veral years; and thence addressed many letters to friends in England, which he appears, and we are glad to hear it, to have an intention of publishing. In the mean time, and while waiting to receive some papers from Turkey necessary to his purpose, he has published the present work, which gives an account of his journey from Constantinople over the present scene of war, through Transylvania and Hungary, to Vienna.

The route which the author takes is that which was followed by Darius, in his expedition against the Scythians 2300 years since; and though it has since been frequently the theatre of war, little accurate infor. mation has been conveyed to the world as to its actual circumstances. The author sets out by teaching any brother traveller what he has to expect when entering upon a journey in Turkey.

"The ideas of travelling which you have formed from experience, are associated closely with smooth roads, easy carriages, neat inns, comfortable suppers, and warm beds; and where these are to be found, all seasons of the year are pretty much alike to the traveller: but conceive travelling through a country in winter, where, generally speaking, there are no roads, no carriages, no inns, no suppers, and no beds. The only roads are beaten pathways, made by one horseman and followed by another, and every man may make one for himself if he pleases. The only carriages are wooden planks, laid upon rough wheels, called arubas, drawn with cords by buffa loes, which are seldom used except for burthens. The only inns are large stables, where nothing is to be had but chopped straw. The only suppers are what you may pick up on the road, if you are so fortunate, and bring it to where you stop for the night and the only beds are the chopped straw in the stable, or a deal board in a cock-loft over it; and even this in many places is not to be had. There are, doubtless, exceptions to this general picture, as I myself experienced; but, in the main, it is true: and such is the actual state of travelling at this day, in most parts of the Turkish empire through which I have passed, both in Asia and Europe." pp. 2, 3.

Dr. Walsh took with him as his guard and guide, a Tartar Janissary of the name of Mustapha; and found him both faithful and intelligent.

His apparatus for the journey was a Janissary cloak, which was to serve for a coat by day and a bed by night; and which was, moreover, sufficiently stiff to support him when sleeping on his horse. He took also some coffee, tobacco, and sugar.

In going out of Constantinople, he passed by the quarters in which the Jews principally reside; and he stops to give a somewhat minute account of them.

After the extinction of the Waldenses, the tender mercies of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were extended to the Jews and their illfated country; and, at length, an edict was issued which drove 800,000 into strange lands, without property, clothes, or provisions. As the whole Western world looked at them with an evil eye, they turned to the East; and found their way, among other places, to various parts of the Ottoman empire. There they were kindly received; and, to this day, they constitute an important part of the population. At Salonichi, the ancient Thessalonica, they have thirty synagogues. The resemblance of the general habits of the two people, and even of some points in their religion-the strict theism of the Jews their abhorrence of swine's flesh-their language read from right to left, and the practice of circumcision, tend to make them the Turks. In many cities of Germore acceptable than Christians to many the Jews are prohibited spending a night within the walls; and, even in our own country, they are subject to various restrictions, both municipal and political. But in Turkey no such customs. prevail; and, being united to the Jews by their common antipathy to Christians, they indulge them with peculiar immunities. Dr. Walsh describes them as exhibiting squalor and raggedness in their persons, filth in their houses, laxity of morals, and a readiness to engage in transactions the most exceptionable. The utmost hostility to Christianity

prevails among them; and should any one of their nation be converted, as our readers are well aware, the most bitter persecution ensues. The following anecdotes in proof of this fact are given in the work before

us.

"Indeed their repugnance to Christians, particularly to the Greeks, displays itself

on all occasions. When the venerable

patriarch was hanged by the Turks, the Jews volunteered their services to cast his body into the sea: some fellows of the lowest description were brought from Hassa Kuï for the purpose, and they dragged his corpse, by the cord by which he was hanged, through the streets with gratuitous insult. This circumstance, with others of a similar nature, so increased the former antipathy of the Greeks, that they revenged themselves on every Jew that fell in their way, at the commencement of the insurrection, with the most dreadful

retaliation.

