the poor Greek of Billijik. I related the whole story of the Greek peasant who had been barbarously tortured in a village in the plain of Brusa; and I spared neither Mustapha Nouree nor Khodhà-Arab. As he was to see the Vizier this morning, I put into his hands a petition which had been drawn up for the Brusiote peasant. I told him, sans phrases, that Mustapha Nouree was absolutely ruining the finest province of the empire. The little great man Ali allowed that many things were done amiss. He excused the Pasha of Brusa's heart at the expense of his head: he said that he was a man of very limited intellect, and far in the rear of his epoch-très borné, et excessivement arriéré- but then he was strongly supported at Constantinople; and though he had no genius, he had so much talent for intrigue, that it was much better for the present government that he should be at Brusa, than that he should be near the court! Here oozed out the whole secret. Mustapha Nouree was left to exercise his tyranny at Brusa, because it was thought here that his return to Stamboul might overset Reschid Pasha, with little Ali and all those precious reformers. The old boor had boasted to me of his great intimacy with the late Sultan, with the Sultana Validê, with all the notabilities of the court, and even with Abdul Medjid, whom he had known from his infancy, and had very often nursed in his arms. He said he could not count how many times the reigning Sultan (when a babe) had upon him. "Do you think, after this, that the Padishah will ever forget me! Yok! Yok! No! no!" And as he added these words he chuckled, and seemed to feel, that though no longer seraskier, or commander-in-chief, he was, through his court favour, a more powerful man than Reschid Pasha or any of them.

I need not say that no notice was taken of the poor Greek's petition, that no redress was given to the Armenians at Billijik, and that the effect of my other representations was nil.

X.-THE SULTAN'S MERINO SHEEP. UNTILING HOUSES SPECIMEN OF JUSTICE.

FOR TAXES.

When Prime Minister, Riza Pasha undertook to improve the degenerate breeds of Turkish sheep. He procured a good stock of merinos from the immense estates held in the Crimea by Count Woronzow, who, like other Russian noblemen, has paid at all times a laudable attention to every sort of rural improvement, and who, many years ago, imported a stock of magnificent merinos from Spain, and some of our finest breeds of sheep from England. The merinos prospered and increased wonderfully in the Crimea; and so they might have done, under proper management, in many parts of Asia Minor.

In November, 1847, I visited the Sultan's merinos establishment, situated in a solitary out-of-the-way spot, near the town of Khirmasti, and at only a short distance from the Rhyndacus. There was no living creature on the spot when we arrived. After a time a Greek traveller and a Bulgarian, one of the head shepherds, rode up. Some buildings which had been erected by Riza were empty and falling to decay. We said that the place seemed going to "the gentleman that is afar off"'—a local periphrasis for the word devil. "Yes," said the Greek, "and so is everything in this country. And yet what purses of gold the Sultan has spent here! and how much good might have been done to the country-people if they could have had some of these foreign sheep!" The Pasha of Brusa had told us that, counting the lambs of this year, there were 30,000 merinos. The old Bulgarian told us that there were not 6000. A great many had died and were dying. There was not a truss of hay for winter food, not a turnip, there was nothing; so that the sheep that were sick or too weak to seek their food on the hill-sides were sure to perish in the course of this season. At first there were some shepherds of the Crimea and two skilful Russians

to superintend the establishment, and attend to the migrations of the flocks from the hot plains to the hill-country at the approach of summer, and from the hills to the plain at the approach of winter. These Franks also acted as doctors to all the sick merinos. But one of these Franks had died, and the other had gone, or had been sent away. The concern was then left entirely to Turkish management and to an inadequate number of rude, ignorant, Bulgarian shepherds. Of course it went headlong to ruin. At the time of our visit the Turkish Aghà, or manager-in-chief, was away at Brusa; his Kehayah, or locum tenens, was away somewhere else; neither had been seen near the sheep for a long time, and another Turk, who, with a good salary, had been appointed to look after the health of the flocks, had never been seen at all, for he had another employment at Constantinople, and lived in that city. Ever since the downfall of Riza and the establishment of his rival Reschid, the merinos had in fact been neglected entirely. The flocks were not regularly moved, nor moved at all; they were left in the same pastures, here at Ghèrdemà, and for months in the year these pastures were inundated. The sheep got rot in the feet and other diseases; and, as the sound were not separated from the unsound, maladies spread over all. In a swampy hollow, we came upon a hundred or two of the imperial stock. Rams, ewes, lambs, are all thin, filthy, and diseased-sick unto death. Two had died in the night and the jackals had picked their bones.

