prodigal in the gifts of nature, has been a scene in which incessant civil warfare has been conjoined with the ravages of the pestilence in completing the depopulation of the richest portion of the globe, which for many ages was also the most populous. No sooner has any partial revolt been suppressed, than another has burst forth with redoubled violence. Authentic accounts are not to be obtained from such a region. But little or nothing has been heard of from any of the provinces of Turkey but tidings of bloodshed and misery.

The commotions of Turkey began, after a season of unusual peace, by the suppression of Ali Pacha. Albania would not rise at his call, and he fell a victim to the wrath of the sultan, after Greece had arisen to be free. But when the Porte was seen to be but a power which enemies could overawe and subjects defy, Albania, joined by the western provinces of the empire, strove to assert its freedom, and a general insurrection seems to have ensued. Armies of insurgents, of whom the pacha of Scutari was the chief, were combined against the sultan, and proclaimed the restoration of the Janisaries and of the old order of government, and the abolition of the new. Constantinople itself, it has been said, was threatened. And the revolt could be suppressed only by blood. The narrative of the war, furnished chiefly by the French and German newspapers, is too contradictory and indefinite to admit of detail. Albania was reduced to submission. But Bosnia, it would appear, is still in open insurrection against the Porte. In Asia, as in Europe, revolt has been recently the order of the day. The pachas of Van and of Bagdad, on the Euphrates and Tigris, openly rebelled against the sultan; and now the pacha of Egypt, after having by his ill-fated obedience called the great powers of Europe to the liberation of

Greece, seems to divide with his former sovereign the remaining strength of the empire.

Of the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates, or of the great and rapid depopulation of Turkey, and of the great miseries and mortality of which it is now the scene, imperfect and very incomplete as are the records, there is yet appalling and unquestionable proof.

"The circumstance," (says Mr. Walsh, who arrived at Constantinople in 1821, and remained several years in the suite of Lord Strangford, the British ambassador)-" most striking to a traveller passing through Turkey, is its depopulation. Ruins where villages had been built, and fallows where land had been cultivated, are frequently seen with no living thing near them. This effect is not so visible in larger towns, though the cause is known to operate there in a still greater degree. Within the last twenty years Constantinople has lost more than half its population. Two conflagrations happened while I was in Constantinople, and destroyed fifteen thousand houses. The Russian and Greek wars were a CONSTANT DRAIN on the janisaries of the capital; the silent operation of the plague is continually active, though not always alarming;-it will be considered no exaggeration to say, that within the period mentioned, from three to four hundred thousand persons have been prematurely swept away in one city in Europe by causes which were not operating in any other, conflagration, pestilence, and civil commotion. The Turks, though naturally of a robust and vigorous constitution, addict themselves to such habits as are very unfavourable to population-the births do little more than exceed the ordinary deaths, and cannot supply the waste of casualties. The surrounding country is therefore constantly drained to supply this waste in the capital, which nevertheless

exhibits districts nearly depopulated. If we suppose that these causes operate more or less in every part of the Turkish empire, it will not be too much to say, that there is more of human life wasted, and less supplied, than in any other country. other country. We see every day, life going out in the fairest portion of Europe; and the human race threatened with extinction, in a soil and climate capable of supporting the most abundant population."*

"The Ottoman empire, by a long and unwonted good fortune, found itself freed at once from foreign wars and domestic rebellion." But we have seen how since that period a vial of wrath has been poured upon it, without any mitigation of calamities or interval of repose. But almost coincident with the commencement of these troubles and commotions, and partly operating in conjunction with them, a new power of destruction, more destructive and depopulating than them all, arose on the opposite extremity of the empire, as the Turkish armies began to melt away before the revived energies of the Greeks. In 1821, the cholera broke out at Bassora, which is situated at the head of the Persian Gulph, on the river Euphrates. The disease lasted fourteen days in this city-which is the great market of Asiatic produce destined for the Ottoman empire—in which time it carried off from 15,000 to 18,000 persons, or nearly one-fourth of the inhabitants. From Bassora it was carried by the boats navigating the Tigris as far as Bagdad, and there it destroyed one-third of the population. From Bagdad the cholera ascended the Euphrates as far as the town of Annah, on the borders of the desert which separates Syria from Arabia. The disease died away at the approach of the winter 1821. In the spring of 1822, it broke out suddenly

