European Turkey; its people, its provinces, and its history: with an account of the origin of the present war

Preface

. The following account of European Turkey has been com piled from the best sources available to the author. He bas endeavoured to write dispassionately and without prejudice of institutions, customs, manners, and a state of society totally different from those of Western Europe ; avoiding, on tbe one band, the incHscriminate praise which bas been bestowed upon tbe Turk, in consequence of recent political events ; and, on the other, that no less indiscriminate abuse which prejudiced men have heaped upon everything Turkish. A residence of several years in India, — during which time he became intimately acquainted witb Mussulman habits generally — and a visit to Arabia and Egypt, have qualified tbe author, to a certain extent, for tbe labour which be has undertaken. Tbe work was required by tbe publisher to meet what was felt to be a pressing want — tbe want of sound and accurate information on the Eastern question ; it will be for tbe public to decide whether that want bas been in some measure supplied by tbe present volume. Chelsea, June, 1854. CONTENTS.

Introduction

. THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF EUROPEAN TURKEY. Position — ■ Statistics — Mountains — Coasts — Rivers — Islands — Climate — Productions, vegetable, animal, and mineral ... ... ... ... page 1 — 13

Chapter I The Turk

— HIS RELIGION AND HIS HABITS. Mohammed — The faith of Islam, its creed and practice — Enthusiasm which it inspired — The Dervishes — Polygamy — Turkish Society — The Sultan's Harem — Reverence for the Dead — The Pipe — Solemnity and formality of the Turk — Coffee-houses — The Baths — Turkish Rooms — Schools and Colleges — Life in the Harem — A Dinner in a Harem — Character ofthe Turk 14 — 38

Chapter II. Constantinople

The name Stamboul — Fires — The Golden Horn — Suburbs — The Ferry-boats and Ferry-men — The Streets — Dogs — Bazaars — Slave Market — Circassians and Georgians — Public Buildings — The Atmeidan — The Seraglio — The Sublime porte — The Gate of Salutations — The Council Chamber — The Throne Room — The Mosques — Ancient Reservoirs ... 39 — VI CONTENTS.

Chapter III The Christians, Jews, And Gipsies

The Greek Church — Its Origin and peculiar Tenets — Its Fasts, Discipline, and Clergy — Superstition — Power of the Greek Patriarchs and Bishops in Turkey — The Character of the Greek — Greek Women — The Armenians — Armenian Church — Progress of the Armenians — Dress of Armenian Women — The Turk and the Armenian — The Jews — Their debased condition in Turkey — Their Employments — Their Numbers — Tbe Gipsies — Their Impositions and Methods of Life page 65 — 86

Chapter IV. Northern Provinces

Extent of Moldavia and Wallachia — Fertility — Principal Productions— Population- Character of the People — Their Government — Iniquitous Laws — State of the Poorer Classes — Locusts — Jassy — Bucharest — Krajova — Tbe Danube — Navigation — B ulgaria — Silistria — Brailow and Galatz — Tbe Bulgarians — Sophia 87 — 108

Chapter V. The Eastern Coasts Of Turkey

The Dobrudscha — The Balkan — Bosphorus — Shores of Roumilia — Adrianople — Salonica — Mount Athos and its Convents — Uskub — The Yeuruks — Thessaly — Larissa — The Red Dye of the Levant — Candia — Turkish Islands in the Archipelago 109—123

Chapter VI. The Western Provinces Of Turkey

Southern Albania — Janina — Arta — The Suliotes — Central Albania — The Mirdites — The Guegues — Character of the Albanians — Traditions — Montenegro — Croatia — Bosnia — Productions of Bosnia — Bosnia-Serai— The Bosnians — Servia — The Servians — Belgrade — Reflections 124 — CONTENTS. VII

Chapter VII. History Of The

TURKS— THEIR RISE. The Turks-Osmanlis — Osman — Urkhan — Seizure of Gallipoli, first appearance in Europe — Murad — Adrianople taken — Bajazet I. — Siege of Constantinople — Timur the Tartar— Ladislaus and Murad II. — Constantinople and its Emperors — Rival Churches — Mohammed II. takes Constantinople — Selim — Armenia and Egypt conquered — Soliman the Great — His Conquests — Maritime Supremacy of the Turks — Troubles in Constantinople — The Janizaries — Disorders — Moonface — John Sobieski — Mohammed IV. page 141 — 161

