'When the morning dawned on the walls of the prison, and some feeble rays found a passage to the dungeon, through the narrow aperture in the door, which was called a window, a sorry sight presented itself to view; the floor was covered with extended bodies; hideous gestures disfigured the limbs of others; exhaustion had suspended the faculties of many, their sufferings-no! they slumbered, but even in their sleep they writhed in anguish. Three of them slept well-they breathed no more; and noisome animals were already crawling over their remains. It was noon before a wretch was stirring, and when the sufferers did awake, it was to the renewal of all the horrors of the preceding day; before sunset, nine other devoted beings were marked for death; their mien was ghastly as that of their companions,—the hand and seal of fate was on their foreheads. From this time the closeness of the dungeon every hour became more dreadful; the pestiferous breath of the surviving was mingled with the effluvia from the dead, and the empoisoned exhalation was condensed on the damp walls, and was seen trickling down in drops of poison to the ground. Days passed over, and the pestilence raged with increased fury; "the hand of the Most High was out-stretched, and the people were smote, and they were cut off from the earth." Victim followed victim with terrible rapidity, and in nine days five miserable men only were in existence. Surrounded by the loathsome bodies of their companions, they breathed, but that was all; their looks were inanimate as those of their dead comrades; their eyes were sunken, their cheeks were hollow, their tongues were swollen, their black baked lips were streaked with gore, their aspects were horrible to one another.

Mourad was one of the unfortunate survivors; the poor man who attended on him at the commencement of the disorder, paid him unremitting attention, but he was at length attacked; and, like the sick Machaon, he needed the help he gave another.

'For the last three days the wretched Mourad was left destitute of sustenance; the water jar was in sight, but not within his reach; his hand many a time was extended towards it, his dim eye was riveted on it, he attempted to rise, but it was a hopeless effort. He uttered 'no complaint; the voice of lamentation was no longer heard in the dungeon, the silence of death was there; want was present, but the stillness of inanition prevailed; and if a sound was heard, it was the name of Allah, or the feeble moan which the death-pang wrung from the sufferer. Another morning sent its rays through the grated window of the dungeon; another dawn lit up the chamber of death, and presented the livid mass of mortality which reeked around to the eyes of the surviving sufferers. But it was the last which was ever to send its light to Mourad-it was the final day of life's long misery-it was the farewell beam to his dejected visage, and it shone upon him as if its parting light was meant to bless him.

Sunset came, and he still was living; the rays of another morning broke upon his features, but they were fixed for ever; its beams played over his lips, but they moved no more; its light fell on his lids, but the orbs beneath were wrapped in darkness; its heat struck on his breast,

but the heart it held was cold as ice. There lay the remains of the once buoyant Mourad, the earthly tenement of his daring, the mortal coil of pride and passion. No one stood over his corpse to recall his crimes, no weeping friend was there to soften down the obloquy they had incurred. But if there were none to palliate his faults, there still were none to revive his errors; there were none to exaggerate or extenuate his crimes -none. to say his depravity was unredeemed by a single virtue; and none to make allowance for the controlling influence of a vicious education, directed in after-life by the tide of circumstances, perhaps no less than by the current of the passions.

'Death might well stumble in the dungeon of the Bagnio, like the dim-sighted camel of Aad; the victims of his tyranny were thickly scattered around, horror was accumulated on horror, and when the monster in human shape who kept his fellow men immured in that terrible dungeon till the poison of the putrid atmosphere found its way through the prison, opened the doors, two miserable beings were in life, and when they were dragged forth one poor wretch died on the threshold. 'The disease extended no further. The prudent conduct of the gaoler was represented to the Sultan; his highness began to entertain some hopes of carrying his plans of reform into effect: this was the first attempt at quarantine; it was an European custom, and as it worked well, it was one of the great reforms to which Turkey was to owe her regeneration. The noise of it even reached the country of the Frangis. The British statesmen hailed the auspicious omen as an indication of energy in the Porte: the resolution of the Sultan was praised, and that highly too, and the prime-minister of the Giaours talked of the carcases of Thrace becoming a phoenix, out of whose ashes the triumphant crescent was to rise, and expressed a hope of soon congratulating Christianity on the event."

