minister, therefore, his bankers, and others suspected of intimacy with him, are applied to for the delivery of all which they possess in his name. If the sum fall short of expectation, they are tortured, till they either confess, that they have more, or till they supply the sum required from their own capitals: but, if they are rich, even this confession does not always save their lives. I was acquainted with an Armenian, who had been confined and tortured into the renunciation of all his hereditary and acquired property*. His partner, more resolute, had resisted, even to death, all the horrible means employed to force him into a confession; and by this means he left his family in affluence. I have listened with horror to the relation of their sufferings, which were aggravated by the constant presence of the executioner, who would insultingly complain of the fatigue of his morning's duty, and exact from them the most menial services, and at every repast dip into the same dish with them his hand reeking with their blood." Chapter IV. very properly follows up the preceding commentary on civil process, by an investigation of the military force of the Ottomans thus classed Military divisions of the empire-Feodal system of the Ottomans-Ziamets and Timars-Janizaries-Adjem-oghlans, Cappi-kooli, or other bodies of infantry receiving pay from the government, viz. Topgi, Jebbedji, sakka; and Spahee (or sepoy) cavalry Serrat-kooli, or troops receiving pay from the Pashas-Order of encampment, tents, and camp-equipage-Method of supplying the army with provisions-Order of march and battle-Attack and defence-Laws of war, and treatment of captives-Turkish navy. The existing circumstances under which the Ottoman empire at present is placed, at actual war with a powerful neighbour, and menaced with still more formidable attacks under the in fluence of what has acquired the name of the "continental system," would induce us, if space permitted to make a considerable extract from this military chapter: but as it is, we must content ourselves with the following very brief but descriptive sketch of a Turkish camp. "General Koehler, who afterwards commanded the British detachment which joined the grand vizir's army in the expedition against the French in Egypt, mentioned to me, that he had made inquiry of a renegado from our own country, named Inghiliz Mustafa, respecting the order observed in the arrangement of a Turkish camp, and that Mustafa answered only by scattering about on the table a quantity of the small pieces of Turkish money called paras. But Mustafa, from a long residence among the Turks, had adopted so much of the figurative inaccuracy of Oriental language, that he willingly sacrificed a considerable portion of truth to the attainment of a jest, or a conceit. As such his reply must be allowed to possess some merit, particularly as it does not ill describe that general state of confusion which has been observed of late years to exist in the camps of the Ottomans; but we shall err if we adopt as a certain truth, what should be considered only as a sally of the imagination." - Chapter V. is on the finances of the empire and revenues of the sultan, viz. System of finance under the feodal government Divisions of the Turkish public treasury-Sources of revenue; land tax, property tax, customs, poll tax, monopoly, mines, escheats and forfeitures, coinage and tribute-Expenditure-The fixed and casual revenues of the sultan-Doweries and pensions-Nizaam-i-jédid, or new financial regimen of Selim III. comprehending system of excise. Chapter VI. is on the progress and decline of the Ottoman power-an ample field, as the following syllabus will suffice to shew.-Greatness and power of the Turkish dominionAlarm of Christendom-Consequences "This was Couléli, banker to Raghib Pasha, whose sufferings are mentioned by De Tott, P. 187." of the invention of gunpowder Turkish government over tributary subjects, and over Mussulmans-Partition of lands to the conquerors-Sources of revenue-inefficiency of the military system-Considerations on the probable destinies of the Turks; on the justice or policy of expelling them from Europe-On the emancipation of the Greeks-The modern compared with the antient Athenians and Spartans-Causes of the superiority of the antients, and of the decline of national character among the modern Greeks Apprehensions of the Turks from the power of Russia-History of the first war with the czar of Muscovy-Consequences of the conquest of Turkey to Russia, to the other states of Europe, and to the Ottoman subjects-Russian church and government-Examination of the arguments for dispossessing the Turks-Remoteness of meliorationThe religion, morals, manners, and customs, form the subject of Chapter VII. in which are described → The physical constitution, and general habits, moral and religious education, popular belief and practice of the Turks, eriests, dervishes and