76/ 
 
 
THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY 
 
 THEIR CONDITION UNDER 
 
 MUSSULMAN RULE 
 
 Bv REV. W. DENTON, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'SERVIA AND THE SERVIANS,' 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DALDY, ISBISTER & CO. 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL 
 
 1876 
 
 \_The right of Translation is reserved.] 
 
JOHN CHI1.DS AND SON, PRINTERS. 
 
513e55 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Thirteen years ago, under the title of 'The 
 Christians in Turkey,' I published a pamphlet, the 
 greater part of which I am about to reprint in the 
 present volume. Unhappily the description which 
 I gave so many years ago of the state and condition 
 of the Christian subjects of Turkey is as applicable 
 at the present time as it was then. In 1863 the 
 minds of the people of England were unprepared to 
 believe that the position of our brethren in that 
 empire was so miserable as they now know it to be, 
 and my pamphlet excited but little attention. I 
 have now, however, been asked by some of those 
 who read it when first printed to allow of its repub- 
 lication, and I respond to that request by embody- 
 ing the information, sad and harrowing as it is, in 
 the present volume. I have made but few altera- 
 tions in the parts republished. Some mere tem- 
 porary references have been omitted, and some few 
 
4 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 illustrations have been added, and in addition I have 
 devoted one chapter to a brief survey of the differ- 
 ent races which occupy the European provinces of 
 Turkey, and another to tracing the cause for the 
 outbreak in the Herzegovina which was the herald 
 of the present war between Servia and Montenegro 
 with the Porte. Beyond these additions this volume 
 is mainly a reprint of the pamphlet of thirteen 
 years ago : thirteen years of grave responsibility to 
 us : thirteen years of violated promises on the part of 
 the Turkish Government : thirteen years of intense 
 misery and suffering, of violence and of massacre, for 
 the Christian subjects of Turkey. 
 
 I refer to the length of time which has gone by 
 since the original publication of ' The Christians in 
 Turkey,' and to the fact that the survey of the con- 
 dition of these people is in the main reprinted from 
 that pamphlet, to remove any misconception of my 
 motive in putting forth the present volume. I have 
 no wish to seem even to serve the interests or 
 passions of party. I make no charge against any 
 one set of ministers of state. To do so would be 
 dishonest. The picture which I here reproduce of 
 Turkish rule will at least show that the Ministry of 
 the present day is not more responsible for the evils 
 which weigh so heavily upon our Christian brethren 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in Turkey than former administrations. Any words 
 of blame on my part are directed against that ' foreign 
 policy ' which has been pursued more or less con- 
 sistently since the beginning of the Crimean war. 
 I prefer therefore to alter the language of my former 
 publication as little as possible, though some words 
 and references may have but little applicability to 
 the present. There has, however, been no change of 
 circumstance, at least no amelioration in the con- 
 dition of the Christians of Turkey, but the reverse. 
 Their lot is harder, their condition more intolerable, 
 in proportion to the decline in strength and number 
 of the dominant race. 
 
 If, indeed, this question were one of mere party 
 politics, I should not venture to intrude into a 
 region where the presence of a clergyman is rightly 
 regarded as incongruous. It is because the unhappy 
 circumstances which surround so many millions of 
 our brethren inhabiting some of the fairest and 
 most fertile portions of the globe, ought not to 
 awaken party animosities, that I ask the attention of 
 the reader to a review of the present wrongs of the 
 Christians in Turkey, in order, not indeed to enlist 
 the sympathies of Englishmen in their behalf, for 
 this they already have, but to give to these sympa- 
 thies a definite direction. Indeed, with rare and 
 
6 THE CHKISTIANS OF TUKKEY. 
 
 noble exceptions, it must be confessed that party 
 politicians of all shades of opinion are almost equally 
 uninformed on this subject, and therefore equally 
 indifferent to the sufferings of the great mass of the 
 people of Turkey. This fact, whilst it removes this 
 great political question out of the arena of party 
 strife, at the same time renders more difficult the 
 attempt to obtain for it an attentive hearing from 
 those who seek, or affect to guide, popular opinion. 
 My object, let me state at the outset, is to ask that 
 our governors should cease from that strange inter- 
 ference against the people of Turkey which has been 
 for some years the policy of the English Govern- 
 ment, and that they should no longer actively aid a 
 despotism the most grinding on the face of the 
 earth : one which, not content with the fanatical 
 cruelty which led to the Diocletian and other 
 early persecutions, poisons and pollutes the whole 
 domestic life of the vast majority of the subjects of 
 Turkey. 
 
 There is another reason why I prefer to repro- 
 duce my former words. In the indignation felt and 
 expressed throughout all England there lurks one 
 danger. In dwelling upon the atrocities perpetrated 
 in Bulgaria we may come to believe that these were 
 exceptional in their character, an outbreak caused by 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 some momentary panic, or by a sudden uncontrollable 
 frenzy which may possibly never again occur. This 
 is not true. They do but illustrate the normal con- 
 dition of the provinces of Turkey. What has hap- 
 pened in Bulgaria has happened also in Bosnia. 
 Deeds have been done there as horrible as those 
 done in Bulgaria, even if the number of victims 
 should fall short of those in the latter province. 
 Only by what may almost be called an accident were 
 the atrocities perpetrated at Batak and elsewhere 
 unveiled to us. We were made acquainted with one 
 set of facts, we are in ignorance as to the extent of 
 the other atrocities. Our ignorance indeed is our 
 only excuse for the continuance of such horrors. 
 
 In a letter written by an English gentleman re- 
 sident at Constantinople, and quoted by Mr Cobden 
 in a debate in the House of Commons in 1863, the 
 following passage occurs : — c What is our policy sup- 
 porting? Some one asked me how to account for 
 this in a people the most moral of all, the English, 
 that these deepest immoralities should be maintained 
 by their patronage ? I replied, they are, for the 
 most part, quite ignorant, or unwilling to believe 
 what they hear.' When that ignorance is removed, 
 when they know what is really meant by the phrase 
 ' supporting the integrity of Turkey,' Englishmen, 
 
8 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 I am assured, will no longer sustain by their patron- 
 age a Government which exists only to inflict miseiy 
 upon its subjects, whether by its active oppression 
 or by its helplessness and imbecility. 
 
 That this ignorance on the part of the people of 
 England should exist is not to be wondered at. The 
 same ignorance as to the condition of the people of 
 Turkey, and of the habits and feelings of the large 
 Christian communities which cover the face of that 
 empire, has been long shared in by successive 
 Governments in this country. The broad distinc- 
 tion, however, between the ignorance of the people 
 of England and that of the Government, lies in the 
 circumstance that the latter has always had it in its 
 power to obtain information, from which it has in- 
 tentionally turned away, and has even taken con- 
 siderable pains to suppress, whilst the ignorance of 
 the people of England arises from the deliberate 
 action of their governors in preventing, so far as 
 possible, any information reaching this country as to 
 the real condition of the people of Turkey. Since 
 the time of Sir Henry Bulwer the large consular 
 staff scattered throughout the dominions of the 
 Sultan, either by positive instructions, or by those 
 indirect means by which men are made acquainted 
 with the wishes of their superiors, have long known 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 that amongst the most important duties which the 
 Government required them to perform is a complete 
 withholding all information as to the state,, and 
 especially as to the sufferings, of the people of Tur- 
 key. They are bidden significantly to shut their 
 eyes, even if they cannot harden their hearts, against 
 the daily recurring atrocities practised upon the un- 
 armed and wretched peasantry of Rounielia, of Asia 
 Minor, and of Syria, so that in answer to interroga- 
 tions in the House of Commons respecting any case 
 of grievous wrong, it may be answered by the organ 
 of the Foreign Office, that no account of any such 
 occurrence has been received from the consul on the 
 spot, and that therefore the presumption is that such 
 report is untrue. 
 
 What the impression and the practice of the con- 
 suls in this matter is may be gathered from the 
 following extract from a letter addressed to me by 
 Dr Sandwith, well known as the Chief of the 
 Medical staff during the siege of Kars : — 
 
 1 When I was in Turkey, about two years ago, I 
 had a long conversation with a consul, who told me 
 stories that curdled my blood with horror concerning 
 the cruelties and barbarities of the Turks, chiefly to- 
 wards the Christians, but their misdeeds were by no 
 
10 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 means confined to the unbelievers. Wherever a 
 pasha could plunder, he never cared what ruin and 
 misery were the result. The consul showed me 
 clearly how inevitably the country was being ruined 
 and depopulated. "At all events," I remarked, "you 
 have the satisfaction of reporting all these horrors 
 in your despatches ? " " Oh dear, no," he answered, 
 " I dare not. We have received more than a hint 
 that our Government is determined to uphold 
 Turkey ; and if I were to tell the truth, and de- 
 scribe things as they really are, my career would be 
 ruined. More than one consul has been severely 
 snubbed for doing so." On another occasion I 
 heard also from a consular official of a horrible jcase 
 of judicial torture. I asked for the details. He 
 durst not give me them, and told me the case would 
 not be reported, as the consuls had been made to 
 understand that any reports unfavourable to the 
 Turks would be unwelcome to the embassy.' 
 
 The experience of Dr Sandwith is borne out by 
 that of many other travellers in the countries sub- 
 ject to the Sultan. English consuls who wish to 
 stand well with the Embassy at Constantinople must 
 make their reports as favourable as possible to 
 Turkey, and conceal all facts which would enlighten 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 1 
 
 the English public as to the true nature of Turkish 
 rule. Hence the long delay in informing the Govern- 
 ment of the Bulgarian atrocities. Since the publica- 
 tion of my pamphlet additional evidence has been 
 tendered me in confirmation of this statement, and I 
 have obtained permission of Dr Manning, the secre- 
 tary of the Religious Tract Society, the writer of the 
 following letter, to print this confirmation of the 
 words of Dr Sandwith already quoted : — 
 
 ' Some surprise and incredulity having been 
 expressed as to your statements respecting the con- 
 sular reports from Turkey, I think it due to you to 
 say that my own observations fully confirm their ac- 
 curacy. Travelling in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey in 
 Europe a few years ago, the sufferings of the people 
 under the brutal and stupid tyranny of the Turks 
 filled me with indignation. The reply everywhere 
 given to my inquiry why the facts were not made 
 known in England was, that the consuls were ex- 
 pected to make their reports as favourable as possible 
 to the Turkish Government, and that any report in a 
 contrary sense would be regarded with disfavour at 
 Constantinople.' 
 
 But on this matter we are not left to conjecture, 
 or even to seek for the testimony of men of veracity. 
 
12 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 It is witnessed to by the papers presented to Parlia- 
 ment. The following instance will illustrate this 
 policy. 
 
 In the early part of 1860, Prince GortschakofF, 
 the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, addressed 
 a circular to the Great Powers of Europe, pointing 
 out the continuance of that injustice of which the 
 Christians in Turkey had so long complained, and 
 which the Porte had, at various periods, for upwards 
 of thirty years, promised should be removed. In 
 that circular, which was dated in May, 1860, the 
 following statement occurs : — 
 
 ' The attention which the discussions upon the 
 condition of the Bast has excited throughout Europe, 
 makes us desirous of freeing from all error and false 
 and exaggerated interpretation the part which the 
 Imperial Cabinet has taken, and the object which it 
 proposes to itself in this matter. 
 
 ' For more than a year the official reports of our 
 agents in Turkey have made us acquainted with the 
 increasingly serious condition of the Christian pro- 
 vinces under the rule of the Porte, and especially of 
 Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria. This condition 
 does not date from to-day, but, far from getting 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 better, as was hoped, it has become worse during the 
 last few years. 
 
 ' In this conviction, after having, on the one hand, 
 vainly sought to enlighten the Turkish Government 
 on the gravity of the circumstances, by communi- 
 cating to it successively all the accounts which have 
 been made known to us of the abuses committed by 
 local authorities ; and after having, on the other 
 hand, exhausted all means of persuasion that we 
 could use among the Christians, in order to induce 
 them to patience, we have frankly and loyally ad- 
 dressed ourselves to the Cabinets of the Great 
 Powers of Europe. We have explained to them 
 the circumstances, as described in the reports of our 
 agents ; the imminence of a crisis ; our conviction 
 that isolated representations, sterile or palliative 
 promises, will no longer suffice as a preventive ; and 
 also the necessity of an understanding of the Great 
 Powers among themselves and with the Porte, that 
 they will consult together as to the measures which 
 can alone put an end to this dangerous state of 
 things. We have not made absolute propositions as 
 to the course to be adopted. We have confined our- 
 selves to showing the urgency, and indicating the 
 object. As to the first, we have not concealed the 
 
14 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 fact that it appears to us to admit of no doubt, and 
 to allow of no delay. 
 
 ' First of all, an immediate local inquiry, with the 
 participation of Imperial delegates, in order to verify 
 the reality of the facts ; next, an understanding 
 which it is reserved for the Great Powers to establish 
 with each other and with the Porte, in order to 
 engage it to adopt the necessary organic measures for 
 bringing about in its relations with the Christian 
 populations of the empire, a real, serious, and 
 durable amelioration. 
 
 ' There is nothing here,. then, in the shape of an 
 interference wounding to the dignity of the Porte. 
 "We do not suspect its intentions ; it is the Power 
 most interested in a departure from the present situa- 
 tion. Be it the result of blindness, tolerance, or 
 feebleness, the concurrence of Europe cannot but be 
 useful to the Porte, whether to enlighten its judg- 
 ment or to fortify its action. There can no longer 
 be a question of an attack on its rights, which we 
 desire to see respected, or of creating complications, 
 which it is our wish to prevent. The understanding 
 which we wish to see established between the Great 
 Powers and the Turkish Government, must be to the 
 Christians a proof that their fate is taken into con- 
 sideration, and that we are seriously occupied in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 ameliorating it. At the same time, it will be to the 
 Porte a certain pledge of the friendly intentions of 
 the Powers which have placed the conservation of the 
 Ottoman Empire among the essential conditions of 
 the European equilibrium. Thus, both sides ought 
 to see in it a motive : the Turkish Government, for 
 confidence and security — the Christians, for patience 
 and hope. Europe, on its part, after past experience, 
 will not, in our opinion, find elsewhere than in this 
 moral action the guarantees which a question of the 
 first rank demands, with which its tranquillity is 
 indissolubly connected, and in which the interests of 
 humanity mingle with those of policy. Our August 
 Master has never disavowed the strong sympathy 
 with which the former inspire him. His Majesty 
 desires not to burden his conscience with the reproach 
 of having remained silent in the face of such suffer- 
 ings, when so many voices are raised elsewhere, 
 under circumstances much less imperious. We are, 
 moreover, profoundly convinced that this order of 
 ideas is inseparable from the political interest which 
 Russia, like all the other Powers, has in the main- 
 tenance of the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 'We trust that these views are shared by all the 
 Cabinets ; but we are also convinced that the time 
 for illusions is past, that any hesitation, any adjourn- 
 
16 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ment, will have grave consequences. In combining, 
 with all our efforts, to place the Ottoman Govern- 
 ment in a course which may avert these eventualities, 
 we believe that we are giving it a proof of our 
 solicitude, while at the same time we fulfil a duty to 
 humanity.' 
 
 Upon the receipt of this circular, Sir H. Bulwer, 
 acting under the instructions of the English Govern- 
 ment, drew up a list of questions, which he sent to 
 the various consuls throughout Turkey. No persons 
 could, from their position, better speak on such a 
 subject ; none would be more ready to furnish 
 evidence which would contradict the assertions of 
 the Russian note, provided that this were possible. 
 From their answer, honestly, faithfully, and intelli- 
 gently given, we might have had a luminous survey 
 of the Turkish empire. Such a report would have 
 been invaluable. It was not likely that English 
 consuls would exaggerate the unhappy condition of 
 the Christians, since they had been made to feel in 
 many ways that even truth on this subject was 
 ' unwelcome to the embassy ; ' and before sending in 
 their answers they were reminded that their very 
 bread depended upon the will of his Excellency the 
 Ambassador.* At the same time, it is evident, that 
 
 * ' I assure you that your conduct at this crisis will be 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 reports from the pens of English gentlemen, making 
 allowances for this circumstance, would, on the 
 whole, present a faithful picture of the condition of 
 the people — slightly coloured, perhaps, in favour of 
 things as they are, and framed in some degree to 
 meet the wishes of the Government which they 
 served, hut still generally trustworthy. It would 
 seem, however, that Sir Henry Bulwer felt, from the 
 first, some misgivings that a simple answer to these 
 questions would confirm every jot and tittle of the 
 accusations of the Russian minister, and accordingly 
 he took the unusual step of issuing a circular, 
 dated 'Constantinople, June 11th, I860,' and in- 
 closing it under the same cover as the questions, by 
 which circular he directed the consuls in what way 
 he wished and expected them to answer the questions. 
 In this circular, which one of the consuls rightly 
 calls an ' instruction/ Sir Henry Bulwer said — 
 
 'Looking at the barbarous and despotic power 
 but a few years since exercised by the Pashas in the 
 Provinces, and at the venal practices too long in- 
 dulged in by Turkish functionaries, — the temptation 
 
 duly watched by me, and my opinion respecting it, whether 
 favourable or the reverse, communicated to Her Majesty's 
 Government.' — Circular of Sir H. Buhver to Her Majesty's 
 Consuls, August 8, 1860. 
 
 2 
 
18 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 being not unoften given by the Rayahs themselves, 
 who bribed such functionaries to favour the one 
 against the other, — it is too much to expect that a 
 pure and perfect administration will now be found. 
 
 ' The crimes, moreover, signalized by Russia, are 
 in all countries unfortunately to be seen and deplored ; 
 and whilst religious toleration, to a far greater extent 
 than is even now practised by many European 
 Governments, has been traditionally characteristic of 
 Turkish domination, — a system of religious equality, 
 though by no means easy to establish at first — when 
 the conquering race is of one creed, and the conquered 
 of another, — has, nevertheless, of late years, made a 
 visible progress in the capital ; and can hardly, one 
 would suppose, since it has been proclaimed ostenta- 
 tiously and constantly, with the consent of the 
 Sovereign, be altogether disregarded by the Porte's 
 official servants in the country at large. 
 
 ' Thus, — whilst I am far from denying that great 
 and radical reforms are required in the provincial 
 administration, I am, nevertheless, inclined to believe 
 that it is an exaggeration to contend that things are 
 in a much worse state than under the circumstances 
 might be expected, or that there is a constant and 
 perverse action, on the part of the Governors and 
 their subordinates, in opposition to the general 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 policy which, their superiors are pledged to carry 
 out/ 
 
 And Sir Henry Bulwer then significantly 
 added — 
 
 'Her Majesty's Government wishes, as you well 
 know, to maintain the Ottoman Empire, — which in 
 its fall would produce a general disorganization in 
 the East, accompanied, probably, by war throughout 
 the world, — the whole producing a series of disasters 
 which would certainly not benefit any class in 
 Turkey, and would be likely to cause great calamities 
 to mankind/ 
 
 Now it is evident that had Sir Henry Bulwer 
 believed that the state of Turkey was improved or 
 improving, he might have safely left it to the consuls 
 to make such a declaration without telling them 
 that he expected them to do so. If under the mild 
 ' toleration ' of Turkey the Christians were reposing 
 in peace and were free from grievous oppressions, it 
 was not necessary that the ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople should tell this to the consuls, who must have 
 known far better than he could what was the condition 
 of the Christians. That his circular was regarded by 
 the consuls as a dictation as to the kind of answers 
 desired by Sir Henry Bulwer, and ' welcome to the 
 
20 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Embassy/ is evident from a circumstance which, if 
 it were not for the gravity of the offence against 
 the very first principles of morality, would be 
 simply ludicrous. By some mistake in the office of 
 the ambassador, the list of questions was received by 
 one consul without the circular which should have 
 accompanied it ; on the 4th of August, that gentle- 
 man forwarded his answers in simple child-like faith 
 that his Excellency required truthful answers to his 
 questions. A few days, however, after the report 
 had been sent, the circular arrived under another 
 cover. It was then evident to him that he had 
 committed a great blunder ; he had been asked to 
 bless the Sultan, to praise his beneficent and ' toler- 
 ant' rule, and to contradict the accusation in the 
 Russian note. Alas ! he had unwittingly cursed the 
 one and confirmed the other by a simple picture of 
 the state of the province in which he resided. 
 Here it would obviously have been better to have 
 let the matter rest, the mistake of not sending the 
 questions and the draught answers together had 
 been made at Constantinople, and the blunder of 
 telling the truth had been solely committed in 
 consequence of the first error. This, however, did 
 not satisfy the consul. He did what terrified men 
 frequently do. He was bold even to rashness. He 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 undertook to confute himself, and wrote a despatch 
 full of lamentation at his simplicity, and overflowing 
 with apologies for speaking the truth. In this latter 
 document the consul professes that he is not so 
 competent to speak as his Excellency, his ideas are 
 all ' crude,' and he seeks to recall his former state- 
 ment, seemingly not knowing it was too late to do 
 so. Eating his leek with a very wry face, in his 
 alarm he made a larger meal of it than was at all 
 necessary. 
 
 In his second report, written after he had learnt 
 why Sir Henry Bulwer had sent the list of questions 
 to him, the consul thus writes — 
 
 1 On the 4th instant I had the honour of forward- 
 ing my replies to the queries contained in your Excel- 
 lency's circular of June 11, which had reached me 
 only a few days previously, and yesterday I received 
 the other circular bearing the same date. I thus 
 furnished what information I could without being 
 aware of the motives dictating the questions, and with- 
 out being in possession of the valuable instructions 
 conveyed by the other circular. I shall, therefore, 
 endeavour now to supply the deficiencies of my 
 replies. 
 
22 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ' Your Excellency expresses the belief that it is 
 an exaggeration to contend that things are in a much 
 worse state than, under the circumstances, might be 
 expected. This view of the case is fully corroborated 
 by my experience. 
 
 ***** 
 
 ' I am sure your Excellency wishes to have 
 opinions frankly stated, in order that they may be 
 duly sifted, and appreciated according to their merits 
 and demerits ; and I therefore hope I may be held 
 excused if I have too freely given utterance to these 
 crude notions on a subject, the consideration of 
 which may not strictly form part of a consul's attri- 
 butes.' 
 
 It is a melancholy spectacle to see a man of mature 
 age making piteous appeals for tender consideration 
 because he had unfortunately spoken the truth ; but 
 however melancholy the spectacle is, it is important, 
 since it shows us the effect of the circular of Sir 
 Henry Bulwer upon the mind at least of one of the 
 consuls, and it leaves us to regret that we have 
 missed those valuable photographs of the state of 
 Turkey which, but for the forethought of Sir Henry 
 Bulwer, we should have obtained. Under the cir- 
 cumstances, therefore, every admission of the con- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 sular body as to the misrule, the oppression, and 
 cruelty practised by the officers of the Turkish 
 Government, acquires additional weight. Nor would 
 it be right to pass over, without a word of admira- 
 tion, the courage which has led some of those officers 
 to speak plain words and to declare unpalatable 
 truths in their reports. 
 
 But the record of the freaks of British diplo- 
 macy are not at an end. The papers lately presented 
 to Parliament are full of mournful instances of the 
 way in which truth is paltered with, equivocation 
 resorted to, and even positive untruth suggested, 
 when it is thought necessary to throw the shield of 
 England's might — I wish I could say England's 
 greatness — over the cruel oppression and the profli- 
 gate sensuality of Turkey. I will not weary the 
 reader by quoting, as I might, the numerous de- 
 spatches of Sir Henry Bulvver, especially those which 
 occur in the Blue Books on the Syrian massacres, 
 which illustrate this dishonesty. 
 
 By means, then, such as these — the systematic 
 suppi-ession of information, and the requiring our con- 
 sular agents to make one-sided, partial, and coloured 
 statements — are the sympathies of the public of this 
 country diverted from the sufferings of the people of 
 the East. But, let us bear in mind, in our zeal to 
 
24 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 preserve, at all hazards, ' the integrity of Turkey,' 
 that the integrity of our public men is greatly suffer- 
 ing, and the honour and humanity of England are 
 in danger of becoming bywords in many parts of 
 the world. It would surely be more manly, more 
 honourable, more politic, to grapple with the real 
 facts of the case. It would be better — for honesty 
 is still the best policy — to acknowledge that though 
 the Government of Turkey is hopelessly dead or 
 dying ; though the moral corruption of all classes in 
 that country, but especially of its rulers, has reached 
 such a stage that it is too polluting a subject to be 
 even mentioned, still less detailed ; though the un- 
 happy subject races are exposed to daily massacres 
 and to outrages worse than death ; though portions 
 of the empire, naturally amongst the most fertile on 
 the globe — tracts of land which a few years ago 
 were cultivated with the same care as the gardens of 
 Flanders or of Lombardy — are now a waste wilder- 
 ness, trodden only by the feet of wandering 
 Bedouins, by some Christian flying from the intoler- 
 able oppression of his savage masters, or, more 
 commonly, only by prowling beasts of prey, for this 
 — as I shall be able to show from documents of 
 unimpeachable veracity — is, in brief, the condition 
 of the greater part of Turkey in Asia — yet that in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 despite of all this it is for some reason or another so 
 important to England to maintain all these abomina- 
 tions that we are resolved to do so. It would be 
 better to acknowledge this : but not at the cost of 
 our own ' integrity ' to attempt to conceal that 
 which is notoriously and unhappily true. We 
 might still plead, if we would, that, all this accumu- 
 lated misery and evil notwithstanding, it is sound 
 policy to perpetuate these horrors, to sustain this 
 crumbling pillar and to prop this falling edifice of 
 Ottoman power. I confess that both humanity and 
 policy are, in my opinion, damaged by the course 
 which the Foreign Office is bent on pursuing ; but, 
 at any rate, if necessary, let that course be held to 
 without resorting to equivocation, deceit, and false- 
 hood. Such weapons indicate a desperate cause, or 
 they will injure that which, but for their use, need 
 not be despaired of. 
 
 I shall abstain as much as possible from any 
 evidence or conclusions of my own. I have an 
 abundance of witnesses whom I can cite, and I pre- 
 fer their testimony to any which I can bring as to 
 the condition of the great bulk of the people of 
 Turkey. The witnesses whom I am about to quote 
 are for the most part our own consuls settled in that 
 country. These write with an evident consciousness 
 
26 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 that any bias in favour of the oppressed races of that 
 country would be 'unwelcome to the Embassy,' and, 
 as Sir Henry Bulwer had informed them in writing 
 before requiring their testimony, to the British 
 Government itself, yet they testify to these facts : — 
 
 (I.) That the most fertile provinces in Turkey, 
 formerly and even recently covered with flourishing 
 villages and occupied by industrious inhabitants, are 
 now waste and desolate, filled only with ruin, the 
 mouldering remains of slaughtered men and chil- 
 dren, and with prowling beasts of prey. That the 
 former inhabitants have been massacred or driven 
 away, and that the sands of the desert are fast 
 encroaching upon what were formerly the most 
 fruitful lands on the globe. 
 
 (II.) That moral corruption the most horrible, 
 and sensuality the most loathsome, has become 
 universal amongst the Turkish people, and is fast 
 depopulating the empire and destroying the whole 
 Mussulman race. 
 
 (III.) That alarm and terror for the lives and 
 honour of their families reign in every quarter of 
 the Turkish empire. That there is no security for 
 industry, no safety for life ; and that with the 
 diminution of the dominant race, the jealousy and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 hatred of the Turk towards the Christian is acquir- 
 ing fresh force. 
 
 (IV.) That no attempt has been made by the 
 Turkish Government to fulfil the engagements 
 Avhich, from time to time, it has entered into with 
 the Great Powers of Europe to guard against the 
 oppression of the subject race. 
 
 (V.) That in the Christian races of Turkey, and 
 in them only, are there any signs of life, and that 
 their rapid increase in numbers and material pros- 
 perity, as well as the extension of education amongst 
 them, together with their superior industry and 
 morality, afford the only hope for the future. 
 
 That the condition of the people of Turkey — the 
 large mass of the population of that country — 
 presents the sad spectacle which I have here 
 indicated, and which I am about to illustrate from 
 official and other unexceptionable documents, I be- 
 lieve no one at all acquainted with the subject will 
 deny. The utmost that the apologists of Turkey 
 are accustomed to plead is, that the depopulation, 
 the massacres, the cruel acts of injustice practised 
 toward the Christians, arise not from the direct 
 action of the Turkish Government, but from the 
 
28 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 corruption of the officers and the fanaticism of the 
 Mussulmans, which it is too feeble to restrain or 
 punish. This, no doubt, is in part true ; but then 
 it ought to be remembered that the very feebleness 
 of the central Government arises from its injustice. 
 But, indeed, this is only true in part. The men 
 who compose the Turkish Government — the owners 
 of the sumptuous palaces which fringe the Bosphorus, 
 are in no degree removed above the crowd in intelli- 
 gence, in uprightness, or in morality ; and much of 
 the ruin which lies like a heavy blight on the land, 
 and the present hopeless condition of the Ottoman 
 empire, arise from the positive sins of its Govern- 
 ment, its miserable faithlessness towards its subjects, 
 as well as from its inherent powerlessness. 
 
 Practically, however, it is of little consequence 
 to men who suffer, to what quarter the source of the 
 evil of which they complain may be traced. A 
 peasant who is stripped of his property because he is 
 a Christian — whose testimony in a court of justice is 
 refused for the same reason — who has been arbi- 
 trarily imprisoned — whose wife and daughter have 
 been outraged, and whose sons have been executed 
 because they ventured to defend the honour of their 
 mother and sisters — derives no comfort from being 
 told that all these things have happened, not from 
 
INTRODUCTION. 29 
 
 the vice and corruption of the Government, but only 
 from its weakness or its want of power to protect 
 him. And let it be remembered, that every means 
 which statecraft can devise — protocols without 
 number, alliances on all sides, conventions to avoid 
 wars, and wars which have happened notwithstand- 
 ing — have all been resorted to with the view of 
 infusing new life into the veins of that dying body, 
 and to give it artificial strength, but all without 
 avail. The ruin goes on at an accelerated speed — 
 the feeble Government is becoming every day more 
 hopelessly feeble. 
 
30 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 POPULATION OF TUKKEY. 
 
 The races which occupy the country between the 
 Danube and the Bosphorus — not taking account of 
 Greece, which was erected some fifty years since into 
 an independent kingdom ; Montenegro, which has 
 never submitted to the yoke of the Ottoman ; and the 
 principalities of Roumania and Servia, which are 
 autonomous, and virtually independent — are the Bul- 
 garians, the Serbs, the Albanians, and the Greeks. 
 These are placed in the order of their numerical im- 
 portance. It is not an easy matter to obtain correct 
 statistics of the Turkish people among whom they 
 live, and in some instances, it may be, the number of 
 the Christians is somewhat understated. It is be- 
 lieved, however, that the statistics here given will 
 be found pretty correct. In some instances they are 
 obtained from official returns. 
 
POPULATION OF TUEKEY. 31 
 
 The Bulgarians 4,540,000 
 
 The Serbs of Bosnia, Herze- \ „ _ _ njnA 
 
 2,030,000 
 govina, etc ) 
 
 The Albanians 1,150,000 
 
 The Greeks outside of the 
 
 1,048,700 
 kingdom of Greece 
 
 Add to these- 
 
 Armenians, Georgians, etc. . 420,000 
 
 Wallachians not living in 
 
 225,000 
 Wallachia 
 
 Total . . 9,543,700 
 
 There are about 80)000 Jews living in the cities 
 in the southern part of European Turkey, and more 
 than double that number of Gipsies (165,000), who 
 wander throughout the whole country, whether 
 autonomous or subject. The Circassians are esti- 
 mated at 144,000. The Turkish element of the 
 population of European Turkey, excluding those 
 living in Roumania, may be estimated at about 
 1,260,000 ; according to the most liberal calcula- 
 tion, 1,326,000 ; but this errs, if at all, on the side 
 of too large an amount. The numbers of the Turk- 
 
32 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ish race also are in a rapid state of decline in every 
 province of European Turkey.* 
 
 Though the Bulgarians, the Serbs, and the 
 Greeks have, in the face of long and severe persecu- 
 tion, for the most part, maintained their faith in Christ, 
 yet large numbers have at various times — chiefly in 
 past yeaTs — apostatized from their belief; though 
 many, it is thought, have only conformed outwardly 
 to Mahomedanism to avoid the sufferings of their 
 Christian brethren, or for the sake of worldly advan- 
 tage. For this reason the numbers of the Turks and 
 non-Mussulman population are not identical with the 
 Christians and Mahometans. According to race the 
 relative proportion of Turks and non-Turks may be 
 thus stated : — 
 
 Non-Turkish races 11,583,700 
 Turks .... 1,260,000 
 
 Estimated, however, according to their religion, the 
 people of European Turkey are : — 
 
 * The official figures communicated to the editor of the 
 Saxe-Gotha Almanack gives 2,095,833 as the estimated number 
 of the Turkish population ; hut to make up so large a Turkish 
 population the Armenian Christians — who number, accord- 
 ing to the most trustworthy information, 420,000, the largest 
 number of whom inhabit Pera, Constantinople, and Adrian- 
 ople — and also the Gipsies, are included with the Turks ! 
 
POPULATION OF TURKEY. 38 
 
 Christian . 10,673,700 
 Mahometan 2,200,000 
 
 I believe that both these figures, the estimated num- 
 ber of Turks in the one case and of Mahometans in 
 the other, are in excess of the real amount of the 
 Turkish and Mussulman element in the population. 
 