Truly the Christian powers have but little understood the mode of treatment applicable to the encamped barbarians of the Hellespont. The utter contempt entertained by them of the Infidel is well known: ignorance is the heartiest of all despisers, and the ignorance of the Turk is only equalled by his stupidity. To reason with a Turkish authority is time lost, for he contemns the speaker, and cannot comprehend what he says; if a purpose is to be carried with an individual of this kind, he must be dealt with according to his understanding: the Turk feels the force only of money and blows. The most curious feature of the intercourse between the Europeans and these people is, that the former consent to be taken at the Turkish valuation, and appear content. The meanest of the Turks thinks himself, observes M. Fontanier, a far more important personage than the first potentate of Europe; and such is the force of the prejudice, that the few who think differently would not dare to give utterance to their opinion. An ample confirmation of what is here advanced may be found in the reception given to the agents of the different ambassadors, through whom all negotiations pass.

See them slip with all humility into the anti-chambers of the ministers with whom they have business, and there put on the yellow slippers, and await their pleasure among a parcel of insolent attendants. And should they succeed in getting admitted, watch the satisfaction of their countenances when they are permitted to sit down, or when, on a lucky day, the singular honour is done them of offering a pipe and cup of coffee; frequently they refuse the favour, and hope, by this act of humility, to succeed in their demands. Should they be charged to communicate a message somewhat strong, what artifice in their language, what roundabout forms, what oratorical precautions, how they lament the misery of their position, which obliges them to sentiments in which they have no share! With all which they are far from escaping always without abuse. "You weary me." "You are dogs, Infidels." "That is enough.” “Well, well.” “Hold your tongue.” “If you do not eease I will have your ears cut off." Such are the answers to the representatives of our ambassadors, which the interpreters, so far from resenting, consider as the privileges of the Porte."-Fontanier, Constantinople, p. 71.

The Reis Effendi, that is the chief of the sailors, a servant of the Grand Vizier, charged with European affairs, announced one day that he was not pleased with the principal interpreter of the French embassy, and he would transact no business with him. In consequence all communication with the authorities was suspended for a month. It is not to be supposed that such practices take place by order of the Grand Seigneur far from commanding them, he does not give a moment's thought to European affairs, and he would be strangely surprised to learn that Europeans took such an interest in his. None of his servants would dare to inform him of such insolence. The Grand Vizier himself pays but little attention to them; his time is fully occupied with the care of preserving his place, and managing his kingdom.”—Fontanier, p. 72.

However, far from being discouraged, far from being irritated by this silence and obstinacy, the European cabinets never cease sending their eternal notes. No spectacle can be more curious than the incessant arrival and departure of couriers and diplomatic agents at and from Constantinople, producing no other earthly effect than in the counting-houses of the merchants, delighted to have so charming an opportunity of receiving and answering letters. The indolence of the seraglio is a fatal barrier against all the elaborate paragraphs of the European cabinets; the best-combined projects, the most forcible representations, the most pompous solemn declaration of the rights of the sovereign, of their dissatisfaction, of their duty, and their humanity, all sink unnoticed and unhonoured in that "slough of despond." Not so the "untoward " argument used by Admiral Codrington in the bay of Navarino-that› demanded no dirty aid from slavish and slippered interpreters.

We have lately heard a good deal of the adoption of the European discipline in the Turkish armies; the aptitude for such changes among the Turks, ever willing to do their best, may be estimated by such anecdotes as the following, and they are far from being uncommon :

