig,' said
another, 'you do not look at us. Are we not handsome ? '
And very handsome he says some of them are, but he
looks at them as little as he can, and -with fear and trem
bling. In a harem, and to a Eayah anything can be done ;
if the eunuchs should wake up, he inight never be heard
of again."
The prince is' a pleasing young man.
. " Only three famiUes," he said, " of the old Fanariot
nobility now remain ; they have lost their influence, and
have left the capital."
Friday, October IQth. — I engaged a caique to take me
to Constantinople to-day, but the French embassy had
a water party, and inveigled from me my caique men, who
are, I find, open to such seductions ; so I remained at The
rapia, and took a long walk with N. 0.

94 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
He has lately been visiting the Principalities, and gave
me a lecture on them.
" What," I asked, " is the state of thefr civilisation? "
" If," he answered, " by civiHsation you mean fine
European houses, filled -with fine European furniture, good
French cookery and wines, ladies dressing at the rate of
1000?. a year, and the general exterior of Parisian life,
you -will find it among the higher classes in both pro
vinces. You -will find also a peasantry better off than the
lower orders of most parts of the continent. The state of
fortune of 300 peasant families, estabhshed on the estate
of a friend of mine, was ascertained a few months ago. It
was found that they possessed at an average 60?, per
family. But if you mean by civilisation, knowledge, good
sense, good principles, in short, the higher quaUties of
civilised men, you will find Httle of them. The peasantry
and the small proprietors care and know; about nothing
but getting money, and spending it in gross pleasures.
The people of the towns have most political feeling,
and that feeling is in general vague, socialist, and demo
cratic. The older portion of the great proprietors, many
of whom have been in office, are corrupt, but have more
sense and some experience. They know the evils of
Eussian and of Austrian rule, and wish for -virtual in
dependence, under the mild and almost nominal supremacy .
of Turkey, " The younger portion of the great proprietors are
theorists, who know nothing of their own country, of its
wants or of its powers, and are eager for independence, for
federation with Ser-via, or perhaps with Bulgaria, for an

THE PEINCIPALITIES. 95
'elected president, a single assembly, the secularisation of
the property of the chm-ch, and every kind of -wild scheme.
The only persons," he continued, "who can be said to
have political opinions, are the large proprietors and the
townspeople, and they, though divided on many subjects,
are unanimous on one. They all desire the tmion of the
provinces. During the war, Turkey was popular in the
Principalities. AU parties wished for virtual independ
ence, though they intended to use that independence very
differently. All believed that the Turkish supremacy was
the condition under which that independence would be
most easily obtained.
" When the withdra-wal of the Eussians made them to a
Certain extent free agents, they offered to raise a force to
co-operate with the Tui-ks. They are also agreed in wish
ing that their viceroy should be a foreigner. They suffered
so much under the hospodars, that they are anxious to
have a ruler not mixed up with any local factions ; perhaps
some of them think that if their -viceroy be connected -with
any of the powerful European sovereigns, his great rela
tions may support him against the pretensions of Turkey,
whose supremacy they all wish to render as nearly nominal
as possible.
" Turkey had a good game, but she has spoilt it. If
she had always protested against the union, it would
have been difficult to impose it upon her. I do not say
that this would have been her best policy, but it would
have been intelligible and effectual. But she consented
at Vienna, and aftei-wards in Paris, to a protocol, declaring
that, on the subject of union, the wishes of the Princi-

96 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
palities should be consulted. If the provinces had
wished to remain separate, this would have done ; but as
soon as it was known that they desfred union, the ground
was cut from under her feet.
" What she had then to do was, to retain her popularity
by consenting to the union, but on the- conditions most
favourable to her supremacy, especially that of a native
prince, unsupported by European relations, whom she would
have been able vfrtually to nominate. Instead of doing so,
she resolved that there should be no union, and seeing too
late the effect of the protocol, resolved to force, at least in
Molda-via, the election of an anti-unionist divan. Orders
to that effect were sent to the kaimacan or lieutenant-
governor, and were carried out by him with the -violence
and fraud which might be expected among Eastern semi-
barbarians. On the other hand, the French consul at
Jassy having received orders to produce an unionist divan,
took into his pay some of the worst ruffians of the country,
and bribed and bullied on his side."
" What interest," I said, " had France in the matter ?"
" At first," he answered, " merely the desire to appear
liberal and popular. The Emperor saw that the people of
the Principalities were unionists, and wished to please
them. Whatever be his unpopularity at home, he hopes
at least to be forgiven by the liberal party abroad, and is,
always coquetting -with it. Afterwards when the contest
became serious, and attracted the attention of Europe,
there may have been the desfre of triumph, the desire
perhaps to please Eussia, and, in Constanstinople, eager
ness on the part of Thouvenel to carry a point against

THE PEINCIPALITIES. 97
Lord Stratford, and to spite, perhaps to remove, the
English protSge, Eeschid.
" The motives to the conduct of Austria are obvious. She
fears that the union of the PrincipaHties may become the
forerunner, and the nucleus of a federation, which may
attract Croatia and her other Slavonic subjects. The oppo
sition to the union by Austria of course made Sardinia
support it. England, I think, ought to have been neuter.
Instead of that she took part -with Austria and Turkey.
" The Eussian agents saw that this gave an opportunity
to create a dispute between England and France, and to
get some popularity for themselves in the Principalities.
They therefore became unionists.
" An intelligent Eussian diplomatist said to me, ' We are
' repaid for all our losses in the Crimea and in Bessarabia
' by what we have gained in the Principalities. From
' enemies we have made them friends.' Eussia alone, in fact,
has profited. England has supported the unpopular party,
and has failed ; France has been on the Hberal side and has
succeeded, but she has done so at the expense of a mis
understanding -with her best friend — England, and of be
coming hated in Turkey. Thouvenel's conduct in forcing
the dismissal of Eeschid is fatal for the present to any
influence on the part of France, except through mere fear.
Every Turk is indignant ; every Turk knows that Eeschid
is the ablest arid one of the most patriotic men in the
empfre ; to lose his ser-vices at the dictation of a foreigner,
because he supported the interests of Turkey in a matter
in which that foreigner had no concern, is an affront, a
humilia.tion, and an injury which -will not be forgiven."
H

98 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" And what," I said, " is to be done now ? "
" The game," he answered, " has been so spoiled, that it
is difficult to say. I do not think that, consistently -with
the terms of the protocol, the union can be refused. But
Turkey, England, and Austria may require that the
¦viceroy be a native. Eussia and Sardinia of course wUl
support a foreigner, but France might be induced to sup
port a native, and as this is a matter untouched by the
protocol, Turkey has so fair a right, not merely to be con
sulted, but to have a preponderating vote, that I have
great hopes that the matter may be so arranged."
Dr. Dickson drank tea -with us.
I asked if he had heard more of the murder of the
woman near TelU Tabia.
"Yes," he answered. "Two children have deposed
that they heard screams, and saw from a distance a man
struggling -with a woman in the field where the body was
found, and that the man was dressed as a soldier. But it
is clear that the murderer is to be let off. Yesterday the
pasha in command of the district in which Telli Tabia
and Bujucdereh are situated, came to Bujucdereh, sent for
the soubaski, or head ofthe local police, and desfred him
to accompany him to the villages riear TeUi Tabia in order
to arrest the murderer of the woman. ' The murderer of
the woman,' answered the soubaski, 'is already in prison.
I took him thither myself.' ' You mean the soldier,' said
the pasha. ' But he is not the murderer. We know thaf
the woman was murdered by a Eayah.' ' She was mur
dered,' answered the soubaski, ' by the soldier. I am nbt
under your orders, and I -will not go with you for the

PEOSPECTS OF TUEKEY. 99
purpose of arresting some innocent man.' So the pasha
went -with only his soldiers. I have not heard the result,
but I have no doubt that some miserable Greek -will be
seized and hanged or sent to the bagnio, and the soldier
released. Thwrsday, October 15th. — I called on C. D. He talked
of the Sultan.
" He is an amiable man," said C. D., " and for a Turk
sensible. The stories which are told about bis drinking
to excess may or may not be true. I know nothing to
confirm them."
" Eeschid," he continued, " is thefr first man, but his in
tellect and his heart, though superior to that of any of his
countrymen, want the firmness and energy of an Em-opean.
The most sensible Turk that I have known is Edhim
Pasha." " I knew him," I said, " two years ago at Cairo : first as '
Minister of Foreign Affairs, then as Governor of Cairo,
which he now is. He is a Janissary, and has a fish, the
symbol of the regiment to which he belonged, tattooed on
his. arm."
" He has "travelled," said C. D. ; " he has been knocked
about in the world, and without much knowledge, according
to European ideas, he has good sense. The more one sees
of affairs, the more one feels that the one thing needful is
common sense."
"I beHeve even now," he continued, "that a man of
sense, with courage and a strong will, might save Turkey.
The Sultan is the best obeyed sovereign in the world, not
excepting even the Czar. They both enjoy religious as
E 2

IOO A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
well as poUtical prestige ; but the Sultan's supremacy is
more reverently acknowledged than the Czar's. Anything
that he commanded, short of ordering the muezzins to pro
claim Christianity from the minarets, -would be obeyed. I
believe, too, that he feels the necessity of reform. It has
become a tradition of his family. Both his predecessors
were reformers."
" And they both," I said, " were victims to reform "
" Not Mahmoud," he answered.
"Was he not poisoned by the old Turkish party?" I
asked. " I think not," said C. D. " I believe that he died of ex
cesses of all kinds. You are struck," he continued, "as
every stranger is, by the barbarism of the country. Yet,
even within my own time, it has made great advances in
civilisation. Who, ten years ago, would have thought that
the Sultan could guarantee to every one freedom of wordiip
according to the religion which he professes — a guarantee
which authorises not only toleration, but even change of
religion ? Yet this is the effect of the third article of the
Hatt-i-Humdyoon. A Httle while ago a case occurred which
tested the force of this article. A Turkish man and woman
turned Christians. The Ulema were consulted, and ad
mitted that according to the third article of the Hatt-i-
Humftyoon they were entitled to do so. I understand that •
there are many viUages, and even districts, in which the
inhabitants became Mussulmen only from fear, and are now
returning to Christianity. Until the Hatt-i-Hum5yo6n-^
was issued this was a capital crime."
" As conversion merely from one Christian sect to an-

PEOSPECTS OF TUEKEY. 101
other," I said, " is now in Tuscany, and I believe in some
other parts of Europe. The Turks have become more toler
ant than some Eoman Catholics."
" What do you hear of the heir ?" I asked.
" Little," he answered ; "he is believed to be learned,
which means that he knows the Koran by heart. The
Sultan is said to be relaxing the old policy of his family,
and allowing him a Httle communication with the external
world. If he does so, I think that he ought to send him
out of the country — to France or to England. His presence
here, if he should become, even -without his own consent,
the centre of any knot of intriguers, might be dangerous.
Though the Sultan is, as I have said, implicitly obeyed,
he is not safe. He is not safe from a revolution in his
palace or in Constantinople. Nor is he safe from a Greek
or a Slavonic revolt.
" About three years ago there was an Smeute among the
students,, perhaps a couple of thousand, of the medresses,
or colleges, attached to the mosques of Stamboul. They
were believed to be excited by Mehmet Ali, then seras-
kier, or commander-in-chief. It lasted for a couple of
days. The ministers were alarmed, and, in faet, did no
thing. The Sultan had to act for himself He went to
the seraskier's, and summoned his ministers to meet him
there, and ordered the second in command to put the mu
tineers down. About 800 of them were seized, and sent
to Candia, and the movement was stifled. But, -with a
Httie longer indecision, it might have become serious."
" Nicholas," he continued, " has been accused of rash
ness and of ambition ; but he was scarcely a free agent. He
H 3

102 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
submitted to the necessities of his position. Turkey had
been bullied by Austria and by France. The miserable
remnant of Latins had gained through France an advan
tage over the Greeks. The Eussians were murmuring.
He would have lost his prestige if he had remained quiet.
The Turks, too, were beginning their reforms. It was ne
cessary to crush them before they had strengthened them
selves. Nor did he expect war. He exaggerated his own
power and undervalued that of Turkey, and never beHeved
in her resistance."
" It is generally thought," I said, " in Europe that the
rejection by the Turks of the Vienna note was Lord Steat-
-ford's doing ; that he pointed out to them the interpretation
unfavourable to Turkey of which it was susceptible."
" It is a mistake," he answered. " Lord Stratford's, in
structions were favourable to the Vienna note. He showed
them to Eeschid, but gave no opinion ofhis own. After an
interval of three or four days, Eeschid expressed his disap
probation of the note, and said that he could not sign it.
Lord Stratford did not attempt to remove.his obj ections j and
I do not see how he could do so as an honest man, for, in
fact, they were well founded, and Eussia, by admitting that
she interpreted the note as the Turks did, showed that they
were so. But Lord Stratford did not suggest them."
We talked of the Principalities.
" I fear," said he, " that things may not pass off at the
Congress of Paris so quietly as is expected. Austria and
Turkey are violently and obstinately opposed to the union,
and France, for reasons which I cannot make out, is as
violent in its favour. When I was told, that Thouvenel

SULEIMANYAH. 103
threatened to strike his flag if the elections were not
quashed, I scarcely believed it. The threat seemed to be
out of proportion to any interest, or shadow of an interest,
which France can have in the question,"
Saturday, October llth. — Baron Marochetti is in Con
stantinople to examine the site of the Scutari monument.
He is weU satisfied -with it, and with the foundation. He
slept yesterday at Therapia, and accompanied "me to-day
to Constantinople, where I am to spend two days with Mr.
Lafontaine, one of the two managers of the Ottoman Bank.
On our arrival we took a cavass from the bank, a fine-
looking Turk with a sword, and walked towards the
Suleimanyah, or mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent.
On our road we passed the Burnt Column, a column of
porphyry said to have been plated with brass, which the
Turks melted by lighting fires around it, and the tombs of
Sultan Mahmoud and his family, placed under a dome of
white marble, and connected, as almost all public monu
ments are in the East, with a fountain. These fountains
are always enclosed. They are covered by a domed roof,
rising from a deep cornice slightly curved upwards, sup
ported by marble waUs. Light is given by windows latticed
in brass, on the sills of which are brass cups always filled
¦with water.
The fore court, or harem, of the Suleimanyah, surrounded
by domed arcades, with a fountain in the centre, is now
filled -with a mass of cavalry accoutrements, old saddles, and
horse rugs, which the Turks threw there at the end of the
war, and have not removed. It is closed, therefore, to the
B 4

104 A JOUENAL KEPT EST TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
public ; and we could only look through a window in the
mosque at its elegant marble colonnades.
The mosque is nearly a square, being 234 feet by 227 ;
rather less than Santa Sophia, which is 243 by 229. It
covers 52,118 square feet, wMch is a little less than the.
area of the cathedral of Salisbury. The central dome is
said to be of the same diameter as that of Santa Sophia,
but 20 feet higher. To my eye, the difference was not
perceptible. The smaller semi-domes, which assist in
giving light to the aisles of Santa Sophia, are wanting.
In their place the aisles are Ughted by ten small domes,
five over each; which perhaps is a better arrangement.
Three congregations, each consisting of a circle of persons
lying on the ground, to whom a mooilah, seated on a
chair, was preaching -with much animation, occupied the
whole breadth of the mosque. We were therefore imable
to walk round it, or to examine the painted glass of the
windows, towards the garden, which is said to be fine.
We eould not even approach the four great columns, sixty
feet high, which, with the four piers at the comers, support
the arches on which the great dome rests.
The decorations of Santa Sophia, which must have ren
dered it, while they were uninjured, the most magnificent
interior in the world, are wanting. The colouriug is prin
cipally white and blue. But, in form and proportion, I
am inclined to think that the Suleimanyah quite equals
Santa Sophia.
After walking some time on the terrace, which runs
along one of the highest plateaus in Constantinople, and
commands the whole city, the Golden Hern, and the

TOMB OF SULEIMAN. 105
Bosporus, we were attiacted by a beautifully proportioned
dome, rising from an octagonal base in the garden or
cemetery of the mosque. We found that it covered the
tombs of Suleiman the Magnificent, the founder of the
mosque, of his -wife, Eoxalana, and of five or six of his
children, whom he is said to have put to death in infancy.
The interior consists of a dome rising from eight arches,
supported by columns of variously coloured marble, prin
cipally red and green, the walls wainscoted with porcelain,
covered sometimes -with inscriptions, in bold Arabic cha
racters, sometimes -with Arabesques, and sometimes with
flowers, or -with patterns taken from flowers. The dome,
which is lofty in proportion to its -width, is painted -with a
complicated pattern, in which red predominates. On the
walls the predominant colour is blue. The beauty of the
proportions, and the richness and harmony of the colouring,
are of course incapable of description, but they are such
that Marochetti could scarcely leave the building. We
> stayed there for perhaps half an hour, and if the guardians
had not been impatient, might have remained still longer.
The actual tomb, as is the case with all the royal tombs
in Constantinople, consists of a coffin covered with a rich
pall, with a turban at the end, protected by a fence of
cedar wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The Sultan's
coffin is about twelve feet long and four high, his wife's
about one-third of that size, and each of the children's
about half the size of hers.
E. S. joined us after we quitted the Suleimanyah, and
took us to -visit Ismail Pasha, the Minister of Commerce.
On our way he told us Ismail's history*

106 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
"His family were Greeks of Scio. When the island
was. ravaged during the war of independence, he was
adopted by a Turkish family, educated as a Mahometan,
and sent to study medicine in France. On his return he
became physician to the Sultan's harem. The Sultan is
fond of him ; he was supposed to have too much influence,
and was sent away by Aali Pasha, then grand vizier, to
govern Smyrna. Here he showed administrative talents
and decision. He made war on a band of robbers, which
rendered the neighbom-hood of the town insecure. He
killed, and beheaded, until he had reduced them to four, of
whom Yani Katergee, a man of great activity and courage,
was the chief. He was induced by a promise of pardon
to give himself up. Ismail ascertained that the three
who remained at hu-ge, found, from time to time, shelter
and supplies in a small -village in the mountains. He
sent for the chief men, accused them of harbouring the
robbers, and threatened to destroy them and their village.
They, of course, protested their innocence. He took them
apart into an inner room, and showed them a bag of gold.
'There,' he said, 'are 10,000 piastres. If -within one
' week you bring me the heads of those three men, you
' shall have this money : if you do not, you may as well
' join them, for I shall treat you, as I treat them.'
" He would listen to no excuses, and turned them out.
" Before the week was over they brought to him a bag
containing three heads. Yani Katergee identified them as
the right ones, and the villagers received the 10,000
piastres. The first time that the robbers had sought
shelter in the village they were kindly received, drugged
¦with opium or hashish, and killed in their sleep."

ISMAIL PASHA. 107
"What became," I said, "of Yani Katergee?"
"He is in the bagnio of Constantinople," answered
E. S. " Ismail is unusually conscientious ; he would not
release him, but he would not behead him. Yani, how
ever, is ungrateful He sent the other day, through the
surgeon who -visits the bagnio, this message to Ismail: ' Tell
' him that some day I shall get out, and that I shall employ
' my first two hours of Hberty in killing him.' "
" I suppose," I said, " that Ismail made his fortune in
Smyrna." " He had little," said E. S., " and now he has property
and Hves expensively ; he must have made a fortune some
where ; but he was popular in Smyrna and is popular here ;
so that he has not enriched himself by any means that ai-e
thought scandalous in this country. A pasha can scarcely
remain poor, unless he is absolutely indifferent to money.
Eeschid Pasha's palace and park on the Bosporus must be
worth 200,000?. As building ground they are perhaps
worth 300,000?. On the death of the last proprietor with
out male heirs, they escheated to the sultan, and were
sold by auction. Eeschid was grand vizier, and bought
them for 25,000?. Of course no one bid agairist the
grand vizier." ^
" But," I asked, " if any one had outbid Eeschid, and
bought them, what would have been the consequence ? "
" It is useless," said E. S., " to inquire what would
have happened in an impossible case. So -wild an idea as
that of bidding against a grand vizier, or even against a
pasha, never entered into any one's head. Eeschid was
very Hberal in bidding 25,000?. He might have bought
them for 1000?.

108 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
We passed through several courts and long passages,
full of attendants and suitors, and at last reached the
curtain of the room occupied by his Excellency. We
lifted it, and found him -with his pipe, smoking, listening
-to applicants, and signing papers, -with his seal smeared
¦with ink.
He put us by his side, gave us pipes and coffee, and
talked to us in the intervals of business.
He asked me what I thought most wanted in Turkey,
I answered roads and pavements,
" Pavements," he answered, " we shall have. There has
been a contract for more than a year for paving Pera, and
next year we begin."
"And when," I said, "do you begin your road to
Adrianople ? "
"Never," he answered, "a macadamised road. The
traffic requires a railroad. The macadamised road would
be an useless expense. We shall begin by railroads, and
connect them by macadamised roads,"
"And I hope," I said, "that you -will diminish or
abolish your export duties."
" I hope," he answered, " that we shall aboHsh them.
They aggravate, if they do not create, the unfavourable
balance of trade, which is ruining us. We import from
Europe all but the rudest manufactures, and our export
duties force us to pay for them in specie."
"As respects your insert duties," I said, "you have
nothing to learn. You are the best free traders in the
world. I wish that you could give some lessons to
France."

ISMAIL PASHA. 109
" I cannot blame the French," he said. If they let in
your cottons their own would be ruined. The French
manufacturer pays twice as much for his steam-engine as
you do."
"That," I said, "is because France prohibits English
iron." " And he pays," said the Pasha, " three times as much
for his coal."
"That," I said, "is because France prohibits EngHsh
coal." " Of course she does," repHed the Pasha; " she m/wst do
so. Her own fron works and coal mines could not compete
-with yours."
The nature of his political economy did not induce me
to prolong the discussion. We talked on our way home of
the prospects of the Turks.
" I see no hope for them," said E. S., " while they re
main Mussulmen ; polygamy and the seclusion of women
are interwoven with that faith ; and no countiy that is
cursed with them can be civiHsed. A Turk has no friends,
for friendship requires intimacy between famiUes, and a
Turk cannot even aUude to the harem of his acquaintance.
Brothers by the same mother may indeed be friends, but
those by different mothers imbibe in infancy the mutual
hatred of their mothers. Turks do not read, do not talk ;
their only object is to get money, to be spent in immediate
pleasure or ostentatiori, ori firie -women, fine horses, or fine
houses run up -with wood, which the next heir allows to fall
to pieces. In a country in which there is no aristocracy,
except the temporary one of office and power, in which

no A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
neither birth, nor wealth, nor education confer any distinc
tion, in which every one, however rich or Mghly placed,
knows that in a generation or two his grandchildren or
gi-eat grandchildren will be porters, or hewers of wood and
drawers of water, or makers of papooshes, as his own father
and his own grandfather were, there is little motive -to save,
or even to spend for permanent purposes. Then th*e ab
sence of education, the absence of the traditional culti
vation which is found only in aristocratic countries, and*.
the absence of public opinion occasion a low standai-d of
public integrity. Everyman in office is assailed by bribes;
the means of robbing the public, dfrectly or indirectly,
are every day in his hands ; everybody among whom he
lives employs them. In most cases he has had to bribe in
order to get his place, and must bribe in order to keep it.
How can we expect him to remain pure ? All the beautiful
palaces, all the graceful kiosks, all the terraced gardens
that line the Bosporus,' and crown its heights and pro
montories, are the creations of fraud, or corruption, or ex
tortion, the arch-robber being the Sultan, who steals from
the treasury more than a third of the public revenue.
Foreigners, even Englishmen and Frenchmen, do not
escape the infection of this atmosphere. Sti-ange things
have come to light in ¦winding up the accounts of the com
missaries and contractors during the war. They generally
refused to deal ¦with the great mercantile houses. They
preferred making their purchases and contracts in the
bazaars and the shops. Case after case has been before me
in which they refused tenders from respectable firms, and
purchased, at much higher prices, from men -without

SPEEAD OF COEEUPTION. " 111
capital, to whom it was necessary to pay in advance. One
man, a tailor, who had nothing three years ago, has now
150,000?. A fire took place at Varna, and destroyed a
large quantity of the gunpowder of the French. A French
storekeeper, however, found a native who had a considerable
supply, which he was ready to. sell, but, under the circum
stances, at a high price. It was bought for the French
army ; I afterwards ascertained that it was a portion of the
French stores which had escaped the fire."
" Were these frauds," I asked, "confined to the employes?"
" I must answer you," he said, " by quoting a TurMsh
proverb : ' The fish stinks most at the head.' It is remark
able," he continued, "that the great spread of corruption
seems to date from the time when Sultan Mahmoud
imposed an oath of office, by which every functionary
promises perfect integrity. It may be that men find that
they cannot keep the oath completely, and when they have
once broken it are reckless."
" It is more likely," I said, " that the corruption pro
duced the oath. Mahmoud probably saw or suspected
what was going on, thought that he could check it by an
oath, and failed, as every attempt of the kind has failed."
"You say," I continued, "that you have no hope for
the Turks while they remain Mussulmen. Have you any
hopes of Christianising them? "
" None," he answered ; " but I have sometimes thought
that, if a man of genius became Sultan, it would be in his
power, -with the assistance of Europe, to put himself at
the head of the Christian population, and to found a new
Greek empire."

112 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" But he must be a Christian," I said.
" Of course," said E. S., " and that makes my scheme
impossible. For, educated as a sultan always is, it is im
possible that any knowledge as to what Christianity is
should ever reach him. Having given to their sultan
unlimited power, and almost unlimited duties; having
made it necessary that every important measure should be
approved by him, and almost every important paper signed
by him ; having obliged him to be the selector of his mi
nisters, without any parliament or any press, or any public
opinion to guide him, the Turks have taken care to unfit
Mm for any business whatever, to prevent him from acqufr-
ing any knowledge of men or of things. He is kept in
seclusion, -without friends, or even acquaintances, seeing
only his women and his slaves, until he ascends the throne.
He is almost as much secluded even afterwards. He sees
his ministers only when he sends for them on business; he
pays no visits, he receives none ; he lives among his ser
vants, and in Ms harem. This man's only inteUectual
amusement is building. Heis buying up the shore on each
side of the Bosporus, and erecting lines of pasteboard
palaces and kiosks which wiU stretch for miles. Out of
the eight millions sterling constituting the public revenue,
he is supposed to spend on himself and onhis palaces between
two and three, besides having incurred a private debt of
about eight hundred millions of plasties, or about seven
milHons sterling. I will not prophesy," he continued,
" as to Asia, but in Europe the Turkish population is dying
out. A few years ago, I lived for a couple of years among
the Eayahs of Mount Pelion. There is there a community of

CONSULAE INTEEFEEENCE, 113
about 60,000 souls who never aUow a Tm-k to live near
them. They have schools, churches, and much . better
houses than those of Pera. In the plains below them the
Turks rob and murder, and starve. You see nothing here,"
he continued, " of Turkish rule. Here they are restrained
by European opinion ; but, in the remoter districts, where
there is no consul to interfere, the Christians, unless they
are numerous enough and bold enough to defend themselves,
are treated not merely as slaves, but as slaves whom their
masters hate. You may fancy what such a slavery is when
the master is a barbarian."
" But what protection," I said, " can a consul afford to a
Eayah ? If one Turkish suTsject oppresses another, what
has the consul to do with that ? "
" Nothing legally," answered E. S., " much practically.
When a Christian is oppressed, or chooses to describe him
self as oppressed, he tells his story to the consul. The
consul's feelings are excited ; he knows how common
Turkish oppression is ; perhaps the Pasha or Mudyr com
plained of is an old friend, or an old enemy of his own,
whose habits of -violence, or of extortion, he has witnessed.
He beHeves all that he hears; he likes to show activity
and Hberality, and sympathy with the oppressed, and
makes a report, perhaps with some colouring of his own,
to the ambassador. The jimbassador, ' disclaiming all right
' to interfere, yet thinks that he ought to communicate to
' the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or perhaps to the Grand
' Vizier, the information that he has received.' The Minister
or Vizier, bored, perplexed, and worried, ' is most grateful to
' the ambassador for his communication, and knows well

114 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
' that his Excellency was influenced in making it cnly by
' his disinterested wish for the prpsperity of the Turkish
' Empire, and for the base of all prosperity, justice, and
' integrity among its officers.' And ultimately the Mudyr or
Pasha is rebuked ; he is told that his proceedings occasion
trouble, and that he must be cautious how he does any
thing which may offend the prejudices of any of the
consular body."
Sunday, October ISth. — I had a long conversation at
breakfast with E, S, and his younger brpther, a merchant
in Galata, on the state of the Turkish money and finances,
The gold piece is worth mne-tenths of an English sove
reign, or 18s, It is divisible into 100 piastres, so that 110
piastres make 1?,, and 1,000,000 plasties make 90,000ft
But a large amount of paper piastres has been issued not
convertible, the value of which fluctuates, but with a
constant tendency to fall. It- is supposed that about
260,000,000, representing 2,340,000?,, have been issued ;
and that, according to the wants of the treasury, or of the
Sultan, further issues have been made, and -will be made,
from time to time. To-day the 1?, sterling is worth 150
piastres. There is also a base coin called beshlics, of which
400,000,000 have been issued, of the real value of
200,000,000. The first thing to be done is to withdraw from circula
tion the paper and the beshlics, at an expense, amounting
together to 460,000,000, or about 4,140,000?.
The revenue of the state is supposed to amount' to
9,000,000?. sterling. From this the Sultan takes what -he

TUEKISH FINANCES. 115
Ukes — he is supposed to take about 2,500,000?. This,
however, does not pay his expenses. He has contracted a
debt of about 800,000,000 piastres, or 7,200,000?., for
which he has given promissory notes, some with interest,
some ¦without ; some with a fixed day of .payment, some
¦without. The treasury also is supposed to owe to government
contiactors, and to other persons ¦with whom it has dealincrs,
about 400,000,000 piastres, or about 3,600,000?.
The floating debts, therefore, of the state, and of the
Sultan, including the expense of calling in and redeem
ing the paper and base money, amount to 1,660,000,000
of piastres, or about 14,940,000?. sterHng. Thus consti
tuted : — Paper and base money .... £4,140,000
Sultan's debt  7,200,000
Government floating debt .... 3,600,000
Total . . £14,940,000
But in the present daily depreciation of the paper
plasties, and the doubtfulness of the real value of the
floating debt, it is supposed that the whole 14,940,000?.
could be bought up for 10,000,000?. sterling.*

* Athens, November 26th, 1857.
I received a letter frdm E. S. to-day, in which he says : —
".The Snltan, like most distressed people, has under-rated his debts. We
now flnd that they amount to 10,000,000?., instead of 7,000,000?. Of this
sum, spent, or supposed to have been spent, in about three years, one-third,
at the very outside, represents value received, — all the rest is robbery."
To carry out the scheme of redemption mentioned belovv, -Hill require,
therefore, a loan of 14,000,000?. instead of 10,000,000?.
I 2

116 A JOUENAL KEPT EST TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
For this purpose it is proposed to borrow 10,000,000?.,
which it is supposed could be obtained at six per cent.,
payable in gold.
Were this sum raised, and honestly applied, the govern
ment would have a sound undepreciated currency, no
floating debt, and a funded debt of only 18,000,000?., the
present funded debt being 8,000,000?.
The practical difficulty is, how to raise a fund for
payment of the interest.
The proposail is to lay an excise duty on tobacco.
The present consumption is estimated at 500,000 lbs. a
day, or 182,OO0,OOOlbs, a year, about 7 lbs. per head, on
the whole population per year, worth about eightpence a
pound. A duty of a penny a pound would produce
765,416?. ; a d^aty, therefore, of twopence a pound, or
twenty-five per cent., would produce 1,530,832?. — a sum
sufficient to pay all expenses of collection, to leave a large
margin for loss, and yet to pay the interest and extinguish
the debt in less than twerity years.
" But," I said to E. S., " how are you to prevent the
renewal of the floating debt ? "
"As respects the treasury," he answered, "their debt
arose dm-ing the war, and ought jiot to be renewed during
peace ; as for the Sultan, he has agreed, by the Hatt-i
Hum&yoon, to restrict himself to a civil list, and to pubHsh
his expenditure. If he will be satisfled ¦with 1,500,000?.
a year, which is more than the expenditure of Louis
Napoleon, of Alexander, indeed of any European sovereign,
three times as much as that of Queen Victoria, we shall do.
It is monstrous that the finances of a great empire should

TUEKISH FINANCES. 1,17-
be ruined by the freaks of a madman, who having already
some fifty palaces, wishes to build fifty more. Much as I
dislike interference in the internal affairs of the country,
I think that this is a matter which the diplomatic body
should' take up. They should point out to the Sultan the
necessity of performing his promises, of fixing a civil list,
and of adhering to it. It is. the most important clause in
the Hatt-i-HumSyoon."
" The English and French ambassadors," I said, "might
interfere, for they really ¦wish for the improvement of
Turkey; but I doubt their being joiaed by the Eus
sian, who certainly does not ¦wish for the recovery of the
patient." " And as to the palaces and kiosks," said E. S.," they will
be convenient to the Eussian princes. There is accommoda
tion on the shores of the Bosporus for aH the grand-
dukes and grand-duchesses."
I started ¦with E. S. at eight, by the first steamer, to visit
the Grand Vizier, EescMd Pasha, and Vefic Effendi,
at thefr houses on the Bosporus. We were too late, how
ever, for the Grand Vizier, and for Vefic. They also
started at eight, to attend a council in Stamboul.
Eeschid we found at home. E. S. proposed to him his
scheme for the re-establishment of the Turkish finances.
Eeschid listened attentively, and approved it. He then
turned to me, and talked about India.
" The French and Germans," he said, " think that the
strength of England is in India, that if you lose India, you
sink into a secoridary power, like Holland."
" There cannot," I said, " be a greater mistake. If we
I 3

118 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
¦were well quit of India, we should be much stionger
than we are now. The difficulty is, how to get well quit
of it."
Several other vidtors now came in.
In a Turkish house, the end of the room under the'
windows is occupied by the divan, the other end by the
door ; and on the two remaining sides chafrs are placed
along the wall, and never moved ; the whole centre is
empty. We sat on chairs on each side of Eeschid. The divan
was vacant. The new -visitors sat on the other side of the
room, opposite to us. The conversation, therefore, across
a room forty feet broad, was not confidential.
We finished our pipes, and left him ; he begged me to
let him see me again before I left the country,
T, U, paid me a visit in the evening. He is an English
man who has for many years held a high rank in the
Turkish service. He, too, talked of the prospects of
Turkey ; and took a different view of them, but scarcely a
more sanguine one than that of E, S,
" Turkey," he said, " is like the man in MoUere, who
died of three physicians, and two apothecaries. She is'the
seat of war in which seventeen embassies, every one
attacking every other, fight thefr battles at her expense.
When Eeschid is in power, France tries to spoil his policy,
when Fuad or Mustapha succeeds him, England opposes
him. Austria and Eussia have each their protiges and
their victims. For one friend, every minister has sixteen
enemies, all intriguing against Mm, rousing against him
the suspicions of Ms master, getting him whispered again.st

PEOSPECTS OF TUEKEY. 119
in the Harem, discrediting his reforms, preventing their
being tried, or striving to defeat them when they are tried.
Leave her quiet for ten yeai-s, and she -will, at least to some
extent, reform herself. But the bullying, and perverseness,
and mischief-making of the ambassadors, make everytMng
that is European distasteful to her. They defeat their
object. We wish to promote the immigration of Christians
into Turkey, and we are right in wishing it. But every
Christian immigrant, protected by his capitulations and by
his corisul, becomes a little tyrant ; he insults the Tm-ks,
breaks their laws, invokes his consul ; and defies them.
You must not suppose that the European protigis, except
perhaps the Greeks, are fair samples of the people of their
respective countries. They are the refuse of their fellow-
subjects. The English protiges are lonians and Maltese;
the French are Arabs and Cabyles ; the Austrian are Croats
and Dalmatians.
" The Turks are a proud, reserved people, as fastidious
and as sensitive as the most aristocratic Englishman. Of
com-se, they take every means, fair and unfair, to keep out
the vulgar, insolent, oppressive foreigner ; and as long as
the consciousness of diplomatic protection renders him
insolerit and oppressive, they will keep him out. Force
him to behave well, by rendering him amenable to the
laws of the country, aud they -will welcome him, or at
least tolerate Mm."
" Are you," I said, " among those who believe the sick
ness of Turkey to be mortail ? "
" I do not think," he answered, " that her intemal dis-
I 4

120 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE
orders are mortal, at least, such as to kill her -within the
period of our lives, or of those of our cMldren. Of course
in time she will fall to pieces as England -will, as France
will, as every empire will ; and I think that I perceive
oauses at work which must prevent her lasting for many
centui-ie's. But I fear that she will not resist for many
years what may be called the external source of disease, the
poison of diplomacy."
"And what," I said, "are the principal internal
diseases ? "
" The great and permanent one," he answered, '' is the
diminution of the number of Turks, both positively and
as compared with other Mussulmen, and still more as com
pared with the Greeks, The Turk is proud and idle ; he
is not a producer ; he can multiply only by forcing subject
races to work for him ; his women, weakened by thefr un
natural Hfe, and by premature marriage, are not prolific.
The whole burden of miUtary service falls on him, and
the losses of a war, -with Turkish hospitals, and a Turkish
commissariat, are enormous, I have passed through whole
districts in which I eaw only women and old men,"
" But now," I said, " the Eayahs are to take their turn in
military ser-viee;"
" The ambassadors," said T. U., " made poor Eeschid
insert that clause in the Hatt-i-Humdyoon. They claimed
for the Eayahs the honour and the advantage of joining in
the defence of the country ; but the Eayahs protest against
thefr new pri-vilege. They are not fond of fighting, stiU
less of fighting for Turks ; and they fear that the Turks

PEOSPECTS OF TUEKEY. 121
¦will corrupt the faith and the morals of their children.
The Turks, too, have had a waj-ning from India. They
see the danger of putting arms into the hands of a subject
race. The only result is that instead of the Haratch, the
Eayahs pay a new and larger tax to be excused from
service, " Under the influence of these causes," he continued,
" the Turks are dying out, gradually in Asia, but quickly
in European Tui-key,"
" And what," I asked, " is their next great disease ? "
" I was dining the other day,'' he answered, " -with
several Pashas, 'What,' they said, 'is the principa,! change
which you have observed during the thfrty years that you
have known Turkey ? '
" ' The great increase,' I answered, * of corruption,'
" 'I am not surprised,' said one of them, 'at your an
swer,' and the rest assented,
" This is bad, not only as a cause of evil, but as a sign.
It shows that the higher classes have lost their self-respect;
that they despair of the future, and are anxious merely to
get the means of immediate employment. Then there is
the pride of ignorance, the recklessness of the Mussulman
character, the absence of education in their public men,
the carelessness -with which they are selected, thefr want
of confidence in one another, their constant intrigues and
quarrels ; and I think these are diseases enough to make
the man very sick, though, if he were left to himself, he
might drag on for a long time,"
Monday, October 19th. — I retm-ned to Therapia,

122 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEICEY AND GEEECE.
In the afternoon I walked -with Calvert through a wood,
wMch extends for about a mile in length and half a mile
in breadth, over the slopes and vaUeys above Buyucdereh.
Part of it must be an abandoned pleasui-e-ground, for it
contains avenues of cypress and stone pine, which evidently
have been planted by man. Other parts, in which the
chestnut predominates, appear to be ancient forest, Where-
ever there was an opening among the boughs, we looked
down on the Bosporus to the south, and the Black Sea to
the north.
We talked of Asia Minor, in which Calvert has spent
some years, partly at Kaiseriyah and partly at Koniah,
" Kaiseriyah," he said, " has a bad climate, hot in
summer, with a dry penetrating cold in winter ; but in
many respects it is an agreeable residence,- The scenery
is magnificent, as the great volcanic Mount Ergish, 13,000
feet high, rises above it, naked until it is clothed with per
petual sno-w, but bold and picturesque in form.
" The richer inhabitants have houses finer than those
of Constantinople, and I found the 'Turks very hospitable
and kind."
" "What are the relative numbers ? " I asked, " of the
Mussulman and Christian populations ? "
"The Mussulmen," he answered, "are three to one.
The Christian women are more in the open afr, and are
healthier, and have more and healthier children. The
Christians are gaining on them. The Christians, too, are
more intelligent and diligent. They monopolise the trades
of the towns ; the Turks are generally agriculturists. Most

IfAISEEIYAH. 123
of the Turkish proprietors are heavily in debt ; they do
not know what are their incomes or their expenditure.
They have fine horses, plenty of game, hunt and shoot, visit
one another and the Europeans, attend to their estates,
and lead a pleasant country gentlemanlike life."
" Of course," I said, " they have not much knowledge of
literature ? "
" Of course not," he answered ; " they do not read, but
yet they are fond of poetry; not of long poems, but of de
tached verses, or scraps of ballads, which they have learned
by frequently hearing them.
"As for the government," he continued, "when I left
Kaiseriyah ten years ago, it was better than I had found
it a few years before, and it is said to have improved since.
The nomad tribes, Turcomans and Kurds, who travel
with their flocks and herds to the coast in winter, and to
the central plateaus of Asia Minor in summer, are the pest
of the country ; they plunder and destroy along their line
of march. The robbers, too, are a frightful nuisance.
'While I was in Kaiseriyah, the police were said to be in
league -with them ; it was obvious that they made few
efforts to put them down. Justice was on sale, and so was
evidence, but there was not much active oppression. The
taxes were Hght, and not rigorously exacted."
" Could a Turk," I asked, " who wished to build a house,
seize the land of a Eayah ? "
" Certainly not," he answered ; " but perhaps he might
obtain it through a court of law. The evidence of a
Christian was not received against a Mussulman, Chris-

124 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
tians, however, in general were rather degraded than
oppressed ; they were not allowed to ride on horses, they
were required to wear a peculiar dress. If a Christian
met a Turk, even of the lowest class, it was his duty to
stand aside -with his hands crossed, untU the great man,
perhaps a porter, or a beggar, had passed,"
Thursday, October 22nd. — At this season it is difficult
to obtain an interview ¦with a Turkish minister. They
live on the Bosporus, leave thefr houses at eight or nine
in the morning, stay in their offices till four, and return
at six. In warm weather you can dine with them and
return by water, but an hour's row at night in an open
caique is now disagreeable ; there are no roads, and, unless
by a bright moon, one cannot walk over the hills,
I went, therefore, to-day with Mr, Alison, the Secretary
of Legation, to Constantinople, in order to be presented to
them at the Porte, — an unsatisfactory mode of visiting
them, as you are always intsrrupted, but the only one
practicable. We rowed down in about two hours to Beshistash, where
the Sultan has pulled down one large palace, and is
building another, and walked up the hill by a road made
by the French, to the EngHsh palace in Pera. It is a
large square house in an extensive garden, looking down
from the plateau of the Pera Hill, o-ver a forest of ancient
cypresses, to the Golden Horn.
We breakfasted at Miseres' Hotel, a good house, un
promising in front, but commanding a fine view behind.
There we found Colonel Eber, and Signor. Aristarchi and
his wife, a pretty Greek. He is the logothete or channel

ATLTHCR B.HiWI^S , iUtt'' 1637,

M fc^T.HAaJHART.. LlTHl

STAMBOUL

CHANGE OF MINISTEY. 12S
of communication between the Turkish govemment and
the Patriai-ch of Constantinople, They asked us whither
we were going,
" To the Porte," we answered,
" It is of no use," they replied ; " you will find nobody.
The ministry are out ; Eeschid Pasha is grand-vizier. The
Black Ears called up Mustapha Pasha at midnight, and
demanded the seal of office."
" Who is Black Ears ?" I asked.
"Black Ears," they answered, "or, in Turkish, kara
koulac, is an officer whose duty it is to notify to the grand-
vizier and to the other ministers thefr dismissal. He
always delivers the message a Httle after midnight."
"An unpleasant duty," I said.
" By no means," said Eber, " he gets a backshish. In
good old times he had to strangle the vizier. After that
practice was discontinued, he bore a message ordering him
into exile. Now the fall from power is broken by a large
pension, about 6,000?, a year."
" How is this change of ministry accounted for ? " I
asked, "It was well known," answered Aristarchi, "that the
Sultan parted from Eeschid with great reluctance, and
only under Thouvenel's threat, that while Eeschid re
mained grand-vizier, there could be no real friendship
between Turkey and France, Perhaps it was the spon
taneous act of the Sultan; perhaps it was arranged
between him and Eeschid, during the long day that they
passed together last week; perhaps some diplomatic
intrigue is at the bottom of it, — perhaps some female one,"

126 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" The most probable solution," said Eber, " is that the
Sultan wanted money, and that Mustapha could not or
would not let him have it, EescMd, perhaps, is more
compliant or more adroit. The paper piastre has fallen
again to-day, A new issue may have taken place."
" Was there a new moon this morning ? " I asked.
" Yes ; " they ans-wered ; " why do you inquire ? "
" Because," I replied, " I was told ten days ago that the
Sultan was waiting only for the fortunate period of a new
moon to recall Eeschid."
"He was waiting," said Aristarchi, "for the month
Zaphir to be well over. During that month, indeed,
until three or four days after its expiration, no Turk
begins any important piece of business. No one would
lay the foundation of a house, or marry, or buy an estate
during Zaphir. Zaphir kept Mustapha Pasha in power
for some weeks."
As it was useless to -visit the Porte, we went to the
arsenal. We saw first Mustapha Pasha, not- related to
the ex-vizier, who is second in command of the Turkish
fleet. He speaks very good English. Neai-ly all thefr
large ships of war are saiHng vessels. I asked, if it was
intended to add screws to them.
" No ; " he answered, " om- ships decay so rapidly, that
it is better to let them wear out, and to build new ones."
" I thought," I said, " that your ships, which seldom
leave the Mediterranean, or indeed the Sea of Marmoraj
lasted for forty or fifty years."
" So," he replied, " they ought to do, and so they would
do if they were built of timber, cut at the right season.

GOLDEN HOEN. 127
«
and properly seasoned ; but I cannot get them to cut the
timber in winter, or to keep it under cover a sufficient
time. They cut it down when full of sap, and perhaps
leave it in the forest, or by the road side in the rain or
snow for months. The result is that our ships decay in
seven or eight years."
"When we had finished our pipes with Mustapha, we
went on to visit Admfral Slade, who is superintendent of
the dock-yard, under the title of Mushaver Pasha. He
manned his boat, and rowed us by the side of the Fanal,
up the Golden Horn, a scene of which it is impossible, to
tfre. The great Turkish Hne-of-battle-ships were in the
centre; beyond them were the forests of masts of the
merchant vessels ; then Stamboul rose to the south,
between the cypresses of the Seraglio to the east, and
those of Eyub to the west, while Galata and Pera, and
more distant suburbs, divided by the dark green groves
which mark cemeteries, ascended the hills to the north.
Their minarets, domes, and houses of fantastic irregular
architectm-e, and bright colours, separated from one another
by green terraced gardens planted with cypresses, stone
pines and planes, mounted tier above tier, until they met
an horizon and a sky as clear and unclouded as those of
Southem Italy.
The mutual adaptation of the different parts of the
scenery of the Bosporus is striking ; the flat sea, and
the hills above it, swelling in gentle curves, are cut by the
tall slender minarets and cypresses, and by the masts of
the sMps, — objects which, if they were placed among
mountains or precipices, would lose their importance.

