n any other
country in Europe.

Before considering the question of reform, it will be necessary to take
a cursory view of Turkish history and character.

While the monarchs of Constantinople were waging war with Persia, and
both empires were tottering; while the Christian religion gave rise to
different sects, hating each other with intense and fanatical hatred, a
silent power was rising among the Turks, which was destined to subvert
empires and found a new religion. Their original seat was among the
Altai mountains, where they were employed by their masters in working
iron mines. They rose in rebellion, threw off their allegiance, and made
incursions into Persia and China, proving themselves formidable enemies.
From being a weak and enslaved people they became the allies and
conquerors of the Byzantine emperors. 'With the Koran in one hand,' says
Macaulay, 'and the sword in the other, they went forth conquering and
converting eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westward to the Pillars of
Hercules.' They became a terror to the nations that had beheld with
contempt their rising greatness. Amid the expiring glories of the Roman
world they made Constantinople the capital of their empire. It was all
that the oriental imagination could desire. Rendered by its
fortifications impregnable, and situated on the Bosphorus, whose dark
blue waters flow between shores of unrivalled beauty, where nature and
art had reared their grandest monuments, it surpassed in wealth and
grandeur Nineveh and Babylon.

From this stronghold, which had been the cradle of Christianity, and
which had witnessed the dying struggle of the Roman empire, the
conquerors, maddened with the victories and crowned with the wealth
which years of perpetual war had heaped upon them, mustered their armies
and sallied forth. They subjugated many countries, but copied none of
their virtues; and to-day their degenerate descendants still retain most
of their original traits of character. Their religious sense is deep,
but theirs is a religion which blunts and stupefies the intellectual
faculties, and makes man fit only to perform a score of prostrations
each day. It inspires courage in war, but it also teaches blind
resignation to defeat and disgrace: it teaches morality, but sensuality
and ferocity are not inconsistent with its doctrines. Eat, drink,
smoke--indulge all the passions to-day, for immortality begins
to-morrow! No Turk is so high that he has not a master,