The reports as to the agreements of the Powers continue
numerous, but with results so near at hand are hardly worth dis- cussing. We may say, however, that the most authentic-looking among rumours point to the facts that England and Russia are agreed—the chief concession made by Russia being the division of Bulgaria into two—that Austria is sullen and suspicious, and that difficulty may arise from the Turkish side. The War party in Con- stantinople, it is said, may not yield all that is required, but break up the Congress by a sudden renewal of the war. There is evidently danger at Constantinople, where the Sultan changes his Ministers every week, and lives in mortal fear of Murad's friends, but it is not probable that Europe will consent to be defied in this style. The Turks must be well aware that they have not the means of resisting a joint Russian and English occupation, and will pro- bably remain quiet until the Congress is over. The Turkish Plenipotentiaries, too, Caratheodory, a Greek, and Mehemet Ali, a Prussian, must have been chosen expressly to avoid the chance of an explosion of Ottoman pride.