Chapter VIII. History Of The Turks, Continued

1700—1850. The treaty of Azof— Charles XII. of Sweden— The treaty of the Pruth— The Janizaries — Osman III. — His disastrous wars with Catharine of Russia — The treaty of Kainardji — Austrian reflections — Crimea lost to Turkey — War of 1787 ■ — Potemkin's successes — Selim III. — Ali Pasha — His history — His revenge on Gardiki — Parga and Suli — Napoleon in Egypt — Selim deposed — Mahmoud II. — Insubordination of the Janizaries — Treaty of Bucharest — Insurrection of Greece — Its independence — Navarino — Mehemet Ali of Egypt — Russia assists Turkey — Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi — Slaughter of the Janizaries — The hatti-scheriff of Gulhana— The Tanzimat— Abdul Medjid 162—183

Chapter IX. Origin Of The Present War

Progress of Russia — Decadence of Turkey — Prince Menschikoffs Mission — Disputes respecting the holy places — The Czar's conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour — Naval and military preparations of Russia — Ultimatum proposed by Russia to Turkey — The Principalities occupied by the Russian troops — Assurances of ultimate peace in the west — The Vienna note — Its rejection in Constantinople — Alterations proposed in it — Military operations on the Danube — Summons of England and France to Russia to evacuate the Principalities — Declarations of War— The fleets in the Black Sea and the Baltic— Insurrections in Southern and Western Turkey — Landing of English and French troops at Gallipoli 184—208 CONTENTS.

Chapter X. The Present Constitution Of Turkey

The Ps-dishah and the Divan— The Grand Vizier and Ministers of State— The Administrative Divisions of Turkey — The Taxes — Iniquities of the tax in kind and the Salguin — The Turkish Army and Navy — System of Recruiting — Administration of Justice — The Moollah, the Naib, and the Kadi — The Ulemas — Improvements in Education— Schools at Constantinople ... page 209 — EUEOPEAN TUEKEY, _\-c. _Vc.

INTRODUCTION.

. THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF EUROPEAN TURKEY. Position — Statistics — Mountains — Coasts— Rivers — Islands — Climate — Produc tions, vegetable, animal, and mineral. The great peninsula of South-Eastern Europe continues at the present day, in physical features, what it was in the days of Pericles and Alexander. The plains of Thrace, of Macedonia, and of Thessaly, yield now, as they did two thousand years ago, abundant and easy crops to the husbandman ; the bold promontories which project into the Ægean and the Mediterranean are as rocky and precipitous as they were then ; the waves of the Great Sea and its inland gulfs wash the bases of mountains covered with vines and olive-trees : but the proud pre-eminence of the land has gone ; it is no longer the abode of the civilisers and rulers of humanity.

All the world has changed, and the south-eastern peninsula of Europe most of all, — its inhabitants can never again occupy that lofty position in the world's history which they occu pied in times past. It is not given, indeed, to the same nation, twice in the course of its progress, to give laws, manners, and literature to all other nations. Ruins and mountains alone attest that it is the land of ancient Greece — ruins, the remains of ever changing man ; and mountains, the monuments of enduring nature. Statistics. — The peninsula, which includes at the present day the European dominions of Turkey and the independent state of Greece, has an extreme length of 800 miles, and a breadth of 690. B Its superficial extent is nearly four times as great as that of England. Its population has been variously estimated at from eleven to fifteen millions, but is probably nearer the latter than the former estimate — a number which would give about seventy-five individuals to the square mile ; in England, the proportion is about 275 to the same extent.

We cannot arrive at any probable estimate of the value of Turkish productions and manufactures generally, there being no data available for the purpose ; but of the British trade with Turkey Mr. Cobden has given a valuable account, the result of his visit to that country in 1837. He considers that only one third of all the British exports to Turkey are consumed in that country, the others finding their way through it to Persia and elsewhere. Taking the British exports as worth about one million and a quarter of pounds sterling, we may therefore conclude, that about £400,000 worth are entered for home consumption. The British trade with Turkey employs about 21,000 tons of shipping inwards, and about 38,000 outwards. The entire foreign trade of the country is in the hands of foreigners — English, Russians, French, Italians, and Greeks.