128 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Half the charm would be gone, if, instead of the wooden
Turkish houses, angular and picturesque, every low story
projecting over the one underneath, until half the bmlding
overhangs the water, there were substituted English or
French houses of stone or brick, -with London-looking
fapades and pediments, and slate roofs and chimneys and
chimney pots.
It is true that the beauty of Constantinople vamshes as
soon as you land. You grope and stumble and fight your
way through the rough, dirty, narrow, crowded, steep lanes
that wind among these picturesque houses, and wonder
what has become of the fairy-like palaces and gardens,
which enchanted you from the water.
We looked at the workshops, in which the machinery of
the steam navy is repaired ; they do not attempt to make ¦
it. The workmen are Turkish, the superintendents EngHsh,
They are sober hard-working men, but associate little ¦with
the Turks, and cannot be drilled into paying the outward
respect which in this ceremonious country is expected by
persons in office. They are less unpopular, however, than
the French, whose contempt is active and aggressive.
In the middle of the arsenal is the kiosk and garden of
the Sultan, in which he can sit in rooms wainscoated ¦with
porcelain and paved with marble, or under planes older
than the Conquest, separated only by a wall from his dock
yard, and from the chained malefactors who form the bulk
of the workmen in it.
Having heard much of the Bagmo in which these
wretches are confined at night, I begged the Admfral to
take me to it. It cpnsists of a large open court, at the end

BAGNIO, 129
of which is a building of two stories. Each story is one
long room divided into stalls by wooden fences, dark, un
ventilated, and dirty beyond description.
At the entrance of one of the stalls stood a man to whom
Admfral Slade spoke; he was rather below the middle
size, ¦with no great appearance of strength, his features
small, and the expression of his face rather depressed than
fierce. " TMs," said Slade, " is Yani Katergee. His message to
Ismail Pasha has cost him dear. He is not allowed to quit
this stall, and probably -will never be released."
I was struck by the number of prisoners who were sitting
idle in the sun.
" No one," said Slade, " is forced to work ; if they do, as
' is the case with perhaps half of them, they receive a little
more food and a little money.
" On the whole," he continued ; " if I were to be in a
prison, I think that I. should select this. The sleeping
accommodation shocks us, but it is qmte as good as that in
any other of our prisons ; better than what these people,
who are most of them Greeks from the islands, were ac
customed to at home. By day they have a large court ;
if they choose to work, they have the whole arsenal ; their
labour is voluntary, and their lives are long. They are
chained together, it is true, but that is a precaution abso
lutely necessary to prevent mutiny. You must remember
that there is not a man here who does not deserve death,
Seme, like Yani Katergee, have been professional murderers
for years.
In Ulness their chains are taken off,— a reform which I

1.30 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
obtained No attempt is made to tease them by imposing
silence, or regular hours, or cleanHness, They have coffee-
shops, and tobacco-shops in their yards, and a mosque
and two churches ; for a brigand who acknowledges the
Patriarch of Constantinople -will not pray with one who
acknowledges the Pope, There is little punishment, per
haps not a tenth of what is inflicted in an English or
in an American gaol. The few Mussulmen among them
accept their confinement as the will of God, and the
Christians, not being irritated by any vexatious rules im
posed for the purpose of making their imprisonment
irksome, are free from the vindictiveness which you see in
the scowl of a French format. We have been walking
freely among 800 of them without any guard,"
Mr, Hornby, and W,, sat with me in the steamer by
which I returned,
" I am in hopes," said Hornby, " that we shall be able
to punish the Maltese who killed a man in Buyucdereh last
week, "When -I beHeved that Ms crime was mm-der, I des-
pafred. The victim not being a Turk, the prisoner would
have been tried in Malta. The -witnesses are Turks, They
could not have been persuaded to go to Malta, and in the
absence of their e-vidence, he must have been acquitted.
Probably, indeed, he would have been acquitted by a
Maltese jury, whatever were the evidence. But the facts
justify me in indicting him only for manslaughter. He
can be tried therefore in my court,"
" What sort of a jury -will you have ?" I asked.
" Not a very well constituted one," he answered ; " six
jurymen, three of them Maltese, three English. As the

SPIEIT-SHOPS UNDEE BEITISH PEOTECTION. 131
act which gives me my criminal jurisdiction was originally
di-awn, the jury was to consist of seven, and to decide by a
majority; but the law officers required unanimity."
" If the victim," I asked, " had been a Turk, what would
have been done ? "
" The Maltese would have been tried," he answered, " by
the Turks ; but in my presence, and I should have been
entitled to give my opinion,"
" And if you differed from the Turkish judge ?"
" The matter would have been referred to the Porte.
My ambassador woidd have interfered, and the Turks
would have yielded, as in fact they always do. A Maltese
or an loman, or, indeed, any foreigner, if he is supported
by his ambassador, may do what he likes in Turkey."
" Nearly aU the violent crimes of Constantinople," said
W,, "are th« fruits of tbe wine-shops and spirit-shops,
and those shops exist only because the English government
forces the Turks to submit to them. By the Turkish law,
neither -wine nor spfrits can be sold in retaih By the
tareaty of commerce, which was negotiated by Lord Pon
sonby, English subjects are entitled -to full liberty of
trade in Turkey. We interpret this as giving them fuli
liberty to trade in any manner whatever, in defiance of
Turkish laws."
" Do you mean," I said, " that if the Turks prohibited
the sale of poisons, aji English subject would, notwith
standing, claim a right to deal in prussic acid ? "
" Certainly I do," he answered, " The other day there
was a fire in Salonica ; the damage was much increased
because an English subject chose to trade in gunpowder,
K 2

132 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
though forbidden by the TurMsh laws. Some bari-els were
in his house, exploded, and kn'ocked do-wn whole streets.
So Englishmen claim a right to open shops as tailors and
shoemakers, though these trades in Constantinople are
incorporated, and no Turk not a member of the corpora
tion can exercise them. But there cannot be a stronger
case than that of -wine and spirit shops. Such shops are
prohibited by the TurMsh law ; they are looked, on with
horror by the better Turks; they complain that thefr
young men are corrupted there ; but we insist that our
treaty gives us a right to open them, and the only con
cession which we make is that they shall be licensed by our
ambassadors. But what safeguard is that ? What can the
ambassador know of the character of the crowds of lonians
and Maltese who ask for Hcenses ? It is only charitable
to suppose that he knows nothing of them ; for worse
ruffians than the keepers of these shops, or worse dens of
vice and crime than the shops themselves, do not exist.
The Turks, who cannot conceive what interest the British
government can have in diffusing drunkenness and de
pravity, account for our conduct characteristicaUy, They
suppose that the ambassador's people are bribed ; and that
the English government insists on its right to license the
retail sale of wine and spirits, because the fees on licenses
pay a part of the expense of the mission,"
" And how do you," I asked, " explain our conduct ? "
" I must suppose," he said, '' either that the EngHsh
ambassadors who introduced and have continued this
practice were not aware of the extent of its mischievous-
ness, or that they think that, as the treaty, according to their

-VTEFIC EFFENDL 133
interpretation of it, gives to EngHsh subjects a right to
exercise in Turkey any trade whatever, in defiance of
TurMsh mumcipal law, the lonians and Maltese have a
vested right to diffuse drunkenriess and crime, — a right
which the English minister, though he may deplore it,
must protect,"
On my return I found that the "Ospray," the EngHsh
despatch-boat kept for the service of the Embassy, had
changed her berth. She was moored in the port of The
rapia, She has now crossed over to the Asiatic side of the
Bosporus, and Hes at anchor near an uninhabited shore,
below the Giant's Mountain,
" It , is very inconvenient," said Captain Bloomfield to
me, " as I am separated by a couple of miles of sea from
the Embassy, -with which I must be in constant communi
cation ; but I found that the -svine and spirit shops, of whioh
Therapia is full, demoralised my crew,"
Friday, October 23rd — I walked over with Alison to
Eumeli Hissari, to breakfast -with Vefic Effendi, After
breakfast we strolled and smoked for a couple of hours in
Ms garden, on one of the finest plateaus over the Bos
porus, " This house and garden," he said, " and the slope of
the hill down to the town, I bought about five years ago,
I could seU them for about ten times what I then paid.
But though my capital has increased, the general rise of
prices makes me feel rather poorer, I spend now, and have
spent for several years, 1500?. a year, and I find that the
regulation of my expenses requires more care than it used
to do." E 3

134 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
"What," I asked, "are the principal causes of the
general rise of prices ? "
"Wages," he answered, "have risen from several causes.
First, from the great loss of men during the war. Secondly,
from the increase of commerce, which has enormously
increased the demand for outdoor labour. Our beasts
of burthen are men. Our streets do not admit wheeled
carriages or sledges, so that the transport which horses
perform ¦with you is effected by men here. Thfrdly,
the wealth obtained during the war is now being spent
stupidly and lavishly by people who have not been
trained to expenditure, and mismanage it. So much
for the rise of general prices. As for the rise in the
value of our land, the steamers have made the shores of
the Bosporus, which were always frequented by states
men and men of fortune, fashionable also among mer
chants and men of business. Our public men, too, are
certainly richer than they used to be ; they bring back
more money from their pashalics, they seem to get more
money here ; at least, they spend more. Lastly, in the
limited mai-ket of good bmlding sites, the presence of so
large a demander as the Sultan is important."
" Has land," I asked, " in the provinces proportionably
' increased in value ? "
"Not quite in proportion," he answered; "but posi
tively it has much increased during the last twenty years.
Eeschid Pasha's reforms, the direct collection of the pro
perty tax, which before his time was farmed, and the
abolition of monopolies, and of the internal customs and
octrois, gave a great impulse to agriculture, the strongest
propf of which is their effect on the revenue. The re-

EESCHID pasha's EBFOEMS. 135
venue, when he began his reforms, was about five miUions
sterling. It fell at once to two and a half; but the next
year it rose to six, then to seven, and now it is between
eight and nine."
" Was not Eeschid's abolition of monopolies," I asked,
"incomplete? I hear that the butchers, the bakers, the
taUors, in short, all the trades of Constantinople, are
subdi^vided into corporations, each of which has a mono
poly of its own trade, and regulates prices and even the
details of manufacture. I am told that the monopoly of
the butchers occasions meat to be bad and dear, that the
bakers spoU the bread, and that, in other trades, improved
instruments and processes cannot be intioduced, because
all innovation is forbidden by the corporation."
" That is peculiar," he answered, " to Constantinople.
The tradespeople of Constantinople were too strong for
Eeschid, bold as he is."
" Is it true," I asked, " that we claim a right under our
tieaty of commerce to open shops in defiance of the cor
porations ? "
" It is true," he answered.
" And is it true that we claim a right to exercise trades
forbidden by the general laws of the empfre, such as the
retail trade in ¦wines and spirits ? "
" Unhappily," he answered, " that also is true. I can
not think this interpretation of the tieaty fair or even
plausible. When we gave to you fuU liberty of trade, we
meant commerce, not retaU trade. We meant that you
might bring us cloth or leather, not that you might be our
tailors or shoemakers. We meant you to bring us wine
K 4

136 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and gin in barrels, not to open spfrit-shops in breach of
our reHgion and our laws, and to corrupt and poison our
people. " But you put your pwn interpretation on the treaty ;
there is no judge between nations ; you are the stronger,
and we- must submit. Perhaps we are justly punished.
We were insolent and unjust in our dealings with foreign
nations in our day of power. Now in our adversity you
trample on us. It is the -will of God ; but I sometimes
wish either that I had been born before the foreigners came
to interfere with us and to oppress us, or had been reserved
for the time, which must come if we are to remain a na
tion, when this interference and oppression will have
ceased." " You call Eeschid bold," I said.
" I know no one," answered Vefic, " with more moral
courage. He and Sultan Mahmoud were the two greatest
Turkish statesmen of my time. Mahmoud, perhaps, was
the more remarkable, as he had to struggle with the greater
disadvantages. Eeschid was well educated ; Mahmoud had
no education, not even that of the world. When his brother
was murdered, he was suddenly removed from the seclusion
of the Seraglio to the throne. He found the Jamssaries
masters of Constantinople, indeed, masters of the empire."
" How many were there ? " I asked.
" About 60,000," he answered, " but in Constantinople
not more than 10,000. He resolved to put them do-wn,
and for ten years silently and systematically prepared the
means of doing so. He could not interfere -with their pro
motion, which was by seniority, but he could discharge

JANISSAEIES. 137
them. He gradually weeded out all their best officers,
leaving only the stupid ones in command, and made friends
of the good ones, whom he had removed. When those in
the Etmeidan,. who were not more than a couple of
thousand, mutinied, he attacked them in front with his
regular troops, but took care that their retreat should be
open. They fled after the first discharge ; few were MUed.
He issued violent proclamations against them, but sent
private orders that faciUties should be given to all who
would disavow the character. There were 6000 on board
the fleet ; he desfred them to be given up to him. The
Capitan Pasha answered that he had none; that no one
admitted himself to be a Janissary. About 800, who had
been eminent for their crimes, were regularly tried and
executed. Never was a great revolution effected with so
little bloodshed. The accounts of it in the European his
tories are false almost from beginning to end."
We talked of the Bagmo.
" It seems to me," I said, " that having formerly abused
capital punishment, you now use it too little. I am told
that among the 800 men in the Bagmo, 600 are murderers
and banditti — men who in any other part of Europe would
be put to death."
" Our law," he answered, "as to capital punishment, is
peculiar. It cannot be inflicted unless there is ocular
evidence of the crime."
"But such," I said, "was not your practice."
" So far," he answered, " as our practice was otherwise,
it was an abuse."
" Then," I said, « if I hear screams, go in their dfrec-

13» A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
tion, and meet a man running away, carrying a sword
covered with blood, and find another man just kiUed on
the road, cannot the murderer be punished ? "
" He can be imprisoned for life," answered Vefic, " but
the evidence being only cfrcumstantial, he caimot be put
to death."
" Your laws," I said, " would be an interesting study."
" I could show you," he answered, " fifteen or twenty
volumes of them, and many more volumes of our works on
morality; but they are not translated. To know this
country, you must do four tMngs. First, you must learn
the language ; secondly, you must unlearn all your previous
notions; thirdly, you must seek the truth, not facts in
support of preformed conclusions; and lastly, you must
stay among us for three or four years. Slade's," he con
tinued, "are among the best works on Turkey, and
Urquhart's, favourable as he is to us, are among the worst ;
he is an advocate, not a critic. But you must trust none
of them."
Saturday, October 24dh. — I sat at dinner next to V. W.,
who has just returned from the frontier separating Turkish
and Eussian Armenia.
He gave a frightful account of the misgovemment of
Turkish Armema..
" It is such," he said, " that the people are -wishing for
the Eussians. A new Pasha, and there is one every three
or four years, sends word of his arrival to all the subor
dinate local officers. This is a notice to all office holders
to be prepared with their bribes, and to all office hunters
to be prepared to outbribe them."

TUEKISH AEMENIA. 139
" And how," I said, " do those who have bribed him get
back their money ? "
"By increasing the taxation," he answered, "by not
accounting for the public receipts, by ¦winking at breaches
of quarantine laws, or non-payment of custom-house dues,
by selling justice, and through the corUSea. The last is a
fertile source of profit. The Pasha is maMng a progress ;
the ¦villages in his line have to furnish camels and horses ;
the Nazir requfres twice as many, or five times as many, as
are reaUy wanted, and is bribed to reduce his demand. If
the -village is rich and bribes highly, it furnishes none, and
the burden falls on those who caimot buy themselves off ;
they are forced to travel -with thefr beasts for ten or for
twenty days, unpaid, carrying their own food and that of
thefr beasts, or plundering it, and are discharged perhaps
100 miles from home ; their cattle and themselves lame
and worn out. The amount of tyranny may be inferred
from the depopulation. You see vast districts -without an
inhabitant, m which are the traces of a l£u:ge and civilised
people, great works for frrigation now in rmris, arid coristant
remains of deserted to-wns. There is a city near the frontier
-with high walls and large stone houses, now absolutely un
inhabited ; it had once 60,000 inhabitants. There is not
a palace on the Bosporus that has not decimated the
inhabitants of a province.
« Besides the wholesale robbery of the great Turks, there
is the petty oppression of the little Tm-ks. One of them,
with his belt fuU of pistols, walks up to a Eayah's house.
He calls out the master, who perhaps is the head man of
the village, and bids him hold his horse. He walks in, sits

140 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
down, and makes the women Hght his pipe. The girls all
run away, and hide in the outhouses, or among the neigh
bours. When he has finished his pipe, he asks for a fowl.
He is told that there are none. A few blows bring one out,-
a few more produce bread and wine. What is the source
of this insolence ? That he is armed, and that he is the
only person in the village who is so."
" Are the Eayahs," I said, " forbidden to wear arms ? "
" Forbidden," he answered, " not only to wear them, but
to possess them. The Turks from time to time search the
houses of the Eayahs, and if they find arms, seize them,
and beat the householders. If the Eayahs were armed, or
the Turks were disarmed, there would be none of this
petty oppression.
" The Turkish Government lost, two years ago, a noble
opportunity of producing equality among its different races.
Before it disbanded its ai-my, it might have employed it to
disarm the TurMsh population ; now it is too late."
" Could the government," I asked, " aUow the Eayahs
to wear arms ? "
" That," he answered, " would be giving the signal for
civil war. I saw much," he added, " of the TurMsh army.
Nothing could be worse than the officers, nothing could be
better than the soldiers. Thefr courage, their sobriety,
their patience, their endurance of want, hardship, and
fatigue were beyond all praise. I never was more indignant
than I was at their treatment after the war. They were
carried from the Crimea to Varna, or Samsoon, or Trebi
sond, landed, presented with twenty piastres, that is to say,
with three shilHngs and fourpence, and left to find their

CIECASSIA. . 141
own way home, perhaps a march of thirty or forty days.
Some robbed, some begged, some starved. Those who
survived reached home thoroughly disaffected to the
Turkish Government, and resolved never to serve it again."
" Those who were employed," I said, " in defimng the
Turkish frontier had nothing to do -with Circassia."
"Nothing," he answered; "-the Treaty of Paris, by
admitting that the Eussian frontier was to the south of
Cfrcassia, -virtually hands over Cfrcassia to Eussia. Schamyl
did not deserve such treatment. He did not actually co
operate ¦with us, because we never gave him an opportunity,
and he would not join the Turks, who in that country were
always beaten, but he occupied a Eussian army of 70,000
men, and he offered, if we would land 20,000 men on the
shore of the Black Sea nearest to him, to assist us ¦with
60,000 men. I firmly beHeve that he would have done so,
and that -with his aid we should have driven the Eussians
out of their Caucasian provinces. I know that this is what
the Eussians feared, and I think it probable that if the war
had continued, we should have done this in 1856."
" What," I asked, " is the population of which he can
dispose ? ''
" I believe," answered V. W., " that it amounts to about
500,000 souls. It consists of three tribes, for centuries
bitter enemies, whom he has reconciled and united against
Eussia. In time, of com-se, he must be overpowered ; but
it may take years. On all sides, except to the north, his
country is protected by impassable mountains. To the
north there are. hundreds of miles of forest; through. this
forest the Eussians advance. They make a road a mile

142 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
broad, through the centre of which they can mai-ch -with
tolerable safety. To do this for five or six miles in length
costs them perhaps a year, for every inch is disputed. They
build a fort near the end of their clearance, to be the point
of departure the next year ; and thus, employing an army
of 100,000 men, of whom one-third die of fever every year,
they wUl in time conquer the country, by the utter destruc
tion of all its inhabitants."
"WiU Schamyl submit?" I asked.
" Never," answered V. W. ; " neither he nor his son,
who in time ¦will take his place. They have always refused
even to negotiate with Eussia. He is an enthusiast, as all
great men are. He owes to his talents and to his enthu
siasm his position ; for he is not a man of Mgh birth or of
fortune. He and his family live in the utmost poverty ;
all that they have is spent in the war."
" Like everybody else," I said, " you have, I suppose, a
theory as to the prospects of Turkey."
" My theory," he answered, " is, that nothing whatever
is to be done with the Turks. They refuse all remedies
and perhaps they are right, for no remedies can cure them.
But I believe that some of their Christian provinces might
be formed into an independent federal state. Servia, the
Principalities, and Bulgaria, offer the elements of such a
federation. Bosnia, Albania, and EoumeHa, might also
perhaps be united, though the large proportion of Mussul
men makes that more difficult. But the more one thinks
of the Turkish problem, the greater seem to be the objec
tions to every measure, and the greater the improbabUities
of every supposition. I will venture ueither to advise nor
to prophesy."

EEMEDIES FOE TUEKEY. 143
Swnday, October 25th. — I walked with A. B., before
breakfast, along the wonderfully beautiful hills which
project into th* Bosporus over the promontory of
Yemkoi. The sun rose in a sea-fog, which was lying in a
white compact mass on the water, and mounted half way
up the hills. But the summits were all in bright sunshine ;
and the wooded heights of the Giant's Mountain, and the
old Genoese castle of Joros Scalessi, rose like islands,
looking, from the clearness of the atmosphere and the
absence of intervemng objects, as if they were close at
hand, instead of being five imles off on the Asiatic shore.
Sometimes, when we looked down on the vapour, clothing
the side of a deep ra-vine, the sun's rays produced a
fog-rainbow, a segment of an arch of faint prismatic
colours. I repeated to A. B. my yesterday's conversation with
V. W.
" It may be true," he said, " that the Turk refuses all
remedies, but I do not agree with V. W., that none would
cure him. I think that there is one remedy that would
be effectual — that is to stop corruption."
" That is vei-y well," I said, " but how is it to be done ?
How is salt to be put on the tail of corruption? "
" Were I Sultan," he answered, " the first thing that
I would do would be to issue an order Hmiting the
number of persons forming the retinue of public function
aries. As soon as a man becomes a minister or a governor,
all Ms relations, all the relations of his relations, all the
idlers from bis native village, crowd to soHcit Ms patron
age. ' Bacalum,' he answers, ' wait a bit, and, Inshallah,
I may do something for you.' In the meantime they

144 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
carry Ms slippers, they fill his pipes, they follow him, they
loiter about his house, they form the bulk of his retinue.
They are unpaid attaches. He gives them no wages, but
they get scraps from his Mtchen, and backshish from his
visitors and smtors. As opportunities offer, he provides
for them, he makes them cadys or policemen, or governors
of -villages, or takes them into his paid service as vacancies
occur. This is the stuff of which Pashas are made. A
man once in the service of a great man, whether Mred or
purchased, a servant or a slave, gets from thence into the
service of the public, and then robs and bribes his way
up, till perhaps he marries a sister or a daughter of the
Sultan. Men thus educated are corrupt to the backbone.
They have not a clearer conception of the meaning of the
words honesty or public spirit, than a man born blind has
of the words red or blue. By limiting the number of
persons forming the retinue of public functionaries, I should
cut off in a great measure this source of corruption. I
would allow a man, according to his rank, so many pipe
fillers, slipper carriers, grooms and attendants, and no
more. I would next make it kno-wn that I would punish
severely every case of corruption, but that I should allow
the good Pashas and governors to retain their places as
long as they behaved well. Those who are now unpaid or
underpaid, such as the cadys, I would pay sufficiently, and
I would abolish all fees of court. I would then try to get for
the public service persons resembling what we call gentle
men. There are a few of this class in Turkey ; they are the
sons of Pashas, or of the richer merchants, or of the landed
proprietors. They have not indeed much educatiorij moral

EEMEDIES FOE TUEKEY. 145
or intellectual, but they have some. They are at least
better fitted for the exercise of the large powers entrusted
in Turkey to public men, than those whose early life has
been passed as slaves or as hangers-on, loitering in the
halls and , passages of a great man's house. I feai-, as
I said before, that the patient -will not take this re
medy, but if he were to do so, I think that he might
recover strength sufficient to enable him to resist the
decornposing influence of European interference. If he
refuses this remedy, if he persists in maMng his adminis
tration one vast robbery, it seems to me that the powers
which, like England, -wish Mm to preserve his domimon
over the races now subject to him, have only one course
to pursue. They must leave him alone, and take care
that he is left alone by everybody else. They must take
as much pains to exclude him from the European famUy
as they have taken to introduce him into it. Left to him
self, not misled by bad advice or by good advice, not teased
into issuing Hatt-i-Hum&yoons opposed to all Ms principles
of government, he can hold his own against Greek, Bul
garian, Eouman, or Slave. He ¦will insult them, he -will
rob them, he will oppress them, but he -will keep them
do-wn. This is the price which must be paid for preserving
the integrity of the Turkish Empire, on the supposition
that the administration of that empfre is, as I fear that -it
is, unimprovable."
Monday, Qctober 26th. — I went with Mr. Zohrab to
Tpphana, the mUitary arsenal, to be presented to Achmet
Fethi Pasha, the chief of the ordnance department. He
married a sister of the Sultan's, and one of Ms sons by a
L

146 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
former wife (he is not allowed to have any by his imperial
wife) is to marry a daughter of the Sultan's. Such alliaJaces
confer the highest rank of which a TurMsh subject is ca
pable. Alison told me that he was present when Ali Galeb
Pasha, son of Eeschid Pasha, then affianced, though not actu
ally married, to a daughter of the Sultan, came to visit his
father, then grand vizier. Eeschid rose, placed Ms son on
the seat of honour, and stood before him until requested
to sit. The young man took it as a matter of course.,
Fethi and his second in command, Halim Pasha, edu
cated in England, are said to be the best administrators in
Turkey. Fethi was visiting the Sultan when we arrived,
so that we had time to go over the miUtary arsenal. It
looked clean and orderly, and can turn out, I am told, a
brass gun a day. On one side of it is a mosque, graceful
and eleganti but not large, with the usual accompaniment,
a marble fountain.
At last the Pasha arrived. Chairs were placed in the
shade of a kiosk occupied by the Sultan when he visits the
arsenal. He took his seat, and we were introduced and
placed by his side. We had coffee, but no pipes. He has
an asthmatic complaint, which renders him unable to
smoke, or even to endure the smell of tobacco. No one,
therefore, smokes in his presence, not even the Sultan.
His hair, as it peeped from under his fez, is white, but his
beard and whiskers are a beautiful black and tan. Zohrab
told me that he visited him a few days ago, when out of
office, and found his beard as white as his hair. He
divided his attention between us and the persons who came
to him on business. They approached him with great
reverence; many kissed the hem of his garment. He

PEOSPECTS OF TUEKEY. 147
seemed to do his work quickly, but carefuUy. He had
just received the news of the fall of Delhi. He congra
tulated me on it, and said that he considered the mutiny
as essentially subdued. I told him how grateful we all
felt for his zealous co-operation during the war. He was
too busy for much conversation, and we left him as soori
as we had finished our coffee.
Tuesday, October 2lth. — ^We drank tea with our French
friend, E. F. He congratulated me on the fall of Delhi.
" You are fighting," he said, " in India the battie of civiH
sation. If you were to fail, the shock to the prestige of the
Christians would be felt over the whole Mussulman world
— in Constantinople, in Algeria, and even in Morocco."
I asked him if it was true that the Sultan sent to inform
M. Thouvenel that he was going to recall Eeschid.
"It is true," he answered; "but as it was a matter of
purely Turkish interest, I do not know why he took the
trouble. The only answer that Thouvenel could return
was, that he hoped that it would turn out well. These
changes are farces. One grand vizier does just as well,
and just as ill, as another. This country," he continued,
" is a paurriture. To ci-vilise the Mussulman is impos
sible. All that we can do is to try to raise the Christian.
He has bome on his shoulders far too long this cadavre.
England and France must join to assist him in thromng
it off. They must enforce the honest execution of the
Hatt-i-Hum&yoon. You are going," he continued, "to
Smyrna and to Greece. "When you are at Smyrna, visit
Ephesus. You -will ride through fifty miles of the most
fertile soil, blessed -with the finest climate in the world.
L 2

148 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
You will not see an inhabitant nor a cultivated field. This
is Turkey. In Greece, or in the Principalities, you ¦will
find comparative numbers, wealth, and pppulation. They
have been misgoverned ; they have been the seat of war ;
but they have thro-wn off the Turk."
Wednesday, October 28th. — I walked with. C. D. for a
couple of hours along the terraced avenues of his garden.
" The last time," I said, " that we walked in this garden,
you said that you thought that a man of talent, boldness,
and decision could, even now, save the Turkish Empire.
" Let us suppose such a man on the Sultan's throne.
What ought he to do ?"
" He ought," said C- D., " in the first place, to separate
religion from government, which still in some matters are
confounded. Secondly, he must fund the floating debt, and
restore the currency, for which the plan is already prepared,
and he must pay off the funded debt and prevent the re
currence of the floating debt by putting an end to the
madness of palace-building, and by substituting direct
collection of the revenue for the present system of farms.
I have no doubt that the revenue, if honestly and dfrectly
collected, could be doubled. Thirdly, he must execute,,the
laws against corruption. No new ones are necessary;
thosewhich exist are sufficient; on a second conviction,
a man becomes incapable of any public office. Fourthly,
and this is. the only measure really difficult and really
dangerou.s, he raust endeavour, not actually to fuse and
render hoinogen,eous, but to render less discordant, less se
parated by the worst of all distinctions — : that of oppressors
and oppressed ^he Christian and Mussulman populations ;
in short, he must execute the Hatt-i-Humfi,yoon."'

EEMEDIES POE TUEKEY. 149
"Do you think," I said, "the admission of Christians
into the army safe?"
" Not safe," he answered, " in the sense of being free
from danger. Turkey is in such a state that there is
danger in everything that she can do: but there is still
greater danger in doing nothing."
" Ought the Turkish population," I asked, " to be dis
armed ? "
" Certainly," he answered. " Orders to that effect were
-given some years ago. The time to have executed them
would have been the beginmng of the war, when the
soldiers came up from the provinces, full of devotion to
the Sultan. Another opportunity was at the end of the
war, before the army was disbanded. Without doubt it is
now more difficult, but, as I said before, everything is
difficidt. I fear," he added, "that the Sultan may owe
more than the 800 millions of piastres which are acknow
ledged and provided for by the present financial scheme.
On the other hand, I scarcely think that he has taken and
misapplied the public revenue. Everything, to be sure, is
possible here, and Httle is kno^wn, but by law he has a
ci^vU Hst as separate from the pubUc revenue as the queen's
is. I do not believe that he would exceed it, or that his
ministers would assist him to exceed it, in any way, except
by getting, as he has done, into debt."
We talked of the Principalities.
"It is remarkable," he said, "that though similar in
race, language, reHgion, and institutions, they have never,
except during one short interval, been umted in adminis-
tiation since they formed part of the Eoman province of
L 3

150 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Dacia. It was perhaps the recoUection of their constant
separation, and of the usual dislike of countries so circum
stanced to unite, that induced the Turkish Government to
allow the clause, that, on the question of union, the wishes
of the provinces should be consulted, to be inserted in the
protocols of Vienna and Paris.
"TMs clause, however, does not say that their -wish
shall supersede all discussion, but merely that it shall be
an element in the discussion. If, as I believe to be the
case, there are preponderating reasons against it, thefr
-wish, however important, must be" overruled. Union," he
added, " under a native prince would be a bad lesson to
the other portions of this ill-compacted empire. There are
other provinces, now submissive because they are separate
and weak, which might inv-oke foreign assistance to enable
them to coalesce and throw off their dependence, 'Union
under a foreign prince would be dismemberment. What
allegiance would a Frenchman or a Eussian, hereditary
sovereign of Moldo- Wallachia, pay to the Porte ?
" And we must remember that the dismemberment of
Turkey is, now, even more serious than it was four years
ago. Then it would have been only a change in the
balance of power, -which we should have disapproved, but
might have acquiesced in. Now it must produce wai-. We
have guaranteed the integrity of the TurMsh Empire. We
are bound to make the same efforts to prevent its dis
memberment which we should make to prevent the dis
memberment of the British Empire. I think," he con
tinued, "that means might be found, short of union, to
give to the Moldavians and Wallachians all that they have
a right todesire from union. They might have perfect

AN AEMENIAN'S OPINIONS ON TUEKEY. 151
freedom of intercourse and trade, reciprocal rights for the
people of one province to acquire land in the other, similar
institutions, and a joint committee consisting of the mem
bers of each parliament empowered to decide on questions
of common interest. If they desire more than that, they
desire more than they are entitled to as subjects of the
Porte, or can possess if they are to remain subjects of the
Porte." Thursday, October 29th. — I walked before breakfast
with an Armeman friend, Y. Z., and talked over the pros
pects of Turkey.
" There is no doubt," he said, "that the country is going
to ruin, under the influence of internal mismanagement
and external interference.
" Of the foreigners who meddle in our affairs, some, like
Eussia, wish to hasten our fall, others, like Austria, -wish us
neither good nor evil, arid are anxious only as to the
influence which our fortunes may have upon theirs. Eng
land and France, I believe, really wish us well, but they
try to serve us by forcing down our throats what they
think a remedy and we think a poison. Thefr object is
the fusion of the different races and different beUevers, or
at least, their equality. They want the wolves and the
sheep to lie down together. The Turks believe this to be
thoroughly impossible. They believe that in Europe,
where the Christians are the large majority, they are
thoroughly disaffected ; that every right which they gained
they would use as a weapon ; that if the Hatt-i-Humiyoon
were honestly carried out, the Turks would be driven across
the Bosporus in five years : in short, that India is merely a
i. i

152 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
specimen of the feelings of slaves who can find an oppor-
tumty of rising against masters. They are resolved, there
fore, that it shall be a dead letter. In some provinces, the
reading of it produced riots : in others it was not attempted
to be read.
" But in fact it cannot be a dead letter. It alarms and
irritates the Turks ; it stimMates the hopes and also the
hatred of the Greeks. They see that the Turks are re
solved to render illusory stipulations made by the aUies in
their favour. They are, if possible, worse subjects of the
Sultan than they were before the war. But this is not all.
The foreigners, after having made the Turkish Government
hateful, try to render it contemptible. When Eeschid
refused to obey Thouvenel's order to quash the Moldavian
elections, he resigned the grand viziership and Mustapha
was put in his place, as it was supposed tfrat he would
submit -with a better grace. Eeschid remained a minister,
though no longer ¦vizier. Thouvenel sent his first drago
man to tell the Sultan that France could have no confi
dence in him while Eeschid was employed. The poor
Sultan submitted. But he does not trust Fuad or AaH,
whom he suspects to be under French influence. He be
lieves the union of the Principalities to be the dismember
ment of the empire, and is still more afraid of that than
he is of Thouvenel, and he thinks that Eeschid is the only
man who can prevent it. From the time that EescMd
went out, the Sultan's most earnest wish was to recall Mm.
All this was well known to his late ministers. They felt
too insecure to venture to do anything. They ' avoided
even seeing the Sultan, for fear that he should make a

AN AEMENIAN'S OPINIONS ON TUEKEY, 153
quarrel and turn them out. At last he made up his mind,
and as soon as a fortunate day came, he made his coup
d'Stat. But he sent an apologetic message to Thouvenel,
to which, after a day or two's delay, a dry answer was re
turned, Thouvenel has not yet paid bis visit of etiquette
to the new grarid vizier. It is said that he waits for in
structions." " Now," I said, " for the internal causes of ruin."
" They," he said, " are the disorder of the finances and
of the currency ; the farming of the revenue ; the centralis
ation which brings every business to Constantinople, where
it is neglected and at last forgotten, but above all, the
general and increasing corruption. And for these evils
there will be no cure. The pashas will not remedy them,
for they profit by them, and their education renders them
insensible to the mischief and to the scandal. The Sultan
will not remedy them, for he knows nothing of them. He
can know nothing of anything that his ministers do not
choose to tell him. He does not read, and if he did, there
is no press ; he sees nobody, he never has seen anybody,
except his brothers-in-law and sons-in-law, his women and
his servants, and occasionally a mimster or an ambassa
dor who comes to bully him or to deceive him. Still the
empfre, if left to itself, might cohere for many years.
But Europe has her eyes on its western provinces. One
by one, or two by two, they will be cut off, or wUl drop off.
Perhaps we may return to Broussa, and keep Anatolia for
a century or two longer."

154 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,

THE DAEDANELLES,

Saturday, October 31sL — ^We left Therapia yesterday
morning in a large caique, in order to embark on board
the French steamer " Scamander," on our way to -visit
Mr, Calvert, our consul at the Dardanelles, a brother of
Mr, Calvert of Therapia,
The Turks levy an export duty of twelve per cent., and
it is said that the vexations, delays, and robbery of the
Turkish custom-house are indescribable. To protect us
against them, Lord Stratford directed one of his cavasses
to sit at the head of our caique, and warn off the custom
house officers. We were not boarded by them. The
" Scamander " is a roomy, comfortable boat, built for a war
steamer, very steady and very slow. The captain and his
officers are agreeable gentlemanlike men. We had a calm
voyage, and reached the Dardanelles at ten this morning.
The Hellespont is inferior in beauty to the Bosporus,
the hills on each side are lower ; there is little vegetation,
except brown grass and brushwood, and little cultivation.
Turkish batteries, carefully whitewashed, in order to warn
an enemy and direct his fire, and a few lighthouses, are
almost the only buildings.
Mr. Calvert's is a fine stone house, built by himself, in
rather an Italian than a TurMsh style. It contains lofty

THE DAEDANELLES. 155
rooms and spacious halls and ante-rooms ; it is comfortable
now, and must be delightfully cool in summer. It may be
cold in winter, but it has fireplaces, and English coal is
plentiful. It is brought out as ballast, and during the war,
when the demand was great, sold at prices much above
those of London, but now is as cheap as it is with us."
In the afternoon, I walked -with Mr. F. Calvert, another
brother of the consul's, to Abydos, now the site of a Turkish
hospital ; only one relic of its ancient importance remains,
the fragment of a wall. The whole ground is covered with
fragments of Greek pottery, the most indestructible of
human works. At the beginning of the war, the Turks
raised some earthworks on this promontory. In excavat
ing for them, they found a marble chair and an inscription,
by which Xerxes grants some privileges to the to-wn of
Abydos. The Turks broke up the chair, and have lost the
inscription. Mr. Frank Calvert believes that the chair was
that on which Xerxes sat on this promontory to view his
army pass the Hellespont. We returned by the plains of
Arisbe, on which he reviewed his army before the passage ;
they are extensive and fertile, but uncultivated, as is all
. the country not within a few hundred yards of the town.
A soldier passed us and asked us to buy some black-
looking bread ; it seems that they sell part of their rations
of bread to buy tobacco. On the shore stands a pretty little
house overshadowed by plane-trees, which was occupied by
Lord Byron when he swam across the Hellespont. It is
the residence of a dervise and Ms family.
Sunday, Novemher 1st. — We were to have started for
the Troad this evening, but have been prevented by the
rain. I walked between the showers with Mr. Calvert,

156 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the consul. I asked him if he had observed great changes
duririg his residerice. "Great changes," he answered,
"here; there is less oppression and less fraud. I well
remember the scenes which I witnessed when I fif st began
to live in this place twenty-three years ago. Soon after
my arrival a new pasha came. He sent for a list of the
prisoners in the gaol; some were there for debt, some
under sentence of imprisonment, some awaiting thefr triaL
He selected six names at hazard, for he knew nothing of
them, and had their heads cut off and exposed for three
days before Ms door ; this was to strike alarm. He then
summoned the principal inhabitants. As soon as they
had- erltered his court-yard the gates were closed. In the
audience-room they found only the pasha's secretary. He
asked what present they had pro^vided. They said, ' None.'
'Don't tell that to the pasha,' he answered, * or I do not
' know what will happen to you : say that you are collect-
'ing it.' Soon after the pasha entered. He asked what
they had brought ; i;hey answered that the money was not
all ready, but that they hoped to have it soon. ' Let it
' be very soon,' he repHed. They were let out, and came to
my uncle, then the consul, and borrowed from him ^200?.,
which they were to repay, and, in fact, did repay, by
assessing the town. They took it to the pasha in canvas
bags. ' I cannot receive it,' he said, 'in such an envelope;
' you must send to the bazaar and get me samples of stuffs,
' out of which I can select the materials of some bags.' He
was difficult in his choice, rejected one stuff after another,
so that they had to send over and over again to the bazaar
for fresh patterns. At last he chose one ; the owners of
the others were taking them away, but were stopped by

CONSULAE PEOTECTION OP EAYAHS. 157
the guards. 'What enters this, court,' they said, ' does not
'go out.' The rejected samples were enough to furmsh his
house. Such things cannot be done now, at least ¦within
the jurisdiction of a consul."
" But how," I said, " does your jurisdiction enable you
to interfere between Turks and Eayahs ? "
" Of course," he answered, " I- cannot interfere directly ;
but I report enormities of the Mnd to Lord Stratford ; he
tells the story at the Porte, probably shows my despatch,
and the Porte, never sorry to have a place to give away,
dismisses the offending official. When an inhabitant of
this district is oppressed, he immediately teUs me of it ; I
inquire, and if he has been really ¦wronged, I usually
obtain for him redress. In general, however, my influence
is rather preventive than curative. When the present
Pasha of the Dardanelles came, he called on me, and said
that he hoped to be a good and honest administrator, and
to remain long in this pashalic ; and he requested me, if I
ever heard complaints of him, to see him, and to hear his
explanations before I -wrote to Constantinople. 'If,' he
said, 'my explanations are unsatisfactoi-y, you must take
'yom- own course, but I trust that you wiU never find them
' so. Without doubt you -wiU hear many complaints, for
' every governor has enemies, particularly a good one, which
• I hope to be.' And a good one he certainly is. 'Whether
from high moral principle, or because, as he said, he -wishes
to remain Pasha of the Dardanelles, and relies on me for
keeping Mm there, or rather for not removing him, I will
npt inquire. It is one of the best of the smaller pashalics ;
he has .200?. a month, besides many lawful perquisites. It
is near the capital ; he is not in danger of being forgotten;

158 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
he is, in fact, on the road to promotion. He knows that
my eye is on him ; I sometimes detect an incipient job,
but a hint is sufficient to stop it.
" I am now, at his request, assisting in the investigation of
an ati-ocity that has been committed at the Greek village of
Maronia, about sixty miles from hence, in the government of
Serries, in the pashaUc of Salonica, where it joins the govern
ment of Gallipoli, which is in this pashalic. In June last,
a government courier was robbed near that village, and
2000?. was taken from him ; the robbery took place just
within our frontier. Probably the police officers of GalHpoH
and Serries were, as they generally are, in league with the
robbers. Either to screen themselves, or to claim the
merit of vigilance and activity, they determined to find
the robbers in Maronia. They began by surrounding the
village with troops, and for three days they allowed no one
to leave it. It was at a critical period of the silkworm
harvest. The worms required to be constantly fed with
mulberry leaves. The mulberry gardens are out of the
village ; as no one was allowed to go to them, and fetch
leaves, the whole stock of silkworms died. The loss to
the -village was at least 1500?. The police then seized two
brothers, Eayahs^ respectable men, and accused them of the
robbery. The governors of the different districts near
Maronia came to the village to superintend the investiga
tion, took possession of all the best houses, and lived there
¦with all their retinues at free quarters.
" The brothers proved, or at least offered to prove, an
alibi. Many of the principal inhabitants were ready- to
depose that they had seen the prisoners at the very time
of the robbery, and long before and after it, in a coffee-

TUEKISH OPPEESSION IN MAEONIA. 159
house, in the village. As they were Eayahs, their evidence
was rejected,"
"Notwithstanding the Hatt-i-HumS,yoon ? " I said.
"The influence," he answered, "of the Hatt-i-Humdyoon
does not extend 160 miles from Constantinople.
" To procure evidence against the prisoners by confession,
the police proceeded to torture them. One brother could
not stand the torture, and confessed the robbery. Then
they asked Mm where the money was ; of course he could
not tell, so they tortured Mm again. To obtain a respite, he
said that he had hid it in such a place ; it was not found
there, so the torture was recommenced. He theri said
that his brother had it. The brother was tortured, but,
being more resolute, persisted in his denial. 'You
may kUl me,' he said, 'but I ¦will not confess what is
not true.' This had been going on for some time, the
village was almost ruined, both the brothers had been so
maimed, that they are cripples for life, when the Pasha
of Salonica heard of it, and drew the attention of the
Pasha of the Dardanelles to the scenes which were acting
by his officers, and under his authority. He was indignant,
and begged me to assist in the inquiry. It is not quite
concluded; but the facts which I have mentioned have
come out. I said to the Pasha : ' You see now who are
'the real friends of the Eussians. You see what sort of
' persons and what sort of means are employed to make the
' Turkish rule hateful to the Christians.' "
In the evemng I had a long conversation -with Mr,
Frank Calvert and the consul. We talked first of the
jar tombs of this country,
" About twelve or eighteen inches below the soU," said

160 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,,
Mr, F, Calvert, " we find jars of all sizes, from about, two
feet two inches long, by one foot eight inches wide, to six
feet long, by four feet seven inches wide. The largest
that I have seen was found on the site of the ancient
Dardanus ; it had served for many years as a storehouse
for -wild bees, and was filled -with honeyconabs. Six men
entered it, and were held at onde, in a sitting, posture.
They are made of coarse, red clay, niixed with gravel.
Some seem to have cracked in baking, and are mended
with leaden ri-vets. They all He horizontally, the mouth
facing the souths or south-east, and closed by a flat stone.
They contain unburned human bones, lying on a tMa layer
of pebbles, and belonging to skeletons which were placed
there on their backs, with raised kneeSi; Epund the bpnes
we find terra-cptta penates, and vases and paterae of the
purest Greek forms, painted in the E-truscan style, some
times black on red, sometimes red on black, -with subjects
taken froiri the Greek mythology. Many belong to the
fourth century before CMist, the best period of that art ;
but some may be 150 years older. Mixed -with these are
little blue, green, and yellow glass vases and phials, of yery
goocl manufacture. Sometimes amphoras are found in the
larger jars, confaimng the bones of children, with smaller
terra-cottas. Almost all the vases are broken, as if they
had been thrown carelessly: into the jars. Few of the
large jars are perfect, the plough, or other accidents,
having broken the upper, surface, I have found these
tombs in the Troad, and in other parts of Agia Minor,
They ha-ve been found also on tfre European shore, I
discovered some on the Hanai Tepe, perhaps the most
remarkable of the tumuli on the Trojan Plain,"

HANAI TEPE.^ 161
" I never heard of the Hanai Tepe," I said,
"Of course not," he answered, " for until I opened it
it was supposed to be a natural eminence. It is situated
about a mile and a half from Bounar Bashi, towards the
hills, to the north of the Simois. In order to ascertain its
ti-ue character, I sank a shaft in- its centre. The first
things that I came to were some Turkish tombs, those of
the inhabitants of the neighbom-ing deserted village of
Archekoi ; below them were some of the jar tombs which
I have described. Lower down, about five and a half feet
from the surface, I came to a layer of a light whitish
substance, five and three-quarters feet thick. Intermixed
¦with the lower part of it were rounded river pebbles,
bearing marks of ¦violent heat, and some small earthen
jars, almost vitrified by fire. Below this stratum was a
layer of wood-ashes, eighteen inches thick ; under it was a
layer of earth, two feet thick, in the lower part of which
was a human skeleton extended at full length, -witii a large
unhe-wn stone at its head. Under this was the solid rock,
about fifteen feet ffom the summit of the tumulus, I then
can-ied a horizontal shaft to meet the perpendicular one,
I soon came to a wall five feet thick, built of large rough
stones -without mortar, rising from the rock to -within about
seven feet of the top of the tumulus, so as to enclose the
stratum of whitish substance below the jar tombs. It is
ninety-five feet in diameter at its base,
"This whitish substance consists of calcined human
bones. It forms a truncated cone eighty-five feet in dia
meter at its base, and perhaps seventy at its summit, and
five and three-quarters feet high. The contents must be
M

162 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
about 27,000 cubic feet. The incumbent earth had kept
it perfectly free from damp,
" That these are the ashes of many thousand men whose
bodies were burned at the same time, and who must have
fallen in some great battle, seems to be evident.
" The only gi-eat battles of which we have a record fought
in this neighbourhood were those of the Iliad, We are told
in the 7th book that after the first battle there was a truce,
during which the Greeks and the Trojans collected and
burned thefr dead, and that the Greeks the next day raised
a tomb over the pile on which theirs had been consumed.
Homer does not expressly say that the Trojans did so too,
but it seems to have been the general practice. The tomb
itself is built in precisely the manner in which the building
of that of Patroclus is described in the 23rd book of the
Iliad : TopvdaavTO Si irrj^a, Srs/iciXia ri vpotaXovro
'Ap(pi Trvprjv' liQap Sk xvrfiv sm yaiav i-)(ivav
Xivavreg di to a^/ta, ttoKiv klov.
" ' They erected a round tomb by laying foundations
' (@sfisi,Xia, a wall) round the pile, and then heaping earth
* over it ; and, having heaped up the tomb, they returned.'
The position about a mile and a half from the Scsean gate,
beyond the Simois, on the inaccessible side of the town,
and, therefore, removed from the field of battle and at a
distance from the Grecian camp, is one likely to have been
selected." " Do you refer the separate skeleton," I asked^ " to the
same period?"
" Certainly not," he answered ; " that skeleton was not