The former Capitan Pacha, now Seraskier-Khosroe, who had had a good deal of intercourse with Europeans during his last unfortunate campaign in the Archipelago, took into his pay one Gaillard, who had been a serjeant in the French army, and had employed him to exercise his regular troops. An officer arrived, who hoped to be permitted to assist in teaching the new discipline, who was commissioned to manœuvre the new battalion raised by the successor of Khosroe. He in the first instance formed magnificent plans of administration and regulation; he very soon, however, learned that he was required to confine himself to simple evolutions, and then had not the happiness of pleasing his chief. One day after the review of his troop, he called the officer to him and said, "You are playing with me, Sir. I pay you 200 piastres a month more than Khosroe gives Gaillard, and all you teach my troops is neither more nor less than what he teaches his; I want something new; I am tired of seeing men drawn up into two files, always executing the same movements. I, who am no soldier, will shew you something better than that." On this, the admiral took off his long robe, seized a musket, and then, causing the drum to beat, marching quick or slow according to the movements of the drum, he ranged his troop in round, in square, in oval, and triangle, thinking at each manoeuvre he had made discovery in the art of war. After he had done, he called upon the officer for his approbation, and asked him how many days it would still require to perfect the troop in their manœuvres. "Three months,' answered he; "if, then, you dogs of Christians have need of three months of study, then, thanks to our holy religion, true believers ought to learn as much in fifteen days: so see if you can succeed in this interval; in that time I have to review my troops before the Grand Seigneur, and in that case, if you remain and I am not happy enough to gain his approbation, I will chastise you properly." The officer could not accept these conditions, and very properly demanded his dismission.' -Fontanier, p. 76.

Yussuf, the Aga's son, upon whom the vengeance of Mourad last falls, and that undesignedly, has a taste, almost peculiar to the Mussulman-it is the taste for blood, shed under the law. The chief executioner's, all over Turkey, is an office of great authority: Yussuf fortunately marries the daughter of the officer who fills this dignified post at Smyrna, and he ultimately succeeds to the responsible post of assistant-executioner at Constantinople. Among other traits in the Mussulman, detailed with acuteness, is the taste for blood engendered in a country, where executions are frequent, and moreover not disgraceful to any of the parties. The distinguishing charac

teristic of a superior mind in both agent and patient is coolness; by the excessive and unceasing eagerness displayed by Yussuf in his first operation, he previously disgusts his father-in-law, in whom no one has ever detected an emotion, either of anger or pity. This character may appear overstrained, and perhaps unnatural to those unfamiliar with the reports of travellers in that country. M. Fontanier in particular confirms the novelist as to the relish with which executions are looked upon by Turkish spectators.

'I have seen but too many executions in Turkey, and I cannot describe the indifference with which they are witnessed. Is a head to be cut off, the spectators look on with the same carelessness that they would on a sheep being killed; they are even ready with their advice as to the mode of doing it with the most grave address. While I was at Tossia, a Christian, who had stabbed a Turk, was impaled. In order to undergo this horrid punishment, the culprit was laid on his belly, and a morsel of wood, sharpened to a point, was thrust into his entrails. The cawas held him down while one of them, with repeated blows of a mallet, drove in the wood. A carpenter who was present found fault with the manner in which the executioner acquitted himself of his task, and offered to replace him. When the thing was done, the wood was stuck into a place prepared for it, and the sufferer remained with his feet about two feet above the ground. This was an exceedingly amusing spectacle for the children. They provided themselves with stones, and showered them upon the unhappy malefactor; in this instance, however, they abstained from the ordinary practice of taking small knives, and digging them into the body.'-Fontanier, Turquie, p. 27.

"O father could you not let me kill both," cries Yussuf, with eagerness to the chief executioner of Smyrna, after that functionary had condescendingly promised him one victim of two Christians ordered for execution, on which to flesh the virgin sword of his hopeful son-in-law.

"Oh, father could not you let me kill both; if I do the first business to your satisfaction, you might as well grant me the favour of suffering me to slay the second unbeliever (cursed be his father's beard!)"

""Ah, my son,” replied the executioner, "did I not warn you against the common foible of our profession, that of getting into a passion with the victim, even before he is beheld. You are likewise too impatient; I told you never to be flurried when you approached the place of execution, and yet the moment we arrive at it, your eyes are gleaming like two red suns when the wind is coming from the east, and your fingers are playing with your own neck, as if it was that of your mortal enemy."

"

"Excuse me, father," said Yussuf, "I confess I was somewhat absent, I was thinking of Mourad. Trust to my discretion, I will endeavour to behave as becomes the son-in-law of the chief executioner." By this time they had reached "the place of blood," where a