Raisins, figs, opium, silk, wool, cotton, leather, and rhubarb, may be enumerated as the principal exports of Turkey ; and, under the liberal system which has of late years been established by the Sultan, both the imports and exports of the country are rapidly increasing in value and amount ; not that the Turk is becoming more energetic, but that foreign mercantile houses have greater security, and are less inter fered with in carrying on their business. Mountains. — Turkey is essentially a mountainous country. Four or five chains extend from the regions of Upper Macedonia, the modern Roumilia, the first of which reaches the banks of the Danube in the neighbourhood of Orsova, where it is joined to the mountains of Transylvania by a rugged harrier of rocks that hedge in, as with an iron wall, the banks of the great river, and render its bed a most uneven and uncomfortable one.

By means of this chain, the Carpathians may be said to be joined to the mountains of Hemus and the Balkan. The second and most considerable extends east wards, separating the modern Bulgaria from Roumilia ; it stretches out into the Black Sea at Cape Eminec, whilst an offshoot from it runs off towards Constantinople and the Dardanelles. This chain is, properly speaking, the Balkan, the Emine-Dhag, or " protecting mountains " of the Turks — a chain distinguished by its rugged masses of precipitous limestone rocks. " It begins by a table land seventy miles long, traversed by low hills, ending, towards Albania, in extremely steep and rapid declivities. Bleak mountains, all but impassable, succeed to this, in which the domes and needles of the Scandach, or ancient Scamus, are covered with per petual snow.

The central ridge is passable but in a very few places ; and where there is no lateral ridge, the precipices descend at once to the plains."* Terrific fissures across the chains and table-lands are the pro minent characteristics of the Balkan — fissures so deep and narrow, that daylight, it is said, is almost excluded from them. These chasms afford, however, the safest passes across the range for travellers ; for an army, they would be certain destruction, if pre viously occupied by a few resolute armed men. The other passes along the faces of the precipices are frightful. A third chain, the Despoto-Dhag of the Turks, the Rhodope of the ancients, runs in a south-easterly direction, ending in an ele vated plain which connects its base with that of the Hemus, of which, indeed, it may almost be considered a prolongation.

The Maritza flows along the valley, one side of which is bounded by this chain. Hemus may be regarded as the water-shed of central Turkey. It is often confounded with the Balkan, but the two are quite distinct ; the latter name being properly applied to the chain running in an easterly direction to the Black Sea — the former to that which runs from north-west to south-east, thus connecting the Balkan with the mountains of Pindus, the great water-shed of Greece. The elevation of none of these chains appears to exceed seven or eight thousand feet, although, in their rugged charac teristics and precipitous declivities, they rival the mightier mountains of the world — the Alps, the Andes, and the Himalayas. Pindus, now Metzova, which rather belongs to Greece than to Turkey, attains an elevation of eight or ten thousand feet.

Its rocks, its forests, its poetic fountains, its beautiful and well-wooded valleys, are all celebrated in classical history and song. Few places * Mrs. Somerville. B can vie in interest, lor the cultivated reader, with Olympus, or Par nassus, or Thermopylæ, although the charm would be somewhat destroyed by hearing them called, as they now are, Lacha, Lia koura, and Platamona. Coasts. — The coasts of Albania, on the far west of Turkey, descend gradually towards the gulf of Drino, but rise suddenly and ruggedly near the entrance of the Adriatic. There, rocks are heaped upon rocks, their summits lost in the misty clouds which are always hovering about, and from which lightnings are con stantly flashing. The sea, which washes their base, is almost uniformly tempestuous ; the shores are rich in the wrecks of vessels.

Such are the Acroceraunian mountains, so much dreaded by the ancient navigators, and now known to Italian sailors by the no less ominous name of Monte de Chimera. The same steepness which characterises the wild mountains of Albania is to be found, though in a somewhat milder degree, in the coasts of the Ionian islands, and along the shores of Western Greece. Turning to the opposite side of Turkey, we find a range of schistose hills, extending along the channel of the Bosphorus to the village of Bayuk-dere, both sides of the strait bearing evidences of their volcanic origin, and of the comparatively recent period at which the waters of the Mediterranean have been admitted by bursting through the walls of rock into the vast depression now filled by the waters of the Black Sea. Indeed, the Black Sea still retains all the characteristics of a great lake, its waters being, in many places, as fresh as those of the rivers which flow into it.