THE TEOAD. 163
burned. It was simply buried and covered -with earth.
Probably it was the body of some more ancient Mng. Its
presence gave sanctity to the spot, and may have suggested
to the Trojans the use of it for their great pile,
" The Troad," he continued, " meaning by thg-t name the
country bounded by a Hne drawn easterly from Abydos to the
north, by the chain of Mount Ida to the east, by the Helles
pont and the Bay of Adramiti to the west and south, was for
merly very populous and rich. It is said to have contained
two hundred cities, I have discovered the ruins of many
large towns -within a few miles of Bounar Bashi, One, with
an acropolis and a city below it, lies a mile and a half to
the north of Hanai Tepe, and, therefore, oMy three miles
from Bounar Bashi, Nothing, indeed, but extreme mis-
government could turn a country -with such a climate and
such a soil as this into a desert. At present its population
is m a state of transformaition. The Turks are dying out,
and the Greeks, many of them immigrants from European
Turkey, are increasing. In your ride round the plain of
Troy to-morrow, in a cfrcmt of thirty miles you will find
three Greek villages, Eunkoi, Yenekoi, and Yenisher, all
thri-ving, surrounded by gardens and cultivated fields, the
old houses in repair and new ones building. The only
other human habitations that you will see -will be three
Turkish villages — Chiflic, on the site of Ilium Novum,
Bounar Bashi, just below the site of Troy, and Halil Eli.
The first has about twenty inhabited houses, the second
about fifteen, and the tMrd, which, twenty years ago, was
a considerable -village, has only three."
" How do you account," I asked, " for this depopulation ?
N 2

164 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
The Tui-ks are at least as well governed as the Greeks, and
are better governed than they ever were before."
" There are several causes at work," he answered : " there
is the conscription ; the men whom it takes are never heard
of again. .They die, or they cannot find their way back.
Turkish women of the lower classes try very mischievous
means to avoid having many chUdren. Few Turks have
more. than three; indeed, they seldom have more than
two. The Turks are idle and improvident. The Greek
labom-ers are not good, one of them does not do half the
work of an Englishman ; but he does three times the work
of a Turk, and I pay him three times the wages. What
ever be the explanation, the fact that the Turks are rapidly
dying out is ob-vious."
" This," I said, " would be a fine field for colonisation."
" Certainly it would," he answered.
" Mr. Freeman, a young man whom you ¦will meet at
Eunkoi, and I are colonists. We have bought 2,000
acres of good ground, including the site of Ilium Novum,
for 300?. To erect the farm-buildings, and stock it ¦with
twenty pair of working oxen and 100 head of cattle,
¦will cost about 1,700?. more. The current expenses will
be paid out of the produce. We can get plenty of labour.
A Greek lad of seventeen or eighteen generally sets up
for himself, and works as a day labourer until he has saved
enough to marry and buy a little farm and buUd a house.
The ordinary wages are 10?. a year, a suit of clothes, and
food, which may amount to 7?. more. We ought in a short
time to make a clear profit of 1000?. a year. Our great
obstacle is the export duty of nine per cent, le-vied on all

COLONISATION OF THE TEOAD. 165
produce transported from one pashalic to another, and of
three per cent, more if it be transported by sea, even when
sent merely from hence to Gallipoli."
"Have you fevers," I asked, "when you clear new lands? "
" None," he answered ; " in fact, the land can scarcely be
said to require clearing. Weeds, brushwood, and fern
cover that part, nine-tenths of the whole, which is uncul
tivated, and they are easily removed."
" To come to this place, then," I said, " is far better than
to go to the backwoods of America. The climate is better,
the countiy is healthy, there is plenty of labour. WUl you
take shares if I get up a Trojan Colonisation Society ? "
" Certainly," he answered, " if you have the countenance
of the Turkish Government. But at present, and notwith
standing the Hatt-i-HumS,yoon, foreigners are not allowed
to purchase in their own names. Our land stands in the
name of Elias, the head-man of Eunkoi. The Turks are
jealous. Chiflic, the vUlage near our property, is TurMsh ;
they objected to CMistians coming among them, and were
ovei-ruled only by my brother's influence -with the Pasha.
Colonists could not come hither en masse."
" It must be done," said the consul, " gradually. A mag
nificent estate, near Cyzlcus, belonging to the heirs of Halim
Pasha, was lately on sale. It contained 20,000 acres, and
could have been bought for 5000?. ; that would have been an
admirable investment. My land stands in Mrs. Calvert's
name. "When I bought it, ten years ago, no European paid
tithes or taxes. They were supported in their refusal by their
consuls, and the Turks were afraid to force them. I set
the example of paying faithfully my own tithes and taxes,
M 3

166 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and advised all persons under British protection to do so
too. They acted on my advice ; indeed, they had little
choice, and our example was followed by all the other
European subjects in the Dardanelles. This has diminished
the objection felt by the Turks to our ownership of land,
but has not removed it. It is a new thing, and a Turk can
bear nothing that is new ; and they have a vague presen
timent that if we become strong we shall buy or bully them
out of the country."
Monday, November 2nd. — It has been a rairiy morning,
so, instead of starting immediately after breakfast for
the Troad, I went -with Mr. Calvert to the Pasha's, to be
present at the trial of the governor of Lampsacus for pecu
lation. The court consisted of the Pasha of the Dardanelles, the
collector of the revenue of the province, a brother of Fuad
Pasha, the mooilah, or chief judge of the province, the
mufti, or expounder of the Koran, four other Turks, two
Greeks, and a Jew. We sat bythe Pasha in the centee of a
semicircle, at the bottom of which sat the accused. In a
room below were the -witnesses.
Waste land oiight legally to be granted by the govern
ment to any one who will undertake to reclaim it, at a
nominal price, three piastres, for the grant. The goverrior
was accused of having sold it for considerable sums, and of
having omitted to account, or of ha-ving accounted only par
tially, for the price.
The evidence consisted of the comparison of receipts
given by the governor to the purchasers, and the entiles
in the accounts furnished by him to the tieasury.
Each charge was taken separately. To the first, which

TEUL OF THE GOVEENOE OF LAMPSACUS, 167
was the non-entry of a sum of 1 000 plasties, for which he
had given a receipt to the purchaser, his defence was that
his clerk had forgotten to enter 4t.
To another, which was the entry of 700 piastres, whereas
he had received 1000, his answer was that the treasury
having refused to take payment in piastres at their current
value, and thereby occasioned to him a loss of 250 piastres,
he had been forced to reimburse himself by withdrawing
that sum from his next payment.
On each charge the votes of the court were collected,
beginning with the Jew and the Greeks as the lowest in
rank ; and he was found guilty on all that were disposed ,
of in my presence. All the members of the court were
smoking except the Jew and the Greeks. Mr. Calvert
tried to abolish this distinction, and succeeded in obtain
ing coffee for them; but the Mussulmen say that they
will not sit -with Eayahs if they are allowed pipes, the sign
of equality.
" This court," said Mr. Calvert to me, " and these
orderly proceedings, we owe to Eeschid Pasha, and to his
Hatt-i-Sherif of Gui Haneh. Before that time, the accu
sation, if any one had ventured to make it, would have
been disposed of summarily by the Pasha, probably by
his sharmg the spoil -with the governor."
After the court had risen, the mooilah did me the
honour of visiting me. He told me that the governor had
been convicted, degraded, and sent to the common gaol,
where he -will remain until he repays to the treasury
double the amount ofthe sums of which he has defrauded it.
After dinner the weather cleared. Mr. Calvert mounted-,

168 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
me, and we rode to his house at Eunkoi, a Greek village
near the coast, about twelve miles from the . Dardanelles,
and ten from Bounar Bashi. We passed the site of the
English hospital, on a small plain sloping to the sea. It
was eminently healthy. The mortality was only one and
a half per cent, among all that entered it.
The country appeared fertile, but deserted ; we did not
see a single house, or meet more than half a dozen persons.
Mr. Calvert's house is in the centre of the village, spa
cious, very long, consisting, as it does, of two Turkish
houses thrown together, and commanding magmficent
views of the Hellespont and .^Egean.
Yenekoi, near Cape Sigeum, Tuesday, November Srd. —
Mr. Calvert, Mr. Freeman, and I, started at seven this
morning, and rode first to Chiflic, where we saw the rough
buildings which he and Mr. Frank Calvert have run up as
the beginmng of their farm. From thence we rode to the
east of the plateau of Ilium Novum, crossing the little
stream of the Thymbrius, to the ruins of two considerable
Doric temples, many of which have been used to form
the gravestones of a deserted Turkish cemetery. One of
these temples is supposed to have been the temple of the
Thymbrian Apollo, near which Achilles was killed. We
saw lying on the ground a marble slab, with this inscrip
tion : — IXifif ^ov Harpipv 6iov AwEiav.
A mile -or two further is Patac, the farmhouse of Mr.
Calvert's property, which consists of between two and. three
thousand acres, extending through fine valleys and over
gentle hills to the Simois, Where unreclaimed it is covered

THE EOBBEE KABBAC. 169
with brushwood, interspersed with Vallonia oaks and
willows, festooned by the -wUd vine, whose leaves have now
acquired their autumnal scarlet. He bought it about ten
years ago for 400?.
In his courtyard was a fine-looking man, with a gun
slung over his shoulder, richly mounted pistols in his belt,
and a long sword in his hand, whom Mr. Calvert intro
duced to me as Las Ali Oglou Omer, commonly called
Kabbac, the most celebrated robber of the district. He
lived fom- years ago -with his brother, mother, and sister,
on the produce of a smaU farm near the DardaneUes,
His brother was taken as a conscript. The next year he
also was reqmred to serve ; he was legally exempt as the
last remaining male of a family which had already supplied
a soldier, and he refused. He was the only support, he
said, of Ms mother and sister. The local authorities tried
to seize him. He escaped, and took to robbery as the
sole employment left to him. His courage and dexterity
raised him to the top of his profession. But he is tired of
it ; and a few days ago sent word to Mr. Calvert that he
was ready to give himself up ; that he had never murdered,
and never robbed, except to obtain the means of existence
for himself and his family ; and hoped to be allowed to
return to his home. Mr. Calvert asked the Pasha how
Las AH would be dealt -with. " I ¦will put him into the
police," answered the Pasha, "if he will bring two re
spectable sureties for his future good conduct." He came
to-day to know the result. Mr, Calvert informed him of
the Pasha's offer ; he seemed to be inclined to accept it,
and promised to be at the Dardanelles on Saturday with
Ms sureties.

170 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
To show his gratitude he accompanied us to-day on our
ride over the Troad, as we had to pass near a place where
some Turks were stopped, and one of them killed, about a
month ago. We did not, however, really require his protec
tion, as the robbers, of whom many are always sheltered in
Mount Ida, would not venture to attack an EngUshman, still
less so respected and so popular a man as Mr, Calvert,
'While our breakfast was preparing we watched the
opening of one of" the jar tombs described to me by Mr, F,
Calvert, The upper surface had been shattered by the
plough ; a man with a pickaxe was breaking up and re
moving- the contents, a hard grey clay. After about half an
hour's work, he found some remains of bones, mixed -with
the clay. Two skulls were distinctly marked by the form' of
the earth within them. Soon after appeared fragments of
. pottery, vases, and paterae, rude, and of such rotten material,
that they broke at the least touch.
After breakfast we went on to Haaai Tepe, took up some
of the grey conglomerate of bone ashes, and thought of
the Homeric heroes, whose remains we nught be holding
in our hands. Almost immediately afterwards we crossed
the Simois, At this season it is a shallow stream, wan
dering through a bed of sand about 100 yards wide,
which, in winter, it fills. It -winds round a promontory
about 700 feet high, steep on two sides, and precipitous at
its extremity, which rises gradually from the village of
Bounar Bashi, 600 feet lower do-wn in a slope of about
two miles, running east and west. The summit of this
promontory is a plateau about three acres in extent, which
was the acropoHs of an ancient city.

TEOY. 171
This is about the profile of the slope, — '' 1; .J. .- ¦¦'f'lfl?-

"A""- . ".W!;' V^^- ,"''^'''»c.

ACROPOLIS

\'.f.

The ridge which ends in this promontory sinks a little
after it leaves the acropolis, and then runs for about half a
mUe iiearly on a level, until it reaches three small tumuli.
This ridge I have marked B, It is about 500 yards wide,
with very steep sides. From C it slopes gradually for a
mUe and a half, widening as it descends until it reaches
the plain at D, the village of Bounar Bashi, The whole
surface is covered with stones, and in many parts the
foundations of walls are distinct, especially in the acropolis.
The wall which surrounded it may generally be traced,
and we ascertained the position of two gates. About three
quarters of the way down the slope, at E, this ridge meets
another ridge, which slopes down to the plain towards the
south. This Mr, Calvert supposes to be the site of the
spivsov, or wild fig wood, which Andromache mentions as
the most accessible part of the town ; the northern and
southern sides of the ridge being everywhere else steep.
At Bounar BasM he supposes the ridge to have been
crossed by the western wall of the city, near the southern
angle of which were the Scsean or left gates, being to the
left of the city as you leave it. Below Bounar Bashi are
several springs, the sources of a small clear river. It is

172 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GHEBCE.
said that in winter one of them is warmer than the rest,
I tasted them, but did not find much difference. The
river is supposed to be the Scamander, It is narrower,
but much deeper than the Simois, It runs for a mile
or two parallel to the Simois, but then turns off at nearly
right angles, and goes by an artificial channel into the
.^gean, I am told that it formerly joined the Simois,
and that the bed, now dry, through which it then flowed,
may be traced ; our road did not pass near this part of the
Trojan Plain,
From Bounar Bashi we rode in a south-westerly direc
tion, about four miles, to a large tumulus called Udjec
Tepe, from the top of which you see the whole plain from
Bounar Bashi to the Sigean promontory, spread out like
a map ; it is supposed to be the tomb of JEsyetes, on which
Polites sat to watch the motions of the Greeks.
On the whole, I feel little doubt that the sloping ridge
above Bounar Bashi was the site of the city of Troy, and
that the plateau a little above it, in which the ridge ends,
was its acropoHs,
That a considerable city and an acropolis were once
there, is obvious from the remains of buildings. The
roughness of the stones shows that those buildings belonged
to an early age,
Troy is said to have been bmlt on the plain, and com
pared with Dardanus, on the side of Mount Ida, this city
may be said to be on the plain, Bounar Bashi, supposed to
be its western extremity, cannot be more than 100 feet above
the sea, A ridge rising from the plain, and ending in a
bold and lofty promontory, meets every portiori of the

TEOY. 173
ancient descriptions. The lower city, beginning at the
ScEean gate, rose from the plain. But the acropolis, the
" arx alta Priami " is ahreivr], oi^pvosaaa and rjvsfioecraa,
and so is the promontory, and indeed the ridge leading to
it. The Scaean gate of Troy was placed at a short distance
above the sources of a river. The Bounar Bashi river is
the only river that rises in the Trojan Plain, the others
rise among the slopes of Ida, far too distant from the sea
to. have been the site of Troy.
Every other site seems open to an insuperable objec
tion. Ilium Novum is too near to the Hellespont, Alex
andria Troas is too near to the .lEgean, and neither of them
has in its immediate neighbourhood the sources of a river.
The stratum of calcined human bones discovered by Mr.
Calvert in the tumulus of Hanai Tepe is an additional
piece of evidence. To what great battle, except one of the
Homeric battles, can they be referred ?
One of the three tumuli raised where the ridge, of which
the acropolis is the extremity, begins to slope down to the
plain, has been oalled the tomb of Priam. If ^neas
reigned in Troy after the departure of the Greeks, he
may have raised a tomb to Priam. Each of the two others
claims to be the tomb of Hector. Mr. Calvert opened the
larger of them. He found a sort of well and chamber,
constructed to protect spme valued deposit, but nothing in
it. This is accounted for, if the story that the ashes of
Hector were removed from his tomb in obedience to the
DelpMc oracle be true. But I lean in favour of the third
and smaller tumulus. It is not built up -vrith a wall or
covered ¦with earth. It is merely a pile of large loose

174 A JOUENAL KEPT. IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
stones. And such, according to Homer, was Hector's
tomb, " They threw," he says, " the ashes into a golden vase,
" ¦wrapped it in purple shawls, and deposited it in a grave,
" over which they piled many large stones, so as to raise a
" monument qmckly, for thefr scouts were watching around,
" lest the Greeks should attack them,"
'Oarea \evKa Xf-yojro Kanyvt]Toi Sl' irapoi rf,
Kal Ta ye xpvrjHriv sq XapvuKa SirjKav eXovreg,
Tlopipvpcoie TTETrXoifft Ka.Xv:^avTse /laXaKoiinv.
Aiipa S' ap ig KoiXrjv Kav f rov Srcaav' avrap inrepde
TlvKvoLffft^ Xacfffft KaraffTopeffav peyaXoiffi.
^Pifi^a de artfi i^iav, irepi Se okoitoi ilaro rravry,
Mj; irpiv iijioppriBiiiv svKvrjUiSeg 'Axaioi.
It certainly is impossible that Achilles should have
chased Hector thrice round the walls of the supposed site
of Troy. On three sides it rises from a steep slope or a
precipice, and it must be three or four miles round. But
this impossibility belongs to the story itself, not to any
particular site.
A town large enough to hold, besides its inhabitants, a
garrison of 50,000 men, must be three or four miles
round ; a distance which two men, already tired by a day's
battle, could not run over three times.
It is supposed by Mr. AcMand in his "Plains of
Troy," that the chase was confined to the comparatively
small space between the Scsean gate and the sources of
the Scamander ; and the statement that it took place
along a carriage-road, dfia^irov, favours this theory. For
between these points there is a carriage-road, which the

TEOY. 175
nature of the ground renders impossible elsewhere. But
Homer makes Hector say —
Tpig TTSpi aarv psya Hpiafiov Siov,
which I can translate only " three times I ran round the
great city of Priam," and the same expression wspi, aarv is
frequently repeated. Another objection to this site is,
that, Gargarus, the pinnacle of Ida, on which Jupiter sat
to -view the battle, is not visible from it ; but a portion of
the Mean chain is visible, and Homer may have given the
name of Gargarus to one of the pinnacles of this portion.
Another objection is the distance from the sea. But the
land has obviously encroached on the sea, so as nearly to
fill the bay between the Sigean and Ehetean promontories.
Supposing the sea to have flowed up that bay for about
three miles, the shore on which the ships stood was not
more than seven miles from the Scaean gate; about the
distance of Kamiesch from Sebastopol, not too much for
heroes to cross three times in a day.
My visit to the Plain of Troy has explained to me a
peculiarity in Homeric warfare — the use of stones. A
large stone is as usual a weapon as a spear, much more so
than a sword. Minerva knocks do-wn Mars with a stonp ;
Hector attacks Ajax -with a stone ; Ajax, on another occa
sion, beats do-wn Hector -with a stone. 'Whenever a stone
is wanted, it lies at the hero's feet. That part of the
Plain of Troy which I crossed, being in the immediate
neighbourhood of the slopes of Mount Ida, is absolutely
covered with large stones, which have fallen from the
lime-stone hills above.

176 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Leaving Bounar Bashi at three, turmng off to ascend
the tumulus of .^syetes, we reached Yenekoi, a village on
the ..Egean, about three miles from the Sigean promon
tory, at about half-past four. We were received by the.,
head-man of the village, who gave us for dinner different-
mixtures of milk, rice, and cream, all acid, and four fowls
which died in honour of our arrival. We had some
strong good wine, made by himself, "and he joined us at
dinner, his son waiting. Mattrasses, each covered with a
single sheet, and two thick quilts, were spread on the floor
for our beds.
Mr. Calvert asked our host if he had ever paid tooth
money to the Janissaries. " Twenty times," he answered.
"A couple of thousand of them were quartered in this
neighbourhood in 1823 and 1824; they half ruined the
country. Six hundred of them came one evening to this
village; they wanted fowls, bread, forage, and raki ; turned
us out of our beds, and tormented us all night. The next
day they asked us what we were prepared to give them
for tooth money. We asked what they demanded. They
said that they would accept 6000 piastres ; we offered 1000,
and at last got rid of them for 3000. No man's life or
property was then safe for half an hour."
" You remember," said Mr. Calvert to me, " a castellated
house on the Trojan Plain, near the tomb of Antilochus,
which we passed in the morning. It belongs now to a
Turk named Yussuf Effendi. I will tell you how he ac
quired it. He was a favourite slave of Khosrew Pasha,
who, about 1823 or 1824, was Capitan Pasha. His fleet
was lying in Besica Bay. Yussuf Effendi went ashore from

TUEKISH OPPEESSION. 177
time to time, and fell in love -with this house and estate.
Khosrew sent an order to the proprietor to come with his
family on board of his ship. He had him beheaded, dis
posed, I do not know how, of the rest of his family, and
' ha-ving thus removed all the claimants, made a present of
the castle and estate to Yussuf Effendi."
" On what pretext," I asked, " was the original o-wner
beheaded ? "
"No excuse," answered Calvert, "was then necessary
for anything done by a Capitan Pasha. Perhaps some
charge of treason, or of correspondence with the enemy,
was trumped up. Kara Ali Pasha, when Capitan Pasha,
obtained a fine estate near Lampsacus in nearly the same
manner. He sent for the proprietor, who was then the
Governor of Lampsacus, and asked him to show his title
deeds. The proprietor said that he had mislaid them.
Kara Ali then said that he had much to say to him, and
that he must accompany him in a cruise on the .^Egean.
The proprietor knew what that meant, sent for the deeds,
indorsed on them a deed of gift, or sale of the property
to Kara Ali, and was then allowed to quit the ship."
A long conversation now took place between Calvert and
. our host. When it was over, Calvert said, " I -will tell yoti
the substance of what he has been saying. He has been
telling me the story of the deputation summoned by the
Sultan, five or six years ago, from all the pro-vinces, to
state their wants. He was one of the two deputies for this
district, and had a large schedule of wants and complaints.
They were kept in Constantinople at the Sultan's expense
for two months. They were then summoned to an audience
N

17a A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
at which Soliman Pasha, then President of the Council
presided, the Sultan being present behind a lattice. Solir
man Pasha, addressing the Sultan, said, ' These 400 excel-
' lent men, deputies from all your Majesty's provinces, say,
' that they are most happy under your Majesty's rule, and
'have only four ¦wishes: — First, that, whereas the taxes
' are collected in spring, and they have no money till after
' the harvest in autumn, the collection of the taxes be posfe-,
-' poned until autumn. Secondly, that the tithes may be
'taken in kind, instead of being taken as they now are m
' money, at a price of produce arbitrarily fixed by the tithe
' collector. Thirdly, that roads may be made to enable
' them to carry their produce to market. Fourthly, that
f harbours be made along the coast.
" ' All which requests your Majesty has granted. I have,
' therefore, informed them, — Ffrst, that in future the taxes
' will be collected in autumn. Secondly, that the tithes
'will be collected in kind. Thirdly, that roads -will be im-
' mediately made throughout the empire. Fourthly, that
'harbours -will be immediately made along the whole
' coast,' "
f ' Of which four promises only the second has been kept.
The taxes are still le-vied in spring, there are no roads, and
there are no harbours,"
Dardanelles, Monday, November 6th. — ^We rose at five
this morning, but did not start till nine, four hours having
been employed, I know not how, in getting ready our
, horses. We rode along the coast, through the prosperous
Greek town of Sigeum, the only human residences which
we saw, to the Sigean promontory. Here we found two

TOMBS OF ACHILLES AND PATEOCLUS, 179
tumuli, of which the largest, rising from the side of the
promontory, and, as Agamemnon boasts, in the shades,
to Achilles, a sea-mark to all posterity, is called the tomb
of Achilles. The other, smaller, more inland, and less
conspicuous, is called the tomb of Patroclus, Mr. Calvert
excavated it, and found nothing. Homer, indeed, tells us
that it was a cenotaph, and covered merely the remains of
the pile on which he was burned. His ashes were taken
into the tent of Achilles, to be kept until the request made
by his ghost could be granted, by mingling, after the death
of Achilles, the ashes of the two friends in one urn, A
tumulus on the cUff, between Yenikoi and Sigeum, is
called the tomb of AntUochus, Agamemnon's expressions
lead me to think that his ashes were deposited, though in a
separate um, m the same tomb with those of Achilles and
Patroclus, Perhaps this tumulus may be a cenotaph like
that of Patroclus,
We rode along the level allu-vial plain, about two and a
half miles in breadth, which separates the Sigean from the
Ehetean promontory. In Homeric times it is supposed to
have been covered by the sea, and to have formed a bay
two and a half miles broad, and about three miles long,
which was in fact the harbour of Troy.
On this supposition the Grecian ships were drawn up
about three miles above our road, running along the pre
sent coast. The tomb of Ajax, in the side of the Ehetean
promontory, is larger than that of AchiUes, but less con
spicuous. It is on the side of a hill, that of Achilles is on
the brow. Some ruins near its summit appear to be those
of a small temple or shrine." N 2

180 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
We reached Eunikoi at half-past one ; started again at
half-past four, and got to the Dardanelles by seven,
Thursday, November 5th. — I walked -with Mr, Calvert
to a large battery which the Turks are constructing about
half a mile above the Dardanelles. A Greek, a man be
tween fifty and sixty, joined us.
" This man," said Mr. Calvert, " was one of those who
borrowed from my uncle the 200?. to satisfy the Pasha."
"These," he said to the -Greek, "are very different
times." " Yes," answered the Greek ; " but even those were much
better than what preceded them. I recollect the Janissaries.
I lived much -with them as a young man before their fall.
I remember ;thsi,t one day one of my Janissary friends and
I resolved to -pass an evening of amusement among the
coffee-houses, but we found that neither of us had any
money. ' That does not signify,' said my friend. He took
a bullet out of his pocket, tied it in .a knot in his handker
chief, and desired his servant to take it to one of the
richest merchants in thie town, and to wait for an answer.
In about an hour the servant brought it back -with a gold
piece tied in the corner, instead of the bullet. 'This,'
said my friend, 'is what we Janissaries do when we want
'money.' " I asked the servant what haid passed. ' The Eayah,' he
said, 'when he untied the knot, and found the bullet,
' turned pale and red, and said that he would send a person
.' with an answer. I told Mm that I must carry the answer
'myself; so he took the handkerchief, tied up something
*in it, and gave it to me.' "

CASTLE OF THE DAEDANELLES. 181
The battery is large ; it is placed on a low promontoryj
and is to have two faces, one looking up, the other down
the Hellespont, each mounting thirty-two very heavy
guns. " According to our old practice," said the Bey, who
showed us over it, " we should have put 200 smaUer guns
into it," The arming it will be the principal, indeed,
almost the whole expense. All the work, including the
quarrying the stones, is done by the troops.
We walked over their encampment. The tents, in each
of which six men lie, are spacious and comfortable ; the
men prefer them to barracks, and have petitioned to be
allowed to spend the winter here.
The Hellespont is far better defended than the Bosporus.
It might seem that the Turks fear their allies more than
their old enemy. Their answer is, that the Eussian fleet
is now a Baltic, not a Black Sea fleet, and will attack them
from the south. But in fact it is not -with a Baltic fleet
that Eussia -will attack ; she "will have steamers enough in
the Black Sea to land 20,000 men on each side of the
Bosporus, and ¦will march from thence in two days on
Constantinople, Friday, November 6th. — We walked to the Castle of the
Dardanelles, and looked at the great gims and their granite
balls. About 400 of these balls, weighing each from 500
to 700 pounds, are piled in • pyramids along the principal
battery. The quarry from wMch they are now taken is
the ruins of Alexandria Troas. The gymnasium, a few
years ago the largest and most perfect gymnasium that
remained, now suppUes them. The large guns were
N 3

182 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
formerly laid on the earth, and could be fired only once.
They are now mounted on carriages, but the carriages, ex
cept one, which is of iron, are rotten. Two of the largest
bear marks of the fighting when Sfr John Duckworth forced
the passage. One has been hit seven times. Its enormous
size and thickness, and the goodness of the metal, may be
inferred from the little damage which twenty-four pound
shots, hitting it at and near the muzzle, have done. The
castle is in the midst of the town, and contains the powder
magazine. "We have been trying for ten years," said
Mr. Calvert, "to persuade the TurMsh Government to
place conductors over it. They always admit the necessity,
promise to do it, and do nothing. It seems that the new
batteries on the Hellespont, and the new palaces on the
Bosporus, cost so much that they cannot spai-e 120?. to
prevent an explosion, which may lay the castle and the
to-wn in ruins. Such neglect renders the government very
unpopular." " But the neglect," I said, " is nothing new."
" The neglect," he answered, " is old, but the attention
which it excites is new. Formerly the people worshipped
the Sultan, and never thought of criticising his acts or his
omissions. Now they are alive to both. A newspaper,
edited by an Englishman, is written and printed in TurMsh ;
it has an enormous circulation ; it costs at Constantinople
three piastres ; it is retailed in the provinces at nine to
ten, or even twelve. Without venturing on actual opposi
tion, it suggests improvements, and hints at defects. The
government is mistaken if it thinks that shortcomings
which were unnoticed ten years ago will be tolerated now.

TUEKISH ADMINISTEATION. 183
On our return we passed through a considerable quarter
in ruins.
" This is the result," ^aid Mr. Calvert, " of a great fire,
about mne months ago. Formerly, after a fire, every one
rebuilt as he thought fit, and often encroached on the
street. The government has been told that the streets
ought to be -wider and straighter, and that stone and
wooden houses ought not to be mixed. So it takes on
itself to prescribe how streets that have been burnt down
shaU be rebmlt. The proprietors, four months ago, sent to
the government at Constantinople their plan for rebuilding
this quarter. No attention has been paid to it. The
season for building has been suffered to pass, and nothing
now can be done tiU next spring. Thirty or forty families
¦wUl be houseless all the winter in consequence of this neg
lect. This is a specimen of the manner in which the
government, m its crude attempts at improvement, intro
duces a new set of evils sometimes worse than those which
it attempts to remedy. Disgusted ¦with local abuses, it is
trying centraUsation. Centralisation, when carried far, is
mischievous even in the hands of the most civilised
governments, as we see in France. You may fancy what
delays, mistakes, jobbing, and corruption it must produce
in Turkey."
In the afternoon the Pasha paid me a visit. He is a
gentlemanlike man, -with mild simple manners. He told
me that the population of his pashalic was 48,000 males,
which supposes about 96,000 souls, about a tenth of what
may have been its population.
" Priami dum regna manebant."
N 4-

184 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" The deaths," he said, " exceed the births by about six
per cent."
When we recollect that the GreA population is increas
ing, and therefore that the Turks alone supply this excess
of deaths, we may infer that they are, as has often been said
to me, rapidly dying out.
Mr. Calvert has read through my Eastern journals to
the last page. I asked him this evemng to tell me
whether any of the facts mentioned in them required cor
rection. "Very few," he answered; "I will mention all that
occur to me. I do not think that you have quite under
stood the nature of Eeschid's commercial reforms. Before
his time individuals and firms bought from the Porte the
exclusive right to purchase the produce of a district or of a
province : one man had the monopoly of wheat, ariother of
barley, another of tobacco, and so on. The monopolist
fixed his own price, and of course resold, either to the
retailers or to the exporters, at a large profit. It is difficult
to conceive how a country so admimstered could exist.
Eeschid abolished this practice, and every one now does
what he likes with what he produces. But the sale of these
monopoHes gave an important revenue. He substituted
an export duty, of nine per cent., on all commodities
transported from one province to another, and of three per
cent, additional on all exported by sea. This is the origin
of our twelve per cent, export duty — a mischievous tax, but
much less mischievous than the system which it replaced."
"It would be far better," I said, "if the government
were to substitute for it an increased duty. on imports."

BEITISH EETAIL TEADE IN TUEKEY. 185
" Certainly," he answered ; " but it cannot. The Turkish
Government is not maitre chez soi. Its management of ¦
its own internal affafrs is everywhere impeded by foreign
interference. It is bound by treaties with England, and
with other powers, to impose no import duty above five per
cent." "Whereas," I said, "the import duties in England.
average about twenty per cent."
" Again," he continued, " two of your interlocutors, one
of whom is Vefic Effendi, complain that you corrupt the
sober Turks by licensing the retail trade ia wine and spirits,
which is forbidden by their laws. Now, in the first place,
the Turk is not sober. The higher classes drink -wine and
spirits, the lower classes drink raki, and that in remote
districts in which no British protSgS is to be found : they
are perhaps less sober than we are. In the second place,
the retail trade in wine and spirits, though forbidden to
Turks, is not forbidden to Eayahs, and is licensed in Stam
boul by the Turkish Government. If we were to cease to
license Ionian and Maltese shops, the Turks would license
Eayah shops. But though I think the importance attached
by your interlocutors to our retail trade exaggerated, I do
not defend either our interpretation of the Treaty of Com
merce, or the use that we make of that interpretation. I
believe that when the Turks granted to us full liberty of
trade they meant commerce, not retail trade ; and I think
that if we gave up our claim to license wine and spfrit
shops we should, in the first place, escape a very great
scandal, for the bad management of those shops, and the
crimes that are concocted and perpetrated there, tarnish

186 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
our national reputation. Every Ionian and Maltese whose
.character is so bad that he cannot live at home, tries tP
open a grog shop on the Bosporus. * Secondly, the Turkish
police, having the control of those shops, would be re
sponsible for their being kept in order; now they are
afraid to interfere with them. There is nothing wMch a
Turkish official dreads like a quarrel with an English
protSgi. They allow them, therefore, to be dens of vice
and crime, and throw the blame on their English pro
tectors. " And lastly we deprive the TurMsh Government of a
legitimate and considerable source of revenue. We, of
course, get nothing by granting Hcenses ; they would make
a good business of it. The last statement wMch requires
correction is Vefic Effendi's story of the massacre of the
Janissaries. I was intimate with Husseyn Pasha, commonly
called the Agha Pasha, who himself conducted it. He has
often told me the story, and his story was that at the
Etmeidan the Jamssaries were surrounded on all sides,
that all escape was carefully bairred, and that no quarter
was given."
" Are these," I said, " all the corrections that you have
to suggest ? "
" All," he answered.
At night, Kabbac, our robber companion, came into the
consulate, was taken to the Pasha and installed as a
policeman. He confessed to Mr. Calvert that he feared that if he
returned to his home he might not be able to resist the
teiriptatiori of taking again to the hills,

HELLESPONT. 187

SMYENA.
Saturday, November 1th, "Leonidas," off Mitylene,
10 A.M. — We left the Dardanelles this morning -with
regret, having passed there the most agreeable and the
most instructive week of our whole tour. Our boat, the
"Leonidas," belonging to the Messageries, is the sister
ship to the " Scamander," and therefore steady and slow.
The sea is calm, and we scarcely perceive that we are
mo-ving. We ran close to the European shore, unculti
vated and bare, and at the mouth of the channel, crossed
towards the Ehetean promontory, passed the camp of the
Greeks, and doubled Cape Sigeum. The tomb of Ajax
was rendered distinguishable by the ruins on its side, that
of Achilles by its position on the brow of the cliff. It is
admirably described by Homer : —
'Akt^ ini irpovxovay, iin TrXarei 'EXXTjffn-ojTiy
'Ug Ksv TtiXiipavrig ix novTofiv dvSpaaiv ity
Totg 01 vvv ysyaaai koi bi jiito'kwQiv iaovrai.
That of Patroclus, more inland and shaded by trees, could
not be seen without a glass. After we had rounded the pro
montory, and were approaching Besica Bay, I saw very
clearly between the tumulus of Peneleus and that of .^syetes
the site of Troy. With a glass I could distinguish the

188 A JOUENAL KEPT EST TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
tomb of Hector, marked by a wild fig-tree on its side.
The most remarkable objects of the Troad may thus be
seen from the sea, but a person who had not examined
them on shore might fail in distinguishing them. Tenedos
looked bare and rugged, so did Imbros ; but Samothrace,
rising far above ImbroSj its mountains in bright sunlight,
was a grand object. Neptune chose well his seat. From
their summit the Troad must be spread out like a map.
Those of Lemnos are comparatively low ; we soon lost
them as the evening came on. The sun had set when we
approached Mitylene (Lesbos) ; we ran near to its coast,
but could not see more than that it is mountainous.
Sunday, Novemher Sth, Hotel des deiix Angustes
(MiUes), Smyrna. — At six this morning I was awoke by
the noise of our anchoring in the land-locked bay of
Smyrna. Never was a more detestable town more beautifuUy
placed. The vast amphitheatre of mountains which sur
rounds it sometimes recedes into deep valleys, sometimes
advances in bold or gently sweUing promontories, and
rises in pinnacles. The colouring is exquisite, changing
with the strata, the vegetation, and the shadows, from
brown, red, grey, and green, to the deepest purple. The
town can be described only by comparison ; it is worse
than Stamboul; it is, if possible, as bad as Galata or
Pera. It is, in short, a large TurMsh town — words which,
to any one who has travelled in Turkey, express every
sort of filth, misery, squaUdness, and discomfort which the
aggregation of 150,000 semi-barbarians can accumulate.
Madame Girard's boarding-house, to which we were

SMYENA EAIL"WAY. ' 189
recommended, is full; we are lodged at the Deux Au-
gustes, which is said to be the best inn. The rooms are
good, and were once well fumaished, but now bear marks of
dilapidation. The stove is out of order, and though the
room looks south, the thermometer is at fifty-five. We are
forced to -wrap tip in gi-eat coats and shawls. We took
a cavass from the consulate, who protected us against
the brutaUties of the custom-house, which has been de
scribed to me as one of the worst in Turkey.
After breakfast I walked with our consul, Mr. Blunt,
to see the works of the railway to Aden. Mr. Meredith,
the principal engineer, showed us a plan of the line. It is
eighty miles long. The only difficulty is a tunnel tMough
Mount Pagus of about two miles.
The proposed capital of the company is 1,200,000?., of
which the works will take 1,000,000?. The labourers are
Turks ; at present, only forty-five are engaged. They
earn about eighteen pence a day, and do about one-third
the work of an Englishman.
Mr. Meredith expects an enormous traffic. The Hne
traverses a rieh and, for Turkey, populous country, through
which everything is now carried on camels or on horses.
So that much of the produce which reaches Smyrna is sold
for seven times as much as it cost in the country,
Mr, Blunt was for twenty years consul at Salonica, I
asked Mm which population he preferred, the Salomcans
or the Smymiotes,
"There is not much," he said, "to choose between
them. The poorer, the humbler, the Turk is, the better
he is ; as he mixes -with the world, and as he gets money

190 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and power, he deteriorates. In the lowest class I have
sometimes found tiuth, honesty, and gratitude ; iri the
middle classes, seldom ; in the highest, never. Even the
lower classes are changed for the worse. Five and twenty
years ago you could trust a bag of money to a porter for
short distances, to a courier for long ones ; it was the
practice. No one ventures to do so now. The race, how
ever, is rapidly dying out. A Turkish woman will scarcely
ever have more than two children.
f Lord Stratford," he continued, " has always been a
friend to Turkey. What are his hopes ? "
"He hopes," I answered, "that the Mussulmen and
Christians may be so far fused, by the enjoyment of equal
rights, as to be loyal subjects to one government."
" I hope so, too," he answered ; " but in the parts of
Bulgaria which I know best, that is, Macedonia and Thes
saly, it will not be the government of the Sultan. The
Mussulmen of those countries are as disaffected to the
ConstantinopoUtan government as the Christians are.
They have a hundred times said to me, ' When -will you
drive those hogs out of Constantinople ? ' " •
" Would they like to be annexed to Greece ? " I asked.
" By no means," he answered ; " the Grreek invasion
of 1854 thoroughly frightened and disgusted the whole
population. Christian as well as Turkish. The invaders
professed to come as liberators ; they swept all the country
of its cattle, sheep, and goats. No one joined them, except
those whom they forced to do so, by threatening to burn
thefr villages, and they deserted at the first opportunity."
Monday, Novemher 9th. — I called on Herr Spiegelthal,

DEPOPULATION OF TUEKEY. 191
the Prussian Consul. I found him busy in packing a col
lection of ancient bronzes, terra cottas, and mai-bles, which
he has made during the seven or eight years that he has
been here. They are going to London for sale. Excavat
ing in these climates is not safe. Jie has suffered severely
from fever, and is going to seek recovery at the baths
of Castellamare.
He, too, talked of the dying out of the Turks. " In
towns," he said, " where there were 3000 Turks five or six
years ago, there are now not 2000. Since the reforms
have given to the Eayahs comparative security, they are
squeezing out the Turks. Formerly, the richer they were
the more they were oppressed ; now they combine, make a
common purse to resist the common enemy, and whenever
one of them is ill-tieated, only ha-ving a larger fund to.
draw from, he can purchase more witnesses, and bribe the
judge higher than his adversary.
" A stiong proof of the depopulation of the country is
the presence of nomadic tribes, Irooks and Turcomans,
who wander over ifc in parties of from thirty to forty
families, carrying ¦with them cattle, camels, horses, and
sheep in thousands, encamping and feeding on the un
occupied lands. The Irooks live in tents; and, besides
their pastoral employments, weave carpets and coarse
cloths. The Tm-comans are purely pastoral, and some
times build temporary -villages of wood coated with mud.
I remember finding one near Sardis on the same spot
for two successive years. They had 150 camels, 400 or
500 head of cattle, and perhaps 10,000 sheep. I asked
them how long they intended to remain there. ' God

192 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
only knows,' they answered. The next year they were
gone," " To whom, then," I said, " does the land on which they
encamp, and feed their herds and flocks, belong ? "
" To the Sultan in general," he answered,
" And do they pay for its use ? "
" Not," he replied, " when it is the Sultan's, The un
occupied land of the Sultan' may be used -without payment;
when they use that belonging to private persons, some
payment is exacted. They ought to pay tithe, but the
appearance of a tithe-collector is a notice to them to de
part," " How much of Asia Minor," I said, f do you suppose to
be uncultivated?"
"Ninety-nine hundredths," he answered; "if you go
from hence towards Magnesia, you will ride ten hours
through fine land without seeing a human habitation. But
such is the fertility of the hundredth part which is culti
vated, that if there were roads, its produce would influence
sensibly the markets of Em-ope, A few years ago the
crop of madder failed in the south of France, The export
from Smyrna doubled, and in a great measure supplied
the loss. If we had roads, we should drive the French
madder out of the market,"
Tuesday, Novemher 10th. — I walked with Mr, Spiegel-
thai through the greater part of Smyrna, towards the
ancient city on the hill which overlooks it. He pointed
out to me a line running near a large Armenian church,
and dividing the to-wn about equally, which was formerly
the shore. The foundations of a fine sea wall bound the

HEALTHINESS OF SMYENA. 193
site of the city of Alexander, It rose up about one-third
of the hill.
The modern city consists ofa large Turkish town towards
the south, a Frank to-wn to the north, extending along
the sea-shore, and an Armenian town to the east,
I asked him about its healthiness,
" A part of the Armenian town," he said, " which runs
up among gardens, intersected by the Meles, is unhealthy,
from want of drainage. The health of the Tm-kish town
is somewhat affected by the cemeteries. A TurMsh grave
does not press on the corpse ; room is left for it to rise into
a sitting postm-e, to answer the question which, immediately
after its interment, an angel puts to it, as to the faith in
which it has died. As it is feared that at such a moment
it may want presence of mind, the mooilah who presides
at the burial stands for ten minutes at the head of the
grave, to prompt it. He keeps repeating : ' Say, There is
one God, and Mahomet is his prophet ; ' and, to enable the
corpse to hear him, a communication is left between the grave
and the open air. The consequence is that the air from
a TurMsh cemetery in use is unwholesome. In general,
however, Smyrna is healthy,"
" Can you open fresh ground," I asked, " with safety ? "
" Certainly," he answered, " We are not persecuted by
the mysterious malaria of Italy or of Algeria, There
is seldom any unhealthiness without an obvious cause,"
The deserted city, the walls of which crown the hill,
must be very ancient, A portion of them is of early Greek
architecture, large stones uncemented. Other parts are
of different ages, down to the TurMsh period, which is
0

194 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
marked by marble columns and friezes built into them.
They are about two miles in circumference. Within are
extensive cisterns, of Byzantine construction, and an
acropolis. Near one of the gates was a colossal bust.
About eight years 'ago, an order was received to send to
Constantinople all remains of ancient art, particularly
heads. This bust was detached from its place in the wall ;
but as the firman specified heads, the Turks cut off the
head, and rolled it down the hill, on its way to Constanti
nople, leaving the neck and shoulders under the wall.
Here Mr. Spiegelthal found them, and being struck by
their beauty, sent them to BerHn ; and then tried to get
the head. It could not be heard of at Constantinople, and
at last he ascertained that it lay long at the foot of the
hill, as it was rolled do-wn, and is supposed to have been at
last burnt for lime.
In a burial ground on the side of the hill we saw four
Greek columns still standing, assigned to a temple of Escu-
lapius, and further on are the ruins of an ampMtheatre.
What remains is of good Greek construction, and to pre
vent its utter destruction Herr Spiegelthal has bought it.
Herr Spiegelthal has spent much time in the interior of
Asia Minor, and he beHeves the feeUngs of the Christian
population to be such as to render an insurrection against
the Tm-ks almost certain within five or six years.
"What," I asked, "are their respective numbers? "
" The Christians," he answered, " are about tMee mil
lions. The Tm-ks about nine. But the Christians are
concentrated in the larger towns; they possess all the
wealth, the knowledge, and the intelUgence of the country."

