law-sitting by, was struck with some sudden shame, and told the kadi that he must really accept the evidence of the three Turks, and restore the mare and filly. "And so I will," quoth the kadi, “but the primate must first pay me thirty piastres." The old Greek demurred. "Well then, twentyfive piastres." 'No," he could not. "Then twenty." At

last they settled for sixteen piastres; and having paid this money Hadji Stauvracki took home his mare and filly.

The Aghà or Mudir of Khirmasti, after fixing his own price on that produce, had been monopolizing all the sesame of the district, just as Latif Effendi had so successfully monopolised the opium up at Kara Hissar. Freedom of trade! Why there is not a rayah, there is not even an Osmanlee, free to sell his produce, if his Pasha or Mudir wishes to have it or to trade in it.

XI.-HOLY PLACES.

In the loud and apparently never-ending contentions between the Latins and Greeks on this subject, we have never heard the name of England mentioned. Yet England, and, in a minor degree, every country which adheres to the doctrines of the Reformed Church, have had abundant reasons to complain.

It was through English policy, intervention, and arms, that Syria, Jerusalem, and the whole of Palestine were torn from the Pasha of Egypt, and restored to the Sultan in 1840. Yet when England applied to the grateful Porte for permission to erect a proper church of her own at Jerusalem, her application was met with shuffling evasions and mortifying delays; and it was five long years before the necessary firman was obtained by our ambassador. During this long interval Sir Stratford Canning was propping up Reschid Pasha, and obtaining from him all those proclamations in

favour of religious toleration, freedom of worship to the rayahs, rights of conscience to Armenians, &c.-of which we have seen the value.

At the village of Boudjà, near Smyrna, it was many years before the English, Dutch, and American merchants could obtain permission to enclose a Protestant cemetery. No doubt the obstacles were raised by the Armenian Romanists. None such was offered to the formation of a Roman Catholic cemetery at the same village. There, an English church was violently stopped in its building some fifteen years ago. In this case I was told that the Turks were impelled by the united bigotry of Armenians, Greeks, and Papists. A private house, built by my dear American friend, Joseph Langdon, of Boston, is now used for our worship. The Romanists of the village have been freely allowed to build a regular stone church, and to have a bell-a thing prohibited to the Greek and Armenian rayahs. In 1848, the Protestants had ventured to claim the last-mentioned privilege; but "the church-going bell" at Boudjà was only the small old bell of a broken-up American steamer. Low as was its tone it gave great offence to the bigots of the place, who were threatening either to pull it down, or to get it stopped by the Pasha. Before dealing in generalities, and interfering for the Sultan's subjects, our diplomatists ought certainly to have secured for Englishmen the right of having decent churches for their worship, and decent and well-secured cemeteries for their dead. But these things would not have had, in dispatches and newspapers, the grandiose air of edicts of Universal Toleration, Equality of Rights for all, Unlimited Liberty of Conscience in the Ottoman Empire, &c., &c.

Our church at Jerusalem was at last allowed to be built, and was, I believe, finished and opened for worship in 1850, ten years after we had given back Jerusalem with all Palestine and all Syria to the Turks. I am told by an eminent English clergyman, who has recently returned from the Holy Land, that the church, though small, is a very pretty Gothic

building. It stands at the entrance to the Frank quarter, on the sacred eminence, Mount Sion, and near to the gate called by the various names of Jaffa, Hebron, and Bethlehem.

XII. THE GRAND VIZIER RESCHID PASHA.

If ever there were a man that got into reputation by empty professions and false pretences, this is he.