Its western shores, which are principally calcareous, shelve gra dually down into the sea, rendering it shallow, for the most part, and here and there being steep and precipitous ; but, on the eastern, it becomes of an almost unfathomable depth; there the Caucasus appears to sink down as precipitously into its dark waters as they rise above them. The Bosphorus forms the neck of the Ægean Sea, or Archi pelago ; the calcareous hills which bound the greater part of it are everywhere very steep ; the rocks of which the strata are composed stand almost vertically, as if they had been overturned ; presenting to the geologist one of the numerous evidences with which the coast abounds, that volcanic action has been rife in Turkey in comparatively recent times. The gulfs of Salonica and of Contessa, as well as several others, intersect the neighbouring continents deeply, forming lengthened fissures in the elevated shores, through which the sea ebbs and flows now, as it did when Xerxes was marching with his army to invade Greece, or Alex ander to invade Persia.

Rivers. — The basin of the Danube includes more than a third part of Turkey in Europe. It receives in its passage a great number of tributaries, both from its northern and its southern shores. Of those on the south, the principal are, the Drino, in Bosnia ; the Morawa, in Servia ; the Aluta, in Wallachia ; and the Sereth and the Pruth, in Moldavia. The basin of the Maritza, as the ancient Hebrus is now called, includes the greater part of Roumilia. There is but one outlet in that elevated plain, and from that outlet the Maritza flows, and, after crossing a marshy lake, whence it takes its modern name, enters the Archipelago. Adrianople, the second city in Turkey, is built upon its banks. The Vardar, and indeed all the other rivers of Macedonia except the Strymon, meet in the Gulf of Salonica — a kind of delta, formed by their concourse, — increases gradually above the gulf.

They are of little note to foreigners, save for their classical associations ; but to the inhabitants they are the perennial sources of plenty and of abundant crops. The Islands. — The island of Candia, or Crete, maybe regarded as a prolongation of the mountainous districts which extend along Greece and the Peloponnesus ; and the Cyclades are said to be the scattered remains of two mountain ranges — the one running from the mainland, the other from Eubæa. The calcareous caverns, which abound in many of the islands subject to Greece and Turkey, render them especially remarkable. That of Gortyna, in Candia, for instance, is, according to Tournefort,* a vast cave, which passes by a thousand windings under a hill in the neighbourhood of Mount Ida, extending to the south through an immense number of alleys, to which there are no outlets.

A comparatively large passage leads to a spacious hall 1,200 paces long, and seven or eight feet high, its flat roof formed by a bed of horizontal rocks, the floors level, the walls in some places perpendicular, in others * "Voyage du Levant," i. p. 65. consisting of huge stones, which block up the entrance, and are heaped together without order. Many lateral alleys terminate on both sides of the passage ; and in one part the traveller must advance more than a hundred yards on his hands and knees. The cavern is dry, no signs of moisture being visible on its sides or summit, and affords refuge to innumerable flights of bats and other similar animals. The celebrated Cretan labyrinth is similarly a natural cavern, in which art has come to the assistance of nature — a passage opened here and closed there having made it what it is.

The inhabitants in early days, doubtless, found it a convenient refuge in times of war ; indeed, Diodorus expressly says, that the Cretans lived at first in caves and caverns. (Diod. Sic. v. p. 334, edit. Wessel.) There is, probably, none of these subterranean curiosities so celebrated as that of Antiparos. Tournefort has given us an elaborate and excellent description of this singular grotto. The traveller first enters a cavern, and, having advanced a little way, finds himself surrounded on every side by frightful precipices ; he descends these steep rocks by ladders which have been thrown across wide and dismal clefts, below which, at a depth of 300 fathoms from the surface, is situated a large grotto filled with the most fantastic stalactites depending from the roof, and equally fantastic, but no less beautiful, stalagmites rising, as if to meet them, from the floor.

The height of the grotto is about 240 feet ; its breadth, 300. Tournefort, who saw all the works of nature with the eye of a botanist, imagined that he had before him a crystalline garden, in which he had but to find out how minerals grew like vegetables. All travellers agree in the magnificence of the spectacle produced by the lighting up of this brilliant cave — the strange forms of the colossal columns glancing forth as they catch or reflect the gleams of light, and dazzling the beholder whilst they amaze or amuse him with their stupendous and extravagant outlines. Nor is it only for their caverns that the islands of Southern Greece and of the Archipelago are remarkable. Milo, for instance, is evidently the flattened summit of some almost exhausted volcano ; for the ground still emits sulphurous vapours, which are highly injurious to the health of the inhabitants ; whilst various others bear traces, more or less recent, of volcanic action.