 Reckoning the Serbs of the principality of Servia 
 and the people of Roumania, or the Danubian prin- 
 cipality, the Turkish element is relatively small. 
 As, however, these states are virtually free, and con- 
 tain scarcely any Mussulmans, the Christians and 
 Mahometans in the provinces ruled directly from 
 Constantinople are more nearly balanced in point 
 of numbers, although even here the Christian 
 element largely preponderates. The population of 
 Servia and Roumania, the latter principality of 
 which contains 1300 Mussulmans, is estimated at — 
 
 Roumania 4,500,000 
 Servia . 1,340,000 
 
 In both cases the population is an increasing one. 
 As the large and constant decline of the Turkish 
 population is due mainly to the corruption of morals 
 throughout the empire, we have in the steady in- 
 crease of the Christian races, especially when their 
 numbers are not kept down by the massacres which 
 
34 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUKKEY. 
 
 take place, an answer to the charge sometimes made 
 against them, that, granted the Turkish part of the 
 population is given over to vices which destroy it, 
 yet the Christians are as bad, or at least are almost 
 as bad, as the Mussulmans. The decline in the one 
 case and the steady increase in numbers in the other 
 is a vindication of the Christian race in this respect. 
 Bulgaria is not the only home of the Bulgarian 
 people. As in the case of Servia, the territory is 
 more limited than the race. As the Serbs occupy 
 Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Old Servia, as well as the 
 principality of that name, so the Bulgarian people 
 not only inhabit the province of Bulgaria, but make 
 up a considerable part of the population of Thrace, 
 Macedonia, Thessaly, and even Albania. Originally 
 a Tartar race, and not dissimilar to the Turks at 
 their first appearance in history, the Bulgarians 
 crossed the Danube and settled on the north of the 
 Balkan mountains in the seventh century. In the 
 ninth century they embraced Christianity, and for 
 awhile were the ruling power on the southern borders 
 of the Danube. They were conquered, however, and 
 incorporated in the Servian monarchy of Stephen Du- 
 shan, and from similarity of origin, of language, and 
 of identity in religion, became what they now are, 
 virtually a Sclavonic people. The old kingdom of 
 
POPULATION OF TURKEY. 35 
 
 Bulgaria came to an end in 1390, when the people 
 submitted to the Turks, on the condition that they 
 should be allowed to govern themselves and merely 
 pay a tribute to the Sultan. These terms, however, 
 were gradually set aside, and every vestige of their 
 liberty was destroyed. Mr Paton, writing twenty 
 years ago, says, 'They are a most unwarlike race, 
 and submissive to the Turks as sheep to a colley dog. 
 Their habits are pastoral and agricultural, having 
 neither the soldier spirit and gigantic stature of the 
 Serb, nor the mercantile enterprise and intelligence 
 of the Greek.' * They are distinguished for their 
 industry, honesty, domestic virtue, and submissive- 
 ness. Recently a great awakening to the advantage 
 of education has taken place, and almost every village 
 has its school, supported by a rate voluntarily paid 
 by the inhabitants. In the towns which I have 
 visited their schools are large, well built, and sup- 
 plied with good school apparatus. The numbers 
 of the Bulgarians are estimated at 4,500,000, 
 though some think that their true number is nearer 
 6,000,000. Those who live in the province of Bul- 
 garia are stated on Turkish official authority to 
 amount to 1,837,053. 
 
 * The Danube and Adriatic, by A. A. Paton, vol. i. 
 pp. 292, 293. 
 
36 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 The Serbs of Turkey, as distinguished from the 
 people of Sclavonia and Austrian Croatia,* occupy 
 the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the prin- 
 cipality of Servia, and a tract on the south-west of 
 that State known by the name of Old Servia. The 
 Serbs of Servia proper submitted to the Turkish 
 rule, at least in part, after the fatal battle of Kossova 
 in 1389, and became a province of the empire in 
 1459. In 1804 the Servians revolted, and, under 
 the leadership of Kara George, for nine years 
 struggled against the authority of the Porte. In 
 1813 the Turks overcame this revolt, but in 1815 
 Milosh Obrenovich raised again the standard of 
 independence, and after several vicissitudes the 
 freedom of Servia was guaranteed by a Hatti Scheriff 
 of the Sultan in 1830. Since that time Servia has 
 been virtually free ; by Firman of the Porte no 
 Turkish subject is allowed to live within the limits 
 of the principality, and a small tribute alone marks 
 the suzerainty of the Porte. The population of 
 the principality is, according to an official return, 
 1,838,506.+ 
 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina surrendered to the Sultan 
 
 * The Sclavs of Austria, Tehees, Slovacs, Serbs, and 
 other kindred people, number nearly 20,000,000. 
 t Almanack de Gotha, 1875. 
 
POPULATION OF TURKEY. 37 
 
 of Turkey in the year 1454. In these provinces the 
 large landowners, with hardly an exception, aposta- 
 tized to Mahometanism, and by so doing retained 
 their possessions and feudal privileges. The bulk 
 of the population, however, remained Christians. 
 These are divided into two sections, — members of 
 the Orthodox or Eastern Church, and members of the 
 Roman Catholic Church. According to the official 
 report of 1874, the total population of this province, 
 for Herzegovina is included in the Vilajet of Bosnia, 
 was as follows : — 
 
 Greek Christians 576,756 
 
 Roman Catholics 185,503 
 
 Mussulmans (Bosniac, not Turkish) . 442,050 
 
 Jews . 3,000 
 
 Gipsies 9,537 
 
 Total . 1,216,846 
 
 In this tripartite division of the Serb population 
 consists the difficulty of forming an autonomous 
 government for these two provinces. But this is a 
 difficulty as great at the present moment as it can 
 be in a period of autonomy. Whilst the Bosniac 
 beys, with those of Herzegovina, are fanatical 
 Mussulmans, they are as fanatically anti-Turk; 
 and it would probably be easier to combine them 
 
38 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 under one rule as an independent State, notwith- 
 standing religious differences, than it has been to 
 overcome the antipathy of race between the people, 
 of whatever race they may be, and their Osmanli 
 rulers, the Turks of Constantinople. Indeed the 
 Turkish Court now holds a precarious rule over 
 these provinces, only by playing off religion against 
 religion. The members of the Latin Church are in 
 these provinces invested with peculiar privileges 
 which are withheld from the members of the Ortho- 
 dox or Eastern Church. The whole modern history 
 of Bosnia has been a series of insurrections, mostly 
 of the Mussulman aristocracy against the Turkish 
 officials and the authority of the Porte. 
 
 Montenegro has always maintained its independ- 
 ence of Turkey, and though it has received tempting 
 offers of an increase of territory on condition of its 
 acknowledging the suzerainty of the Porte, it has 
 always rejected the offer. Its population is estimated 
 at about 200,000. 
 
 The Albanians, divided into different clans, and 
 generally supposed to be the descendants of the old 
 Illyrian inhabitants driven southward by the inroads 
 of the Sclavs, inhabit a rugged country, and this 
 and their neighbourhood to the Montenegrins have 
 enabled them to maintain a sort of turbulent inde- 
 
POPULATION OF TURKEY. 39 
 
 pendence. According to the official information of 
 the Turkish Government, the population of these 
 tribes is stated to be 1,245,182. Of them 750,000 are 
 Christians of the Orthodox or of the Roman rite, 
 and the rest Mahometans. 
 
 The whole of the possession of Turkey in Europe 
 subject immediately to the Porte is divided into 
 eight vilayets, or governments, each presided over 
 by a Pasha. Constantinople is not included in these, 
 having as its chief the Minister of Police. 
 
40 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 
 
 The first point which I indicated in my prefatory 
 remarks as symptomatic of the decay and approach- 
 ing extinction of Turkey is the desolation which is to 
 be met with in all the provinces of the empire, and 
 which is increasing in intensity, and widening in 
 area. That this is so, we know from testimony which 
 is as unimpeachable as it is uniform. The evidence 
 is so abundant, and the witnesses to this fact so 
 numerous, that the only difficulty arises from the 
 necessity of selection. 
 
 Of the country about Smyrna, Mr Senior thus 
 describes what met his own eye, and was pointed out 
 to him by the Prussian consul : — ' " A strong proof 
 of the depopulation of the country is the presence of 
 nomadic tribes, Irooks and Turcomans, who wander 
 over it in parties of from thirty to forty families, 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 41 
 
 carrying with them cattle, camels, horses, and sheep 
 in thousands, encamping and feeding on the unoccu- 
 pied lands. The Irooks live in tents ; and, besides 
 their pastoral employments, weave carpets and coarse 
 cloths. The Turcomans are purely pastoral, and 
 sometimes 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 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 unoccupied land of the Sultan may be used with- 
 out 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 depart." 
 
 ' "How much of Asia Minor," I said, "do you 
 suppose to be uncultivated ? " 
 
 ' " Ninety-nine hundredths," he answered ; " if 
 
42 THE CHHISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 you go from hence, to wards 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 cultivated, that if there were roads its 
 produce would influence sensibly the markets of 
 Europe." ' * 
 
 Of the whole province of Palestine, Mr Finn, 
 Her Majesty's Consul at Jerusalem, reported, that it 
 is f seriously under-populated, and consequently large 
 tracts lie waste ; ' and of the inhabitants he writes : — 
 ' We have a thinly scattered population, almost 
 entirely engaged in rural occupations, propagated 
 like wild animals, without education, in the common 
 acceptation of that word, or even a decent sense of 
 any religion whatever, and ignorant of everything but 
 the use of very clumsy fire-arms, and actuated by no 
 conscientious feeling beyond the requirements of 
 their clan or faction/ f 
 
 As to Aleppo and its neighbourhood, Mr Skene 
 thus writes : — ' This province is in a good condition 
 as regards the amount of production. But unfor- 
 
 * A Journal kept in Turkey and Greece, by Nassau W. 
 Senior, Esq. London: 1859. 
 
 t Keport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 27. 
 
THE DECAY OF TUEKEY. 43 
 
 tunately, the productive class does not enjoy in peace 
 the fruits of labour. A portion of its produce is 
 carried off by the nomadic Arabs, and extorted from, 
 the peasantry by the farmers of the tithes. 
 
 • Vast plains of the most fertile land lie waste on 
 account of the incursions of the Bedouins, who drive 
 the agricultural population westward, in order to 
 secure pasture for their increasing flocks of sheep 
 and herds of camels. I have seen twenty-five villages 
 plundered by a single incursion of Sheik Mohammed 
 Dukhy with 2000 Beni Sachar horsemen. I have 
 visited a fertile district which possessed 100 villages 
 twenty years ago, and found only a few lingering 
 fellows, destined soon to follow their kindred to the 
 hills ranging along the seaboard. I have explored 
 towns in the Desert, with well-paved streets, houses 
 still roofed, and their stone doors swinging on the 
 hinges, ready to be occupied, and yet quite unten- 
 anted ; thousands of acres of fine arable land spread- 
 ing around them, with tracks of watercourses for 
 irrigation, now yielding but a scanty pasture to the 
 sheep and camels of the Bedouin. This overlapping 
 of the Desert on the cultivated plains commenced 
 eighty years ago, when the Anazi tribes migrated 
 from Central Arabia in search of more extended 
 
44 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 pasturage, and overran Syria. It has now reached 
 the sea on two points, near Acre, and between La- 
 takia and Tripoli. 
 
 'The Arab, however, does not always carry off 
 the whole stock of the villager, but is frequently 
 satisfied by a conciliatory offering in money and 
 grain. Something is thus left for extortion by the 
 tax-gatherer. His operations are conducted in an 
 equally open manner with those of the nomadic 
 plunderer. When the tithes are put up to auction, 
 the members of the Provincial Council select the 
 villages whose revenues they wish to farm under the 
 name of a retainer. They agree not to compete 
 with each other, and use their joint endeavours to 
 prevent others from outbidding them. When the 
 highest price is offered the Pasha consults the 
 Council, which declares it to be the full value ; and 
 a profitable bargain is obtained by the Councillor 
 whose turn has come. Then begins the pressure on 
 the villager. His grain is threshed and ready for 
 sale, but he must not move it until the tithe is taken 
 by the farmer. Prices are falling in the market 
 with the daily increasing abundance. He implores 
 permission to sell, and receives it only on consenting 
 to double or treble the tax. In lieu of 10 per cent., 
 there are instances of 40 per cent, being thus wrung 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 45 
 
 from liim, when the want of the necessaries of life 
 for his family prevents his waiting longer. The 
 peasant is next forced to convey the collector's 
 share to town without remuneration, to feed his 
 numerous satellites, to bring him presents of poultry, 
 lambs, and forage, which latter produce is not tithed. 
 He has no means of redress, for the voice of the 
 all-powerful Council drowns every complaint. The 
 Pasha is appealed to, and shrugs his shoulders. 
 
 ' Still the agricultural population is not plunged 
 in that hopeless state of destitution which might be 
 expected under these conditions : so rich is the soil, 
 so industrious and frugal the labourer. 
 
 ' In the towns, until quite lately, trade and 
 manufacturers were in a nourishing state. Since the 
 revival, however, of the old feelings of aversion and 
 animosity between the Mussulman and Christian 
 communities, ,a disadvantageous change has con- 
 sequently become apparent also in the material cir- 
 cumstances of the population. Want of confidence 
 in the future is withdrawing capital from circula- 
 tion ; trade stagnates ; and one-half of the looms 
 previously worked are now at rest.'* 
 
 Of the province of Erzeroom, ' containing about 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 pp. 48, 49. 
 
46 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 fifteen hundred villages,' we read : — ' A correct cen- 
 sus, I believe, is not desired by the Turks, who are 
 conscious of a very sensible decrease in the Mussul- 
 man population in many provinces, and naturally 
 would not like to publish this fact.'* 
 
 In Mr Senior's diary, again, occurs the following 
 picture of the depopulation which is going on in 
 Armenia: f — 'Saturday, October 2-Wi. — I sat at dinner 
 next to V. W., who has just returned from the 
 frontier separating Turkish and Russian Armenia. 
 
 ' He gave a frightful account of the misgovern - 
 ment of Turkish Armenia. 
 
 ' " It is such," he said, " that the people are 
 wishing for the Russians. A new Pasha — and there 
 is one every three or four years — sends word of his 
 arrival to all the subordinate 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." 
 
 ' " And how," I said, " do those who have bribed 
 him get back their money ? " 
 
 1 " By increasing the taxation," he answered, 
 "by not accounting for the public receipts, by wink- 
 
 • Narrative of the Siege of Ears. By Humphry Sand- 
 with, M. D. London, 1856. P. 60. 
 f Senior, pp. 138-9. 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 47 
 
 ing at breaches of quarantine laws, or non-payment 
 of custom-house dues, by selling justice, and through 
 the corves. The last is a fertile source of profit. 
 The Pasha is making a progress ; the villages in his 
 line have to furnish camels and horses ; the Nazir 
 requires twice as many, or five times as many, as are 
 really 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 cannot buy 
 themselves off ; they are forced to travel with their 
 beasts for ten or for twenty days, unpaid, carrying 
 their own food and that of their 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 depo- 
 pulation. You see vast districts without an in- 
 habitant, in which are the traces of a large and civil- 
 ized people, great works for irrigation now in ruins, 
 and constant remains of deserted towns. There is a 
 city near the frontier with high walls and large 
 stone houses, now absolutely uninhabited ; it had 
 once 60,000 inhabitants. There is not a palace on 
 the Bosphorus that has not decimated the inhabitants 
 of a province.' 
 
 A like spectacle is presented in the Troad. In 
 the same volume from which, the last extract has 
 
48 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 been taken, Mr Senior reports a conversation which 
 he had with Mr Calvert in these words : * — ' " 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 circuit of thirty miles you will find three Greek 
 villages, Runkoi, Yenekoi, and Yenisher, all thriving, 
 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 the 
 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 
 third, which, twenty years ago, was a considerable 
 village, has only three/' ' 
 
 Let us turn to another of the provinces of this 
 empire. On leaving Constantinople Mr Senior 
 reports the words of a friend well acquainted with 
 the whole of Turkey : — ' " You are going/' he con- 
 tinued, " 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. You will not see an 
 inhabitant nor a cultivated field. This is Turkey. 
 * Senior, p. 163. 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 49 
 
 In Greece, or in the Principalities, you will find 
 comparative numbers, wealth, and population. They 
 have been misgoverned ; they have been the seat of 
 war ; but they have thrown off the Turk." ' * 
 
 And again : — ' In towns where there were 3000 
 Turks five or six years ago, there are now not 
 2000. f ... In the provinces of the Dardanelles, the 
 deaths exceed the births by about six per cent. 
 
 ' When we recollect that the Greek population 
 is increasing, and, therefore, that the Turks alone 
 suffer this excess of deaths, we may infer that they 
 are, as has often been said to me, rapidly dying 
 out.' % 
 
 Nor is all this the inevitable result of any past 
 policy which has now been abandoned. It exists 
 still. The progress of ruin is going on before our 
 eyes. Nay, it gathers force every day. Mr Skene 
 contrasts the state of the country round Aleppo with 
 what it was only twenty years before the date of his 
 report. Within that district, he says, * one hundred 
 villages ' had been entirely obliterated during the 
 period of twenty years. The desolation is insepar- 
 able from Turkish rule in the nineteenth century. 
 It is not the consequence of Mussulman power 
 
 * Senior, p. 148. t Ibid. p. 191. % Ibid. p. 184. 
 
50 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 merely, it is distinctively Turkish. During the brief 
 rule of Mehemet Ali, Syria was beginning to be 
 repeopled, and its waste places to be cultivated. Mr 
 Brant, our consul at Damascus, writing in June, 
 1858, says : — ' I have already sent a report on the 
 trade of Damascus, but I conceive it would be incom- 
 plete were I not to add a sketch of the state and 
 administration of the Paschalic. In the report I 
 said that, while the province was in the occupation 
 of Mehemet Ali Pasha, many deserted cities and 
 villages were reinhabited, and their lands brought 
 again under cultivation. This was particularly the 
 case in the Hauran, in the country round Hainan, 
 and generally on the confines of the Desert. In 
 these places the Arabs were made to respect authority, 
 and the settled inhabitants were effectually secured 
 against their depredations. 
 
 ' The whole of Syria was placed under the civil 
 administration of Sheriff Pasha, and Ibrahim Pasha 
 commanded the army, which amounted to 40,000 
 troops, regular and irregular. The able administra- 
 tion of the former increased the prosperity and 
 improved the finances of the country as much as 
 the activity and energy of the latter promoted 
 security and confidence. The Government was 
 certainly considered harsh, but it could scarcely, 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 51 
 
 indeed, have been otherwise regarded, for it had to 
 reform so many abuses, and to substitute system and 
 equity for the disorder, license, and fanaticism which 
 prevailed. The upper grades, the Effendis and 
 Aghas, were most discontented, for they enriched 
 themselves by the plunder and oppression of the 
 industrious classes ; but the latter were pleased to 
 find themselves freed from the tyranny they had so 
 long groaned under, and the Christians were 
 particularly delighted at being shielded from the 
 fanaticism which had reduced them to a state of 
 intolerable degradation. The peasantry were not 
 less contented ; for, although the fixed taxes were 
 rigorously exacted, no more was demanded, and no 
 one was allowed to seize their produce without pay- 
 ment, to extort from them anything at less than its 
 value, or to force them to render services without a 
 fair remuneration. The Mussulmans were subjected 
 to a conscription, then a novelty, which was a source 
 of serious discontent, but the Christians paying 
 Haratch were exempt from military service. The 
 peasants who had reoccupied abandoned villages 
 were assisted with loans to repair the houses and to 
 supply themselves with stock, and enjoj^ed besides 
 immunity from taxes for three years ; every en- 
 couragement, in short, was held out to increase 
 
52 THE CHEISTIANS OF TUKKEY. 
 
 production, and sometimes even troops, with Ibrahim 
 Pasha at their head, went out to destroy the eggs 
 and young of the locusts. 
 
 ' Under a system so vigorous, equitable, and con- 
 siderate, the country was gradually advancing in 
 prosperity, and, had the Egyptian rule continued, 
 Syria would have regained a great portion of its 
 ancient populousness and wealth, of which evident 
 traces are visible in the remains of innumerable 
 villages and cities spread over the Hauran, as well as 
 to be found far to the eastward in the Desert, where 
 also Roman roads are yet to be traced.' * 
 
 Then came the bombardment of Acre by the 
 British fleet, the departure of the Egyptians, and 
 the restoration of Syria to Turkish rule, with what 
 effect the same witness reports : — ' Scarcely were the 
 Egyptians expelled and the strong arm removed, 
 which had kept every one in due subordination to 
 the ruling Power, than resistance to authority began 
 to replace obedience, peculation and waste to be sub- 
 stituted for honesty and economy in the administra- 
 tion of the finances, revenue to decrease, the Arabs 
 again to encroach on the settled inhabitants, the 
 newly repeopled villages and lands to be gradually 
 
 * Despatches respecting apprehended disturbances in 
 Syria, pp. 22, 23. 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 53 
 
 abandoned, until, at the present moment, there is so 
 little security for person and property, that it may 
 almost be said no longer to exist, and everything 
 indicates a return to the state of anarchy in which 
 the Egyptians found the country.' 
 
 * * *■ *• * « 
 
 ' The revenue is daily diminishing, from villages 
 and lands being thrown out of cultivation. "What is 
 collected is in a great degree misapplied or plundered 
 by the employes. Money is required from Constan- 
 tinople to carry on the Government, and it is too 
 evident that financial matters must progressively 
 deteriorate, for the evils of a corrupt administration 
 are constantly extending.' * 
 
 Whatever energy and self-reliance the Turks 
 once possessed has long since gone. To use again 
 the language of Mr Senior : — ' 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 relies on foreigners 
 for its defence. But as respects the qualities which 
 conduce to material prosperity, to riches and to 
 numbers, I do not believe that they have much 
 
 * Despatches respecting apprehended disturbances in 
 Syria, p. 23. 
 
54 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 changed. I do not believe that they are more idle, 
 wasteful, 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. When they first swarmed 
 over Asia Minor, Roumelia, and Bulgaria, they 
 seized on a country very populous and of enormous 
 wealth. For 350 years they kept on consuming that 
 wealth and wearing out that population. If a Turk 
 wanted a house or a garden, he turned out a Rayah ; 
 if he wanted money, he put a bullet into a handker- 
 chief, tied it into a knot, and sent it to the nearest 
 opulent Greek or Armenian. At last, having lived 
 for three centuries and a half on their capital of 
 things and of man, 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 mis- 
 chievous 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 popular 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 
 Turkish part of Smyrna, which looks so gay and 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 55 
 
 smiling, as its picturesque 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 will not 
 bring up ; sometimes a male killed by the mother to 
 spite the father. Infanticide is rather the rule than 
 the exception. No inquiry is made, no notice is 
 taken by the police." * * 
 
 But it is impossible to give all the facts which 
 may be gathered from the Parliamentary papers 
 issued of late years on the state of Syria and of 
 Turkey in general, and to cite the evidence of wit- 
 nesses worthy of confidence. Nor, indeed, is it 
 necessary to accumulate evidence on a point about 
 which there is no dispute. To use the words of the 
 late Lord Carlisle when surveying, not a province 
 merely, but the whole extent of the Turkish em- 
 pire : — ' "When you leave the partial splendours of 
 the capital, and the great state establishments, what 
 is it you find over this broad surface of a land, which 
 nature and climate have favoured beyond all others, 
 once the home of all art and all civilization ? Look 
 yourself — ask those who live there; — deserted vil- 
 
 * Senior, pp. 211-12. 
 
56 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 lages, uncultivated plains, banditti-haunted moun- 
 tains, torpid laws, a corrupt administration, a disap- 
 pearing people.'* 
 
 This, then, is the testimony which even the 
 physical features of the country bear against the 
 Turkish rule. In the nineteenth century, large 
 tracts of what, thirty, twenty — nay, ten — years ago 
 was a smiling and a fruitful land, cultivated with all 
 the care of garden husbandry, and rivalling for 
 beauty the best parts of the plains of Lombardy and 
 of Flanders, have now become portions of the desert. 
 From the shores of the Bosphorus, under the fairest 
 sky, amid the most beautiful scenery, with a soil the 
 most fertile of any in the world, surrounded by the 
 ruins of ancient glory and civilization, the traveller 
 now may wander for more than a hundred miles 
 without meeting with a trace of the dwellings of 
 man, save here and there the ruins which his horse 
 tramples under its hoofs. If he asks for the inhabit- 
 ants, he will hear only of graves, of heartless 
 massacres, and of terrible martyrdoms on a gigantic 
 scale, with pashas for the executioners, and grand 
 viziers for the instigators. The desert is rapidly 
 encroaching on the fertile land, and the sand is 
 
 * Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, by the Earl of 
 Carlisle. Second edition. London, 1854. P. 184. 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 57 
 
 covering what was, a quarter of a century ago, the 
 abode of industrious and happy peasants. The land 
 was ' as the garden of Eden ; ' it is now ' a desolate 
 wilderness.' 
 
 In 1830 Smyrna contained 80,000 Turkish in- 
 habitants and 20,000 Christians. In 1860 the 
 Turks numbered 41,000 and the Christians 75,000* 
 Though the Christians have increased at this 
 enormous rate within thirty years, this increase has 
 been almost neutralized by the great decline of the 
 Turkish part of the inhabitants in the same period 
 of time ; and the decline is even greater in the 
 smaller towns and villages than in Smyrna. The 
 same consul from whose report these statistics are 
 taken, remarks : — ( It may be observed, in reference 
 to this question, that rapid as the increase is of the 
 Christian population, the decrease of the Turkish is 
 in a greater ratio. Yisit any town or village where 
 there is a mixed Mussulman and Christian popula- 
 tion : in the Turkish quarter no one is visible, no 
 children in the streets ; whereas in the Christian the 
 streets are full of children.' f 
 
 This is not peculiar to Smyrna or to the country 
 
 * Eeport of Mr Charles Blunt, Consul at Smyrna. Par- 
 liamentary Papers on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 31. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 32. 
 
58 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 in its neighbourhood. This decline of the one race 
 and the increase of the other is uniform throughout 
 Turkey : — ' On the continent, in the islands, it is the 
 Greek peasant who works and thrives ; the Turk 
 reclines, smokes his pipe, and decays. The Greek 
 village increases its population, and teems with 
 children ; in the Turkish village you find roofless 
 walls and crumbling mosques.' * 
 
 1 As we rode through one of the villages from 
 which the Turkish inhabitants have disappeared, my 
 companion chimed in with the universal view of the 
 rapid decay of their numbers. He gives them from 
 twenty-five to forty years before, without the help 
 of war or violence, they would entirely vanish from 
 the land.' f 
 
 This opinion is supported by the testimony of 
 Mr Finn, who, speaking of the province of Palestine, 
 tells us that there also — ' The Mahometan population 
 is dying out ; I can scarcely say slowly/ $ 
 
 To the same effect, again, Mr J. E. Blunt, 
 writing from Pristina, says : — ' While everywhere 
 
 * Lord Carlisle, Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, 
 p. 183. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 171. 
 
 X Despatches on apprehended disturbances in Syria, 1858 
 to 1860, p. 89. 
 
THE DECAY OF TURKEY. 59 
 
 there are signs that the Turks, more especially the 
 higher classes, are losing ground in population, 
 agriculture, and trade, the opposite is the case with 
 the Christians. 
 
 ' In nearly all the towns, streets — entire quarters 
 — have passed into the hands of the Christians/* 
 
 The language of Sir George Bowen, the present 
 Governor of Queensland, written a few years ago, will 
 form a fitting conclusion to this chapter. He says, 
 ' We trust that the time is not very remote, when 
 civilization, advancing gradually eastward, will 
 achieve a bloodless conquest in those European 
 provinces, where the finest country in the world has 
 long, under the barbarous despotism of the Turk, 
 been more wasted by peace than other lands have 
 been wasted by war ; where science is unknown ; 
 where arts and manufactures languish ; where agri- 
 culture decays ; where the human race itself melts 
 away.'t 
 
 * Consular Reports on Condition of Christians of Turkey, 
 p. 36. 
 
 f Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus, p. 245. 
 
60 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DECLINE OF THE TURKISH EACE. 
 
 Notwithstanding the increase of the Christian 
 subjects of Turkey, which but for the destruction of 
 life by massacres and wholesale murder would be far 
 larger, the population throughout the empire is still 
 diminishing, and that in consequence of the enor- 
 mous decrease of the Mussulmans. Thus this 
 depopulation arises from two different causes : — (1) 
 From the dying out of the dominant race ; and this 
 diminution of the number of the Turkish inhabitants 
 is going on at so rapid a rate as to threaten their 
 total extinction within a comparatively short time. 
 (2) From the frequent massacres of Christians, 
 either such as are heard of in Europe because of the 
 large number of lives which are lost — like those 
 which took place some eighteen years ago in the 
 Lebanon, in Damascus, at Jeddah, and other places 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH EACE. 61 
 
 in Asia, and that in Bulgaria during the spring of 
 the present year — or those massacres which occur 
 daily on a smaller scale^ but which in the aggregate 
 are even more destructive to life than those which 
 led to the French occupation of Syria, and furnished 
 much anxious employment to diplomatists. Of these 
 two elements of ruin, it will be necessary to speak 
 only of the first, which, from its nature, is generally 
 kept out of sight in the account which travellers 
 give us of that country. Most travellers and writers 
 on Turkey act as Lord Carlisle did, who says, 
 ' Upon the state of morals I debar myself from 
 entering/* And yet this is the most important 
 matter for consideration when the state and prospects 
 of an empire are to be examined. It is not surpris- 
 ing, however, that men who know what the state of 
 morals is shrink from so repulsive a subject. I 
 cannot pass it by ; it would be unfair to do so. In 
 it consists much of the misery which the Christians 
 suffer. I cannot, however — I will not attempt to — 
 give in detail that which it is in my power to give, 
 mindful of the injunction, ' Uncleanness or covetous- 
 ness (-7rAeoi>e£ta), let it not be once named among you, 
 
 * Lord Carlisle, Diary in Turkish and Greek "Waters, 
 p. 182. 
 
62 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 as becometh saints.'* I must content myself with 
 vague words; the subject permits of no other. 
 
 Polygamy is said to be generally less conducive 
 to the increase of mankind than monogamy. The 
 wide-spread practice of infanticide amongst all 
 classes is a reason why the Turkish part of the popu- 
 lation should not merely be stationary but diminish. 
 Conscription for the army, which is raised entirely 
 from the Mussulman portion of the population, has 
 also an important influence in the same direction. 
 But all these causes combined will not account for 
 the fact that the Turks are rapidly becoming extinct. 
 At best, these causes would but check or diminish 
 the natural rate of increase. The evil lies far deeper. 
 It is one, however, which cannot be laid bare. The 
 hideous revolting profligacy of all classes, and almost 
 every individual in every class, is the main cause for 
 the diminution. This is a canker which has eaten 
 into the very vitals of society. It is one, however, 
 which has taken so loathsome a form that no pen 
 dares describe the immoral state of Turkish society. 
 It must be abandoned to vague generalities, for 
 happily the imagination cannot picture the abomina- 
 tions which are fast exterminating the whole Turk- 
 
 * Ephes. v. 3. 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 63 
 
 ish race. If, at the certainty of outraging decency, 
 some hints even were given, they would necessarily 
 fall so far short of the truth that they would have 
 the effect of eulogy by making men believe that the 
 horrid details of guilt revealed in any degree the real 
 corruption of this deeply polluted race. I speak 
 thus advisedly. 
 
 I have the evidence now before me of persons at 
 present resident in Turkey, as well as of English 
 officers high in the civil service, whose duties have 
 made them acquainted with the real state of society 
 in Turkey ; and in addition to these, I have a volu- 
 minous report addressed to me by a distinguished 
 foreigner, formerly a colonel in the Turkish service, 
 and, from the varied offices which he has filled in 
 that country, of all men one of the most competent 
 witnesses. I have all this evidence before me, but it 
 is so disgusting and obscene that I dare not make 
 use of it. The Satires of Juvenal and Petronius 
 Arbiter are decorous in comparison. Students may 
 remember how rabbinical writers describe the sins of 
 the Amorites and other inhabitants of the land of 
 Canaan, who for their revolting sins were driven out 
 by the children of Israel.* That description gives 
 
 * As, for instance, Maimonides, in ' More Nevochim,' 
 § Precepts of the second class. 
 
64 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 but a partial picture of what is the present state of 
 Turkish society. The Cities of the Plain were de- 
 stroyed for sins which are the common, normal, 
 every-day practice of this people. 
 
 And, be it remembered, I am not speaking of the 
 dregs of society — the outcasts of humanity — herding 
 together at Constantinople or Damascus ; I speak of 
 grand viziers, of powerful pashas, of many of the 
 present ministers of the Sultan. I read often in 
 Blue Books and in the speeches of the supporters of 
 
 Turkey, of Pasha, the friend of England ; or 
 
 ■ Pasha, the enlightened Minister for 
 
 Affairs. I am told of their intelligence, but no one 
 will become sponsor for their honesty, still less for 
 their morality. The utmost that could be said by 
 an English Ambassador, whose words have been 
 already quoted, was, that what they ' ostentatiously 
 and constantly ' assert can hardly be untrue. This is 
 the first time, so far as my experience serves, that 
 ostentatiousness has been supposed to be a guarantee 
 for the truthfulness of any statement. But it is 
 not necessary to call the English Ambassador as a 
 witness in this matter. It is perfectly notorious 
 that these pashas, these ministers, are men so foul 
 and obscene in their lives, that the ' most infamous 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 65 
 
 ruffians of the Haymarket ' * would shrink from 
 them as beings sunk immeasurably beneath them- 
 selves, and as too polluted for companionship. And 
 yet these advisers of the Sultan are the men who 
 were eulogized by Mr Layard in the House of Com- 
 mons as ' good and worthy.' f That gentleman's 
 standard of goodness and of worth seems a peculiar 
 one. Several at least of the present advisers of the 
 Sultan were educated in the harem (the rest of my 
 sentence must of necessity be in a dead language) 
 atque ibi cinaedi et pathici juventutem agebant. 
 Iisdem in gubernationem regni promovendis primus 
 ad honores et imperia gradus extitit quod libidini 
 regiaB morigerentur. Ea autem ipsa flagitia quibus 
 in pueritia et adolescentia, sunt imbuti maturi viri 
 consequuntur, et pueros haud paucos, in quibus libi- 
 dinem exerceant, a3que ac puellas, in domiis secre- 
 tiore parte conservare solent.J If these are the 
 ' good and worthy men ' of Turkey, what are the 
 ordinary inhabitants of that country ? And what 
 
 * See Mr Gregory's Speech in the House of Commons, 
 May 29, 1863. 
 
 t See Mr Layard's Speech, in Morning Star, May 30, 
 1863. 
 
