THE SULTAN AND HIS SUBJECTS.* Tar author of this book

has set himself a task of no common difficulty, and performed it in a manner which commands our most sincere admiration. He has attempted to present his readers with such a study of the past history and the present condition of the Turkish Empire as will enable them to understand for themselves the true meaning of the Eastern question, which has confronted Europe for so many years, and to form an intelligent opinion as to the probable destiny of the Turkish people. In order to do this he has been obliged to draw their attention to the past as well as the present history of the heterogeneous nationalities which from time to time have fallen under the dominion of the Sultans, to set forth clearly their chief characteristics, and to describe the life and manners of the Turks themselves in such a way as will make them intelligible to the Western mind. Mr.

Richard Davey offers a modest excuse for his in- ability to confine his work within a smaller space than two volumes. It was not needed ; considering the enor- mous mass of material with which he has had to deal

his two volumes represent a marvel of compression, while the vivacity and spirit of his writing successfully protect him from dullness. The list of authorities which he is able to quote—among which we should note the volumi- nous and most interesting archives of the Bank of St. George at Genoa, hardly drawn upon at all by former authors— vouch for his industry in research as a student, and the force and shrewdness of his descriptions testify strongly to his value as an observant witness. Add to these qualifications, a nice sense of proportion, a curious facility for selecting the crucial facts from a confused mass of conflicting testimony and marshalling them in logical order, a most fair and impartial temper, and a gift of happy expression, and it will be seen that Mr. Davey is an author who deserves our best considera- tion. For our part, we have seldom taken up a book of a like weight and importance which we have found so difficult to lay down.

It would not be easy within the limits of a review to give an adequate idea of the scope of Mr. Davey's work, or to fairly represent the conclusions which he draws from his studies. We must content ourselves with briefly indicating the main points upon which he touches, and, by the help of a few quotations, illustrating the opinions at which he has arrived.

Here, for example, is his description of Mahommedanism in Turkey

The Mohammedan population of the Turkish Empire has been very aptly compared to an immense religious confraternity ; it is, in fact, a vast military guild or brotherhood, bound to obey the commands of its supreme chiefs, the Sheik-ul-Islam and the Sultan. Every Turk ought, in a certain sense, to be a priest and a warrior. Remembering this fact, we can readily understand the ease with which the spirit of fanaticism is roused in those portions of the Empire where the Turks are in the majority, and the ferocity with which an otherwise docile and somewhat in- different-natured people will behave under the influence of what I may call religious intoxication."

Compare this with an account of the same people written

by a Genoese Crusader in the thirteenth century :—" The Turks are essentially a warlike people—popolo guerriero-

accustomed to rough living in tents. They are brave, honest, and truthful; but fanatical in religion and fearfully cruel and vindictive." In the matter of cruelty and fanaticism the Turks have not changed much since they first entered Europe. Yet it is noticeable that foreigners, especially Englishmen, never live long in Turkey without conceiving a certain liking and respect for the individual Turk, and, it must be confessed, a corresponding dislike and contempt for the Christians who remain under the Turkish yoke. It is greatly the fault of the Turk that the latter are neither •

EARTho Sultan and his Subjects. By Richard Davey. London: Chapman and honest, nor brave, nor truthful ; but the contrast between the Turk and the Armenian, or the Turk and the Greek, in this respect is so marked that few travellers can remain un- influenced by it. Mr. Davey is evidently fully alive to this feeling, though he has not allowed it to prejudice him ; but he succeeds in doing what few travellers in Turkey have done, in explaining, that is to say, how this same Turk can be at one time a good fellow, and at another an incarnate fiend. To make this clear requires no little skill, for there are many factors in the problem. The present Sultan and his Govern- ment, the inherited history of preceding Sultans and genera- tions of Turks, the bitter fanaticism of a dying creed, and the way of life and education of youth in Turkey, all contribute to make the Turk what he is. Of the ruling Sultan, Abd-ul- Hamid, the author is sufficiently plain-spoken, as he is also in speaking of the vacillating policy of the European Powers.. One passage is worth quoting :- " The Ottoman Empire is either on the eve of a great trans- formation, or on the threshold of absolute ruin. It may, as I have said, retrograde, or, with the consent of the Western Powers, continue for some few years longer in its actual semi-fossil con- dition, or it may collapse at any moment. A year or so ago, Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid appeared to be earnestly striving, against cruel odds, to do what was best for his people. But recent events demand a change of opinion. The good he has done is drowned, drowned in the blood of countless murdered men, women, and children, and, in the lurid light of those scenes of horror, he takes on the semblance of some loathsome spider, caught in the silken web of his own Hareem, and condemned there to reincarnate the most evil of his ancestors, whose very names conjure up dread memories of murder and rapine. It may be, indeed, that his good intentions have proved too heavy for him, and that, like those of many another honest man, they have fallen into the depths of Hell to add flag-stones to its red-hot pavements. But be this as it may, what can be said of the Christian nations who have stood by in selfish apathy, or something near it, and watched the whole- sale butchery which has now reigned for nearly two years, unchal- lenged by the European Powers, whose deplorably egotistical, policy must seem as futile and undignified to the Moslem world as the barbarous cruelty of the Sultan's henchmen is revolting to ours ?"