I repeat that it is the standing principle in Turkey for every grand vizier to neglect or undo that which has been done by his immediate predecessor. Thus, this establishment, which had, indeed, cost immense sums, found no favour in the eyes of Reschid Pasha. Riza's idea of improving the wool of the country and bringing in the merinos breed was excellent in itself; but, at no time, had the enterprise been conducted in a large or proper spirit. The grand advantage to be derived by the importation of the new

stock was clearly by spreading it among the people, and improving the wool of the country. Riza Pasha only contemplated keeping and increasing the stock for the Sultan. Abdul Medjid was to be the great wool-merchant of his empire, or the wool of his merinos was to be worked up into fine cloths within his own dominions, in the Imperial Factory at Nicomedia; and this would relieve Turkey from the hard necessity of buying fine cloths from England, France, and Belgium, and keep all that money at home. The sale of a merinos ewe was strictly prohibited, and they would not sell a young ram under 500 piastres—a price far beyond the means of the impoverished people of the country. A few industrious and intelligent Greeks of Khirmasti, who would have paid the price, were not allowed to be purchasers.

Verily our declaimers in parliament, and our phrasemakers in journals well know what they are talking and writing about when they praise the Turks as model freetraders, and declare that trade is nowhere so unshackled as in Turkey!

In this not often visited corner of Asia Minor I witnessed acts of violence and oppression, of injustice and corruption which would have appeared to me almost incredible, if I had not seen them with my own eyes. In several of the neighbouring villages we found houses unroofed, though still occupied by wretched Turks. The tax-gatherers had taken off the tiles to pay the Salianè. The year before they had seized the copper utensils of the poor villagers. What they would find to take the next year it was hard to say. The taxcollectors pretended that they had money, and were hiding it. The peasants most solemnly vowed that they had nothing, not even a stock of food for the winter, which was coming on with unusual rigour. They had had much sickness among them, and had been previously passing through the hands of the usurious Armenians, and suffering from unfair levies of the tax on produce. The tiles, which could

not be sold in the place, were scarcely worth carrying away ; but they were gone, and those wretched dwellings were open to wind and rain, hail and snow. We could not conceive that in a place at all inhabited by men, ruin could well go farther than it had done here! Yet this district was in the pashalik of Brusa, and not a hundred miles from Constantinople.

Our host at the town of Khirmasti, a Greek, a hadji (he had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem), and a primate of the town, was in a great rage at the moment of our arrival, for he had just then come from the Mehkemeh, or Turkish court of justice.

Yesterday, a well-known rogue and vagabond of a Mussulman, had stolen his mare and colt. This morning an Armenian and some Turks, coming from Brusa, recovered the animals and brought them in to the Aghà of the town, having first permitted the horse-stealer to escape. The Armenian told the Aghà that he knew the mare and colt belonged to Hadji Stauvracki, and he sent to inform the old Greek where he might find his property. The hadji went forthwith to recover his mare and colt; but the affair was now in the hands of the kadi, and this strict, scrupulous, and upright judge must have evidence that the hadji was the true, bonâ fide proprietor of the beasts. "But," said the hadji, "every man and boy in Khirmasti knows the old brown mare and her filly, and to whom they belong ! "No matter; I must have witnesses." The old man went and fetched in two Greeks. The kadi would not take their evidence, because they were Christians, and a Mussulman was the party accused of the theft. He must have Mussulman witnesses. Well! the old Greek went and brought in three Turks, who had often borrowed the mare to carry their corn to the mill. The kadi took his beard in his hand, and pretended to wonder how these three men could be so very sure that this mare was that mare, and this filly that filly! He went on to raise more difficulties and obstacles to a restitution of the stolen property; but another Mussulman-also a man of the