The mutual prejudice is so strong, that it gives rise, as you may suppose, to a number of accusations; and they charge each other with the most atrocious practices. The Jews, you will recollect, in the early ages of Christianity, denounced the Christians as eaters of their own children, an accusation sanctioned by the impure and secret practices of some of the Gnostic sects. The Christians of Spain formerly stated that the Jews crucified adults on Good Friday, in mockery of our Saviour; and at Constantinople, at the present day, they are charged with purloining children, and sacrificing them as paschal lambs, at their passover. I was one day at Galata, a suburb of Pera, where a great commotion was just excited. The child of a Greek merchant had disappeared, and no one could give any account of it. It was a beautiful boy, and it was imagined it had been taken by a Turk for a slave after some time, however, the body was found in the Bosphorus; its legs and arms were bound, and certain wounds on its side indicated that it had been put to death in some extraordinary manner, and for some extraordinary purpose. Suspicion immediately fell upon the Jews; and as it was just after their paschal feast, suspicion, people said, was confirmed to a certainty. Nothing could be discovered to give a clue to the perpetrators, but the story was universally talked of, and generally believed, all over Pera." pp. 12, 13.

:

After passing the Jewish quarter, the author comes to another part of the suburbs, in which the late pacific and amiable Sultan Salem III. had endeavoured to establish a printing press. The following short

history of printing in Turkey may well lead the reader to compare the genius of Mohammedanism with that of the Gospel. The former has extinguished the light of literature in a country which was once the nucleus of Roman splendour and learning; the latter has introduced presses and multiplied readers in every dark corner to which it has penetrated.

"It was supposed that the Sultan Selim ing into Turkey, but this was not the case; was the first person who introduced printGreek and Armenian presses were long at work in the respective patriarchal resi early as 1530, and the second in 1697; dences at Constantinople; the first so and the printing establishment for Turkish books, and a paper manufactory at KyatIbrahim, in the reign of Achmed III, in khana, were formed by a renegado named the year 1727. He was encouraged by the Grand Vizir and the Mufti Abdulla Effendi; and even a fetva was issued by the Mufti, declaring the undertaking highly useful, and a hatta sheriff by the Sultan, felicitating himself that Providence had reserved so great a blessing for his reign. The Ulema also concurred, books containing the doctrines of Mohambut expressly excepted the Koran, and med, from being subject to the process of characteristic of the people: they said it printing, The reason they assigned was would be an impiety if the word of God should be squeezed and pressed together; but the true cause was, that greater numbers of themselves earned a considerable

income by transcribing those books, which suffered to be printed. As the Turks, would be at once destroyed if they were in general, have no kind of relish for any other literature, the printing-office was soon discontinued when it was prohibited from publishing the only books the Turks ever read; and the thing seemed altogether forgotten, when it was revived by Selim.' pp. 16, 17.

On the author's first arrival at Constantinople in 1821, this printing establishment was in existence and operation.

On the death of Selim, it fell with its author; and the very vestiges of it are not to be found.

A bridge over which the author passes, on quitting the city, at the head of the harbour, leads him to give a detailed account of the reservoirs and aqueducts by which the city was anciently supplied with water. From this curious account

we learn, that so entirely is the city dependent on a foreign supply, and so completely have the means of bringing in water and retaining it been neglected, that a besieging army might compel it to capitulate, from this cause alone, in a single week. The present Sultan has, by the summary process of decapitating a considerable company of the bakers and mealmen, supplied the city with corn; and we almost wonder that a similar process has not been tried with a few members of the water-companies, if there be any. We may however wonder more that even the most ignorant Turk has not enough of common sense, if not of political philosophy, to know, that though such arbitrary and unjust punishments may succeed for the moment, they in the end defeat their own object, and increase the evil they are intended to remedy. Who would deal in corn if his occupation exposed him to lose his head in a scarcity? Even much lighter disabilities and restrictions which fetter either the producer or the vender, under the idea of benefiting the purchaser, eventually injure all. We have above objected to the maxim that Christians ought not to be politicians (mere politicians they ought not to be); and we may equally object to the maxim, that they ought not to be political economists; for the first article of true political economy is justice, and doing to others as we would that others should do to us. When the family of Louis the Eighteenth were at Hartwell, and were told that they had broken the law by purchasing eggs and poultry of the neighbouring farmers, and were threatened that both the buyers and the sellers should be taken before the magistrates, and punished as regrators and forestallers, if, instead of making their bargain at once on the spot, they did not spend a day once or twice a week in riding to the next town, the one carrying the articles thither as venders, and the other bringing them

back as purchasers, they might justly think, that if the English are not as cruel as the Turks, they are not much wiser. We see the absurd laws or customs of other nations in a vivid light; but how little do we consider absurdities in our own! Do the Turkey manufacturers of carpets starve in time of peace, with their warehouses breaking down, and the merchants of Odessa longing to receive their commodities in exchange for bread ?

