HOW THE TURK CAME TO CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE

HE international tangle now going on over the affairs of the Turkish Empire seems outside the rule of Right and of politics alike. The navies of six nominally Christian nations are gathered in the Ægean Sea in overwhelming force. They are gathered, avowedly, to save a Christian population of several millions from extermination at an irresponsible despots will. Yet they act as if maintenance of the same despot's power was their chief object. The English Parliament and press ring with denunciations of the "unspeakable Turk," but the English navy bombards his Christian foes when they attempt to upset his sanguinary rule. Russia for centuries has claimed to be the natural defender of the Greek Christians against Mahomedan tyrranny, yet Russia to-day menaces the Greek Kingdom with war if she dares to raise her hand against the Sultan. That potentate himself is addressed one day as an irresponsible savage who can only be kept from wholesale murder by the sight of European guns pointed against his palace; the next day he is treated as the head of a civilized nation, whose rights and power must be upheld as a common duty by all other civilized nations. The true position of the Turkish Empire among the nations can best be understood by a brief study of what men the Turks are and how they have come into European lands.

The nations of modern Europe and their descendants on this Continent, however different they may be in laws and language, all belong with one exception to a common stock, and all accept, at least in theory, the law of Christianity as the recognized rule of right human action. In the distant past, forty centuries ago or more, the Aryan race, even then a civilized one, began to move from its original abode in Central Asia to the south and west, and in successive migrations it occupied the whole of Europe, as well as Persia and Hindostan, more than three thousand years ago. Greeks and Latins, Celts, Teutons, Slavs and Scandinavians are all descended from one original race, and still use languages drawn from the primitive Aryan tongue in common with the old Sanscrit of the Indian Brahmins and the Zend of Cyrus and Darius. Even in the early days of Aryan existence as a nation another race different in language, in habits and disposition disputed with it the possession of Central Asia, and finally occupied it after the westward emigration of the Aryans. This was the race known in Persian history as the people of Turan, and in

modern times indiscriminately as Tartars, Turcomans, or Turks. The first name is misleading, as Tartary is the name given to the whole of Central Asia north of the Himalayas and Persia and west of China proper. Its population is nearly equally divided between the Turkish and Mongolian races, each subdivided into many separate tribes, but possessing a common language and race traditions. Both Turcomans and Mongols are despisers of city life and agriculture, and are shepherds and herdsmen by choice, but they are separated by race language and mutual hostility. From the earliest times recorded in history both those wild races have been accustomed to war on their civilized and wealthy neighbors either for conquest or for mere plunder. In cases of the first their custom has been wholly unlike the colonization practiced by the Aryan races. The Mongol or Turkish conqueror of a civilized country has always disdained to adopt its ways, and has remained a foreign ruler amid conquered subjects. When the vigor of the original invaders waned under the influence of luxury and selfindulgence, rule was wrested from them by either their subjects or some fresh body of their own race. The ever-recurring growth of short-lived empires of barbarian conquerors is, indeed, the history of Asia. The Aryans settled in that Continent have been equally subject to such vicissitudes as the other Asiatic races. At the present moment a Mantchu dynasty rules China, a Turcoman family governs Persia, and the name of the "Great Mogul" as. titular sovereign of India only became extinct some forty years ago. Four centuries ago a Mongol Khan, with his seat near the Chinese frontier, was the lord paramount of Russia. As far back as the days of Julius Cæsar the Turcoman tribes raised up a rival to Roman power in the Parthian Monarchy which replaced the Greek conquerors of Persia. The ceaseless ebb and flow of power from the civilized to the uncivilized races of Asia is one of the strange facts in the history of the world.

More than two thousand years ago a ruler of the Aryan race, Darius, of Persia, himself a lawgiver and organizer of the then supreme monarchy of the Western world, engraved an imperial edict on the rocks of Behistun, in the upper valley of the Euphrates. It was given in three languages-the Aryan tongue of Persia, the Turanian of his Scythic subjects, and the Semetic of his vassals of Syria and Assyria. The dominion of Western Asia seemed then assured to the race which united military power to a higher civilization; yet the rule of the great Persian monarchs lasted only two centuries, and that of their Greek conquerors, themselves the intellectual leaders among European races, was still shorter. The Turcoman deserts sent forth their swarms again, and a Parthian shepherd took the place of Alexander the Great. The Persians of

Aryan race recovered their independence after three centuries' subjection to this barbarian rule, but only to fall successively under the Semitic Caliphs from the Arabian deserts and the Turkish Sultans from the Eastern steppes. To-day the rule is still with the race which has chosen barbarism rather than civilization for its heritage. Is it possible that history may repeat itself in the future?

