epitaph could be inscribed on the tombs of our Clarendons and Stratfords than that of declared and conscientious friends of the Christians of Turkey.

CHAPTER VII.

RUSTCHUCK.

Muddy old Rustchuck seemed a Paradise of luxury after the cowstalls and damp mud huts I had been sleeping in-but still the khan of Shekir was very far from having any of the comforts of an European inn. It was a large quadrangle, two thirds of it occupied by soldiery kicking up a row all day and singing by night. On the ground floor was the café and counting house where a palefaced scribe, acting as bookkeeper, sat crosslegged on a bench with a square box and writing materials before him. The landlord himself, a man of large head and shoulders, sat all day on his divan smoking a nargile, but, when afoot, seemed a most insignificant bandy-legged little fellow, which with his large head made him look like a figure from a Christmas Pantomime or a puppet-show turned into flesh and blood. He had built the place from his own capital, and carried on the business of the place, but in a very dignified manner, conceiving that having laid out his money, no further services were requisite towards his guests, beyond wishing them a good morning on entering in a loud deep bassvoice. The fare was good and various, and the landlord honored me by charging me at least quadrupled prices, at which after all I had no great reason to grumble; for when I asked him how affairs were going on, he laughed most cheerfully, as none but a jolly fatalist Turk could do under the circumstances. "As you see," said he, "two thirds of my establishment goes in billets for the soldiery— and I am making certain of a bombardment, some of these days, blowing the whole concern to splinters."

A motley crew filled the place when I went in the morning to have my coffee-country Turkish merchants, town idlers, and private soldiers. The son of the landlord, a youth awfully pitted with small pox, was one of the Redif, or national guard, of the town-out half the night at a post, snoozing out part of the day on the bench,-never without pistols in his girdle, and abusing the Russians loudly above all the other conversations, to the evident admiration and gratification of old Shekir, who whispered to those about him that he was by nature brave and spirited-in short quite a fire-eater, and that general Gorchoffchiskoff would do well to steer clear of him. Various uncouth spectacles were included in the entertainment of this hospitable apartment. One morning it was Shekir himself whose prodigious bald pate was operated on by the barber--another morning two murderers and a thief were collared with iron preparatory to being transported for ten years to work at the fortifications of Silistria. The collars fixed on their necks, like those of dogs, were connected with a chain which ran through a ring. The thief affectedly held his arms aloft and looked at the roof while the operation was performed. They were then marched off in the mud with the sleet falling heavily on their heads. But I did not remain long in this hostelry; a blazing fire as compared with the suffocating mangal, and one or two other approaches to European comfort, led me in a day or two to a khan recommended by the Austrian and Prussian consuls, where I remained to the end of the time I passed in Rustchuck. Here I had a smaller room, a European bedstead, a table to write on, which no khan ever has. The cook of the establishment was a Christian Arab from Jerusalem, travelling for improvement and making the most vile gastronomical experiments on the palates and stomachs of the unfortunate guests. In short, the dinners were atrocious.

I renewed acquaintance with the Austrian Consul, whom I had known ten years ago, on my second visit to the

lower Danube -an active and zealous servant of his government and profusely hospitable. He lived in a nice new house built in the European fashion but in rather an unpleasant position, being on the Danube, and adjoining the angle battery next to Giurgevo. To prepare for accidents he had disfurnished all the upper parts of the house, and, having sent away his family, occupied only the ground floor. Madame R. had gone to Orsova, but still communication by letter was very difficult-of thirteen letters which she had written him, only four had come to hand.