 \ These words were applied to the Ministers of the Porte 
 of 1862. I have no knowledge as to the present Ministers. 
 
 5 
 
66 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 honesty, what forbearance, what truth can be ex- 
 pected when these are the rulers of the Ottoman 
 Empire ? But I dare not pursue this subject. 
 
 In a letter already quoted, which was read by Mr 
 Cobden in the House of Commons on the occasion of 
 a debate on the Eastern Question, occurs the follow- 
 ing passage : — ' Few of you in England know the 
 real horrors of this country. You will see what I 
 mean when I tell you my intention of getting a 
 number of tracts, in Turkish, written or lithographed, 
 to be distributed by a Turk on the bridges, &c. The 
 tract is to 'consist of such passages as the history of 
 Sodom and Gomorrah. What can we hope to do 
 with this people ? One Englishman, who has to do 
 with multitudes of them, reckons those who are inno- 
 cent of this hideous vice at two in a hundred. A 
 Turkish teacher told an European that those who 
 were guiltless as to that are two in a thousand. 
 Stories of assaults, sub dio, effected or attempted, 
 have come to me one after another. These people 
 must be held together ? What is our policy support- 
 ing ? Are we not responsible for corruption which 
 breeds by our fostering ? Some one asked me how 
 to account for this in a people the most moral of all — 
 the English people — that these deepest immoralities 
 should be maintained by their patronage ? I replied, 
 
DECLINE OP THE TURKISH RACE. 67 
 
 they are for the most part quite ignorant, or unwill- 
 ing to believe what they hear. Still, it is a condition 
 of morals which makes khans and baths and lonely 
 places dangerous to the unwary. . . . 
 
 * . . . Believe me (my authority is the best), it 
 is a question of time ; the decay of the Turkish 
 people is going on rapidly ; their numbers are fast 
 decreasing through vice, disease, neglect, and the 
 conscription.' * 
 
 It is painful to print even this extract, though 
 what it reveals is only an approximation to the "hor- 
 rors and licentiousness of Turkish society. It is 
 better, however, to shock the reader rather than that, 
 through ignorance, we should continue to ' maintain/ 
 to ' foster/ and to ' patronize ' such a condition of 
 society. Half the world knows what we are doing : 
 it is high time that we were also conscious, and that 
 we should consider whether any theory, or fancy, or 
 chimera about the balance of power, or the ' integrity 
 of Turkey/ will justify our maintenance of such un- 
 speakable wickedness. 
 
 It is this corruption, this revolting form of brutal 
 sensuality, which makes the presence of a Turkish 
 
 * Letter addressed to Rev. Ernest Hawkins, 8th January, 
 1863, MSS. in Archives of the Society for the Propagation of 
 the Gospel. 
 
68 THE CHRISTIANS OP TURKEY. 
 
 garrison so grievous a wrong to the Christians in its 
 neighbourhood. If in Constantinople — in the chief 
 city of the empire — in the presence of European 
 civilization, a state of things exists which ' makes 
 khans and baths and lonely places dangerous to the 
 unwary,' what must be the condition of the people 
 who, in Servia, in Bulgaria, or in Syria, live near 
 these abodes of sin and pollution, with a fierce fana- 
 tical soldiery free from all moral restraints, and en- 
 couraged by their officers in every act of hostility 
 towards the Christians ? It is unnatural horrors of 
 this kind, even more than the numerous murders and 
 acts of rapine which mark the presence of a Turkish 
 garrison, against which the inhabitants of Belgrade 
 and the Prince of , Servia protested. They prayed, 
 until at length the Turkish garrison was withdrawn 
 from that city, that their young children might be 
 spared the sight of deeds which defiled at times the 
 esplanade of the fortress. They prayed that they 
 might have some safeguard that their sons may no 
 longer be carried off. . . . 
 
 It cannot be that the other races who inhabit 
 Turkey will always pray in vain to a Christian 
 people. If treaties be pleaded as a hindrance to 
 our active assistance in their behalf, let us at any 
 rate not encourage the wrongdoers in the perpetra- 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 69 
 
 tion of these acts of abomination and wickedness. 
 Nuy, rather let the sight and the love which we bear 
 our own children, sheltered happily from such 
 dangers, quicken our sympathies for the oppressed, 
 and move us to desire at least that they may soon 
 possess that liberty which is our inheritance ; but, 
 above all, that they may obtain that freedom from 
 the contamination of those horrid forms of vice to 
 which all are exposed who are forced to live in con- 
 tact with Turks. 
 
 So far as can be gathered from the testimony of 
 travellers, from the evidence furnished by Parlia- 
 mentary papers, and from the imperfect statistics 
 which we possess of various provinces of Turkey, as 
 well as from the refusal to allow any statistical 
 returns to be officially made, lest they should reveal 
 the real condition of the empire, the Turkish element 
 in the population ^11 be extinct within sixty years ; 
 and should the present rate of decrease continue, 
 within less than one generation the Ottoman power 
 will necessarily have ceased to exist. The question, 
 a deeply interesting one to ourselves, naturally sug- 
 gests itself — What is to be the policy of England 
 under these circumstances ? Is another generation 
 of Turkish subjects to be reared under their present 
 oppressors, and the whole nation be educated in bitter 
 
70 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 hostility and hatred to England because of the sup- 
 port, I will not call it moral, which we give to this 
 loathsome despotism. 
 
 Let us remember — ' 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 Russians through their political 
 agents, the French through their missionaries and 
 schools, are striving to make them hate and despise 
 us/* 
 
 Judging from the policy of our public men we 
 seem desirous of teaching the future masters of Asia 
 Minor, of Syria, and of Eoumelia to ' hate and de- 
 spise us/ An impression prevails throughout Turkey 
 that England is the firm and unscrupulous ally of the 
 Sultan. Young Turkey — the scoffing Mussulman 
 who has broken away from even the restraint of the 
 Koran — with a significant gesture indicative of the 
 most polluted idea, passes his judgment upon the 
 unnatural alliance of England and Turkey, and pays 
 us the compliment of exclaiming, 'We are all 
 brothers, the English and the Tosques — we are all 
 Framasouns (infidels)/ f When the Druse chieftains 
 
 * Senior, p. 219. 
 
 t Layard's Nineveh. Yol. I. p. 163. Third edition. 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 71 
 
 massacred, with unspeakable atrocities, the Christians 
 of the Lebanon, it was done not only at the instiga- 
 tion of the Court of Constantinople, but with the 
 belief that it would be pleasing to the Queen of 
 England, who, as the ruler of that ' infidel ' nation, 
 and the devoted ally, and, as they believe, tributary 
 of the Sultan, must needs rejoice at the slaughter of 
 the Christians.* After the massacres in Bulgaria the 
 Turkish newspapers published an alleged telegram 
 from "Windsor to the effect that, come what might, 
 the Queen of England had promised not to desert the 
 cause of the Sultan, and the Bashi-bazouks, according 
 to the correspondent of the Times at Constantinople, 
 went to the war against Servia with the conviction 
 that England had even guaranteed them their pay. 
 If this is the belief, the firm belief, of the ruling 
 race — and if, unhappity, our actions as a nation give 
 currency to this notion — it is not to be wondered if 
 the subject race should be reared in the same belief, 
 and that they should begin to look upon the people 
 of this country as their natural and implacable 
 foes ; the more hateful because gratuitously joining 
 in acts of wrong from which no benefit can accrue ; 
 for, of all persecutors, the amateur persecutor 
 
 * Correspondence on the Affairs of Syria, June, 1 860, p. 55. 
 
72 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 is the most intolerable. There are sad indi- 
 cations that this belief is gaining ground. Let 
 me first speak of my own experience. A few years 
 ago I visited three of the Servian monasteries, 
 having received from the Metropolitan of Servia a 
 letter of commendation to all the clergy of that 
 country. ' On my presenting the letter of the arch- 
 bishop to a monk at one of these monasteries (Rako- 
 witza), he remarked that he had read much about the 
 English nation, but had never before met with any 
 of my fellow-countrymen, as few Englishmen ever 
 came to Servia. " And what has led you," said he, 
 " to this country ? " I answered, that I had come 
 partly in quest of health, and partly to see something 
 more of the state of the Greek Church. " Then am 
 I to understand," he rejoined, " that, though an 
 Englishman, you are a friend of Servia ? " I 
 told him that I knew no reason why an Englishman 
 should be held to be hostile to Servia. "How, 
 then," he added, " is it I find in the newspapers 
 that whenever any act of oppression and cruelty 
 by the Turks towards our people is complained 
 of, members of the British Parliament always rise 
 up to excuse and justify the Turks? Why is it," 
 he continued, with animation, "you who are the 
 great, the greatest civilizers in Europe, invariably 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 73 
 
 support the cause of those who are most hostile 
 to all civilization — the Turks — against us, who are 
 doing our best to follow your example t '* * * 
 
 This is a wide-spread feeling amongst all classes. 
 I cite, from the letter of a friend, a recent instance 
 of the same feeling in Asia : — ' On one occasion 
 lately, an English traveller arrived at the house of an 
 American missionary. He was hospitably welcomed, 
 but before he had ^been long in the house where he 
 intended to sleep he observed that there was a 
 domestic commotion, and anxiety on the face of the 
 missionary. It was evident that, in some way or 
 another, he was the cause of this. He therefore in- 
 sisted on an explanation, when the latter informed 
 him that the servants had mutinied — they refused 
 to do anything for one of the enemies of Christianity, 
 an Englishman. Such is the result of our Eastern 
 policy.' 
 
 Instances of this kind might be multiplied without 
 end. Fortunately, this hostility, which our recent 
 policy is engendering, is only in the bud. The 
 Christians of the East, from Montenegro to the 
 borders of Persia, still turn their eyes to England in 
 all their sufferings ; and proportionably to their ex- 
 
 l* Servia and the Servians. By the Eev. W. Denton, p. 237. 
 
74 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 pectations, their feelings are made bitter by disap- 
 pointment. To them, France is known chiefly as 
 the advocate of the Roman Church and the armed 
 assertor of Papal supremacy, and this will always 
 interpose a barrier between that nation and the 
 Christians of the East. Russia they dread as a 
 gigantic power on their frontier, which would absorb 
 them, to the loss of all national existence, and they 
 turn away from her with fear, proportionate to her 
 nearness and her strength. Austria, chiefly known 
 to the people on the borders of the Danube by petty, 
 stupid, vexatious acts of tyranny, as well as by her 
 religious intolerance, is more odious than Russia, 
 though in her case hatred is softened down and 
 mitigated by contempt. England, from its distance, 
 from the nature of its Government, and its separation 
 from Rome, as well as because of its material interests 
 in the trade of these nations, is regarded as their 
 natural protector. This is a feeling to be fostered, 
 not to be turned awry and embittered, to serve the 
 interests of a few individuals amongst ourselves, or 
 to satisfy the unreasoning prejudices of the many. 
 
 But if the indifference to the condition of the 
 Christians of Turkey is so general in this country, 
 and if the belief in the necessity of maintaining what 
 is called ' the integrity of Turkey ' is so deeply rooted 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 75 
 
 in the minds of Englishmen, how, it may be asked, 
 has this arisen ? How comes it that this opinion has 
 so much vitality ? It springs from one cause : the 
 people of this country are taught to believe that the 
 Christians of Turkey are conspirators against what 
 Sir Henry Bulwer calls the ' tolerant ' rule of the 
 Sultan for the purpose of aggrandizing Russia. This 
 one assertion, iterated, by interested speculators and 
 repeated by unreasoning politicians, deafen the ears 
 of Englishmen to the testimony of unprejudiced 
 travellers, blinds their eyes to notorious facts, and 
 dulls their intellect to the voice of reason. The 
 supporters of Turkey know the value of this ' idol of 
 the imagination/ and are always ready to brandish 
 it before our eyes whenever we appear disposed to 
 act independently, and in the interests of humanity, 
 which is one with that of England. When it was 
 desirable that ' our consular agents ' should testify 
 that Turkish rule was ' tolerant,' that the Christians 
 were not oppressed, and that the assertions of the 
 Russian note were untrue, this fear was skilfully 
 played upon. In the circular of the 11th of June, 
 addressed to ' our consular agents,' the Ambassador 
 informs them in words which, if true, must have 
 sounded to them superfluous: — 'I have also been 
 made acquainted, through the channel of our con- 
 
76 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 sular agents, as well as by other means, that great 
 efforts have of late been made by persons of various 
 kinds — not identified with, or belonging to, the 
 native population — to get up discontent amongst the 
 population, and to excite them to make complaints 
 that may reach the ear of the European Powers ; and 
 that in this way the Slave population has been 
 especially brought to imagine that it may obtain, 
 through foreign protection, great advantages, and 
 even arrive at an independent existence. 
 
 ' I have likewise been informed that a conspiracy 
 among the Slavonian race, with the object of making 
 a revolution in this empire, actually exists — with 
 chiefs selected, and plans more or less defined — and 
 that though such conspiracy may not, at this moment, 
 be formidable, its leaders imagine it may become so 
 by exciting the sympathies of the great western and 
 northern states.' 
 
 Let us, however, listen to the words of competent 
 witnesses, recorded by Mr Senior. Speaking of the 
 Christians in European Turkey, he says: — 'They 
 all, without any exception, hate Russia, and look for 
 support and protection to England.* 
 
 1 The Bulgarians hate not only the Russians, but 
 the Greeks, and so do the Roumelians, until you 
 
 * Senior, p. 34. 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 77 
 
 reach Thessaly, where the Greek race prevails, and 
 a desire for union with their brethren in the war of 
 independence is naturally felt. 
 
 ' " What is the feeling," I asked, " of Servia, 
 Bosnia, and the Principalities ? " 
 
 '"A general hatred of all their neighbours. 
 They hate the Russians, the Austrians, the Greeks, 
 and the Turks. What they really wish for is inde- 
 pendence, at least the virtual independence which 
 has 'been gained by Servia." ' * 
 
 In the same volume Mr Whittall, of Smyrna, is 
 cited as a witness to the same effect : — ' The Greeks 
 dream of nothing but a Greek empire, to be created 
 by the help of Russia. They despise the Russians 
 as slaves and savages, but they hope to make use of 
 them, and then to throw them off.' f 
 
 The words of another person are quoted by Mr 
 Senior to the same purpose : — ' We sympathize with 
 the Russians only as the enemies of the Turks. 
 Their whole system of government, of trade, of 
 thought, and of feeling is repulsive to us. Our 
 strongest feeling is the desire to preserve our 
 nationality; 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 
 * Senior, p. 35. f Ibid. p. 205. 
 
78 THE CHEISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 Constantinople or about the doctrines which separate 
 us from the Roman 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-barbarous mass 
 of Russia, or even to become one of its satellites.' * 
 
 And this is borne out by notorious facts. The 
 provinces of Turkey are in a chronic state of discon- 
 tent through the daily outrages perpetrated on the 
 Christians, which are less the result of the fanaticism 
 of the Mussulman people than of the deliberate 
 policy of the Sultan and his Ministers. At no 
 period during the present century was there more 
 quiet in these provinces than during the war in the 
 Crimea, when the Turkish troops occupied in 
 struggling against the Russians were withdrawn 
 from the interior of Turkey. Now, had there 
 existed any understanding with Russia, surely Bul- 
 garia, Servia, Bosnia, Epirus, and Syria would have 
 risen in arms, and, by so doing, have seriously 
 embarrassed the Western Powers. They remained 
 quiet, however. It was no part of their policy to 
 unite with Russia, and this alone kept these pro- 
 vinces from revolt, although denuded of Turkish 
 
 * Senior, p. 215. 
 
DECLINE OF THE TURKISH RACE. 79 
 
 troops.* The Montenegrins, it is notorious, have 
 refused all offers of Russian protection, with the 
 proud declaration that they would remain independ- 
 ent both of Turkey and of Russia. A few years ago 
 we were all of us taught to believe that Greece was 
 but the vassal and bond-slave of Russia, and that all 
 intrigues in that country were but to pave the way 
 for some imaginary prince from St Petersburg or 
 Moscow, who should convert Greece, from being ' a 
 mere outpost of Russia/ into an integral part of that 
 empire. I hope we are all of us ashamed of our old 
 belief. I trust we shall for the future show less 
 credulous confidence in our blind guides. This 
 notion is getting too absurd to be maintained any 
 longer. It is hardly worthy of serious refutation. 
 Men may in desperation rush from grievous tyranny 
 to some milder form of despotism, because unable to 
 achieve their entire freedom ; but races half eman- 
 cipated, provinces virtually independent, are not 
 prone to immolate themselves, and to quench their 
 young life, by voluntary submission to a new 
 
 * 'In the Crimean War the Servians resisted every 
 attempt to induce them to arm against the Turks in favour 
 of Eussia. . . They steadily refused to take part in any 
 war against Turkey, and remained faithful throughout the 
 war to the Suzerain power.' — Speech of A. H. Layard, Esq. 
 Murray, 1863. 
 
80 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 master. History gives us no instances of such 
 madness, and we can but appeal to experience on 
 such a matter. Let us therefore dismiss this delu- 
 sion to the limbo of ghosts, as a bugbear which may 
 be useful to terrify children, but which ought to be 
 powerless to make men turn aside from the path of 
 right ; for in fact, the notion that Servia, that Bul- 
 garia, Bosnia, or Asia Minor, have secret relations 
 with Russia, is so evidently a delusion, that it does 
 not allow of serious argument. We have lived to see 
 table-turning practised and spirit-rapping believed 
 in, but to contend that there is a spirit- medium 
 between Russia and the Christians of the East, is to 
 own that we have sunk even below the credulity of 
 those who think that mahogany and oak are in 
 conspiracy with angels or demons, and that articles 
 of domestic furniture really turn round through the 
 effect of ' foreign intrigues/ 
 
 In truth, neither the agents of Russia nor of any 
 other Power could persuade the large Christian com- 
 munities in Turkey to be dissatisfied with their lot, 
 unless there existed causes for discontent. The fact 
 that these races, widely separated from each other 
 and possessing few means of intercourse, are all of 
 them profoundly dissatisfied with their lot, is, at least, 
 some ground for believing that their condition is one 
 
DECLINE OF THE TUKKISH RACE. 81 
 
 of suffering and of injustice. Nations goaded to 
 madness by oppression are often mistaken in the 
 remedies to which they resort for deliverance from 
 their wrongs ; hut no intrigues can persuade a nation 
 that justice is injustice — that right is wrong — and 
 that freedom is bondage. 
 
 Here, however, we are not left to the testimony of 
 the sufferers themselves. The pains and penalties 
 attaching to the profession of Christianity are too 
 patent: the sharp cry of anguish has so often 
 reached even the ears of the people of Western 
 Europe, that we cannot refuse to believe in the exist- 
 ence of wide-spread, capricious, and bitter suffering. 
 Hence for the last thirty years the public feeling of 
 Europe has constantly demanded an amelioration of 
 the hard lot of the Christian subjects of the Porte. 
 The assistance rendered to Turkey by this country 
 at the time of the Crimean war was fettered with 
 this one condition, that as a return for such assistance 
 the Government of that country should guarantee, I 
 will not say equality, but a removal of some of the 
 more galling inequalities of the position of the people 
 of Turkey. This has been promised by the Ministers 
 of successive Sultans, this has been embodied in 
 solemn public treaties with the Great Powers of 
 
 6 
 
82 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Christendom, this has been written in Hatt-i-Sherifs, 
 Hatt-i-Humaiouns, and — not one item of these 
 treaties, not one single provision of any of these 
 Hatts, have ever been fulfilled by the Government 
 of Turkey. 
 
83 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 
 
 It is an ever-ready but a vulgar excuse to attri- 
 bute all popular discontent to ' foreign intrigues/ 
 That foreign agents may stimulate the urgency of 
 an oppressed people for redress is possible, but their 
 power is limited ; they can do no more than this, 
 and these foreign agents will be disarmed when 
 people cease to suffer. In place, then, of attributing 
 the notorious dissatisfaction, the wide-spread dis- 
 content, of the Christians of Turkey to ' foreign 
 intrigues/ it would be more to the purpose to inquire 
 whether there does not exist ample and legitimate 
 grounds for such dissatisfaction. 
 
 When in England we hear of brigandage in 
 Bosnia, of sullen discontent in Bulgaria, we are told 
 it is the work of Russian agents and of Muscovite 
 intrigues. Russia probably denies the charge and 
 
84 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 retorts the accusation, pointing in support of her 
 belief that England is intriguing in Turkey, to the 
 notorious partiality of the Foreign Office of this 
 country, the readiness with which every abominable 
 and atrocious act of the governors of Turkey is 
 palliated, and actions the simplest and most natural 
 of an oppressed people are exaggerated by British 
 officials. France certainly makes the same charges 
 against England which English politicians make 
 against Russia, and is as uneasy at the success 
 of English intrigue as any minister of state in 
 this country can be at the progress of Russian 
 agents.* All this may possibly arise from the 
 jealousy with which men watch the actions of a 
 rival, and satisfy themselves by attributing evil 
 motives where they are unable to point to evil 
 actions. On this subject let us listen, I will not 
 say even to the testimony of men of intelligence, 
 
 * ' "What is the complaint ? In 1840 there was a Turkey 
 and a Turkish Government, in 1862 there remains nothing 
 but England and an English Government. The East can 
 on longer faco decrepit mouldering Turkey, but it has to 
 encounter vigorous and powerful England. Greece, Egypt, 
 Syria, the Lebanon, Servia, the Danubian provinces, no 
 longer look to Constantinople, but to London. Turkey has 
 found the secret of being even more formidable than she was 
 in the 18th or 16th century, by being nothing of herself, and 
 of being everything through England.' — St Marc Gieaedin, 
 Revue de$ Deux Mondes, Oct. 1862. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 85 
 
 but to the voice of common sense, for, in truth, this 
 
 childish accusation of ' foreign intrigue ' is not only 
 
 beside the purpose, as wholly insufficient to account 
 
 for the discontent which reigns throughout Turkey, 
 
 but it is one which it is so easy to make, so difficult to 
 
 substantiate, so impossible to disprove, that it cannot 
 
 be allowed to stand, as it now does, instead of facts, in 
 
 the place of information, and as a substitute for reason. 
 
 The suggestion of such ' intrigues ' is often made by 
 
 English consuls and other agents in defiance of 
 
 evidence to the contrary. Compare for a moment 
 
 the confession of Turkish ministers as to the cause 
 
 of the outbreak in the Herzegovina which led to the 
 
 present war between Servia and the Porte with the 
 
 suggestion of Mr Holmes, the English consul at Bosna 
 
 Serai. Whereas the first Secretary of the Sultan, 
 
 writing to the Grand Vizier, declares ' that the causes 
 
 which produce trouble among the peaceful population 
 
 are in a great measure due to the unseemly conduct 
 
 of some incapable functionaries, and particularly to 
 
 the exactions to which the avaricious farmers of taxes 
 
 lend themselves in the hope of a larger profit.' * 
 
 Mr Holmes is sure it is all the work of ' Servian 
 
 agitators.' f 
 
 * Correspondence respecting affairs in Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina, 1876, p. 17. 
 f Ibid. p. 23. 
 
86 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 I am reminded by these words of Mr Holmes 
 of a pleasant anecdote which I was told by the 
 person chiefly concerned, at least the only one con- 
 cerned who is now alive. Some few years ago a 
 young attachi of a foreign embassy to this country, 
 now one of the foremost diplomatists in Europe, was 
 going by rail to Southampton. It chanced that at 
 the same time several of her Majesty's ministers 
 were on their way to Osborne. Lord Palmerston 
 had in his jaunty manner referred a few nights 
 before in the House of Commons to 'Russian 
 intrigues/ On this the young and zealous diplomatist 
 proceeded to lecture his Lordship, since, as he alleged, 
 the fact was notoriously in opposition to this state- 
 ment. ' I know — I know,' replied the Prime 
 Minister, ' but one can do anything one likes with 
 the Commons if only you tell them of Eussian 
 intrigues/ Lord Palmerston was probably joking 
 at the young attache's expense, but the jest was a 
 truth notwithstanding. It settles everything. It 
 atones for our shortcomings, it excuses our injustice, 
 it saves us the trouble of thinking, it invests our 
 unwisdom with the appearance of policy, if only we 
 whisper, ' Russian intrigues/ 
 
 The question then, I repeat, is not whether the 
 Christians of Turkey are ever inflamed against the 
 
FOEEIGN INTRIGUES. 87 
 
 Government of the Sultan by ' foreign intrigues,' 
 but whether, without any such ' intrigues/ there 
 exist grounds for such discontent ; whether every 
 province of Turkey, from the banks of the Danube 
 to the Red Sea, is not suffering from the gross in- 
 justice of the Government towards the people ; 
 whether the Christians of Turkey are not oppressed 
 by such rapacious rulers, that men would cease to 
 be men if they were not discontented, and that 
 whether, under such a condition of existence, ' foreign 
 intrigues' would not be needless, a mere work of 
 supererogation. 
 
 Now what do we find revealed to us in the report 
 of our own consuls, and in the reeentiy-published 
 books of men of sagacity and integrity ? Not only 
 the evidence of wide- spread dissatisfaction and dis- 
 content, but ample grounds for this feeling. The 
 people of Turkey are discontented because they 
 know that certain rights — the simplest rights which 
 humanity can claim — have been promised, and are 
 withheld from them by the Government of the Sul- 
 tan. So long as this grievance remains, it will re- 
 quire no ' foreign intrigues ' to make them dis- 
 satisfied. For though the Hatt-i-humaioun has not 
 been even read, * it cannot be a dead letter ... it 
 stimulates the hopes, and also the hatred, of the 
 
88 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Greeks. They see that the Turks are resolved to 
 render illusory stipulations made by the Allies in 
 their favour. They are/ consequently, ' if possible, 
 worse subjects of the Sultan than they were before 
 the war.'* 
 
 The Christians of Turkey, again, are naturally 
 discontented, because they know that the Govern- 
 ment of Turkey is utterly indifferent to their cries 
 for redress ; that no official throughout that country 
 troubles himself to ascertain how many of them are 
 murdered, still less to punish any one for the mur- 
 der of a Christian unless some active and trouble- 
 some consul interfere. Except in this case, which is 
 necessarily of rare occurrence, the life of a Christian 
 may be, taken with perfect impunity. In one dis- 
 trict, Mr Rogers reports that eleven hundred of 
 such murders have taken place within nineteen 
 years, ' not one of which has been avenged by law.'f 
 Of another district, a most competent witness, Dr 
 Dickson, of Smyrna, reporting the murder of a 
 Greek woman under circumstances of great atrocity 
 and the discovery of the murderer, says, ' He will be 
 released ; no Mussulman cares about the murder of a 
 
 * Senior, p. 152. 
 
 t Correspondence on Affairs of Syria, I860, 1 86 1, p. 404. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 89 
 
 Rayah/* At Beyrout the British consul reports 
 nine murders, and remarks, 'Unfortunately, no 
 effective steps are taken by the Turkish authorities 
 to repress these disorders by the capture and in- 
 fliction of condign punishment on delinquents ; in- 
 deed, Mr Abel a, the vice-consul, states that the 
 authorities in Sidon have become so accustomed to 
 the commission of these atrocities, that they no 
 longer seem to attach any gravity to them.'f There 
 is no remedy for these wrongs whilst the present 
 inequality between Mussulman and non-Mussulman 
 subjects of the Porte is maintained. So long as 
 Christian evidence is not received in a criminal 
 court, there is the most perfect impunity for the 
 murder of Christians. 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, for us to sup- 
 pose for a moment that the relatives, the friends, 
 and the co-religionists of the murdered persons are 
 perfectly satisfied with this state of things, and are 
 only made discontented, as English consuls and 
 party politicians tell us, by reason of ' foreign in- 
 trigues.' 
 
 There is indeed widespread discontent, and, 
 
 * Senior, p. 68. 
 
 t Despatches on apprehended disturbances in Syria, 1858 
 —I860, p. 95. 
 
90 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 alas ! ample cause for it. The facts we have on the 
 testimony of the English consuls in Turkey. 
 
 Mr Holmes, writing from Bosna Serai, the 
 capital of Bosnia, says : — ' I have the honour to re- 
 port to your Lordship that I find the position of 
 affairs in this province to be most unsatisfactory, 
 the opinion being generally prevalent that, without 
 some powerful intervention, Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina may soon witness scenes similar to those 
 which have lately horrified Europe in Syria. 
 
 'Reports are continually arriving here of mas- 
 sacres of Christians in different places, which, if 
 untrue, serve at least to show the existing excitement 
 and alarm. 
 
 ' On the night of the 6th the Ferik Pasha com- 
 manding the troops here left this suddenly by post, 
 taking with him his son and a few attendants. The 
 Vali Pasha declared that he had merely proceeded 
 to the Servian frontier to inspect the troops and 
 defensible positions in that direction, as several in- 
 roads had lately been made by bodies of Servian 
 volunteers. This service, however, did not seem to 
 call for a sudden and, as it were, secret departure at 
 midnight, and the explanation of the Pasha was 
 looked upon as an evasion of the truth. The next 
 day a rumour was spread abroad that some twenty 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 91 
 
 Christians had been massacred at Gradiska, in the 
 district of Banialuka, by the Turkish population. 
 This excited great alarm here. The authorities were 
 said to have denied the truth of the report, but its 
 coincidence with the departure of the Ferik threw 
 suspicion on their sincerity.' * 
 
 And again, a few weeks later, the same consul 
 tells us : — ' A few days after my arrival here I wrote 
 a despatch dated the 18th August regarding the 
 state of affairs in this Pashalic, from which you will 
 have perceived that a good deal of alarm and excite- 
 ment prevails. Since that date I have had further 
 opportunities of observation. There is here, at 
 present, no deliberate intention, though the desire 
 may perhaps exist, on the part of the Mussulman 
 population, to assault the lives or property of the 
 Christian population ; and I believe also that the 
 chief danger lies in the agitated state of the public 
 mind, of which, unfortunately, there is no doubt, 
 and in connection with which the smallest accident 
 maj 7 , at any moment, produce the most serious re- 
 sults. In addition to real causes of complaint every 
 little accident is magnified into a premeditated 
 crime ; and dismal stories, no doubt often invented 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 pp. 47, 48. 
 
92 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 and industriously circulated, are not wanting to 
 increase the existing alarm.' * 
 
 Of the state of affairs in the same province, Mr 
 Zohrab reports : — 
 
 ****** 
 
 ' The influence of the Central Government is 
 daily becoming weaker, while the pride and 
 fanaticism of the Bosniac Mussulmans is rapidly 
 developing itself. Such a disregard to its inte- 
 rests will eventually bring against the Porte two 
 formidable antagonists — the Christians, who have 
 given up all hope of amelioration of their position 
 under the present regime, and who are daily subjected 
 to fresh hardships, and the Mussulmans, who look 
 upon the Government of the Sultan with disdain. 
 The presence of an energetic and honest Governor is 
 urgently required in Bosnia. Such a man could 
 render valuable service in re-establishing order, and 
 in removing many of the causes of irritation ; but if 
 the Porte persists in sending Pashas, without regard 
 to their capabilities, disgrace and misfortune must 
 necessarily follow.'' f 
 
 Of the country round Aleppo, Mr Skene writes : 
 — ' In the towns, until quite lately, trade and manu- 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 69. t Ibid. p. 70. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 93 
 
 factures were in a flourishing state. Since the 
 revival, however, of the old feelings of aversion and 
 animosity between the Mussulman and Christian 
 communities, a disadvantageous change has conse- 
 quently become apparent also in the material 
 circumstances of the population. Want of con- 
 fidence in the future is withdrawing capital 'from 
 circulation ; trade stagnates ; and one-half of the 
 looms previously worked are now at rest.' * 
 
 Whilst murder, in every part of the Turkish 
 empire, is unpunished ; whilst crimes of every de- 
 scription are done with impunity on the persons of 
 Christians ; whilst they are liable to be thrust from 
 their little property at any moment, and to be 
 despoiled of the goods which they have collected ; 
 and whilst all the time the Government is under 
 express treaty obligation to protect its subjects, and 
 yet exerts no influence in this direction, we cannot 
 wonder that the rule of the Sultan is everywhere 
 despised : — ' Mr Vice-Consul Rogers reports that 
 throughout his recent journeys over unfrequented 
 parts of the country he heard everywhere the 
 desponding expressions of the peasantry, that — 
 " There is no Government." — " Where is the 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 49. 
 