In passing along the banks of the river which washes the suburbs of the town, our author narrowly es caped a sudden and forcible termination of his wanderings, by the flight of a cannon ball close to his head. He takes occasion to notice from this circumstance the little value set on human life by the Turks. This fact, which is unquestionable, at once evinces the slight hold which a future and eternal life has upon their faith. As Mr. Hall says, "Murder is no more to an infidel, than diverting the course of a little red fluid, called blood."

The notion of fatalism tends to the same contempt of life. If one man kill another, he charges it not upon his negligence, but either upon his own destiny, or that of the person destroyed; and so dismisses the thought, and smokes another pipe.

The author gives, in this part of his work, a very full and interesting account of the localities of Constantinople. The city is built on a triangular promontory; two sides of which are washed by the sea, and one is fortified by a now halfdilapidated wall. This wall was

built by Constantine; and it was through this that Mohammed entered when the Turkish armies first took possession of the city. In one of the breaches then made, fell Constantine Paleologus; and a magnificent tree marks, as Dr. Clarke says, "the sacred spot where the last of the Paleologi fell." Constantinople has been frequently the object of attack: first, unsuccess

fully, by the Saracens, in the years 668, 669, and 729; then, as unsuccessfully, on four different occasions by the Russians; then, on an eighth occasion, successfully, by the Crusaders; and on a ninth and tenth by the Turks, into whose hands it fell in the year 1422. The same approach which admitted the crescent may, on some future occasion, admit the Cross. Popular opinion among the Turks appears to lean to this conjecture. It has been said, that the erection of their sepulchres on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, originated in the expectation that they are to be driven back to Asia whence they came. Certain prophecies extant among them serve also to confirm this impression. A superstitious fancy, founded upon a coincidence of names, our author thinks, is also among the causes not unlikely to contribute to the same result. His judgment, as to the probable result of the present, or some other Russian expedition, is as follows:

66

But, indeed, it does not require these portentous things to warn the Turks of their threatened destiny. The actual progress of the Russians ought to be a natural source of serious alarm. From the time that Peter the Great captured Azoph and advanced into Moldavia, they seem never to have abandoned their project of finally planting the Russian standard on the walls of Constantinople, and every succeeding year has been a persevering and sanguinary struggle to advance their object.'

66

Having in successive campaigns annexed irrevocably to Russia all the Turkish possessions on the north of the Euxine, and strided from the Don to the Danube, their next and final step will be from the Danube to the Bosphorus ; and there is every reason to apprehend they are now about to take it." pp. 51-53.

The fourth chapter gives a very interesting account of the life and death of Ali Pasha, with whose name Dr. Clarke's travels, as well as every newspaper for a succession of years, have made the public familiar. The history of his death conveys so forcible a picture of the total destitution of moral feeling and humanity, among the followers CHRIST. OBSERV. No, 330.

of Mohammed, that it may be useful to give a brief abstract of it.

Ali, having by his bold usurpation, and by an act of the most flagrant assassination, provoked the anger of the Sultan, was deposed; an army was sent against him; and he was driven from post to post, till at length he was locked up in a small fortress; the upper story of which was occupied by himself, the middle by his treasures, and the lowest by combustibles, ready to be exploded at a moment's notice. The Pasha himself would have been left to explode at his pleasure; but the Sultan's command to his officers was, to get rid of the usurper, but to secure his wealth. And this double object was soon accomplished.

When locked up in his tower, he was visited by inany persons; among others, by the governor of the Morea, Mohammed Pasha.