FEELINGS OF THE CHEISTIAN POPULATION. 195
"But," I said, "they axe neither armed nor miUtary."
" Most of them," he answered, " are armed. The laws
which forbid their being so are, Hke most Turkish laws,
unexecuted. I do not beHeve that they are unmiUtary.
In the war, the young Grreeks volunteered to serve in large
numbers ; they requfr-ed, however, to be embodied apart,
thefr object was to acquire discipline and experience. The
governiaent rejected them. The robbers of this neigh
bourhood are almost all Greeks ; five or ten of them
were generally a match for twenty or thirty of the Turkish
police. A couple of years ago, five or six robbers were
surrounded by a couple of hundred soldiers, in a house in
the vUlage of Boujad, about four miles from Smyrna. The
soldiers were afraid to enter the house, in which they had
barricaded themselves, and kept firing on them. The
robbers returned the fire, killed several of the soldiers, and
the affafr ended by two of the robbers being killed, and
the rest escaping. Thefr hatred of the Tm-ks increases as
thefr own wealth, intelligence, and numbers increase, and
the Turkish rule becomes more and more corrupt and
oppressive. You must- not judge that rule from what you
have seen on the Bosporus or the Hellespont, where there
are consuls, and a European public. In the interior there
is a mixtm-e of anarchy and despotism, of timidity, negli
gence, cruelty, and rapacity. The government does not
protect, does not assist, does nothing for the good of the
people, and allows no one else to do anything. In short,
it is a mere machine for robbery. It has no moral force
and very little physical force. In this large ^own there are
not three hundi-ed Turkish soldiers. The insurgents -will
o 2

196 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
be assisted by the Greeks from the islands, such as Candia,
Cyprus, Ehodes, and Mitylene, where the bulk of the
population is Greek. They will thus have the command
of the sea. The contest -will drag on until some European
power, or Europe collectively, interferes, to prevent the
utter destruction of the finest portion of the earth."
We dined -with Mr, Hanson, and met Dr. M'Crith, a
physician settled for some years in Smyrna. We talked of
the two robber cMefs, Yani Katergee and Simos,
" I spent a week," he said, " in company -with Simos by
day and by night,"
" We all," I said, " heard of your capture ; ¦will you give
us some of the details of your residence with him ? How
long ago was it ? "
" Three years," he answered ; " I was riding in 1854, one
summer's afternoon, from Bournabat to a neighbouring
village, about four miles from Smyrna, when I was desired
to stop, and found myself surroimded by armed men.
They led me into a thicket, where I found nine or ten pri
soners like myself. They kept us there until it was dark,
then dismissed all except six, that is to say, four Smyrniotes,
a Jew, and myself. They fixed the ransoms of the Smyr
niotes and me at first at 3000?., or 600?. a piece, made me
write a note stating their demand, and sent the Jew to
Smyrna on my horse to bring it, having first stripped him
of his fur pelisse, and given it to me to wear in the moun
tains during the nights. They then walked us off across
the plain to the mountains. We halted high up in an oak
wood, took a sheep and a couple of lambs from a neigh-
bp-aring fold, and roasted them whole, on which, with the
fine water of the mountains, I made a good supper ; and

DE. M'CEITH. 197
Simos, who took great care of me, made me a bed of
boughs of trees. All the next day we lay quiet, sentinels
being posted round. As soon as it was dark, finding that
three of the Smyrniotes were of little value, they sent them
off, and we then started and walked rapidly towards the
place, about twenty miles off, where the Jew was to meet
us on the day after -with the ransom, I was tired ; they
met ari old man on a donkey, took it from him, put me on
it, and made him accompany us to take care of it,"
" How many," I asked, " were the robbers ? "
" They were originaUy nine," he said, " all Greeks ; but
on the second day we recruited a tenth, a young Turk,
whom we met flying from the conscription. He was well
armed, and we complied with his request to be allowed to
join us. The third night's march brought us near to the
place where we were to find the Jew with the ransom. We
posted our watch and lay qmet. One of them fell asleep
on his post, and was severely beaten by Simos, Towards
noon our sentinels reported that they could see with their
telescopes about thfrty Turkish soldiers climbing up the
mountain, ' We shall not let them take you out of our
hands,' said Simos to me : he had said the same thing to
me once or twice before, ' I -wish,' I said to him, ' that you
' would riot keep dinning that into my ears ; I know what
' you mean, and you need not always be putting me in mind
' of it' "
" What did it mean ? " I asked,
" It meant," he answered, " that to prevent a rescue they
would shoot me,"
" What could they get by that ? " I asked,
o 3

198 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" It would set an example," he answered ; " they could
show that the only means of saving a prisoner's life was to
pay his ransom, that to rescue him was impossible. The
robbers," he continued, " aware that the Jew had betrayed
them, took up a position on the mountain side, where the
path was steep, and waited the arrival of the soldiers under
cover of rocks and brushwood. They left my fellow-pri
soner and me under the guard of two men, one of whom
was the man who had been beaten. TMs man stood -with
us, a little behind the brow of the hill. The other was on
its edge, and could look down on the field of battle. In
about an hour we heard shots, and from their frequency it
seemed that the action was brisk,
" Our guard had been very sulky ever since his beating,
I said to him, ' You have taken to a trade which -will not
' prosper ; you ai-e sure in a year or two, perhaps in a day
' or two, to be shot or beheaded. Help me to escape, and
' I wiU ensure you pardon and preferment,' He turned very
red, and said that he could not break his oath to Simos,
' Nonsense,' I said, ' do you suppose that God requfres you
' to keep such an oath as that ? ' Then he said that the
other man would shoot us, ' On the contrary,' I said, 'I
' will shoot him. He has his back towards us, lend me
' your gun ; the instant I have shot him we -will tun down
' the hill to the soldiers below,' As I was saying this the
guard, who was in advance, turned, ahd called out to us
that the soldiers were beaten, and running throwing away
their arms. So this chance of escape had failed. None of
the band were hit, but I was told that several of the
soldiers had fallen.
" Simos now said that he would take a cfrcmt of two days

DE. M'CEITH, 199
to a house where he had a friend on whom he could rely, as
bearer of the ransom and the message. We walked for about
four hours over the mountain ridges, and then lay down in a
thicket. Soon after a Turk, on horseback, rode along the
track, and turned from it, I know not with what intention,
into the thicket. He was instantly shot. The old man, to
whom the ass belonged, was sitting near us, quietly smoking
his chibouk. One of the robbers came behind and shot
him in the back. The ball probably reached the heart, for
he leapt forward and fell dead. It was still dayUght, and
therefore earlier than our usual hour of moving, but Simos
thought our position dangerous, and we commenced our
march towards the house of his friend,
" ' You must not suppose,' he said to me, ' that I like
' this bloodshed. It gives me great pain, but it is one of
' the misfortunes of my profession,'
" ' I can understand,' I said, ' your shooting the
' Turk, If I were a Greek, I would shoot a Turk when-
' ever I could. But why did you shoot the poor old man,
' -who had been living -with you, eating with you, sleeping
' ¦with you for three days ? '
" ' I did not do it,' he answered, ' Pericles did it ; he
' is a young hand, and thoughtless. If I had kno^wn what
' he was going to do, I should have stopped Mm, but as it
' has been done there is no use in fretting about it.' He
was much elated at his victory, and wrote an insulting letter
to the Pasha, and another to Mr. James "Whittall, raised
our ransom to 100,000 piastres, or 9000?., and sent the
letters off by a shepherd whom he found on the mountain.
" We walked all mght, and lay quiet the next day. The
o 4

200 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Smyrniote and I con^vinced him that the demand of 100,000
piastres was absurd, and the utmost he could hope from
us was 500?. a piece.
" In the middle of the following night, we reached his
friend's house. He made me write to Mr. J. Whittall a
demand of 40,000 piastres, or 3,000?, as ransom ; but it
was understood between us and communicated to the
messenger, that if the messenger brought back 500?, or
about 6000 piastires, I was to be released, I believe the
Smyrniote came to a similar arrangement with him. He
wrote to his friends, and I wrote to my ¦wife, and also to
Mr, James WMttall, requesting our respective ransoms be
given to the bearer. My wife had hot the money in the
house ; but as no time was to be lost, it was immediately
procured for her;
" The next day the messengers returried -with the 500?,
a piece for us, Simos shook me cordially by the baud
when we parted, and gave me a sovereign to pay my
expenses home,"
"I suppose," I said, "that you made the TurMsh
Government repay your ransom,"
"I drew for it," answered Dr, M'Crith, "on Lord
Stratford, who I believe advanced it out of his o-wn
pocket. Of course the Turks ultimately paid it."
" What became," I asked, " of the band ? "
" Suleiman Pasha," he answered, "was then our governor;
he required looking after. We were not sure that part of
our ransoms did not go to him, so the consuls went in a body
to impress on hini the necessity of repressing an organised
system of crime which was in fact confining us within the
walls of the town. Under the old Turkish law, the course

EXTIEPATION OF BANDITTI. 201
would have been simple, A reward would have been set
en the heads of all who formed part, or were supposed to
form part, ofthe gang, and they would have been shot dovm
by the countey people. But since the Hatt-i-Sheriff of
Gui Haneh, the procedure is more regular. It was thought
that they ought to be tried, and, in that case, they could
not be executed unless the hefrs of some of their victims
asked blood for blood. Such was the terror that no one
ventured to do this. At last we got over it by making the
Pasha himself come into court and ask blood for blood, iri
respect of his soldiers kUled iri the attack ori the mouu-
tain. The result was that all my ten companions were
satisfactorily disposed of. Some were shot, some were be
headed, and the bodies of some were found on the shore
near to their prison, which was an old Genoese castle, on a
low tongue of land projecting into the bay. It was said
that they had all been dro-wned in an attempt to escape.
But it took about a year. The last but one killed was
Simos. The police stopped two suspicious-looMng men at
Cordeleon Point ; one of .them said that, if they would let
him go, he would tell them a valuable secret. They pro
mised, and he then said that .his companion was Simos.
Simos tried to break away, and was killed in the struggle.
They cut off his head, and took it to the Austrian consul-
general to be identified. The informer was beheaded in
due time.
" C. D.," he continued, "was our best Pasha; being a
Greek, he knew how to deal with Greeks."
" Is he not a Mussulman ? " I asked.
" He is a Mussulman now," answered Dr. M'Crith ; " but
he was born of Greek parents in Scio. When the island,

202 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
was ravaged during the war of independence, C. D. was
left an orphan, received in a Turkish family, and brought
up as a Turk ; but he has all the cleverness of his race.
No Turk could have put down the Smyrniote robbers of
his time; they were far more numerous and better dis
ciplined than their successors. Katergee was superior to
Simos. Suleiman Pasha was a Turk, idle, sensual, and
forced to exertion only by the fear of losing his place.
C. D. delighted in the contest. He deceived them, out-
-witted them, and cared not what promises he made nor
what promises he broke, nor, in short, what means he
employed. "I will tell you a characteristic story about him. A
shroff, or money-changer, of some wealth, disappeared ;
suspicion fell on one Demitri, keeper of a coffee-house
which was opposite to Ms shop. That coffee-house was the
place in which he had been seen last. Demitri and his
waiter were arrested. No confession or evidence was
extracted from the master, and all that they could get
from the servant was that he had seen two bags of gold in
his master's possession. C. D. and Demitri had one taste
in common ; they were both fond of jewels and antiques.
Demitri wore a valuable antique ring. C. D. sent to ask
him for the loan of it for an evemng, in order to compare
it -with one of his own. As soon as he got it, he sent a
man with it to Demitri 's -vdfe, with a message from her
husband to say that he had come to an arrangement with
the Pasha, and was to be released on gi-ving to him the two
bags of gold which were in her keeping ; he entreated her,
therefore, to send the bags by the messenger. The wife
recognised the ring; the story was plausible, indeed, it was

DEMITEI. 203
what was to be expected, and she gave the bags. The next
day the Pasha sent for Demitri, showed to him the bags of
gold, and told him that his servant had confessed that
Demitri had committed the murder, had described its
details — in short, had given them all the evidence that they
wanted, and had told them where to find the gold. De
mitri was as credulous as his wife had been. ' If Ae,' he
said, ' has given e-vidence against me, I will against hvm.'
So he made a clean breast, confessed that the shroff had
been strangled in the coffee-house and buried under the
floor, and that he was only one of several persons whom
he and his servant had disposed of in the same way. The
floor was taken up, and several bodies were found buried
under it."
" Were the murderers executed ?" I asked.
" I believe not," he answered ; " as far as I recollect, the
heirs of the murdered persons accepted the price of blood,
and Demitii and Ms waiter were sent to the Bagnio. In
all probability Demitri has purchased his release, and per
haps keeps a second coffee-house, managed in the same
way as his flrst was."
" AU your great robbers," I said, " seem to have been
Greeks." " Greeks oMy," said Mr. Hanson, " have talent and com
bination enough for the arduous post of a robber chief;
and Greeks only would have enjoyed the degree of sym
pathy and assistance which these men received from their
fellow-countrymen. Katergee and Simos were not exe
crated by the Greeks as they were by the Europeans. The
Greeks recollected that it was by the klephtse that the
insurrection in Greece began. That it was the klephtse

204 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
who were the. nuclei of the guerilla bands who harassed,
and at last destroyed, the troops of the Sultan. All the
Greeks in Smyrna delighted iri Simos' victory over the
Turks." ""What do you suppose," I said, "to have beeu the
ultimate objects of Katergee and Simos ? They scarcely
intended to be robbers for the rest of their lives, unless,
indeed, they were prepared for their lives being very
short." " Probably," he answered, " they hoped to make a purse
out of a few great ransoms, and to fly to Greece to live
there in dignified repose. Perhaps they hoped to become
chiefs in the msm-rection of Asia Minor. They were both
men of some education. Katergee was a courier ; he per
formed for us all the duties which the post performs in
civUised countries; he carried messages, parcels, and
money, and had a small capital in horses and their ac
coutrements; he was thought remarkably trustworthy;
he was ill-treated by the Turkish authorities, and took to
the road partly from want, and partly in revenge."
Wednesdmj, Novemher llth. — Mr. Lafontaine, manager
of the Smyrna branch of the Ottoman bank, brother of the
Lafontaines of Pera, took us to spend the day at his house
in Bournabat, a village at the head of the gulf, about four
miles from Smyrna. In this -village, and in Boujad, the
rich Europeans have their country houses. We looked at
two or three of them. They are comfortable and pretty,
surrounded by groves of olives, oranges, white mulberries,
and cypresses.
Though not raised much above a rich alluvial plain, they
are not subject to malaria, of -which, indeed, there is little

FEELINGS OF THE CHEISTIAN POPULATION. 205
about Smyrna. Asia Minor seems to be a healthier country
than Italy. In the Eoman territory, such a -village as
Bournabat would be mortal.
Thursday, Novemher 12th. — A wet day ; the first since
the 2nd of November. I passed the morning looking over
Mr. J. Whittall's collection of Greek coins. It includes that
made by IsmaU Pasha, who had great facilities as a col
lector, I know little of coins, but was struck by the
beauty of several, particularly by a Syracusan coin, the
head of Arethusa, He finds scarcely any that are
identical. The Greek dies seem to have been soon worn
out, and never reproduced -without some change.
When it became too dark to examine them, we sat and
talked over the prospects of the country. He expressed his
conviction that it cannot remain as it is ; that the di
minution in numbers, in morality, in spirit, and in hope,
of the Turks, and the increasing wealth, courage, and in
telUgence of the Christians, must soon end the subjection
of the ci-viUsed man to the barbarian,
" TMee influences," he said, " are struggling, that of the
Greeks, meaning by Greeks those who acknowledge the
Patriarch of Constantinople, that of the Armenians, and
that of the Europeans, The .Greeks dream of nothing but
a Greek empire, to be created by the help of Eussia,
They despise the Eussians as slaves and savages, but they
hope to make use of them, and then to throw them off.
The Armenians, and generally all the Christians who are
not in communion -with the Patriarch of Constantinople,
dread the Greeks still more than they do the Turks, They
know them to be more intolerant and more oppressive.
They are quiet, unambitious people, and would like to

206 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
exchange the Turkish rule for the supremacy of any
European power. If they have a predilection, it is in
favour of Eussia, The only foreign nations that have any
influence are Eussia, France, and England, The Eussians,
of course, are supported by the Greek element, the French
by the Latin clergy, the English by the agricultural and
commercial interests. The Turks, too, prefer us to all
other foreigners, - Though the French have tried hard to
appropriate all its glory, the late war has raised our cha
racter, while it has depressed that of our rivals. The
Eussians are now more hated and less feared. The French
were insolent and oppressive ; the English were civil and
Mnd, and, above aU, they paid well. The thousands of
Bashi Bazouks whom we had in our pay, are inissionaries,
trumpeting our honesty and our Hberality over the country,
" I believe that if we enforce the-Hatt-i-Humfiyoon, and
enable Europeans to buy land, the coast of Asia Minor
will become an English and German colony. They are
the only colonising nations. Asia Minor is a better field
for them than America. There is far more unoccupied
land ; it may be bought of individuals for a shilling or two
an acre ; of the Government, for the mere cost of writing
out the grant. The first and most important step is to
make railways. They -will be constructed, and o-wned, and
worked by Englishmen. They -will be enormously profit
able ; and they -will render productive pro-vinces now uncul
tivated, because it often costs five times as much to carry
a quarter of grain to the coast as it costs to buy it from
the producer. The railway companies, and the European
colonies, will become little republics. They will say to

PEOSPECTS OF ENGLAND IN ASIA MINOE. 207
the Turks, ' We will pay our tithes and taxes, which -will
' be twenty times more than you ever got before, but we
' -will manage our own affairs. We -will have our own local
' authorities, our o-wn courts, our own poUce, our own roads,
' and our own local taxation for local purposes.' The Eus
sians, the Greeks, and the French, will use every means,
fair or unfafr, ¦violent or fraudulent, to prevent railways
from being made, and colonies from being founded, and
to ruin or damage them when they exist. Their enmity -will
be assisted by the jealousy, ignorance, and brutality of the
Turkish Government ; but if England will favour and sup
port us, I have no fears. The material interests are all in
our favour ; and, -with English assistance, they wUl overcome
the political opposition,
" But we ought to be well represented. When an En
gHsh consul is a man of talent, energy, and public spirit,
and can speak the language, Ms opportunities of doing
good, or rather of preventing evil, are enormous. Mr.
Wood, brother of our Dr. Wood, exercised at Damascus as
much influence as the Pasha, Mr, Calvert, at the Dai--
danelles, is a more important person than the Pasha ; the
whole province looks up to him ; all the Pasha's merits are
ascribed, and very justly, to his mfluence,
"Calvert," he continued, "rendered great services to
our army ; and, if the Commissariat would have allowed
him, would have rendered much greater. They hated
him, and tried to ruin him. Some, because he required
from them more exertion than men with their torpid
routine habits could make, or could ever conceive ; others,
because he interfered with their jobs. In this country

208 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
almost every one turns jobber. The opportumties are
incessant, the immunity is almost perfect. Public opinion
is in favour of corruption, EngHshmen who might have
been honest anywhere else, caught the endemic,
" The consuls and vice-consuls should not only be better
chosen, but better paid, Thefr salaries have not been
raised, while everything has doubled in price. If Calvert
were not agent for Lloyd's, he could not maintain his
position. Blunt at this place can scarcely do so ; Ms vice-
consul is worn out, but the Foreign Office -will not remove
him, because they have no fund from which to pension
him ; so Blunt has to pay a man to do the vice-consul's
business," " You have read," I said, " my ' Therapia Journal,'
what do you think of the theory of some of my inter
locutors — that if we vrish to preserve the integrity of the
Turkish Empire, we must leave the Turk to himself; that
if we do not fetter him and mislead him, he can keep do-wn
his Greeks, Armenians, Eoumans and Slaves?"
"I think," answered Whittall, "that if we leave the
Turk to act on his own principles, if principles they can be
called, the brutality, corruption, and stupidity of his mis
govemment -will produce an insm-rection, which after
laying waste this country for ten years, wUl end in dri-ving
him out of it."
" But if that should not be the case, if he should be
strorig enough, as your friends think that he would be, to
prevent an insurrection, or to put it down, then, I believe,
that the whole population, Mussulman and Christian would
be ruined together. In short I beHeve that if you leave

GEEEK FEELINGS IN SMYENA. 209
the Turk to himself, this country, if it does not become
another Greece, will become another Morocco."
We passed the evening at Madame de Steindl's. She is
the ¦wife of the Austrian Consul-General, and is the younger
of the two young ladies who charmed Captain Basil Hall,
when he Hved -with the Countess Purgstall at Schloss
Hainfeld. They have a fine house, the best in Smyrna ;
and about thirty ladies and gentlemen were strong and
bold enough to hobble to her through the dark, unlighted,
rough, and muddy lanes.
The Steindl's Uke Smyrna. The town they acknowledge,
is horrible, but their country-house at Boujad is beautifully
situated, and the society is pleasant. As far as my ex
perience goes, I quite agree vrith the last statement. I
have found here a most agreeable society. The men are
well-informed, and the women accompHshed and gi-aceful,
and all are as Mnd as people can be.
She had been reading my Alexandrian journal, in which
the Greek Consul-General disclaims all sympathy -with
Eussia. " That was not the case,'' she said, " vrith the Greeks in
Smyrna. We illuminated for the captiare of Sebastopol,
as we thought that we ought to do in a Turkish to-wn, and
were in danger of having our house pulled do-wn. During
the whole war, our Greeks were threatening an insurrec
tion. None of them disguised their Eussian sympathies."
I asked M. de Steindl what happened to an Austrian
accused of the murder of a Turk.
" I keep him in my prison," he answered, " until I have
collected all the evidence that is accessible. Then I send

210 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
him and the depositions to Trieste, and he is tried and
punished there."
"Do you send the vritnesses?" I asked.
"Never," he answered; "he is tried on the depositions
alone." " And what," I said, " happens if a Turk has murdered
an Austrian ? ."
"He is tried and punished," he answered, "by the
Turkish tiibunals. At least he is tried, but such are the
absurdities of Turkish law, and so easy is it to purchase
the -witnesses and the judges, that, if he has any money,'he
is generally acquitted."
Friday, Nov. ISth. — I supped at X.'s, and met Y., an
English physician settled at Smyrna,, and Mi-. Homer, a
Greek. We talked of the degeneracy of the Turks. " How do
you account," I asked, " for the strange fact, if it be a fact,
that in proportion as they have improved thefr institutions,
in proportion as life and property have been more secure,
their wealth and their numbers have diminished ? How
comes it that the improvement which gives prosperity to
every other natipn ruins them ? "
" It is a fact," said Y., "that while their institutions have
improved, their wealth and population have diminished.
Many causes have contributed to this deterioration. The
first and great one is, that they are not producers. They
have neither diligence, intelUgence, nor forethought. No
Turk is an improving landlord, or even a repairing land
lord. When he has money, he spends it on objects of .
immediate gratification. His most permanent investment

DEGBNEEACY'OF THE TUEKS. 211
is a timber palace, to last about as long as its builder. His
only professions are shop-keeping and service. He cannot
engage in any foreign commerce, as he speaks no language
but his own. No one ever heard of a Turkish house of
business, or of a Turkish banker, or merchant, or manu
facturer. If he has lands or houses, he Hves on their rent ;
if he has money, he spends it, or employs it in stocMng a
shop, in which he can smoke and gossip all day long. The
only considerable enterprise in which he ever engages is the
fai-ming some branch of the public revenue. His great re
source is service, either that of a private person or of the
Sultan. People talk of the place-hunting of France and
of Germany; it is nothing to that of Turkey. A place
closes the vista of every Turk's ambition."
"But," I said, "there was a time when the Turks were rich
and prosperous. 'What difference is there between their
national character then and now ? "
" As respects hope," answered X., " ardour, self-reHance,
ambition, pubHc spirit, in short, all that makes a nation
formidable, the difference is enormous. Until the battle
of Lepanto and the retreat from Vienna, they possessed the
grand and heroic but dangerous virtues of a conquering
nation. • They are now degraded by the grovelling vices of
a nation that reUes on foreigners for its defence. But as re
spects the qualities which conduce to material prosperity, to
riches and to numbers, I do not believe that they have much
changed. I do not believe tbat they are more idle, waste
ful, improvident, and brutal now than they were 400 years
ago. But it is only within the last fifty years, that the
effects of these qualities have shown themselves fully.
P 2

212 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
When they first swarmed over Asia Minor, EoumeHa,
and Bulgaria, they seized on a country very populous and
of enormous wealth. For 350 years they kept on con
suming that wealth and wearing out that population. If
a Turk wanted a house or a garden, he tm-ned out a
Eayah ; if he wanted money, he put a bullet into a hand
kerchief, tied it in a knot, and sent it to the nearest
opulent Greek or Armeman. At last, having lived for
three centm-ies and a half on their capital of things and
of men, having reduced that rich and well peopled country
to the desert which you now see it, they find themselves
poor. They cannot dig, to beg they are ashamed. They use
the most mischievous means to prevent large families ; they
kill their female children, the conscription takes off the
males, and they disappear. The only memorial of what
fifty years ago was a populous Turkish village is a crowded
burial-ground, now unused."
" As a medical man," said Y., " I, and perhaps I only,
know what crimes are committed in the TurMsh part of
Smyrna, which looks so gay and smiling, as its pic
turesque houses, embosomed in gardens of planes and
cypresses, rise up the hill. I avoid as much as I can the
Turkish houses, that I may not be cognisant of them.
Sometimes it is a young second wife who is poisoned by
the older one ; sometimes a female child, whom the father
wUl not bring up ; sometimes a male kUled by the mother
to spite the father. Infanticide is rather the rule than the
exception. No inqufry is made, no notice is taken by the
police. What occurs -within the harem is a privileged
mystery. A rich Turk, my patient, was dying of heart

DEGENEEACY OF THE TUEKS. 213
complaint. He had two wives, a Greek and a Turk. He
suffered much and gave much trouble. His wives were
all gentleness and affection in his presence. But their
imprecations against him when they had left his room were
horrible. The TurMsh wife said to me one day, 'You
know that he must die. It is a pity that he should
kill us. Can you not give him something to shorten
his misery? We would make it worth your while.'
I have no doubt that he suspected them; he kept im
ploring me not to leave him. 'He was sure,' he said,
' that he should not live long if a TurMsh physician visited
him;' probably he was right. In fact," he continued,
" it is not the improvement of thefr institutions which has
produced their poverty and weakness ; but their poverty
and weakness which have produced the improvement of
their institutions, 'When we were forced to submit to
their sending ambassadors to the Seven Towers, we never
thought of interfering with thefr misgovemment of Eayahs,
'When they had shown themselves feeble at home, and
absolutely powerless abroad, we began to be shocked with
their treatment of our co-reHgionists, Their reforms have
never been voluntary. They have been imposed on them by
Europe. Thefr date is always that of a period of calamity.
The defeat at Nezib produced the Hatti-Sherif of Gul-
H^neh ; the occupation of Constantinople occasioned the
Hatt-i-Hum^yoon." " I do not quite agree with you," said Homer. " The im
provement of their institutions has, in more than one way,
directly contributed to the poverty and weakness of the
Turks. In the first place, it is inconsistent -with their
P 3

214 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
position, with the conditions of their existence. They
are a tribe of robbers. "What would have become of Ms
band, if Yani Katergee or Simos, had issued a Hatt-
i-Humdyoon prohibiting the taking of ransoms, or the
cutting off the ears of those whose ransoms were not paid?
A people who, as Y. has truly stated, do not produce,
must perish if they cease to steal. And secondly, the
increased security of life and property has enabled the Chris
tians to oust the Turks from manyof the employments which
were formerly open to them. Our increasing wealth pro
duces a more than proportionate expenditure on education.
'Wherever there is a Greek village, there is a school. Small
as our numbers are, there are ten, perhaps twenty,
perhaps fifty, educated Greeks for one educated Turk.
Every post requiring knowledge, diligence, or intelligence
is filled by a Greek. 'Whenever a Turk borrows, the lender
is a Greek. 'Whenever a Turk seUs, the purchaser is a
Greek, and it is seldom that a Turk borrows vrithout having
soon to sell. The proud Turks are thus becoming an inferior
race in their own country. They appear still to retain
its administration, they are the pashas, beys, mooUahs and
cadies, but for the details of their administration they are
forced to trust to Greeks ; and those who manage the details
of business, especially when a Turk is the superior, are the
real administrators."
" And how," I asked, "is this^» end ? How is the sick
man to die ? "
"It may end," said Y., "by foreign conquest, or by
foreign interference. But it seems to me certain that, if
Europe does not intervene, the Christians, superior in

DESTINY OF THE GEEEKS. 215
wealth, superior in intelligence, and every day approach
ing nearer to equality in numbers, must at no distant
period force the Turks to yield to them superiority of
power." "And who," I asked, "will exercise that power? Will
the Greeks with their love of autonomia split into republics
or aristocracies ? "
" No," answered Homer, " the time for small independent
states has gone by, or has not arrived. We shall form a
constitutional monarchy."
" With Athens," I said, " or Smyrna, for your capital ? "
" No," he answered, " with Constantinople."
" Under the protection," I said, " of St. Petersburg ? "
" No," he replied. " We sympathise with the Eussians
only as the enemies of the Turks. Their. whole system of
government, of trade, of thought and of feeling is repul
sive to us. Our strongest feeling is the desire to preserve
our nationaUty ; we have clung to it for 3000 years. If
we are attached to the peculiarities of our religion, it is not
because we care about the Patriarch of Constantinople or
about the doctrines which separate us from the Eoman
Catholics or from the Protestants, but because we think
that those peculiarities are safeguards of our nationality.
We shall not suffer ourselves to be merged in the semi-bar
barous mass of Eussia, or even to become one of its satellites,"
Saturday, November 14ih. — I went -with Mr, Van Len-
nap, a Prussian, the Swedish consul, and Dr, Wood, of
Smyrna, to -risit two schools, one for the education of girls,
the other for that of boys.
The girls' school is under the direction of the Deaconesses
P 4

216 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
of Kaiserwirth, an institution only twenty-one years old,
for attendance on the sick, for the reformation of the bad,
for the relief of the poor, and for the education of children,
which has its dependent or affiliated institutions scattered
over Europe, America, and Turkey,
They have a large house in the Armeman quarter, which
they purchased and enlarged and furnished with 30,000
dollars, of which 20,000 were advanced by the King of
Prussia, It educates forty-five boarders and sixty-five day
scholars. Among them are Protestants, Catholics, Greeks,
Armenians, and one Turkish girl, Eeligious instruction is
given by the ministers of each religion. They have two
paid teachers, a music master, and a teacher of English.
All other instruction is given by the Deaconesses, or
Sisters, of whom there are seven ; six of whom are teachers,
and the seventh is the Dfrectress.
We found there the daughters of several of our Smyr-
mote friends. The cleanliness and comfort of the rooms
is perfect. We were much pleased with the Directress, a
mild intelligent woman ; the gfrls, some as old as sixteen
or seventeen, looked healthy and happy,
" It is impossible," said Mr, Van Lennap, " to exaggerate
the usefulness of this institution. It enables the Euro
peans, in a barbarous country, 2000 miles from civilised
Europe, to give to their daughters an education such as
they would with difficulty find at home. They are well
taught intellectually, morally, and religiously, under our
own eyes, at an expense to boarders of about 45?. a year.
Until it was established, we had either to send them home
to Europe at a great expense, to be educated among

CHEISTIAN SCHOOLS IN SMYENA. 217
strangers, and to retm-n to Smyrna strangers to us, or to
let them grow up in comparative ignorance. It enables
the natives to engraft European knowledge and virtues on
Greek and Armenian intelligence. I do not suppose that
so much good was ever done with 3000?. as was done by
our good king, when his 20,000 thalers enabled the Dea
conesses to found their school."
The boys' school is a large new house in a garden in the
outskirts of the town. It educates at present eighty boys,
thirty of whom are boarders and fifty are day-boys. A Dr.
Barthe, from Ehemsh Prussia, is the manager. He has
seven masters, three English, one of whom is a Mr. Lee,
who was a tutor, I believe, in Lord de Grey's family, two
French, and two Greek. The language of the school is
English, and so are the majority of the boys. The boarders
pay, Hke the girls, about forty-five pounds a year.
The institution is struggHng under a debt incurred for
the purchase of the land and the building and furnishing
the house, on which about 12 per cent, interest is paid.
" If," I said, " the boys' school, paying nearly 500?. a
year of interest, and having to pay seven masters and a
director, can support itself, the Deaconesses' school, whose
hpuse has been given to it, and which pays only two
teachers, must be making a large profit."
"It makes no profit," said Mr. Van Lennap; "to do so
would be against its principles ; but it is able to be more
Hberal. There are more servants, the food is better, the
sisters make Httle excursions during the vacations, and as
respects teachers, the economy is not so great as it appears.
The Directress and Sisters are boarded, lodged, and

218 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
clothed. Dr. Barthe and his teachers get scarcely more
than that. They are forced to live vrith the strictest par
simony, and if their hearts were not in the business, they
would desert it for more profitable occupations. As it is,
I fear that we may be unable to keep" them. We have
tried to get the 4000?. advanced at 5 per cent, by British
capitalists, or by the English Government, on the guarantee
of the first commercial houses in Smyrna, and Lord Pal
merston, when Foreign Mimster, seemm disposed to aid
us ; but nothing has been done."
" I regret that bitterly," said Dr. Wood, " for the sake of
the to-wn,- and for the sake of English interests in the East.
At present these are confided, in a great measure, to per
sons who do not know the languages, and of course can
know but little of the people. They commumcate, or be
lieve that they communicate, -with the authorities tMough
a dragoman. To perform his duty, the dragoman must be
bold, honest, intelligent, and well acquainted -with English
and TurMsh. Few of the Greek or Armenian dragomen
possess even the last of these qualifications. Almost all of
them want the others. The poor consul is utterly at their
mercy, and cannot tell how much of what he says is misre
presented or softened, or how much is told to Mm of what
the Pasha has said. It is only in Asia that the Asiatic
tongues can be well learned. If this school, or some other
school of a similar Mnd, succeeds, I hope that it will breed
English dragomen, and, what vrill be better still, educate
English consuls, who will be independent of dragomen.
" But I look for still greater effects from the influence of
such schools on the natives, that is on the Greeks and

IMtOETANCB OF SUPPOETING ENGLISH SCHOOLS. 219
Armenians. At no distant time the Greeks will govern
this country. "What we have to -wish is that they should
come to the government with English feelings, English
opinions, and English sympathies. The Eussians through
their political agents, the French through their mission
aries and schools, are striving to make them hate ahd
despise us. They would not succeed if the Greeks could
read EngHsh. The Greeks are eminently political. They
would devour our newspapers and our debates if they could
understand them. They are also eminently commercial.
Our systems of government and of trade would be eagerly
embraced by them if they were explained to them. All
that the continental press teaches them is serviUty, protec
tion, monopoly, centralisation : in short, all the institutions,
administrative and economical, to which we are most op
posed. "Another duty which schools of this kind would per
form would be, the tiaining persons for the purpose of
making statistical and political inquiries and reports re
specting the state of the country. It is in Asia Minor that
the next struggle between Turkey and Eussia vrill take
place. Unless we take part in it, a Eussian army will walk
from Tiflis to the Hellespont. Of course, in order to make
our assistance useful, we ought to know the country. At
present we know notMng of it. The Eussian Foreign Office
knows every jnch of it. It will be miserable if we have to
leam our business when the time for action has arrived.
For all these reasons, I am most anxious that the English
Government should support the struggling Smyrna school.
It need not give money; a loan of 4000?., at moderate

220 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
interest, secured by the best commercial names in Smyrna,
would be sufficient."
Sunday, Novemher 15th. — We passed the day with Mr.
James "Whittall at Bournabat, His father, who is the great
man of the village, has built a Protestant church ; but it
is not quite finished, and in the meantime the service
is performed in a pavilion in the garden of Mr, J,
WhittaU, M. Wolter, a German, deputed by the Church Mis
sionary Society, preached to us an admirable sermon in
good English, delivered vrith a slight foreign accent. He
preaches also in Greek and in Turkish, The house of Mr.
"Whittall, the father, stands at the intersection of two
avenues ctf cypresses, two hundred years old and sisty feet
high. I said to him that, with such scenery, climate, and
society, nothing but an hotel and a road were wanting to
make Bournabat a deHghtful autumnal residence.
"It is delightful," he answered, "all the year round,
for we suffer little from heat or from cold. We shall have
a railway, and probably an hotel, and in the meantime all
our houses are hotels for our friends."
I asked him about the security of the country.
"It is now perfect," he answered. "It was only. for a
short period that it was disturbed, and the repression was
so vigorous that I do not fear a repetition of the scenes of
two or three years ago. Simos -wrote to me asking for
money. I showed the letter to the Pasha. ' I will answer
it,' he said. Some months after he sent word to me that
he had something to show me. It was Simos's head."
The dining room was hung with family portraits. There

EOBBEES' COEEESPONDENCE, 221
was Mr, "Whittall's great grandmother, a Capo d'Istrias,
who died in child-birth at fifty-two, having had twenty-
nine children.
She was the Queen of Bournabat, and ruled her subjects
with a kindness by no means unmixed -with severity. Her
cavasses bastinadoed eril-doers in her presence.
The temperature was that of a fine English summer ; at
noon about 66° in the shade ; at night about 60°.
I showed to Mr. James Whittall Dr. M'Crith's account
of his adventures in the mountains.
" If the story interests you," he said, " I can show you
some original documents relating to it."
And he gave me three scraps of paper, which I copy.
No. I.
" To Mr. J. WhittaU. — We are in the hands of the robbers,
near Hadzy Las. They demand 3000/. We are five. They
say not to send any Turks after us.
(Signed) "James M'Ckith."
No. IL
Kvpis aop BtrraA,
Av Sev \vKrj(7ri rov larpov, Kai Zev trreXXri ra ¦xprifxara avpiov to
fteari^epov, areWe avdpuTKOv va (jiepei to Ke<j>a\iTOV rov, xwp(£ aWo.
ur] oXoKaydare wiag aag ypat^wfiev diaipoperiKa.
ypovaia 100,000.
poTiae TL ETTadov oi Tvpicoi. Eipvyov airo evlo X"P'C aPftara.
E^eXoi' va jSafw rJjv eiriypa(j)riv tov larpov aXXa eivai eic aXXo fjiepog.
KaTTtrai' Sijuos Kftt iraideg.

222 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Thus translated by Mr. WhittaU : —
" Mr. Sir, WhittaU, —
" If you do not pity the Doctor, and if you do not send the
money before to-morrow at noon, send a man to take his head
and nothing else.
" Do not resent our writing to you thus strangely.
"Piastres 100,000.
" Ask what the Turks have suffered. They fled from hence
leaving their arms. I wished to send the signature of the
Doctor, but he is in another place.
(Signed) " Capitan Snios, and his Children."

No. IIL
« Mr. J. WhittaU.
" They threaten to kill me if a sum of money is not sent.
40,000 piastres. No Turks to be sent.
(Signed) "James M'Cbith.
" To be sent to (illegible) to-morrow. They order me to
write. See what you can collect. My wife can collect some
thing." " No. 1 was brought by the Jew the day after the capture.
No. 2 was sent by Simos after he had defeated the Turkish
soldiers. No. 3 reached me on the fourth day. It was in
answer to it that we sent the 500?., which was accepted.-
I was very near," he continued, " being in Dr. M'Crith's
place. I walked vrith one of my boys, at about eight
o'clock that Sunday mormng, to a village about two miles
from Bournabat. We passed through a deserted cemetery
overgrown with brushwood. 1 saw nobody, but heard some

DE. M'CEITH. 223
one vrithin the brushwood mention my name. Some of
the robbers afterwards confessed that they were lurMng
there, and had debated whether they should take me, and
had decided that it was too early in the day ; that they
might be pursued and caught in the plain, before they
could reach the mountains. "When Dr. M'Crith did not
return in the evening, we suspected what had happened,
and his friends were preparing to march towards the
mountains to rescue him. But we were warned that we
could not succeed. ' "What will you say to Mrs. M'Crith,'
said persons acquainted -with the habits of the robbers, ' if
you have to give her only M'Crith's head ?' There was no
answering this, and we gave up the attempt to rescue him.
But the pasha had firmer nerves, or rather he cared
little for Mrs. M'Crith or for Dr. M'Crith, but was in great
fear that, if a ransom were paid, its repayment would be
demanded of the Porte, and that he should be accused of
negUgence, or perhaps of collusion, -with the robbers. So,
instead of the money, he sent some thirty TurMsh soldiers
to Hadzy Las, the place at which the robbers expected
the ransom. They were defeated in the manner described
by Dr. M'Crith, and then we were allowed to send the
ransom." We passed a most agreeable day, and had a glorious
sunset for our row home.
Monday, Novemher 16th. — I-sho-wed Y. the journal
which I have been keeping here.
" All that you have reported of me," he said, " is correct.
And I think that you have well collected the opinions that
prevail in Smyrna respecting the Turks. But I should like

224 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
to see more about the Greeks. They are destined to play
— indeed they play now — a more important part than
the Turks. I admit that they have great faults ; that they
are false, intriguing, and ser-vile ; that they have, in short,
many of the bad qualities which might be expected from
four hundred years of oppression. The wonder is, that
they are not worse. We find that even Englishmen are
the worse for twenty or thfrty years of residence among
us. But their diligence, their public spirit, their ambition,
their thirst for knowledge, and their sagacity, are beyond
all praise. The contrast between them and the Latins is
striking." " Are there many Latins ? " I asked.
"There are 10,000 in Smyrna alone," he answered,
" They are chiefly of Italian descent. They have all the
faults of the. Greeks, and many others, and they have few
of their virtues. They are bitterly intolerant, they have
little energy, and little desire of improvement. Instead of
sending their children, as the Greeks do, to Europe for
education, they keep them at home, chiefly under the
direction of the Lazarists, learning nothing,"
" I have heard," I said, " little about them or about the
Armenians," " The Armenians," he answered, " are more important.
They are not numerous but they are rich. They have not
the ambition or the intelligence of the Greeks. They wUl
side with the strongest."
" "When I read over my journal," I said, " I am struck by
the uniform repugnance of all my friends to the Turks.
Hatred, contempt, or disgust seem to be the feelings which

TUEKS. ¦ 2-25
they excite among all the Christians who come in contact
with them.
" I do not beHeve," he answered, " that we can sympa
thise vrith them. I scarcely think that we belong to the
same species. The head of a Turk, unless it be the head
of a Turk born of a Cfrcassian mother, has much less brain
than that of a European, especially as respects the organs
ofthe nobler faculties. His forehead is low, and recedes at
almost an acute angle. He cannot reason, there is no
logical sequence in his ideas. He has a vivid conception
and imagination, but little abstraction. His thoughts do
not form themselves, as those of -a European do, into
words. Eemembrances of past pains and pleasures, prin
cipally sensual ones, and anticipations of future ones, float
through his mind. He meditates much more on the
objects which he vrishes to attain, than on the means of
attaining them ; just as the Koran revels in descriptions of
the joys of Paradise, but scarcely alludes to the virtues
which are to qualify us for entering it.
" I have often listened to the conversation in Turkish
coffee-houses. It is such as you might expect from babies
of a year old, if they could suddenly be enabled to talk.
The women are still more childish. The men are restrained
by self-respect; the women have none. I have visited
them as a physician, and have been charmed by thefr grace
and softness. Suddenly something done, or omitted to be
done, by a slave, rouses, the anger of one of these lambs.
She pours out against her a torrent of the most indecent
slang, in the presence perhaps of her husband and of her
daughters.

226 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" Their love is as impetuous and as unrestrained as their
hate. The advances always come from them : the stories
in the ' Arabian Nights * ofthe old woman who comes to the
handsome young man to announce to him his conquest,
and to lead him blindfold to the place of assignation, have
their counterparts every night in the Turkish town of
Smyrna. While Turkish wives are such as they are now,
Turkish husbands cannot be blamed for their jealousy."
" But the Turk," I said, " must have some virtues, or he
could not have conquered and retained au empire."
"The Turk of the 15th century," answered, Y., "was a
different person from the Turk of the 19th.
" He was athletic and vigorous, he lived in exercise and
in the open air. He was not the sedentai-y smoMng
sensualist that he is now : but I -will not deny that even
the degenerate Turk has some virtues. He is sober. All
classes are sober in eating, the great majority are sober in
drinking. He is sober in conduct, he is not easily ruffled
or easily excited. He is calm in both good and bad fortune.
He is eminently hospitable and charitable. Unhappily his
virtues wither under the rays of prosperity. The poor
Turk is honest and humane, the TurMsh private soldier is
brave. The rich Turk is always an oppressor. As soon
as the Turkish officer thinks life worth having he takes
care of it.
" His great misfortune is, that he does not possess the
capacity of indefinite improvement which belongs to the
European race. Like the Chinese, the Hindoos, and, in
^ fact, all the Asiatics, there is a degree, and not a high one,
of civilisation which he cannot pass, or even long pre-

CHAEACTEEISTICS OF ASIATICS. 227
serve. He reached it 300 years ago, and has receded ever
since." " The Arabs," I said, " and the Jews appear to possess a
capacity for advanced civilisation ? "
" The Jews and the Arabs," he answered, " ought not to
be considered as Asiatics. The Jews were a single family,
planted and detained for 400 years in Egypt, which grew
into a nation -without intercourse vrith any other. The
'history of the Arabs is similar. They are derived from the
same stock as the Jews, and grew up like them with little
foreign intermixture. They have been as effectually se
parated from the rest of the inhabitants of Asia, by the
seas and deserts which insulate their peninsula, as the
Jews have been by their pecuHar institutions. They are
not Asiatics; they are Ishmaelites, as the Jews are Is
raelites. " The distingmshing chai-acteristic of the real Asiatic is,
intellectual steriUty and unfitness for change. One nation,
to save itself trouble, declai-es that its laws shall be im
mutable. Another institutes caste, and makes all further
improvement impossible. Another protects itself against
new ideas, by refusing all intercourse -with foreigners.
An Asiatic had rather copy than try to invent, rather ac
quiesce than discuss, rather attribute events to destiny
than to causes that can be inquired into and explained.
His only diplomacy is war; his only internal means of
government are poison, the stick, and the bowstring.
"In the Turk these peculiarities are exaggerated.
"Whatever be his purpose, he uses the means which require
the least thought. If he has to create a local government,
Q ?

228 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
he simply hands over to the Pasha all the powers of the
Sultan. If he wants money, he takes it wherever he can
find it ; and if he cannot get it by force, he puts up to
auction power, justice, the prosperity, and indeed the sub
sistence, of his subjects. He averts the dangers of a dis
puted succession by killing all the nephews of the Sultan,
or preventing any from coming into existence. He reUes
on the rain for washing his streets, on the dogs for keeping
them free from offal, on the sun for making passable the
tracks which he calls roads, and on the climate for enabling
him to live in his timber house vrithout repairing it. For
everything else he relies on Allah, and entreats God to do
for him what he is too torpid to do for Mmself. His
fatalism is, in fact, indolence in its most exaggerated form.
It is an escape, not only from exertion, but from de
liberation. " Our attempts to improve the Turks put me in mind of
the old story of the people who tried to wash the negro
white. He never was, or will be, or can be anything but a
barbarian."