94 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Government ? " — "The Government is sunk into 
 nothing," — and this is confirmed, by the facts of 
 robberies on the roads, and the hostile combats of 
 villages.' * 
 
 In the same strain Mr Finn, of Jerusalem, tells 
 us : — ' Respect for the Ottoman Government is gone ; 
 the plains are overrun by Bedaween, and these 
 venture, as they never did before, to come in among 
 villages and between the hills ; those from beyond 
 Jordan have even plundered cattle in large numbers 
 within sight of the sea-port Jaffa.' f 
 
 In another direction we have testimony to the 
 same effect. Mr Calvert, of Monastir, says : — 'I am 
 obliged to confess that the people do not appear to 
 have, at present, any confidence in the Government. 
 The chief aim of the Governwfcit, therefore, should 
 be to restore that confidence. If their good faith has 
 been doubted, they should seize every opportunity to 
 retrieve their lost character : and without some pal- 
 pable, earnest, and continued proofs of their good 
 intentions, they can scarcely hope to succeed.' J 
 
 But this account of the state of alarm under which 
 
 * Despatches on apprehended disturbances in Syria, p. 19. 
 t Ibid. p. 72. 
 
 X Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 18. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 95 
 
 the whole Christian population of this empire drags 
 on its precarious existence would be incomplete with- 
 out some illustrations of the consequences of the 
 legal disabilities of which the people complain, and 
 to which I trace their discontent more readily than 
 to any hypothetical activity of ' foreign agents.' 
 
 I select my illustrations from different parts of 
 Turkey, and the first fact is given on the authority 
 of Mr Calvert, the British consul : — ' In June last a 
 Government courier was killed near Maronia, in the 
 pashalic of Salonica, and £2000 was taken from him ; 
 the robbery took place just within our frontier. 
 Probably the police-officers of Gallipoli and Serries 
 were, as they generally are, in league with the rob- 
 bers. Either to screen themselves, or to claim the 
 merit of vigilance and activity, they determined to 
 find the robbers in Maronia. They began by sur- 
 rounding 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 mul- 
 berry 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, Rayahs, respectable men, and accused them 
 
96 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 of the robbery. The governors of the districts near 
 Maronia came to the village to superintend the in- 
 vestigation, 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-house, in the village. As they 
 were Rayahs, their evidence was rejected. 
 
 ' " Notwithstanding the Hatt-i-Humayoon P " I 
 said. 
 
 ' " The influence/' he answered, " of the Hatt-i- 
 Humayoon does not extend 160 miles from Constan- 
 tinople." 
 
 'To procure evidence against the prisoners by 
 confession, the police proceeded to torture them. 
 One brother could not stand the torture, and con- 
 fessed the robbery. Then they asked him where the 
 money was ; of course he could not tell, so they tor- 
 tured him 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 then said 
 that his brother had it. The brother was tortured, 
 but, being more resolute, persisted in his denial. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 97 
 
 " You may kill 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 Russians. You see what sort of persons 
 and what sort of means are employed to make the 
 Turkish rule hateful to the Christians." ' * 
 
 Mr Arbuthnot, who accompanied Omer Pasha in 
 his campaign against the people of Herzegovina, and 
 who naturally, from his position, is always inclined 
 to present the Turks in their best aspect, gives us a 
 reason why Bosnia should be discontented. He thus 
 sketches the career of a Turkish pasha, and shows us 
 how a province may be rendered dissatisfied without 
 the aid of foreign intrigues : — ' Hadji Ali Pacha 
 commenced his career as a clerk in the pay of the 
 great Mehemet Ali Pacha, Viceroy of Egypt, but, 
 
 * Senior, pp. 158, 159. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 having deserted to the Turks, he was employed by 
 them in the capacity of Uzbashee or Captain. Fear- 
 ful of falling into the hands of the Egyptians, he fled 
 from his post, and, having made his way to Constan- 
 tinople, contrived, by scheming and bribery, not 
 only to efface the memory of the past, but to secure 
 the appointment of Kaimakan or Lieut. -Colonel, with 
 which grade he was sent to Travnik in command of 
 a regiment. Tahir Pacha, the Governor of Bosnia, 
 had about this time been informed of the existence of 
 some gold mines near Travnik, and ordered Hadji 
 Ali to obtain samples for transmission to the Porte. 
 This he did, taking care to retain all the valuable 
 specimens, and forwarding those of inferior quality, 
 which, on their arrival at Constantinople, were 
 declared worthless. No sooner was this decision 
 arrived at, than Hadji Ali imported the necessary 
 machinery and an Austrian mechanic, to separate 
 the gold from the ores, and in this way amassed 
 immense wealth. Rumours having got abroad of 
 what was going on, and the suspicions of Tahir being 
 aroused, the unfortunate Austrian was put secretly 
 out of the way, and, as a blind, the unprincipled 
 ruffian procured the firman to which allusion has 
 been made. It need hardly be said that he never 
 availed himself of the privileges which it conferred 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 99 
 
 upon him. Some time after these transactions, he 
 applied for leave to visit Austria, on the plea of ill- 
 health, but doubtless with the view of changing the 
 gold. This was refused, and he was obliged to 
 employ a Jew, who carried it to Vienna, and dis- 
 posed of it there. In 1850, when Omer Pacha came 
 to restore order in Bosnia, which had then revolted, 
 Hadji Ali was sent with two battalions to the relief 
 of another detachment ; upon this occasion he com- 
 municated with the enemy, who cut off his rear- 
 guard, and otherwise roughly handled the Turkish 
 troops. Upon this, Omer Pacha put him in chains, 
 and would have shot him, as he richly deserved, had 
 he not known that his enemies at Constantinople 
 would not fail to distort the true features of the case. 
 He therefore sent him to Constantinople, where he 
 was shortly afterwards released, and employed his 
 gold to such good purpose, that he was actually sent 
 down as Civil Governor to Travnik, which he had 
 so recently left a prisoner convicted of robbery and 
 treason. He was, however, soon dismissed for mis- 
 conduct, and entered once more into private specula- 
 tions. In 1857 he purchased the tithes of Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina, and employed such ruffians to 
 collect them as to make perfect martyrs of the 
 people, some of whom were even killed by his 
 
100 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 agents. Exasperated beyond endurance, the people 
 of Possavina rose en masse, and although the move- 
 ment was put down without difficulty, it doubtless 
 paved the way for the discord and rebellion which 
 has been attended with such calamitous results. 
 This is precisely one of those cases which has brought 
 such odium on the Turkish Government, and which 
 may so easily be avoided for the future, always pro- 
 viding that the Porte be sincere in its oft-repeated 
 protestations of a desire for genuine reform. Ali 
 Pacha was at Mostar in the beginning of 1858, 
 when the movement began, but was afraid to venture 
 into the revolted districts to collect his tithes. 
 The Government, therefore, made him Commandant 
 of the Herzegovinian irregulars, in which post he 
 vindicated the character which he had obtained for 
 cruelty and despotism. Subsequently he was ap- 
 pointed Kaimakan of Trebigne, but the European 
 consuls interfered, and he has now decamped, owing 
 a large sum to Government, the remnant of his con- 
 tract for the tithes/* 
 
 After reading Lieutenant Arbuthnot's sketch of 
 the career of this pasha, and his remarks upon the 
 effects of the rapacity of such a ruler, the words of 
 
 ' * Herzegovina ; or Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels. 
 By Lieut. G. Arbuthnot, R.H.A. London, 1862. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 101 
 
 Mr Zohrab, acting consul at Bosna Serai, acquire 
 additional significance : — ' I do not hesitate to say 
 that Bosnia and the Herzegovina, which ought to 
 have been now prosperous, contented, and peace- 
 ful, have been turned into discontented, disloyal, 
 poverty-stricken provinces, through the unworthi- 
 ness of the Sultan's lieutenants, and the gross mis- 
 conduct of inferior employes.'* 
 
 How the taxes are collected in this province — 
 how the Christian peasants are oppressed by the 
 subordinates of such a pasha as Hadji Ali — how 
 men are rendered discontented and goaded on to 
 insurrection without the aid of 'foreign intrigues,' 
 may be illustrated by an anecdote related to me by 
 the Princess Julia of Servia : — ' The usual method of 
 wringing out the imposts from the Christian peasants 
 in Bosnia is to tie them up in a small apartment 
 and apply fire to green or half-dried wood until the 
 place is filled with smoke. When the Christian is 
 half- suffocated the money is sometimes extracted. 
 Often, however, this iails, for the poor wretch has 
 not sufficient means, and he is left to perish. A 
 short time since a poor widow woman, frantic with 
 agony, burst into the apartments of the Princess 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 58. 
 
102 THE CHEISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Julia at the Palace in Belgrade : alternately she 
 wept, imprecated, besought the Princess to redress 
 her wrongs. She had been assessed by the Turkish 
 authorities of a village in Bosnia, on the Servian 
 frontiers, at a sum which she had no more the means 
 of paying than I have of discharging the National 
 Debt. She was smoked. This failed of extracting 
 the gold. She begged for a remission, and stated 
 her inability to pay. In answer she was tossed into 
 the river Drina, and after her were thrown her two 
 infant children, one of four years old, the other of 
 two. Before her eyes, notwithstanding her frantic 
 efforts to save them, her children perished. Half- 
 drowned and insensible, she was dragged to land by 
 a Servian peasant. She made her way to Belgrade, 
 believing, from the character of the Princess for 
 humanity, that if she could she would aid her. Of 
 course to do so was out of the question.'* 
 
 Or, to turn in another direction, and to cite 
 another author in illustration of the defenceless con- 
 dition of which all classes of Christians complain, 
 and which will remain so long as their evidence is 
 refused in a Turkish court of justice, and officials 
 may persecute and torture them with impunity. The 
 relation of this outrage is from the pen of the late 
 
 * The Guardian, April 29, 1863. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 103 
 
 Mr MacFarlane, and, though a few years older than 
 those which I have already given, is but an instance 
 of those wrongs under which these poor people at 
 present groan in all parts of the dominion of the 
 Sultan. It took place after the Tanzimat and the 
 Hatt-i-IIuniai'oun, and in disregard of all the stipu- 
 lations which the Government of Turkey had made 
 with the Great Powers of Europe : — ' During the 
 late Ramazan Hadji Dhimitri, of Ascia-keui, a pic- 
 turesque village in the ravine, situated among high 
 rocks, which we had seen on our right hand in 
 coming up from Keuplu to Billijik, had been 
 miserably crippled and otherwise injured by order of 
 the Turkish court, which had let off Abdullah 
 Effendi without so much as a reprimand. Turks as 
 well as Greeks lived at Ascia-keui. One day poor 
 Hadji Dhimitri had with great toil brought up 
 water from a fountain and had filled his reservoir in 
 order to irrigate his little garden and mulberry 
 ground. A Turk, his neighbour, one Kara-Ali, 
 came to him and said that he wanted that water for 
 his own garden and must have it. The Greek said 
 that he might have brought up water for himself, 
 but that he was free to take part of it. The Turk 
 got into a towering passion, called the Greek a 
 ghiaour and pezavenk, and swore he would have all 
 
104 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 the water. The quarrel was hot, but short. Dhi- 
 mitri, fearing consequences if he resisted, went away 
 and left the Turk to take and wantonly waste the 
 water, merely saying that he submitted to violence 
 and injustice, and that the Tanzimaut meant nothing. 
 The Turkish savage went to the Mudir and Kadi at 
 Billijik, and vowed that Hadji Dhimitri had wanted 
 to rob him of his water, and had uttered horrible 
 blasphemies against the Koran and the Prophet. 
 Tufekjees were sent to Ascia-keui, and Hadji Dhi- 
 mitri, being first of all soundly beaten, was hand- 
 cuffed and chained and brought up to Billijik. The 
 Greeks of the village were afraid of appearing in 
 such a case or against a Mussulman ; but four or 
 five did follow the unfortunate Hadji to the hall, 
 misnamed of justice, and were there to depose that it 
 was the Turk who had taken by violence his water 
 and had traduced his religion ; and that he, the 
 Hadji, though excited by anger, had not said a word 
 against the Koran or the Prophet. But the testi- 
 mony of these Christians could not be taken against 
 Mussulman witnesses, and Kara Ali, the Turk, was 
 provided with two false witnesses, one being Shakir 
 Bey, his own son-in-law, and the other Otuz-Bir 
 Oglou-Achmet-Bey. The pair were false witnesses 
 of notoriety, and generally reputed to be the two 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 105 
 
 greatest scoundrels of the town. There were scores 
 upon scores of people who had seen them at the 
 coffee-house in Billijik at the hour and time they 
 pretended to have been at Ascia-keui, four miles off. 
 But of those who had thus seen them the Mussul- 
 mans would not appear, and the Christians could 
 not get their evidence received in court. Kara Ali 
 swore to the truth of his statement ; his two false 
 witnesses swore that they had heard the Greek blas- 
 pheme their holy religion, and by sentence of the 
 Kadi poor Hadji Dhimitri received, then and there, 
 300 strokes of the bastinado. His toes were broken 
 by the blows,, his feet were beaten to a horrible jelly, 
 he screamed and fainted under the torture. There 
 were some among our narrators who had seen this 
 forbidden torture inflicted, and others who had 
 heard the poor man's shrieks. The victim was 
 carried home on the back of an ass ; he had been 
 laid prostrate for more than six weeks ; it was only 
 the day before our arrival that he had been able to 
 attend the Billijik market, and then he was lame and 
 sick — a hobbling, crippled, broken man. " The law/' 
 said one of our party, " is equal in the two cases. If 
 Hadji Dhimitri were guilty, he was only guilty of 
 that which we have all heard from the lips of Ab- 
 dullah Effendi this morning in the khan; yet the 
 
106 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY, 
 
 Hadji is cruelly bastinadoed and lamed for life, and 
 this same Kadi does not even reprimand the Effendi. 
 What then is the use of this Tanzimaut?" "The 
 use of it," said Tchelebee John, " is just this : it 
 throws dust in the eyes of the foreign ambassadors 
 at Constantinople who recommended its promulga- 
 tion, and it humbugs half the nations of Christen- 
 dom, where people believe in newspaper reports." ' * 
 I add one other illustration of the way in 
 which discontent and dissatisfaction are fostered, 
 not by ' foreign intrigues/ but by the mis- 
 government of the Sultan. The narrative is one 
 which I have already made use of in my little 
 volume on Servia. I reproduce it in preference 
 to many other similar anecdotes which I might 
 have given, for the same reason which led me to 
 print it before. It was related to me by a consul 
 and his wife, who both witnessed the act of atrocity. 
 I recorded it immediately after leaving their house. 
 In one only part of it I have intentionally spoken 
 vaguely. I have no wish to draw down upon their 
 heads the wrath of Sir Henry Bulwer ; I have not, 
 therefore, indicated the exact place where it happen- 
 ed, lest I should betray my informants: — ' A short 
 
 * Destiny of Turkey, by Chas. MacFarlane, vol. i. pp. 
 336-338. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 107 
 
 time since the inhabitants of a little village in Rou- 
 melia were called upon to pay the taxes, at which 
 they had been assessed by the authorities of the dis- 
 trict in which the village is situated. When the 
 principal inhabitants had assembled, they did what 
 probably many others would have done in like cir- 
 cumstances, they rather discussed the means by 
 which the tax might be evaded than the mode of 
 paying it. After mairy schemes had been suggested, 
 the only means which appeared satisfactory to those 
 who were present, was to compel some inhabitant 
 who was not present to pay the whole assessment. 
 In the outskirts of the village resided a Christian 
 peasant, who owned a small strip of ground, which 
 he cultivated for his maintenance. He was indus- 
 trious, and was supposed to possess a hoard of money. 
 Indeed, as he had only one child — a son who assisted 
 him in the cultivation of his rood of land — how could 
 he spend all his earnings ? It was evident, so his 
 Mussulman neighbours argued, there must be a store 
 somewhere, and it was resolved that he should be 
 compelled to pay the whole amount at which the 
 village was assessed. . By this means it was clear 
 that the claim of the Porte would be satisfied, and 
 the rest of the villagers would be lightened from the 
 burden about to be imposed upon them. The dis- 
 
108 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 cussion took place in the presence of the cadi. He 
 assured the assembly that it was a matter of indiffer- 
 ence how the money was procured, provided that it 
 was duly paid to him. After some deliberation as to 
 the best means of wringing the whole sum from one 
 peasant, the following plan was suggested, matured, 
 and finally carried out. It was agreed that the rest 
 of the villagers should seize his only child, a lad of 
 some sixteen years, and imprison him until his father 
 should ransom him for the sum at which the whole 
 village was assessed ; and that the cadi should sus- 
 pend the collection of the tax until this means had 
 been tried. In order that this functionary should 
 not, however, pocket the ransom himself, and then 
 levy the tax upon the villagers, a deed was drawn 
 up and witnessed according to the forms of Turkish 
 law, by which the cadi covenanted to accept the 
 money thus to be wrung from the parent in lieu of 
 all claim upon the rest of the villagers ; to hold the 
 boy in his custody until the ranson should be paid, 
 and to release him as soon as this should be done. 
 It was seed-time, and the lad, wholly unconscious of 
 the plot, was employed with his parents in ploughing 
 and sowing their little piece of ground, when he was 
 seized, carried off to the cadi, and, amidst the cries 
 of his mother and the entreaties of his father, thrown 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 109 
 
 into prison, with the intimation that he should be 
 released when the money was paid. The village was 
 but ill- supplied with prison buildings, and the boy 
 was thrust into the small dome, of some six feet 
 square, which covered an unused well. Day by day 
 the parents came, but could not weary the patience 
 of the unjust but impassive judge. The only answer 
 which they received was, that when the money was 
 brought the boy should be released. The parents 
 were not wealthy ; they had no hoard ; the supposi- 
 tion of their fellow-villagers was unfounded ; they 
 had nothing save the small strip of land which they 
 cultivated for their daily needs. The last thing 
 which a peasant will give up in Turkey is the privi- 
 lege of being a landed proprietor. The father, who 
 loved his son, clung, however, to his bit of garden 
 ground, and exhausted all other means of raising the 
 required sum before selling his land. He appealed 
 to the authorities of the district. He was referred 
 by them for redress to the cadi, by whom the wrong 
 was done. Despairing of any other means of deliver- 
 ing his child, the wretched parents now endeavoured 
 to collect the money which the cadi required. Their 
 furniture was first sold, then their tools and imple- 
 ments of husbandry were parted with. The sum 
 thus obtained fell so far short of the amount required, 
 
110 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 that it was at length evident that the rood of ground, 
 the family estate, must be parted with. This also 
 was sold, and still there lacked a portion of the total 
 sum required. The cadi was inexorable, and rigidly 
 upright. The Government expected so much from 
 the village, and so much must be brought before the 
 lad could be released. At length the last piastre was 
 procured, and the wretched parents hastened joyfully 
 to the cadi with the whole amount. All this had 
 taken upwards of ten months to collect, and for so 
 long a time the poor lad had been subjected to the 
 horrors of solitary confinement, in total darkness, and 
 in a dungeon only a few feet in extent, in which it 
 was impossible to stand upright. The floor, partly 
 of rough stones and partly of mud, was equally cold 
 and damp, and on this he had sat and lain and lain 
 and sat for more than ten months. On receiving 
 the money the cadi assembled the villagers ; the deed 
 was recited ; the money exhibited, and the legal in- 
 strument duly cancelled with all the mocking 
 formalities of law. And now the prison door, or 
 what served for a door, was unbarred to the parents, 
 and they were permitted to look again upon their 
 child. For a time nothing moved within the narrow 
 limits of the cell ; the call of his mother could elicit 
 no signs of life in the poor prisoner. At length a 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. Ill 
 
 bundle of humanity was dragged out ; it breathed ; 
 it stirred : but these were the only tokens of life 
 which could be seen. Signs of humanity there were 
 none. The limbs had been contracted by cold, wet, 
 rheumatism, and by the crouching posture which the 
 poor lad had been compelled to assume, and he could 
 only crawl on all-fours like a beast. His face re- 
 sembled a skull covered with dirty parchment, and 
 he was hopelessly an idiot. How long since reason 
 had given way his jailors could not tell. He was 
 now a slobbering, jabbering idiot. The light, and 
 joy, and hope of his parents' cottage was not merely 
 quenched, it had become a palpable and noisome 
 blackness. 
 
 ' Amidst the wails of the parents, and the " God 
 is great" of the persecutors, the crowd dispersed, 
 some cursing more deeply than ever the despotism 
 which rendered them liable to atrocities such as 
 these. It needs no "Russian intrigues" to make 
 these poor peasants believe that deeds like these are 
 unjust, and to inspire them with a longing for an 
 opportunity to break such an intolerable yoke from 
 their necks. For this incident is but a specimen of 
 what the Christians throughout Bosnia, E-oumelia, 
 and Bulgaria are now enduring. I could narrate 
 acts of atrocious cruelty and wrong which would go 
 
112 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 far beyond this ; but I have selected this anecdote 
 because I can tell it on other authority than that of 
 a Servian or a Dalmatian. I did not hear it from a 
 suffering, and therefore a "prejudiced, Bosniac" or 
 a " lying Greek." Amongst the crowd which wit- 
 nessed this horror, amongst the many who saw the 
 shattered remains of this poor and innocent lad 
 dragged forth from his cell, and handed to his 
 parents by the cadi, were the British consul and his 
 wife, and from their lips I heard this tale of bar- 
 barity.' * 
 
 But beyond the unexceptionable nature of the 
 source from which I obtained this illustration of the 
 way in which a Turkish province is governed, and 
 our Christian brethren are oppressed, I have re- 
 printed this anecdote because, subsequently to its 
 original publication, I have submitted it to persons 
 conversant, from long residence, with the actual 
 state of the Turkish empire, and I am assured that 
 similar atrocities happen in every province, in every 
 district, of that country, so that this fairly repre- 
 sents the normal condition of our brethren unhappily 
 living under the rule of the Sultan, f 
 
 * Servia and the Servians, pp. 288—292. 
 
 f See in the second volume of Mr MacFarlane's ' Turkey 
 and its Destiny,' pp. 1 — 8, a somewhat similar story of 
 exaction and wrong. 
 
FOREIGN INTKIGUES. 113 
 
 Here are, surely, sufficient elements to produce 
 discontent amongst the Christians of Turkey without 
 our having recourse to any imaginary amount of 
 ' foreign intrigues/ or of clandestine exertions of 
 'Russian agents.' If, indeed, weighed down by 
 these intolerable severities, they do turn at times to 
 some one who can protect them against their cruel 
 oppressors, it is not a matter for wonder. They have 
 ceased to expect anything, except additional wrongs, 
 from their rulers. Husbands and fathers as they 
 are, and unarmed in the midst of an armed Mussul- 
 man population, they must look to some one to in- 
 terpose in their behalf. At present this takes the form 
 of supplicating passports from English, French, and, 
 less frequently, from Russian consuls, so as to avail 
 themselves of their protection ; and, while their 
 condition is such as the illustrations which I have 
 just given reveal to us, they will look for protection 
 to any quarter of the heavens where there is the 
 least gleam of sympathy, the least break in the 
 dark cloud which hangs so heavily over them. That 
 they do so — that they must do so — is the severest 
 condemnation of the Government of the Sultan. 
 
 Mr Abbott, the consul at the Dardanelles, says, 
 that the ' vexatious and arbitrary proceedings ctf 
 Turkish officials' is the cause why 'the subjects of 
 
114 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 the Porte get foreign passports/ and, after recount- 
 ing a narrative of petty oppression, lie tells us : — 
 'It is not a matter for surprise in the face of 
 similar facts, which are of daily occurrence, that the 
 Rayahs should occasionally resort to the only means 
 at hand of protecting themselves against the short- 
 comings of their legitimate rulers ; and it is the 
 greatest reproach upon the Turkish Government, as 
 well as one of the most incontestable proofs of its 
 weak and degenerate state, that its own subjects 
 should be compelled in self-defence to throw off 
 their lawful allegiance, inasmuch as they are denied 
 the protection which they have a right to expect, 
 and are less favoured in this respect than foreigners ; 
 being the reverse of what occurs in civilized coun- 
 tries. 
 
 'When a foreign passport cannot be procured, 
 the Rayahs find it advantageous to carry on business 
 in ostensible partnership with a foreigner or under 
 a foreigner's power of attorney. This affords a 
 great security for their property, and has become a 
 common practice. 
 
 ' This anomalous state of things will not cease to 
 exist, until the Porte has completed the task of 
 reforming the present defective administration of 
 justice, and has provided for that purpose properly- 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 115 
 
 constituted tribunals. "When that time arrives, 
 the Rayahs will, I doubt not, cheerfully return to 
 their allegiance.' * 
 
 Unhappily, as the evidence of the consuls show, 
 the sufferings of the Christians throughout Turkey, 
 so far from diminishing, are actually increasing. 
 The legal condition of the Christian is as degraded 
 as ever. The text-books of the law, by which the 
 decisions of the cadi are regulated, are as intolerant 
 as ever. It is easy to profess incredulity on this 
 matter ; it is not so easy to overcome the logic of 
 facts. The Multka is still the authority to which 
 all Mussulmans appeal throughout Turkey. It is a 
 book which possesses an authority greater than that 
 of Lyndewood in our ecclesiastical tribunals. It 
 ranks higher than Coke or Blackstone do in our 
 common law courts ; and the precedents and axioms 
 of this book of Institutes of Mahommedan law are 
 not only still used and cited, but the volume is the 
 ruling authority of the court of Turkey, from which 
 no one dreams of appealing. In that book we read, 
 and, more still, every cadi reads : — ' And the tri- 
 butary (or Christian) is to be distinguished in the 
 beast he rides, and in his saddle, and he is not to 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 88. 
 
116 THE CHEISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ride a horse, he is not to work at his work with arms 
 on, he shall not ride on a saddle like a pillion, he 
 shall not ride on that except as a matter of necessity, 
 and even then he shall dismount in places of public 
 resort ; he shall not wear clothes worn by men of 
 learning, piety, and nobilit} r . His women shall be 
 distinguished in the street and at the baths, and he 
 shall place in his house a sign and mark so that 
 people may not pray for him or salute him. And 
 the street shall be narrowed for him, and he shall 
 pay his tribute standing, the receiver being seated, 
 and he shall be seized by the collar, and shall be 
 shaken, and it shall be said to him, "Pay the tri- 
 bute, oh, tributary ! oh, thou enemy of God ! " ' * 
 Nor are the forms of Turkish law, even when 
 
 * The Multka, or digest of the Mahometan Canon Law, 
 from which this extract is made, was written in Arabic by a 
 Turkish lawyer several centuries ago. It gives the decisions 
 arrived at by the two great legists of Sunni Mahommedan- 
 ism, and is the text-book and authority in the law courts 
 throughout Turkey. Indeed, all Sunni legists in Turkey, 
 and in other Sunni countries, study this book, and make 
 their references to it. Cadis and Muftis take it, with other 
 similar books, as a guide to their decisions, as our judges 
 consult the decisions of their predecessors. It is, however, 
 of a far greater authority than any such decisions can be 
 amongst ourselves ; because it is a fundamental principle in 
 Turkey that no one, neither the Sultan nor the government 
 combined, can change or abrogate the Canon Law of that 
 country. 
 
FOREIGN INTRIGUES. 117 
 
 the spirit has grown more tolerant, one whit more 
 favourable to the poor Rayahs. Persecuted in life, 
 1 treated,' as long as they lived, * not merely as 
 slaves, but as slaves whom their masters hate,' * the 
 persecution, the hatred, the contempt goes with 
 them to their grave. In his account of the siege of 
 Ears, Dr Sandwith has printed a burial certificate 
 which is given when a Christian dies.f It is in 
 these terms : — 
 
 ' We certify to the priest of the church of Mary, 
 that the impure, putrified, stinking carcase of Saideh, 
 damned this day, may be concealed under-ground. 
 
 * Sealed. El Said Mehemed Faizi. 
 
 <a.h. 1271. Rejib 11.' 
 {March 29, a.d. 1855.) 
 
 What years of hatred must have been endured be- 
 fore the feeling was embodied in this document ! 
 "What years of hatred must have been endured since ! 
 How deep the scorn, how bitter the contempt, how 
 fierce the intolerance ! So long as, even in official 
 forms, such words as these are used, what hope can 
 there be for a great part of the unhappy subjects of 
 this empire ? 
 
 * Senior, p. 113. t Siege of Ears, p. 173. 
 
118 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TURKISH PROMISES AND TURKISH NON-PERFORMANCES. 
 
 In order to abate tlie wrongs of which the 
 Christians of Turkey have long complained, the 
 Great Powers of Europe have, from time to time, 
 insisted upon certain concessions being made to 
 them in return for the material assistance which the 
 Western Powers have granted, the blood so lavishly- 
 poured out, the treasure so freely expended. They 
 demanded in 1839, and again on the non-fulfilment 
 of that demand, in 1856, on the termination of the 
 war with Russia, certain stipulations, of which these 
 are the principal : (1) That the evidence of Chris- 
 tians should be received by the Turkish courts of 
 justice equally with that of Mussulmans. They 
 pressed this the more earnestly since it is evident 
 without this neither life nor property is secure. (2) 
 That the Christian peasant should be able to pur- 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 119 
 
 chase and hold land, and should not be liable to be 
 ousted from his possession at the caprice of his Ma- 
 hommedan neighbour. (3) That in regulating the 
 taxation of the empire, Mahommedans and Chris- 
 tians should be placed in a position of equality. (4) 
 That both races should be eligible to serve in the 
 army, and that it should be as lawful for the Chris- 
 tian to possess arms as the Mussulman. (5) That 
 compulsory conversion to the Mahommedan faith 
 should be abolished. 
 
 Every one of these essential conditions to the 
 freedom of the Christian races of Turkey remains, 
 however, notwithstanding repeated pledges, as much 
 disregarded as they were fifty years ago. On this 
 head let me cite the words of Lord Derby, who thus 
 describes the Andrassy proposals for the quieting of 
 the Herzegovina. They sum up the faithlessness 
 of 'our faithful ally.' 'The proposals of Count 
 Andrassy amount to little more than a request that 
 the Porte will execute the Hatti-Scheriff of Grulhane 
 of 1839, the Hatti-Humayoun of 1856, and the Irade 
 and Firman of the 2nd October and 12th of Decem- 
 ber last ; in short, that the measures for the improve- 
 ment of the condition of the non- Mussulman and 
 rural population generally throughout the empire, 
 which have been publicly proclaimed, should be 
 
120 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 brought into practical application.'* In a word, that 
 the solemn promise made to the Great Poweps of 
 Europe nearly forty years ago should now be per- 
 formed, or, in Lord Derby's phrase, be ' brought into 
 practical application ; ' but to particularize : — 
 
 (1) The evidence of a Christian is not received 
 either in the criminal or civil courts of Turkey. It 
 is true that some shadow of equality in this respect, 
 between the Mussulman and non-Mussulman, exists 
 at Constantinople, and is ostentatiously pointed out 
 to travellers who limit their observations to that 
 capital. But this only makes the faithlessness of 
 Turkey to treaties the more evident. 
 
 In the Hatt-i-Sherif of 1856, the Sultan, at the 
 pressing instance of the European Powers, decreed :— 
 1 The guarantees promised on our part by the 
 Hatt-i-Huma'ioun of Gul-Hane, and in conformity 
 with the Tanzimat, to all the subjects of my Empire, 
 without distinction of classes or of religion, for the 
 security of their persons and property, and the pre- 
 servation of their honour, are to-day confirmed and 
 consolidated, and efficacious measures shall be taken 
 in order that they may have their full and entire 
 effect.' . . . 
 
 * Correspondence respecting Affairs in Bosnia and in 
 Herzegovina, 1876. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 121 
 
 ' All commercial, correctional, and criminal suits 
 between Mussulmans and Christian or other non- 
 Mussulman subjects, or between Christians or other 
 non- Mussulmans of different sects, shall be referred 
 to Mixed Tribunals. 
 
 ' The proceedings of these tribunals shall be pub- 
 lic ; the parties shall be confronted, and shall pro- 
 duce their witnesses, whose testimony shall be 
 received, without distinction, upon an oath taken 
 according to the religious law of each sect.' 
 
 It must be observed that the Sultan here appeals 
 to a former promise made to the same effect as the 
 provisions of the Hatt-i-Sherif ; the Hatt-i-Hu- 
 mai'oun to which he refers bears date Nov. 3, 1839, 
 and even this latter was only in accordance with the 
 Tanzimat still more remote in date, so that, when it 
 is pleaded by the Sultan's advocates that, though the 
 Hatt-i-Sherif has been entirely disregarded, yet that 
 this was only promised six years ago, and if we have 
 patience its provisions may yet be carried out ; this 
 is said in ignorance of the real circumstances of the 
 case. The pledge that Christian evidence shall be 
 received in the courts of justice throughout Turkey, 
 and be accepted on the same footing as Mahometan 
 evidence, was made upwards of thirty years ago.* 
 
 * Now, alas ! fifty years ago. 
 
122 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 How then has this pledge, made to the nations of 
 Europe, and re-confirmed in consideration gf the 
 blood poured out and the treasure expended by the 
 Allied Powers in behalf of Turkey, been fulfilled ? 
 