Reschid had been originally a poor clerk in one of the offices of the Porte. He was fortunate in obtaining a good French master, and, for a Turk, he learned that language exceedingly well. Linking himself with the rising reforming party, he obtained promotion with a rapidity known only in this country. He was soon sent as Ambassador to Paris, where good-natured people, astonished to find a Turk that knew anything, set him down as quite an accomplished person, and homme d'esprit. The easy dictum was accepted, and soon half the society of Paris was talking about l'esprit and les connaissances of the Turkish Envoy. When a fashion takes it runs for a time. From Paris Reschid was transferred to London, where he resided a considerable time, and easily maintained the reputation which he had so easily acquired. He had then the advantages of a good person, and a seemingly intelligent and open countenance. But his stock of information was exceedingly limited, and extracted solely from French books-from works of which no good Frenchman of the present day will approve. The expression of anything like an original idea never fell from his lips. He dealt in stereotyped notions and theories, as well as in stereotyped French phrases. He sneered at his own faith without expressing any respect for the religion of others. Il avait l'esprit Voltairien, says a Frenchman. Of the wit of the great enemy to Christianity he had none; but he had diligently read Voltaire's Romans, Dictionnaire Philosophique,

&c. His scepticism certainly did not improve his morality. I have detailed elsewhere, at full length, a case, in which he stood committed with M. Guizot, that proves him to be, in his own private affairs, lacking in honour, humanity, and in common honesty. See the story of his model farm, and M. François Barreau, his French manager, in 'Turkey and its Destiny,' vol. ii., chap. xxv. After his return to Turkey he nearly fell from the ladder of promotion, but he was sustained by Sir Stratford Canning, upon whom he imposed by professions and promises, and who thought him at least an honester and more enlightened Turk than his great rival Riza. He has depended entirely on Sir Stratford for his retention of office. Whenever Sir Stratford, or Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, has had any disagreement with the Court, or whenever he has left the country, Reschid has been bowled out by the very first ball, like a bad batter in cricket, or has been knocked over like a ninepin. I wonder that our distinguished diplomatist has not grown tired of so often setting him up again. His present Grand Vizieriat commenced in the summer of 1848. Previously he had been out for some months, because Sir Stratford was away; but so soon as it was known that Sir Stratford was really returning, and that he had reached Athens, they brought him in again. Should Lord Stratford leave Turkey to-morrow, out Reschid will go once more.

In 1847-8 I collected facts more than sufficient to prove that he is not a man of energy-that he is not a man of business-and that, as a government administrator, he has displayed neither honesty nor ability. As much as he could, he shut his door to all the Franks (travellers and others), who were above the meanness of flattering him, or eulogising him for unfulfilled intentions, or rather for professions and promises which he had never intended or cared to keep. Like the rest of the Pashas, he had grown obese and indolent. The first time I saw him, in the streets of Tophana, I did not recognise him as the Reschid of a few years ago. He was said to be a man of quiet habits and decent life, and not

a rake or debauchee like Riza. But the opinion appeared to be almost universal, that Riza was by far the better man of business and administrator. "But," said an acute old. Perote, "it is all one whether Riza is up and Reschid down, or Riza down and Reschid up. The one cannot govern worse than the other, nor better! Neither of them can be more than a part of a bad and complicated machine-neither of them can alter the system of government, or check the influence of the serraglio, or create honesty and good faith where none exist, or awaken conscience in men who have no conscience, or rouse a feeling of honour and patriotism in those who never knew the meaning of such words!

دو

This reformer had surrounded himself with all the absurd state and magnificence of a vizier of the old unreformed times. The French colonel whom I have before quoted, said:"Reschid Pasha has lived a good deal in Paris and in London. He knows the usages of civilized society; he knows perfectly well what an incongruous and monstrous thing it would be thought if the domestics of the Prime Minister of France or England were to run down stairs after every visitor, clamouring for backshish. I have been to the Vizier's several times, and whether it were on business or to pay a visit of ceremony, down came the domesticity upon me as soon as I was on the staircase. He keeps three or four hundred servants and retainers! Why does he keep them if he cannot feed and pay them? Why, in any case, have such an army of unproductive, useless idlers? How many servants has M. Guizot? I do not believe that Lord Russell has very many. And here is this prime minister of a ruined country with three or four hundred! It is the same system chez little Ali Effendi, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. These are the two men with whom foreigners are most frequently brought into contact; these are the intellectual summities of

* When this was said M. Guizot and Lord John Russell were Premiers.