We have just seen a friend who has arrived within
these few days direct from Constantinople, and he has furnished us with the following particulars. He travelled by land ; but was compelled by the state of the country, to avoid the line of operations of the armies, and proceed by Nissa and Temisvar. When he left the capital, no measures of defence had been taken. The walls remained in the dilapidated state in which they were left by Constantine Palgeologus, when the Turks entered in at the breaches, which they never since repaired. When he arrived at Adrianople, so far from any effectual force being collected there, he did not see more than the ordinary guards. A few Jews had been ordered to work round the city, and they had begun to throw up in one or two places, something like entrenchments ; but they had effected nothing that was capable of stopping a company of soldiers, and had desisted from the work. On crossing the Balkan, he saw no army, or any precautions taken to guard the passes, or adding any artificial security to the natural strength of the places; half a dozen dervenni sentinels, such as are met in all the mountain passes in Turkey, alone occupied the stations. They sat smoking their pipes under little sheds, where some poor Bulgarians heated coffee: and they seemed as indifferent, incautious, and imperturbable, as if the enemy were still in Russia. He met no force, from Constantinople to Nissa, that could afford any resistance to a single Russian regiment. The country seemed to be, as in fact it is, entirely drained of efficient men ; and confirming all the accounts that Dr. Walsh and other travellers have given of the depopulation of the country, and utter exhaustion of the resources of Turkey in Europe. At Nissa they experienced a trait of Turkish attention highly creditable to the energetic character and good feeling of the Sultan. They had encountered so little difficulty or peril in their journey, that they wished to pass on, with a perfect feeling of security without any additional protection, notwithstanding that some stragglers had committed depredations in the neighbour- hood. But the Pacha of Nissa would not suffer them. "You may feel secure," said he, -` but I do not ; for the Sultan would require my life for yours, if any accident should happen to you:' He accordingly sent an escort of soldiers with them, who saw them safe into the Austrian territories. The man who takes such watchful care of strangers travelling through the remotest confines of his dominions, while he himself is care beset and his very existence threatened, is no
common Sovereign.
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