As might be expected, the national character of the Turkish race is cast in a different mould from that of the Christian world. It would not be accurate to say it is the same as that of our own Indian tribes, but it certainly is different from what we regard as the ways of civilized men. In every European race the need of general public law to regulate the action of individuals is recognized. Among the Turcoman races the head of the family is practically the supreme law, only subordinate to the will of a stronger individual than himself, be that individual called chief or sultan. Settled abodes, definite daily work, and the combination of such work for a common end, are practically universal. The Tartar despises fixed dwellings and fixed labor alike. In his own land cities are little more than encampments of wandering herdsmen, and whatever energy may be displayed in moments of excitement or under pressure of necessity, steady work for any purpose is regarded as slavish and unworthy of free men. The late Edward O'Donovan, who visited what was practically the latest existing specimen of a Turcoman people in its national condition, gives a lively description of the ways of the "Merv Oasis" in Central Asia, which may illustrate the meaning of the remarks just made. A tribe of herdsmen, numbering probably a quarter of a million of souls, had occupied by force a tract of thirty or forty thousand square miles, and had made good its title by defeating the army of the Shah of Persia forty years before. The Turcoman victors used their victory only to live in barbarian freedom' on the site of what had once been a magnificent city. To raid their neighbors, Persian or Turcoman, indifferently, was the regular occupation of the able-bodied men as much as guarding their own herds. Cultivation of the land was only carried on to the extent needed to furnish food to the tribe, and for it a regular force of the men was detailed to attend to the necessary irrigation works, which were the only public works of the community. Weaving and other household manufactures, handed down from the past, were performed by the women of the different families; but so little idea was there of other skilled labor that the artillery captured from the Persians years before, though highly prized as a national defence against outside invaders, was not even mounted or provided with ammunition. The Turcomans knew nothing of such matters as gun-making, though familiar with the actual use

of fire-arms. The nation was divided into a number of clans, each bearing a common name and wearing distinctive marks in their dress and turbans, and there were two hereditary chiefs recognized as the first men of their country; but their power was entirely dependent on their personal energy, and law of any kind was practically unknown. The heads of families met in council. at uncertain times, when any matters of general interest had to be decided, and the council ordered at will and left the execution of its orders to the chiefs. During O'Donovan's stay in Merv he was present and took part in one of those national councils, and its action illustrates Turcoman ideas of law and government. Merv was threatened by a Russian invasion, and to avert such an event it was urged that the natives should abandon the habit of plundering their neighbors indiscriminately. An excited citizen arose and demanded how he was to get a living if such a course were adopted. The stranger, whose advice was asked on the matter, suggested that a police force should be established and protection given to caravans and herds for a regular tribute, which would afford better, or at least a more regular, support to the active men than indiscriminate robbery. This proposition was adopted by the assembly, and five hundred heads of families were summarily directed to move their abodes to a central point and hold themselves in readiness for active service at the chief's discretion. A few days later one of the natives lost a flock of sheep in the usual fashion, and the new police were called out and recovered the booty in short order. The chief expressed his satisfaction and proceeded to divide the recovered sheep between the police and himself, leaving the rightful owner in the same position as after the raid. O'Donovan had considerable difficulty in getting him to understand that restoration of the plunder, not its confiscation, was the object of the new organization. It was finally settled that a tax of about a fourth of the value of the sheep should be paid by the owner, and a few hours later the stranger was edified by seeing the robbers and their victim dining together in amity on a mess of sheeps' tails, while the victim boastfully recounted how many sheep he himself had captured in former days by similar proceedings.

The recklessness of human life or suffering among the Merv Turcomans was in strange contrast with the general feeling of humanity towards animals. A native would give himself considerable trouble to bring fresh fodder to his horse or to find a bed for a pet kitten, while the same man in a raid would cut down an unarmed shepherd in sheer brutal exuberance of spirits, or scald a prisoner in a fit of ill-temper or greed. That society should protect its individual members regardless of their personal strength

or influence was an idea which the Turcoman mind seemed never to conceive. If a powerful chief wished to enforce order according to his own ideas, such order would be respected so long as his power lasted; but the people at large, though meeting frequently to provide for the common interests, never conceived the idea of general laws strictly enforced. This frame of mind seems common to the race in every change of abode. The Sultan of Constantinople is familiarly known among his Turkish subjects as the Man slayer (Hunkiar), because he possesses the privilege of taking human life at will. The administration of justice in the Turkish courts is scarcely different in practice from that of the Merv Khan when appropriating his subjects' stolen sheep. The Ottomans settled for centuries among Christian communities certainly possess more of the material products of civilized industry than their brethren of the Turkestan steppes, but their capacity for supplying such products by their own labor or skill is scarcely greater. Christian or renegade Christian architects and workmen have built the Ottoman mosques and public works, armed their soldiers, built their ships and managed their finances. Without such aid they would be as unable to provide for themselves as the Merv Turcomans were to mount the Persian cannon.

In the all-important matter of religious belief and moral conduct, the difference between the Turkish race and the European world is not less marked than in ideas of human law and society. The late Cardinal Newman, in his lecture on Turkey, styled the Turk the great foe of Christianity in history, and the expression is not too strong. The herdsmen of Tartary, whether Turkoman or Mongol, had originally little definite creed beyond the belief in a Supreme God, and their religious practices were confined to some superstitious incantations.

The Turkomans in the tenth and eleventh centuries learned Mahometanism from the subjects of the Saracen caliphs, and its loose morality and aggressive spirit commended it to their acceptance. The whole race gradually became Mahometan, and when the Saracen Empire was overthrown at Bagdad in the eleventh century the Turkish warriors took the place of the Arabs as the champions of the False Prophet in war against the Christians. The words of the Koran, "Fight on till there is no temptation left to idolatry," and "Heaven is found under the shadow of crossing swords," which gave a religious sanction to the hereditary aggressiveness of the Turcoman freebooters, were enthusiastically received as a divine message, and for centuries they were the rule of life for the Turkish race. The Koran classifies mankind between the House of Islam and the House of War, and war with those outside the first is a holy work in Moslem ideas. This history of VOL. XXII.-24