VOYAGE FEOM SMYENA TO SYEA. 229

ATHENS.
Tuesday, Novemher 1st. — We embarked for Athens, leaving
Smyrna with great delight, and the Smyrniotes vrith great
regret. Wednesday, Novemher 18th, 1857. On board the " Tele
machus," in the harbour of Syra. — We left Smyrna
at three yesterday evening. Our boat, sister to the
" Scamander " and the " Leonidas," is, like them, comfort
able, steady, and slow.
The first three hours of our passage, in the land-locked
Bay of Smyrna, were charming.
We ran close to the southem coast, which is overhung
by a chain of mountains rising abruptly from a narrow
strip of shore, covered -with olives, chestnuts, and planes,
and ornamented from time to time by a soHtary palm.
Their highest pinnacles do not exceed 3000 feet ; but,
as the whole height is taken in by the eye at once, the
effect is much greater than that produced by loftier
eminences grovring gradually from vridely extended roots.
Their colouring is very varied, depending sometimes on
their strata, sometimes on their vegetation, and some
times on their exposure. Yesterday evening, the eastern
face of all their promontories and sharp buttresses was
in shadow ; the western was glovring with lights reflected
from forests in which the yellow of autumn began to
Q 3

230 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
mix with the green, from bro-wn herbage and fern, from
purple heather, and from naked precipices of red or grey
limestone. We saw few villages, and Httle traces of cultivation.
About five miles from Smyrna we passed under an old
Genoese Castle, now used as a fortress and prison. On
the shore belpw it, four or five of Simos's band were
found drowned. No one beHeves that their deaths were
accidental. A little before six the sun set ; we rounded the pro
montory of Can-lu-Burun, and found ourselves in thcSlgean.
The mild south -wind, which had fanned us in the bay,
now became a violent siroc. I went to bed, and did not
get up until we were among the Cyclades, in tbe channel
between Tenos and Delos, nearing Syra.
The harbour of Syra is tolerably protected from all
winds, except the north-east; but it is rough, there is
nothing inviting in the town, so that I have remained all
day on board.
Hotel d'Angleterre, Athens, Thursday, November 19th.
— We stai-ted at six yesterday evening, and after a rough
passage reached the Pirseus at five this mormng. We
landed "at eight, found carriages and custom-house officers
waiting on the beach, had our baggage examined and loaded
in less than half an hour, and reached Athens before ten.
The day is dark and stormy ; the Acropolis and Lycabettus
looked down upon us during the whole road, from a back
ground of black clouds charged with snow, none of which,
however, fell in Athens. Hymettus to the east, Parnes
and Pentelicus to the north and west, attracted it.
We are lodged in cold splendour, in large bedrooms and

ATHENS. 231
a salon thirty feet square, looMng north-west, vrith a
Lilliputian stove.
The scenery of Athens wants nothing but trees and a
river. The Cephisus is a brook, and can be traced only
by the long strip of olives which it waters. The Ilissus
is a rill. Though we are now towards the end of the
rainy season, I stepped across it three or four times to-day.
Parnes, Hymettus, and Pentelicus, once waving -with forests,
do not seem to bear a tree. A garden has been planted
round the palace, which 100 years hence, if the trees, now
as close as those of a nursery garden, are properly thinned,
vrill be beautiful. It is not more than pretty as yet. Every
other tree in and near Athens, except one noble palm in
a convent garden, was destroyed during the war, and
those wMch have been planted in their room are still
saplings. "Wlien Wordsworth -risited Athens in 1832, it did not
contain half a dozen inhabited houses. Its present popu
lation amounts to 36,000 persons, which supposes about
5000 houses. These are scattered irregularly over about
a square mile, to the north of the Acropolis. Those nearest
to it, which mount about half way up its side, are fortu
nately the worst. I say fortunately, because it is supposed
that they cover valuable remains, which cannot be re
covered until they have been demolished. The better
houses are those of an English watering-place, but lower
and more scattered ; each good one has its little garden.
The calcareous soil, and the dryness of the climate, render
the streets clean but dusty. Their comparative smooth
ness is a delicious contrast to the rocky pointed pavements
« 4

232 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUHKEY AND GEEECE.
which tormented us during the whole of our residence in
Turkey. Saturday, November 28th. — We have now inhabited
Athens for ten days, but the weather has been so in
clement, that I have not ventured on any excursions
beyond walking distances. The thermometer has seldom
fallen below 44° out of doors, or below 54° vrithm, and
there has been scarcely any rain, but the -winds, generally
from the north, have been violent. The air out of the
house, has been full of dust, and vrithin of smoke; for
there are few open fireplaces, none in any sitting room in
this inn, and the Greeks have not skill enough to manage
a stove. I am told that this is a most unusual season.
The Wyses say that they do not recollect so cold a one,
that generaUy the December weather of Athens is charm
ing ; and certainly the one calm sunny day which we have
had was delightful. As is usuaUy the case in southern
countries, the precautions are all against heat. The
rooms look north or north-west, and are large and lofty,
with numerous doors, and ill fitttag casements reaching to
the ground.
In summer, when for four months no one ventures out
between seven in the morning and seven in the evening,
they may be pleasant, they are comfortless now. Nothing
but my anxiety to know something of a country and
a people which have occupied my thoughts from boy
hood would induce me to remain here.
The most interesting ruins in the world are those of
Egyptian Thebes and of Athens ; I own that I was most
struck by those of Thebes.
The vastness and the apparent eternity of Karnak,

PNYX. 233
Luxor, and the Ehameseion ; the profusion of ornament,
without diminution of majesty; the power, skill, and
courage displayed in the conception and in the execution
of works resembling rather those of nature than of man ;
the solemn grandeur of the desert in which they stand, of
the naked yellow wall of mountains which bounds it, and of
the mighty river which flows through it ; the glovring sun
light which lights them up, and the mysterious associa
tions which surround them, make them dwell on the
memory as things apart from any other human creations.
I have seldom seen the Acropolis except darkened by a
cloudy sky, and a biting north wind. The mountains
among which it rises are much higher, and more varied
in outline and disposition than those of Thebes, but
they are grey, and reflect the grey sky. The sea is
beautifully broken by promontories, bays, and islands,
and bounded by the flne coasts of the Isthmus and
the Morea, but it is three miles off, and is a far less
glorious object than the Nile flowing below your feet at
Luxor. I have great reverence for Salamis, and for the
Academy, but the real civiliser of mankind was not Greece,
but Egypt. It was from Egypt, then, and for many
centuries, perhaps for many thousand years, before, a
powerful empfre, great in arms, in art, and in learning,
that Danaus and Cecrops brought civilisation to the bar
barians of Attica and Argolis.
But, next to Thebes, the place best worth visiting is
Athens. The five points that attract me most are the
Pnyx, the Areopagus, the Temple of Theseus, the Temple
of Jupiter Olympius, and the Acropolis.
The Bema from which Demosthenes spoke is a rocky

234 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
platform about eleven feet square, near the centre of a
ledge of rock about ten feet Mgh, which has been arti
ficially scarped, and looks down on a level parallelogram,
or rather oval, about two acres in extent, cut out of the
declivity of the hill, and supported by a massive, un
cemented wall of the earliest Athenian architecture. As
the orator stood, he looked down on the Agora, the Areo
pagus, and the Temple of Theseus ; the Propylaea of the
Acropolis were on his right, but the rise of the hill on his
left intercepted the view of the sea and of Salamis. The
oval, or place of assembly, could contaJa about 10,000
persons. Immediately above it, on a level with the Bema, is
another but smaller level oval, capable of holding about
half that number of persons, vrith another bema, which is
high enough to command Salamis and the sea. Dr.
Wordsworth believes that this was the bema from which
Pericles spoke, for which, according to Plutai-ch, the
Thirty Tyrants substituted the lower one, to prevent the
orator from seeing the sea, and being constantly reminded
of the maritime and democratic glories of Athens.
Mr. Pittakis, the greatest local authority, agrees vrith
Dr. Wordsworth. The author (I believe Sir Charles
Bowen) of Murray's excellent " Hand-book of Greece "
disbelieves Plutarch's story. His objection to it is, that
the upper platform could not have held a full Atheman
assembly. But its area appears, as Mr. Pittakis remarked
to me, to have been intentionally dimimshed, by cutting
away the ledge of rock which bounds and supports it. The
Pnyx was choked up with earth, which was removed by
Lord Aberdeen.

AEEOPAGUS. 235
The Areopagus is a rocky eminence, sloping up gra
dually from the valley which contained the ancient Agora,
and ending in a bold precipice, from which an earthquake
has detached some vast masses, forming an entrance to a
dark cave below it. A steep narrow staircase cut in the
rock leads to a small levelled semicfrcle near the summit
looking south, on which, perhaps, twenty persons could sit ;
at each comer of the semicircle the rock has been cut
into a low pedestal. On the stony ledge forming the
back of this semicfrcle sat the judges ; on the pedestals or
blocks at each cffirner stood the accuser and the accused.
Up these steps St. Paul was led from the Agora, and
from one of these blocks, or perhaps, as he was not treated
as a criminal, from the centre of the semicircle, he
denounced idolatry in her grandest abode.
Dr. Wordsworth has remarked that Eaffaelle's cartoon,
in which St. Paul speaks from the base of a temple sur
rounded by buildings of Eoman architecture, is an ana
chronism. The real scene would have supplied noble
backgi-ounds. The slope of the Areopagus was crowded
by statues. The rock is everywhere levelled and scarped
to receive them. So were the Agora, and the great street,
and the porticoes beyond it; and the Propylaea and the
Parthenon were on his right hand.-
The gloomy cave below the Areopagus was sacred to
the Eumenides. Dr. Wordsworth supposes it to have
been the KarapptiKTrig uSog
XaXxoig PaBpoiai yrj9ev ippiZ,(i>p.ivog,
which Sophocles has made the scene of the death of

236 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GE,EECE.
OEdipus. It seems, however, too far, nearly a mile and a
half, from Colonus.
The Theseum is, perhaps, the best known of Greek
temples. The simplicity of its form, and the preservation
of the greater part of its constructive parts, though the
ornamental ones have nearly all perished, and its conspi
cuous position on the brow of a small eminerice unencum
bered by houses, have drawn to it the attention of all
¦writers on Grecian art arid on Grecian antiquities. Its
dimensions are 105 by 45. Its height from the base
of its pillars to the apex of the pediment is 31 feet.
These are about the dimensions of an English parish
church ; they are those of the drawing room of the
Athenaeum Club. Yet the Temple of Theseus, even apart
from its associations, is a grand and imposing building.
So much can be done by simplicity and proportion ; and
so false is it, that beauty of proportion diminishes apparent
size. When the temple was turned into a church a vaulted
roof was thro^wn over the celia. This does not affect the
exterior, as it does not rise above the cormce, but its
thrust is said to be injuring the walls, which were
intended to support only horizontal beams, producing no
lateral pressure.
Within are some of the few statues which have been
discovered in Greece since its independence. The most
interesting is a warrior in low relief, found near Marathon.
It might be taken for an Assyrian slab, and shows the
source of Grecian art.
The Temple of Jupiter Olympius is supposed by Fer-

ACEOPOLIS. 237
gusson to have been the most beautiful Corinthian temple
of the ancient world.
In size it is a cathedral, being 354 feet long by 175
wide, which gives an area of 61,950 square feet; about
that of Notre Dame, and nearly three times that of the
Parthenon. Its 124 columns, of which 15 are still stand
ing, were 55^ feet high and 6 ^ in diameter at their basis.
The one which still lies as it fell five years ago enabled
me to examine and admire the beauty of the car^ving, and
tbe purity and whiteness of the marble. The temple
stands on a small eminence. Supported at the sides by walls
of massive Grecian construction overhanging the IHssUS,
and commanding the AcropoHs to the west, Salamis, .^Egina,
and Corinth, to the south.
It resembles our cathedrals, not only in size, but in the
slowness of its growth; more than six centuries having
elapsed between its commencement by Pisistratus and its
completion by Hadrian.
I passed some days in Athens before I actually entered
the Acropolis. It was not intended to be seen under a
grey sky and in a hurricane. At length came one calm
bright day, and I spent it there.
Few buildings could bear to be approached by such a
portal as the Propylaea.
The Acropolis was a fortress and a sanctuary. It already
contained the Parthenon and a pai-t of the Erechtheum,
when the foundations of the Propylaea were laid. The
first object was to give them military strength; the second,
to adorn that strength vrith beauty not unworthy of the
wonderful temples to which they led.

238 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
The original outer defences, which extended perhaps a
hundred yards down the hill, have perished. Some com
paratively modern outworks, and a marble wall and gate of
inferior Grecian architecture, remain. Immediately within
them is the marble staircase, seventy feet vride, with an
inclined plane in the centre, up which oxen drew the car
of the Panathenaic procession. On each side are projecting
wings, of plain marble, on the sides towards the valley, but
with Doric porticos of three columns each, looking to the
staircase. The southern portico is now embedded in a
hideous mediaeval tower, which deforms the western en
trance to the Acropolis. The staircase then passes into a
covered colonnade, consisting of six Doric columns in front,
and six Ionic behind them. The marble wall which closes
it is pierced by five gates, opening into another Doric
colonnade, separating the Propylaea from the plane of the
Acropolis, with the Parthenon on one side and the Ere
chtheum on the other.
In some respects these buildings are contrasted. Nothing
can be more simple than the outline of the Parthenon ;
nothing more complicated and irregular than that of the
Erechtheum. Both are skeletons. All that remains of
them are walls and pillars. The colouring and the sculpture
with which they were profusely decorated have gone. Even
the marble has substituted a dark ferruginous brown
for its natural white. In this respect they are less for
tunate than the temple of Paestum, which both have lost
less, and had much less to lose.
I do not think that I was quite so much struck by the
Parthenon as by the Propylaea. Perhaps, because I was
familiar with it from pictures and from descriptions.

PAETHENON. 239
The Propylaea were new to me. Until about twenty years
ago, they were embedded in a Turkish battery.
I lingered in the Acropolis until the sun, sinking behind
the mountains of .^Egina, lighted up the majestic pediment
and dark brown piUars of the Parthenon.
In the evening I returned to see the Acropolis by moon
light. It did not gain by the change. The wonderfully
beautiful view of the bay and of the mountains of Sa
lamis, Mgina, and Corinth was almost obliterated. In
the nearer objects the colour of the marble reflected
ill the fainter light. The buildings which gain most by
moonlight are those of large size and defective or unin
teresting details. Such as the Madeleine, and the Arc de
I'Etoile of Paris, and the Coliseum of Eome. Nothing in
the Acropolis requfres softening. Every wall, column,
architrave, and pediment, and it now contains nothing else,
grows in beauty and majesty the brighter the sun and the
nearer the spectator.
The Acropolis contains many historical memorials. A
considerable portion of its northern wall is composed of the
pillars and entablature of a Doric temple, probably dese
crated by Xerxes, and used by the Athenians, when they
rapidly rebmlt thefr walls after his retreat. In the west
pavement of the Erechtheum are the three holes in the
rock, cut by a stroke of Neptune's trident.
Below the eastern front, in a natural depression, are un
finished drums of columns, and other half- worked stones,
which appear to have been carried up thither, partially cut,
and laid aside as defective, and covered with made ground
when the surface of the Acropolis was levelled.
The beautiful miniature temple of Nike, on the

240 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
northern side of the Propylaea, contains bas-reliefs of
Victories, which appear to have covered a wall connecting
it -with the great marble staircase.
In one. Victory, followed by a figure leading an ox, is
rushing to tell her story. In another, she is taking off
her sandals, haring returned to take up her abode in her
own temple.
Sunday, Novemher 20th. — The northerly winds have
given Mrs. Senior a cough. She has called in Dr. Macas,
a Greek, who appears to treat her exceedingly well. There
are several good physicians in Athens. Her cough pre
vented her from accompanying me this evening to a ball
at the palace. We were invited at a quarter before mne.
Sir Thomas Wyse took me. We found, in the first of
three large rooms, about one hundred and fifty ladies,
sitting on one side, and about two hundred men standing
on the other. The women were dressed, some in an
ordiriary European costume, some wore the red velvet
cap, long tassel, and short jacket of Greece; and some
had thefr heads and necks wrapped in a large handker
chief, which showed only the face. This is the head-dress
of Hydra. Of the men, some were in umform, some in
plain black suits, and some wore the Albanian dress, which
the Hellenes have adopted as national : a jacket, either of
red and then embroidered with gold, or grey and then
embroidered with silver, an open collar, a white petticoat
called a fustanelle, plaited Hke a ruff, reaching from the
waist to the knees, and long gaiters, red or blue. Several
of the older men looked, what I was told that they had
been, robbers. They had risen from that profession to be

COUET BALL, 241
pai-tisan soldiers, and had been made aristocrats partly by
plunder, and partly by gifts from the crown of the national
domains. At about half-past nine, the king and queen came in,
A cfrcle was formed of men, and they walked round it,
not together, but -vrith a considerable interval. He is a
gentlemanUke man, with quiet, easy manners. He wore
the Albanian dress. The queen wore a Parisian dress,
vrith an enormous crinolme or cage. She talked much
and gaily, particularly to the Prussian minister. The
cfrcle lasted long, perhaps three quarters of an hour.
During that time the women kept their seats, and the
men stood in the other part of the room, the circle being
between them.
At la,st the queen took Sfr Thomas Wyse's hand, the
Mng that of the Eussian ambassadress, and walked a
polonaise, to which a waltz succeeded, and it being about
half-past ten I went away.
This was using the pririlege of a foreigner. The natives
are bound to remain until the queen retfres, generally at
about a quarter to three. Greeks trying to escape before
that time, have been, I am told, driven back by the sen
tinels. "While we were standing in the cfrcle I heard
bitter complaints of this ball-room tyranny. " You are
never let off," said one man to me, " in less than six hours.
The great balls begin at ten and end at four. These
smaller ones end at three, but then they begin at nine."
The rooms are large, well lighted and ventilated; but
the penning the women on one side, apart from the men,
made the party stiff and dull. I am told that the queen
K

242 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
introduced this practice because it makes it easier for her
to go round the circle.
The palace is said to have cost fourteen millions of
drachmas — about 500,000?., nearly the annual income of
the state. This is as if our queen had spent on palaces
sixty-five milHons sterling. This expenditure has been
made in a country too poor to make a road or to pay a
debt. It is a frightful factory looMng building, covered
with stucco, with a paltry colonnade in the middle, and two
vast flat wings on each side. A Bavarian architect perpe
trated .it.
Monday, November SOth. — I have been reading the
Greek constitution of 1843. The following are its princi
pal provisions : —
Article 1. The faith of the orthodox Eastern Church is the
dominant religion. All other religions are tolerated; but
proselytism and all interference with the dominant religion
are prohibited.
2. The Church of Greece is united to the Great Orthodox
Greek Church of Constantinople, and to every other orthodox
Church. It is independent, and governed by a synod of
bishops. 3. Greeks are equal in law. Only citizens of Greece are
capable of public employment.
4. No Greek can be prosecuted or imprisoned but by force
of law.
5. No one can be arrested, unless flagrante delicto, except
by virtue of a judicial warrant, stating its grounds, to be shown
at the time of arrest.
6. No punishment can be inflicted except by law.
7. All persona may present petitions to the authorities.
8. A man's residence is inviolable. Domicilia.ry visits can-

GEEEK CONSTITUTION. 243
not be made, except in the cases and in the nianner prescribed
by law. 9. A slave touching Greek soil, becomes free.
10. The press is free. No censorship can be created. No
deposit can be required from editors or printers. Editors of
newspapers must be Greek citizens.
11. Higher education is to be provided by the State. The
State will assist the parish schools. Every one may open a
school, obeying the laws.
12. No one can be deprived of his property, except for pur
poses of public utility, in the cases and in manner prescribed
by law, and after previous compensation.
13. Neither torture nor total confiscation can be established.
14. Letters are inviolable.
15. The King, Deputies, and Senate form the legislative
power. 16. The King, the Deputies, and the Senate respectively
may propose laws. Those relating to the budget, public
lands, and military forces must originate in the Chamber of
Deputies. 17. But any public expenditure for pensions or for private
purposes must be proposed by the King.
18. Laws rejected cannot be reintroduced in the same
session. 19. Laws must be interpreted by the legislative powers.
21, 22, 24. Executive power belongs to the King, but is
exercised by ministers named by him, and responsible. He is
irresponsible. He names and dismisses the ministers.
23. No act of the King is valid, unless countersigned by the
proper minister, who thereby becomes responsible. In case of
a total change of ministers, the new president of the council
signs the order.
27. The King is commander-in-chief — makes war, and peace,
and treaties of alliance and commerce : he appoints all officers
and public servants, unless otherwise provided for by lavv. He
cannot create a ne-w office. R 2

244 A JOURNAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
28. The King issues ordinances necessary for the execution
of laws, but cannot suspend or dispense with their execution.
30. The King can prorogue, but only for 40 days, and not
twice during a session. He can dissolve the deputies, but
the order must contain a convocation of electors in two months,
and of a parliament in three.
32. The King may pardon all offences except those of his
ministers. He can confer the existing orders of knighthood
conforming to the law, but cannot create nobles or recognise
foreign titles given to Greeks.
35. The civil list is flxed by law, and is unalterable for ten
years. 36. The King swears to observe the constitution, and to
preserve the integrity of the Greek kingdom.
37. The crown goes to the legitimate descendants of King
Otho, by order of primogeniture, in default of them, to his
brothers and their issue in succession : but the successor
must profess the orthodox Greek religion ; and cannot, be also
King of Bavaria.
38 to 45. In the absence of a successor, the King may nomi
nate one, with the consent of the chambers. If none be nomi
nated the people elect.
47. The chambers meet every year, on the 1st of November.
The session cannot last less than two months. A majority of
the whole number of members is a quorum. The sittings are
public. The ministers are bound to give all explanations re
quired. 53. The budget must be voted, and the accounts of the
previous year's expenditure passed every year.
54. Every pension and public gratuity requires a law.
55. No deputy or senator can be prosecuted, or examined
as to any opinion or vote given by him, in the exercise of his
duties. 56. No deputy or senator can be prosecuted, arrested, or
imprisoned, without the consent of his chamber.
59 to 64. The deputies are elected for three years by the

GEEEK CONSTITUTION. 245
people according to the provisions of the electoral law. They
represent not only their constituents, but the nation. They
are to be proportioned in number to the population, but cannot
be less than 80. A deputy receiving an office of profit cannot
sit, unless re-elected.
65. The chamber of deputies names its officers ; the deputies
receive 250 drachmas (81. 15s.) a month during the session.
69. The senators are named by the King for Ufe, the order
being countersigned by the president of the council. They
cannot be less than 27 or more than half the number of tho
deputies. They must be 40 years old, and have filled certain
considerable offices for certain periods. They receive while
sitting 500 drachmas (17Z. 10s.) a month.
77. The senate cannot sit, except as a court of justice, out
of the session. Its president is named for three years by the
King. 80. No member of the royal family can be minister.
81. Ministers may speak in either chamber, and either
chamber may require their presence, but they vote only in the
chamber of which they are members.
82. No royal order, written or spoken, affects the respon
sibility of a minister.
83. Ministers may be impeached by the deputies and are
judged by the senate. If convicted they cannot be pardoned
except on the request of one of the chambers.
86. Judges are named by the King. Five years from this
time, a law shall be passed, appointing a time after which they
shall sit for life — except Justices of the peace.
87. No one can be tried by an extraordinary commission or
tribunal, or withdrawn from his regular judges.
90. Legal procedure is public.
93. Political offences, and those of the press when relating
to public matters, shaU be tried by a jury.
98. No foreign troops can be introduced except by law.
99. No military men can be dismissed, except in the events
and in the manner prescribed by law.
R 3

246 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
100. Questions between the government and private persons
shall be determined by the ordinary tribunals. Administrative
tribunals are abolished, and cannot be recreated.
102. The Council of State shall cease to exist within three
months from the promulgation of this Constitution.
105. Laws shall be passed, as soon as possible, on the fol
lowing subjects : —
A. A provision for the clergy.
B. Church property and public instruction.
c. The management and division of the national property,
and the repayment of public loans.
D. The press.
B. The improvement of the taxes, of the administration,
and generally of the laws of the kingdom.
F. The creation of courts to judge piracy and baratry.
G. The organisation of ^a national guard.
H. Mflitary legislation.
I. The encouragement of agriculture, industry, and com
merce. J. The arrangement of civil and military pensions.
In looking through this Constitution, the first quality
that strikes me is its moderation. Men fresh from a contest
with power, generally take precautions against it, which
prevent the working of the machine.
They prohibit ministers from sitting in the chambers.
They give to the crown only a suspensive veto. They give
to the senate executive functions, such as maMng war and
peace and cPntroUing the appointments of the higher
functionaries. These errors, for such I think that they are,
are avoided by the Greek constitution. There are some
remarkable omissions from it. It does not provide any
means of alteration. As every constitution must require
alteration, the infererice seems to be that it may be altered,

GEEEK CONSTITUTION. 247
like our own, by a mere act of parliament. It does not
contain the electoral law. It declares that a time shall
come when the judges shall be irremovable, but does not
say when. It leaves to further legislation some of the most
important subjects, on very few of which has any legisla
tion taken place.
An electoral law, however, followed in a few months.
By that law, dated the 18th of March, 1844, every
eparchy (of which there are thirty) elects a member
for every 10,000 of its population. The franchise is given
to all Greek citizens aged twenty-five having a pro
perty (tStoKTijo-tai') in the province m which they reside,
or exercising there a profession {sirar/ysK/j,a) or an inde
pendent trade {s'rriTTjSsvfia avs^apTjjTov.) These are vague
descriptions. The law does not state whether the property
must be real or may also be personal. According to its
words, a man's clothes would be a qualification. , But I am
told that it must be real property ; still a hundredth part
of a square yard of ground would satisfy the words of the
law. The words profession and independent trade seem
to exclude only servants and soldiers and pubUc officers.
Practically, the franchise is nearly universal; the voting is
by ballot. The quaUfication of a member is to be thirty
years old, to be a native of the province which elects Mm, or
to be a native of Greece, and to have resided in the pro
vince for one year ; or, if not a native of Greece, to have
resided six years in Greece, three of them in the prorince
which elects him; and to possess there immovable property
worth 100,000 drachmas — 3,543?.
It is remarkable that, although the negotiations for the
R 4

248 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
independence of Greece lasted for four years — though the
three powers, England, France, and Eussia, which under
took to create that independent state, made detailed pro
visions respecting its limits, respecting the title of its
sovereign, the time at wMch he should assume the govern
ment and the loan, or, as it has turned out, the gift,
' by which he was to be assisted — though two English
foreign ministers, Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston,,
and two French ambassadors, Pollgnac and Talleyrand,
managed it, yet the most important of all prorisions
— namely, the form of Government, whether it were to
be absolute or constitutional — is never discussed in any
protocol; is not mentioned when the three powers offer
the crown first to Prince Leopold, and afterwards to Prince
Otho ; and, if alluded to at all (which I doubt), is alluded
to only in the proclamation of the 30th of August, 1832, by
which the three powers inform the Greeks that Otho is to
be their king, and exhort them to assist him "dans la
tache de donner a I'etat une constitution definitive."
An attempt, indeed, was made by the Greek national
assembly sitting at Pronia to draw up a constitution, but
they were informed by the residents of the three courts
that " even the discussion of a constitution would be in
direct opposition to the act by which the nation confided
to the three courts the right of choosing for it a sovereign."*
I csm understand this omission as long as the protecting
powers were negotiating with Prince Leopold. They may
* Collective Letter of the Three Eesidents, to Mr. Tricoupi Nauplia,
10th August, 1832.

EAELY EEIGN OF KWG OTHO. 249
have thought the liberties of Greece safe in the hands of a
man of his wisdom, public spirit, and moderation. But
their maldng no terms vrith Prince Otho is inexplicable.
The consequence was, that the boy whom they selected as
the regenerator of a people emerging from two thousand
years of slavery, and his Bavarian counsellors and army,
assumed on their arrival absolute power, and held it for
eleven years, until its exercise had degraded *^he people
and corrupted the monarch. Very different would be the
state of Greece if those long years had been eiriployed
in fashioning the Greeks to self-government and m teach
ing the Mng, and, what seems to be more important, the
queen, to submit to the restraints of a constitution.
Perhaps the strangest part of that transaction was the
selection as king of a boy of seventeen, of whom nothing,
we must hope, was known. If we may infer the difficulty
of reigmng from the smaUness of the number of those
who have reigned well, the task is not an easy one. To
reign constitutionally is, perhaps, still more difficult than
to reign absolutely ; it requfres not only talents and knovv-
ledge, but self-denial. The constitutional king must some
times appoint mimsters whom he disapproves, sometimes
assent to measures wMch he thinks mischievous ; often
abstain from interfering, though he thinks that his inter
ference would produce immediate good or avert immediate
eriL And, of course, a king who has to found a dynastjs,
and who has to reign over a people unaccustomed to inde
pendence, who have been debased by centuries of serritude,
has the most difficult of all tasks ; so, at least, it seems to
me. But the three protecting powers must have thought

250 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the moral and intellectual character of a king utterly
unimportant. They must have thought that one person,
provided he came of a royal stock, would do just as well as
another. They must have thought knowledge and expe
rience valueless, or they would not have chosen a boy who
could have neither.
It may be said that their choice was small. But why
was their choice small ? 'Why was it to be confined to
royal houses ? 'Why did they not do as the Swedes did ?
Take a man of mature age and admimstrative experience,
who had given proofs of his fitness, in a private station.
We do not think royal birth necessary to be Governor-
General of India, who is a rather greater man than a Mng
of Greece.
Tuesday, December 1st. — Alpha *, a lawyer and literary
man of some eminence, called on me.
I asked him what had been the principal effects of the
constitution. "Until 1848," he answered, "it produced no sensible
effect whatever, except that the senate and the deputies-
cost us 600,000 drachmas a year. But if it had not existed
in 1848, we should have followed the lead of France,
perhaps have dethroned our king, and certainly have made
a constitution much worse than this is. It has saved us,
therefore, from great calamities. But as to any other
effects, there are none. The Government names the
deputies as well as the senate, and no one thinks of op
position, either at the ballot-box or in the chamber. At
* The names taken from the Greek alphahet designate Greeks.

otho's EEIGN UNDEE THE CONSTITUTION. 251
the last election the Government wished to leave to the
people to choose for themselves. They answered, ' We
do not know whom to choose. For God's sake, give us a
list.' Before we had the constitution, all legislation was
by ordinance ; now it is by a law. But the law, like the
ordinance, is proposed by the king, and is passed, as a
matter of course, by the chtoibers ; only it takes a little
more time. Perhaps, too, there is another advantage in
the constitution. It relieves the king from responsibility
and from odium. Formerly he was responsible for every
thing that went ill ; now he throws the responsibility
on his ministers and on the chambers. 'I am a con
stitutional King,' he is fond of sayifag; 'my acts are
nulHties, unless countersigned. I am a mere decoration
of the stage, a mere phantom. If you think that you are
ill-governed, let the chambers say so, and I have no doubt
that, in their wisdom, they wiU find a remedy.' "
" Is he popular ? " I asked.
" Certainly," he answered ; " and he deserves to be so ;
for, in 1854, he risked his tMone for popularity. The
Greeks have never acquiesced in the loss of Thessaly and
Epirus. With them we should be a compact kingdom of
2,000,000 of people. Without them we are cut off from
our feUow-countrymen and friends and relations, and are
unable, vrith our million of inhabitants, to support the
expenses of Government. The people expected the success
of Eussia. At the worst they believed that the struggle
would be long and doubtful. They thought that if Greece
could once get hold of these provinces, Eussia, when the
peace came, would keep her in possession of them. All

252 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUE^Y AND GEEECE.
this, we now see, was miscalculation. We have found
that Eussia is not a match for France and England, and
that at sea she is powerless, and, consequently, that she
cannot protect us against a naval power ; but at the time
we were all carried away."
" Did you join in the movement ? " I asked.
" Certainly," he answered ; *' I subscribed money for the
invasion of Thessaly, as everybody did. The king and the
queen and the ministers ought to have known better.
'What is the use of a department of Foreign Affairs, if it
cannot estimate the relative force of the different European
nations ? They ought to have told us, that we were at
tempting an imposMbility. That if we remained neuter
we should enjoy a great carrying trade, and estabUsh a
claim on the alUes. Instead of doing so, they excited the
popular passions, they distributed money, they even al
lowed the people to be told that England and France were
favourable to them. This gave them an immediate popu
larity, which even now, Ul as the thing turned out, has
not expired. The dream of every Greek is extension of
territory. The Synod, our highest ecclesiastical authority,
by its oath of office, prays that the kingdom may be en
larged. The people feel that the Mng and queen risked
more than anybody else, and do not stop to inqufre
whether it was vrise or useful to do so."
Wednesday, December 2nd. — I walked to-day -with Beta
to the Academy, or at least to its supposed site in the
Olive forest, watered, indeed created, by the Cephisus.
As you approach it, about a mile and a half from the to-wn,
are two low; eminences. On one of them, probably the

EEVOLUTION OP 1843. 253
scene of the CEdipus Coloneus, is a marble column, mark
ing the tomb of the antiquai-ian Miiller, who died a victim
to excavation in summer. The Gi-eeks profess great respect
for his memory, and that they are proud of possessing his
tomb. The inscription is now illegible, the column being
covered vrith blue marks. The Greek sportsmen as they
return from shooting, generally dischai-ge their guns at it.
We talked of the revolution of 1843.
" It was not," said Beta, " a popular revolution. It was
a conspiracy, which succeeded in a way unexpected, perhaps
unwished for, by many of the conspfrators. The people of
Greece at that time, and there has not been much change
since, cared little about poHtics, except foreign politics.
But in Athens there was a great dislike of the Bavarians.
They had been iU-chosen, were inferior in knowledge and
in intelligence to the Greeks; they were the favourites of
the court, they occupied the best civU posts, and they were
peculiarly hated by the Greek army. They despised our
troops as irregular semi-barbarians; we despised them as
arrogant pedants, vrithout real military experience. The
diplomatists, who unhappily always interfere in our affairs,
were dissatified vrith the Mng, The Eussians wanted to
substitute for him a Eussian prince, or, at all events, a
member of their own church; who would sympathise with
them ; the EngHsh vrish to see every country constitutional,
and were angry that their own creature should choose to
be an absolute monarch, Louis Philippe's government,
too, thought that making Greece constitutional would
please the French Chamber,
" For some days rumours had been spread that something

254 A J0UEN4L KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
was to happen, and at length, on the evening of the 14th
of September, a mob assembled before the palace, crying,
'Down with the Bavarians!' but afterwards, at the in
stigation of some of our literary men and professors, ' A
Constitution!' Kalergee, who commanded the cavalry of
the garrison of Athens, called out the troops. They were
carried away by the general feeling, and began to voci
ferate against the Bavarians and for a constitution, which
they were told would prove a sovereign remedy against
foreigners, Kalergee went to the palace, saw the king,
who was obstinate and frightened ; the queen, who was more
frightened but less obstinate; and in two hours brought
back the promise of a constitution,"
" Is it true," I asked, " that the constitution has made
little change ? "
"Perfectly true," he answered, "when the king calls
himself, as he sometimes does, 'a phantom,', it is a fagon
de parler. He governs as he always did,"
" And is it true," I asked, " that no opposition candidate
offers Mmself at the elections, and that no one ventures to
oppose the minister in the chambers ? "
"That is not true," he answered; "there is always an
opposition in the chambers; and candidates start at the
elections, professing opposition to ministerial measures,"
" And do such candidates ever succeed ? " I asked,
"I certainly cannot at this moment recollect an in
stance," he answered ; "the Mng. is popular, thepeople are
ignorant, and have confidence in the mimsters whom he
appoints. Every successive ministry, arid they have been
numerous, has had a majority in the Chamber of Deputies,

ELEUSIS. 255
But I remember a case in which a law proposed by the
mmisters was successfully opposed in the senate. In
fact," he continued, " our constitution is not fit for us. It
is taken from that of Belgium, wMch was given to a people
-rich, concentrated in large towns, united by roads, canals,
and railroads, and accustomed for centuries to manage
thefr own affairs. The Greeks are poor, they are scattered
over a territory large in proportion to their number,
divided into small districts by chains of mountains inter
secting one another in all directions, without a road or a
canal; and they have been debased by thousands of years
of servitude. The only government fit for such a people,
is a Mng and a council ; and it shows our good sense, that
we have turned the chambers, which the constitution
inflicted on us,. into a mere council."
Thursday, December Srd. — I rode to Eleusis, by theold
sacred way. It crosses the Cephisu-s, traverses the pass of
Daphne, and then coasts for about six miles the Bay of
Salamis. Along it are square emplacements, the remains
of tombs ; this was the nulitary cemetery of the Athenians.
The land seems to have encroached on the sea on one or
two points, where the traces of the old way are seen on
the edge of rocky promontories, now 100 yards from the
shore. Little remains of Eleusis; a broken aqueduct,
vestiges of a theatre, some shafts of columns which seem
too small to have formed part of the great temple of Ceres,
and two walls prolonged into the sea, and forming a small
port, and a Eoman mosaic in a farm-yard, were all that I
saw. The miserable village- covers the site of the great
temple and theatre; it has never been excavated. The

256 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
scenery of the bay is charming. Mountains, tier above
tier, rising above Megara to the west, over Corinth to the
south-west, and bounded by Cithseron and Parnes to the
north and east, close the view on three sides; and due
south is the bay of Salamis, with its picturesque island,-
formed of high sharply-cut mountains, deep bays, and bold
promontories. Friday, December llth.. — I rode to the top of Pente
licus, or rather rode to withm 500 feet of the top, for the
highest pinnacle is accessible only on foot. The mountain
somewhat resembles Snowdon. It rises 3500 feet pyra-
midically from the plain in successive terraces. The north
side, looMng towards Marathon, and the south, looking
towards Athens, are the steepest. Its underwood consists
of lentisk, juniper, holly, arbutus, and myrtle, nuxed with
heather; among these rise dwarf pines, over which, from
time to time, towers a branching stone pine. A grove of
stone pines cro-wning the precipices formed by one of the
abandoned marble quarries, is a charming object. At
about two-thirds of its height I reaohed the edge of its
eastern ridge, and looked down on the bay and plain of
Marathon, almost below my feet. A tumulus, which I
could just distinguish with my glass, was pointed out to
me by my guide as the tomb of the Athemans.
The bay, about six mUes in length, forms a beautiful
unbroken curve, bounded at each extremity by low pro
montories running far into the sea. The northern, and
longest, is Cynosura, the dog's tail. This was to the rear
of the Persians, The breadth of the plain is about two
miles ; but much of it is occupied by marshes, or rather

MARATHON. 257
morasses, through which the steeams from the hills find
their way to the sea, and the sea itself, in rough weather,
makes a passage. They looked from the mountain like
lakes. The Persian army must have been drawn up somewhat
beyond these marshes, so that they extended behind its
right wing, whUe its centre and left wing occupied the strip
of firm ground between them and the sea. Their Hne
looked south-west, and therefore, as the battle was fought
in the aftemoon, they had the evening sun of Greece in
their eyes. How dazzHng that is I know from experience,
for, even in December, I could scarcely see the road as I
rode home. The Athemans, posted among the spurs of
Pentelicus, ran down on them. The strip of ground on
which the centre and left wing of the Persians was crowded
is so narrow, that they must have formed a column of half
a mUe deep. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Greeks
could not break the centre by thefr charge. But the vrings
were driven, the right into the marshes, the left into the
sea, and then the Greeks, attacMng the centre on each
flank, broke that too.
The view from the top of PenteHcus is the finest that I
know. To the north it is bounded by Parnes and Cithse-
ron, over which peeps the snowy point of Helicon, On
every other side is the sea. To the east is the Euripus ;
beyond it, for fifty miles, the mountains of Euboea. The
coast of Euboea is cut into deep bays ; and the shore, re
flecting the sun from its belt of white sand, looked like a
setting of silver. The sea, quite calm, was a very deep'
s

258 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
blue, and the islands -with which it is studded were
purple. To the south I saw over the whole of Attica,
Salamis, and .35gina, until the view was closed by the
mountains which form the northern boundary of ArgoHs;
Though it is the middle of December, aud I was 3500 feet
above the sea, the temperature was deHghtful, There was
no wind, and the sun was that of an EngHsh June.
It took me an hour and twenty minutes to ascend the
mountain, but two hours and a half to get down. The
quarry, which affords the finest marble, is about 2000 feet
high. It was largely worked by the ancient Greeks, but now
is almost abandoned for inferior and more accessible strata.
The ancients constructed an incHned plane, still marked,
where ifr remains, by the grooves made by thefr cart wheels
leading from it to the foot of the mountain. The moderns
have destroyed the greater part of it. As the whole de
scent is covered by loose broken marble, it is not easy
walking. My guide, however, said that it was not worse
than many of the tracks which in Greece are called roads.
The outside face of the abandoned quarry has acqufred the
reddish yellow colour of the columns of the Parthenon.
The marble probably contains some ferruginous matter,
which comes out on long exposure to the air.
Saturday, December 12th. — The glorious weather which
has succeeded to the north winds that persecuted us on
our arrival, tempted me to returu to PenteHcus aud to
sperid the day in the forests of the Panagia convent, situated
on one of its spurs. X. Y. Z., Mrs. Senior, and I, drove
thither in about a couple of hours, in one of the little
carriages of the country, wMch alone are fit for its roads.

PENTELICUS. 259
We lunched under some evergreen oaks and poplars by a
fountain, one of the sources of the Ilissus, and then
wandered among the oaks, pines, and arbutuses, which
cover the roots of the mountain. Immediately to the
south was a hill, covered vrith pines, which in a flat country
might be called a mountain. On its eastern side we looked
over the plain of northern Attica to the islands and bays
of Euboea and Macronisi; on its western side, over Ly
cabettus and the AcropoHs, to .^gina and the Peloponnesus.
The foreground was the pine forest, whose bushy tops were
sometimes cut by tall cypresses. On every side we could
hear the sound of runmng water. In this exquisite scenery,
with a healthy soil and -with the two blessings most rare
and most prized in Greece, water and shade, there are only
four habitations, the monastery and three houses, all begun
by the Duchess of Placentia, left by her unfinished, and
now untenanted.
" You complain," I said, to X. Y. Z., " of the Athenian
climate in summer. I am told that it is impossible to
leave the house between sunrise and sunset. 'Why do you
not come hither ? "
" Because," she answered, " we could not live here in
safety. A couple of years ago, this country was dangerous,
even by day. There are no brigands at present on this
side Mount Parnes, but on the other side, the plains and
mountains of Boeotia and Phocis are never free from them.
They come in numbers which no private establishment can
resist. A couple of years ago, the house of Mr. Boudouris,
a senator, only a mile from Chalcis, was entered by about
s 2

260 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
thirty of them. He was absent, but his nephew, a physician^
occupied his house. One of the band knocked at the door
in the evening. A Greek servant never unbars the door,
until he has reconnoitred the visitor through the grating.
The man said that he came to call in the physician to a
dying woman. The door was opened, and he rushed in
followed by the others. They seized all the servants and
locked them up ; they then reqmred the family to bring
out their money and valuables. It was done — but they
were not satisfied ; they believed that more was concealed,
and were preparing to torture the women. They lighted
fires and were boiling oil, thefr favourite torture, when they
suspected that the town was alarmed and was coining to
the rescue. They retreated, carrying vrith them two of the
family, whom they kept for six weeks, and restored on
payment of a ransom, — I beHeve about 1000?. A friend of
ours has an estate in orie of the islarids ; his house was
entered at midday by about forty men, all from Boeotia.
They so frightened his daughter that she died in a few
weeks. They took everything that was portable, but car
ried off np prisoners ; probably they feared a pursuit. The
Duchess of Placentia was seized just before the door of her
house, forced to write an order for 500Z. on her banker at
Athens, and kept in arrest until the messenger returned
with the inoney. I was here with a pic-nic party, some
months ago ; we observed tbree men vrith guns, prowling
among the brushwood, and reconnoitring us : they pro
bably thought us too numerous^ and disappeared. There
are plenty of charming situations in the neighbourhood of
Athens, but the only safe one is Cephissia, and that is safe

EOBBEES. 261
because the Mng has a house there, and therefore the
village is garrisoned.
" The year before last, we were riding to the south of
Hymettus. We -were reminded that a band was known
to be lurMng among the roots of the mountain. One
of our party volunteered to ride into a cave very near
us, wMch was supposed to be their head-quarters. He
found marks of recent occupation, but no inmates. We
afterwards ascertained that they had quitted it only the
day before."
« Who," I asked, "was the Duchess of Placentia ? "
" She was born in Philadelphia," answered X. Y. Z. ;
"manied to one of Napoleon's ministers, separated from
him, and passed the last years of her life in Athens. She
had a large income, five or six thousand a year, which she
spent in building, or rather beginning houses, for she never
quite fimshed them."
We looked at her three houses, about half a mile from each
other. They are finely situated ; indeed, it would be difficult
to find any but fine situations in this neighbourhood. In
the upper story of each is a long corridor, which she built
for the use of her dogs, — seven or eight great Pyrenean
sheep-dogs, who were her usual attendants and guards.
"If," said X. Y. Z., "the Mng would take one of these
houses and station a guard here, a charming suburb would
soon rise up ; but he and the queen prefer the heat and
the bustle of Athens or Cephissia."
Monday, December 14th. — I ascended Hymettus to-day.
There is no real road beyond a convent, which is not 200
s 3

262 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
feet above the plain. The height of the summit is 3506
feet, a few feet higher than Pentelicus.
My guide was Demitri, a Zantiote by birth, who has
long lived in Greece. He is an intelligent man, and, I
am told, very honest. He has accompamed me in all my
longer excursions, and pro-rided good horses. He made a
good deal of inoney as guide ; took, in partnership vrith a
Greek, the Hotel des Etirangers, which, in 1852, when
Abou pubUshed his " Gr^ce Contemporaire," was the best
in Athens. But Demitri cannot read; he was rmned,
while his partner made a fortune, and is gone to spend or
to lose it in America, The house is no longer an hotel,
which is to be regretted, as it is better situated than the
present hotels, which have no sun, and are persecuted by
wind and dust,
Demitri thought that we could ride two-thfrds of the
way, but at only one-third it became more a precipice
than a slope, and the bare rocks allowed the horses no foot
hold. So we dismounted, tied them to a juniper bush,
and scrambled up. The southern and western views over
the AcropoHs, the Piraeus, the Bay of Salamis, ^gina, and
the Peloponnesus, and the northern over Parnes, and the
Boeotian mountains, were of course fine, but when we
reached the summit, and looked eastward for the Euripus
and Euboea, all was dense sea fog.
I talked to Demitri about the robbers on Hymettus.,
"Everybody," he said, "regretted the death of Bibici, who
for some years was their chief. He was the man who
ransomed the Duchess of Placentia; but he never did harm
if he could help it, and instead of robbing the poor, he

EOBBEES. — BIBICL 263
often gave them money; he was a favourite in all the
villages, and had many friends in Athens. The police
hfred a man to join Mm and betray him; Bibici sus
pected him, and repulsed him once or tvrice ; but the man
persevered, and told so plausible a story of the oppression
of the government, which, he said, had made it impossible
for him to gain an honest livelihood, that Bibici at last
admitted him. One day they were alone together — it was
in the heat of summer — Bibici fell asleep, and his friend
shot him, and took his head to Athens. A good place in
the poHce was given to him, but it was found that he was
in league with the robbers ; he was turned out, took to the
mountain, and at last was beheaded."
Tuesday,' December 15th. — I called on A. B., and met
Mr. Finlay. We talked of Bibici,
"He laid one or two plots for me," said Finlay,
" four or five years ago, when I was liring about twelve
miles from Athens, My orders to my servants were
never to let any one in when I was absent, but one
evemng I found a man in the kitchen. He said that he
came to ask for work, I told him that I did not want Mna,
and sent Mm away, I suspected that he was loitering
about, and kept watch, I went into the garden, when it
was dai-k, and heard two men talking, on the outside of
the wall. One of them seemed to be dissuading the other
from attacking the house, ' They must be on the watch,'
he said ; ' English people do not go to bed at this hour,
and there is no, light,' "
" I supposed," I said, " that a man keeping watch would
s 4

264 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
have a light. They say that a robber dreads nothing so
much as a light and a little dog,"
" Those who say that," he answered, " are lucky enough
to know nothing about the matter. In this country, when
you expect an attack, you extinguish. all light. You know
your house, the robber does not ; you know where to wait
for him. A man vrith a knife, standing behind his door,
may kill half a dozen, one after another, as they try to
enter. The first that you strike falls, aud the others fall
over him. On this occasion the robbers went off."
" I thought," I said, " that they came m barids of thirty
or forty, whom you could riot have resisted."
" Bibici's barid," he answered, " was a small one^ only
four. His protectors at court, at that time, would not
have tolerated his mpving abput, like the robbers in Bceotia
and Phocis, vrith a large body of followers, openly defying
the government; it would have created too much scan
dal. 'When he was MUed, his band was broken up, and
one of them, the man who came to my house, entered the
King's Guard. I met him the other day, and took a little
walk with him. ' I might have shot you,' he said, ' when
you turned me out of your house.' ' You would have been
hanged,' I answered ; ' I have too riiany friends. I never
feared your killing me.' ' We used to see you,' he replied,
' riding along the ridges of the hills, and never going down
into the valleys. We said to one another, " He is an old
soldier; he knows where he is safe." ' "
"Perhaps," said A, B,, "you are not aware that in
Greece the robber is a poUtical element. Some of our
principal persons have belonged to this profession. Through

EOBBEES. 265
them a commumcation has been kept up vrith the chiefs,
and they have been used as they were wanted. Sometimes
a Demos was to be punished. If a Minister of the Interior
was to be made unpopulai", a hint was given that a few
large robberies might be usefully employed. During the
occupation, when the court -wished to make it appear that
the allies could not govern better than they did themselves,
bands were encouraged to come almost into Athens. They
seized, at mid-day, fifteen or twenty Greeks close to the
town, took them to the mountains, and extracted hea-vy
ransoms from them. At last they took a French officer
from the Pfrseus, and carried him to the mountains. M.
Mercier, the French Minister, was sitting vrith Sir Thomas
Wyse when the French Consul came from the Piraeus to
tell the story. He was escorted by a dozen dragoons. The
two envoys got on horseback, and rode to the Minister of
the Interior — he was absent; then to another minister,
absent too ; then to a third — he too was absent. They
were all at the Foreign Minister's, holding a council. The
envoys rode thither. In the meantime they had clattered
through almost all the town, vrith their dragoons, and the
people began to suspect that they had something great in
hand. The ministers had heard of them, and fancied that
they came to announce King Otho's dethronement. They
promised redress, and it ended in their paying to the rob
bers, out of the pubHc treasury, 2000?. for the ransom of
the officer. 'What made the tMng amusing was, that it
was generaUy believed that it was they themselves who, a
week before, had suggested the robbery. They were then
out of office, and were trying to oust the existing ministry.