 The seventh question in the list forwarded by Sir 
 Henry Bulwer to the ' Consuls in the Ottoman do- 
 minions,' was as follows : — ' Is Christian evidence ad- 
 mitted in courts of justice ; and if not, point out the 
 cases where it has been refused ? ' * 
 
 In answer to this, Mr Abbott, the English con- 
 sul at Monastir, writes : — ' It is only admitted at the 
 Tahkik Medjlis (Court of Inquiry). There, Chris- 
 tian witnesses are sworn, whereas Mussulmans are not. 
 I cannot point out cases where it has been refused at 
 the other Courts, as, it being considered an estab- 
 lished rule not to admit Christian evidence, a Chris- 
 tian has never dared present in. a suit one of his co- 
 religionists to give his testimony.' f 
 
 To the same inquiry Mr Finn, the consul at 
 Jerusalem, thus replies : — ' In the Mehkemeh, or 
 Cadi's Court, non-Mussulman evidence is always 
 refused. In the various Medjlises some subterfuge 
 is always sought for declining to receive non- Mussul- 
 man evidence against a Mussulman, or recording it 
 
 * Report of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 3. t Ibid. p. 7. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 123 
 
 under the technical name of witness. These Courts 
 and the Pasha will rather condemn at once a Mussul- 
 man in favour of a Christian, without recording 
 testimony, than accept non-Moslem evidence. Evi- 
 dence of Christian against Christian, or Jew, or vice 
 versa, i.e. non-Moslem against non-Moslem, is always 
 received.' * 
 
 Mr J. E. Blunt, consul at Pristina : — ' Christian 
 evidence in law-suits between a Mussulman and a 
 non-Mussulman is not admitted in the local Courts. 
 
 'In such cases in which the parties are not 
 Mussulman, Christian evidence is admitted.' f 
 
 Mr Skene, the consul at Aleppo, in his report, 
 says : — ' It is not admitted ; and the attempt is never 
 made to obtain its admission. No case has occurred 
 in connection with the business of this consulate to 
 raise the question.' £ 
 
 Major Cox, the consul at Bucharest, says : — * In 
 cases between Christians, yes ; but in cases between 
 Christians and Mahometans, no. This is one of the 
 subjects on which the intelligent portion of the 
 Christians earnestly insist for redress, and which 
 they know at the same time is one of the most diffi- 
 cult for the Ottoman Government to deal with, on 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 27. f Ibid. p. 3<5. % Ibid. p. 50. 
 
124 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 account of the strong prejudices entertained by the 
 Mussulmans/ * 
 
 Other consuls, indeed, report that the evidence 
 of Christians is received in the criminal courts of 
 justice in certain provinces of Turkey, but when we 
 come to examine in what way it is received we find 
 that contrary assertions are not always contradictory. 
 
 Mr Charles Blunt, of Smyrna, thus answers Sir 
 Henry Bulwer's question : — ' Generally speaking, 
 from all that I can learn, Christian evidence is not 
 admitted against Mussulmans in the interior, but 
 only one instance has been brought before me, which 
 was in 1857, when the authorities at Aidin would 
 not admit Christian evidence in a suit in which a 
 British subject was interested. On that occasion, in 
 conjunction with the Pasha of Smyrna, officers were 
 sent from the Governor and this Consulate to Aidin, 
 when upon their united interference Christian evi- 
 dence was, and has since been, admitted in the courts 
 of Aidin. ^Christian evidence is admitted in the courts 
 at Smyrna, but in all suits relating to houses and 
 landed property, foreign Christian evidence is not 
 admitted against the native Christian.' f 
 
 * Keport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 58. The ' difficulty ' has now been dealt with and 
 overcome ; but then Bucharest is the capital of an autonom- 
 ous state. t Ibid- P- 32. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 125 
 
 Mr Cathcart, the consul at Prevesa, states : — 
 ' Christian evidence is always admitted in the courts 
 of justice, but I think it doubtful whether, in cases 
 between a Mussulman and a Christian, it carries the 
 same weight as Mahometan evidence.'* 
 
 Acting - Consul Zohrab, writing | from Bosna 
 Serai, says : — ' Christian evidence in the Medjlises 
 is occasionally received, but as a rule it is refused, 
 either directly or indirectly, by reference to the 
 Mehkemeh. Knowing this, the Christians generally 
 come forward prepared with Mussulman witnesses. 
 The cases in which Christian evidence has been 
 refused are numerous, but it would take time to 
 collect them/f 
 
 Mr Moore, the consul at Beyrout, writes : — 
 ' Christian evidence is admitted into the mixed 
 Tribunals (those composed of Christian and Mussul- 
 man members), but not in the purely Turkish court 
 called the Mehkemeh, or in the Grand Medjlis of the 
 Eyalet when it is presided over by the Cadi, and 
 where the law may be administered according to the 
 Shara (Mahometan Ecclesiastical law). In case of 
 murder, for instance, when the murderer is a Moslem, 
 that •presidency and that laic are resorted to, and Chris- 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 42. t Ibid. p. 55. 
 
126 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 tian evidence would be rejected. No such case having 
 occurred for many years, I am unable to furnish 
 instances. Petty criminal cases are tried at the 
 Medjlis Tahkik (Court of Verification), and civil 
 suits at the Commercial Courts, both mixed Tri- 
 buHals where Christian evidence is accepted.' * 
 
 Mr Abbott, the consul at the Dardanelles, says : — 
 'It is admitted; though, generally speaking, the 
 testimony of a Mussulman carries with it more 
 weight. I may here add, that circumstantial evi- 
 dence, though of the clearest nature, is refused ; 
 that the Tidjaret-Medjlis, or Commercial Tribunal, 
 goes only upon documentary evidence ; that the 
 testimony of one female is rejected as insufficient, 
 whilst that of two females, of whatever creed, i3 
 accepted, being considered equivalent to that of one 
 male. Owing to these peculiarities of Turkish law, 
 a miscarriage of justice often ensues : whilst the fear 
 of incurring vengeance deters many persons, both 
 Mussulmans and Christians, from prosecuting notori- 
 ous malefactors, or giving evidence against them.' f 
 
 Major Cox, again writing from Bucharest, says : 
 — ' The non-reception of the testimony of Christians 
 on the same footing with that of the Mussulmans is 
 
 * Beport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 71. t Ibid. p. 70. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 127 
 
 as much a subject of complaint in Bosnia and the 
 Herzegovine as in Bulgaria.' * 
 
 In order in some degree to protect Christian 
 witnesses, the Porte consented to the appointment of 
 Christian assessors in the Medjlises, or local courts. 
 This has been carried out certainly in form, though 
 in substance the stipulation is as much disregarded as 
 that by which the testimony of a Christian was 
 declared to be placed on the same footing as that of 
 a Mussulman. 
 
 Mr Calvert, the consul at Monastir, tells us : — 
 * As to the Christian members, they take their seats 
 at the Medjlises as a matter of form, but dare not 
 dissent from an opinion emitted by the Mussulman 
 members. I hear that, some years back, the Chris- 
 tian member of the Medjlis at Monaster was 
 poisoned for opposing his Mussulman colleagues.' f 
 
 To the same purpose Mr Calvert, writing from 
 Salonica, says : — ' Christians are admitted into the 
 local Councils, but they are so few in number com- 
 pared with the Mussulman members as to be com- 
 pletely overawed, and therefore practically useless. 
 They blindly affix their seals to the * Mazbattas " 
 (reports or decisions) which are written in Turkish, 
 
 * Keport of Consuls on. the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 96. f Ibid. p. 4. 
 
128 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 — a language they can rarely read ; and even were 
 they to understand what was written, they would 
 scarcely venture to refuse to confirm it, although they 
 might inwardly dissent from the purport of the 
 document.' * 
 
 I content myself with citing only one other 
 witness, Mr Finn, the consul at Jerusalem : — 
 ' Christians are admitted as members of the Medjlises 
 by virtue of laws of the Central Government, but 
 the number of the members proportioned to the 
 number of the sect is not equal to the proportion of 
 the Mussulman members to the number of their 
 sect. For instance, the Jews, who nearly equal the 
 Christians and Mussulmans together, have but one 
 member in each Medjlis ; the Christians, who are 
 nearly equal to the Mussulmans, have but one 
 member of each sect in each Medjlis; while the 
 Mussulman members are as numerous as the Pasha 
 pleases to make them, — generally six or seven.' 
 
 'They are barely tolerated by the Mussulman 
 members, and are always placed in lower seats : they 
 have not the courage to make use of the privileges 
 as intended. I sometimes hear of their placing 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 12. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 129 
 
 their seals falsely to Mazbattas, merely from fear of 
 displeasing the Mussulman members.' * 
 
 Now, so long as this is the case — so long as 
 Christian evidence is wholly refused, or is not 
 allowed to have any weight in the determination of 
 a civil suit, whilst it is utterly rejected in all crimi- 
 nal causes, it is obvious there can be no security for 
 life, limb, nor property for the great mass of the 
 Christian subjects of the Sultan. Murder, attended 
 by the most revolting circumstances, and perpetrated 
 in the midst of a crowded Christian village, and in 
 the sight of a hundred witnesses, is never punished, 
 because the evidence of all these people is inadmiss- 
 ible in the courts of Turkey. What impunity this 
 gives to the criminal, and what encouragement to 
 the commission of outrages, must be evident to 
 every one. 
 
 From a report of Mr Finn, dated Jerusalem, 
 January 4, 1860, we obtain a glimpse of the normal 
 condition of the Turkish provinces, as to the adminis- 
 tration of justice : — ' The Arabs have a proverb that 
 the Divine Government acts upon the two motives of, 
 first, reward ; secondly, punishment ; but that in 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on the Condition of the Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 28. 
 
 9 
 
130 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUKKEY. 
 
 Turkish rule it is all Heaven, there is no penalty for 
 transgression. 
 
 ' On this same principle, political rebels are at 
 the most only disabled temporarily from doing mis- 
 chief. Officers of regiments convicted of extortion 
 and peculation are only removed from one station to 
 another. Pashas [with but one exception that I have 
 knoicn) are always promoted, when dismissed on the 
 complaints of consuls ; and throughout my experience 
 I have never known a robbery or other such offence 
 •punished as a crime. When burglars or highway 
 robbers are discovered and convicted, it is always 
 considered an ample retribution if a sum almost 
 amounting to the loss is levied upon the guilty. 
 The Government congratulates itself and the plaintiff 
 on the success obtained, but the criminality is never 
 punished.* 
 
 When this is the case with reference to all crime, 
 except in rare and exceptional cases, it is not sur- 
 prising that crimes against Christians are committed 
 with total impunity. 
 
 Mr J. E. Blunt, of Pristina, thus reports three 
 cases which had occurred in his neighbourhood : — 
 
 •Despatches on apprehended disturbances in Syria, 1858 
 —1860, p. 90. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 131 
 
 'About seventeen months ago a Turkish soldier 
 murdered a Mahometan, an old man, who was 
 working in his field. The only persons, two in 
 number, who witnessed the deed are Christians. 
 The Medjlis of Uscup would not take their evidence, 
 although the Undersigned urged the Kaimakam to 
 accept it. 
 
 1 About the same time a Zaptieh tried by force to 
 convert a Bulgarian girl to Islamism. As she 
 declared before the Medjlis of Camanova that she 
 would not abjure her religion, he killed her in the 
 very precincts of the Mudir's house. This tragedy 
 created great sensation in the province. The Medj- 
 lises of Camanova and Prisrend would not accept 
 Christian evidence, and every effort was made to save 
 the Zaptieh ; but on the case being referred to 
 Constantinople, an order reached the authorities to 
 " take the evidence of all persons who witnessed the 
 murder." This was done, and Kiani Pasha, who at 
 the time took charge of the province, where he 
 has done much good, immediately had the Zaptieh 
 beheaded. 
 
 ' Six months ago a Bulgarian in the district of 
 Camanova was attacked, without provocation on his 
 part, by two Albanians. They wounded him severely. 
 
132 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 On the case being referred to Prisrend, the Medjlis 
 refused to take cognizance of it, as the only evidence 
 produced was Christian.' * 
 
 To this I would add an extract from Dr Sand- 
 with's account of his travels in Armenia : — ' An 
 Armenian tradesman, about to leave the town [of 
 B — ] for another city, had been trying to change 
 some paper-money into gold, the former not being 
 current at the place of his destination. An officer, 
 hearing of this, went and offered the Armenian gold 
 for 5000 piastres in paper (about 40/.), ten per cent, 
 agio being deducted. This offer the Armenian 
 accepted, and gave the officer the paper-money, the 
 latter promising to return immediately with the gold. 
 Some time having elapsed, and the officer not having 
 made his appearance, the Armenian went to look 
 after him, and with much trouble succeeded in 
 recovering, at various instalments, 4060 piastres. 
 The Armenian then applied to the Turk's command- 
 ing officer for the payment of the remainder, who 
 recommended that the affair should be taken to the 
 mijlis. The Turk, seeing that the proofs were rather 
 strong against him, insisted on his right to be tried 
 by the mehkeme, where he knew that the Koran 
 
 * Keport of Consuls on the Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, pp. 35, 36. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 133 
 
 would serve him in his need. Accordingly the Ar- 
 menian and the Turk were confronted before this 
 religious tribunal ; and there the Turk, grown bold, 
 as a Mussulman, declared that, far from owing the 
 Armenian anything, the latter wished to rob him ; 
 that he (the Turk) had placed the above-named sum 
 in the hands of a third person to be changed into 
 gold, and that the Armenian had taken it for that 
 purpose, but that the gold was not forthcoming. 
 " Do you swear to this ? " asked the President. " I 
 swear it on the Koran," answered the Turk. " It is 
 enough." The Armenian had brought witnesses, but 
 they were all Christians, their evidence was impossi- 
 ble ; so the hapless Armenian was obliged to refund 
 all the gold he had previously obtained, and found 
 himself a ruined man/ * 
 
 The consequence of this impunity is murder on 
 so large a scale as almost to amount to continuous 
 massacre. Thus, Mr Rogers, the vice-consul at 
 Beyrout, reports from information satisfactory to 
 himself : — 
 
 ' Exclusive of the blood sited in open civil warfare 
 betioeen the years 1841 and 1858, or in other words, 
 during the space of seventeen years, 780 individual 
 murders have been committed in Mount Lebanon ; and 
 
 * Narrative of the Siege of Kars, pp. 169, 170. 
 
134 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 probably since the year 1858 upwards of 300 more have 
 occurred, thus forming a total of about 1100 in the 
 space of nineteen years, not one of which has been 
 avenged by law.* 
 
 In illustration of what Mr Rogers here states the 
 following details of such unprovoked, unpunished 
 murders occur in Mr Evans' recent volume of travels 
 — 'As we were walking our engineer pointed to a 
 part of a maize plot on the road-side where the maize 
 was slightly trodden down. " Do you see that ? " 
 he asked ; " perhaps you would like to know how the 
 maize got trodden down there ? " He then recounted 
 to us the following narrative, which, coming from 
 an eye-witness, served to enlighten us considerably 
 about the amenities of Turkish rule. It must be 
 prefaced that at the present time no one can go from 
 one village to another without being provided with a 
 Turkish pass, and that it was one of the practices of 
 the Belgian engineer, as head of the road commission, 
 to examine and set his vize on the pass of all who 
 passed along the road. A few days ago a young 
 Herzegovinian Christian stopped at his tent and 
 showed his pass, which proved to be quite en regie, 
 and was vized by the engineer accordingly. He 
 then proceeded on his way with a light heart, but as 
 
 * Correspondence on Affairs of Syria, 1860, 1861, p. 404. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 135 
 
 he was passing by the booths near the bridge, 
 two Turks — not officials or soldiers of any kind, 
 but armed nevertheless — came up and insolently 
 demanded to see his pass. This they had not a 
 shadow of a right to ask for ; but the young fellow, 
 knowing that in this country might is right, did not 
 hesitate to comply, and handed his pass for their 
 examination. Thereupon the two Mahometans, 
 who could not read a syllable, swore that the whole 
 thing was wrong, and seizing hold of the young 
 rayah, began to drag him along, crying out to the 
 Christians that they were taking him off to the road 
 commission. But they had not proceeded far when 
 they suddenly fell upon him, and hauling him off 
 into the maize, butchered him with severe blows from 
 their handshars, one of which half cut through his 
 neck. They then made off in broad daylight, making 
 their way through the Christians and others, whom 
 the young fellow's cries were bringing to the scene 
 of the tragedy — not a Greek daring to lay hands on 
 the murderers, who were Turks. The Belgian who 
 was in his tent had been roused by a loud " Homaun ! 
 homaun I " as he expressed the cries, and coming out 
 found the young rayah, who had succeeded in 
 crawling to the road, past human assistance.'* Do 
 * Through Bosnia and Herzegovina, p. 313. 
 
136 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 people thus treated, thus exposed by Turkish law to 
 outrage and murder, need ' Servian agitators ' or 
 1 Russian agents ' to teach them that they are foully 
 wronged, or to inspire them with hatred towards 
 their ' paternal Government ' ? 
 
 I have dwelt at length on the refusal of Christian 
 evidence in the Turkish courts of law, because it is 
 the fountain of that injustice of which these people 
 complain. From this flows, as from a copious well- 
 bead, impunity for every outrage which the malice 
 of envious neighbours, the cupidity of greedy officials, 
 and the lustfulness of casual travellers of the ruling 
 race, can prompt. Throughout the whole extent of 
 the Turkish empire, every young girl, every 
 Christian wife, is the lawful prey of any wandering 
 Mussulman, who is at perfect liberty, in wantonness 
 or in the consciousness of power, to show his con- 
 tempt for the sanctities of a Christian household by 
 the violation of any or every member of it, and the 
 father, husband, or brother are liable to punishment, 
 even that of death, if they defend their own honour 
 and that of the females of their family. Well may 
 Mr Layard say — ' Wherever the Osmanli has placed 
 his foot he has bred fear and distrust. His visit has 
 been one of oppression and rapine. The scarlet cap 
 and the well-known garb of a Turkish irregular are 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 137 
 
 the signals for a general panic. The women hide 
 themselves in the innermost recesses to save them- 
 selves from insult ; the men slink into their houses, 
 and offer a vain protest against the seizure of their 
 property.' 
 
 Even Mr Longworth, the consul-general at Bel- 
 grade, and formerly consul at Monastic, says, ' The 
 forcible abduction of Christian girls by Mahometans 
 is an abuse which calls urgently for correction.'' * . . 
 There is, however, but little prospect that this abuse 
 will be corrected, since Mr Abbott tells us — ' A cus- 
 tom prevails here to exempt from military con- 
 scription a Mussulman young man who elopes with 
 a Christian girl, and whom he converts to his faith. 
 This being considered a meritorious act for his reli- 
 gion, it entitles him, as a reward, to be freed from 
 military service. 'f 
 
 When a man can, by the laws of Turkey, avoid 
 the conscription merely by seizing and violating a 
 Christian girl, it is not to be wondered if such cases 
 abound in this ill-fated country. Nor is the sin- 
 gular provision, that he should convert to his own 
 ' faith ' the victim of his lust, any safeguard to a 
 Christian maiden, since, if she appeals to the tribu- 
 
 * Consular Eeports on the Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 21. t Ibid. p. 7. 
 
138 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 nals, she is utterly unable to obtain redress : should 
 she declare herself a Mahometan, then the ravisher 
 is held to have done a praiseworthy action ; should 
 she proclaim herself a Christian, she is, by the law 
 of Turkey, prohibited from giving evidence of the 
 wrong done to her ; so that, in either case, she must 
 submit. On the subject Mr Long worth, apologizing 
 as he does for Turkish abuses, yet says — ' It is an 
 old custom of these wild districts, and was formerly 
 held to evince manly spirit on the part of the 
 ravisher. It is asserted also, and I believe it, that 
 the girls are frequently consenting parties to their 
 own abduction, and that the parents, by delaying to 
 give them in marriage, with a view of appropriating 
 their services as long as possible, indirectly bring 
 this misfortune on themselves. But these palliatives, 
 and others of the kind, which may be urged, are, I 
 think, beside the question, which is simply if seduc- 
 tion and violence has been employed in removing 
 these girls from the roof and protection of their 
 parents. But instead of putting it to this issue, it 
 has been the rule to force the party to appear before 
 the tribunal which rejects Christian evidence, and to 
 dispose of the affair summarily, by compelling her to 
 declare herself a Christian or a Mahometan.' * 
 
 * Consular Keports on the Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 21. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFURMANCES. 139 
 
 (2) Where the safety of life and respect for the 
 honour of the family is utterly disregarded, it is not 
 to be expected that much consideration will be given 
 to the rights of property. With reference to this 
 particular, the injustice and cruelty of their Turkish 
 masters press heavily upon the whole Christian 
 population. Acts of oppression, incited by the 
 desire to possess the property of the subject race, 
 will, indeed, be more numerous than murders and 
 deeds of violence to Christian women, since cupidity 
 is a more universal passion amongst men than even 
 the thirst for blood or the gratification of lust. 
 
 This fact has not escaped the attention of 
 the Powers of Europe. So far indeed as solemn 
 stipulations can go, nothing at present can be 
 desired in behalf of the Christian subjects of the 
 Porte. But then it must be remembered that every 
 stipulation made has been — I will not say broken, 
 because that implies a state of things which has 
 existed and been violently destroyed — but disregard- 
 ed. It must be borne in mind that no treaty has, 
 on this point, ever been fulfilled. Every promise 
 has been forgotten. Whenever a loan is required, 
 for which the guarantee of England is necessary, or 
 the assistance of this country is desired for the pre- 
 servation of ' the integrity of Turkey,' and the lives 
 
140 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 of our fellow-countrymen are to be sacrificed on her 
 soil,or the industry of England weighed down by tax- 
 ation imposed for the security of the Ottoman power, 
 we have promises in abundance — the Hatt-i-Sherifs 
 and Hatt-i-IIumaiouns, which are then drawn up 
 and signed, bristle with the pledges of freedom. 
 But the loan once obtained, the assistance once 
 given, the money squandered, and the blood of 
 Englishmen poured out beyond recall ; every pledge 
 is broken, every treaty forgotten, and the Hatt-i- 
 Humai'oun, which has declared the equality of the 
 .Mussulmans and Christians of Turkey in the eyes of 
 the law, is quietly withdrawn. No nation, except 
 Turkey, has ever shown such a flagrant disregard, 
 such a contempt, for public treaties. Where the 
 rights of her Christian subjects are concerned no 
 attempt is ever made to observe them. Nor can 
 this be said to be of little moment to ourselves. We 
 are concerned in this breach of faith, we are parties 
 to it. The simple right which the Christians of 
 Turkey claim, the right to be heard as witnesses 
 when the blood of their brothers has been shed in 
 their sight, when their wives and daughters have 
 been outraged, is one which we have pledged our- 
 selves to procure for them ; the right of the Chris- 
 tian to hold property has been demanded as the 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 141 
 
 price of our assistance in upholding the rule of the 
 Sultan. Neither right has been conceded, neither 
 promise has been fulfilled, and we go on murmur- 
 ing and maundering about ' the integrity of Turkey ;' 
 but we are utterly indifferent whether Turkey takes 
 any steps to preserve her own 'integrity/ by per- 
 forming the repeated promises made on this subject, 
 or whether she destroys the one and violates the 
 other by her faithlessness. 
 
 In the negotiations preceding the treaty of Paris, 
 the condition of the Christians of Turkey engaged 
 the attention of the representatives of the great 
 European Powers. In order to obtain some guaran- 
 tee that the Sultan would no longer disregard the 
 provisions solemnly promised by the Hatt-i-Humai- 
 oun of Gul-Hane of 1S39, which itself, however, as 
 I have before said, was only a reiteration of like 
 promises made in the Tanzimat of an older date, it 
 was proposed that stipulations for the rights of the 
 Christian people of Turkey should form a part of 
 the treaty to be signed at Paris. At the represent- 
 ation, however, of the Turkish minister that the 
 Sultan would prefer to issue a document for this 
 purpose, as though it were his own free act and not 
 part of the proceedings of the Congress then as- 
 sembled, this was overruled, and accordingly the 
 
142 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 treaty of Paris was completed without any stipula- 
 tions for the better treatment of the Christians. It 
 was left to the Sultan's honour, and the only notice 
 taken of the subject, is that contained in the Ninth 
 Article of the treaty, which is in these words : — 
 'His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, having, in his 
 constant solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, 
 issued a firman which, while ameliorating their 
 condition withput distinction of religion or of race, 
 records his generous intentions towards the Christian 
 population of his Empire, and wishing to give a 
 further proof of his sentiments in that respect, has 
 resolved to communicate to the Contracting Parties 
 the said firman, emanating spontaneously from his 
 sovereign will.' * 
 
 A few weeks before this treaty was signed, the 
 Sultan had issued his Hatt-i-Sherif, in which he 
 says : — ' The guarantees promised on our part by the 
 Hatt-i-Humaioun of Gul-Hane, and in conformity 
 with the Tanzimat, to all the subjects of my Empire, 
 without distinction of classes or of religion, for the 
 security of their persons and property and the pre- 
 servation of their honour, are to-day confirmed and 
 consolidated, and efficacious measures shall be taken 
 
 * Treaty of Paris. Parliamentary Paper, p. 20. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 143 
 
 in order that they may have their full and entire 
 effect/ 
 
 'The equality of taxes entailing equality of 
 burdens, as equality of duties entails that of rights, 
 Christian subjects, and those of other non- Mussulman 
 sects, as it has been already decided, shall, as well as 
 Mussulmans, be subject to the obligations of the 
 Law of Recruitment. The principle of obtaining 
 substitutes, or of purchasing exemption, shall be 
 admitted. A complete law shall be published, 
 with as little delay as possible, respecting the 
 admission into and service in the army of Christian 
 and other non-Mussulman subjects.' 
 
 ****** 
 
 • The taxes are to be levied under the same 
 denomination from all the subjects of my Empire, 
 without distinction of class or of religion. The 
 most prompt and energetic means for remedying 
 the abuses in collecting the taxes, and especially the 
 tithes, shall be considered. The system of direct 
 collection shall gradually, and as soon as possible, 
 be substituted for the plan of farming, in all the 
 branches of the revenues of the State. As long as 
 the present system remains in force, all agents of 
 the Government and all members of the Medjlis 
 
144 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 shall be forbidden, under the severest penalties, to 
 become lessees of any farming contracts which are 
 announced for public competition, or to have any- 
 beneficial interest in carrying them out. The local 
 taxes shall, as far as possible, be so imposed as not 
 to affect the sources of production, or to hinder the 
 progress of internal commerce.' 
 
 Now, it is important to bear in mind the fact 
 which, indeed, the Sultan himself states, apparently 
 without any feeling of shame ; that the promises 
 made in this Hatt-i-Sherif of 1856, were only the 
 reiteration of those made in the Hatt-i-Humai'oun 
 of 1839, and these again were only the reiteration of 
 promises made in the older Tanzimat, and that this 
 reiteration was made necessary by the fact that the 
 promises made in the first instance, and re-promised 
 in the second, were still unfulfilled. Now let us 
 ask what has been the fate of this third instrument, 
 with its reiteration of the unfulfilled engagements of 
 the two preceding documents ? Have these promises 
 been better kept than the self-same promises made 
 thirty years ago ? 
 
 The Hatt-i-Sher if has never been even 'promulgated. 
 It is unknown throughout the whole of Turkey. Not one 
 promise has been performed, not one stipulation has been 
 fulfilled, and yet in the face of these facts, even 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 145 
 
 members of Parliament, officers of the Government, 
 presuming upon the almost universal ignorance which 
 prevails respecting that country, venture to speak in 
 the House of Commons of the fidelity of Turkey to 
 her engagements ! 
 
 By the Tanzimat, the Hatt-i-Humai'oun of 1839, 
 and Hatt-i-Sherif of 1856, three editions of the sams 
 unfulfilled promises, it was declared, as we have 
 seen, amongst other things, that Christians might 
 hold landed property in all parts of the empire as 
 freely as Mussulmans, and also that there should be 
 perfect equality as to taxation between the Mussul- 
 mans and non-Mussulmans of Turkey. 
 
 What attempt has been made to carry out these 
 simple requirements of justice? 
 
 Amongst the questions issued by Sir Henry Bul- 
 wer to the English consuls in Turkey, occurs the 
 following : — ' 4. Can Christians hold landed property 
 on equal condition with Turks ? and if not, where is 
 the difference ? ' 
 
 To this question Mr Calvert of Salonica replies — 
 ' As regards the acquisition of landed property, a 
 Christian is not allowed to purchase any belonging 
 to a Turk.' * 
 
 • Report of Consuls on the Condition of Christians in 
 
 Turkey, p. 10. 
 
 10 
 
146 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Since, then, nearly every acre of land at the 
 present moment belongs to the Turks, the refusal to 
 allow Christians to purchase such lands amounts 
 almost to a prohibition of their purchasing any land. 
 Again, on this subject Mr Finn of Jerusalem reports — 
 * Native Christians are precisely on equal terms with 
 Mussulmans in regard to the tenure of landed pro- 
 perty, though in acquiring it they are exposed to 
 pecuniary and other annoyances to which a Moslem 
 would not be exposed/ * 
 
 Mr Skene of Aleppo thus answers Sir Henry 
 Bulwer's question : — ' Freehold property, the best of 
 tenures, is within the reach of the Sultan's Christian 
 subjects. The fear, however, of unfair treatment 
 deters them from becoming landholders.' f 
 
 To the same effect Acting- Consul Zohrab says — • 
 ' Christians are now permitted to possess real pro- 
 perty, but the obstacles which they meet with when 
 they attempt to acquire it are so many and vexatious 
 that very few have as yet dared to brave them.' J 
 
 What those obstacles are which prevent Chris- 
 tians from acquiring and holding land he proceeds to 
 state in these words : — ' Christians are permitted by 
 
 * Report of Consuls on the Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 27. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 50. X Ibid. p. 54. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 147 
 
 law to possess landed property, but the difficulties 
 opposed to their acquiring are so great that few have 
 as yet dared to face them. As far as the mere pur- 
 chase goes, no difficulties are made — a Christian can 
 buy and take possession ; it is when he has got his 
 land into order, or when the Mussulman who has 
 sold has overcome the pecuniary difficulties which 
 compelled him to sell, that the Christian feels the 
 helplessness of his position and the insincerity of the 
 Government. Steps are then taken by the original 
 proprietor, or some relative of his, to reclaim the land 
 from the Christian, generally on one of the folio wing- 
 pleas : that the original owner, not being sole pro- 
 prietor, had no right to sell ; that the ground being 
 " meraah," or grazing- ground, could not be sold ; that 
 the deeds of transfer being defective the sale had 
 not been legally made. Under one or other of these 
 pleas the Christian is in nineteen cases out of twenty 
 dispossessed, and he may then deem himself fortun- 
 ate if he gets back the price he gave. Few, a very 
 few, have been able to obtain justice ; but I must say 
 that the majority of these owe their good fortune not 
 to the justice of their cause, but to the influence of 
 some powerful Mussulman.' * 
 
 * Report of Consuls on the Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 55. 
 
148 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 This, then, is the way in which this stipulation 
 is carried out in Turkey. Christians may hold land, 
 but — They must not purchase any belonging to a 
 Turk. As at present scarcely any land belongs to 
 any one else than a Turk, this is virtually to prevent 
 all such purchases. But beyond this the dangers 
 which threaten those who attempt to do that which 
 the law declares they may do are so real, that 
 few are hardy enough to brave them, and when they 
 do, having paid the price for their possession, no 
 sooner is the land brought under cultivation, than 
 the original owner is at liberty to reclaim it, and 
 having dragged the unfortunate purchaser into a 
 court of law where his evidence cannot be received, 
 he may re-enter his old possession with impunity, 
 for even documentary evidence made in favour of a 
 Christian is rejected by these courts of injustice. 
 
 (3) Nor has the stipulation of equality of tax- 
 ation been any more regarded than that which 
 declared the right of the Christian to hold land. 
 One provision of the Tanzimat was, that arbitrary 
 taxation of the Christian peasant was to cease. This 
 has never been fulfilled, except in a way which the 
 petitioners could scarcely have contemplated. 
 
 On this head we have the following observations 
 in Mr Calvert's report : — ' The Turkish Government 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 149 
 
 has too long neglected the interests of the two 
 classes of the population upon whose well-being the 
 prosperity of the country mainly depends, namely, 
 the agricultural and mercantile classes. Almost 
 every other consideration ought to have been sacri- 
 ficed for the promotion of their interests. Like the 
 Turkish landed proprietors, the State appears to care 
 not how its revenues are raised, provided it receives 
 them.' 
 
 ****** 
 
 ' We have an instance of this in the manner in 
 which the direct taxes were assessed upon the Chris- 
 tians on the promulgation of the "Tanzimati Hai- 
 riye," which was intended to put a stop to the then 
 existing systems of exactions. The Rayah popula- 
 tion, on being called upon, promptly furnished state- 
 ments of the exact amount of the contributions they 
 had been arbitrarily subjected to in addition to the 
 lawful taxes ; and since it was presumed that they 
 had been able to satisfy all the requisitions made 
 upon them, the Government, I am told, forthwith 
 assessed them with the whole amount, which they 
 pay at the present moment.' * 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 pp. 8, 9. 
 
150 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ' As the Mussulman peasantry are not as well 
 off as they might be, the distinction between the 
 condition of the Christians and that of the Mussul- 
 mans in the villages is in some respects only relative. 
 One point of difference consists in the fact that the 
 irregularities of the tax and tithes collectors, and the 
 excesses of the police force, not to speak of the de- 
 predations of brigands, are practised to ** larger 
 extent and with more barefacedness on the Christian 
 than on the Mussulman peasantry. It is, however, 
 extremely difficult to define the extent of the differ- 
 ence, and quite impossible to prove the facts on 
 which the general statement of its existence is 
 founded. But I feel persuaded that, without admit- 
 ting any special claim of the Christians on our 
 sympathy, the tacit submission of the Christians to 
 the abuses in question, and to others of a harassing 
 character, has conduced to their perpetuation at the 
 hands of the notoriously rapacious tax and tithes 
 farmers. The Mussulman peasantry are not so 
 extensively imposed upon, because the superior 
 chance which their complaints have of being listened 
 to by a District Government in which the element 
 of their co-religionists preponderates, causes them 
 to be regarded with greater respect. The Mussul- 
 man peasantry, nevertheless, suffer from the same 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 151 
 
 causes as their fellow-labourers on the soil, only to 
 a smaller degree. There is, however, a positive 
 difference, and a very important one, in the con- 
 dition of the Christian peasants in the farms 
 (" tchiftliks ") held by Turkish proprietors. They 
 are forcibly tied to the spot by means of a perpetual 
 and even hereditary debt which their landlord con- 
 trives to fasten upon them. This has practically 
 reduced many of the peasant families to a state of 
 serfdom. As an illustration, I may mention, that 
 when a tchiftlik is sold, the bonds of the peasantry 
 are transferred with the stock to the new proprietor. 
 In Thessaly there are Christians who own farms on 
 the same conditions. Upon one occasion, in which 
 the landlord, who was a merchant, had become a 
 bankrupt, I remember noticing, that amongst the 
 assets borne on his balance-sheet there figured the 
 aggregate amount of the peasants' debts to him, 
 and it formed a rather large item/ * 
 
 These oppressions and exactions, according to the 
 testimony of Mr Skene, so far from diminishing, 
 have greatly increased of late years. It is sig- 
 nificant of the utterly hopeless condition of the 
 Turkish Government, that even administrative re- 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 pp. 10, 11. 
 