émirsPilgrimage to Mecca-PredestinationInvocation of saints-Faith in the efficacy of amulets, relics, and enchantments; and belief in omens and dreams -Prejudice against pictures-Punishment of apostacy-Morality and proselytism-Modes of proposing Islamism to unbelievers-Public charities, hospitality and alms-Tenderness toward brute animals-Turkish character: austerity, irritability, intemperance in the occasional use of wine and opium, covetousness, ambition, hypocrisy, and behaviour to strangers-Virtues of the - middle class Clothing and baths-Luxuries and amusement; conversation, story-telling, ombres-chinoises, dancers, gladiators and wrestlers-General health-The plague - Burials, mourning, and mortuary monuments. We do not recollect the iconoclastic prejudices of the Orientals to have been so well defined in any modern author as in the following passage. "The Persians paint whole pictures, and commonly insert them in their his torical writings. But the Turks, in general, consider it unlawful to paint, though not to describe in words, any other parts of the human body than the hands and feet of Mahomet, the body of the prophet being always concealed by the wings of legions of angels; and they firmly believe, that angels can enter no house where there are portraits of men*. The Mussulman, in the performance of the nammaz, is ordered to throw off any parts of his dress which are made of stuffs on which are represented the figures of men or other animals, and to turn his face, during his devotions, from the sight of portraits or pictures, unless they describe only the heads of irrational animals, or pieces of inanimate nature; but foreign coin, though bearing the impression of human figures, does not invalidate their prayers, and may be carried about them even during their journey to the holy city of Mecca. The standards of many of the companies of janizaries, the ships of war, and even the coffee-houses and shops of tradesmen, are decorated with rude and grotesque representations of birds and quadrupeds, and the barge of the sultan supports a golden eagle on its prow.t We have the authority of *«The Mahometau religion,' says Mr. Eton, has no medium of communication with the arts, and is fundamentally gloomy.' (p. 194, 196). If Mr. Etou means the arts of painting and statuary, he is right; for they are banished from the mosque as rigorously as from the synagogues of the Jews, or the churches of several denominations of Christians. But, as the subjects, on which these arts are generally exercised in the churches of the Christians who admit the use of them, are tortures and death, it may be apprehended, that they throw somewhat of gloom, even upon our holy religion. Architecture and the ornamental arts are consecrated as much to Islamism as to christianity. But such is the connection between the arts that all become vitiated in practice from the partial exclusion of any one of them." +"Nous citerons encore l'usage constant et général des ombres chinoises, et le débit continuel, quoique toujours clandestin, de figures d'hommes et de femmes dessinées sur du papier. Les obscénités qu'elles représentent sont tellement, du goût de la nation, que ceux qui paroissent avoir le plus de répugnance pour les productions du pinceau, ne se font pas scrupule de remplir leurs porte-feuilles de ces dessins scandaleux." (Tab. Gén, t. iv, p. 440) Prince Cantemir and the chevalier d'Ohsson for the existence of a regular series of the portraits of all the Ottoman sovereigns in the seraglio; and I have seen a pocket-book belonging to the present sultan, containing engraved portraits of the most distinguished characters of our own time. It was sent to Sir Sidney Smith, that he might communicate some historical anecdotes of Admiral Lord Nelson; and I remarked among the prints the likenesses of Lewis the Sixteenth, Catherine the Second, and Marshal Suwarow." We are, moreover, tempted to give another passage from this chapter on the use and abuse of opium, &c. because the pretended anecdote of a corrosive-sublimate eater has been in some degree accredited, and that very recently by more than one literary journal in England. "Those who intoxicate themselves with opium are stigmatized with the appellation of teriaki. The lavish use of that drug seems successively to exhilarate, to lull, to depress, and to accelerate both corporal and mental decay. To some it is by habit rendered sa necessary, that the fast of the month rammazan, during which they are deprived of it in the day time, becomes a serious penance. I have been assured by a Turk, but I do not warrant his assertion, that, in order to alleviate their sufferings, they swallow, besides their usual pill at the morning exann, a certain number of pills wrapt up in several folds of paper, which will, as they suppose, resist the powers of the sto mach for different lengths of time, and Voyage en Morée, &c. t. ii. p. 125. be dissolved in due rotation, so as to correspond with their usual allowance. Dr. Pouqueville cites a still more remarkable fact, which, although he omitted to confirm it by his own inquiries, he says, cannot reasonably be questioned since every body agrees in asserting its truth. MM. Ruffin and Dantan (both dragomans attached to the service of the French legation, and both worthy members of the corps to which they belong), assured him, that in the year 1800 there existed in Constantinople a Turk, known to the whole town under the name of Suleyman yeyen, or Soliman the taker of corrosive sublimate. 