During all this warlike crisis there was an extraordinary seizure or stoppage of letters by unseen and unknown hands, and one of the first reforms required for Turkey is that of the post office. For instance, a letter posted in England for any town in the interior of Turkey in Europe will not reach its destination; it must be addressed to some one in Constantinople who then transmits it by the Turkish internal post. On arrival at the provincial town no delivery takes place, but the letters are laid out; each one selecting his own;-unfortunately some particular friend, unknown to you five minutes before your arrival, may have felt so strong an interest in your affairs as to take charge of your letters and examine their contents. And en revanche you may pocket any half dozen of letters lying before you in the baskets. Letters dispatched to me from England by prompt men of business arrived sometimes in one month, sometimes in two months;-of letters which I dispatched to England considerably more than a dozen never came to hand; nor was my case a singular one. One of the most notable Europeans in Shumla was one morning informed, on the arrival of the Constantinople post, that there was a letter for him. He went direct to the Office, and within the quarter of an hour it had disappeared. It was thus quite clear that there was incapacity and negligence on the part of the authorities, or else foul play by parties un

known. But as regards the interior of Turkey unoccupied by our armies, I am afraid that for long, affairs must go on in this disorderly state. And it is as the sincere friend of the Porte that I signalize the post office as a field for reform, and the necessity of the Ottoman Government making postal conventions with the principal European powers, so that a letter posted and prepaid in any large provincial town of Turkey may go direct to its foreign destination without sticking fast in Constantinople, and vice versa.

I had much pleasure in making the acquaintance of honest Herr Von der Becke, a tall, muscular, ruddy-faced Westphalian, instructor of artillery, one of those Prussian officers who have rendered such service in the military reorganization of the Ottoman Empire. It is a curious circumstance that it is chiefly owing to Prussian military science that the recent Russian campaign on the Danube has been so different in results from what was anticipated. In her fertile territory and hardy energetic population, Turkey has the raw materials of a powerful military state, but it is the science of Europe that can alone render them formidable to her hereditary opponent; and but for the Gutzkowskys, the Grachs, and the Von der Beckes, with their scientifically laid batteries, their detached forts, their Paixhans and their Shrapnells and an ex-Austrian as the skilful strategist, Turkey would have presented a very different resistance. To be brief, the part played by Prussia has been by no means a small one. In every large Turkish fortress one is sure to find a Prussian or German instructing, advising, or commanding either the artillery or the engineers, speaking Turkish fluently, reading up to the last science of Europe, and not alone men of mere routine, but choice spirits thrown on their resources; educated in the theories of Europe, but giving them a large and liberal interpretation in their Turkish practice. Such was the lamented Grach, the all accomplished and heroic defender of Silistria-artilleryman, engineer and strategist - equally at home in the profound

problem of mathematics and in the vast panorama of military history, from Cæsar in the forests of Gaul, to Napoleon on the plains of the Po.

On arrival I presented my letters to Said Mirza Pasha, Governor General of the province of Silistria, but resident at Rustchuck. The Seraglio was an odd place with creaking wooden stairs, long passages, large rooms, filled with menials and attendants, Ulema, Dervishes, and hangers on of all sorts. I found him to be a dignified Turk of the old school. He is descended from the Khans of the Crimea, and therefore remotely connected with the reigning Sultan, that is to say, by the male side. He has large estates in the Dobrudscha, and must have suffered severe losses by the devastation of that district. He regretted that winter paralysed the operations, which, I have no doubt, was true, for he had behaved very gallantly in former campaigns. This was the fourth time of his being Pasha of the province of Silistria—thus, although three times dismissed, he had managed to return. I mention this insignificant circumstance as characteristic of a great period of transition in the Ottoman history. Said Mirza is a most inoffensive man and not likely to play the Pasvan Oglou or the Ali Pasha Tepelene. But although a large standing army and the discontinuance of the whole concentration of police and financial functions in one person have removed all fear of revolt, the government is nevertheless very fond of dismissing, changing and replacing, so as to keep its momentum always in function. Said Mirza Pasha has a great taste for agriculture, and introduced Merino sheep and Swiss cows into the Dobrudscha, where, until the Russians crossed the river, there was a large Tartar population that had emigrated out of the Crimea.

Omer-Pasha having kindly sent me a packet of introductions to the military authorities, I went to see KhaledPasha, commander of the troops, for since the new organization begun in the later years of Sultan Mahmoud, the civil governor, the treasurer and the commander of