152 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 form becomes a fresh engine of evil to the over- 
 burdened Christian. It has been the practice of 
 late years to send an assistant or kehaya with 
 the Pasha — a kind of deputy Pasha, to check and 
 report the actions of that officer, with what effect 
 Mr Skene will tell us. ' In my humble opinion, 
 the experiment of municipal institutions was 
 made in a manner not in harmony with the exist- 
 ing state of the country. The feudal system 
 of the East had degenerated when it produced 
 the great barons of Turkey in the first quarter 
 of the present century, Ali Tepedeleni, Ali of 
 Stolatz, Kara Osman Oglu, Chassan Oglu, Haznadar 
 Oglu, and others, equally powerful and independent, 
 and it had reduced the body of the people to actual 
 servitude. The spirit of industry was crushed by 
 the narrow maxims of a military aristocracy. The 
 country was on the verge of ruin. A counterpoise 
 was sought for the oppression of Pashas of the old 
 school. The remedy has outweighed the evil, and 
 instead of one tyrant there are now many tyrants, 
 each grasping his own advantage, and all inferior to 
 the Pasha in qualifications for government. The 
 desired control exists, but the local magnates are 
 unworthy of the trust. The power of the function- 
 aries sent from Constantinople, which is a whole 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 153 
 
 century in advance of the provinces, is paralyzed by 
 the corrupt action of the Ayans. A good Pasha is 
 hampered ; a bad one not checked. Men of integrity 
 and public spirit may come from the capital, but are 
 not to be found in the towns of the interior. The 
 Pasha of the present day is an improvement on the 
 old feudal Satrap; the unchanging Ayan is still a 
 man of the same stamp ; and the better is thus con- 
 trolled by the worse. Composed of cruel, venal, and 
 rapacious accomplices, the Medjlis oppresses the 
 people and enriches itself, while Pashas are power- 
 less, when willing, to cope with its collusive chi- 
 canery. Possessed of superior local information and 
 experience, wielding a dangerous influence over the 
 lower orders, which fear their iron rule, and well 
 versed in all the trickery of Oriental intrigue, they 
 rarely fail soon to reduce the most zealous Pasha to 
 the condition of a mere instrument in their hands. 
 ... I have followed the same familiar phases of 
 provincial government with unvarying issue in 
 Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Roumelia, in Asia Minor and 
 Syria, and I have thus been forced into strong con- 
 victions on the subject, which I hope to be held 
 excused for thus expressing freely/ * 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 pp. 51, 52. 
 
154 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Mr Abbot, of Monastir, adds his testimony to the 
 same effect. ' In giving my humble opinion on this 
 subject, I am far from taking the part of the Turks, 
 and exonerating the conduct of some of the Turkish 
 officials. Abuses, and to a great extent, exist in this 
 Province as well as in others, and the evils caused 
 by these abuses are of such a nature as to admit of 
 remedy. 
 
 ' For instance, a Pasha is apparently an honest 
 man, but his Kehaya or Intendant is venal, and then 
 the inhabitants have to suffer from the rapacity of a 
 man whose advice has so much deliberative power 
 with the Pasha, who, perhaps indolent and weak, 
 allows himself to be influenced by an unprincipled 
 man in whom he has entire confidence. 
 
 ' Then come next the Beys, who sit in the Medj- 
 lises. Natives of the place where they hold their 
 office, and with great local interests to protect, they 
 connive, for a trifle, at illegal acts, if, by doing so, 
 their interests are in any way promoted, and hence 
 affix their seals to decisions which have not the 
 slightest particle of justice/* 
 
 The same testimony, again, is borne by Mr 
 Zohrab as to the hopelessness of expecting any real 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 4. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 155 
 
 amelioration of the condition of the Christians from 
 the hands of the officers of the Sultan. Speaking of 
 the Christians he says: — 'In the belief that the 
 direct administration of the Porte would materially 
 ameliorate their position, they were induced, in 
 1850, to lend a hearty assistance to Omer Pasha, 
 and to their aid must be attributed the rapid success 
 of the Turkish arms. Their hopes were disap- 
 pointed. That they were benefited by the change 
 there can be no doubt, but the extent did not nearly 
 come up to their expectation. They saw, with 
 delight, the extinction of the Spahi privileges and 
 of the corvee, but the imposition of new and heavy 
 taxes, the gross peculation of the employes sent from 
 Constantinople, and the demands of the army filled 
 them with disappointments and dismay ; and, with 
 these causes for complaint, their previous servile 
 condition was almost forgotten. Their hopes had 
 been raised high to be cruelly disappointed ; their 
 pecuniary position was aggravated, while their social 
 position was but slightly improved.' 
 
 ****** 
 
 ' Oppression cannot now be carried on as openly 
 as formerly, but it must not be supposed that, be- 
 cause the Government employes do not generally 
 appear as the oppressors, the Christians are well 
 
156 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 treated and protected. A certain impunity, for 
 which the Government must be rendered respons- 
 ible, is allowed to the Mussulmans. This impunity, 
 while it does not extend to permitting the Chris- 
 tians to be treated as they formerly were treated, is 
 so far unbearable and unjust, in that it permits the 
 Mussulmans to despoil them with heavy exactions. 
 False imprisonments are of daily occurrence. A 
 Christian has but a small chance of exculpating 
 himself when his opponent is a Mussulman. 
 ****** 
 
 • Such being, generally speaking, the course pur- 
 sued by the Government towards the Christians in 
 the capital of the province where the Consular 
 Agents of the different Powers reside and can exer- 
 cise some degree of control, it may easily be guessed 
 to what extent the Christians, in the remoter dis- 
 tricts, suffer who are governed by Mudirs generally 
 fanatical and unacquainted with the law.' * 
 
 So uniform is the course of injustice practised to- 
 wards the Christians, that the words of a consul at 
 one end of the empire seems but an echo of those 
 already spoken by another at the opposite extremity. 
 Mr Abbot, consul at the Dardanelles, says : — ' It 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 54. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 157 
 
 might reasonably have been expected that the general 
 condition of the country ought, by this time, to have 
 so far improved as to have inspired the whole popu- 
 lation with the certain conviction that any just claim, 
 even from the humblest individual, would meet with 
 a fair investigation ; that the Porte would have 
 devised such checks over its functionaries as to pre- 
 vent the possibility of the powers confided to them 
 being abused, and would have exercised the utmost 
 vigilance over their conduct. Such, unfortunately, 
 is not the case. Too much power is confided to the 
 chief local authorities ; the laws and regulations are 
 framed so carelessly — their construction is so defective 
 (no provision being made for securing adhesion to 
 them) — that it is obvious they are the work of per- 
 sons inexperienced in the art of legislation. The 
 consequence is, that with a host of officials who 
 suffer no opportunity to escape them of abusing 
 their power whenever they can derive any substan- 
 tial advantage therefrom, the laws are either eluded 
 or converted into instruments of oppression. 
 ****** 
 ' I trace, as one of the principal causes which 
 renders the laws, framed in a most laudable spirit, 
 perfectly inoperative, the fact of the Government 
 trusting the welfare of the province to the sole good- 
 
158 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 will of the Governors, believing that they will carry 
 out implicitly its instructions, without requiring proof 
 of their being fulfilled. Thus, for instance, in the 
 Porte's Proclamation of the 2nd of March, 1846, the 
 Governors and other authorities are expressly for- 
 bidden to receive bribes, to impose " corvees " with- 
 out payment, &c. ; but I observe that the only check 
 attempted to be imposed is, strange to say, confided 
 to the Governors themselves, who are commanded to 
 report any person infringing this order. The Porte 
 appears to have forgotten that the Governor himself 
 might be the first person to set this order at defiance ; 
 so that it is rendered nugatory to all intents and 
 purposes/ * 
 
 Amongst other evils which press exclusively upon 
 the Christians, Major Cox, writing from Bucharest, 
 but speaking of the state of the whole province of 
 Bulgaria, says : — ' The Christians are exposed to the 
 necessity of entertaining strangers, and the others 
 are not. 
 
 'The Christians are the subjects of "hanghariyeh" 
 or forced labour, and the others are not. 
 
 'The Christians are frequently obliged to give 
 
 * Beport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 76. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 159 
 
 their labour to the Mussulmans of the village at a 
 low rate of wages/ * 
 
 The oppressive way in which the Government 
 exacts the tithe of all agricultural produce, is made 
 to press most injuriously upon the Christians. 
 
 1 The crops, after being cut, are sometimes two 
 months on the ground before the tithe-farmer comes, 
 and until then the people dare not remove them ; 
 their value is of course much diminished by the 
 ravages of the animals and of the weather. If this 
 tithe-tax could be assessed it would be a great boon, 
 and the whole of the taxes collected in money after 
 the harvest. 
 
 1 It is stated that in many instances the cost to 
 the villagers of entertaining the collectors of the 
 " iltizam " has nearly doubled that tax.' f 
 
 But I will not fatigue the reader by travelling 
 through this wearying record of oppression. Hold- 
 ing his life, the honour of his family, and his property 
 at the mercy of his Mussulman neighbour, who hates 
 him on account of his religion, and envies the results 
 of his industry ; weighed down by Government tax- 
 ation, and oppressed beyond even that by the rapacity 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 58. 
 
 fjbid. p. 60. 
 
160 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 of the farmers of taxes ; without help from the tri- 
 bunals, where his evidence cannot be heard ; mocked 
 by promises of protection by the Sultan which have 
 never been fulfilled — the lot of the Christian peasant, 
 the condition of those who numerically are more than 
 three-fourths of the people of European Turkey, and a 
 very large proportion of the population of Asia Minor 
 and Syria, is one of despair. He sees around him the 
 bitter tokens of increasing wrong. His hard and 
 cruel bondage has not sufficed to extinguish the love 
 of home and the desire for children, and a blessing 
 has gone with him ; so that whilst his stern task- 
 masters are diminishing, he sees his own race increas- 
 ing, and is doomed to feel the intolerable sufferings 
 which are instigated by the jealousy excited in the 
 breast of the Mussulmans by the impression, which 
 is gaining force every day, that they are retrograding 
 to the advantage of the Christian. Indeed — ' This 
 feeling has acquired such influence in the subordin- 
 ate Medjlises, that when any case of oppression takes 
 place on the part of the populace, courts are disposed 
 to assist in it.* * 
 
 Shut out as the subject race is from the acquisi- 
 tion of land, their attention has been turned chiefly 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 36. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 161 
 
 to trade, and almost the whole of this throughout 
 Turkey has passed into their hands, and as a conse- 
 quence we read, in the report of another consul, 
 that — ' The progress of the Christians has reached a 
 degree which is becoming dangerous to them : the 
 Mussulmans are jealous of their prosperity in trade.' * 
 (4) Another concession, in favour of the Chris- 
 tians of Turkey, which the Western Powers of 
 Europe required from the Sultan was, that the 
 armies of that country should be recruited alike 
 from the Mussulman and non-Mussulman portions 
 of the population. It was felt that so long as the 
 Christians were forbidden to be armed, whilst the 
 rest of the subjects of Turkey were allowed the use 
 of arms, and whilst the soldiery of the empire was 
 exclusively drawn from one race, those classes of the 
 people which were excluded from the army and not 
 allowed to be armed were exposed to a certain dis- 
 advantage, and that their defenceless condition 
 invited attack. Both in the Hatt-i-Sherif of 1839, 
 and again in the Hatt-i-Humaioun of 1856, it was 
 promised that this distinction should be abolished, 
 and that the army should be drawn from the popula- 
 tion of Turkey without distinction of creed. 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 50. 
 
 11 
 
162 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 It may be well to cite the express words of the 
 Hatt-i-Humai'oun of 1856. In the eighth clause of 
 this document the Sultan declared that from hence- 
 forth ' All the subjects of my empire, without distinc- 
 tion, shall be received into the military and civil 
 schools of the State.' In the fifteenth clause he pro- 
 mised that ' there shall be published, with as little 
 delay as possible, a law with full provisions as to the 
 manner of admission into, and of the duties of my 
 Christian and other non-Mussulman subjects while 
 in, the army/ It was promised, and here the 
 matter has rested. No Christian is allowed to 
 bear arms ; the army is exclusively Mussulman. 
 But not only is this pledge given to the Western 
 Powers deliberately violated, the pledge extorted, 
 though unfulfilled, has been turned into a fresh 
 engine of oppression. Christians are not only 
 excluded — they are subject to an oppressive tax 
 on the ground that they are so excluded. 
 
 The tenth of Sir Henry Bulwer's questions is as 
 
 follows: — '10. Would the Christian population like 
 
 to enter the military service instead of paying the 
 
 tax which procures them exemption ; and which 
 
 would they gain most by — serving in the army, or 
 
 paying the said tax ? ' * 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 3. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 163 
 
 To this Mr Abbot, of Monastir, replies : — ' Chris- 
 tians would prefer entering the army instead of 
 paying the exemption tax, provided they were 
 formed into separate regiments, and were held out 
 the prospect of advancing as much as Mussulmans 
 would in similar positions. If this were the case, 
 they would gain most by serving in the army/ * 
 
 Mr Finn, of Jerusalem, answers this question in 
 these words : — ' Excepting in Jerusalem, where they 
 are too much priest-ridden, the Christians do wish 
 to serve personally in the army instead of paying 
 the substitution tax, and consider that they and 
 their people would gain by it in consideration. I 
 am told that, in several parts of Syria, the youthful 
 Christian population have petitioned for the privilege 
 of serving personally in the army, even without 
 requiring to be placed in separate companies or 
 regiments.' f 
 
 Again, Mr J. E. Blunt, of Pristina : — ' It is the 
 impression of the Undersigned that the Christians, 
 the peasantry, which forms the bulk of their popula- 
 tion, would prefer to enter the military service than 
 pay the commutation-tax. . . . The Christians 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 5. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 28, 
 
164 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 would gain more by serving in the army than by 
 paying the tax/ * 
 
 Mr Moore, consul at Beyrout, says : — f I think 
 they would prefer entering the army to paying the 
 tax, if there could be enrolled purely Christian 
 regiments, officered by Christians ; but they much 
 prefer paying the tax to serving in the army with 
 the condition of being drafted into Turkish regiments 
 with Turkish officers. They would gain most, I 
 conceive, by entering the army under the former 
 arrangement than by paying the tax/ t How the 
 clauses of the Hatt-i-Humai'oun of 1856 have been 
 fulfilled we may learn from the latest blue book on 
 Turkey. Sir Henry Elliot, writing on June 8th of 
 the present year to Lord Derby, says, ' The necessity 
 of putting an end to the distinction which has been 
 maintained between the two religions has long been 
 admitted in principle, and while one clause of the 
 Hatt-i-Humaioun of 1856, drawn up under the 
 advice of the Western Powers, stated that Christians 
 should be admitted to the military schools, another 
 declared that measures should be immediately con- 
 certed for admitting them into the army,' and he 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 36. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 71. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 165 
 
 adds the significant comment — ' These tivo clauses 
 have hitherto remained a dead letter.' * 
 
 A difference of opinion exists as to whether the 
 Christians of Turkey, on the whole, would or would 
 not be better off by paying the heavy exemption-tax, 
 or by serving in the army ; but no difference of 
 opinion is possible as to the fraud practised upon the 
 "Western Powers by the non-fulfilment of the pro- 
 mise made by the Porte. It is pleaded by some of 
 the consuls that, under the present condition of the 
 Christians, and in face of the injustice practised 
 towards them, it would be dangerous for the Sultan 
 to put arms into their hands. But this is only an 
 additional reason why the contracting Powers should 
 insist upon this stipulation being faithfully carried 
 out. Compel the Government of Turkey to fulfil its 
 obligation in this respect, and that Government will 
 be compelled, as a necessary antecedent, to amelior- 
 ate the condition of the Christians. At present the 
 Christians are not armed, because they are so unjustly 
 used, that it would be dangerous to place arms in 
 their hands. By insisting upon this stipulation 
 being fulfilled, we insist then upon their being fairly 
 treated. 
 
 * Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Turkey, No. 
 3, 1876, p. 267. 
 
166 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 It is absurd to suppose that a nation of more 
 than twenty- four millions of persons should re- 
 quire the constant wet-nursing of England to 
 carry them safely through their second infancy. 
 Twenty-four millions of free men might defend 
 themselves against the world in arms. The defens- 
 ive strength of such a nation is far greater than the 
 offensive power of Russia. It is because the strength 
 of the Mussulman is exhausted in watching against 
 and in oppressing the non-Mussulman portion of the 
 empire that there exists any necessity of aid from 
 England. If we compel Turkey to do justice to all 
 her subjects, we shall obviate the necessity for Eng- 
 lish blood being wasted and English treasure con- 
 sumed in defence of such a Power. Tell Turkey 
 that she must henceforth rely upon her own subjects, 
 and she will be forced to adopt a generous policy 
 towards them. "We are bearing at this moment the 
 additional weight of seventy millions to our National 
 Debt : we have to deplore the death of many thou- 
 sands of Englishmen in the Crimean campaign : we 
 maintain, at a great expense, a large Mediterranean 
 fleet to be ready to defend Turkey against all assail- 
 ants — only because the Sultan will not do justice to 
 his Christian subjects. Had he done so, there would 
 have been no Russian War ; and had the Czar been 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 167 
 
 ever so ambitious, ever so warlike, Turkey, but for this 
 standing wrong against the great bulk of her people, 
 might, without aid from England, France, and Italy, 
 have resisted all the assaults of the legions of the 
 Northern autocrat. Whilst we are willing to pay 
 for the injustice of Turkey towards her own subjects, 
 we encourage her to persist in that injustice. 
 
 (5) But there is another subject about which Sir 
 Henry Bulwer professes incredulity, and on which 
 he requires information, and that is the enforced 
 conversions from Christianity — the compulsory 
 adoption of the Mahomedan creed, in order to escape 
 persecution and death. Nothing can show either 
 the utter ignorance of Sir Henry Bulwer as to the 
 state of Turkey or the unfairness of his questions 
 than that he should ask for information on the sub- 
 ject. He knew at the time of sending out the list 
 of questions that in the massacres of the Lebanon 
 and Damascus whole villages, hundreds of men, 
 women, and children, had been compelled to adopt 
 the Mahomedan faith in order to escape death in its 
 most appalling forms. Sir Henry Bulwer knew, on 
 the evidence of Lord Dufferin and of Mr Cyril 
 Graham, that thousands of those who then perished 
 died martyrs for Christianity. That the alternative 
 of death, or accepting the Mahomedan creed, was 
 
168 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 presented not only to men, but to women, and 
 even to girls of tender age, and that thousands 
 deliberately preferred the cruellest martyrdoms to 
 abandoning their religion. When we talk of the 
 imperfect faith of our brethren in the East — when 
 we are told of their low morality, be this remember- 
 ed to their everlasting honour, that in the middle of 
 the nineteenth century between five and six thou- 
 sand, at the least, on that occasion, accepted death 
 rather than deny their belief in Christ ! 
 
 (6) But a survey of the condition of the Chris- 
 tians in Turkey would be incomplete if I were to 
 pass over all consideration of their moral state. The 
 advocates of the Government of that country — the 
 apologists for the rule of the Sultan-— tell us that the 
 Christians — the large mass of the people of Turkey 
 — have 'exaggerated notions of nationality and 
 political freedom ; ' * that they have ' no independ- 
 ence of character ;*f that they are 'ignorant;' 
 ' miserly at home, abject without support, and in- 
 solent where unduly protected ; ' J that they are 
 ' lying, intriguing ; ' § and that their clergy and 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Tur- 
 key, p. 8. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 20. X Ibid. p. 49. § Ibid. p. 64. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 169 
 
 municipal officers are ' rapacious/ and that the 
 whole race is ' degraded and pusillanimous.' * 
 
 I have no doubt but that much of this is true. 
 It is the curse of slavery that it brings forth in 
 men the fruits of slavery; and when we see such 
 fruit, we are sure what the root must be. I know 
 no heavier accusation against the Government of 
 Turkey than that it makes men abject and lying, 
 pusillanimous and miserly ; that it destroys inde- 
 pendence of character, and that it degrades the whole 
 man. The peasant, whose life and the lives of his 
 children are at the mercy of his neighbours, cringes 
 and submits to degrading acts until he acquires the 
 habit of cringing. The man whose property may 
 be seized at any moment by the meanest village 
 official will, I am afraid, pretty generally ' intrigue ' 
 and ' lie ' to preserve his hard-earned and dearly- 
 prized possessions. This is the aspect which human 
 nature invariably presents. But is this any excuse 
 for slavery and oppression ? Surely it is but its 
 severest reproach. If the Christians of Turkey were 
 invariably honest, munificent, manly — if, in short, 
 they had all the virtues of free men, then I for one 
 should be content that they should abide under the 
 
 * Mr Layarcl, in House of Commons, May 29, 1863. . 
 
170 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 rule of the Sultan. The assertion that these virtues 
 
 are not to be found — at least, in profusion — but that 
 
 the subject races are degraded by vices of this kind, 
 
 is the strongest condemnation which can be uttered 
 
 against that system of government by which they 
 
 are weighed down and debased. Slaves are not 
 
 freemen, neither have they the virtues of freedom. 
 
 This is why slavery is so bitter a wrong, not that 
 
 it diminishes the pleasures of the senses, but that it 
 
 destroys the dignity of manhood ; and because I 
 
 long for the day when our brethren of the East may 
 
 be distinguished for independence of character — 
 
 when they may be truthful, honest, courageous — in 
 
 a word, free men, I desire they may be free. They 
 
 cannot possess these qualities of the heart and soul 
 
 so long as they are trampled under-foot by their 
 
 present masters. It is because you cannot graft 
 
 these virtues upon the stock of abject subjection, 
 
 that we ought to strive for their deliverance from 
 
 their present hard bondage. 
 
 1 That man's half -virtue Jove takes quite away, 
 That once is sun-burnt with the servile day.' * 
 
 It is because you cannot gather grapes from thorns, 
 
 nor figs from thistles, that the thorns and the 
 
 thistles should no longer be permitted to hinder 
 
 t * Chapman : Odyssey xvii. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 171 
 
 the growth of those fruits which they cannot them- 
 selves produce. 
 
 But we overlook much of the evils of slavery 
 when we only consider its effects upon the bodies 
 and souls of the enslaved race. It spreads beyond 
 these : it debases and corrupts the master often- 
 times more than the slave. This — according to the 
 testimony of all travellers, of all who know any- 
 thing of the condition of Turkey — is the result of 
 slavery in that country. The subject races are 
 'degraded and pusillanimous/ so much so indeed 
 that, in many places, they have lost heart, and have 
 become meekly submissive to injustice ; * but the 
 ruling caste — the masters of these slaves — have sunk 
 to lower depths than these, so that, degraded as the 
 Christians are, and degraded because oppressed, yet 
 in them alone lies the hope that the people of the 
 countries stretching from the Black Sea to Aden 
 will ever again lift up their heads and be numbered 
 amongst the nations. 
 
 On this matter I prefer to pursue the same course 
 which I have already followed, and to allow others 
 to speak rather than, by generalizing their testi- 
 mony, to weaken its force. 
 
 •Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 65. 
 
172 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 In Mr Senior's diary this conversation is re- 
 corded :— ' Soon after I left C. D., E. F. called 
 on us. 
 
 I ' " "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 
 Eellah is to the brutal Turk." 
 
 ' " 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 without a road ; I see a palace 
 of the Sultan's on every promontory 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, your opinions will be still 
 less favourable. In government 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 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 173 
 
 detestable religion, hatred of improvement, and 
 hatred of the unbeliever; the worst parts of her de- 
 testable government, 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." ' * 
 
 Again, in the same volume : — ' The Turks of 
 Europe are not producers ; they are a parasitical 
 population, which lives only by plundering the 
 Christians. Let this be made impossible, or even 
 difficult, and they will emigrate or die out. The 
 Turkish power in Bulgaria and Roumelia might 
 thus fall of itself without conquest, as it has already 
 done virtually in Servia, and in the Principalities/ f 
 
 And a little further on :— ' " Turkey," said W., 
 •* exists for two purposes. First, to act as a dog in the 
 manger, and to prevent any Christian power from 
 possessing a country which 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 thirty or forty pashas, who 
 make fortunes out of its spoils. It is the land of jobs. 
 All these palaces, all these terraced gardens, are the 
 fruit of jobs, when they are not the fruit of some- 
 
 * Senior, pp. 27, 2S. f Ibid. p. 32. 
 
174 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 thing worse. All the most respectable statesmen 
 are jobbers. Heschid 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 to his daughter married to Keschid's 
 son. * 
 
 Another conversation is reported in these words : 
 — '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 
 their 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 
 nation ruins them ? " ' 
 
 ' " It is a fact," said Y., " that while their institu- 
 tions 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, 
 intelligence, nor forethought. No Turk is an im- 
 proving landlord, or even a repairing landlord. 
 When he has money, he spends it on objects of 
 immediate gratification. His most permanent in- 
 . * Senior, p. 84. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 175 
 
 vestment 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 manufacturer. 
 If he has lands or houses, he lives on their rent ; if 
 he has money, he spends it, or employs it in stocking 
 a shop, in which he can smoke and gossip all day 
 long. The only considerable enterprise in which he 
 ever engages is the farming some branch of the 
 public revenue." ' * 
 
 But, not to multiply extracts, to testify to a fact 
 which is illustrated in almost every page of this valu- 
 able volume, I will only add the following : — ' " The 
 distinguishing characteristic of the real Asiatic is, 
 intellectual sterility and unfitness for change. One 
 nation, to save itself trouble, declares that its laws 
 shall be immutable. 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 acquiesce than dis- 
 cuss, rather attribute events to destiny than to 
 causes that can be inquired into and explained. 
 
 * Senior, pp. 210, 211. 
 
176 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 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, 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 subsistence, of his 
 subjects. He averts the dangers of a disputed 
 succession by killing all the nephews of the Sultan, 
 or preventing any from coming into existence. He 
 relies 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 without repairing it. For everything else he 
 relies on Allah, and entreats God to do for him what 
 he is too torpid to do for himself. His fatalism is, 
 in fact, indolence in its most exaggerated form. 
 It is an escape, not only from exertion, but from 
 deliberation. 
 
 ' " Our attempts to improve the Turks put me in 
 mind of the old story of the people who tried to wash 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 177 
 
 the negro white. He never was, or will be, or can 
 be anything but a barbarian." ' * 
 
 Lord Hobart and Mr Forster, in their report on 
 the state of Turkish finance, speak of Turkey as pos- 
 sessing — ' An army scarcely sufficient to ensure the 
 defence of the frontier from marauding tribes, and 
 powerless in the face of a fanatical outbreak ; with a 
 police, which in many parts of the empire casts not 
 even a shadow of restraint upon the thriving trading 
 of brigandage, and with production and commerce 
 paralyzed for want of roads/ f 
 
 But, on this subject, it is possible to cite Sir 
 Henry Bulwer himself as a witness, the more valu- 
 able, because his Turkish predilections are sufficiently 
 notorious not to permit of our ^believing that he 
 would exaggerate the evils of this empire of anarchy. 
 Speaking of Syria, he says : — ' To expect the same 
 state of things in Syria that exists in a well-, or even 
 ill-, governed province in Europe, is out of the ques- 
 tion. The warlike and more than half-barbarous 
 mountaineers are in one quarter habituated to a state 
 of military independence. In another, the wild 
 Arabs of the Desert have through all times defied 
 
 * Senior, pp. 227, 228. 
 
 t Eeport on the Financial Condition of Turkey, Dec. 
 1861, p. 32. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 civilization, and resorted to plunder wherever there 
 was not a superior force to overawe their temerity, 
 or punish their misdeeds. In the plains there exists 
 a peasantry thrifty and industrious, but for ages 
 oppressed and subdued. How can all these, by the 
 wand of an enchanter, be at once called into a homo- 
 geneous class of cultivators, artizans, shopkeepers, 
 and merchants obedient to the law, and acknowledg- 
 ing that equality before it which distinguishes the 
 citizens of our modern communities? It appears 
 that, for some time at least, there is only a choice 
 between the two extremes of disorder generated by 
 licence, and submission, the consequence of power, 
 which will rarely be unaccompanied by oppression. 
 At the present time, however, these two extremes 
 appear unhappily associated. Wherever the Turk is 
 sufficiently predominant to be implicitly obeyed, 
 laziness, corruption, extravagance, and penury mark 
 his rule ; and wherever he is too feeble to exert more 
 than a doubtful and nominal authority, the system 
 of government which prevails is that of the Arab 
 robber and the lawless Highland chieftain.' * 
 
 And yet, according to the testimony of Mr Brant, 
 quoted at page 50, it is evident that the task of 
 
 * Papers on Administrative and Financial Reform in 
 Turkey, 1858—1861, pp. 32, 33. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 179 
 
 reducing Syria to order is only hopeless, because it is 
 under the government of Turks. 
 
 In answer to Sir Henry Bulwer's question to the 
 consuls — ' What measures do you think could best 
 be taken to improve generally the condition of the 
 country ? ' * 
 
 Mr Charles Blunt, of Smyrna, replies : — ' Pre- 
 viously to suggesting any measures, it is most un- 
 doubtedly, under existing circumstances, a question 
 of very serious import whether, by attempting a re- 
 organization, and consequently disturbing the pre- 
 sent state of things, any beneficial results could be 
 obtained. My foregoing replies have shown that, 
 when human life and property were secure, the state 
 of the Christian races began to improve simultane- 
 ously, it may be said, with agriculture and commerce. 
 The more than richness of the soil, and well-known 
 superior intelligence of the Christian over the Ma- 
 hometan races, mainly contributed to that improve- 
 ment ; therefore the now daily -increasing means of 
 instruction, so largely availed of by the Christians, 
 but unheeded by the Turks ; the facility of communi- 
 cation with more civilized nations by steam, and the 
 introduction of railways, will probably do more for 
 
 * Keport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 4. 
 
180 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 the general good of the country, even under the 
 present faulty system, than the introduction of new 
 measures which the Turks cannot or will not under- 
 stand, and I may add, have neither the desire nor 
 capacity for carrying out. 
 
 ' In making the latter remarks, however strong 
 they may appear, I shall venture to add, for my justi- 
 fication, that, with a people with whom the idea of 
 patriotism is wanting ; people in whose characters 
 apathy and procrastination are predominant ; people 
 whose ideas are, in the extreme sense of the words, 
 selfish and sensual ; people whose existing social and 
 moral evils add to the daily-increasing degradation 
 of the country ; with such sorry elements to work 
 with, the introduction of new measures might pro- 
 bably tend to disturb the present steadily-progressing 
 intelligence and prosperity of the country.' * 
 
 Nor is there any hope of improvement in the way 
 of education : — ■ The ignorance of the Mussulmans 
 on all educational matters is notorious : indeed, they 
 delude themselves with the idea that they are so in- 
 finitely superior to the conquered races that it would 
 be derogatory in them to improve their minds in the 
 same way as the Christians do. The Rayahs have 
 
 * Keport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 34 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 181 
 
 begun of late years to understand the immense im- 
 portance of education, and the great advantages to 
 be derived from it, arid they demonstrate a most 
 praiseworthy desire for acquiring knowledge and for 
 having their children properly educated. 
 
 ' The utmost that a Turk will attempt is to follow 
 the old beaten track of his ancestors, in merely 
 learning to read the Koran, and to write sufficiently 
 well to be able to compose a letter with tolerable 
 correctness and elegance. The Turkish Khoja, or 
 schoolmaster, is totally ignorant of geography, gen- 
 eral history, natural science, and modern languages ; 
 indeed, the Turks deem such knowledge to be quite 
 useless.' * 
 
 No wonder that every one who has seen the 
 country, has lived in Turkish society, and is able to 
 observe, is in despair of preserving this empire as at 
 present constituted : — ' "As for the integrity of 
 Turkey," said W., "as a permanent arrangement, 
 it is impossible. We may dose her with Hatt-i- 
 Huma'iouns, but she is past physic, 'nullum reme- 
 dium agit in cadaver.' She is worse than a corpse ; 
 she is a corpse in a state of decomposition." ' f 
 
 'This country is a pourriture. To civilize the 
 
 * Eeport of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Turkey, 
 p. 87. f Senior, p. 86. 
 