'This man,' says Dr. Pouqueville, was a rare instance of longevity. He was nearly an hundred years old when I was in Constantinople. In his early youth he had habituated himself to take opium, till at last, though he augmented his dose, it failed in producing its effect. He had heard of corrosive sublimate, and substituted the daily use of it to that of opium: his dose exceeded a drachm, and be had regularly taken it for upwards of thirty years.' I am less acquainted than Dr. Pouqueville with the effects commonly produced by corros sive sublimate; but without indulging in scepticism as to the marvellous part of the story, I cannot persuade myself (unless it be an acknowledged quality of corrosive sublimate to exhilarate in the manner of opium), that even a Turk could persist for thirty years in the daily custom of swallowing such a fiery and poisonous draught*.` The manners and customs of the I ought not, however, to omit pointing out some inconsistences in the story, which are so glaring that it is wonderful how they could have escaped Dr. Pouqueville's notice. The first essay of this taker of corrosive sublimate was made in the shop of a Jewish apothe cary. Soliman called for a drachm of the mineral, diluted it in a glass of water, and drank it off, to the astonishment and terror of the apothecary, who was alarmed lest be should be accused of poisoning a Turk: he shut up his shop, and was filled with anxiety when he reflected on the consequences which he expected must necessarily ensue. But the next day, great was his surprise at the re-appearance of Soliman, who came to his shop for a repetition of his dose. Now the shutting up of his shop must be understood as the act of absconding, for if it mean, that he merely closed his window shutters to open them again the next morning, this circumstance indicated no apprehension of danger, neither can it be considered as a precautionary measure, and should not have been mentioned. But how can we reconcile the circumstance of the apothecary's flight with that of his personal attendance in the shop on the very next morning? This absurd story gives me an opportunity, not only of showing, that Dr. Pouqueville has listened with too much credulity to the idle tales of dragomans, but also that he has listened with too much complacency to men having been treated of in the seventh, the domestic economy of the women is reserved for the eighth chapter; a separation which (as the author premises in his preface to the second edition) has been already pronounced to be injudicious by certain critics, because the subject of both is nearly the same. He has, however, persisted in this subdivision of his subject, and accordingly, in compliance with the notorious opinion of the east, been induced to consider the harem as wholly distinct from the male establishment of a Turkish family. Travellers do not appear to have justly estimated the situation of females in the Levant. They are mostly considered as of small importance in the state: they are represented as in a slavish subserviency to the passions of the other sex; and because the grandees keep beautiful concubines secluded from the vulgar gaze, due distinction does not appear to have been made between them and well-born women. But attention to the Oriental languages and customs will give us reason to believe, that such indiscriminate observations are partial, superficial, and inconclusive. 1 ent Greek establishments, on the northern shores of the Euxine Sea. Hitherto our task has been one gratifying succession of approbation; and as we know full well there is but one way of pleasing an author,--i. e. unqualified praise, we would willingly stop here, if duty did not enjoin our declaring, that the work is not altogether free from oversights, which, if venial, are not few; and is disparaged by the absence of much material information. The limits of this publication forbid us to enter into more details, as they have already debarred us from much amusing quotation; but we will just mention, that the author has not accurately described the official situation of a renowned British commander in Turkey, notwithstanding he very justifiably prides himself on a personal and friendly acquaintance with that officer (SirSidney Smith) in the preface, page 5. Nor has he duly availed himself of that access to give us more ample