officer to be left very long in command: he was recalled a few months after our visit, and his place supplied by a Pasha with the ordinary qualities of that genus. The same fate befell a very clever young Corsican surgeon, who had contributed to keep the troops at Kutayah in a rare good state of health. And thus is it always: if the Turkish government get a good man, they are sure, very soon, to dismiss or shelve him.

In this heart-saddening journey, as in others we made in the direction of the Lakes Apollonia and Magnass, and the river Granicus, we saw little among the Turkish element but poverty, absolute misery, and a decaying population. We passed many of the spacious chiftliks and konacks of the old hereditary nobility, who had been wont to breed the beautiful nags and greyhounds of Asia Minor, and to keep up very numerous studs. These country residences some of them very extensive and of a pleasing Oriental architecture-were all deserted, all empty, all in ruins, or fast falling to pieces. Here and there a poor Osmanlee has taken possession of a corner of the spacious edifice—

"Dogs, men, and horses, all are gone,

And he the sole survivor."

The great "Timars" or fiefs, which existed in this part of Asia, could furnish the empire in time

of war with 25,000 well-mounted horsemen, who rode well, because they rode fearlessly in their national saddles, and with their natural seat; but Sultan Selim smote these fiefs; Sultan Mahmoud followed up the blows with blind fury, and without mercy or forethought; and Sultan Abdul Medjid, Reschid Pasha, and the other new-school Turks, have completed their utter destruction. Hence, they will never again get the brilliant light cavalry of former days from those districts, which are a prey to disorder, or to an apathy worse than disorder, and which exhibit, in all directions, the elements of a rapid dissolution. It is true that in the midst of this decay (at least towards the seacoasts) Greeks, Turks, Armenians, and Jews, are increasing their numbers in spite of their general poverty; but these classes cannot enter the army, nor would they if they could. The Armenians and Jews would quietly submit to any new master; the Greeks would certainly fly to arms and aid a foreign invader, particularly if he belonged (as the Russians do) to the same Christian Church as themselves.

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"The artillery," says a British officer of engineers, are the best soldiers in the Turkish army, and, notwithstanding the defective nature of the carriages, they work their guns with great

dexterity." I was a frequent visitor at their great artillery barracks, where the Pasha (another Achmet by name) treated us to the sight of some horse-artillery exercise and manœuvres. The guns were all brass; and a few of the carriages were not badly made; but neither guns nor carriages were kept clean. The harness was badly made and abominably dirty. The horses were all white or very light greys. They told us that they were bred at home, in Roumelia, in the country up above Phillipopoli. I was much mistaken if they were not all Transylvanian or Hungarian horses-they bore a very close family resemblance to a breed I had often admired in the Emperor of Austria's army. In the European provinces, no more than in the Asiatic, have the reformers, plunderers, and levellers, left anywhere the men of family and property who kept up the good studs. The Spahis of Roumalia have utterly succumbed and disappeared in the grave, or in the obscurity of poverty, like the Beys and Timariots of Asia Minor. From Constantinople to Adrianople, and back again by a roundabout route, we saw not one good horse. These Turkish artillery horses would be considered by us undersized for that service; but they were

*Lieut.-Col. Sir Frederick Smith, in the work of Marshal Marmont. See Appendix I.

compact and strong, and not at all deficient in pluck; they were well broke in to their work— were admirably in hand-and the artillery drivers drove them in good style. About a dozen light field-pieces were very well handled in an enclosed field in front of the barracks. It was by far the best specimen of military exercise we saw in Turkey; but the Pasha showed us only his very best men. The instructing officer was a German, who had, I believe, been a sergeant of artillery in the Prussian service. A few young Turkish subalterns appeared to be both active and intelligent; but the superior officers were sitting down on stools, looking listlessly on, and smoking their tchibouques. All of them seemed too fat to move. It is one of the uncountable calamities of this doomed empire, that as soon as a man attains to any rank he fattens. I can scarcely remember to have seen a thin pasha. The causes of obesity are evident enough. A grandee must not run or ride about like common mortals, but must keep his state all day long on a divan, or broa, low sofa, propped up with cushions, and being attended by a score or two of officers, servants, and slaves, who do his every bidding at the motion of his hand or the glance of his eye; and if he walk across the room two servants support him by holding him under

the arm-pits; and if he go abroad on horseback, there must be two men walking on foot at the horse's head, two more at the stirrups, and at least two more in the rear of the horse's tail:-thus he can ride only at a walk. If I were reformer in Turkey, I would alter all this: I would burn all these fattening, indolence-promoting divans, and declare inexorable war against the adet (custom) which makes it fashion and etiquette for a man to be lazy and grow fat so soon as he attains to high rank. We were told that the artillery was not better paid than the infantry, but that the cavalry was of late receiving some slight additional allow

ance.

We afterwards saw some horse-artillery exercises which could not be praised. The number of good artillerists was evidently very limited. The stationary artillery in the batteries and castles on the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles seemed to be very stationary indeed, and to be rarely exercised in anything beyond the firing of salutes. Of this practice they had an abundance up at Constantinople, but I never saw or knew any of the artillery, horse or foot, to be practised in firing ball. I once, indeed, saw a single shot fired from a battery on the Dardanelles; and that shot went a hundred yards wide of its mark. The Turkish