182 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Mussulman is impossible. All that we can do is to 
 try to raise the Christian. He has borne on his 
 shoulders far too long this cadavre.' * 
 
 If there exists any gleam of hope, however faint, 
 for this Turkish race, it is in the overthrow of the 
 Government of the country ; for ignorant, and inert, 
 and sensual as the whole people may be, the govern- 
 ing body, the officials throughout the empire, are 
 more depraved even than the Mussulmans whom 
 they govern, and under the firm and equitable rule 
 of a Christian people it might even be possible to 
 save the poorer classes amongst the Turks from that 
 utter extinction which surely awaits them if the 
 Government of the Sultan continue much longer : — 
 ' Mr Blunt was for twenty years consul at Salonica. 
 I asked him which population he preferred, the 
 Salonicans or the Smyrniotes. 
 
 • "There is not much," he said, "to choose be- 
 tween them. The poorer, the humbler the Turk is, 
 the better he is ; as he mixes with the world, and as he 
 gets money and power, he deteriorates. In the low- 
 est class I have sometimes found truth, honesty, and 
 gratitude ; in the middle classes, seldom ; in the 
 highest, never. Even the lowest classes are changed 
 for the worse. Five and twenty years ago you could 
 
 * Senior, p. 147. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 183 
 
 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, however, is 
 rapidly dying out." ' * 
 
 And, again : — ' "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 se- 
 dentary smoking 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 pros- 
 perity. The poor Turk is honest and humane, the 
 Turkish private soldier is brave. The rich Turk is 
 always an oppressor." ' f 
 
 The testimony of Lord Carlisle is to much the 
 same effect : — ( Among the lower orders of the people 
 there is considerable simplicity and loyalty of cha- 
 racter, and a fair disposition to be obliging and 
 friendly. Among those who emerge from the mass, 
 * Senior, pp. 189, 190. f Ibid. p. 226. 
 
184 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 and have the opportunities of helping themselves to 
 the good things of the world, the exceptions from 
 thorough-paced corruption and extortion are most 
 rare ; and in the whole conduct of public business 
 and routine of official life, under much apparent 
 courtesy and undeviating good- breeding, a spirit of 
 servility, detraction, and vindictiveness appears con- 
 stantly at work. The bulk of the people is incredibly 
 uninformed and ignorant.' * 
 
 With one other extract from another traveller I 
 quit this branch of my subject: — 'To do any good 
 in this country, or to see it done, a man ought to live 
 to a patriarchal age, and to see the Turks dispossessed 
 of the sovereignty forthwith. There is a malediction 
 of heaven and a self-destructiveness on their whole 
 system. I know them well — I have now lived many 
 years among them ; there are admirable qualities in 
 the poor Turks, but their Government is a compound 
 of ignorance, blundering, vice — vice of the most 
 atrocious kind — and weakness and rottenness. And 
 whatever becomes a part of Government, or in any 
 way connected with it, by the fact becomes corrupt. 
 Take the honestest Turk you can find, and put him 
 in office and power, and then tell me three months 
 afterwards what he is ! He must conform to the 
 
 * Diary in Turkish Waters, p. 182. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 185 
 
 general system, or cease to be in office. One little 
 wheel, however subordinate it may be, would derange 
 the whole machine if its teeth did not fit.' * 
 
 The only hope, however, for this country rests in 
 the Christian population. The superiority of the 
 Rayah or Christian subjects of the Porte to the 
 Mussulmans is so notorious, that no traveller in 
 Turkey can pass it by unnoticed. They are at 
 present rising elastic under the hand of the 
 oppressor, so that the nature of the vices, with 
 which they are justly charged, are, because clearly 
 the result of servitude, grounds of hope and reason- 
 able expectation that in their hands and under their 
 government these fertile countries of Europe and Asia 
 may again blossom as the rose and be studded by 
 smiling villages. 
 
 Again to make use of Mr Senior's diary : — 
 'Monday, November lQth. — I showed 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 col- 
 lected the opinions that prevail in Smyrna respecting 
 the Turks. But I should like to see more about the 
 Greeks. They are destined to play — indeed they 
 
 * Turkey and its Destiny, by Charles McFarlane. Vol. 
 II. pp. 84, 85. 
 
186 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 play now — a more important part than the Turks. 
 I admit that they have great faults ; that they are 
 false, intriguing, and servile ; 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 worse for twenty or thirty 
 years of residence among us. But their diligence, 
 their public spirit, their ambition, their thirst for 
 knowledge, and their sagacity, are beyond all 
 praise.-" ' * 
 
 Again : — ' The Turks are idle and improvident. 
 The Greek labourers 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.'f 
 
 Mr J. E. Blunt, British consul at Pristina, 
 though, in his report, he points out that ' the Chris- 
 tian peasant labours under certain disadvantages 
 from which the Turks, in comparison, suffer little or 
 not at all,' yet tells us that ' A Christian village is in 
 general better formed and cleaner, its yards more 
 stocked, and its inhabitants better clothed, than the 
 Turkish.' + 
 
 * Senior, pp. 223, 224. f Ibid. p. 164. 
 
 % Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in Tur- 
 key, p. 35. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 187 
 
 But, on this point, we hardly require the opinions 
 of consuls, nor even the sad pictures which travel- 
 lers give us of the contrast between the decaying 
 Turkish village, or, more frequently, the clump of 
 C}*presses and the deserted cemetery, which alone 
 show where a Turkish village has been, and the 
 Christian hamlet embosomed in trees and tracked 
 from afar by the sounds of joyous infancy. The one 
 fact that, in every province of Turkey, the popula- 
 tion is rapidly declining — that scarcely a town in 
 the empire can be pointed out, in which whole quar- 
 ters have not totally disappeared within the last few 
 years, • or have left nothing behind them but ruined 
 mosques, minarets, and baths,' and that everywhere, 
 whilst the Turks are on the decrease, Greeks, Arme- 
 nians, and Jews are increasing in numbers,* is more 
 significant than all reasoning or the partial accounts 
 of travellers. To use again the words of Lord Car- 
 lisle : — ' On the continent, in the islands, it is the 
 Greek peasant who works and thrives; the Turk 
 reclines, smokes his pipe, and decays. The Greek 
 village increases its population, and teems with chil- 
 dren ; in the Turkish village you find roofless walls 
 and crumbling mosques.' f 
 
 * Turkey and its Destiny, by Charles McFarlane. Vol. 
 II. p. 63. 
 
 f Diary in Turkish Waters, p. 183. 
 
188 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 So that no fate can be so afflictive, no injury to 
 this country so great, as that which we aim at, ' the 
 maintenance of the integrity of Turkey ; ' for if we 
 repress the growth of the Christian races — if, in the 
 words of Mr Senior, ' You leave the Turk to him- 
 self, this country, if it does not become another 
 Greece, " by shaking off the Turkish yoke," will be- 
 come another Morocco.' * 
 
 In this consists the hopelessness of expecting 
 any improvement, so long as the Government of the 
 Sultan continues. The evil of the present state of 
 things arises not so much from Turkish character as 
 from Turkish rule. This fact is sometimes contested 
 by those who endeavour to defend the Government 
 of that country at the expense of the people. Ac- 
 cording to their view of the case, it is the people of 
 Turkey as contradistinguished from the Government 
 who are the source of all the misrule, all the cor- 
 ruption, all the evil which have destroyed the 
 national life ; it is the people alone, according to 
 some, who are responsible for ' the horrid massacres 
 and outrages ' by which the Turks have attempted 
 to reduce the Christian population. The assertion, 
 however, that these deplorable events have their 
 origin in the spontaneous fanaticism of the people 
 
 * Senior, pp. 208, 209. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 189 
 
 is not true. Almost every massacre which has 
 shocked Europe has been the deliberate work of the 
 Sultan, and has not arisen from the people of Turkey. 
 The people have, indeed, been incited to act, and 
 have been but too ready to obey the suggestions or 
 directions of the Court of Constantinople ; but the 
 evidence is too complete on this matter to leave us 
 in any doubt about the quarter from whence the 
 instigation came. From the massacre of Scopia,* 
 down to that of Damascus, f we have invariably seen 
 fanatical populaces acting under the direction of 
 their pashas, and these, again, only obeying the 
 wishes of the Sultan and his advisers. There can 
 be no doubt of the fact. It is this circumstance, 
 that these were all Government massacres, ordered 
 for the political object of keeping down the increase 
 of the Christian population, which has led those 
 who are best acquainted with Turkish politics to 
 predict that there will be no more massacres on a 
 large scale, until the Ministers of the Porte shall 
 have recovered from the alarm felt throughout all 
 the departments of State in Turkey, lest the recent 
 French occupation of Syria should be permanent. 
 
 * Turkey and its Destiny, by Charles McFarlane. Vol. 
 I. pp. 202—228. 
 
 t See the Blue Books on the Syrian Massacres, passim. 
 
190 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 One consul expressly says that 'the popular 
 fanaticism never breaks out until the fanatical tend- 
 ency of the Governor is visible.' * But even then 
 it does not break out of itself. It watches and 
 waits for the orders of the central Government, as 
 it did in Bulgaria. Let us follow for a moment the 
 course of one of these massacres, one in which the 
 evidence is complete — its beginning, its course, and 
 conclusion. In the Syrian massacre the arms of the 
 Christians were first taken away by the Lieutenant 
 of the Sultan, and given to the Druse chieftains. 
 The Christians were next led to abandon their strong 
 positions, and to rely upon the protection of the 
 Turkish troops. When in a safe place, the approach 
 to their retreat was thrown open by the Turkish 
 commander to the Druses ; and the Turkish soldiers, 
 pretending to aim at the assailants of the Chris- 
 tians, poured in their whole fire upon the unarmed 
 peasants, men, women, and children. For his share 
 in these deeds, Kurschid Pasha was sent to Rhodes, 
 where he soon became 'the fountain of all honour 
 and advancement ' f in that island. Tahir Pasha, 
 
 * Report of Consuls on Condition of Christians in 
 Turkey, p. 28. 
 
 t Mr Gregory's Speech in the House of Commons, May 
 29, 1863. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 191 
 
 who presided at the massacre, was allowed to retire 
 to Beyrout,* whilst the guilty agent in the Jeddah 
 massacre, Namik Pasha, was first rewarded with the 
 office of Minister at War, and then appointed Pasha 
 of Bagdad. We seem in this to be reading the 
 history of the Bulgarian atrocities. Turkish rule is 
 invariable. 
 
 In considerations of general policy, in those 
 deeper matters which involve the life of a nation, too 
 great stress is oftentimes laid upon mere material 
 interests. All is not to be settled by appeals to 
 
 * ' When I was in Syria in the spring of 1861, 1 inquired 
 what had become of Tahir Pasha, -whom I had known at 
 Ears. I was told that he had been adjudged worthy of 
 death by the almost unanimous verdict of the European 
 commission, for having presided over and directed the whole- 
 sale massacres of Christian villages of unresisting and 
 disarmed men, women, and children. This man had 
 received an English education, having been for six years 
 at the Woolwich Artillery School. His sentence had been 
 commuted to imprisonment for life, and so I concluded he 
 was incarcerated in a gloomy dungeon. 
 
 Before I left Beyrout, I was admiring the position of a 
 building placed so as to command the finest scenery. I saw, 
 on the balcony, two Turks of rank playing at dominoes, and 
 enjoying themselves in true Turkish fashion. I thought I 
 recognized Tahir Pasha in one of them, but to make sure, I 
 rode up to the balcony and called him by name. He came 
 forward, and we had some conversation together.' — Extract 
 of a Letter from Dr Sanchvith, 
 
192 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 tables of exports and imports. There are more 
 enduring interests than can be represented by bales 
 of cotton goods and crates of earthenware. Com- 
 munities of slave-owners may be larger importers of 
 dry goods than a like number of freemen. Accident 
 may cause this. The former may be larger pur- 
 chasers merely because they are smaller producers. 
 We are not, however, to make bills of lading the 
 only measure of our sympathies, nor pore curiously 
 over the columns of exports and imports, before we 
 determine whether slavery be evil ; whether despot- 
 ism be preferable to constitutionalism ; whether a 
 profligate Mussulman Q-overnment shall so far enlist 
 our support as to make us indifferent to the con- 
 dition of the millions of Christians pining under its 
 yoke. For this reason I should not have thought of 
 appealing to the figures of the Custom-house. But 
 I am willing to meet the friends of the Turkish 
 Government on this ground. It is not that which I 
 should have chosen, but it yields no support to those 
 who cry out for the preservation of ' the integrity 
 of Turkey,' in order that Manchester goods may not 
 hang heavily upon our hands. I have abundantly 
 proved, from the testimony of every one who has 
 written on Turkey, that the race is dying out in 
 every province of the empire, whilst the Christians 
 
TUEKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 193 
 
 on the same soil are uniformly increasing in num- 
 bers. Now, under these circumstances, we should 
 expect to find some fluctuation in the value of the 
 exports and imports to that country. If the de- 
 clining, or Mussulman, race, were in the main the 
 chief purchasers or producers, then we should find 
 the exports and imports suffer a corresponding dimi- 
 nution. If, however, the increasing race, the Chris- 
 tian subjects of Turkey, are the better customers 
 for the produce of the rest of the world, then 
 the imports will show an increase proportionate 
 to that of the increase of this part of the popu- 
 lation. Now we were told by Mr Layard, in his 
 zealous defence of Turkey some years ago, that — 
 1 In 1831 the Turkish import trade from England 
 amounted to £888,684; and in 1839 it had in- 
 creased to £1,430,224; in 1848 to £3,116,365; and 
 in 1860 to £5,639,898. The export trade had in- 
 creased no less rapidly from £1,387,416 in 1840, to 
 £3,202,558 in 1856, and £5,505,492 in 1860, the 
 Danubian Principalities included. In fact, the 
 trade with England had increased in twenty- 
 three years 635 per cent. The results as regards 
 France have been no less remarkable. In 1833 the 
 imports from that country amounted in value to 
 
 16,730,000 francs; in 1856 they had risen to 
 
 13 
 
194 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 91,860,000 francs. The exports in 1833 were only 
 874,000 francs; in 1856 they had risen to 
 131,546,258 francs. The revenue of Turkey shows 
 a no less extraordinary result. In the time of 
 Sultan Mahmoud it amounted to only £3,000,000 
 a year ; in 1850 it had risen to £7,000,000 : it has 
 now reached £15,000,000> * 
 
 How much of this increase is due to the freedom 
 of the Danubian Principalities; how much of this 
 must be credited to Servia, "Wallachia, and Molda- 
 via, Mr Layard did not tell us : though it is note- 
 worthy, that in order to show this great increase, he 
 has to include countries now free from the Ottoman 
 yoke, and flourishing because free. 
 
 But in culling these figures, Mr Layard un- 
 accountably overlooked others which are still more 
 deeply significant of the difference between the 
 slumberous and decaying Turkish race and the active 
 and advancing Greek people. Thirty years ago, 
 Greece commenced its national life. Till that time 
 it was a province of Turkey. It has now a popula- 
 tion of only about 1,200,000 — just a twentieth part 
 of the population of Turkey. Yet the return of the 
 
 * The Condition of Turkey and her Dependencies. A 
 Speech delivered in the House of Commons, May 29, 1863, 
 by A. H. Layard, Esq. M.P. (Murray), p. 57. 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 195 
 
 ships and tonnage entering the port of Constanti- 
 nople in the years 1857 and 1861, gives us these 
 reraai-kable items : — 
 
 1857. 1861. 
 
 Ships. Tons. Ships. Tons. 
 
 Turkish . . 4,055 377,500 3,690 360,612 
 
 Greek . . 2,738 461,957 3,210 527,131 
 Ionian Islands 290 45,634 500 82,853 
 
 So that the whole shipping, coastwise and foreign, 
 sailing under the Turkish flag, and entering the 
 port of its own capital, is less than that of the petty- 
 kingdom of Greece, and the former is declining, 
 whilst the latter is increasing.* 
 
 One fact, however, is clear from the figures 
 which I have just given. With the rapid decline of 
 the Turkish race the foreign trade as rapidly in- 
 creases, whilst the increase in trade keeps pace with 
 the increase in the numbers, the activity, and the 
 intellectual progress of the subject races. What, 
 then, is the inference, the only inference to be drawn 
 from these facts, but that the Turks are neither con- 
 sumers of foreign goods, nor producers of articles of 
 commerce to any appreciable amount ; and that, 
 
 * Statistical Tables of Trade of Foreign Countries. 
 1 Parliamentary Papers.' 
 
196 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 when the whole race has disappeared from the coun- 
 tries which it occupies, indeed, but does not fill; 
 which it possesses but only to render desolate and to 
 curse with sterility ; that then, not merely will the 
 peace of the rest of the world be less frequently 
 menaced, but its commerce will be largely augmented. 
 Increasing wealth implies industrious population ; 
 it does not prove that they are not oppressed. 
 Tyrants tire of persecuting when there is unyielding 
 submission, and no element exists to alarm their fears. 
 Even the Turk would not plunder, unless stimulated 
 by the knowledge of the gains of industry hoarded 
 up or invested by the Christian races. But increase 
 in numbers, and even augmenting wealth, is no evi- 
 dence that the people are not oppressed. History 
 gives us many examples of great increase in numbers, 
 in wealth, and in intelligence, in face of grievous 
 tyranny, and in defiance of cruelties resorted to to 
 keep down the advance of a subject race. It was 
 the growth of the Low Countries, in population and 
 material resources, which, awakening the alarm of 
 Spain, led to their oppression. The Prime Minister 
 of Philip the Second retorted the charge of cruelty 
 and wrong by pointing to the growth of Leyden and 
 the thriving commerce of Antwerp. His Under 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs praised the tolerant 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 197 
 
 rule of Alva, and condemned the restlessness and 
 ingratitude of the Hollanders, much as an official now 
 eulogized Turkish Pashas and condemned the dis- 
 contented Christians ; and all the members of the 
 Spanish Cabinet united in attributing the move- 
 ments in the Low Countries to ' foreign intrigues,' 
 and to ' persons of various kinds not identified with 
 or belonging to the native population.' * 
 
 Be it remembered, then, that these massacres 
 are not the spontaneous outbreaks of Mussulman 
 fanaticism directed against Christians, nor cruelties 
 springing from the rapacity of the Turkish Govern- 
 ment, and aimed against its richer subjects merely. 
 It is the oppression of self-preservation springing 
 from the alarm felt by the Turks at the increasing 
 numbers, wealth, and influence of the Christians, and 
 at their growth, notwithstanding all the cruel means 
 which have been resorted to in order to keep down 
 the increase of the Christian population. History is 
 ever repeating itself. "We may see in Turkey the 
 same spectacle which the rulers of Rome beheld in 
 the early centuries of the Christian era, the growth 
 within the empire of a despised and persecuted sect ; 
 growing, though persecuted — nay, as it seemed, 
 
 • Sir Henry Bulwer's Circular to Her Majesty's Consuls 
 in the Ottoman dominions. 
 
198 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 growing because persecuted. But not only in this 
 particular have we a parallel between the condition 
 of the early Christians and those of modern times in 
 countries subjected to Turkish rule, we have a 
 repetition, also, of the means which the Neros and 
 the Diocletians attempted to prevent the growth of 
 the people and to destroy the hostile religion. But 
 we may find a closer pai'allel than even this. When 
 I read of the oppression which is the normal con- 
 dition of the Christians of Turkey ; when I think of 
 the massacres of Damascus and Jeddah, I am re- 
 minded of the hard bondage of the Jews and the 
 instincts of Pharaoh ; and in a few verses in the be- 
 ginning of the book of Exodus I read a faithful 
 picture of the growth of the Christian people amidst 
 oppression, and of the cruel policy by which the 
 government of Turkey endeavours to restrain the 
 increase of a race which it hates and fears : — ' And 
 the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased 
 abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding 
 mighty ; and the land was filled with them. Now 
 there arose up a new king over Egypt. . . . And 
 he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the 
 children of Israel are more and mightier than we : 
 Come on, let us deal wisely with them ; lest they 
 multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there fall- 
 
TURKISH PROMISES AND NON-PERFORMANCES. 199 
 
 eth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, 
 and fight against us, and so get them up out of the 
 land. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters 
 to afflict them with their burdens. . . . But the more 
 they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and 
 grew. And they were grieved because of the 
 children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the 
 children of Israel to serve with rigour : And they 
 made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, 
 and in brick, and in all manner of service in the 
 field : all their service, wherein they made them serve, 
 was with rigour.' * And when hard bondage failed 
 to thin their numbers sufficiently, and to stay the 
 increase of the oppressed people, then we read that 
 Pharaoh ordered the destruction of the male children, 
 from state policy, just as now, from the same state 
 policy, the Sultan, from time to time, directs the 
 massacre of his Christian subjects. 
 
 But it is not the fact of the oppression and wrong 
 practised throughout the Turkish empire which, as 
 an Englishman, I chiefly regret; it is that, in de- 
 fiance of all our boasted sympathy with enslaved and 
 suffering people, in defiance of all our traditions of 
 non-intervention in the internal affairs of other 
 countries, we strengthen by our influence and our 
 
 * Exodus i. 7 — 14. 
 
200 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 material power the hands of the oppressor, and are 
 continually meddling, against this suffering people, 
 in the internal government of Turkey. The impres- 
 sion that we do so is increasing throughout the do- 
 minions of the Sultan. This knowledge is embitter- 
 ing the people, unhappily subject to his rule, against 
 England. It is acting also as a perpetual irritant to 
 France and Russia ; excusing, and, as they think, 
 rendering necessary, their interference, and sowing 
 the seeds of future trouble and wars between the 
 Great Powers of Europe. At least half our warlike 
 preparations and expenses of late years have arisen 
 from this one source. The impression that we so 
 interfere is, indeed, not groundless ; it is avowed by 
 Ministers of State, and recorded in official documents. 
 'Her Majesty's Government wishes, as you well 
 know, to maintain the Ottoman Empire/ is the 
 language of diplomacy ; but it does far more than 
 wish ; in order to accomplish this object it tramples 
 on all other considerations, it disregards every right, 
 and tolerates the breach of every treaty which has 
 been made for the amelioration of the people of this 
 ' Ottoman Empire/ 
 
201 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 
 
 The vilayet of Bosnia, including the Herzegovina, 
 has been among the most misgoverned of all the 
 provinces of European Turkey. The peculiarity of 
 its population, a Mahometan aristocracy, at once 
 tyrannous towards the Christian rayahs and turbu- 
 lent in their relations to Constantinople; an active 
 minority of Latin Christians, due in a great measure 
 to the fostering protection of Austria, and invested 
 with exclusive privileges from the Porte, and hostile, 
 from connection with Rome, to any national sentiment, 
 has added largely to the element of mischief which 
 exists in other provinces. Hence the language of 
 Prince Gortschakoff in 1860, who, speaking of ' the 
 increasing serious condition of the Christian pro- 
 vinces under the rule of the Porte,' adds, that he 
 
202 THE CHRISTIANS OF TUEKEY. 
 
 refers 'especially to Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bul- 
 garia.' * 
 
 Omitting all mention of Bulgaria, beyond noting 
 the significaney of this warning, and confining my 
 remarks to the state of Herzegovina when the insur- 
 rection of 1875 first broke out, I find Mr Holmes, the 
 English Consul in Bosnia, writing and saying that 
 ' in the Herzegovina there is much more oppression 
 to complain of ' f than in Bosnia. The sterile soil, 
 the small extent of fruitful land, the exorbitant tax- 
 ation, added much to the evils intolerable in other 
 parts. On this Mr Evans bears testimony: 'The 
 case of Herzegovina differs in many respects from 
 that of their Bosnian brothers. This is due to the dif- 
 ference in the physical condition of the two countries. 
 In Bosnia there are many tracts, like the Possavina, of 
 marvellous fertility, where the most extortionate 
 Government cannot so entirely consume the fat- 
 ness of the land, as not to leave the rayah consider- 
 able gleanings. Ear otherwise is the case in the 
 Herzegovina. The greater part of this country 
 may be briefly described as a limestone desert, and it 
 is the terrible poverty of the soil which makes the 
 
 * See ante, p. 12. 
 
 t Correspondence respecting Affairs in Bosnia and Her- 
 zegovina, p. 29.] 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 203 
 
 position of its Christian tiller so unendurable/ * 
 This desert was made more barren by the policy of 
 the Turkish Government. A few years before it had 
 inflicted an injury upon the country by the destruc- 
 tion of the forests, which covered a soil hardly fitted 
 for any purpose save that of the growth of timber. 
 The fertility of much of this country was seriously 
 impaired by this destruction, and the peasantry were 
 the chief sufferers. I have elsewhere described the 
 scene of the gigantic fire which raged for many months 
 in South Herzegovina. Writing at the time, I said : — 
 ' Three or four miles' ride from Ostrug brought u^ 
 to the northern frontier of Montenegro at Gradatz, 
 and gave me a spectacle which I hope, for the sake 
 of our common humanity, cannot be paralleled in any 
 part of the world. We pulled up our horses at the 
 edge of a precipitous slope, and looked down upon 
 the beautiful plain of Niksich in the Herzegovina, 
 clothed in perennial green and interlaced by two or 
 three small streams of water. To the north this 
 plain is backed' b} r a range of mountains — the true 
 geographical frontier of Montenegro, but at present 
 in the occupation of the Turks. This range was 
 formerly wooded, and even yet remains of noble 
 
 * Through Bosnia and Herzegovina, p. 329. 
 
204 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 forests in some parts blacken the slope of the lime- 
 stone mountains. When we looked at it, however, 
 the whole range was almost concealed by dense 
 clouds of smoke. For eighteen months these moun- 
 tains have been burning, and the magnificent oaks 
 and beeches which furnished the country around 
 with the choicest timber are now almost wholly de- 
 stroyed. This has been done by orders from Con- 
 stantinople, in order to form a sterile frontier, but its 
 effect will be to destroy the plain which lies at the 
 foot of the mountains, and to reduce it to the con- 
 dition of the arid plains of Albania on the other 
 frontier of Montenegro. But it will do more than 
 even this : it will diminish the tributaries of the Zeta 
 which flow through Montenegro, and render barren 
 much of the scanty territory possessed by these 
 people. Such a flagrant injury to the country of a 
 neighbour is surely contrary to the spirit if not to 
 the letter of the law of nations, and now the Turk 
 has been brought within the pale of civilization such 
 an act merits our strongest reprobation.' * 
 
 This piece of vandalism, of stupid wanton destruc- 
 tion, was not without some influence upon the out- 
 break of last year. With diminished fertility the 
 
 • Good Words, September, 1866. 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 205 
 
 taxes were extorted as before. It was only the help- 
 less who was to suffer from the waste caused by the 
 Government of Turkey, and all trustworthy accounts 
 represent the outbreak as occasioned by the exaction 
 of the farmers of taxes. Lord Derby, writing on 
 July 29, 1875, and speaking of the troubles in the 
 Herzegovina, says that ' the rising, in the opinion of 
 the Austro-Hungarian Government, had its origin in 
 discontent arising from financial causes/ * And Mr 
 Consul Holmes tells us that ' discontent undoubtedly 
 exists against most of the chief Turkish landowners, 
 and against the Zapatiehs and tax-farmers.' t But on 
 this point we are able to cite the Porte itself as a 
 witness. 'The first Secretary of His Majesty the 
 Sultan,' writing to the Grand Vizier, and speaking 
 of the prospect of putting down the insurrection, says : 
 • Although there is every reason to hope that, thanks 
 to the measures to be taken, the proposed object will 
 be completely achieved, it is not the less true that 
 the causes which produce trouble among the peace- 
 able populations are in a great measure due to the un- 
 seemly conduct of some incapable functionaries, and 
 particularly to the exactions to which the avaricious 
 farmers of taxes bind themselves in the hope of a 
 
 * Correspondence, &c., p. 3. 
 t Ibid. p. 29. 
 
206 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 larger profit/ * "With this evidence before us the 
 words of Count Yon Bothman, the German consul, 
 are sadly significant: 'God only knows what the 
 rayahs suffer in the country districts.' God indeed 
 only knows, no words of man can describe them, 
 hardly can the imagination of man picture them. 
 
 The testimony of Lord Derby that the insurrec- 
 tion was due to 'financial causes,' which in plain 
 English means extortion by the tax-gatherers, and 
 not to ' Russian agents,' is borne out by the report 
 of a foreign consul which appeared in the ' Times.' 
 He says : ' There were no foreign influences which 
 caused the movements, but cases of unusual mal- 
 administration.' t On this Mr Evans remarks : ' The 
 most galling oppression, and the main cause of the 
 present revolt, is to be found in the system and 
 manner of taxation. The centralized government 
 set up in Bosnia since 1851 is so much machinery 
 for wringing the uttermost farthing out of the 
 unhappy Bosniac rayah. The desperate efforts of 
 Turkish financiers, on the eve of national bankruptcy, 
 have at last made the burden of taxation more than 
 even the long-suffering Bosniac can bear. It was 
 the last straw. 
 
 * Correspondence, &c, p. 17. 
 t ' Times,' December 15, 1875. 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 207 
 
 ' The principal tax — besides the house and land- 
 tax, and that paid by the " Christian " in lieu of 
 military service, which is wrung from the poorest 
 rayah for every male of his family down to the 
 baby in arms — is the Eighth, or, as it is facetiously 
 called by the tax-collector, the tenth, which is levied 
 on all the produce of the earth. "With regard to the 
 exaction of this tax, every conceivable iniquity is 
 practised. To begin with, its collection is farmed out 
 to middle men, and these, ex- officio pitiless, are 
 usually by origin the scum of the Levant. The 
 Osmanli or the Sclavonic Mahometan possesses a 
 natural dignity and self-respect which disinclines 
 him from such dirty work. The men who come 
 forward and offer the highest price for the licence 
 for extortion are more often Christians — Favourite 
 Greeks — adventurer^ from Stamboul, members of a 
 race perhaps the vilest of mankind. No considera- 
 tion of honour, or religion, or humanity, restrain 
 these wretches. Having acquired the right to 
 farm the taxes of a given district, the Turkish 
 officials and gendarmerie are bound to support them 
 in wringing the uttermost farthing out of the 
 misera contribuem plebs. And it is natural that this 
 help should be most readily forthcoming when needed 
 to break the resistance of the rayah. 
 
208 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ' These men time their visitation well. They 
 appear in the villages before the harvest is 
 gathered, and assess the value of the crops accord- 
 ing to the present prices, which of course are far 
 higher just before the harvest than after it. But 
 the rayah would be well contented if their exactors 
 stopped here. They possess, however, a terrible lever 
 for putting the screw on the miserable tiller. The 
 harvest may not be gathered till the tax, which is 
 pitilessly levied in cash, has been extorted. If the 
 full amount — and they often double or treble the 
 legal sum — is not forthcoming, the tax-gatherer 
 simply has to say, " Then your harvest shall rot on 
 the ground till you pay it," and the rayah must see 
 the produce of his toil lost, or pay a ruinous imposi- 
 tion which more than swamps his profits. Or if he 
 remains obstinate, there are other paraphernalia 
 of torture worthy of the vaults of the Inquisition. 
 A village will occasionally bind together to defend 
 themselves from the extortioners. Thereupon the 
 tithe-farmer applies to the civil power, protesting that 
 if he does not get the full amount from the village, 
 he will be unable in his turn to pay the Government. 
 The Zaptiehs, the factotums of the Turkish officials, 
 are immediately quartered on the village, and live in 
 them, insult their wives and ill-treat their children. 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HEEZEGOVINA. 209 
 
 With the aid of these gentry all kinds of personal 
 tortures are applied to the recalcitrant. In the heat 
 of summer men are stripped naked and tied to a tree 
 smeared over with honey or other sweet stuff, and 
 left to the tender mercies of the insect world. For 
 winter extortion it is found convenient to bind people 
 to stakes, and leave them barefooted to be frost- 
 bitten ; or at other times they are shoved into a 
 pig-sty and cold water poured on them. A favourite 
 plan is to drive a party of rayahs up a tree or into a 
 chamber, and then smoke them with green wood. 
 Instances are recorded of Bosniac peasants being 
 buried up to their heads in earth, and left to repent 
 at leisure.' * 
 
 Under such a state of things it is little wonder 
 that the peasants of Herzegovina are discontented 
 with a Government which exacts its taxes by these 
 means. He has little less reason to be contented 
 with his Mussulman landlord. Again I borrow 
 from the pages of the same volume, the most recent 
 and, so far as my testimony is of value, the most 
 truthful account which has been published of this 
 down-trodden district. 'The Christian kmet, or 
 tiller of the soil, is worse off than many a serf in our 
 
 * Through Bosnia and Herzegovina, 256 — 258. 
 14 
 
210 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 darkest ages, and lies as completely at the mercy of 
 the Mahometan owner of the soil as if he were a slave. 
 Legally . . . the Bey or Aga can break the law with 
 impunity. He is thus allowed to treat his kmet as 
 a mere chattel ; "he uses a stick and beats the kmet 
 without pity, in a manner that no one else would use 
 a beast." Any land that the rayah may acquire, any 
 house he may have built, any patch of garden that 
 his industry may have cleared among the rocks, 
 the Aga seizes at his pleasure. The ordinary dues, 
 as paid by the kmet to the landowner, as specified in 
 the appeal of the Herzegovinian rayahs, are heavy 
 enough. He has to pay a fourth part of the produce 
 of the ground ; to present him with one animal yearly, 
 and a certain quantity of butter and cheese ; to 
 carry for him so many loads of wood, and if the 
 Aga is building a house to carry the materials for it ; 
 to work for him gratuitously whenever he pleases ; 
 and sometimes the Aga requisitions one of the 
 kmet' 8 children, who must serve him for nothing ; 
 to make a separate plantation of tobacco, cultivate 
 it, and finally warehouse the produce in his master's 
 store; and to plough and sow so many acres of 
 land, the harvest of which he must also carry to his 
 master's barn. Finally, to lodge the Aga in his 
 own house when required, and to provide for his 
 
THE EEVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 211 
 
 household and dogs.' * These being the relations of 
 the peasant to his landlord, it is not surprising that 
 Mr Holmes should remark that ' discontent undoubt- 
 edly exists against most of the chief Turkish land- 
 owners,' f since the picture which Mr Evans draws 
 of the oppression of landlords is normal in its 
 occurrence. 
 