"The conversation continued in terms of great amity, and Mohamed rose to depart, with expressions of affectionate good will on both sides. As they were of

the same rank, they rose at the same moment from the divan on which they were sitting, and the Pasha of the Morea, as he was retiring, made a low and ceremonial reverence: the Pasha of Yanina returned it with the same profound inclination of the body; but before he could recover himself again, Mohamed drew his yatigan from his girdle, and plunged it into the back of his host with such force, that it passed completely through his heart and out at his left breast. Ali fell dead at his feet, and his assassin immediately left the chamber with the bloody yatigan in his hand, and announced to those abroad that he had now ceased to exist. Some soldiers of Mohamed entered the apartment, severed the head from the body, and bringing it outside held it up to their own comrades and the soldiers of Ali, as the head of a traitor. Finding themselves attacked thus betrayed, the soldiers of Ali instantly attacked their adversaries, headed by the lame Albanian Kutchuk Achmet. was soon killed, and the rest were overpowered, who now finding all resistance fruitless, made no further opposition, but joined in the cry of Long live the Sultan, and his Vizir Hourchid Pasha!' Such was the termination of Ali Pasha's career. pp. 61, 62.

He

The author saw the head of Ali handed about the city on a dish. 3 D

see

*It was merely a scalp; but the face was so skilfully preserved, and the stuffing of the shell so accurately managed, that a spectator might almost suppose himself to Pasha lying asleep in his presence. As Ali had made much noise in the world, a Constantinopolitan merchant made a grand effort to buy the head for exhibition in London; and had he not been outbidden by a friend of the usurper, it is possible that, with the assistance of the bones of Tom Paine, an exhibition might have been got up, on which no admirer of atheism and assassination could have refused his attendance.

The fifth chapter contains a highly interesting account of the destruction of that peculiar body of mili tary force called the Janissaries, under the present Sultan. They had long usurped almost the whole authority of the empire; suffering no law to have effect, and no monarch or great man to die a natural death, except with their permission. This chapter supplies striking evidence of the influence of Mohammedanism, in extinguishing every feeling of pity and tenderness for the human species. The public mind in our own country was shocked some time since by the well-meant, but ill-executed scheme of putting to death a mad elephant. In Turkey, by a similar process,about ten thousand Janissaries were put to death; and ten thousand more were butchered by any Turk who might encounter them, and aim a blow without much risk of another in return. The following brief statement is a specimen of the story, as recorded by the author:

"The number of janissaries destroyed on this occasion is variously reported: besides those who perished at the Etmeidan barracks, and in the public streets, multitudes were caught and privately strangled in the houses where they were found, or brought to appointed places where they were beheaded together. These slaughterhouses, as represented by eye-witnesses, were very horrible. None of the large body assembled were supposed to have escaped.

All the officers, with the exception of a few of high rank who had joined the rished; and the general opinion is, that Sultan's party, were known to have pe20,000 were sacrificed on the occasion. Arubas and other machines were em

ployed for several days in dragging down the mangled bodies, and casting them into the harbour and Bosphorus. Here they lay, t lay, till becoming buoyant by corruption, they again rose to the top, and were floated into the sea of Marmora, where still water; covering the surface with the eddies frequently carried them into large putrid masses, in which boats and ships were sometimes entangled and delayed; exhibiting, in nearly the same place, the reality of that which the poet only feigned of the vessel of Xerxes impeded by the bodies of his own soldiersCruentis

Fluctibus, ac tarda per densa cadavera prora.

"Those who were not destroyed in the attack, or afterwards in the houses, were banished from Constantinople to the different parts of Asia from whence they came. A certain number were put together in the same Teskerai, or passport, and they were transported across the sea of Marmora to the gulf of Ismid or Moudania, where they were landed, and They had generally amassed money, which thence proceeded to their own country. was taken from them, and a small sum allowed for their several expenses to their places of abode. In this way 20 or 30,000, who had concealed themselves and escaped the first massacre, were permitted to leave Constantinople; and as they had suffered before from wounds, privations, and anxiety of mind, numbers sunk under debility, and died on the road; so that it is supposed not half of them ever reached their own country." pp. 91-93.

In the sixth chapter we have an account of the author's progress to Silyvria; in the seventh, he passes on to Erkeli, the ancient Heraclea, and crosses the site of the celebrated wall built by Miltiades, to repel the incursions of the barbarians, when Thrace was settled by the Athenians. The history given of the depopulation of this fine country by various causes,-and especially by the constant annoyland proprietors, the moment their ance, and even destruction, of the prosperity awakens the jealousy or avarice of the Porte,-is most affecting. Property appears to be nearly as insecure,and quite as pernicious,to

the

possessor in Turkey, as in New Zealand. "At two o'clock," says