266 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and for that purpose, it is said, vrished to discredit them
by shovring how ill the public were protected. The change
of ministry took place sooner than they expected, and the
scandal, which they had intended for thefr predecessors,
fell on themselves."
" Was Bibici," I said, " the amiable robber whom De-
metri described ? " *
" He was better than most of them are," answered Fin
lay ; " he murdered and he tortured, but not wantonly."
Wednesday, December 16th. — I went with C. D. to call
on E. F. I mentioned to him Beta's description of the
revolution as a corispiracy.
" .If it was a corispiracy," said E, F., " it was a conspiracy
of the whole population of Athens; the misgovemment
had reached a point at which it had become absolutely
intolerable," " It was not," said C, D., " so much the amount of mis
govemment as the nature of that misgovemment that was
intolerable. All imperfectly civiUsed people hate foreign
ers ; but, among the Greeks tbis passion is peculiarly
strong ; it is one of the principal difficulties of a foreign
settler. No Greek likes to work for Mm, or to buy from
him, or to sell to him, at the market price. The Greeks
felt not only that they were horribly misgoverned, but that
they were misgoverned by Germans, a race who,. Hke the
EngHsh, are usually distasteful to their subjects when of
other races. The general hatied of Bavarians was concen-
tiated on the court. Neither Otho nor his queen enjoyed
the respect or the affection of the Greeks ; they had no
tastes in common with the people, no art, no literature ;

EEVOLUTION OP 1843. 267
they were supposed to despise them, and to use them merely
as the means of getting money, and a palace, and a gai-den,
and a farm. In such a state of the public mind, every one
felt that an insurrection was immment; even the Mng
foresaw it, and proposed to create, in fact, I believe, created
a court-martial, to tiy, sentence, and shoot all revolutionists
expeditiously. " He went further, and sent some gendarmes to arrest
General Macriyani, an officer suspected of liberal opmions.
Macriyam resisted, fired on the gendarmes, MUed one,
and wounded others. TMs was in the evemng of the 14th
of September, 1843.
" The instant he heard what was going on, Kalergee
assembled the officers of the garrison, and told them that
the time was now come to get rid of the Bavarians. The
people, hearing the shots and the repulse of the gendarmes,
had assembled before the palace, and the constitutional
party — that is to say, the intelligent portion of the com
munity — suggested to them to demand a constitution.
"When Kalergee led his troops from the garrison, this was
the cry which he heard ; it was a good popular cry, and
he allowed his men to join in it.
" The king was alarmed by the assemblage, and pro
posed to. disperse it by force, and for that purpose sent an
aide-de-camp to order .up the artillery; they came, but
joined in the cry, and pointed their guns on the palace.
" The Mng now appeared at a -window ; Kalergee went
under it. The king askSd the meaning of the assemblage.
" ' The people,' answered Kalergee, ' require a constitu
tion.'

268 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" ' Go back,' said the king, ' to your barracks. I will
consult my ministers, the council of state, and the am
bassadors, and inform you of my determination.'
" ' We do not move,' said Kalergee, ' until the council
of state has assembled, has stated to your majesty the
vrishes of the^nation, and has received your answer.'
" In the meantime," said E. F., " Kalergee had sent a
summons to all the members of the council of state.
They met at about half an hour after midnight. None, I
believe, were absent. . One man came from the Piraeus."
" How many were they ?" I asked.
" About thirty," he answered. " Among them were some
whp vrished merely to take the place of the Bavarians,
and to become the favourites of an absolute monarch. A
second party wished only to substitute an orthodox despot
for a Eoman Catholic, a Eussian for a German. The
constitutionalist party was the strongest, both in number
and in ability. The Eussian party was obstinate; thefr
tactics were to force the council to require from Otho con
cessions which he could not make, and, on Ms refusal, to
declare the throne vacant.
" After a sitting of some hours, the council decided on
a proclamation, to be signed by the Mng, promising a con
stitution, and, for that purpose, a constituent assembly,
and an ordinance changing the mimsters. A deputation
was sent to the palace vrith these documents.
"During all this time Kalergee was vrith the troops
before the palace, for the purposS of preventing the Mng
from receiring support or advice from -without. He
allowed no one to leave the palace or to enter it.

EEVOLUTION OF 1843. 269
" The news of what was passing had suirimoned' the
corps diplomatique. The English, French, Eussian, Aus
trian and Prussian ministers drove up. The three first —
all, in fact, favourable to the movement — readily ac
quiesced in Kalergee's answer, 'that, until the matters
were arranged between the Mng and the council, no one
could be admitted.' The Austrian and Prussian insisted
ori their right of access, but, hariug to deal -with a firm
man, they also were forced to drive home. The king kept
the deputation waiting for two hours ; but at length, con
vinced that he had no alternative except abdication, to
which . the queen was speciaUy averse, he signed the pro
clamation and the ordinance; and thus, without a gun
paving been fired, ended the revolution."
" "What sort of an assembly did you get ?" I asked.
" A good one," answered C. D. ; " the only good one that
we have had since the king's accession, and the orily one
that has been reaUy chosen by the pieople ; it gave us an
excellent constitution."
" How can a constitution," I said, " be called excellent
if it does not work ? The proof of the pudding is in the
eating." "It does not work," repHed C. D., "because] the Mng
has resolved that it shall not work. At first he was cowed,
and let Maurocordato, Ms prime minister, our best man,
have his own way ; but in three months he began to intrigue
against it. No young constittition can succeed if the king
or the president is resolved to defeat it. It is not the
people of the Continent that are unfit for constitutions, but
the Mngs. In Norway, in Sweden, in Holland, in Belgium,

270 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
m Piedmont, counti-ies very dissimilar, constitutions work
well, because in each of these countries the Mng has been
faithful. In Spain, in France, in Tuscany, in Naples, in
Austria, and in Greece they have failed, because the sovereign
has tried to make them fail. Unfortunately and unvrisely,
Maurocordato, as soon as he detected the king's falsehood,
resigned, leaving unfimshed nearly all the laws wMch were
promised by the constitution, and were to have been its
complement. The king found in his immense pationage,
in his large civil list, in the absence of an aristocracy of
either bfrth or wealth, in the ignorance and poverty of the
lower classes, and in thefr inabiUty to combine in a country
in wMch there are no roads or towns, and in the ignorance,
poverty, and servility of the upper classes, means to obtain
indirectly as much power as he had ever exercised dfrectiy.
In general, corruption and intimidation are enough to
prevent any opposition; when they are insufficient, force
is employed. The Mng and the queen have had thefr
own way; they have been able to squander or to accu
mulate, for thefr own use, more than a tenth of the
revenue of the country ; they have been able to discredit,
by turns, every public man, and to reduce mimstry after mi
nistry and chamber after chamber into mere puppets ; they
have been able to ruin every one who has opposed them."
" It is true," said E, F., " that the principal advantage
which the Greeks have been allowed to gain by the con
stitution has been the sending away the Bavai-ians ; and I
am not siu-e that those who have taken thefr place have
done much better. In fact, if a country is to be governed
despotically, it is much better that it should be done

THB KING AFTEE THE EEVOLUTION. 271
avowedly than fraudulently. Armansperg and Maurer
were far better administrators and legislators than any of
their successors have been. I am inclined, however, to
hope that the court is beginning to perceive that its policy
has been a mistake. I hear that the queen sometimes
laments the slowness of the progress of the country, and
throws out a doubt whether the Chamber of Deputies
might not do better if the people had more to do vrith its
selection. I shall not be surprised if, at the next election,
the interference of the court is less violent.
" It is not fair, however," he continued, " to throw the-
whole blame upon the court, the diplomats are entitled to
their share of it. It is the misfortune of these weak Mng-
doms that the foreign mimsters, instead of attending to the
affafrs of the 'country which they represent, are always inter
fering in those of the country to which they are sent. "WhUe
Maurocordato was minister. Sir Edwai-d Lyons thought
that the king could do no wrong. "When CoUetti took Ms
place, Lyons did all that he could to imtate his vanity and
to defeat his measures. Piscatory thereupon supported
him, and said, in the French House of Peers, 'Nous
gouvernons la Gr^ce ; et nous la gouvemons dans I'interet
de la France. L' Angleterre est frrit^e, mais c'est egal.'
On which the chamber applauded. Lyons, as an EngUsh
man, had been in favour of honestly carrying out the con
stitution. Piscatory, therefore, supported CoUetti and the
Mng in evading it. The other ministers, the Eussian, the
Austrian, the Bavarian, the Prussian, and even the Belgian,
joined in opposition to it. It is no wonder that the Mng
and the queen, who had never seen the worMng of a consti-

272 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
tutional government, who while yet under twenty-one, had
received absolute power, and had enjoyed it for eight years,
should have followed the advice of the representatives of
the great sovereigns, and should have endeavoured to reco
ver by intrigue, by corruption, and, if necessary, by violence,
the authority of which they had been deprived by force."
Thwrsday, December llth. — I took a long walk -with
G, H, He has been inquiring for a year and a half iato
the state of the finances, and is shocked and astomshed at
the. result,
" The system of the finances," he said, " both the law
and the administiation of the law, are enough to account
for the poverty and barbarism of the country,"
" Will you give me," I said, " some details ? "
" Eeadily," .he answered ; " we -will take the land tax.
It consists of a tenth of the produce, which is exacted from
every one, and of a further portion, varying from a tenth
to a fifteenth, which is exacted as rent from the occupiers
of national lands. I will not trouble you with the details
of collection from -rineyards, olives, silk, and green crops ;
they are complicated, and I will say of them only that they
render any such cultivation, except under the most favour
able circumstances, such as the neighbourhood of a town,
pr of a port of export^ unprofitable. I will confine myself
to the cerealia.
" These taxes are farmed. In the first place, no one is
allowed to reap vrithout the farmer's permission. As
lands are taxed differently according to thefr tenure, the
farmer, by himself or by deputy, must be present at the
harvest, lest the produce of the highly taxed field should

COLLECTION OF LAND-TAX. 273
be transferred to the lightly taxed one. He fixes the day
of reaping, therefore, according to his own convenience,
often with Uttle regard to the ripeness of the grain.
Secondly, the grain, when reaped, must be carried to the
public threshmg floor of the district, which by law ought
not to be more than ten miles from any part of it. The law
adds very naively : ' The farmer is not entitled to force the
cultivator to take Ms produce by a bad road if there be a
better one,' But as all the roads, or rather tracks, of
Greece are bad, there is seldom much choice. The whole
produce, therefore, straw and all, is transported on the
backs of donkeys or ponies, for wheels are not used in
Greece, at an average of at least five miles, often much
further, for there are not threshing floors even vrithin ten
miles of the Hmits of many districts.
" There it has to wait until the whole produce of the dis
trict has been collected. It is piled in stacks round the
threshing floor ; the cultivator or his family watching and
defending, sometimes for weeks, his pecuUar stack against
the attacks of man and beast. At last when the whole
produce is collected, the farmer grants permission to
thrash it. Generally this permission is -withheld until the
cultivators have clubbed to bribe him into granting it. In
Greece all power is considered as a source of profit. It
is computed that the farmers of the land-tax get, at an
average, about 15 per cent, instead of 10 per cent,, by
means of the price which they force the cultivators to
pay for permission to reap, permission to thrash, and
permission to carry away that portion of the crop which
is not taken by the government, lost in travelHng, or
T

274 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
stolen. Like the custom-house officers bf Italy, the farmers
invent and aggravate difficulties and vexations, in order to
be bought off. The thrashing is done by horses, the win
nowing by the vrives and children of the cultivators, A
year or two ago an attempt was made to employ a vrin-
novring machine ; the farmer of the district prohibited its
use ; it might lead, he said, to fraud,
" The grain, when thrashed and vrinnowed, is piled in
heaps, a heap for each cultivator, and there it must remain
until the farmer has measured it and taken his tenth. If
he is busy, or if he is not sufficiently bribed, he may not
do this for weeks. In the meantime the owner of each
heap Hves and sleeps by its side, to watch over it. At
length it is measured, the tenth is taken to the govern
ment magazines, and the cultivator may carry away the
remainder of his grain and his straw.
" Three whole months at an average are thus employed;
for three months- the whole agricultural- population is
kept from home, liring in the open afr, in idleness, and
in discomfort ; the whole . crop of the country is carried
backwards and forwards, over rocks and mountains, by
tracks which cannot be called roads, merely in order to en
able the government to collect its tithe. If the spirit of the
Greeks had not been broken by thousands of years of slavery,
such treatment would produce an insm-rection every year.
And all my informers tell me that the oppression en
dured by the cultivators of other produce is still greater. I
am inclined to think this true, as I find that, vrith the
exception of currants, aU such cultivation is dimimshing."
" Broken," I said, " as the spirit of the Greeks may be.

"WANT OF MUNICIPAL LIBEETY. 275
it seeihs strange that a people who, vrithout arms or money,
rose against the whole power of the Ottoman Empire,
should submit to the tyranny of a petty despot, whose only
means of coercion are an army of 10,000 men. No insur
rection is necessary; they have a chamber of deputies
holding the purse, they have universal suffrage, and vote
by ballot. With such powers, if they are misgoverned, it
must be their own fault."
" They have these powers in theory," he answered,
"buf not in practice. One fatal want, that of muni
cipal liberty, renders thefr whole constitution powerless.
The local authorities are the nomarchs, the eparchs,
and the demarchs. The first preside over a nomos or
county, the second over an eparchaea or hundred, the third
over a demos or parish. The two first are named by the king.
The demarchs are not named by him, but are selected by
him out of three names, elected by a number varying ac
cording to the population ofthe demos, of the highest taxed
inhabitants. The practical result is, that the demarch is
as really nominated by the king as the nomarch or eparch.
Every Greek is an accountant to the crown; and every
Greek is in debt to the crown. Every Greek vrishes for a
place ; every Greek wishes . for a bit of the vast tracts of
national land. Every Greek is at law with some other
Greek. The electors of the demos are told who are the
persons whom the Mng ¦wishes to see elected. If his vrishes
be thwarted, woe to the local electors. They are called
on for their arrears ; they get no places ; they get no pubUo
land; they get no justice from the tribunals; they are
outlaws. In a poor country, where the highest classes are
T 2

276 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
the poorest, because they have most appearances to keep
up, a man persecuted by the govemment is ruined.
" The consequence is, as I said before, that the demarch,
who is in fact master of his demos, who collects and disposes
of its revenues, and manages all its concerns, and particularly
its elections, is a creature of the Mng's. He makes out
the list of voters ; he presides at the voting ; he and his
council have charge of the urns containing the voting
papers during the eight days, and during the mghts be
tween those eight days, that the election lasts. It is
notorious that, during those nights, the urns are opened;
if there be any fear that they do not contain the right name,
proper voting papers are inserted in them. Sometimes
these voting papers with the names of the right candidates
are inserted in the urns before the polling begins. There
were cases on the very last election in which this was done
so clumsily that the urns were found to contain voting
papers more than the whole number of persons entitled to
vote. Obnoxious persons have been prohibited from being
candidates. The consequence is, that the best people, the
persons most capable of exercising well poUtical power,
take no part in politics. They are not . candidates ; they
do not vote ; they leave the .king's shadow of a chamber
and puppets of mmisters, to misgovern unresteained.
" One of the worst results," he continued, " of this ab
sence of municipal freedom, is the waste of the municipal
funds. There never was a country in which local expen
diture was more wanted than it is m Greece. Except
in the immediate neighboirrhood of Athens, there are
not one hundred miles of road ; and of these one hundred

•WANT OF EOADS AND DEAINAGE. 277
miles, two portions, amounting to a ^enth of the whole,
lead, one only to the queen's bathing-place in the Bay of
Phalerus, the other only to her farm. Another portion, per
haps the most important portion, the road across the
Isthmus of Corinth, was made by the Austrian Lloyd.
Between one valley and another prices vary 100 or 200
per cent., because the transport of corn across a ridge of
mountains doubles its price. It is cheaper to bring wheat
to Athens from Bessarabia than from Thebes. Three-
fourths of the land is uncultivated, because the thin po
pulation has enough to eat, and cannot send the surplus to
market. " The brigandage which renders large portions
of Northern Greece umnhabitable is mainly owing to the
want of roads._ The brigand cannot be followed on horse
back, and on foot he defies pursuit. Want of drainage
is the cause of the fevers which destroy more than half
the cMldren, and ruin the constitutions of many of the
adults. Eoads and drainage ought to be provided by the
demoi. I have sometimes heard of their having raised
money for these purposes, but I never heard of its being
applied, except in one demos in Euboea. In that case, as
soon as the road was made, the government sent down to
the demos an inspector of the road, and ordered the
demos to pay to him a sg-lary of sixty drachmas a month.
This was a warning against further road-maMng. "What
becomes of the local funds is arcamum imperii. No
budget or account of them is pubUshed. The secret is
buried in the breasts of the demarchs and the Mng."
Monday, December 21st. — I rode through the pass of
Daphne to the Bay of Eleusis, then turned southward and
T 3

278 A JOUENAL KEPT m TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
followed the coast under Mount JEgaleos to the Pfraeus.
The coast along which I rode was that on wbich Xerxes
encamped while his fleet fought the battle of Salamis. I
must have passed close to the spot on which the throne,
from which he vritnessed it, was erected. Nothing could
be more beautiful than the Bay of Eleusis and the Straits
of Salamis. The sun was as brilliant as our best sun in
June, and the sea was glassy.
The bold rocks and mountains of Salamis were reflected
in it so clearly that their stiata and their vegetation could
be distlngmshed. Even the houses of Eleusis, six miles
off, were painted in long white strips on the water.' The
Strait, scarcely two miles in length, and seldom more than
half a mile in breadth, was a small field of battle for 1000
sliips on one side, and 300 on the other. I can easily be
lieve that the Persians were thro^wn into confusion and
disorder by their own numbers.
Mrs. Senior and Miss Wyse drove to Eleusis. They
started at one, and did not return until past six. They
described their moonlight drive as charming, and came
home quite warm. Yet they had been five hours in an
open carriage on the shortest day. Such is the winter
climate of Athens, in good weather.
Wednesday, December 2Srd. -— I rode to Phyle, through
the long defile which leads from Attiea to Bceotia. For the
first five miles our road crossed the Attic plain. About
a mile beyond the olive woods of the Cephisus, we passed
the queen's farm, where she is laying out a small park,
which in time ¦will be pretty.
Some foundations of walls, formed of lai-ge quan-ied
stories, uncemented, are all that remains pf a censiderable

EOAD TO PHYLE. 279
town, perhaps, Acharnae, which supplied a tenth of the
Athenian infantry in the Peloponnesian war. Further on,
ori a small plain at the foot of the pass, is the village of
Cassia, covering a large space, but now generally in ruins.
Out of about 200 houses, not above twenty seemed to be
occupied. Some women, most scantily dressed, were
washing at the fountain. One gfrl wore a head-dress so
pecuHar that I begged her to let me examine it. It con
sisted of a fez half covered by rows of silver coins.
" This," said my guide, " is her dowry. She always wears it,
for the double purpose of keeping it safe, and exhibiting
herself as a young lady of fortune."
After leaving Cassia, the pass became steeper, and wound
round through the roots and round the promontories of
the two great mountains, Cithaeron and Parnes. They are
so naked in their exterior that I was not prepared to find
the gorges of the mterior covered vrith forests of stone
pine. Their beautiful green gave an almost velvety ap
pearance to the grandly-scooped combs wMch rose above
us.
-. Bare precipitous promontories, one of wMch forms a fine
object, even as seen thirteen miles off from Athens, from
time to time crossed our track, and forced us to climb
ascents, steep enough to requfre holding on by the mane.
At length we came in sight of Phyle, a conical hill rising
in the centre of the pass. It was long, however, before we
reached its foot. The air was fresh vrithout being cold,
though we saw some ice ; and the gi-ass, when not reached
by the sun, was covered with hoar frost. On three sides
Phyle rises precipitously from steep gorges; on the ac-
T 4

280 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
cessible side, the hill has been scarped, and built up with
a wall of huge uncemented stones, thirteen feet thick
and about thirty high, flanked by towers, one round, the
other square. The plateau on the top contains about
three-fourths of an acre. We do not hear of its ever
haring been taken ; and in Greek warfare, if properly
garrisoned, it must have been impregnable. But there are
no remains of cisterns ; little rain falls in this country, and
the nearest water is a stream in a valley nearly half a mile
off, separated from Phyle by a steep ridge. "When Phyle
was seized by Thrasyhulus and his seventy companions,
the thirty tyrants at first attacked it and were repulsed.
We are told that they then blockaded it. But they
cannot have invested it, as Thrasybulus received rein
forcements, which raised his garrison to 700 men. Pro
bably the enemy only stationed a force between the fort
and the stream. This expedient must have succeeded
in a few days, and Thrasybulus, therefore, had no resource
except a sally. He surprised the blockaders, and drove
them off, but he did not venture to remain at Phyle
for more than five days longer. On the sixth he quitted
his fortress for the open to-wn of Pfraeus.
We found a detachment of soldiers on the top. It
seems that the day before yesterday a band of robbers
plundered and ill-treated some persons near Megara. On
the same evening Mrs. Semor and Miss Wyse were at
Eleusis, about eleven miles from Megara, and returned by
moonUght. The government is now anxious to keep the neighbour
hood of Athens safe. Phyle, surrounded by mountains and

EEPEESSION OF BEIGAlfliAGE. 281
forests which are tiaversable by tracks known only to the
shepherds, and commanding the central pass between
Bceotia and Attica, has always been a favom-ite haunt of
banditti. "When we first saw from below a head peeping
over the wall, my guide said, between earnest and joke,
that it must be a klepht.
Thursday, December 24th. — I spent a couple of hours
with Ka,ppa, We talked of brigandage — a subject on
which, as he told me, he has thought much.
" The first thing," he said, " to be done, is to get rid of
the frregular troops. They cost less than the regular
army, they know better the habits of the brigands, and
they give to some of our PaUcari, who have influence
at court, means of proridmg for adherents, whose cha
racters render it impossible to quarter them on the public
in any other way. The government therefore find them
a convenient force. But they sympathise -with the brigands ;
they are often in league with them. I believe that they
encourage more brigandage than they repress.
" I should next try to get the assistance of the local
authorities. This was done in Acarnania, when Mauro
cordato was mimster /in 1843. But that was a time of
enthusiasm. We had just got the constitution. The
inhabitants were prevailed on to rise en mAJSse and
extirpate the brigands. Such efforts cannot be often
repeated. We have a law by wMch the -inhabitants of
a demos are responsible if they harbour brigands. But
our demoi are so large in proportion to their population,
that tMs law is often unexecuted, A demos sometimes
contains 3000 or 4000 persons, Hving in nine or ten

282

A JOUENAL ^PT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.

hamlets, and scattered over a whole district. They have
no knowledge of one another, no common feelings or
interests, and it is impossible to require one hamlet to be
responsible for what has occurred in another ten miles off,
I would subdiride the demoi into small districts, or sub-
demoi, each consisting of a single village, with its own
sub-demarch ; and require each sub-demos to choose and
pay a man, whose duty it should be to watch for brigands,
and to call in the troops to suppress them, and I would
make the sub-demoi responsible for any neglect,
" This, of course, would requfre money, and I would obtain
it by a better management of the national lands. The pea
sants now make use of those which adjoin their viUages, and
pay for them, but the money being paid as a bribe, not as
a debt, is not accounted for. The local authorities em
bezzle it, I would let the lands to the -rillagers, enforce
payment, and employ the money in paying a rillage
police. And I would render the village responsible for
harbouring, or even neglecting to denounce and drive out
the brigands,
"I would then try to stop the sources from which
brigarids are recruited.
: " These are, first, the Turkish frontier. We have a
treaty by which each govemment promises to give up to
the other persons who have committed acts of brigandage,
but it is unexecuted. Bands lurk vrithin our frontier, and
plunder in Thessaly and Epirus ; others come from thence
to plunder us. I would execute it faithfully, and requfre
its execution by Turkey. This is a matter in which the
protecting powers would assist us.

EEPEESSION OP BEIGANDAGE. 283
" Another source of brigands are the shepherds, esti
mated at 30,000, who wander over the country. They
are always connected with the brigands, often turn bri
gands themselves. I would localise them, require them
to belong to some demos, register them, and prohibit their
wanderirig. If necessary, a portion of the national lands
might be given to them. They cost us by their migra
tory plundering life much more than the utmost rent of
the land wMch would be reqmred for their settlement.
" Another source of brigandage is the conscription. It is
notorious that there never was an instance of the son of
a demarch or of a municipal councillor, indeed of any
pubUc officer, or of any person nearly connected with any
public officer, drawing the lot of service. There is a
natural, indeed an universal suspicion, that it is unfairly
managed. Partly because they prefer the free life of a
brigand to that of a soldier, but more frequently, because
they think themselves unjustly selected, our conscripts
desert in great numbers, and their only recourse is to cross
the frontier, and seek safety and a UveUhood in Turkey,
or to turn brigands. Often they do both. This can be
cured to-morrow, if the government will merely take care
that*the ballot for soldiers is honestly managed.
" My last -remedy is a better administration of justice.
Our tribunals hold thefr courts of justice in the capital of
the Eparchaea, often fifteen or twelve miles from its Hmits.
If a man has been injured, it costs him a day's walk to
apply to the riearest justice; another day is lost in
sending the summons to the defendant; another in the
defendant's journey to the tribunal. The plaintiff and

284 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
defendant, or the accuser and the accused, may have to wait
a week or two before their cause is heard. To obtam legal
redress for an injury of five drachmas, may cost thfrty.
The persori injured, or who thinks himself injured, prefers
taMng the law into his own hands.. If a fowl has been
stolen from him, he steals a goose from the supposed ,
thief. The thief retaliates by taking from him a lamb.
He takes a sheep, and so a civil war of injuries goes on,
until one of the two parties is rumed, and turns Mepht,
I would force the local judges to make cfrcmts round and
round thefr deirioi. Justice ought to be brought to eveiy
man's door, at least once or tvrice in every month,"
" Among your remedies, you have not mentioned road-
making," I said.
" Not," he answered, - " because I undervalue it. Eoads
are the first step towards civilisation. A country which,
like Greece, is -without them, is essentially barbarous ; but
I do not see the bearing of road-maMng on brigandage, ¦
Ours are not highway robbers, they would neither attack.
nor retreat by the roads,"
" Of course, they would not," I answered ; " but the
police and the troops might use the roads. Now, if a
band shows itself fifty mUes from Athens, it takes two Says
before a messenger can bring the news to Athens, and two
days more before you can send troops to disperse it. In
the meantime it has plundered that district, and is plun
dering another. If you had a road you might hear of the
outrage in a few hours, and in a few hours more send a,
force to repress it. Is it true," I continued, " that many of
the brigands have protectors about the court ? "
" I vrill not say," he answered, " that they have pro-

EOBBEES. 285
tectors, but it is certain that they once had. But the
worst sort of encom-agement which they ever received was
in 1854, The government, in its anxiety to get volunteers
to serve in its expedition against Thessaly, let loose from
the prisons six huudred of the worst ruffians whom they
contained ; in several cases, the prisoners and their guards
crossed the frontier together. Those were the people who
burned the Greek villages in Turkey, whose inhabitants
would not join them ; they were the wholesale robbers of
sheep and cattle, who turned what was to have been a
political invasion into a plundering foray ; they were the
highwaymen who rendered the roads unsafe vrithin a mile
of Athens, and I have no doubt that numbers of them are
still at large in Greece, or perhaps lurMng behind the
Turkish frontier, and form the bands which still infest
Northern Greece,"
Friday, Christmas Day. — I walked in the olive groves
with Gamma, He asked me what impressions five weeks
in Greece had made on me,
" The contrast," I said, " between Athens and Constan
tinople is striking ; but I doubt whether, if I were to go
into the interior, I should find much difference between
Greece and Turkey, There is the same absence of roads,
the same thinness of population, the same want of culti
vation. Cassia and Eleusis are as miserable as anything in
Turkey ; their inhabitants are not better dressed than the
Turks ; and I am told that, if I were to go to Megara, or
to Corinth, or to Thebes, I might fancy myself stiU in
Asia Minor,"
" Greece and Turkey," he answered, " are now, perhaps,
on about the same level ; but Greece is going uphill, and

286 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Turkey is going downhill. Five-and-twenty years ago
Greece was a desert, and Turkey was richer and more
populous than she is now. At this instant, perhaps, they
are on a par; but ten years hence Greece will be much
richer thau she is now, and Turkey much poorer."
" I shall not believe iri your progress," I auswered, " until
you have roads."
" It is true," he replied, '^ that roads are a test and a
cause of civilisation, and that the government has been
culpably negligent of them ; but we are beginning to make
them. To-day Mr. Feraldi's offer to make the Piraeus
railway was accepted."
" I am glad to hear it," I said ; " I vrish you had begun
a little sooner ; I should be able to see something of the
interior. The handbook tells me that there is a road to
Thebes, but I find that it is impassable. All roads seem
to end thirteen miles from Athens."
" I do not advise you," he answered, " at this season to
attempt the interior. Athens and its neighbourhood, in
fact, contain almost all that is worth seeing. There is no
architecture comparable to ours ; there is no maritime
scenery more beautiful, and there is little mountain
scenery finer than that of Pentelicus, Cithaeron, and Parnes.
If, indeed, you could speak the language, you might learn
much of the state of the people by entering their houses
and talking to them. But the only person who could talk
to you would be your guide; you would see only the
exterior. You would find more or less fleas in one khan
than in another, better or worse pavements, more or less
miserable cabins, and come back knowing no more about
the country than you know now.

"WANT OF AN AEISTOCEACY. 287
- " Our great misfortune," he continued, " is one which we
have inherited from Turkey — the absence of an aristocracy.
The Turks, who conquered Greece in the fifteenth century,
were unscrupulous even for barbarians. They used men just
as man uses the lower ammals, and destroyed them en masse
whenever it smted their convenience. One of their princi
ples was to leave in a conquered country no native power
or influence. They put to death in Greece all those whose
bfrth, or wealth, or character gave them any pre-eminence.
At the same time, and this is a merit for which they have
not had due credit, they destroyed the serfdom which they
found prevalent ; they reduced the whole Christian popu
lation to one level. It was thefr policy, however, to
support the Church, as its head, the Patriarch of Constan
tinople, was their creature. They were forced also to
employ Greeks in collecting the revenue, which they
, managed by maMng a portion of the inhabitants of each
district responsible for the payment of the whole of its
contribution, and authorising them to apportion it among
the others, and to enforce its payment. These persons
.acquired the name of primates, and corresponded, except
that their office was not hereditary, to your zemindars in
India. In Northern Greece they armed a portion of. the
Greek population as a local police, under the name of
armatoles. " The officers or captains of these armatoles, whom we
have called palicari, the bishops, and the primates, were the
native aristocracy of Greece when the revolutionary war
. broke out. They were few, they were little superior in
knowledge or cultivation to the rest of their fellow-country
men, and they had not the prestige of birth. Some rich

288 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Wallachians, Moldavians, and Fanariots, joined us during
the war, and their superior education and wealth gave them
some eminence, but they were looked on by the Greeks as
foreigners. The Ypsilantes were Moldavians, the Soutzos,
Maurocordatos, Argjrropulos, and Mourousis, are Fanariotes,
King Otho found us vrithout a real aristocracy, and we have
not acquired one. We are essentially democratic ; the clause
in the constitution, which forbids conferring hereditary
honours, was carried by acclamation. The consequence, I
fear, is that we are unfit for constitutional monarchy.
There are no persons in the country who have made
politics a study, or, indeed, who could afford to do so.
There are no persons whom the public voice points out as
fit to be deputies or ministers. The king is forced to
choose the least unfit that he can, and to be his own prime
minister. He rises at four in the mornmg, works hard all
day, and cannot do half what ought to be done. We have
no parliamentary opposition. We have no parties vrith
party opinions and party watchwords. Our public men
sometimes split into factions, but those factions are united
by personal likes or dislikes, not by any common
principle of action, except the -wish of each person to get
on." " How comes it, then," I said, " that your ministers are
so frequently changed ? "
" Sometimes," he answered, " they prove incompetent ;
very often they quarrel ; sometimes the foreign diploma
tists force the king to turn them out. We are weak and
poor. You use, and perhaps abuse, your power, as our
creditors. We perhaps abuse our privilege of weakness.

SOUTZO, — IMPEOVEMENT OF GEEECE. 289
We behave ill, and have to appease you by sacrificing to
you a ministry,"
Mr, Soutzo, professor of political economy, and his vrife
called on us. We talked of the progress of the country,
" It is qmte as great as the most sanguine Greek could
have hoped it to be," said Soutzo, " During the twenty-
five years that we have been a nation, the population has
increased one-third ; the culti-vation has increased still
more ; and our fleet now consists of five thousand vessels."
" I vrish," I said, " that your roads had increased iri pro-
portiori." " The sea," he ariswered, " is our principal road ; but
we have passed a law by which every man is bound to
labour by himself, or by proxy, for a certain time on the
roads, the maximum being twelve days in the year, the
minimum six. If you return to us in a couple of years
you vrill, I trust, find a railway to the Pfraeus, and a dili
gence to Thebes."
Madame Soutzo is a very pleasing woman; she was
born a Soutzo ; her father was a Fanariot, and Hospodar
of Moldaria in 1821.
We talked to her of Constantinople.
" Though I was born there," she said, " I do not recol
lect it. I was only a year old when my father was forced
to fly. You must recollect his palace at Bujucdereh,
which has often been described to me with its terraced
gardens of stone pines. He laid them out and planted
them. He was one of the first who joined in the revolu
tion. My mother and I had to fly at an hour's notice.
We saved only our clothes. My mother gave a casket of
V

290 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
diamonds, worth a million of francs, to a person whom she
thought her friend. It has never been recovered. She, a
princess, almost a vice-queen, had to mend her own clothes.
We lost everything, so did my husband's father, who was
Hospodar of Wallachia, But we regret notMng, neither
our conduct nor our fortune,"
" Have you ever revisited Constantinople ? " I asked, •
" No," she answered, " and I never will while it is Turk
ish, But I should be miserable if I did not expect to see
it again," I called on I, K, I mentioned to him my last conver
sation with Gamma.
"It is true," he said, "that the Greeks have no here
ditary aristocracy; but I am not sure that they are
essentially democratic. No nation on the continent is
fonder of ribands and crosses, native and foreign. No
society is more anxious for court favour and court distinc
tions than that of Athens. Eoyal frowns and smiles rank
high among the mearis by which it is kept in subjection,"
" Is it true," I said, " that the king works hard at his
business ? "
" That also is true," he answered ; " and it is true that
he does not do half what ought to be done ; but it is not
true that his work is forced upon him. It is not true that
he could not find ministers through whom he might govern
constitutionally. He has indeed tried all that he can to
prevent the existence of such men. He has always tried
to avoid what we call a mimstry, that is, a body of men
with common opinions and common objects. He wishes
each minister to attend to his own department, and to

THB KING'S CONDUCT. 291
ignore every other. He has always fomented dissensions
in his own cabinet. He endeavours to place in it men of
opposite opinions. If any member of it excite^ his jealousy
by acquiring reputation, or the confidence of the public,
he tries to seduce him, or to drive him, into some unpopular
line of conduct, and, if that fails, turns him out. Mauro
cordato would pass in England as a sensible, weU-informed
man. Here he is a star of the first magnitude. The king
was forced to accept him after the revolution, but in three
months began to conspfre against him. The only strong
part of the king's character is his vrilL He tolerates no
opposition to his own views either in the cabinet or in the
chamber. All laws proposed by the ministry are proposed
in the Mng's name. Instead of treating this as a mere
form, like the queen's speech with us, he thinks that his
dignity is injured if anything bearing his name is objected
to, and punishes criticism by doing all the harm that he
can to the critic, and to all the critic's relations and friends,
and even visitors."
""What is the salary of a minister ?" I asked,
" Ten thousand drachms," he answered, " about 350?. a
year. But as the -wife and daughters are reqmred to appear
at court, and the queen chooses that the toilettes shall be
Parisian and frequently changed, the extra expenses eat up
much more than the salary. This, however, suits the
king. He -wishes his ministers to be poor and dependent,
that they may submit to be treated as mere clerks.
Indeed he does not always treat them as head clerks, for
he frequently gives orders to the inferiors in their depart
ments vrithout consulting the heads,"
u 2

292 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
" But how does he get men," I said, " to accept ari office
which is laborious and ill-paid, in which a man is riot only
unable to do what he thinks right, but may be responsible
for measures as to which he has not been consulted ? "
" He does not get first-rate men," answered I, K,, " or
second-rate men, and third-rate men may always be got
everywhere for any purpose whatever. But it is not the
salary that tempts a man to become a mimster. It is the
patronage, the jobbing, the hope of a Greek order, or, what
is more prized, of a Eussian or a German one, the prece
dence of the wife at courts the title -of Excellence ; these
are the royail baits, and they are tempting enough to hook
the sort of fish to whom they are thrown,"
"You have Jiot," I said, "shown how he could get
better." " I have shown^" he said, " that, acting as he does, he
must get bad ones. I am inclined to think, that in order
to get good ones it would be enough to wish to get them,
to trust them, and to -aUow them to initiate and carry out
the policy which they and the chambers think best ; in
short, to treat them as ministers. But the salary is one on
which no married man can livej this narrows the choice.
The number of miniM;eES, seven, is too large. At 350?. a
piece, they cost 2450?. a jear. I would diminish the
number to five, and raise the salary to 1000?. a year.
This vvould be an additional expense of 25501. a year ; not a
large sum, even for Greece ; the king could afford to pay
it himself out of his 35,000?. a year of civil list. And for
1000?. a year and good treatment, he could command the
best talents in Greece. He is not restricted, Hke our
queen, to members of one of the chambers ; the ministers

THE PEESS. 293
need not be members. ' Virtute officii ' they can speak in
each chamber. Indeed, as the 140 seats are all govern
ment rotten boroughs, he can put into the chamber any
minister whom he likes. He need not fear thefr being in a
minority m either house ; ' virtute officii ' the ministry has
always a majority, and if once a seat m the ministry was
made a fit object of aittbitiony men would train themselves
for it. No one vrill accuse the Greeks of want of intelli
gence or of want of aptitude for political life. Gamma says
that they could not afford it. But no training is less ex
pensive. It can be carried on among other employments ;
the laws of Greece are comparatively simple,, for they are
embodied in codes recently made ; some knowledge of them
and of poUtical economy is all that is reqmred foE a Greek
statesman." "Is the press free ?" I asked.
" It is free," he;answered, " as respects private libel ; but
a couple of years ago a law was passed for the punishment
of all attacks on the Mng or on his authority. Any
criticism of any act of the government may be held to come
within words so vague as these. As there is no ' habeas
corpus' law, a man may be detained in prison for an
indefinite time frefore he is tried ; and as the clause in the
Constitution dfrecting the judges to be rendered irre
movable has not been obeyed, the bench is filled with
docile instruments of the royal vrill. From these premises
you may infer what is the amount of freedom enjoyed by
the poUtical press.
" Among the mischiefs," he added, " of this tyranny,
one is, that, as it is exercised under constitutional forms,
V 3

294 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
its acts look at a distance like those of the nation. If
the chambers and the king passed a law giving the suc
cession to a Eussian Grand Duke, the people in England
would be - told that such was the wish of the nation;
speaking by its legal organs. We on the spot know
that the chambers are the organs, not of the nation,
but of the court, and that an act of the Greek parliament
is merely a royal proclamation. King Otho has a better
right than Napoleon had to say, ' L'etat c'est moi.' ' He
names all the local authorities; through them he names the
deputies ; he has named the senate, and governs it by the
threat of doubling its members. He is commander-in-
chief of the army ; he virtually nominates the bishops,
who have absolute control over the clergy; he appoints
and removes the judges at pleasure; in short he has con
trived to make his constitutional kingdom the most
perfect example that Europe contains of a centralised
despotism." "Do you agree," I asked, "with Mr, Soutzo, 'that the
progress of the country, during the last twenty-five years,-
has been as great as could have been hoped ?' "
" That the improvement," he answered, " has been posi
tively great is certain. But you must recollect what was
the point of departure, Greece has been laid waste by six
years of such war as is scarcely seen in, civilised countries,
Ibrahim's scheme was to extirpate the whole population,
and to supply their place with Albanian Mussulmen ; this
was what produced and justified our interference, I have
no doubt that the population has increased by one-thfrd,
but a great part of that increase was by immigration of
Greeks from the islands and from Thessaly, who had taken

GEEECE BEFOEE ITS EMANCIPATION. 295
part against the Turks during the war. I have no doubt
that there has been an enormous increase of the rineyards
and olive orchards of the Morea, for at Ibrahim's departure
there were none ; but I much doubt whether Greece even
now is as populous and as rich as it was under the Turkish
rule. I tiavelled in Greece before its emancipation. I
went over a great part of the same ground last year. The
roads seemed to me much worse than they were forty
years ago ; the cultivation has rather gone back than im
proved, Patras, Athens, and Syra have made a great start,
but Missolonghi is a heap of ruins ; and the villages in
general are worse than they were. The safety of the
country has deteriorated. I never thought of taking an
escort at that time. Now, as soon as you leave Attica,
which the court keeps garrisoned for its own sake.
Northern Greece is dangerous. Some people were robbed
the other day while visiting the Acropolis of florinth ; the
Greek Government said that it was their own fault ; that
the Austrian Lloyd kept the high road between Patras and
tiie isthmus safe, and that the travellers ought not to have
diverged from it."
"The admimstration of justice," I said, "is probably
better." " In some respects," he answered, " it is ; Greece pos
sesses a civU and criminal code, borrowed mainly from
France. This is a great improvement on Turkish law ;
but there is as much corruption and intimidation as there
ever was. The court, whenever it Ukes, dictates the
sentence of the tribunals; CoUetti used simply to send
word to them what to do. In the provinces no one ventures
u 4

296 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
to oppose a man in power, an icrxvpos, as they call him,
a demarch, or a proedros, or any one, in short, who has any
influence. The Turks have great respect for property, the
Greeks have none. If an ur^xypos wants a man's field, he
takes it, and desires the owner to go and take another from
the national lands. This is one of the reasons why we have
no roads ; there are laws for making them, but no one ven
tures to enforce them. If roads are made, no one repairs
them; the Greeks, indeed, repair nothing. It is -with the
utmost difficulty that I can gei my landlord to keep my
house weather-tight.
" It is melancholy," he continued, " to tMnk what
Greece is, and what, under a tolerable government, she
might have been. The king came with absolute power ;
he has no aristocracy, no old habits, no prejudices to em
barrass him. He had a most docile, and a most intelligent
population ; ^nd he had a treasury filled by the allies to
overflovring. But he treated his population just as they
had been treated by the Turks, — as a mere sponge, out
of which money was to be squeezed. He did nothing for
them, he did not adrise them, or even encourage them
to do anything for themselves. He treated them as an
appanage to Bavaria, as a country given over to him as a
younger son's provision."
" Soutzo," I said, " tells me that a law had been passed
by which the whole population is to contribute, at the
minimum, a week's labour every year to the roads; in two
years, he says, there -will be a dihgence to Thebes."
" Such a law," he answered, " has been passed, and per
haps it is the twenty-first to the same effect, but not one of

DIPLOMATIC TEEATMENT OF GEEECE, 297
them has been executed, or has been attempted to be
executed, or was ever intended to be executed. They are
like the Hatt-i-Humdyoon, they are made in order to be
sho-wn to the foreign ministers."
" My Greek friends," I said, " are sore at the interference
of the corps diplomatique."
" They have no right," he answered, " to complain of the
English embassy. The only wish of England is that Greece
should be prosperous; the only advice that the embassy gives
is, that she should be weU governed, France and Eussia are
more selfish ; Eussia has the great advantage over her rivals
of having a definite policy ; she vrishes to make Greece a
dependency of Eussia; and for that purpose to weaken her,
and to place on her tMone a Eussian prince. Her action
began even during the war of independence ; her creature.
Capo d'Istrias, vrished merely to be the Eussian Hospodar
of the Morea. All Otho's misgovemment delights her, and
hence her ascendency in his councils. I do not think
that France kno-ws what she wants; she -wishes for in
fluence, vrith no clear views as to the purposes to which
she is to dfrect it. Before 1854, she thought us her most
formidable rivals, and set to work to counteract us. As
the object of aU our endeavours was the improvement of
Greece, her freedom, and her prosperity, France, by her
blind opposition to us, became necessarily the supporter of
tyranny, and the enemy of progress. Piscatory was the
unscrupulous opponent of Maurocordato, the best statesman
that Greece ever had, and the unscrupulous supporter of
CoUetti, one of the worst men and one of the worst
ministers that ever oppressed her. It was under the

298 A J0UE;NAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
patronage of France,, that Otho virtually destroyed the
constitution. All .this perfectly suited Eussia ; it weakened
Greece, and at the same time it bred a coldness between
England and France. "When, the war came, France saw the
mischief that she had done. She saw that she had taken
Greece out of the hands of a friend, and given her over
to an enemy. M. Mercier was instructed to act vrith Sfr
Thomas Wyse, and the antagonism between the two
legations has ceased. The British policy at present ought
to be tbat of non-interference. England looks on, vrith
deep disapprobation at the king's misgovemment, and
records it, but does not attempt single-handed, as she
would be, to disturb it."
Saturday, December 26th. — I spent the morning with
Mr, Pittakis in the Acropolis,
We talked of the manner in which the drums forming
the columns are umted.
In the centre of each is a square aperture, about four
inches broad, and six deep. In this was inserted a block
of cedar wood, vrith a round aperture in the centre, into
which a bolt of cedar was driven, so as to make the square
block perfectly air tight, A circle of about eighteeu inches
in diameter round this block is rough, or rather rudely
planed. The remainder of the surface of each drum is
polished to the smoothness of a mirror. The two poUshed
drums, exactly on the same plane, so cohere as to form one
substance. He showed me columns of which portions had
been broken by cannon-shot, at the junction of two drums;
the interior appeared to form one block; the junction was
imperceptible. He believes that the central space was left

PAETHENON. 299
rough, and the cedai- block and bolt inserted, in order to
give elasticity to the column. One of them, which has lost
its architrave, bends, he says, in a storm, like a tree, but
perfectly recovers itself. In Hadrian's time, this process
had been lost, or was thought too laborious. The drums of
the columns of the temple of Jupiter Olympius are less
accurately poUshed, and are united by iron bolts in the
inside. The walls of the Parthenon are uncemented, and are
formed of blocks, polished on their interior surface with
equal care, and united by iron bolts, each surrounded, I
suppose to prevent its rusting, by lead.
He pointed out parts of the cornice still retaining the
colours, green and blue, with which they were painted.
I hope that the French school in Athens contains some
architects who will import into France the practice of
uniting the drums of which their columns are composed.
A French column, one of those, for instance, of the Made
leine, looks like a pUe of cheeses.
Sunday, December 21 th. — I climbed with L. M. the
steep rock of Lycabettus. The view, like everything in
the basin of Athens, is fine, but not equal to that from the
Acropolis. We talked of Mr. Finlay's claims.
"The Greek Government," saidL. M., "presumed on its
weakness. It msulted and injured British subjects in the ,
conviction that, as we could not feel our honour interested
in repelling the aggressions of such a power, and could not
go to -war vrith a government of which we were the protectors,
we should be contented with withdrawing our ambassador.