Anti paros and Milo, however, belong to Greece. Climate. — Every variety of climate may be said to be prevalent in Turkey in Europe, from the severest cold of the vast plains of northern Asia to the hot tropical blasts of Africa, only tempered by their passage across the Levant, as they sweep over Crete and the Cyclades. The northern provinces, Moldavia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, and Servia, have essentially continental climates, with all their vicissitudes of extreme heat and extreme cold — extreme heat in summer, and intense cold in winter. The coasts, on the other hand, and the narrower portion of the peninsula which lies between the Gulf of Venice on the one side and the Archipelago on the other, have all the characteristics of an insular climate : the extreme heat of summer is tempered by the cool sea-breezes, whilst the intense cold of winter is prevented by the more agreeable temperature of the adjacent seas, which, according to the well-known and admirable law of nature, never become heated or cooled to anything like the same extent as the large tracts of dry land.

The Danube and the Maritza are both usually frozen in winter; and the Russian armies that have penetrated into Turkey, have found in winter, to their surprise, a degree of cold that reminded them forcibly of that to which they were accustomed in the steppes of the Don or the Dniester, or, further north, amid the frozen shores of the Gulf of Bothnia and the White Sea. From its position, we should almost expect to find a tropical climate in a large portion of European Turkey ; but the elevated chains of mountains which traverse it from east to west, and from north to south, prevent the effect of its situation being fully felt, whilst the cold breezes from the frozen plains of Russia and the principalities are not warded off by any very lofty chain of moun tains, such as the Alps, which protect Italy.

There are few regions more highly favoured with respect to climate than the islands of the Archipelago ; in them spring, summer, and autumn succeed each other with unvarying regularity ; winter is unknown, the transition from autumn to spring being sufficiently cool only to form an agreeable contrast with the delightful luxury of a Grecian summer. A bracing temperature and a pure air are felt in these winters, such as the early risers in England may sometimes enjoy in the mornings of April and May. It was with reference to a similar climate— that of Attica — that Sophocles sung in Œdipus at Colonus, when he exclaimed, " There the notes of the nightingale are heard pouring forth her impassioned lay, when, hid amongst the dark green foliage of the ivy, or sheltered amid the clustering vines, she cheers the heart of the labourer, returning from his daily toil, with her song.

There Bacchus and his nymphs are always wan dering — joyous, frolicsome, and wanton. There the narcissus and the crocus are always in flower. There the fountains are always murmuring, impatient to plunge into the unfailing Cephisus, whilst Love hovers about their banks, and troops of maidens wander dis porting, as they sing, in the meadows." A poetical account, truly, but yet not on that account the less true : the nightingale does sing, the grape does grow, the flowers bloom, the fountains are still mur muring as of old, whilst the luxury of summer, and the clear pure ness of the air, inspire the soul with feelings that seem but to harmonise with the voluptuousness of nature. Productions. — The vegetation of the regions north and south of the Balkan chains are essentially different. The oak, the pine, the mountain ash, the lime, the apple, and the cherry, flourish to the north, with tlie grasses, shrubs, and grains with which we are so familiar in England ; but to the south the forests are chiefly composed of the yew, the cedar, the larissio pine, the holm, the lofty eastern plane, the maple, the sycamore, and the beech.

Olive and orange trees thrive beyond the fortieth parallel near the sea ; but the cold of the interior is too severe for them. The apple and the pear disappear as we travel southward and seaward ; the olive now becomes more common ; the laurel and the large-leaved myrtle, the orange, the fig, the mulberry, and the pomegranate, flourish luxuriantly, many of them,, probably, indigenous to Greece and southern Turkey. The shrubs, too, assume a different cha racter ; the rose-laurel follows the water-courses, beautifying their banks ; the caper-bush springing up in clusters amongst the rocks to render them gay. The soil is calcareous, and we may therefore expect to find on the shores and islands of Turkey those plants that thrive best in such a matrix. Thus the mountains of Crete are covered with the Stachys Cretica, the thistle-leaved acanthus, the prickly endive, and various long-named little shrubs that yield valuable resins.