knowledge of his admirable defence of the Ottoman bulwark in Syria,St. John of Acre; or to aid us in developing the real causes of the failure of that commander's undoubted chef-d'oeuvre, the convention of El-Aarish.Nor, we must repeat, are we satisfied with his inconclusive reasons for declining to do his duty, as an historian, by the reign of Selim III. which reasons are given in our first extract. Moldavia and Wallakia occupy Chapter IX. in which is a valuable contribution of statistical and political knowledge. And the whole is wound up by an appendix, containing the physical history of Byzas-Climate, Mr.Tweddell's country menand relasituation and soil of Byzantium - Ex- tives, as well as his academical associates tent of the city and its ports---Chalce- at Cambridge, we believe. looked for don-The Bosporus-The Euxine- a more ample account of his classical The Propontis-The Hellespont-The peregrinations, and, above all, his liteisland Leuce-Cursus Achillis-Anti- rary remains, than the meager and the suggestions of vanity, in over-rating his own acquirements. Dr. Pouqueville takes occasion (t. ii, p. 218) in relating another story (which in my conscience I believe to be no less false than this of Soliman), to insinuate, that he speaks the Turkish language with so much fluency as to astonish even the natives. But in the story of the taker of corrosive sublimate he evidently demonstrates, that he is wholly ignorant of the Turkish language. Suleyman yeyen, he tells us, means Suliman the taker of corrosive sublimate. To the reader unskilled in eastern literature it must appear no less curious than it did to Moliere's "bourgeois gentilhomme," that the Turkish language should be so concise and comprehensive as to express in a single word a whole complex sentence. Suleyman is the proper name of the hero of the farce, su that consequently the secret of this extraordinary strength of stomach must be sought after in a careful analysis of the word yeyen. Now yeyen is the particle present of the active verb yemek, “to eat," and simply signifies "eating." "Soliman the eater, or the glutton, is the only interpretation which the words will admit of, but even that is ill-expressed Turkish by Suleyman yeyen.”—AUTHOR. ostentatious tribute eked out with a complimentary letter, in the same part of the work, page 6. If Mr. Thornton should, however, not possess more knowledge on the subject, than he favours us with, we advise him to turn to a respectible periodical work, the Naval Chronicle, (vol. 23.) wherein he will find a passage which bears such internal evidence of being written by an eye-witness, that, but for the text under review, we should almost have been tempted to attribute those remarks to our author himself. We also regret, that he has not recorded, in an appropriate manner, the admission of the British flag into the Black Sea, which, till Mr. Cobbett cleared the matter up in the first volume of his Political Register, (1802) was generally and unjustly considered as the work of the embassy, of which the earl of Elgin was the head; whereas it has been clearly demonstrated to have been brought about by the minister whom that noble earl succeeded, (Mr. Smith). We also think, that Mr. Thornton could have thrown some ray of light upon the pretended massacres or poisonings of Jaffa, and helped us to some other useful and practical knowledge of certain managements connected with the operations of the British arms in Egypt. Perhaps these deficiencies may be supplied in a third edition, which we sincerely hope, that the author, or rather that right and true Mecaenas, his bookseller, 1 will meet due encouragement to put forth. We think we cannot take leave of our author more equitably than by giving the English version and context of his Latin motto, taken from honest Busbek, the appropriation of which we think well justified upon the whole. "I have not dressed up my narrative with flowers of rhetoric, but have presented you with it, just as I would have related it to you by word of mouth. I know you will bear with the coarseness of my style, it being occasioned by my over-eager desire to gratify you; nor can you well expect elegancy from me in my heat and throng of business, which I was rever master of in my greatest retirements. This, I assure you, both for your information and my own content, I am no conscious to myself of any falsehood in the whole narration, which is the principal ornament of such narrations as these."-Epist. 1. dated Sept. 1, 1554 And for our own part we beg leave to acquit ourselves, both towards author and reader, in the words of a poetical critic: lamented be they who know him not! "Whoever thinks a faultless work to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shal! be. In every work regard the writer's end; Since none can compass more than they intend. And if the means be just, the conduct true, Forgiveness for some trivial faults is due.” |