• Walsh's Narrative, pp. 22-24.

in the neighbourhood of the Tigris and Euphrates, and now threatened the Syrian territories from another quarter. In seven months the cholera had extended its ravages from Caramania to Judea," &c.*

The ravages of the plague have succeeded along the Euphrates, in the Turkish dominions, to those of the cholera. And the accounts, while more mi

And in lieu of other or quote from that which openly to our view, and

nute, are not less appalling. historical evidence, we may the newspaper press presents also from the testimony of an eye-witness of the dire and frightful desolation.

"In the short space of eight weeks, nearly 50,000 of the inhabitants of Bagdad have perished by the plague. The commission of the destroying angel has been awfully severe. To the horrors of disease were added the desolation of a flood, and the consequent impossibility of escape. Silently and in darkness did the pestilence walk through this deserted city, undisturbed in the work of death, daily dismissing thousands to their last account, and leaving the wretched survivors mourning over the loss of those with whose life their enjoyments and their hopes of happiness were enwrapped. The streets were no longer the scene of busy traffic, and were only disturbed by the passing funeral, or by the piteous cries of infants, or of children who were left destitute without home, parents, or friends.

Bagdad. Dreadful depopulation. Mr. Kitto, who was for some time at Malta under the Church Missionary Society, but accompanied Mr. Groves to Bagdad, has sent home most affecting details of the ravages to which that devoted city has been subjected. The PLAGUE prevailing to a fearful extent among the inhabitants, part of them attempted to escape into the country, but were arrested by a sudden INUNDATION of the Tigris, by which numbers perished, and the rest were driven back into the city. Thousands were falling under the deadly influence of the pestilence, when the water made a breach in the walls, and swept away many of the habitations. The wretched inhabitants were crowded together, and compelled to take refuge even in houses left desolate by the plague. When, at length, it pleased God to stay

Quarterly Review, No. 91, pp. 178, 179, 196. Mercury, 13th October 1831.

Caledonian

the hand of the destroying angel, it was found that out of 80,000 human beings, not more than 25,000 survived! But the SWORD followed quickly in the rear of these desolating judgments. The plague had scarcely ceased, and the waters subsided, when troops arrived in the name of the sultan, to depose the pacha: fierce and bloody contests succeeded be fore a temporary calm was restored.""

The testimony of another witness bears the same melancholy record.

Bagdad, April 22, 1831. Surely every principle of dissolution is operating in the midst of the Ottoman and Persian empires-plagues, earthquakes, and civil wars.—The pacha's palace is left open without a soul to take care of any thing: his stud of beautiful Arab horses are running about the streets. May 5-Inquire what you will, the answer is, The city is desolate.' The son of one Mollah told me today, that in the quarter where he lives no one is left; they are all dead. At Hillah, the modern Babylon, (population 10,000), there is, Seyd Ibrahim told me to-day, scarcely a soul left; and the dogs and wild beasts alone are there feeding on dead bodies."+

"After the ravages of the plague had ceased, Bagdad was entered sword in hand, and carried by storm by the sultan's troops."

The chief seats or reputed holy cities of Mahometanism, did not escape. The Bombay Gazette (10th August 1831) has the following paragraph, "We have heard with the utmost dismay and sorrow, that Mecca, Medina, and Jidda have been completely depopulated by a dreadful disease, the nature of which is not yet known. Fifty thousand persons have been carried off by it, among whom we may mention the governor of Mecca. It broke out at the beginning of May, when all the pilgrims had collected at Mecca, in consequence, it is supposed, of the want of The government here have most prudently,

water.

* Missionary Register, London, November 1831, p. 512. + Ibid. January 1832, pp. 55, 56.

The Courier, 28th November 1831.