The genuine laudanum of the East is obtained from the Cistus Creticus, which is cultivated, and grows wild, not in Crete only, but in almost all the islands and on the shores of the Archipelago. Aromatic and resinous plants are most abundant ; the leutisk and mastich-trees are nowhere in such profusion, or in such perfection, as at Delos. Grapes grow from the pleasant hills of Crete to the Carpathians ; but those that cheer Northern and Southern Turkey are very. different from each other. In Wallachia they are watery and acid, whilst those that enrich the shores of the Archipelago are sweeter and stronger. Excellent wine is made in Roumilia, Servia, and in Hertzegovina ; and there can, indeed, be little doubt, that, were greater attention and more labour bestowed upon the grape of Turkey generally, its wines would, perhaps, be inferior to none in the world.

In a few only of the islands of the Archipelago and the Levant is the palm-tree found, as in Naxos, Scio, and Crete, for instance ; but it does not bear fruit in any. The soil is probably unsuitable, or else its cultivation has not been attended to. Horses may be looked upon as the chief animal production of Turkey. In the classical ages, the Thessalian horse was celebrated throughout the civilised world for its swiftness and strength ; and, although the Greek" sculptures show how different their ideas of equine perfection were from ours, yet there can be no doubt that the breed of Thessaly bore as marked a superiority to those of the rest of the world in ancient days, as that of Arabia did in later times, or as the English horse is gradually attaining, in size, in strength, and swiftness, according to the uses for which it is bred, in these years.

The Turks imported Tartar mares in great numbers on their first settlement in Europe, and, at a later period, Arabian horses. The cross which has resulted has developed the best qualities of the respective races — the Thessalian, the Tartar, and the Arab ; the bone and muscle of the one, the patient endurance of the other, and the elegant symmetry and swiftness of the third, are all to be found in the true Turkish horse that has been carefully reared and well tended. Of miserable hacks, indeed, there is no lack in European Turkey at the present day, any more than in other parts of our highly favoured continent ; but respecting the excellent qualities of the superior Turkish horse, there cannot be two opinions. Vast numbers of horses are raised in the plains of Moldavia and Wallachia, principally of the small Tartar breed, by no means inferior to those of the Cossacks in hardy endurance and in swift ness.

Troops of wild ones, too, roam on the frontiers, and many of them are killed to supply the inhabitants with food. The cattle of the principalities are large and strong ; more than 30,000 oxen are annually exported from Wallachia to Bosnia ; and the majority of them, perhaps, ultimately find their way to Con stantinople. The pastures and meadows there are of a rich and excellent quality ; many thousand oxen, and numerous flocks of sheep belonging to the inhabitants of neighbouring states, are fattened on them every year. Sheep abound in the northern provinces of European Turkey — in the principalities, in Roumilia, Servia, and Bulgaria ; but the goat is more common in the mountainous regions. Large eagles are abundant in the neighbourhood of Babudagi and the highest ridges of the Balkan. Their feathers were extensively used by the Turks for their arrows in times gone by.

The wild boar, the roe, and the fallow-deer frequent the forests and the mountains; whilst the fox, the wolf, and the bear, are by no means unfrequent. Game is not by any means abundant on the shores of Turkey generally ; but fish are caught in great numbers, and form the staple of the food of the inhabitants. In the valleys of the interior, however, the partridge and the bustard abound. Aristotle mentions the lion as one of the animals frequently found in Thrace and Acarnania ; but, if it ever frequented these regions, which certainly seems doubtful, it has long been extirpated. From the wax of a peculiarly small bee which frequents Wallachia, candles and tapers are made that emit in burning a rich aromatic fragrance, peculiarly delightful to the indolent and sensuous Turk. There can be no doubt that, were the resources of the country developed by a more enterprising and less luxurious race, the minerals of Turkey would form an important article of commerce, and a valuable addition to the world's stock.

Small pieces of gold are carefully collected by the gipsies from the beds of the Wal lachian rivers. Fossil salt abounds in the Carpathians. Iron is plentiful along the Balkan range, in Hæmus, Scandus, and the Albanian chains ; whilst scientific travellers assure us that, were copper sought for, it might be abundantly found on the southern slopes of the Balkan, and mixed too, or, at all events, in close connexion with, silver and gold. Herodotus* and Thucydides f both mention the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangeus, in Mace donia — mines which extended, according to their account, to Peonia, or beyond the river Axius. Xenophon J considered the silver mines of Larium inexhaustible ; but Strabo § regarded them as worked out before his time, and as being no longer profitable. On the whole, there can be little doubt, however, that the mineral wealth of Turkey is far greater than that of many other European states which engage largely in manufactures, and find employment for thousands of their population in mining and the preparation of metals.