This must evidently have been written by the author a year or two ago, and the pity of it is that it is still true to-day. And again, in offering some kind of explanation of Abd-nl- Hamid :-

" Abd-ul-Hamid, after all, has much to contend with. The old Oriental spirit has by no means passed away, and the reforms have, so far, only influenced the capital and larger cities, and even these but superficially. Fanaticism is still rampant, and Yildiz, like the seraglio of the good old times,' contains all the dramatis personw of the tales of Shahrazad, Pashas, eunuchs, Mollahs, Heys, astrologers, slaves, Sultanas, Kadines, dancing- women, Circassian and Georgian odalisques, whose one and per- petual object is self-advancement. Above this swarming ant-hill of picturesque figures, the Sultan stands out in striking relief. With despair in his heart, he seems to watch the West,—to- watch the slow return of that civilisation which long ages ago set forth on her weary journey from the land of the rising sun."

Yes ; but the most hateful and contemptible of those figures is the principal one, which dominates them ; the more hateful and contemptible if, as the author suggests, Abd-ul-Hamid once saw the better way and desired to follow it. The home life—one cannot call it the family life—of the well-to-do Turk has much to answer for. The Sultan is not the only one of his people whose actions are caught and trammelled by the silken web of the Hareem. What chance has the Turkish youth of growing up a useful man in that unwholesome atmosphere, or a Turkish married official of preserving his honesty ? The advance of Western ideas, too, has rather hurt than improved the Hareem, according to a Turkish Minister whom our author quotes. After describing-

the simplicity of the old life, he said :—

"Now all is changed. Our houses are furnished, more or less, in the European style. Our women dress at home like yours. Many of them read French perfectly, and select the most per- nicious novels. Education makes them miserable and insub- ordinate, and their only happiness in life is to gad about the streets of the European quarters, with their faces as little covered. as possible, and to make useless purchases at the Bon March. It is impossible to supply their wants without subsidiary assistance. and this is, I assure you, the chief cause of the well-understood, system of pillage by officials which goes on all over the Empire."

The author gives a " brief history of Reform in Turkey," and it is instructive reading. There were many re- forming Sultans. Marsh IV., for instance, during whose reign occurred the memorable siege of Erzerum, in which seventy thousand Armenians, men, women, and children, were massacred, to say nothing of those who were killed, at the same time, at Biala, Van, and Aleppo. Thus history repeats itself, for Murad, too, was a reforming Sultan, and put a stop to brigandage by slaying tens of thousands of his subjects during the first few months of his reign. Also he proved the equality of his justice by hanging a Grand Vizier for beating his mother-in-law. Mahmond was a reformer; he reformed the turbulent Janissaries by treacherously massacring them one and all. Reform and destruction seem to be synonymous terms in Turkey, and one is tempted to believe that, after all, the sole chance of reformation among the Turks themselves would be in something very like annihila- tion. The loss to Europe would be small indeed; for what have the Turks produced in comparison to what they have destroyed? Take Constantinople itself. Its present popula- tion is fully a third smaller than it was when the Ottomans entered as conquerors, and in place of the inestimable treasures of art and architecture which it once contained we have a few unwieldy palaces and mosques, the latter beautiful indeed, but dwarfed into insignificance by the side of the splendid ruins of the once Imperial city.

The Armenian question is dealt with by the anttor in a very temperate and judicious chapter, in which he sets forth not only the treatment that the unhappy people have been subjected to, but also some of the causes which led more immediately towards bringing it about. He certainly does not try to gloss over matters. " Though there is no good purpose to serve at this present time by going into painful detail, and thus exacerbating an already sore subject, the fact remains that the slaughter of men, women, and children in the various parts of the Empire inhabited by this unhappy race, has amounted within the last eighteen months to something between one hundred and twenty-five thousand and one hundred and sixty thousand." On the other hand, he is anxious to impress upon his readers a fact, not always recognised by English sympathisers, which makes the ultimate settlement of the Armenian question one of great difficulty. " The kingdom of Armenia has so frequently changed its confines that it can now only be considered as ' a geographical expression,' and the true Armenians are so inferior, speaking numerically, to the other nationalities among whom they dwell, that it is absurd to compare their condition with that of the Bulgarians, who were in the pro- portion of three to four to their Turkish oppressors."

Of other Christians in Constantinople itself, and of the Greek and Jewish population of the city, the author has much to say which will be new to his readers. He takes us everywhere, and introduces us to all kinds and conditions of men, from the Sheikh-nl-Islam himself, to that very unedi- fying personage, ICaraghenz, the Turkish Punch. The most interesting and suggestive of his chapters is that entitled " The Failure of Islam." "Islam," he writes, "is dying— Islam is dead." It cannot cope with civilisation ; it cannot progress. But, he adds, though Islam—which is, after all, "le soul of the Turkish Empire—is dead indeed, "it may be centuries yet before its mighty carcase is buried out of eight."