300 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
— a sort of revenge which would be extremely agreeable to
the court, as it would remove an inconvenient witness of
its proceedings. Indeed the king had considered what
parts of the constitution ought to be got rid of, as soon as
he had succeeded in forcing England to suspend diplomatic
relations with Greece."
" "What was the source," I asked, " of Otho's enmity ? "
" Every despot," he answered, " hates England : then we
had supported Armansbergagainst Euy dhart, and Maurocor
dato against CoUetti. The attacks on Otho in the London
papers were, vrith the ignorance of English habits which we
find among foreigners, attributed to Lord Palmerston.
"Whatever were the motives, certain it is that the court of
Athens hated and still hates us with an almost childish
intensity. " Poor Finlay became the rictim. He had served Greece
as a volunteer, he bad written in her favour; he had esta
blished himself in Athens; he deserved their gratitude
and kindness. But unluckily he was in Naboth's situation.
He was owner of a piece of land in a fine position, protected
by this moimtain to the north, and sloping southward
towards the sea. He intended to build there. The Mng
thought fit to bmld his palace close to it, and tP take
Finlay's ground and enclose it in his garden. This was in
1836, before the constitution. Mr. Fmlay asked to be
paid for it. The Greek Government answered, that the
land not having been taken for any purpose of public
utility, they had no funds out of which to pay for it, and
that Mr. Finlay might resume possession of it. He at
tempted to do so, and was warned off by the sentinels.
The ground was included in the garden, and now forms

ME. FINLAY'S CLAIMS. 301
part of it; it is just under the windows of the private
apartments. "There was no redress agairist an absolute sovereign,
but Finlay was told that if he would ask for pajmient
as a favour, the royal generosity would be extended
to Mm. He of course refused to do this, and prose
cuted his claim as a right. Sfr Edward Lyons urged it
on the Greek Government from 1838 to 1849, vrith no
result, except an offer on the part of the government to
aUow Mr. Finlay's claim to be decided by an umpire, to be
named by itself. In 1849 Sir Thomas Wyse inherited the
negotiation. He brought it at last to an arbitration. The
arbitrators were appomted. By the law of Greece, their
power expired in three months. The Greek government
neglected to proceed before them; they would not even
allow the land to be measured. The three months expired,
and the claim was as far from settlement as it had been
when the king seized the land in 1837. In fact, with per
verse obstinacy he had made up his mind not to pay for it.
" At length, in January 1850, Admiral Parker and his
squadron anchored in the Pfrseus. Nothing could have
been less expected by the Greek Govemment, or less wel
come. They tried mediation, aud when that failed, sub
mitted. Mr. Finlay, who acted in the whole matter with
high-minded forbearance and deUcacy, would have accepted
the value of his land at the time when it was seized. Sir
Thomas Wyse said that he ought to have also legal in
terest, twelve per cent, per annum, from that time, and so
it was settled. But as Finlay's papers showed only the
boundaries of the land, and not its superficies in yards, and
the king pertinaciously refused to measure it himself, or to

302 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
allow Finlay to do so, a measurement was assumed, by which
Finlay, I fear, was a considerable loser. So that the Mng
succeeded to a certain degree in cheating Mm. He has
ever since been honoured with the royal displeasure, which
extends to all his friends, and even to all his acquaintances.
No Greek risits him, except by stealth."
We looked over the city stretching to the north andwest
of the Acropolis.
" The stupidity," said L. M., " of the Bavarians was
marvellous. "Wherever it was possible to go wrong, they
did so. Athens was destroyed ; they had to rebuild "it.
The whole country round the Acropolis was theirs, it had
belonged to Turks. There are two dominant vrinds, the
north, from the steppes of Eussia and the Black Sea, and
the sea-breeze from the south. They built their city on
the north, of the Acropolis; exposed in vrinter to the north
wind, and shut out in summer, by the AcropoHs, from
the sea-breeze. Colyttus and Diomeia, the worst part of
ancient Athens, because they are the worst situated,
they chose for their new town ; while, on the other side
of the Acropolis, there were gentle eminences and wide
valleys sloping down to the sea, screened by the Acropolis
from the north. These were the principal sites of the
cities of Theseus and Hadrian. They are now naked fields.
" Again, ancient Athens, like Eome, was elaborately
drained. No attempt has been made, to trace and to
make use of the ancient sewers ; the new town is generally
vrithout any.
" Another of their blunders was in the coinage. They
found none. If they had adopted the franc, they would

BAVAEIAN BLUNDEES. 303
have had the use of all the French, Belgian, and Sardinian
money. Eothschild offered to remit the loan to them in
coin according to the French weight and standai-d. In
stead of that, having found some ancient drachmas, they
thought fit to invent a money of their own, in imitation of
the drachmas. Worth 8^c?., and differing from every existing
coinage. They coined this money without a seigniorage.
It consequently became the most convenient way of send
ing bullion out of the country. Not a piece of it now
remains. We have no Greek coinage excepting copper,
and are forced to pay in zwanrigers, francs, dollars,, na
poleons, sovereigns, and sMlUng.s, prices calculated in
drachmas and leptas. Every transaction in life requfres a
rule of three sum, in which, if you are dealing -with a
Greek, you are cheated.
" Again, Athens is ill provided vrith water. Pentelicus
would give us an abundance of the finest water in the
world. Individuals and companies have been offering for
the last twenty years to supply it. But the government
thinks that the enterprise would be so profitable, that it
vrill not allow anybody else to undertake it. It is too idle
to do so itself, and we are therefore vrithout water.
" The town covers an undulating slope. After the houses
are built, they begin to level the streets. Some houses
are above the right level, some below it. Some turn
their fronts to the street, some their corners. As they
are ill built, and never repaired, the to-wn threatens to
be a nvodern ruin. Many parts of it are ruinous already.
If Athens was not interesting from the recollections of
what it was, and the hopes of what it may be, it would be

304 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
an intolerable residence. A little good taste and good
sense would make it, what we know that it once was, a
delightful one."
" Could it ever," I said, " be made agreeable in sum
mer?" " If it were built," he answered, " where it ought to be,
it would be much better in summer than it now is. But
capitals are not intended to be inhabited in summer.
No one who can avoid it spends the summer in Paris,
or Eome, or Madrid, or Vienna, or Constantinople.
There are the sites of charming summer retreats all
round Athens. The valleys and gorges of the interior of
Mount Parnes, which is 4500 feet high, have their forests
and streams, and the finest afr and summer climate in the
world. We cannot inhabit them, because tbey are unsafe.
All the blessings of nature are ruined bythe detestableness
of the government."
" Do you see any prospect," I said, " of its improve
ment?" " Not the least," he answered : " there is no cohesion
among the people ; no motive will urge them to any com
bined effort."
" Yet,'.' I said, " their war of independence was a com
bined effort; so was the revolution iri 1843."
" As for 1 843," he answered, " that was done, not by the
people of Greece, but by the garrison and the mob of
Athens. If the army had not been injured and humiliated
by the favour shown to Germans, the mob would have done
nothing. With respect to the war of independence, I was
wrong in saying that there is no motive that will urge

¦WANT OF AN OPPOSITION. 305
them to combined action : there are two, the love of their
religion, and the love of independence of autonomy. The
Turkish domination outraged both these feelings; and
now, if Otho were to attack their church, or if Eussia
were to attempt to absorb them, I beUeve that they would
endeavour to resist. But no internal misgovemment will
provoke even opposition. The peasants have always been
misgoverned ; they do not attribute the oppressions of the
revenue farmers, or the absence of roads or of security to
the government. They say merely that their nomarch,
or eparch, or demarch, or farmer, is a tyrant, or a thief, or
a fool ; and that, if the king knew of their sufferings, he
would remedy them. The educated persons, though they
know the source of thefr evils, will take no means to cure
them; they vrill not even use the means which the con
stitution gives them.
" Greeks talk very freely. They are fond, as you must
have experienced, of denouncing the abuses of the govern
ment. The obrious answer is, ' Why do not you say this
'in your chamber? "Why do you not move for papers,
'and preface your motion by a description of the abuses
' which those papers will show ? Why do not you bring
' in bills to remedy them ? You might not pass them ;
' even papers might be refused to you ; but the discussion
'would excite attention, and the press would diffase it
'over the 'whole country.' Not one of them will ever
do anything which may displease the king. Their defect
is not so much want of courage as want of confidence in
one another. Political men are like soldiers. The bravest
soldier will scarcely advance unless he expects to be sup-
X

306 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
ported ; and it must be a bold public man who ¦will
oppose persons in power, if he cannot rely on his own
friends. " The English mission," he continued, " is a post rather
of observation than of action. Scarcely anything is to be
done, but much is to be seen. The influence of Greece,
over the persons in Europe and Asia connected vrith her
by language and by reli^on, is enormous. Several Greek
newspapers are published in Athens ; they have Httle sale
here, but a large one in Asia Minor and Turkey, and even
in England. They are written for a foreign public, which
knows little of Greece, and hence the audacity of thefr
mendaciousness. The object of the government now is
to represent the king aa all popular. He celebrates next
month the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession.
There will be an immense waste of public money in
fetes and presents ; and I have no doubt that the news
papers will describe his reception as enthusiastic, what
ever be its real coldness. Large sums are continually
sent to him or bequeathed by Greeks established abroad.
If any attempt is made to break up Turkey before she
falls to pieces spontaneously, the blow will probably come
from Greece. At all events, Greece vrill be a party to it,
and the British minister in Athens will be able to give our
government fair warning."
" You think," I said, " that Turkey'^is falling fo pieces ?"
" I think," he answered, " that in Asia Minor, EoumeHa,
and Bulgaria, the Turks are losing and tbe Greeks are
gaming in population, wealth, and spirit. The natural
course of events in those countries must deprive the Turks

POPULAEITY OF THE KING. 307
of power and give it to the Greeks, unless some third
state is allowed to seize it."
Monday, December 2Sth. — Delta called on me. The
blue book of 1854 was on my table. I asked him if there
were any opposition in the chamber.
" Certaialy not," he answered. " The senators are the
king's nominees ; and though they sit for life, they are
contiolled by his power of adding to their numbers. As for
the Chamber of Deputies, the chamber of 1843, the first
that was elected, and the only one that has been honestly
elected, contained a party, about forty-one in number,
who supported Maurocordato, and, on his resignation,
opposed Ms successor CoUetti. CoUetti resolved to remove
them. The Constitution declares that each chamber is
the judge of the validity of the electiori of its own mem
bers. Having the command of a perfectly servile and
unscrupulous majority, he made it declare all the forty-
one elections invalid."
" How long," I asked, " had the cEamber sat ? "
" Ten months," he answered ; " during which time not
a whisper against any of those elections had been raised.
Since that time, sometimes by fraud, sometimes by cor
ruption, and sometimes by violence, the election of any
but' the servUe adherents to the court has been prevented.
" In future, however, that is, while the public mind is in
its present state, the Mng may let the electors have their
own way. From the most unpopular, he has become the
most popular sovereign in Europe. We are ready tb admit
that the conduct of the Greeks in 1854 was unwise; that
they ought not to have expected the success of Eussia ;
X 2

308 . A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
that the attempt to steal Epfrus and Thessaly from Turkey
was wrong — was, if you like to call it so, a crime ; but we
feel that the king and queen risked their crowns in our
cause. The king may be bad as King of Greece, but we
worship him as the centre of Greek nationality. The instant
that the blue book of 1854 was published, the instant that
we found that the Mng and the queen, as described in this
despatch of Sir Thomas Wyse's (he showed me that of
March I7th, 1854), avowed that they had received a dirine
commission to protect the Greek race against Mahomedan
oppression, and would execute it in spite of every danger,-
that instant all real opposition to him ceased. We care
much more about foreign than about domestic politics;
we can bear to have no self-government, no roads, no se
curity, if we see that we are on our way to the Greek
empire. AU those are temporary evils ; they are like the
hardships of a traveller, which he despises if he knows that
he is making progress in his journey. 1854 utterly ex
tinguished the Englisli party."
" You must admit," I said, " that the occupation was
unavoidable; that we could not allow you to attack our
alUes, the Turks."
" We admit all that," he answered, " and we admit that
the conduct of your troops and sailors was admirable ; but
what destroyed our sympathy with you was your bliie
book. It contains calumnies which no Greek can forgive.
Look at this letter of the 15th of April, 1854, in which
Mr. Wyse and Baron Eouen state ' that the government has
* given orders to the police to allow all persons suspected
' of sympathy with the Western powers to be beaten to
' death.' If you could prove that the king had given such

CONDUCT OF THE KING. 309
an order, you ought to have dethroned him ; if you could
not prove it, as you could not, for it was not true, you
ought not to have insulted us by publishing it. Through
out that book you maintain that the anti-Turkish move
ment was royal rather than national. The occupation
enabled Mr. Wyse to select a cabinet of his own. How
came it that, out of seven members, five were avowedly
sympathisers vrith the movement ? If he could have found
seven respectable men who had not joined in it, he would
have taken them. But he could not. 'Why? Because
the movement was national."
"I am told," I said, "that although the constitution
gives the imtiative of laws to the chambers, yet that in
fact no laws are proposed, except by the ministers."
" Thait is true," he answered.
" And I am told," I added, "that as the laws are intro
duced in the king's name, he requires them to be passed
vrithout amendment."
"That also is true," he replied. "I am far from
defending him, as a constitutional sovereign : still less as
a parliamentary one. He maintains, for instance, that, as
the constitution gives to him the nomination of ministers,
no one has a right to interfere with his choice. ' If the
' chambers,' he says, ' disapprove what I do, let them stop
' the supplies. That is thefr right by the constitution ;
' and my right is thereupon to dissolve them.' This is a
threat which he can safely use, as he knows that he can
nominate thefr successors."
" The fact, however," I said, " is, that Ms ministers have
always had a majority."

310 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" Always," be answered. " As I said before, by violence,
by fraud, or by corruption, the electors have always been
led, or forced, to return the royal nominees; and those
nominees have given every ministry a majority. I do not
think the king a wise man, but he certainly has been a
successful one, probably more successful than if he had
been vriser. He has managed very iU for us, but very well
for himself. He has obtained our sympathy, and need not
care about our esteem.
" 'What is wanted," he continued, " to give life and
interest to the sittings of the chambers is an opposition."
" An opposition," I said, " would be useless, unless it
were understood that when the opposition becomes a
majority the new ministers are to be taken from its
ranks." " Of course," he answered. " But such are the Mng's
opinions that to have been a member of a successful
opposition, instead of a claim to office, would be an exclu
sion from it. He treats every opponent of his minister
for the time being as a personal enemy. He is never
angry, at least he never shows his anger; you may say
what you like to him, but he never forgets and never
forgives. During the first twenty years of his reign, there
was some excuse for his jealousy of power. — The. Greeks
had rebelled against the Turks ; they had assassinated their
president. Capo d'Istrias. They were described to him
as a lawless people. The experiment of their submitting
to a king was made in his person. The Bavarians re
presented every opposition to his wishes as an act of rebel
lion. He had no experience, and not much intelligence,.

CHAEACTBE OF THE KING. SIl"
and he beHeved them. But the support which he gave to
the invasion of Thessaly, your occupation of Attica, and
the indiscriminate abuse of him and of the country in your
blue books, by making him popular, have made him omni
potent. Even his Bavarian relations would perhaps now
consent to his allowing us a little self-government."
" His conduct to Mr. Finlay," I said ; " his attempting
first to cheat him out of his land, and then his persecution
of him for having asserted his rights, show his real
character." "I admit," said Delta, "that in the whole of that
business we were in the wrong. Unfortunately for you,
and perhaps for us, Mr. Wyse, on Admiral Parker's arrival,
instead of sending home the true story by a special steamer,
and he had seven or eight, waited for the regular Marseilles
packet. The other ministers, all hostile to England, had
four days' start. They used it to poison the European
mind. They represented the entiance of the fleet as an
attempt to steal from Greece Cerri and Sapienza, and the
claims as mere means used to pick a quarrel. "Whereas,
the claims were such as you could not let drop, and we
had obstinately refused to settle them. I have nothing
to say as to the extent of Pacifico's claim, but it was just
in principle; and, Finlay's was both just and moderate.
As for Cervi and Sapienza, I think that you have no real
right to them, and that seems to be the opinion of your
government, for you have not prosecuted your claim. But
there was something plausible in the pretensions set up to
them by the lomans. You, as their protectors, could
scarcely refuse to urge it ; and we, -with culpable disrespect,
X 4

312 A JOUENAL KEPT EST TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
or, at least, negligence, let eleven years pass without
giving you any answer."
Delta accompamed me to the door of N. 0., with whom
I was engaged to walk. We attempted to take the line of
the Phaleric wall, towards the sea, but were driven back
by the riolence of the wind and forced to take refuge ou
the south side of the AcropoHs. I meutioned to him my
conversation with Delta.
" It is true," he said, " that in Athens, and generally in
the town-population of Greece, the king's conduct in 1854
gained him popularity. That population, however, is not
more than 200,000 out of 1,100,000. The bulk of the
inhabitants are agricultural or pastoral : among them there
is hatred of the Turks, and religious bigotry, but not the
political ambition which Delta imputes to the whole nation;
Among tbe sensible portion of the people, who, I admit,
are a very small minority, the king's conduct did not do
Mm much harm, for that was impossible, but it showed
strongly his incapacity for real government. If, indeed,
we suppose that he knew the hopelessness of the attempt
to resist England and' France, and played Ms dangerous
game merely as a means of getting popularity, it may
have been a bold and clever piece of selfish policy. But
I do not inipute to him such knowledge, I do not believe
that he is capable of estimating the relative force of the
Eussians and the allies; I believe that he shared the
general opinion of tbe court, that the Eussians would be
successful. And if the Greek invasion had been better
managed — if it had not been conducted by men who used
it merely as a means of plunder, and who treated the

¦ INVASION OF THESSALY IN 1854. 313
Christians who would not join them vrith worse than
Turkish insolence and cruelty — it certainly might have
operated as a stiong diversion.. Even as it was, it occu
pied an army of thirty or forty thousand Turks."
" I suppose," I said, " that his choice of instruments was
limited. Eespectable men would not join an expedition
which riolated international law, and, therefore, exposed
them to be hanged, nor would they take the command of
undisciplined bands, many of them just let loose from the
¦ prisons. As the invasion was a conspiracy rather than a
war, he could not employ on it the regular army."
" It was not merely," said N. 0., " that the troops em
ployed were bad; the whole machinery by which the
movement was organised was bad. The persons employed
were the king's favourite instruments — the municipal
authorities. He has, as I suppose that you have often
heard, by a sMlful selection, where he can legally nomi
nate, as in the case of the nomarchs, eparchs, and judges
and justices of the peace, and by fraud or by force, by
corruption or by intimidation, where the-people have to
elect, filled all the local offices with creatures of his own,
whom their fellow-citizens, if they had any real liberty.
Would not leave in power for a day. These royal sbirri
organised and directed the invasion, and their object was
not its success, but their own profit. A large part, per
haps half, of the funds entrusted to them they embezzled ;
they sent the invaders over the border ill armed and with
scarcely any provisions, to rob instead of to fight. The
Turkish fortresses along the frontier were weakly garri
soned, but the invaders, many of whom had been banditti.

314 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and almost all became so, did not venture to attack them.
They exasperated the Christian population, and left behind'
them feelings which will make it difficult to repair the wrong
done in 1830, and to give Thessaly and Epirus to Greece,
" I may add that I am not sure that the king would
have done much better even if he had been able to
employ the regular army. The regular army of Greece is
perhaps the worst in Europe, The men are conscripts,
taken from their homes, as they think, unjustly, — for the
dishonesty and partiality with which the ballot is abused
by the local authorities are notorious, — ill fed and ill
clothed, and ill trained. The officers are ignorant, pro
moted by favouritism, and, in numbers, out of all proportion
to the men. The army is one of the king's instruments of
political corruption. He refuses to publish any Hst of it;
indeed, any list whatever, of the persons in the pay of the
government. The army and the civil officials absorb all
the national revenue except the portion of it which the
king takes for himself, and, also, all the local revenues.
This is the reason why we have no roads or bridges. The
government oi Greece is one eriormous job,"
" Is it riecessary," I asked, " to resort to a coriscription
in order to raise so small an army?"
" It is not small relatively," he answered ; " it consists
of 11,000 men, or one per cent, on the whole popu
lation, which is as great a proportion of it as an army
of 300,000 men would be in England, But this is nearly
three times as many as are wanted ; an army of 4,000
men would be enough to garrison the three or four for
tresses of Greece, and, if they were well treated, they could

GEEEK AEMY, 315
be raised from volunteers. This was proposed under the
regency, but it was objected to, on the ground that -the
Greeks of the kingdom of Greece are not a military
nation ; that the volunteers would come chiefly from
abroad ; and that the army would thus be an army- of
mercenaries." "It does not seem to me," I said, " that Greece is much
the better off for having a native army ; she could scarcely
enjoy less liberty if the king's army consisted of foreign
mercenaries," " The difference," he answered, " might have been that,
in that case, she might have been enslaved by force instead
of by corruption. Now, everybody that is thought worth
buying is bought. This suits the Greeks of the towns ;
they like the corruption by which every man profits, or
hopes to profit. As for those of the country, ignorant and
poor and scattered, they count for nothing. It is on them
that the conscription falls. It is they who turn brigands
in order to escape from it,"
"You say," I repHed, "that an army of 4,000 men
would be enough; but I am told that 11,000 are not
enough to repress brigandage."
" The regular army," he answered, " is of no use against
brigands, excepting in the plain of Attica, where there are
roads. In the provinces, where the only communications
are rough tracks, scarcely passable on foot, the brigands
defy the soldiers. The only forces employed against them
are the irregulars and the local police."
"Who are the irregulars ?" I asked.
" They are the remains," he answered, " of the Arma-

316 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
toles, a force who fed, armed, and clothed themselves, and
were employed by the Turks to assist in coUectmg the
revenue, and to guard the country. There are about
2,000 of them still maintained on the same footing, and
employed principally along the Turkish frontier. What the
number of the local police may be, no one knows. They
are appointed and paid by the demarchs ; and everything
relating to the demoi is a state secret. They hate the
brigands, as they are the principal sufferers from them.
You heard of the robbers who were last week at Megara.
We find that they cut off the ears of four peasants be
longing to a village wMch had given information against
them. The government tries to conceal these riolences,
but they get known, and excite the hatred of the peasantry,
as well as their fears."
" You do not agree then," I said, " with Kappa that the
brigands ought to be put down by the soldiers ? "
" Kappa," he answered, " knows nothing about the
matter. He has not lived, as I have, in the country.
The pursuers of brigands, must Hve Hke brigands, must
cUmb mountains, sleep m caves, and know every corner of
the district, in which they act ; must find out where the
brigands get their water, where they buy their food, where
they sell their spoil, and where they are to be surprised.
I was forced to know all this when I lived near  .
If I had had at my command a small body of men ac
quainted with the country, I could have caught the bri
gands, or have driven them away. The regular army is
quite unfit for such duties, and in fact, is not employed in
them."

GEEEKS AS SOLDIEES. 317
" You described the Greeks," I said, « as an unmilitary
nation ; yet in the war of independence, they seem to have
displayed great mUitary virtues."
" They displayed,"- he answered, " great moral courage.
They resolved to drive out the Turks or to die. They
also sometimes stood to be killed when they might have
run away. But they wanted vigour, impetuosity, what
the French call ilan. Those who stood to be MUed might
have killed their enemies if they had charged them. They
always preferred waiting to be attacked. In the disastrous
battle of the Pfraeus, at the close of the war, when an army
of 10,000 Greeks was broken and scattered by a charge of
700 TurMsh horse, the Greeks who were marching from
the Piraeus to reUeve the Acropolis, instead of attacking
the TurMsh army, stopped half way, and began to dig
an entrenchment. The Turks leapt their horses over it,
frightened them into confusion, killed 1500 of them, and
dispersed the rest. They never could stand the Turks
in the field. They cut them off in defiles and skfrmishes."
"And yet," I said, "you think that if the Christian
powers had not mterfered, further than to prevent the
invasion of the Morea by the Egyptian army, and had so
left the Greeks and Turks to fight it out, the Greeks
would have established their independence."
"I think sP," he answered. "But you must recoUect
the state of Turkey in 1825. Her principal military force
consisted of the Janissaries, ill-disciplined and rebellious.
Eussia was tMeatening her on the north. Egypt was
more than a match for her on the south,. She was ap-

318 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
parently crumbling to pieces. I do not think that Greece
could resist Turkey nMV. Her courage and enthusiasm
have died away. She is in the collapse produced by dis
appointed hope. She has established her independence,
and finds that it has produced a more inquisitive and
grinding taxation, the conscription, the loss of the munici
pal self-government, which suited her, and to which she
was attached, and the substitution for it of centralisation
effected by means of corruption, and intimidation. The
Albanians and Bulgarians have lost their sjnnpathy vrith
her," " Are they content," I asked, " to remain Turkish ? "
"By no means," he answered, "They wish to set up
for themselves. Aibama vriU certainly do so. It never
was really conquered ; and I doubt whether it ever -wUl be.
You may have observed," he contmued, " that the Greeks
never call themselves Europeans, They talk of Europe as
a country different from their own, as well as from Turkey,
And in character they are half Asiatic, They do not like
the Occidentals, They cannot understand our honesty,
either private or politicah They want our perseverance.
They finish nothing, they repair nothing. They want our
mutual confidence. Every Greek distrusts every other
Greek, and with reason."
"What," I asked, "ought to be our policy towards
Greece ? "
"Precisely what it is," he answered. "We cannot ap
prove of what is going on, but we cannot alter it, except by
a revolution, which might do more harm than good : we

GEEEK JOBS. 319
ought not affectedly to conceal, or affectedly to proclaim
our disapprobation; but we ought to let it be inferred
that, if ever the necessity of interference should come, our
assistance" vriU be given to the liberal party. This is the
role assumed by Sfr Thomas Wyse, and no one could act
it more gently, or more firmly."
We passed, on our return, under the observatory.
" That," said N. 0., " is a specimen of our administra
tion. It was bmlt with a legacy left by a Greek, esta
blished abroad. The government was to provide instru
ments. It has not done so; but it has appointed an
astronomical observer, and a gendarme to protect him.
The observer asked a friend of mine, Mr. PsUos, a senator,
to obtain an addition to his salary, of ten drachmas a
month. ' On what groimds ? ' asked Mr. PsUos ? ' What
'you have seems enough while you are doing nothing.'
'The ground of my claim,' answered the observer, 'is that
' ten drachmas more a month would raise my salary to that
'of the gendarme whom you have appointed to guard
' me.' Each salary was a job, but probably the gendarme
had the better interest, and therefore the higher salary."
Wednesday, December SOth. — I called on P. Q. at his
house on the Piraeus. We talked of the Greek prisons.
" They are horrible," said P. Q., " as was to be expected.
A prisoner is in so unnatural a state, that he requires the
utmost care and kindness; but he is so helpless, so in
capable of making his complaints heard, that even in the
best governments he is sometimes neglected by those who
have the charge of him, and oppressed both by them and

320 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
by Ms fellow-prisoners. Under this government neglect
and oppression are the rule, not the exception. There is
no classification. I have seen in the same prison men
convicted of the worst crimes, men untried, and men
detained merely because they were in arrear as to thefr
taxation. Where, for want of prison room, a private
house has been used, I have seen them indiscriminately
in irons, on the pretence that they could not be kept
safely, if unchained. If you were to repeat this to the
minister of the interior, he would tell you ' that it cannot
be so, because it is illegal : ' but I have seen it. Perhaps
no prisoners are so wretched as those imprisoned as
debtors to the government; for they are not entitled to
food." " How then do they live ? " I asked.
"The Greeks are charitable," he answered; "their
friends assist them, and they beg from thefr fellow-
prisoners." "Does the government," I asked, "imprison those who
are in arrear in respect of their taxes? I should have
thought that it would have merely taken their property."
"They may have concealed their property," he answered,
"or they may have been guarantees for some debtor to
the government, or they may have infringed some of the
vexatious restraints on the use of their land. I have
known a man imprisoned for stealing his own grapes, that
is for plucking them before he had the permission of the
farmer of the tithe of grapes. The government does not
vrish to make the imprisonment of its debtors a slight

GEEEK PEISONS. 32i
punishment. It is a valuable weapon, since it can make
a debtor almost of any one that it chooses."
"How long," I asked, "may a man under accusation be
kept in prison before he is tried ? "
"A year," he answered, "two years, any length of
time. A Maltese, of the Piraeus, was accused last year of
robbery. There was little ground for suspicion. I beHeve
that he was innocent. After he had been some weeks in
prison, his friends begged the British Consul to interfere
and to get him tried or released. The Consul applied in
his favour, perhaps once a fortnight, for nine whole months
The answer always was, " He is low on the list of those
for trial. As soon as his turn comes he vrill be tried."
At last one morning, they turned him out of the prison,
without tiial or apology. I have known robbers kept for
years before trial, and, after conriction, for months be
fore execution. Then a whole batch has been beheaded
when thefr crimes had been forgotten, and the only per
ceptible effect of their execution was an attempt, by the
pdpulace, to stone the executioner."
"How do you account for these delays ?" I asked.
"Ignorance, carelessness, and frequent change of minis
ters," he answered, " will account for anything. The rob
bers, in general, have friends at the court. They may be
turned, too, to better purposes. In 1854 many hundreds
of them were released from the prisons, and sent to invade
Thessaly. A Maltese, confined in the prison of Chalcis,
wrote to me. ' All his fellow-prisoners,' he said, ' had been
let out ; he hoped that I would intercede for him. He was
as ready as the rest to go and fight the Tm-ks.' A little
T

322 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
wMle ago, I found among the odo-phulakes, or local police,
a robber chief, for whose apprehension warrants were still
out. Men were at the very time in prison on the charge
of having supplied him with food."
" "What is the real history," I asked, " of these Megara
robbers ? I hear different stories."
" It is difficult," he answered, " to get at the truth of
such stories. The government, at present, is ashamed of
the prevalence of brigandage, and tries to conceal it. Not
one robbery in ten is mentioned in the papers. When one
becomes known, the government circulates different ver
sions of it, in order to puzzle inqufrers. In this case, I
happen to know the truth. Seven men, three of them
chiefs, and four subordinates, entered a sheep-fold on the
mountain side above Megara, Two shepherds were there.
They made one of them kill a sheep and roast it for them,
and sent the other to Megara to buy wine. He gave notice
to the authorities, but returned with the vrine. The odo-
phulakes set out to seize them. These men hate the rob
bers, but are afraid of them. They are anxious not to MU
any of them, lest they shojild incur a blood-feud. One of
them, as they approached the robbers,' fired ; he said by
accident — I believe that it was a signal. The robbers ran
off, so precipitately, that they left thefr arms. Two mghts
after, they returned in greater force, attacked the -rillage
to which the two shepherds belonged, cut off the ears pf
four men, and beat the rest. The government is vrickedly
careless of the safety of the peasantry. It punishes them
severely if they do not give information as to robbers, and
wheu they do, leaves them exposed to their vengeance,

STATE OF PUBLIC FEELING. 323
" The appearance," he continued, " of a band so near to
us as Megara is a disagreeable symptom. It looks like an
experiment. There has been a change in the ministry.
The robbers may vrish to feel the pulse of the new govern
ment, and to see whether it vrill exert itself against them.
If this outiage is not punished, we may have them again
in Attica."
" If the people," I said, " are not protected by the
government, they ought to take cai-e of themselves, and
form associations for mutual defence."
" The government vrill not permit them," he answered ;
'¦' there is nothing of which it is so jealous as it is of associa
tions. It considers them as insults. It professes to do for
the public good everything that ought to be done ; and it
fears that they may be turned to other purposes. It wishes
all its subjects to be insulated, unconnected, and defence
less." " Do you think," I said, " that Otho's throne is menaced
by any real dangers ?"
" By no immediate ones," he answered ; " the mercantile
navy, which employs or feeds perhaps a fourth of the popu
lation, is doing weU. There have been good crops, and at
the same time, high prices. The country is prosperous,
and therefore quiet. If difficulties were to come, a check,
for instance, to commerce, or two or three bad seasons,
there might be dangerous disaffection, as there was in
1854. Bad seasons, and the interruption of Greek trade,
had then produced discontent, whicb, if it had not found a
safety-valve in the invasion of Turkey, might have turned
against the throne. The King and Queen, by joining in
y 2

324 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
the anti-TurMsh movement, managed not only to divert
attention from their own misgovemment, but also to
acquire popularity. But when the invasion failed, they
were .again in danger. The ruffians whom they had
encouraged, and- armed, and embodied, were quite ready
to turn against them, Athens was a tempting plunder,
and I think it probable that it would have been pillaged,
and perhaps the whole country revolutiomsed, if the allies
had not been here,
" "What makes the court unpopular," he added, " is
not so much its misgovemment, as its Bavarianism,
The misgovemment affects chiefly the rural population
— the want of roads, the want of security, the oppres
sions of the farmers of the revenue, the unfairness of
the conscription, the waste of the local funds, faU princi
pally on them. The maritime population almost escapes
these erils; and the towns have some compensation for
the jobbing and corruption of the government by being
the places in which the revenue is thus misspent. The
master passions of the Greeks are vanity and conceit. They
look down on the knowledge, and the intelligence, and the
civilisation of Europeans, You may conceive their disgust
at the foreign prejudices and predilections of the court.
Everything, they say, is modelled on French or on German
priginals. The army consists of 11,000 men, because 1 per
cent, on the population is the German proportion^ The
Bavarian colom-s are taken for the national flag of Greece,
The codes were made by Germans, who had learned juris
prudence in France, They were written in German, trans
lated into Greek, and published, the German original "on
one side, the Greek translation on the other. It was once.

ANTI-BAVAEIAN FEELING. 325*
indeed, proposed to import bodily into Greece the Code
Napoleon; and even now the Code Napoleon is one of the
matters in which every law student must pass his examina
tion, and is the subject of a special professorship in the
university. This accounts for the predominance in the
Greek legislation of Epman law, and of Eoman and French
centralisation, nuisances from which the Greeks were free
under the Tm-ks,
" The new municipal system is hateful to them, not oMy
as haring destroyed their liberties, both local and national,
but as copied from that of Bavaria, And they complain
that the bad parts of the Bavarian character, its dulness,
slowness, formality, and obstinacy, are all that are exhibited
to them ; that its honesty, frankness, Mndliness, and sym
pathy are wanting,"
"One merit," I said, "your government has, it has
rigorously promoted education,"
" It ha,s done so," he answered ; " of all its functions
this is perhaps the one which it has best performed. It is
calculated that in a well-educated country about one per
son in seven attends school. In Greece, out of a popula
tion of one million one hundred thousand, fifty-eight
thousand attend the schools. But of these fifty-eight
thousand, fifty-three thousand ai-e boys, and only seven
thousand are girls. The attendance of boys, therefore, is
about one in every ten persons ; that of gfrls about one in
every seventy-eight, or a tenth of what it ought to be.
The women of Greece are almost uneducated. The prin
cipal defect of the system is, that there is nothing inter
mediate between the primary schools, which teach only
Y 3

326 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
reading, writing, and a smattering of arithmetic, arid the
secondary ones, in which ancient Greek, Latin, and the
modem languages are taught. The son of my grocer is a
pupil in the Hellenic school of the Pfraeus. He is learning
aricient Greek in all its dialects, Latin, French, and Ger
man." " What is he to be ? " I asked.
" I beHeve," answered P. Q., " that he is destined to be
a grocer. He thinks that he is to be a minister. Such,
indeed, is the expectation of most Greeks. If you were to
stop the first person that you met in the street, and inform
him that the king had appointed him Prime Minister, Ms
first feeling would be wonder that he had not been
appointed before."
I asked him if the Piraeus was increasing.
" Its growth," he answered, " is stopped now ; but it has
increased enormously during the last three or four years.
As soon as a Greek has saved a little money he -wishes to
bmld." " And what has stopped it ? " I asked.
" The government," he answered, " wants workmen to
bmld the theatre at Athens, and, therefore, refuses per
mission to build at the Pfraeus."
" Is permission necessary ? " I asked.
" Certainly," he answered; "permission is necessary for
everything. No Greek is supposed to know how to manage
his own affairs."
Sunday, January Srd. — I walked vrith E. S. towards the
Piraeus. We passed, at some distance on our left, the scene
of the disastrous battle of the 6th of May, 1827, in wMch

GEEEKS AS SOLDIEES. 327
10,000 Greeks, attempting to reheve a Greek gai-rison in
the Acropolis, were defeated by 700 TurMsh horse.
"That battle," I said, "is not favourable to General
Church's sMU, or to the courage of the Greeks."
"General Church," answered E. S., "had just been
appointed generalissimo. The Greek garrison exaggerated"
their distress. Church, knowing little of his men, whom
he had not long commanded, and doubting, vrith great
reason, their fighting qualities, was anxious to avoid an
action ; but his officers urged one, vrith a violence which
you would scarcely believe, unless you had seen the letters,
as I have done. As for the troops, few of them had
bayonets. Thefr muskets, very long, and with scarcely a
butt-end, and therefore top heavy, were intended to be
fired from a rest. Their whole scheme of fighting was to
push the muzzle of their musket through a loop-hole, or
over a bank, or through the stones of a loose wall. They
never attacked, except when in overwhelming numbers, or
at some other great advantage. On this occasion, the three
thousand ill-armed men who were detached to walk from
the sea to the Acropolis, were no match for the seven hun
dred excellent cavalry, who rushed on them in the plain.
The seven thousand Greeks who stood quietly, and saw
them cut to pieces, and then ran off to the Istiimus, were
more to blame.
Church's merits are his campaigns in the end of 1827,
in 1828, and in 1829. He had few troops, he was
opposed by Eeschid Pasha, with a considerable force,
and he was betrayed by Capo d'Istrias when presi
denti Both Capo d'Istrias and Church saw that the
T 4

328 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
great powers would soon intervene, and end the con
test, on the principle of uti possidetis. Church's object
was to obtain for his adopted country as large a terri
tory as possible. Capo d'Istrias wished to confine free
Grreece to the MoreaT, to make it a small principality, of
which he might hope to be hereditary Hospodar, under
Eussian protection. He starved Church's troops, gave
them neither money nor supplies. Church expended all
his fortune, 10,000?., in buying supplies for them ; he kept
them together by his high moral qualities, his courage,
justice, and endurance, and was, on the whole, successfal
in his campaigns. Grreece owes to him the greater part of
her Eoumelian territory."
" Does she owe to him also," I said, " his 10,000?. ? "
" Yes," answered E. S. ; " and much more for arrears of
pay and allowances. But Greeks never pay, except on
compulsion. General Church is disinterested; he does
not press them ; and probably the only fortune which he
vrill leave will be his house in Athens and a large claim on
the government, which vrill not produce enough to pay
for the expense of trying to enforce it."
We came to a place where a stream of water had been
carried across the road, from one garden to another.
" This," said E. S., " is a sample of the conduct of the
Greeks. These two gardens belong to the same person.
His well is in one ; he wishes to frrigate from it the other.
If he had carried his water across the road through a
culvert, he would have done no harm. But it would have
given him a little trouble. So he has dug this open
trench and spoiled the road."

CHAEACTEEISTICS OF GEEEKS. 329
" The government," I said, " ought to interfere."
"The government," he answered, "^ets the example.
It is planting trees in some of the principal thorough
fares in Athens. Large holes are dug; no light or fence is
placed to warn passengers at night. The rubbish is thrown
across the road or the footpath. Carelessness of public
convenience, carelessness of the mischief which you may do
to others, characterises their whole conduct, pubUc and
private." "They have been described to me," I said, "as a
charitable people."
"I do not think," he answered, "that they deserve that
praise. Perhaps the absence of individual charity, that
is, of alms or assistance, given by one person to another,
may be accounted for by the thinness of the population.
Nobody is rich, but nobody is destitute. But what strikes
a stranger is the absence of religious associations for
charitable purposes. Wherever the Latin Church is do
minant, you see Sisters of Charity, Dominicans, Lazarists,
Jesuits, and similar fratermties, bound by their profession
to tend the sick, to hear confessions, to educate and to
instruct. In the Greek Church there are no such insti
tutions. The monks sp^d their time in farm labour (and
very bad labourers they are) and in prayer. Their piety
and thefr industry are purely selfish. When the Sisters
of Mercy came vrith the alUes, the Greeks could not un
derstand them. 'What could be the motive,' they asked,
'which induced respectable women to devote themselves to
a Hfe of hardship and fatigue ? ' "
¦ « From what class," I asked, " are the clergy taken ? "

330 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
"Fromthe lowest," he answered; "they have neither
education nor manners, nor, consequently, influence except
among the humblest classes. Many of them work in the
fieMs, or at mechanical trades. The religion which they
teach is a religion of observances. Its great duties are to
feast, that is, to be idle, and to fast. The fasts exterid
over almost half the year, and they are rigid. Everything
animal, such as milk, butter, and eggs, is proMbited. The '
higher classes pay little attention to them ; but the lower
observe them strictly. Some robbers detected the pri
soners, whom they were detaining for ransom, eating meat
on Friday. They were so scandalised, that they beat them
soundly." " 'Wfrere," I asked, " shall I .find the tenets of the Greek
church ? "
" In no one book," he answered. " The doctrines of the
Greek Church seem to have petrified in the fifth century.
Since that time they have not been altered or added to.
The Greeks are attached to them rather politically than
reUgiously. They beHeve the pecuHarities of their faith
and of their discipline to be the safeguards of their na
tionality. They never think of inqmring how far the
one is true, and the other is useful. They are proud of
them as Hellenic ; that is to say, as a part of the character
istics which render them immeasurably superior to every
other nation. They would look on any change in either of
them as a degradation."
The sky was dark. Black clouds, sharply defined,
were rolHng from Parnes and PenteHcus towards the sea.
Others hung like festoons on the mountains of Salamis and

THESEUM. 331
Egma. The wind, which had .passed over the snowy plains
of Thrace, was icy. We sheltered ourselves among the
oUve woods of the Cephisus. As we returned, the setting
sun suddenly shone through a rent in the clouds, and
lighted up the Acropolis and the Theseum with the bright
golden colouring, which sometimes iUuminates the close of
a stormy day.
The Theseum, vrith its dark brown columns glowmg in
the yeUow Hght, looked grand as weU as beautiful.
"The Theseum," said E. S., "excites my admiration as
much as the Parthenon. As far as we know, it was the
first building in which the perfection of the Doric style was •
reached. The Parthenon is only an enlarged Theseum : and
I am not sure that the creation of so much grandeur with
such smaU materials, and on so low an elevation, does not
show still higher art than was required to render majestic
the Parthenon, a temple five times as large as the
Theseum, and placed on the AcropoHs. The sculptures
of the Theseum were in higher reUef than those of the
Parthenon, and from that cause, and because they are
nearer to the ground, have suffered still more ; but enough
remains to show that they were very fine, perhaps as fine
as any that ai-e known to us."
Tuesday, January 5th. — We spent the evemng at Mr.
HiU's. He was sent to Athens before 1 830 by the American
Missionary Society. Dr. Wordsworth risited Athens at
that time, and slept in Mr. Hill's house, then the only one
standing. About that time Mr. and Mrs. Hill opened the
first school for girls that had existed in Greece. It now
educates 450 girls ; it is really gratuitous, the trifling pay^

332 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
ment that is exacted not being sufficient to pay for bdoks
and stationery.
A Miss Baldvrin, also an American, has estabUshed a
school for boarders. She and the Hills live together, and
one large house contains the two families, the apartments
of the boarders, and the schoofrooms for the day scholars.
This school is the parent of female insteuction in Greece.
It is industrial as well as literary, and has educated the
cooks and housemaids, as well as the ladies of Athens.
Wed/nesda/y, January 6th. — I walked with Epsilon.
He spoke, as every Greek does, with great admiration of
Grote's History.
" I wish," he said, " that Mr. Grote would visit us. Our
ancient and our modern history reflect light on one another.
We have our old intelligence, our old mutabiUty, our old
vanity, our old venality, our old rashness, and^ above all,
our old indi-riduality ; that is to say, the tendency to cir
cumscribe our sympathies, our affections, and our exertions
vrithin the narrowest possible limits. Many Greeks think
only of themselves, many only of their families; those
whose range is wider care about thefr town ; no one cares
about the public ; we want even party spirit."
" And yet," I said, " I hear much of your patriotism, of
your sacrifices in 1854 to enlarge your frontier, of the large
sums given by Greeks for public purposes."
" Those sums," he answered, " were given by foreign
Greeks, by men who, having lived' in countries in which
they were aliens, have clung to the native Greeks as the
only people vrith whom they could sympathise. As for our
political patriotism that is yauity ; we all wish Greece to

MODEEN TupoLVVig. 333
be great and powerful ; we identify our ovm power and in
fluence with hers ; we -wish the nation to which we belong
to be great ; but we do not care about her being happy or
well governed, still less does an Athenian care about the
misgovemment of the Morea. We are so far patiiotic that
every Greek vrishes to do some signal service to Greece,
provided that it be known that he did it ; he would be se
cretly grieved if the same serrice were done by any one else."
" Among your ancient characteristics," I said, " what has
become of your love of freedom ? "
" The love of freedom," he answered, " of our ancestors
did not preserve them from rvpavvis. I almost doubt
whether rupawis was not their usual, and laovo/jiia their
exceptional, state. We are now under a Tvpavvos, but the
comparative mUdness of modern manners shows itself in
the difference in the means by which the ancient and
the modern Tvpawos acquired despotic povver, and also in
the manner in which it has been exercised 'by them re
spectively. The ancient rvpavvos got possession of a guard,
that is, a body of discUpined troops, and kept down his
countrymen by force ; our rvpavvos has seized the national
and mumcipal revenues, and keeps them down by corrup
tion ; one killed or exiled, the other buys ; the object pur
sued by both is the same, the engrossing all power in the
hands of the master.
. There is something ludicrous, if it were not melan
choly, in the tricks that he plays, in order to appear,
as well as to be, the centie, the originator, and the
completer of everything. We have been for some years
deepening the channel between Chalcis and the Mainland

334 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
from seven feet to seventeen. The work was finished about
five weeks ago ; but it is not yet opened for narigation.
The king wishes to be present at the opening ; he set out
for that purpose three weeks ago. By land the way is
about fifty miles, but like our other roads it is only a mule
track, and is infested by brigands ; so he attempted to go
by sea, and was driven back by bad weather. As soon as
the weather is fine, and he is at leisure, he will repeat the
attempt. In the meantime the channel remains closed ; it
vrill be our principal communication vrith Northern Greece
and Thessaly. We are paying three times as much -for
coal as we should pay if it were open.
He owes his power to our venality and to our indi
viduality; to the ease with which the majority are bribed,
and to the absence of concert among the uncorrupt
minority. Unhappily he wants the talent and vigour of
the ancient rvpawoi. They were necessarily able men,
for they had to seize thefr crowns : his was given to him.
They were necessarily practical men : excepting in the
arts of corruption, he is quite unpractical ; he is satisfied
with giving orders, and never sees that they are executed,
I dare say that he believes that Greece is covered with a
network of roads, for he has ordered it to be done. He
spends days and days dwellmg on the details of a law, but
when once it has passed, never inquires as to its execution,
'What he hates most is a precedent ; he thinks that it
diminishes his power : he vrishes every question to be con
sidered as a new one, to be decided on its own merits,
irrespectively of what has been done before on similar
occasions. He denies, indeed, that similar, occasions have

CHAEACTEE OF KING. 335
ever occurred ; he is fond of repeating, that every question
has its own pecuUarity, and has not sense enough to see
that, though the accessories may be different, the principle
may be identicaL This was his motive for resisting Finlay's
claims. He was ready to pay for the land as an act of
grace, and to give more than was claimed, if he himself
was allowed arbitiarily to fix what he should give. Nor
did he care much about being forced to pay the sum fixed
by the British Govemment. What annoyed hiiji was that
Finlay claimed payment as a right, and according to a
fixed principle. The king was afraid, that if he submitted
in Finlay's case, it would become a precedent, and would
decide, perhaps, a hundred other claims made by other
proprietors whom he had dispossessed. And I must admit
that this absence of precedent does really increase his
power. No one's rights are perfectly assured, no one's
claims are perfectly desperate. The royal caprice can
always find an excuse for defeating the justest expectations^
pr for gratifying the most unwarranted pretensions,
" When I say," he continued, " that the Mng's omnipoT
tence rests on corruption, I do not mean that it is not in
some measure supported by force, Hope is his favourite
instrument ; it suits the mildness of his character. But he
can employ fear ; at least, he allows it to be employed. I
have known many elections in which the polling places
were beset by hordes of armed ruffians, who prevented the
voters for the candidate who was displeasing to the court
from approaching the ums, I have known many in which
the urns were filled with voting papers thrown in by the
government before the electors were allowed to throw in

336 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
theirs. I have known some in which the fishermen were
refused permission to fish, until they had voted for the
government candidate."
" Is permission necessary," I asked, " before a man can
fish?" " Not by law," he answered, " but a demarch can make
permission necessary for everything. 'What remedy has a
poor fisherman if the demarch sends a boat after him, and
brings Mnj back on a charge, perhaps, of smuggling ? ' Is
he to complain to the eparch, by whose instructions the
demarch has probably acted? We have adopted wholesale
the French laws, which form one of the cleverest systems
of despotism that ever was invented, and amotfg them we
have taken what is, in fact, the key-stone of absolute
power, the rule, that no officer of the government can be
prosecuted witfrout the consent of the government. In
the face of such a law, resistance is hopeless."
• " I have frequently," I said, " heard the denial of justice
and the conscription enumerated among the causes of
brigandage ? "
" Without doubt," said Epsilon, " they are among its
causes. 'When a man has been wronged, nature bids him
console himself by obtaining revenge ; in well-governed
countries the law gives it to him ; when it refuses, he takes
the matter into his own hands, and if he cannot punish
the actual offender, punishes society at large. A young
man liring on his little propert}'-, with his young wife and
child, is drawn for the conscription. He finds that no
name connected with the office-bearers of his viUage is ever
drawn ; he suspects,, probably with truth, that twenty paipers,