 Here we have the simple, all-sufficient cause of 
 the outbreak in the Herzegovina. Apart from acts 
 of brutal atrocity and murder which were of con- 
 stant occurrence, the oppression of the Government 
 which permitted the tax-gatherers to seize or spoil 
 forty per cent, of the produce of the peasant's toil, 
 and the rapacity of the landlords which took from 
 him always twenty-five per cent, besides over-spolia- 
 tion, never leaving the unhappy labourer more than 
 one-fourth of his earnings, drove these 'peaceable 
 populations/ J as the chief secretary of the Sultan 
 admits them to be, into open revolt. This revolt, 
 according to the testimony of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Government, never disposed to judge too favourably 
 of the Sclaves, had 'its origin in discontent aris- 
 ing from financial causes,' and Lord Derby him- 
 self said, on the 29th July, 1875, that so far from 
 
 * Through. Bosnia and Herzegovina, p. 331. 
 f Correspondence in Turkey, 2, p. 29. % Ibid. p. 17. 
 
212 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 being the work of Serb agitators, that it 'is not likely 
 to find sympathy among Austrian or Montenegrin 
 subjects/ * 
 
 Consistent with the strictly Agrarian character 
 of the insurrection were the demands which the 
 peasants when driven to revolt made upon the 
 Government of Turkey. Mr Holmes, notwithstand- 
 ing his undisguised Turkish leanings, says : ' The 
 people of Herzegovina . . . only ask to remain sub- 
 jects of the Sultan, with reformed laws, and a 
 proper and just administration of them. How to 
 secure this is the difficulty.' t Or, again : ' The 
 chief of the insurgents demand an European inter- 
 vention, and an armistice to allow them to consult 
 and assemble at any place which might be fixed to 
 discuss their affairs. They do not and never have 
 desired independence or annexation to Montenegro, 
 but they wish to remain Turkish subjects under very 
 extensive administration reforms, the execution of 
 which to be guaranteed by Europe.' J 
 
 And yet in face of these declarations of the 
 Turkish authorities, of the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
 ment, of independent English travellers, and of Mr 
 Holmes himself, we find that gentleman turning 
 
 * Correspondence in Turkey, 2, p. 5. 
 t Ibid. p. 23. X Ibid. p. 29. 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 213 
 
 round and denying his own words, and afterwards 
 attributing the outbreak to ' Servian agitators/ or, 
 like Mr Baring, to 'Russian agents.' As though 
 peasants, when exorbitant and illegal taxes were 
 wrung from them by the Government by tying 
 them in summer time to trees smeared with honey 
 to be tortured by insects — as though peasants, who 
 were bound barefooted to a stake in winter, were 
 scorched with fire from green wood in an apartment 
 without a chimney, or were buried to the neck in the 
 earth, and were doomed to see their infants tossed like 
 garbage into the stream and drowned, to witness 
 their sons murdered with impunity, and their wives 
 and daughters outraged without redress, needed the 
 stimulus of ' Servian agitators,' of ' Russian agents,' 
 or of the emissaries of ' secret societies.' Out upon 
 such childish babble, such silly fictions. 'Agitators' 
 I grant there were, ' agents ' I admit did instigate 
 these people to rebellion, a 'society' there was 
 which stirred up the people to discontent, but agitat- 
 ors, agents, and secret societies met and conspired 
 in one place — the Seraglio at Constantinople. 
 
 The best answer to such an idle, silly assertion 
 is to put on record the demand of these people. 
 Never yet did political agitators suggest so modest 
 a list of requests. These were — 
 
214 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 ' 1. That Christian girls and women should no 
 longer be molested by the Turks. 
 
 2. That their churches should no longer be de- 
 secrated, and that free exercise of their religion 
 should be accorded to them. 
 
 3. That they should have equal rights with the 
 Turks before the law. 
 
 4. That they should be protected from the 
 violence of the Zaptiehs. 
 
 5. That the tithe-farmers should take no more 
 than they were legally entitled to, and that they 
 should take it in due time. 
 
 To these five two were subsequently added. 
 
 6. That every house should pay in all only one 
 ducat a year. 
 
 7. That no forced labour, either personal or by 
 horses, should be demanded by the Government ; but 
 that labour, when needed, should be paid for, as was 
 the case all over the world.' 
 
 These modest demands the Turkish authorities 
 refused to listen to, unless the peasants would first 
 give up their arms. This they were willing to do 
 provided the Mussulman population was at the same 
 time disarmed. In the face of Syrian and of Bul- 
 garian, and of twenty other massacres which had fol- 
 lowed upon the giving up of arms, this request must 
 
THE REVOLT OF THE HERZEGOVINA. 215 
 
 be pronounced a reasonable one. It was refused, and 
 the rebellion, justifiable as it must be pronounced, 
 went on its course, and the Bosnian insurrection, the 
 Bulgarian massacre, and the generous attempt of 
 Servia to interpose by arms between the Porte and 
 its victims, were the consequences. 
 
216 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE TURKISH ALLIANCE. 
 
 It is some extenuation of a wrong that it was 
 thoughtlessly inflicted. But even in that case the 
 wrong-doer is bound to make some amends for the 
 injury which has followed upon his thoughtlessness. 
 And the thoughtlessness which we have manifested 
 in the desire to maintain the integrity of Turkey has 
 been the cause of much evil to the races subject to 
 the rule of ' our faithful ally.' 
 
 In 1840-41, in pursuance of the policy of this 
 country, by the aid of a British fleet and land forces, 
 the Pasha of Egypt was driven from Syria, and that 
 country was restored to the immediate rule of the 
 Porte. I am not concerned with the policy itself 
 which led to this. It may or may not, for aught I 
 know, have been, on the whole, a sound policy. The 
 state of Syria, however, at the moment when we 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF TURKISH ALLIANCE. 217 
 
 transferred it to the hands of the Sultan, is worth 
 noticing. The condition of that country was this : — 
 the people were, for the first time for a century at 
 least, enjoying security of life and property, the 
 laws were firmly and impartially administered, crime 
 had diminished, outrages against the Christians had 
 almost entirely ceased; trade had revived, lands 
 which had long gone out of cultivation were again 
 under tillage. The change from its former mis- 
 government was, according to trustworthy accounts, 
 marvellous. We interfered ; we drove out the 
 Egyptians ; we transferred it to the rule of its old 
 masters without,, unhappily, making one stipulation 
 in favour of the inhabitants. Immediately, as if by 
 an enchanter's wand, all life died out, the lands 
 which had been but just rescued from the desert 
 again went out of cultivation, the old insecurity 
 made itself felt ; again we find the old outrages, the 
 former crimes. But over and above this, the mas- 
 sacres which have taken place since that moment, 
 such as Mr Rogers, Mr Cyril Graham, Mr Moore, 
 speak of, have caused a destruction of far more than 
 50,000 persons, men, women, and children. This 
 has been the result, the consequence, of our policy. 
 It was a result which we were bound to have guard- 
 ed against ; which we might have foreseen. It was 
 
218 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 a crime against humanity to have handed over the 
 people of Syria to the rule of the Porte, without 
 some stipulation for their better treatment, some 
 precautions against their destruction. Though it 
 be true that 
 
 • Evil is wrought by want of thought, 
 As well as want of heart,' * 
 
 still evil is not the less evil whatever the source may 
 be from which it springs. But granted that this 
 was a thoughtless wrong, we ' maintain the integ- 
 rity of Turkey ' in ways which lack even this ex- 
 tenuation, unsatisfactory as it is. 
 
 We are losing our own reputation. In our zeal to 
 maintain the corrupt and cruel government of the 
 Seraglio we are not really striving to maintain 
 Turkey, for this means the Turkish people, nor the 
 integrity of 'Turkish territory/ for this is not 
 menaced. No European power is seeking to obtain 
 any portion of this territory. The utmost that is 
 asked is that * Turkish territory ' be left to the 
 peaceable possession of the people of Turkey : that 
 is, as I have shown, the Christian races who live in 
 Turkey. These are the only power whom we can 
 maintain. How this zeal for the Court, or Serag- 
 
 * Hood. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF TURKISH ALLIANCE. 219 
 
 lio, at Constantinople is impairing our own credit 
 and tarnishing our own flag may be illustrated from 
 two examples. Alas ! there are abundant other in- 
 stances. I will, however, only cite two on this painful 
 topic. One shall be given as it stands in my original 
 pamphlet, one I take from the Blue Book (Turkey, 
 No. 2), recently issued. 
 
 At the close of the Crimean War, the Great 
 Powers of Europe, commiserating the condition of 
 the people of Montenegro, appointed a commission 
 to settle certain questions of boundary which had 
 arisen between them and the Turks. Amongst the 
 commissioners sent from England was a military 
 officer who was or had been consul at Bosna Serai. 
 He and the rest of the members of the commission 
 were hospitably received by the people of Montenegro, 
 who entered warmly into the pacific errand on which 
 they had come. In order to arrange the question 
 of frontier, the commissioners traversed Montenegro ; 
 they penetrated its defiles; they made themselves 
 familiar with its fastnesses ; those gorges which had 
 enabled its inhabitants for so many ages to defy the 
 Turks and to defend their independence. Hardly 
 had the commission completed their labours when 
 war broke out between Turkey and Montenegro — 
 between the few thousands of those sons of the 
 
220 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 Black Mountain and the empire of 30,000,000 
 inhabitants. Then conies a story which is scarcely 
 credible. No sooner had this taken place, whilst the 
 Turkish army was preparing to invade Montenegro, 
 the commissioner was directed by the British 
 Government to proceed to the head-quarters of Omer 
 Pasha, and, with the knowledge of the defiles and 
 approaches to the Black Mountain thus obtained in 
 peace, to place himself at the service of the Turkish 
 general. What follows I prefer to state in the 
 language of the correspondent of the Times, who 
 dates his letter from ' Scutari,' in Albania, on the 
 31st of August, 1862, and who, after pointing out 
 the defects in the organization of the Turkish army, 
 says : — ' The fault must lie therefore somewhere 
 else. The first thing which occurs in this respect, 
 is of course the imperfect organization of the Turkish 
 army in all the special services, such as staff, engineer- 
 ing, &c. It is nothing better off in this respect 
 than it was in the beginning of the Eastern War ; 
 nay, if possible, it is worse off, for then there was 
 still a number of foreigners there who knew some- 
 thing about such things, but these have been for the 
 most part shelved or eliminated, and now here with 
 the flower of the Turkish army, there is not a single 
 man who can be trusted with making even a simple 
 sketch of the ground. How correct this is may be 
 
CONSEQUENCBS OF TURKISH ALLIANCE. 221 
 
 judged from the circumstance that the only reliable 
 sketches of the ground which are used are due to 
 the exertions of Mr Churchill, Her Majesty's Com- 
 missioner in these parts. Were it not for his sketches 
 and personal knowledge of the country, they would be 
 working altogether in the dark. They have not a single 
 guide who knows anything about the country, or a single 
 spy to give them information of the movements of the 
 mountaineers.'' 
 
 The truth of this statement has never been ques- 
 tioned. It has remained since the date of this letter 
 unchallenged. It would be hard to say what law 
 was not broken by this act. The first principles of 
 international law were utterly disregarded. Monte- 
 negro was an independent state, and we had no right 
 to interfere in this manner in a war in which we 
 had no concern. And then we talk of 'Bussian 
 agents,' and of 'foreign intrigues.' If it be by 
 means such as these that we are to 'maintain the 
 integrity of Turkey,' it is time that we should look 
 to our own integrity. 
 
 The second case to which I refer may be found 
 recorded in the Blue Book recently issued.* On 
 August 24, 1875, Sir Henry Elliott, in a letter 
 dated from Therapia, directed Mr Holmes, consul in 
 Bosnia, to invite the insurgent chiefs in Herzegovina 
 
 * Correspondence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1876. 
 
222 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 to a conference, in order that their demands might 
 be laid before the Sultan. He was told to represent 
 himself as an agent of a friendly Government, to 
 assure them that her Majesty's Government would 
 use its influence in recommending that the legitimate 
 grievances which might be established should be re- 
 medied or removed. He was bidden ' to urge the 
 insurgents to avoid attacking the imperial troops 
 during the progress of the negotiations.' * In a 
 letter dated Sept. 1, Lord Derby approves of this 
 course, and bids Mr Holmes 'to induce the insur- 
 gents in Herzegovina to suspend hostilities and lay 
 their complaints before a Turkish commission.' f 
 These chiefs at first demurred to meet the English 
 consul, from a fear that advantage would be taken 
 by the Turks of this meeting. At length, on the 
 strength of British promises, they consented to meet 
 Mr Holmes and the other consuls. Mr Holmes told 
 the insurgents ' that they might be sure the Turkish 
 Government was sincere in its promises, and that 
 the attention of Europe having been drawn to their 
 affairs, the Government could not deceive them with- 
 out serious loss of honour and damage to its own 
 vital interests.' £ Still the insurgents suspected the 
 
 * Correspondence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, p. 11. 
 f Ibid. p. 17. X Ibid. p. 28. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF TURKISH ALLIANCE. 223 
 
 good faith of the faithless Government of Turkey, 
 and expressed a fear that during the conference they 
 'would be attacked by the Turks,' on which Mr 
 Holmes — to use his own language — 'assured them 
 that whilst we were with them we did not think 
 they would be molested.' Accordingly, to pursue 
 the narrative, the insurgent chiefs said, 'that if 
 we would go to the neighbourhood of Bilekia they 
 would meet us there, and we should perhaps be 
 able to see many others. They said if we went 
 they would see us and join us.' And now what 
 took place? Mr Holmes shall say how plighted 
 English faith was observed. ' We left them with 
 the intention of proceeding, if possible, to Bilekia. 
 On the way to Stolatz, however, we met a couple of 
 battalions, provisions, and ammunitions, proceeding 
 in the direction from which we had come. I ordered 
 my cavass to inquire of some of the soldiers in charge 
 of the baggage where they were going. They in- 
 formed me that they were going to attack the 
 insurgents we had just left next morning before 
 daybreak. I felt very indignant, as did my col- 
 leagues, at this attempt, as it seemed to profit by 
 the fact of our having assembled together a certain 
 number of insurgents to attack them when off their 
 guard. On arriving at Stolatz, the Kaimakan also 
 
224 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 stated that an attack was to be made on the insur- 
 gents we had left, and on my expressing my dis- 
 approval of this proceeding, he said that he did not 
 know, that he rather thought the troops were marching 
 to Bikkia with provisions for the garrison there. The 
 Governor- General had been at Stolatz, and had only- 
 left for Mortar two hours before our arrival.' 
 
 Accordingly, General Chevket Pasha, afterwards 
 infamous for his part in the Bulgarian atrocities, by 
 what Servar Pasha in a telegraphic dispatch to the 
 Grand Yizier calls 'clever strategy/ fell upon the 
 unsuspecting troops, whose leaders were away, 
 lured by the conjoint promises of Turkey and of 
 England, and ' completely routed ' them, with a loss 
 of « 160 dead on the field of battle.' * 
 
 This scandalous act of perfidy, and the disregard 
 of the English safe-conduct, for it was this in effect, 
 was too much for Mr Holmes, who adds, ' On the 
 23rd I spoke to the Governor- General about the ex- 
 pedition to Trussina, and he said that Ali Pasha had 
 not orders to attack the insurgents then, but the 
 affair was brought on accidentally by the insurgents 
 attacking a convoy. I said it might have been a very 
 serious thing for us if it had happened one day sooner.' 
 
 The reader will note the readiness with which 
 
 * Correspondence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, p. 42. 
 
CONSEQUENCES OF TURKISH ALLIANCE. 225 
 
 the Kaimakan and Governor-General alike lied on 
 this occasion; but while the loss of Mr Holmes 
 might not have been • a very serious thing,' except 
 to himself and family, it is a very grievous thing to 
 know that these men who were thus surprised by 
 'clever strategy,' were at that moment relying on 
 the plighted word of the English consul, and under 
 the protection of England. And yet there is in the 
 Blue Book not a trace of any remonstrance on the 
 part of the English Government to the Turkish 
 authorities for dragging down our credit for truth 
 to a level with their own. But then we must expect 
 to sacrifice something to maintain the integrity of 
 Turkey ! 
 
 I dare not speak more on the subject. To one 
 who loves his country nothing can be more painful 
 than this and similar terrible revelations. Would 
 that we could wake up from our present delusion to 
 see that this marsh-light which we are pursuing can 
 never be possessed — that there is nothing to be 
 grasped in this worse than phantom of Turkish 
 integrity, and that, like similar adventurers, whilst 
 straining after that which has no substantial exist- 
 ence, we are becoming ourselves very noisome by 
 reason of the foul mire through which we have 
 
 to struggle. 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 When, thirteen years ago, I wrote the first pages 
 of the pamphlet which I now republish with addi- 
 tions, it was my intention to have made use of the 
 official records of Servia, and to have given instances 
 of those ' cruelties and barbarities ' practised daily 
 in Bulgaria and Bosnia, the recital of which Dr 
 Sandwith* speaks of as curdling the blood with 
 horror. I have, however, been unable to do so in 
 consequence of the length to which this record of 
 Turkish misrule and Turkish perfidy has extended. 
 Nor is there any necessity to make use of such evi- 
 dence. Though the fact that Servia has frequently 
 protested against these atrocities perpetrated on her 
 frontier should be borne in mind when we hear of 
 the war between her and the Porte being ' unpro- 
 voked,' I have, however, for want of space, not made 
 detailed use of them. At best, the facts which are 
 
 * See at p. 9. 
 
CONCLUSION. 227 
 
 there treasured up, the deeds of violence there writ- 
 ten, are but the incidents which Mr Holmes, Mr 
 Zohrab, and other English consuls make use of in 
 their generalizations, when they speak of the terror 
 and discontent which reign throughout the limit of 
 their respective consulates. I have another reason 
 for passing by these deeply affecting documents — 
 these wailings of young nations over the cruelties of 
 their oppressors. English authorities, though they 
 may not be more truthful than non-English ones, 
 are deservedly of greater weight, inasmuch as they 
 can be tested and examined — confronted with other 
 witnesses, and rejected if their evidence should be 
 undeserving of attention. Men who knew Mr 
 Senior will place reliance on his statements. Those 
 who have met Dr Sandwith in society will acknow- 
 ledge the truthfulness of his character and the op- 
 portunities which five years of travel in that country 
 have given him of forming a judgment on matters 
 connected with Turkey. Men cannot well doubt 
 about Lord Carlisle's assertions or his power of 
 describing accurately what he had observed. Mr 
 Cyril Graham has had more abundant means of 
 judging as to the effect of British policy in Syria 
 than all the members of all the cabinets which have 
 directed the affairs of England during the last half 
 
228 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 century. And the testimony of these men is uni- 
 form. I have related only one incident upon the 
 authority of a lady who is not English. I have 
 cited the testimony of only one Englishman who is 
 not alive to answer the interrogations of those who 
 are still sceptical as to the condition of the Chris- 
 tians of Turkey.* 
 
 My chief authorities, however, are the reports of 
 the various consuls throughout Turkey. It is true 
 that these were collected for a purpose. It is true 
 that the intention of Sir Henry Bulwer, who first 
 collected them, was to supply materials wherewith to 
 deny the statements of Prince Gortschakoff as to the 
 misrule and consequent discontent in Bosnia, Herze- 
 govina, and Bulgaria. It is true that only some of 
 these reports have been selected by the Foreign 
 Office ; that of those selected many have been 
 pruned and mutilated — given not in extenso, but only 
 in fragments — in such a way as to remind us of the 
 famous Affghanistan despatches. Yet, garbled as 
 the statements are — manipulated as the reports have 
 been, there is enough remaining in that one Parlia- 
 mentary Paper to demonstrate the absurdity, the 
 impotent folly, of those who still cling to the notion 
 of ' maintaining the integrity of Turkey.' 
 
 * This was true in the year 1863. 
 
CONCLUSION. 229 
 
 More noteworthy, however, than the positive 
 evidence of the corruption, the injustice, the faith- 
 lessness, the impotence of the Turkish Government, 
 which is met with in every page of the Consular 
 Reports, is the negative evidence of these documents 
 — the portentous silence — the absence of any word 
 of hope, any suggestion as to the possibility of the 
 Turkish race ever shaking off the death torpor which 
 presses upon it. Talk of ' maintaining the integrity 
 of Turkey ! ' As well talk of ' maintaining ' the life 
 of a corpse which is being galvanized into some 
 mocking resemblance of the motions of a living man ! 
 As well talk of keeping garbage from decay when it 
 is seething with putrefaction and corrupting the 
 whole atmosphere ! We may take care of the burial 
 of a corpse and cover it reverently with earth because 
 it has once been a living creature, but to prate about 
 keeping it alive when it is dead is the language of 
 a madman or a fool. We are doing much the same 
 when we talk about ' maintaining the integrity of 
 Turkey.' 
 
 What, then, is the picture which these English 
 writers — these English gentlemen — present to us? 
 The witnesses whom I cite to testify as to the 
 actual state of the lands of the Sultan, the govern- 
 ment of that country and its millions of subjects — 
 
230 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 are men who have travelled in Turkey, and who 
 have described what has passed before their eyes. 
 In the pages of their books we see an empire occu- 
 pied by two races — one the exclusive possessor of all 
 social and political privileges — the other refused the 
 simplest rights of humanity, and shut out from even 
 the protection of that law which their masters have 
 established. We see in the pages of these writers 
 that the destruction of the ruling race is going on at 
 so rapid a rate that within a few years, about half 
 a century at the furthest, it will have ceased to be. 
 This fearful destruction we learn is caused by deep 
 inbred vices of the foulest kind, which prevail in 
 every class of Turkish society. There is no possi- 
 bility of staying the hand of the self-destroyer, for 
 throughout the Ottoman empire we have the shock- 
 ing spectacle of a whole race committing suicide — 
 grovelling in hideous vice — dying sensually, but 
 still dying. To arrest this the efforts of the Great 
 Powers are as impotent as those of the smallest 
 states. The whole world combined must needs fail 
 in such an attempt. It is beyond the scope of 
 political alliances. 
 
 The significant proofs of this rapid waste and 
 destruction of man are to be seen branded on the 
 face of the whole country. Large tracts of rich and 
 
CONCLUSION. 231 
 
 fertile soil, in which, travellers only a few years ago 
 saw with wonder the profusion of nature, and 
 admired the fair beauty of undulating tracts of 
 golden corn, of luxuriant olives, and of groves of 
 mulberry- trees, are now silent as the grave ; the 
 inhabitants all dead ; the trees destroyed ; the once 
 fruitful fields a sterile sandy waste. Fertile and yet 
 barren — fertile by the bounty of its Maker, barren 
 by the caprice, the sins, of man. The traveller, if 
 he revisits the scenes of his former wanderings, be- 
 holds no more the pleasing prospect which half a 
 dozen years before met his eye, but in place of it a 
 pathless waste over which he must track his course 
 by the cypress-trees of deserted cemeteries — silent 
 mourners over the villages which have disappeared 
 from the face of God's earth. In almost every city 
 of the empire, with scarcely one exception, within 
 the memory of man, suburbs which were then alive 
 with inhabitants and teeming with children, have 
 become depopulated ; this quarter by the dying out 
 of the Turks, that by the massacre of the Christians. 
 This is the lot which has fallen on Smyrna ; this has 
 been the ruin which has blighted Damascus; this 
 is the spectacle which may be witnessed around 
 Ephesus; this saddens the traveller as he silently 
 wanders through the tenantless streets of Mcaea. 
 
232 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 "Wherever the Osmanli has planted his foot there 
 the grass grows no more — there he brings desolation. 
 Let us turn away from this sight, which will 
 meet us in every province of Turkey ; let us turn 
 our eyes upon the suffering people of that empire. 
 If kingdoms exist not for kings, still less are people 
 sent on God's earth merely to be playthings for 
 Turkish Pashas, and to be trafficked in by jobbing 
 Grand Viziers. What are the people of this the 
 fairest region of the globe enduring, whilst their 
 masters are dying ? We see throughout the length 
 and breadth of that land, from the Danube to the 
 Persian Gulf — from Kars to Albania, millions of men 
 subjected to every wrong which jealous governors 
 can devise, or the envy of their neighbours can 
 suggest, whilst they are deprived by law of the 
 power to make themselves heard against the violation 
 of law. Living in perpetual fear, without any 
 reasonable security for life, without one safeguard 
 for the honour of their family, unarmed, by the fore- 
 thought of their rulers, in the midst of a people 
 armed with every weapon of offence, and easily 
 moved to fanaticism, they are daily, hourly, exposed 
 to every outrage which envy, cupidity, lust, or anger 
 can urge, and they are exposed to the effects of these 
 passions without possibility of defence. In such cases, 
 
CONCLUSION. 233 
 
 if, goaded by the sense of wrong, the sufferer should 
 make use of the rudest weapons of defence — a stone, 
 a club — he is guilty in the eyes of his masters of a 
 crime ; and many a boy has been executed within 
 the last few years for no other sin than the generous 
 impulse which led him thus too fatally to guard the 
 honour of his sister, to avenge an outrage upon his 
 mother. Dr Sandwith, in a letter quoted by Mr 
 Cobden in the debate of 1863 in the House of 
 Commons, tells us that within the last two years he 
 ' remembers a case in which a Christian, having lost 
 many sheep from robbers, at last loaded a gun, and 
 kept it by him. The next time the robbers came, he 
 fired and killed one. This Christian was publicly 
 executed for having shot a Mussulman.' * And only 
 two years ago the Grand Vizier, in his tour to Bul- 
 garia, ordered to instant execution a poor lad who, 
 in defence of a companion from the foulest assault 
 which is heard of in the laws of any civilized country, 
 struck and killed one of the assailants. And what 
 the Grand Vizier then did is — I will not say law, 
 for this is too noble a term to be used to palliate 
 such atrocities — but the practice throughout Turkey. 
 But be it so, we must, say men who aspire to be 
 
 * Speech of Mr Cobden in House of Commons, May 29th, 
 1663. 
 
234 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 thought statesmen, ' maintain ' this accursed empire, 
 this reign of lawlessness, this institution of persecu- 
 tion. We must — because it is our policy. We dare 
 not plead that it is right, that it is just, that it is in 
 accordance with our principles, that it squares with 
 our professions. Call it, however, what we will. It 
 is surely impossible that a policy so barren of good 
 fruit, so cankered with injustice, should be much 
 longer persisted in. We cannot, if we would, ' main- 
 tain the integrity of Turkey,' by which liberal poli- 
 ticians mean the government of the Sultan — the rule 
 of the handful of pashas who spoil and evil intreat 
 the people of that country. Let us, if we must needs 
 interfere at all, do so for Turkey itself — for the in- 
 habitants of that fair and fertile land. If indifferent 
 to the sufferings of our brethren, it surely becomes 
 us to endeavour to set limits to the encroachment of 
 the desert — to attempt to stay the desolation of those 
 lands which their Maker and ours has enriched with 
 all that can delight the eye or satisfy the wants of 
 man. Honour, natural instinct, a common faith, 
 should lead us to desire that the people who, in this 
 fruitful cradle of nations, are fast rising to manhood, 
 should do so with hearts beating with gratitude and 
 affection for England, and not with the bitter feelings 
 of hatred. Let us not thwart and repress their 
 
CONCLUSION. 235 
 
 generous longings to tread in the same path of free- 
 dom which, by God's blessing, has led this nation of 
 England to so much happiness and greatness ; but 
 rather let us encourage them in their efforts to 
 emancipate themselves from the sensual and degrad- 
 ing despotism which presses heavily upon their necks 
 and corrupts their moral nature. In pursuing a 
 magnanimous policy we shall be treading in the 
 safest path ; whilst, on the other hand, we may be 
 assured that a policy which is based upon wrong can- 
 not prosper, and that the Nemesis which follows a 
 nation is even more quick-footed than that which 
 haunts the steps of an individual. 
 
 I do not propose to speak of what English policy 
 should be. I do not believe, however, that there 
 are any extraordinary difficulties in the way of our 
 acting honourably, and justly, and humanely, to the 
 people of Turkey. And in stating this opinion I 
 am satisfied with the weighty authority of the 
 statesman most thoroughly acquainted with the con- 
 dition of Turkey, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. It is 
 a serious imputation upon most of our statesmen, 
 however, that though more than fifty years have 
 passed by since this ' Eastern Question ' first rose 
 before their eyes, they utter to-day the same help- 
 less cry which they did half a century ago, ' Non pos- 
 
236 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 sumus' — we know not what to do. And then to 
 account for their inaction they conjure up terrible 
 dreams of Mahometan discontent, and of possible 
 insurrection in India, wars in Europe, and massa- 
 cres of Christian subjects in Turkey. I would not 
 undervalue danger. Those, however, who are best 
 able to speak as to our Mussulman fellow- subjects 
 declare that the danger of discontent in India is 
 imaginary. Not, however, to intrude into the region 
 of dreams and of fiction, it may be well for us to re- 
 member that the Mussulman outbreak and mutiny 
 in India took place at the moment we had shown 
 our friendship for, not our hostility to, the Sultan of 
 Turkey ; that a European war has never broken out 
 in consequence of our intervention in favour of the 
 Christian people of J Turkey, though a very bitter, 
 and bloody, and costly war was the result of our in- 
 tervention in favour of the oppressor of the Chris- 
 tians ; and that massacres have always taken place at 
 the moment when the Porte believed itself safe in 
 defying the indignation of Europe, when it thought 
 that it could safely depend upon British arms to 
 shield it from punishment — in a word, when English 
 influence has been paramount at Constantinople. In 
 the spring of this year the correspondents of the 
 English press, writing from that city, bore uniform 
 
CONCLUSION. 237 
 
 testimony to the fact that Russian influence had 
 waned away, and that the power and influence of the 
 English ambassador were again predominant, and 
 then — let Bulgaria tell the rest.* 
 
 It is time that this pretext for a policy were at 
 an end. The alliance is degrading England more 
 even than it is maintaining Turkey. It is filling 
 our history with the record of actions as base as 
 those which we find in the chronicles of the Turks. 
 It is making us as faithless to all high and noble 
 instincts as the Sultan is to treaties. It is deaden- 
 ing our conscience to wrong. It is tainting our 
 public men, so that they are not ashamed to disre- 
 gard truth as much as a Turkish pasha does. It 
 cannot be persisted in without the violation of every 
 principle of a true English policy and the sacrifice 
 of every English virtue. For surely to disregard 
 those principles which are enshrined in our laws, and 
 embalmed in our literature, regardless of what evil 
 we inflict — to strike hands with the oppressor — to 
 
 * During the height of the Bulgarian massacres our 
 Ambassador at Constantinople thus writes: — 'There is at 
 this moment among all classes, both of Turks and Christ- 
 ians, an enthusiasm for Great Britain, which puts her 
 Majesty's Government in a position in this country which 
 they have not held for many years.' — Sir Henry Elliot to 
 Lord Derby, May 31st, 1876. Correspondence on the Affairs 
 of Turkey, No. 3, p. 238. 
 
238 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 assist the faithless masters in afflicting their slaves — 
 to support, to our own heavy injury, the persecutor 
 in his barbarous treatment of those whom a common 
 humanity binds to our fortune, and ought to bind 
 still closer to our sympathies — is injustice for which 
 we must needs suffer — is dishonour from which we 
 may well shrink — is wrong for which we shall have 
 to atone. 
 
239 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Whilst this volume was passing through the 
 press I received a letter from Dr Thomson, for many 
 years resident at Beyrout, and author of The Land 
 and the Book. No one is more entitled to speak of 
 Turkey, no one knows the condition of the people, 
 both Christian and Mussulman, better than he does, 
 and the solemn warning which he gives may well be 
 pondered on at this crisis. I had written to him for 
 some information, and in his letter in reply he says — 
 ' — There is at this moment terrible danger lest these 
 down-trodden Bulgarians should be left to the 
 tender mercies of the Turk ; and if under any 
 plea this be done, then their condition will be far 
 more intolerable than it was before. This sublime 
 uprising of the English nation in their behalf will 
 only add to the fury of their brutal enemies. Every 
 great meeting, every resolution passed, every speech 
 delivered, the publication of your own pamphlet, 
 will only add to their calamities. The Turks will 
 
240 THE CHRISTIANS OF TURKEY. 
 
 avenge themselves for all this manifestation of 
 horror and indignation in those on whose behalf it 
 has been manifested, and every guinea you con- 
 tribute to their relief will be wrested from them with 
 savage cruelty.' 
 
 In a letter written to me a few days after the 
 one in which this sentence occurs, Dr Thomson says — 
 ' For England now to use her powerful influence to 
 force back these poor sufferers under the Turk, under 
 any form, and from any pretended necessity, will be 
 more monstrous than the conduct of the Bashi- 
 bazuks themselves. I apprehend that the great 
 English people must speak in tones still more stern 
 to the present holders of power, or they may find, 
 with shame and dismay, that all their efforts have 
 only plunged the wretched sufferers into deeper 
 despair and more fearful calamity.' ' 
 
 Only in the complete independence of Bulgaria, 
 an independence at least as complete as that of Ser- 
 via, is there the least possibility of security for life 
 and property. 
 
 JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PBINTEES. 
 
 Ifi 
 
University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 >m which it was borrowed. 
 

 nive 
 
 So 
 
 L 
 
 sss//////s/s//////yf////y//y/y///ss' 
 ctwsss'y/yysss////ss/^^/>xi0y>y^//y////^