lines which offered
the pure Asiatic very little scope. The free and equal Osmanlis were all
to take their cue from men of the Byzantine sort which the European
provinces, and especially the city of Constantinople, breed. After the
revolution, nothing in Turkey struck one so much as the apparition on the
top of things everywhere of a type of Osmanli who has the characteristic
qualities of the Levantine Greek. Young officers, controlling their
elders, only needed a change of uniform to pass in an Athenian crowd.
Spare and dapper officials, presiding in seats of authority over Kurds and
Arabs, reminded one of Greek journalists. Osmanli journalists themselves
treated one to rhodomontades punctuated with restless gesticulation, which
revived memories of Athenian cafes in war-time. It was the Byzantine
triumphing over the Asiatic; and the most Asiatic elements in the empire
were the least likely to meet with the appreciation or sympathy of the
Byzantines.

Are the Arab-speaking peoples, therefore, likely to revolt, or be
successful in splitting the Ottoman Empire, if they do? The present writer
would like to say, in parenthesis, that, in his opinion, this consummation
of the empire is not devoutly to be wished. The substitution of Arab
administration for Osmanli would necessarily entail European tutelage of
the parts of the Arab-speaking area in which powers, like ourselves, have
vital interests--Syria, for example, southern Mesopotamia, and, probably,
Hejaz. The last named, in particular, would involve us in so ticklish and
thankless a task, that one can only be thankful for the Turkish caretaker
there to-day, and loth to see him dismissed.

An Arab revolt, however, might break out whether the Triple Entente
desired its success or not. What chance of success would it have? The
peoples of the Arab part of the Ottoman Empire are a congeries of
differing races, creeds, sects, and social systems, with no common bond
except language. The physical character of their land compels a good third
of them to be nomadic, predatory barbarians, feared by the other
two-thirds. The settled folk are divided into Moslem and Christian (not to
mention a large Jewish element), the cleavage being more abrupt than in
western Turkey and the tradition and actual spirit of mutual enmity more
separative. Further, each of those main creed-divisions is subdivided.
Even Islam in this region includes a number of incompatible sects, such as
the Ansariye,