CONSCEIPTION. — GEEEK AEMY. 337
all bearing his name, have been thrown into the urn ; he
refuses to serve, and flies to his friends in the mountains.
They keep him, perhaps, for six months, but at last they
are tired. "Wfrat is he to do ? If he returns to his rillage
he is punished and ruined ; ruined, indeed, he already is.
He revenges himself by turning klepht."
"Is the conscription," I asked, " necessary to keep up
your small army? "
"Is our army necessary? " he answered.
" I am told," I replied, " that you require an army of
3000 or 4000 men to garrison your fortresses."
" What is the use," he replied, " of our fortresses? They
are not armed ; we are letting them go to ruin ; and Ve
are very right. It is not worth our while to keep an army,
for their sakes. Against foreign enemies we are protected
by the great powers, and against the ^eat powers all
resistance on our part would be childish. All the regular
force that we want is 3000 gendarmes. If it be necessary
to our honour to have an army, we may have one on the
Swiss model : a militia called out for a fortnight or a
month in the year. For such purposes no conscription is
riecessary, for the gendarmes would be volunteers; and
every one might be required to serve in the miUtia. But
the army and the conscription came to us from France ; I
should be stoned as an Anglomane if I were to propose to
aboHsh them. The French and the Frenchified nations
can no more conceive society without soldiers and a con
scription, than our ancestors could one -without slaves."
" Is the Mng," I said, " fond of the army?"
' "Not in the German fashion," he answered ; "he does
z

338 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
not amuse Mmself by playing at soldiers. But he values
it as a means bf patronage. A few years ago I hoped
that we might reduce its absurd amount, but 1854 came
and turned us mad. Thessaly and Epirus are frmts
which, if we are quiet, must fall into our mouths. We
tried to pluck them. The bulk of the nation cannot see
that om- faUure was inevitable. They think that the
next time we may succeed, and that we shall do so if we
have an army that can beat the Turks. With tMs absurd
hope, they are willing not merely to keep up, but to
increase our army which already is too large for our
population and for our finances.
"I may appear," he continued, "to speak with some
bitterness of the king. I believe that Ms intellectual and
moral defects, his slowness of apprehension, Ms narrow
ness of views, his poverty of invention, his jealousy, his
vanity, his indecision, Ms love of minute details, and his
incapacity to estimate the relative importance of objects,
have been the great causes which have retarded, aud still
retard the improvemerit of the country. Nevertheless, I
feel, in common -with all other Greeks, that we owe to
him a great debt of gratitude, Ffrst, for haviug boldly
and frauMy thrown himself into the movement'of 1854,
knowing well, that he was risMng his crown. Secondly,
for having, not by his actions, but by Ms position, saved
us from the consequences pf the failure of that movement.
Our conduct was so inconvenient to the allied powers, and
your blue books had represented it as so much worse than
it really was, that if we had not possessed a Mng con
nected by piarriage or consanguinity with most of the

PEOSPECTS OF GEEECE. 33<)
reigning famiUes of Europe, we might have been sti-uck
out of the Ust of independent nations. Between our own
faults, and your exaggeration of them, we are despised,
hated, and feared. Despised for what we are, hated and
feared for what we hope to be. If we had not a repre
sentative in the royal corporation which occupies the
thrones of Europe, you would tread us out."
Thursday, January 1th. — I called on S. T. E., and
found him reading aiy Dardanelles journal.
"My experience in the East," he said, "leads me to take
a view different from that of Mr. Calvert, as to the in
fluence of European colonists in these countries. The
experiment perhaps could not be more favourably made
than it has been by my friend Z. He has a splendid
estate, ample capital, agricultural knowledge, is full of
energy, has the courage of an Englishman, and the temper
of an angel. Yet, on the lOth of December last^ after
spending twenty years and 7000?. ih Greek farming, he
writes me thus : — ' The more I see of the people, the better
I get acquainted vrith their character, the more hopeless does
it appear to me, that any great advance will be- made by
them in our lifetime. Even if the heads of the state had
good intentions, how can they get them executed by such
agents as the bulk of the government officials? The
demoi, vrith the demarchs, have been made a pai-t of the
Government centralisation, and are only an additional
burthen. It is sad to see the change for the worse that
has taken place since I have been in this country.'
> " Z. " I said, " was the man who was plundered a couple
of years ago." 2 2

340 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" He was," said S. T. E. ; " the letters which he wrote to
me at the time, are curious pictures of the internal state of
Greece." I asked Mm to let me see them, and he gave me a
bundle, from which I have made the following extracts.
Z. to S. T. R.
" This day's events have almost turn^ my hair grey. We
have been for upwards of four hours in the hands of a band
of robbers, who surprised this house and viUage ; and what
we have had to suffer, expecting every moment to see the
children tortured or killed, you may imagine. It was
fortunate that I had a large sum of money in the house, or
my poor children wouM have been orphans. Every mo
ment I was threatened with being scalded, or slashed vrith
their yataghans, and one of our peasants was cut severely
before our eyes. Another had his head cut open, and a
third was tortured with boiling oil. The poor girl who
waits on the children narrowly escaped, but the money
and rich booty saved us. They spent four hours breaking
open every drawer, and knocking everything to pieces. I
have lost about 2000 doUars in cash. All our linen
which they did not carry off they tore to pieces. They
broke up the furniture, and smashed the looMng glasses,
and the panes of glass in the windows. Every house in
the -rillage has been^ plundered, and all the hard earnings
of years are gone, leaving many families -wretched.
" Can you imagine the scene, with these yelling monsters,
cursing and destroying everything ? Why do we work and

EOBBEEY AT Z.'S. 341
toU in this unhappy country, on which God's curse seems to
rest? I was finding a peaceful and honourable occupation ;
many hundreds were living happily, and prospering by my
undertakings, and this is the upshot. Thank God that we
have escaped with our lives. Though poor  1 fear
may never recover the shock.
"What is this government about? Honest men are
prohibited from having arms; so my wood-cutters were
unarmed. I had twenty wood-cutters in the forest,
and there were many peasants in the fields, and some
builders in the viUage, but numbers could do nothing
without arms. The wood-cutters came down vrith their
hatchets, but were driven back by the fire of the brigands.
One had a ball through his capote, another had the
handle of his axe broken in his hand. What weighs
more on my spirits is the helplessness of our situation, and
the consequent ruin of my prospects, just as I hoped to
reap some reward for many years'OT exertion. Add to this
my anxiety for  . You may fancy that I am weary,
dispirited, and grinding over and over the same ideas in
my dizzy brain. I cannot go away. I have a contract to
fulfil, and the failure would entail a forfeit which, after
my losses, and the ruin of our peasantry, would absolutely
ruin me." Miss Z. {thirteen years old) to S. T. R.
" I am so nervous and miserable that it is a relief to
say a word to you. If you knew what we suffered for four
hours and more ! Do not you think that it is no longer
Z 3

342 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
safe to Uve in this wretched country ? Pray, if you do,
advise Papa to leave. The peasants keep saying that,
having once been robbed, there is no danger of robbers
coming here again for a long time. I think that Papa
believes- so. I vrish that I could. I feel quite sick at
times vrith fear. One must see these (I know no name
bad enough for them) to understand what one suffers in
their clutches.
" Dear Mr. S. T. E., do not advise Papa to put his chU
dren in safety and stay himself. For me to live in safety,
with the thought of him .constantly in danger, is impos
sible, I will stay. If ever I can feel that we are all safe
together, out of this place, how happy I shall be. I think
I never shall be easy here again, I hate the house when
I am alone in it -for a minute. They have taken all that
we had. If they come again, and find nothing, they will
murder us. What agony their threats gave us you may
imagine, Y^u know the Greek robbers, I cannot write
any more ; I have blundered in this most woefully." *
Z. to S. T. R.
" The more I leam, the more clearly I see that we have
been sacrificed and betrayed by the authorities,
" The attack took place on Monday, On the preceding
Thursday the nomarch was informed that robbers had
landed on the island. Yet no means were taken to pre
vent their retreat, or to examine the coast to find the boats
• She died a few months after of thc shock.

ROBBEEY AT Z.'S. 343
iri which they had crossed. Eight boatmen, vrith their
boats, were missing all the time.
" The nomarch of the gendarmes, though informed of the
descent of the band of brigands on the northern part of
the island, took no measures whatever; the robbers re-
embarked, after crossing the mountains and committing
the robbery, within a few hundred yards of the spot where
a gendarme and a frontier guard, with two local guards
{svBo^vXuKSs), were stationed. By the testimony of the
peasants whom the brigands compelled to accompany the
mules laden vrith our plunder, the brigands Ifred off two
pistols, as a signal to the boats. They seem to have stayed
there for a considerable time, as the next day husks of
almonds and a tMmble, and a pair of scissors, stolen from
a peasantess, were found on the spot.
"My peasants, who followed in pursuit, reached the place
at daylight, and found the guards there, who said that they
had passed the night there, and heard or seen nothing.
Either they were traitors, or they had Mdden themselves
from cowardice.
" Our demarch is a deputy residing in Athens. He has
left here a creature of the party in power as his substitute,
^an unlettered peasant who cannot write, — and allows
a secretary half his pay to do the business of the demarchy.
He has a seal with his name engraved, and gives it to his
•secretary, who keeps it, and affixes the name by smearing
it with ink. They had heard of the danger, but say that
they were too busy to write to me. That I have been
only plundered ; that I have not been scalded with boiling
oil, as happened to one of my peasants, is probably ovring
z 4

344 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
to the brigands being satisfied with the considerable booty
which they found in my house. Had I been, as it often
happens, without a large sum of money, my escape from
torture and a cruel lingering death would have been nearly
hopeless, and my children might now have been orphans."

Z. to L. M. N.
" There are the strongest grounds of suspicion that some
of the servants of the government are accomplices. This is
not the first time that brigands are known to have been
led by the same men towards this village ; last summer they
were met in the mountain pass, about a league off, by
some soldiers, with whom they sMrmished, and a robber
Was killed. One of the robbers of that band is now in the
employment of the government, and was the chief of the
guard at the station near which the robbers embai-ked:
We know that the robbers fired two pistols, as a signal for
the boats, and the guards profess to have heard or seen
nothing. The same blindness affected the guards for four
days, during which they could not detect a boat landing
on the coast within their beat.
" How can we look to the government for protection when
men known to be connected with brigandage and amnestied
robbers are its agents in situations of trust ? Among the
soldiers now employed as an armed police, men who are
continually passing and repassing through the villages, and
•being quartered on the inhabitants, there are many who
openly boast to the peasantry of their exploits as brigands.
Since our misfortune several of these police guards have

GEEEK EOBBEES AND POLICE. 345
repUed to the poor people bewailing their losses, ' Oh !
'you may be thankful that you escaped torture and death.
' "When I was vrith a band of robbers we burned and tor-
' tured women, and shot down all who made the slightest
' resistance.' Such men have now an opportunity of be
coming acquainted with the best hiding places in the
woods, and with the families supposed to have money;
and when, as is probable, they resume their old trade, we
may thank the government for having made them more
dangerous. "The plunder of  is not an isolated case m my
neighbourhood. Within the last two years three of the
.surrounding villages have been plundered. In one of
them, two poor women were tortured to a degree wMch
makes one sick with horror. One of them was burned
to death by  , who is now amnestied and living in
afiluence in  .
" To our sufferings from the brigands must be added
those infficted by the gendarmes and armed poHce, who
are supposed to be our protectors. The villagers are
required not only to give free quarters to those who pass
and repass on the public service, but also to provide them
gratuitously with horses to carry them to the next station
or, in. fact, wherever it may please these men to take
them. The peasant is master neither of his house nor of
his property. He is threatened, and frequently beaten,
when he does not supply these unwelcome guests with
what is demanded by them, and must kill the- fowls that
are laying, and buy wine to satisfy them. I have seen
horses taken from the threshing-floor, and the owner

346 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
obliged to leave his harvest exposed to the chances of
theft and of weather, while he fulfilled this forced serrice.
These acts may be illegal, but they are of daily occurrence.
The peasant suffers if he resists. What can show more
strongly the general disorganisation of society to which
this country seems to be hopelessly drifting?"
Z. to L. M. N.
" The Juge d'Instruction has been active in collecting
evidence ; but no proceedings have been taken for punish-,
ing any person connected with the business. The paredros,
who was too busy to warn me of my danger, is kept in
office, though the nomarch assures me that he urged his
dismissal. He has probably friends in  and — — , both
deputies, sufficiently influential to arrest the course of
justice. The Juge d'Instruction has written to me to say,
that he is persecuted by X. Y. Z., who is endeavouring to
have him tm-ned out of office for his actirity. Have you
heard at Athens of the sacMng of  by a band of
about thirty or forty brigands, on Saturday afternoon
last ? '*
" I never heard," I said to S. T. E., when I had finished
these letters, " of a state of things like this, even in
Turkey." " I will not say," he answered, " what may be the case
in the remoter districts; but I do not believe that the
Turks would suffer it to exist vrithin fifty miles of Con
stantinople."

GEEEK EOBBEES, 347
" "What is the story," I asked, " about the sacking of
 ? "

" It was effected," he answered, " by a stratagem, which
did honour to the invention of the brigands. One man, in
the uniform of a gendarme, and two others, wearing the
fez embroidered with the crown of the irregular troops,
entered the village, dragging with them a brigand covered
with blood. They sent for the paredros and the priests,
and accused the villagers of harbouring brigands. They
had found, they said, this man in the neighbourhood, with
two or three others, who had escaped. This man they had
wounded and taken. ^\Tiile the villagers were exculpating
themselves, others of the band gradually drew round ; they
ascertained that there were no armed men in the village,
and, in fact, that all the able-bodied men were at a distance
in the fields. So they locked up in tbe church the paredros
and priests, and then went round and took all that was
portable in every house. Their booty was about 80,000
drachmas, 2800?. No notice of this event was taken by
the newspapers ; you may sometimes hear it alluded to in
the chambers."
He returned to my journal.
« It may be a question," he said, " whether the Christian
subfects of King Otho or the Mussulman subjects of the
Sultan are the worst governed. But I have little doubt
that along the sea-coast of Turkey, and generally where
foreign consuls and the higher Greek clergy reside, the
Greek rayahs are better governed than either of the other
classes. A Greek rayah is sure of a protector, unless the case
..aigainst him is very flaigrant. He can speak for himself.

348 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
and a consul or abishop will bring Ms claims or Ms wrongs
before a Eussian, or a French, or an English ambassador.
A Turk can apply only to a cadi, or a pasha, who is in
league with his oppressor. Ever since the foundation of the
empire all Ottoman officials have been disconnected from
the Mussulman population. No son of a Turkish pro
prietor ever had a chance of obtaining office at Constanti
nople. Officials rose by menial service to the Sultan or to
the principal viziers and pashas. Lately sons of officials at
Constantinople have been promoted, but provincial Turks
have no chance.
"I believe, too, that the Turks are now worse go
verned than they ever were before. Their feudal, and
local institutions were swept away by the system of
centralisation perfected by Sultan Mahmoud. That cen
tralisation seems to be producing the same effects ia the
Ottoman Empire which is produced in the Eoman, It
seems to be depopulating Asia Minor as Eoman corruption
and exaction depopulated Western Europe. Dominant
races and stationary races appear by a law of nature to
decrease in numbers. The Spartans who were 9000, the
Eoman citizens who, under Caracalla, were perhaps
30,000,000, both died out. The Turks are both dominant
and stationary. They are deteriorating in- wealth, in
numbers, in all military and in all civil rirtues. The
complaint constantly repeated in your journal of the
increase of corruption is a mortal symptom,
" At the same time I give little confidence to the prophe
cies of your friends as to the speedy fall of the Ottoman
power, I do not deny that the Sultan's empire may be

PEOSPECTS OP TUEKEY. 349
puUed about his ears by force or by fraud in ten years. But I
also thinkit possible that he may rule Turks, Arabs, Greeks,
Armenians, Bulgarians, Albanians, Syrians, Yezids, and
Curds for several generations. The vitality of bad govern
ments is very great. Still less do I admit that the fall of
the Ottoman is necessarily the rise of the Christian. They
forget that that fall vrill relieve the Mussulmans from
greater oppression than that endured by the Christians.
They forget that their countrymen, or rather their co-reli
gionists, from Philadelphia to Caesarea, have in general
ceased to speak Greek ; tha,t even their priests speak only
Turkish ; they do not see that the agricultural population
and the fighting nomades will instantly seize three fourths
of Asia Minor,
" If I were to prescribe for Turkey," he added, " it would
not be immigration. Immigration can scarcely be suc
cessful in a country in which the agricultural population
is raising as much agricultural produce as it wants to
consume or can profitably sell. No foreigners can live with
such penury, and pay such enormous taxes, regular and
irregular, as the agricultural population now at work. The
successful landed speculations of foreigners prove only that,
in a country in which the native capitalist makes twenty
per cent, per annum, a foreigner under favourable circum
stances can get, as a landlord, from twelve to fifteen per
cent. But this is rather a mercantile than a colonial
speculation. It tells nothing as to the probable fate of
English agricultural immigrants, who would bring little
beyond the price of the land and their own labour. If I
were the Sultan or the Sultan's adviser, I would try to

350 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE,
afford to the existing agricultural population of the empfre
what they have never yet had, legal safety. Their idle
habits arise partly from insecurity, and partly, as respects
the Turks, from their former status, as feudal soldiers, as
well as cultivators. I think that it would be possible
to make the law supreme even in Turkey. But I fear that
the present tendency is in the opposite direction,"
I went in the evenmg to a ball at the palace. It was
given in the queen's apartments on the second floor.
About three hundred persons were present, and there
seemed to be much less etiquette than at the great
ball. Between the dances the queen came up to me, and
talked very agreeably for about a quarter of an hour ;
chiefly of the country, of Phyle, of its position, and of its
fort, which contained, she said, the only round tower in
Attica. After she left me the king came to me, and
talked much longer. I think for half an hour. He said
it was delightful to reign over a counti-y with such apassi,
and such an avenir ; that the Greeks were the most docile
people on the Continent ; that tbe opposition to authority,
and the desfre to screen criminals which are found among
many southern populations, were unknown tq them ; that
if a crime were committed the whole population was
anxious to detect and to seize the offender ; that they were
also eminently intelligent ; that a Greek, whatever were
his antecedents, never seemed embarrassed in the Mghest
society ; that art seemed natural to them.
" An Athenian boy," he said, " fourteen or flfteen years
old has been sent to the Academy of Sculpture at Mumch.

COUET BALL. 351
He carries off every year aU the highest prizes. All this
embroidery (he pointed to his own Albanian jacket and to
some others) is worked by country women almost without
instructions, yet you see how delicate and fanciful are the
patterns." After the Mng left me M, Soutzo joined me. We
talked of the inconvenience produced by the want of a
Greek coinage.
" We committed," said Soutzo, " three capital errors :
first, we took for our unit the drachma, a coin correspond
ing vrith no other existing coin ; secondly, we took no
seignorage, so that our coin was not more valuable than
buUion; and thirdly, we established a double standard.
The first of these blunders was our own, the second we
took from you, the thfrd from France."
" Now you know your errors," I said, " I hope that you
will avoid them, and take the French franc as your only
standaird." " We are waiting," he answered, " to see what France
will do. She is doubting whether she shall make gold or
silver her sole standard, or keep both,"
I asked A, B, C, tp tell me the names of some of the
visitors, " Who are those two men," I said, " in rich
Albanian dresses ? "
" The tall man," he said, " is Hadji Petros, He be
longs to a Moldavian colony which has been settled for
centuries on the banks of the Achelous, His family are
' civilians, muleteers probably, or tax collectors. He was
an armatole under the Turks, joined the Greeks, was made
governor of Lamia when the Mng was courting the Pali-

352 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
carls, and is chiefly notorious as haring Hved for some
time vrith the lady who was once Lady Ellenborough."
" And who is the other? " I asked,
" It is Theodore Grivas," he answered, " He also is ore
of our revolutionary heroes. His family is Acarnanian,
He belonged to the Turkish armatoles, joined the Greek
cause in 1822, was a bold insubordinate partisan during
the war, made his fortune out of the loans, out of jobs of
all sorts, and by purchases of lands from the Turks, aind
h,as a large property near Vonitza, opposite to Santa Mam-a.
He passes a part of the year there as a feudal chief, or
rather like one of the Scotch or Irish chieftains of the
sixteenth century. He pays no taxes, or only such taxes
as he thinks fit. The farmers of the land revenue know
that it would be dangerous to interfere with a man who
has some hundreds of armed retainers, who is a member
of the Chamber of Deputies, and who always votes vrith
the king."
" Is that the General Grivas," I asked, " who is men
tioned in the blue book of 1854, as having invaded
Epirus with three or four thousand followers ? "
" Certainly he is," answered A. B. C. ; " and if he had
been properly supported, he would have taken Janina.
But the court were afraid of him. A man of his bold, and
utterly unscrupulous character, if he had succeeded in
Epirus, and had become master of a large amount of
plunder, and of some thousands of lawless men, might have
recrossed the frontier, and have become dangerous at home."
" The danger was pointed out to the king, who answered,
'that he was aware of it, as he had already had experience
of the character and projects of General Grivas.' The

THE PAIICAEIS. 353
king's conduct was characteristic. Grivas was praised to
the sMes by the government papers ; but no supplies were
sent to him. Grivas, unable to attack Janina, turned
eastward to the neighbouring Christian town of Messoro,
robbed it of aU its money, burnt part of the town, returned
to Greece full of resentment, and showed himself at court,
scowling on the Mng, and acting the part of an injured
patriot." " On what terms is he now," I asked, " with the king ? "
" Exceedingly good ones," answered A. B. C. ;" there is
a tacit, or perhaps an express agreement between them
that he shall support in every respect the royal policy and
pay no taxes. He and Hadji Petros," continued A. B. C,
" and some others of the reclaimed robbers of the frontier,
are connected vrith the court by a relation which cannot be
avowed. They ai-e kept in reserve for the next invasion of
Turkey. The court have learnt nothing from experience,
or rather they have learned from experience that they can
violate audaciously every principle of public and of private
moraUty, and when their attempts fail, be rewarded by
populaiity." "They have learned," I said, "that Eussia is not a
match for England and France."
"I am not sure," he answered, "that they have learned
even that. At all events, they are looking forward to the
rupture of the Anglo-Franc alliance, and they hope that
as soon as that happens, they shaU be able to renew their
pfratical war with better success. In such an attempt, the
old Palicaris vrill be their instruments; the Mng would
regret, therefore, to hear that they had subsided into mere
A A

354 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
country gentlemen and currant growers. He wishes them
still to have their armed retainers: this is one of the
causes which contributes to the continuance of brigandage
on the border. The Court vrishes to keep some embers of
it alive, as a pretext for maintaining an irregular, ambi
guous, local force, which now professes to endeavour to
extirpate the brigands; but if war should come, vrill fra
ternise with them. For the same reason the Palicaris,
like Grivas, desire the prevalence of a certain degree of
brigandage, which, without being a reproach to them, shall
show that they still are wanted. Under the influence of
all these motives, the repression of brigandage is never
honest or thorough-going."
" Did Z.," I said, " obtain any redress or compensation
for his sufferings ?"
" None," answered A. B. C. " The affafr was brought before
the govemment ; it was proved that the robbery was caused
by the culpable negligence, if not connivance, of thefr own
officials. It was urged that if they chose to turn the Jocal
admimstration into an electioneering mstrument, they, not
the innocent country proprietors, ought to bear the losses
which are the necessary consequence of such a system.
But such arguments are preaching to the deaf; they have
neither a sense of justice nor a feeling of shame ; they will
yield to a British fleet, but to nothing else."
I mentioned my conversation vrith the king.
" His description," said A. B. C, " of his subjects is correct
as far as it goes ; the qmckness with which an uneducated
Greek acquires or puts on the ease and aplomb which
only long practice in good society gives to ari European^ is

CHAEACTEEISTICS OF GEEEKS. 355
Wonderful. It is not, however, wholly the result of inteUi
gence ; something must be attributed to conceit ; the world
is stUl, according to his notions, divided into Greeks and
Barbarians. His consciousness of superiority saves him
from rnauvaise honte. When the king talked of 'the
highest society,' he meant, of course, his own. I have no
doubt that every Greek in the room looks down on his
Bavarian king and his Oldenburg queen. He feels at ease
and unembarrassed in their society, for the same reasons
which make an English sailor at ease in the court of a
South Sea island chief."
The queen danced long vrith Mr. Boudouris, the presi
dent of the Chamber of Deputies, who seemed to be in high
favour. I was introduced to him, and he talked a good
deal to me in the course" of the evening.
" My principal duty," he said, " as president, is that of
your whipper-in. It is to make a house. The deputies
are 140; 71 is a quorum. Not more than 80 of them
reside in Athens. Some are ill, some are idle. It is with
the utmost difficulty that I can collect a quorum or keep
them together."
I pointed out to him one or two officers, whose breasts
were covered vrith orders.
" Those," he said, " are the king's aide-de-camps. They
.accompanied him in his travels in Germany and they got
crosses and stars, in every little court."
" I rather wonder," I said, " that when you were making
your constitution you did not prohibit Greeks from accepting
foreign orders."
" Any one, who prbposed such a clause," he answered,
A A 2

356 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" would have been branded as an Anglomane. It would
have deprived us of a great means of influence; if we
refused to accept the orders of foreigners, we could scarcely
offer ours to them ; now our order of St. Sauveur is prized
abroad. The foreign mimsters at our court begin their
intrigues for the cross as soon as they arrive. We keep
them in good order by delaying it until they are going.
Every Admiral who puts into .the Piraeus, asks for one :
many of the members of the Institute of Paris have our
cross. Do you know why the French Admiral was a couple
of days later than you in reaching Bessica Bay, in 1853?
It was because he landed at the Piraeus, and went to Athens
to get the cross. Our order is a valuable patronage which
costs us nothing."
" Has not," I asked, " the profusion vrith which it has
been scattered destroyed its value ? "
" Not abroad," he answered, " as far as one can judge
from the eagerness to obtain it. At home it is no distinc
tion : but a man who has been at all before the pubUc is
ashamed if he has not got it. The non-dicoris are not
numerous enough to form a public opimon, and to boast of
their independence."
Friday, January Sth. — Zeta called on me. He is a
literary man of some reputation, and is said to be in the
Eussian interest. He asked me, as Greeks frequently do,
what appeared to me to be the reforms most wanted in the
country. I answered, roads, and a reform of the collection of the
land revenue.
" They are both," he said, " most barbarous ; but what

GEEEK PLANS. 357
can we do ? To make roads in a country of mountains
: requfres great sMU and great expenditure. We have neither
experience nor money. The land revenue is the principal
support of the government. We cannot tamper with it.
The gi-eat business of every occupier and proprietor is to
cheat the state. We cannot relax our presautions against
fraud, tioublesome and oppressive as they sometimes are."
" If want of money," I answered, " is your excuse for a
system which keeps stationary the wealth and the popula
tion of Greece, you might tiy to remedy it by diminishing
your expenditure. Your military expenses eat up half
your revenue. 'What does Greece want with a fleet and
an army ? The protectmg powers have taken your defence
on themselves."
"Probably you think," he answered, "that we ought
gratefully to accept thefr services, and contentedly play the
part of a protected nation, with no foreign policy of its
own. We repudiate it. We choose to be free agents.
You laugh at our little army ; but for- our purposes a very
small army is sufficient. The war which we shall next
make, the war which we attempted to make in 1854, is a
war not of conquest but of liberation. Our brothers in
Thessaly and Epirus will give us the rank and file; all
that we need supply are the cadres ; this is the reason for
which our army is apparently so over-officered. In 1854,
if you had not interfered, or if Eussia, instead of accept
ing the field of battle offered to her by her enemies, had
marched on the Balkan, and held out a hand to us, Thessaly,
Epirus, and Macedonia would have been freed from the
AA 3

358 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Turkish yoke. It is highly improbable that sb many
chances will tum against us next time."
" And when," I said, " is the next time to come ? "
" The instant," be answered, " that you relax yom- pres^-
sure. Nothing less than the weight of England and
France can keep us down. Do not think," he continued,
" that we consider this comer of Greece as our country,
or Athens as our capital, or the Parthenon as our national
temple. The Parthenon belongs to an age and to a religion
with which we have no sympathy. Our country is the
vast territory of which Greek is the language, and the
faith of the orthodox Greek church is the religion. Our
capital is Constantinople; our national temple is Santa
Sophia, for nine hundred years the glory of Christendom.
As long as that temple, that capital, and that territory are
profaned and oppressed by Mussulmans, Greece would be
disgraced if she were tranquil."
" Constantinople," I said, " may cease to be Mussulman ;
but does it follow that it would be Greek ? Is it certain
that the new empire of which it will be the capital vrill be
a Greek empire ? "
" I think it certain," he answered, " Two religions and
two languages predominate in EoumeHa and Bulgaria, —
the Greek and the Turkish, Our sovereign cannot be
Turkish ; he must, therefore, be Greek, He may not be
so in the first generation, A German and a Catholic may
be put there; but his children must speak Greek and
belong to the Greek church," ,
" And would you consent," I asked, " to let your nation
ality be merged in this new Greek empire ? "

GEEEK PLANS. 359
"Certainly," he answered. "What care we for this
Bavarian dynasty ? Let the Greek language be spoken,
and the Greek faith professed by the ruler of Constanti
nople, and we are ready to annex ourselves to his empire.
Such an annexation would be a conquest on our part, nota
submission. Whatever be the stock from which the new
emperor is taken, French, Eussian, or English, his empire
vrill be governed by Greeks."
" Does your ambition stop at the Danube ? " I asked.
"Why should it stop there ?" he answered. " A nation
is in a healthy state only so long as it is growing. I trust
that when we begin to grow, we shall continue to do so
for many centuries."
Saturday, January 9th. — I walked with D. E. F. in
the oHve woods of the Cephisus.
" Thirty-five years ago," he said, " before Attica had
been wasted during the war of independence, these woods
reached across the plain until they met the pine forests, of
which you see the remains at the beginning of the Pass of
Daphne, and which still cover the interior gorges of Mount
Fames, and then clothed the whole of the mountain."
" It must be among these pine forests," I said, " or
rather on the site of these forests, that we ought to look for
the scene of the 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' The olive
woods have no thickets ; the lovers could not have lost one
another. Bottom could not have been caught alone, and
transformed among them. Titania would have found no
place for a bower. The pfrie forests had open glades, and
underwood festooned with creepers. All the events of
that night might have occurred in them."
A A 4

360 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" Shakespeare's notions,"said D. E. F., " of Atheman topo
graphy, if he thought about it at all, must have been
vague. He probably supposed that the forest of Athens
resembled the forest of Mary le Bonne. His Athens was
the feudal Athens of the thirteenth and fourteenth centu
ries. His Theseus is Guy de la Eoche or Walter de
Brienne. Attica was then far richer, far more civilised,
than it is now, indeed, than it has been since its French
dukes were expelled. Montaner, who -risited Athens at
the beginning of the fourteenth century, describes it as
one of the richest cities of Europe. The court of the
dukes was splendid ; its nobles spoke as good French as
the Parisians. The waters of PenteHcus and Hymettus,
which now run to waste, were coUected and distiibuted by
cisterns and aqueducts, and fertiUsed what is now an arid
plain, traversed only by wandering shepherds. The de
struction of that dynasty by the Catalan Grand Company
was the beginning of a decUne, which has been retarded
only in our time."
"You think," I said, "that the decline of Attica has
been retarded rather than arrested ?"
" In Athens itself," he answered, " it has been arrested.
When a village becomes the seat of a court, it must in
crease in wealth and population.
" I wish to think that Attica and the other provinces are
more prosperous than they were before the war of indepen
dence. But the improvement is not obrious. The debtor
and creditor sides of the account are nearly balanced.
There is more education ; there is less municipal Hberty,

TAX ON PEODUCE. 361
There is less violence and more corruption. The roads are
worse; the insecurity is greater. The taxation is more regular,
but more exacting ; it has made many Mnds of cultivation
unprofitable. When I was farming at  , I broke up a
considerable tiact of fresh land and grew potatoes. I had,
as is usuaUy the case under such cfrcumstances, an enor
mous fii'st crop. Athens was then suppHed -with potatoes
. from Trieste frregularly, as they were sent by sailing ves
sels. The tithe farmer took his opportunity when the
price in the bazaar of Athens was unusually high, and
required me to compound for my tithe at that price. I
remonstrated that my crop had to be carried on horseback
sixteen mUes by mountain tiacks, at an expense of at least
200 per cent. ; so that, even assuming that exceptional p-iee
to be the fafr one, two-thirds of it must be deducted for car
riage. He insisted ; the law, perhaps, was not on his side,
but I knew fuU weU that the decision would be, so I
refused to compound, and said that he should take his
tithe in kind, and allowed him, as, indeed, I was forced to
do, to fix the time. He chose it when every horse was
employed in tieading out the harvest, when I should have
had to pay a dollar for the use of a horse which could not
carry above a dozen stone, worth about three shilHngs,
I owned to him that I was beaten. He behaved very
weU, and let me off by requiring only the composition
which he had originally exaicted, and which I had refused to
pay ; and he repaid me by a piece of advice, which I fol
lowed, ' Never to grow any bulky commodity until the law
was altered,' "

362 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
" Has it been altered ? " I asked.
" Certainly not," he answered, " Under such a govern
ment as this, its iniquity is a recommendation,
" In one point," he added, " and it is one of the tests of
civilisation, Greece is as barbarous as Turkey, The law is not
supreme, ' The government assumes an ultra-legal power of
controlling it, Mrs, Leaves, the vridow of the late chaplain,
has a garden, part of which is wanted for a new stieet. By
the constitution she cannot be dispossessed until after full
compensation has been paid. The price has been agreed on,
but the local authorities vrish to take it now, and to pay
for it when. it is convenient to them. They sent to her
last week an order requiring her to pull down her wall, and
give up the ground vrithin three days ; at the end of which
periodj they should do it themselves. In England she
would have dared them, and if they had persisted, she
would have brought an action agamst them, and recovered
exemplary damages. But in Greece, no action can be
brought against a government officer without the consent of
the Government, So she went to the palace and stated
her case to the Grand Maitresse. Tbe Grand Maitresse
told it to the queen, the queen mentioned it to the king.
He directed the Mimster of the Interior to order the local
authorities not to take Mrs. Leaves' land until they had
paid for it. The king told this story to a friend of mine in
great triumph, and evidently thought that it showed the
excellence of his administration."
We passed on our way to the Cephisus a large estate,
well cultivated, with farm houses, young olive plantations,
and vineyards. It now belongs to the queeu. A few years

DIPLOMATIC INTEEFEEENCE. 363
ago it belonged to the nation. It is true that she has re
claimed it ; all the improvements were made by her. But
the land is hers merely because she has chosen to take it.
The government steals in return. The land used for the
roads near Athens was generally seized without compen
sation. The tendency both of the government and of the
people is to treat the person, who calls himself the owner
of land, as a mere tenant of the state, allowed to cultivate
in order to effect the great purpose of cultivation, the
production of tithe.
Sunday, January 10th. — I called on G. H. S.
" I vrish," he said, " that our embassy would take a more
active part in the affairs of Greece. Since Maurocordato's
last resignation, it has stood aloof, has criticised what has
been going on, has expressed disapprobation, but has
suggested nothing."
" Is it our business," I answered, " to suggest ? "
" Of course not," he answered, " when you are dealing
with old and strong countries, which must be supposed to
know what they want, and to do what they like. I do not
wish Lord Woodhouse to give good advice to the Czar.
But this young country is ignorant and weak. It wishes to
be advised and supported, and all the advice it gets from
the continental missions is bad and selfish."
"Montherot," I said, "seems to me liberal and well
disposed." " He is only just arrived," said G. H. S. " See what he
wUl become when he wishes for a cross. His predecessors
were as bad as it was possible to be. They supported the
king, indeed they urged him on, in all his misconduct

364 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
towards us and towards his own people. They cared
nothing how .their advice might influence the welfare of
the king or of his subjects. All that they wanted was to
get a triumph over Wyse, which they could boast of in
Paris." " I do not see," I said, " what we can usefidly suggest as
long as the king refuses to be constitutional, and the people
are afraid to oppose him."
" The king's character," he answered, " is the real diffi
culty ; but I think that I see the symptoms of a change,
I am inclined to hope that both he and the queen are
becoming more constitutional. One thing you may de
pend on ; they are neither of them Eussian, They know
that Eussia has tried to dethrone them — that she does all
that she can by her commercial regulations to injure
Greece, in order to make them unpopular. The people are
Eussian, not because they sympathise vrith the Eussians,
but because they think that they can make tools of them.
Haring unbounded confidence in Greek cleverness and in
Eussian stupidity, they expect to use the Eussians, in order
to get Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, perhaps Constantinople,
and then to throw them over."
From G. H. S. I went to N, 0, P., and we walked on
the sheltered side of the Acropolis, I mentioned to him
my conversation vrith G. H. S.
"' I do not believe a word," he said, " as to the constitu
tional tendencies of either the king or the queen. How
could they have acquired such feelings ? They never lived
in a constitutional country, they never heard the word con-
stitutiori mentioned, except as an object of terror or of con-

EAELY -WOEKING OF THE CONSTITUTION. 365
tempt. It is a pity that Wyse was not here in 1843,
; Lyons is an able man and a Hberal man. Much of what is
best in the constitution was suggested by him. But he has
not the superstitious reverence for law which belongs to
EngHsh cirilians. He did not scruple taking a short cut
to some desfrable object tMough legal obstacles. This was
pessi/mi exempli m such a country as this, which is only
I beginning the apprenticeship of legal administiation, — an
apprenticeship so difficult that, excepting England, and the
I countries that have derived their institutions from England,
;¦ there is scarcely a nation which constantly and consistently
acts on the principle of the supremacy of law. In some
countries the sovereign, in others the mob, and in almost
all the police, is constantly committing little coups Wetat.
i Even in the largest and the most populous portion of the
I Queen's domimons, British India, there is a power above
the law."
" That-must necessarily be the case," I said, " when the
same person, or the same body of persons, possesses both
legislative and admimstrative supremacy. The governor
in council can scarcely be said to act Ulegally, if he only
takes the precaution of always maMng a new law when
he wishes to do anything inconsistent vrith the existing
law." " The great, the irreparable misfortune of Greece," said
N. 0. P., " was the loss of Prince Leopold. His mere can-
p didature was an important serrice to her. It gave her a
frontier, not, indeed, such as it ought to be, but far better
than that which the three powers intended for her. Had
he accepted the crown, the Greeks would have been well

366 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
governed, and, therefore, prosperous at home, and would
not have been forced to seek, in aggrandisement abroad, a
consolation for their internal misery."
There are no hedges in Greece. The only fences are
walls, sometimes of stone, but more frequently of mud.
I remarked that I scarcely ever saw one that was not
partially ruinous.
"They stand," he answered, "if they are well made.
But nothing is well made in Greece, because there is no
dirision of labour. Every body does everything for him
self. The peasant and his family spin thefr own wool,
make their own carts, build their own hovels, grow their
own wheat, breed their own stock, cut out and stitch
together thefr own clothes, pay their taxes in kind, and
perhaps never buy or sell during a year. This is one of
the results of the want of means of communication. A
man's village is his only market ; and if he were to addict
himself to one sort of productiori, hopirig to exchange
his superfluity vrith his neighbours, he would find neither
a demand for what he offered, nor a supply of what he
wanted. It is remarkable," he continued, " that though
Greek labour is bad, it is dear ; dear I mean, not relatively,
but positively. A bad Greek mason is as highly paid as a
good London one. This is ovring to the small supply of
day labour. Most of the Greeks are proprietors. All of
them are idle and proud. They must be bribed by high
-wages, in order to induce them to work for wages."
N. 0. P.'s last remark has been exemplified to us in
conveniently during the last fortnight. Christmas day, in
the Greek style, falling in one week, and New Year's Day

COUET BALL. 367
in the next, and one or tvvo f^tes besides, we have had the
greatest difficulty in getting our clothes washed. As for
getting anything else done, it has been impossible.
Wednesday, January ISth. — This is the Greek New
Year's Day. A great ball was given at the Palace. I
went at about nine, and found the rooms, which are very
large, full. The variety of costume was amusing. The
diplomatic, military, and official uniforms might have
been seen m Europe, but mixed vrith them were the
'Albanian jackets and fustaneUes, the furred cloaks of the
clergy, and the vast trowsers of the deputies from the
islands and the Morea. I was introduced to Mr. Eangaby,
the minister of foreign affafrs. He asked me "what
were the improvements of wMch Greece seemed to me to
be most in want ? " I said roads ; that if I could appoint a
prime minister for Greece, it should be one of the
Macadam family.
" It is tiue," he answered, " that the absence of roads is
a barbarism which we have inherited from the Turks. In
this country, intersected by torrents, bridges are wanted
every two or three miles. The government by law
ought to make the bridges, the demoi the roads. The
government has totally neglected its duty. The demoi
have sometimes performed theirs, but their roads, having
become useless from the want of bridges, have gone to
rum. But we are now seriously at work. We have
passed a law, requiring every man to contribute from six
to twelve days' work on the roads every year, and the
minister of the interior promises us bridges. As we know
nothing of roads, we have sent to France for a road-maker.

368 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
The Ponts-et-Chaussees have given us M. Galiani. We
pay him three times as much as we pay to any of our
ministers. But he says that he can do nothing with
Greek workmen. So some cantonniers are to be sent
from France to help them. In the mean time he is
repairing the Piraeus road."
" He is repairing it," I answered, " by throwing on it a
bed, about a foot thick, of unbroken -shmgle taken from
the beach, which vrill never bind, through which it is
difficult to force the wheels of a carriage. I fear that you
have made a bad beginmng. Another subject of com
plaint," I continued, " is the coUection of your land
revenue." "The collection of it in Mnd," he answered, "is a
serious eril,. but we cannot substitute a money payment
until we have a cadaster — a general valuation of all the
lands iri the country."
" At least," I said, "you might require the farmers of
the revenue to send and take their tithe, instead of re
quiring all the grain of every district to be sent to the areas
at an enormous expense of laboiu- and time."
"I fear," he answered, "that to require the farmer of
the land revenue to send for Ms tithe would involve so
much expense, and so thorough a change of system, that
I despair of its being attempted. We must wait for a
cadaster, and then take payment in money."
After M. Eangaby left me I was joined by Theta, a
member of the Chamber of Deputies. I mentioned the
general complaint that the country is not governed con
stitutionally ; that the deputies, the municipal officers, in

PEES.ENT "WOEKmO OF THB CONSTITUTION. 369
short, all the functionaries of the country, are the nominees
of the crown.
"That is too broad a statement," he answered; "but I
admit that the royal influence is too predominant. But
you must recollect how we got this constitution; it was
not promised by the king, it was not required by the
three powers who created us; it was the offspring of a
street riot, got up by one party in order to get rid of
the Bavarians, and by anothe^ in order to get rid of a
Latin king. Maurocordato, its first minister, -riolated the
electoral law in the very first election. In defiance of its pro
visions he sat for the umversity, though not a professor, and
had Kalergee elected for Athens by means of the votes of
the soldiers, although thefr votes were illegal, and though
he commanded the garrison and therefore was ineligible.
"When Maurocordato, vrithout consulting any of his col
leagues, suddenly -withdrew, his successor, CoUetti, roused in
jthe king's mind fears of another revolution, and induced him
to rely for support on such men as Grivas and Grisiotti.
You may suppose what was the advice that he received.
It was CoUetti who introduced the practice of sending to
the local authorities Usts of the govemment candidates,
and orders to use every means to secure thefr election —
orders which were largely interpreted."
"Is it true," I asked, "that the voting papers have
frequently been falsified in the urns ? "
" It is tme," he answered. " And what perhaps is worse,
the chamber has supported elections so obtained. At the
very last general election, the year before last, there were
ten members whose elections were known to be invaUd.
B B

370 A JOUENAL KEPT IN TUEKEY AND . GEEECE.
The presence in the chamber of men notoriously elected
by violence or fraud, discredits the whole body. My
earnest vvish, and that, I beHeve, of the majority of the
chamber, is that the elections should be free. But I am
not such a purist as to deny the right of the government to
communicate to the electors its opinion as to the relative
merit of the candidates. On some occasions, at the last
election, this was not done. The electors .remonstrated.
'We are ignorant people,' they said, ' we wish to vote for
the best men ; tell us who they are.'
" The Mng's intentions," he continued, " are excellent.
But he is timid, he is scrupulous ; he always sees better the
objections to a measure than its advantages, and it is difficult
to persuade him to take any step which may produce any
eyil whatsoever. Now, as no poUtical measure is purely
beneficial, as some evil is always mixed with its good, he is
not easily induced to approve of anything. When a decision
has been extorted from him, sometimes after his minister has
quitted him he thinks the matter over again, or talks it
over -with the queen or with his secretary, or vrith one of
the foreign ministers, and relapses into doubt, so that the
task of convincing him must be recommenced. And it is
recommenced to a disadvantage, for the previous discussion
has exhausted him, and an interval of inertness follows."
Thursday, January 14ih. — This is probably our last
day in Athens. If the weather, now unfavourable, improves,
we shall start to-morrow by the Messageries' boat for Mar
seiUes. .
We have spent in Athens eight weeks instructively and
amusingly. We have been unlucky, I am told, in our

ATIIEXS AS A EESIDENCE. 37 1
weather. During the first three vveek.s, and the three last,
we were tormented by furious north winds. The fort
night between was calm, warm, and deUcious, and such a.s
that fortnight, I am assured, is the ordinary winter weather
of Athens. Next to Eg}^t, the climate is the driest that I
know ; rain fell only four times, and then only for an hour
or two. The society consists ofthe corps d'lplomat'ique, a
few English residents, and a considerable number of Greek
families. The last do not receive much in the evening,
but I found them generally at home in the mornings.
One agreeable woman, a Madame Stornarie, whose ac
quaintance we made on our arrival, was lost to us soon
after by a cause which illustrates the state of Greece.
She went, above seven weeks ago, to pay a visit of a few
days at Chalcis. A steamer sent thither on govemm.ent
business carried her. Since that time no steamer or large
vessel has gone thither ; the navigation round Cape Su-
nium is hazardous in winter for small boats. The road by
land, seldom quite free from brigands, has been dangerous
during the whole time that we have been in this place. It
seems probable that she vrill be forced to spend the winter
at Chalcis, though she is only forty-five miles from her
own house in Athens, and is most anxious to get back.
Similar difficulties prevented my going to Eubcea.
Friday, January 15th, 11 a.m. — It is calm here, but
the weather in the Jigean is supposed to have been bad,
for the " Indus," the steamer from Constantinople to Mar
seiUes, which is to carry us, has not yet arrived. She was
due at six this morning.
I paid a visit to jMr. Black, who married the Maid of
n B 2

372 A JOUENAL KEPT IS TUEKEY AND GEEECE.
Athens. She was out ; but I saw her daughter, -who has
firie Greek features, aud a profusion of black hair. I have
no doubt that her mother deserved her reputation for
beauty. I walked with. Mr. Neale, our consul, round Munychium,
and looked at the remains of the waUs, with which it was
surroimded by Themistocles. They show no symptoms of
the hui:ry -with which they are said to have been erected.
The stones are large and carefully quarried. On a ledge
of rocks, at the eastern point of Munychium, are the
remains of a column about six amd a half feet in diameter;
the base, which is Doric, and a few of the drums, are
standing; Others He on the rocks around. Below it is a
double grave cut in the rock ; the lower part of it is
generally covered by the sea. This is supposed to have
been the tomb to which the bones or ashes of Themistocles
were removed from Magnesia.
We are now sitting in the grand room of the Piraeus
hotel, vvaiting for the steamer, and warming ourselves by a
pan of charcoal, called a mangal.
5 P.M. — The boat has come in, delayed by a stormy
passage from Constantinople, and in a few minutes we
embark for Marseilles.

THE END.

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