Varna, even in the improbable case that the English and French fleets
allowed the Russians to come out of Sebastopol. Its possession, however,
is not indispensable to the invaders’ land operations. Supposing a first
battle to be fought and won by the Russians on the line of the Danube,
the second, it is thought probable, would occur near Shumla, which is
considered the key of the Balkan, and must, of course, be taken. Omar
Pasha, it is said, has considerably strengthened its fortifications, as
well as those of Rustchuk on the Danube. “Shumla,” says the writer in
the _Univers_, “stands in a basin, between two abrupt peaks. A stream,
the Tekie, deep sunk between its banks, covers the place on two sides.
But it is approachable by artillery, especially by the side of Yenibazar
(east by north), where there is a level and naked plateau. Shumla,
surrounded by walls flanked by square towers, is the centre of a great
intrenched camp, defended by earthen redoubts and deep ditches. Between
Shumla and the Danube, most of the villages are palisaded. Shumla fallen
and Pravadi taken, the Balkan would be open: the trenches and abattis in
the defiles could not stop a Russian army.”
Supposing the Russians to be uniformly successful in their operations, a
first campaign would hardly take them beyond Adrianople. The country
between that place and Constantinople is hilly, sandy, and intersected
by innumerable ravines, which the winter rains convert into
watercourses. It would afford but scanty supplies, especially for the
cavalry, and if the Russian fleet was captured or blockaded, the army
might be put to great straits. The retreating Turks would, of course,
leave as little as possible behind them, except, probably, a few bands
of guerillas and partisans in the Balkan, who would be very useful in
cutting off convoys. The artillery would have great difficulties to
surmount in a country such as that, where the numerous mountains and
ravines are as unfavourable to its progress as they are favourable to
the sharpshooters, who would not fail to hang upon and harass the
Russian line of march. The possession of the port of Midia, a little
south of Adrianople, would be almost indispensable to the existence of
the invading army. But, in or off that port, the French and English
flags would doubtless be waving. Admitting, however, that all the
difficulties and dangers of the march were overcome, and that the
Russians were in sight of Constantinople, it is no light task that would
still remain to be performed. “Constantinople,” says an authority
already quoted, “is covered by a last line of which the Karasu is the
chief defence. This little river forms a lake of fresh water, that flows
by a large ravine into the Sea of Marmora. Eight leagues from the city
it is traversed by a stone bridge, five hundred paces long. Between the
city and this bridge, almost as far as the Cape of Kara-Burun, on the
Black Sea, is one mass of precipitous mountains, on whose flank stands
Constantinople, between the two seas. Some of the slopes extend as far
as the Bosphorus, so that the city is surrounded by a girdle of natural
fortifications. It would be almost impregnable on the land side, if
artificial intrenchments were added to its natural defences; the old
walls should be repaired, the large new barracks should be rendered, as
far as possible, bombproof, and detached forts should be built on the
heights, on both sides of the Liman. Hitherto we do not believe that
anything very serious has been done in the way of fortifying
Constantinople. Amongst other things, we doubt if sufficient attention
has been paid to the hill of Multate, whence an enemy, once posted
there, might batter the port and the buildings of the Admiralty. In a
few weeks, however, the five or six hundred thousand inhabitants of
Constantinople could construct, under the direction of European
officers, the most necessary intrenchments. The Russians would then have
great difficulty in taking the place. The strength and the natural
resources of Constantinople account for the agony of the Byzantine
empire having lasted several centuries. Besieged twenty-four times, this
city has but six times been taken: in the last siege a few thousand
Greeks defended it for fifty-three days, against the 250,000 soldiers of
Mahomet II., at a period when the Turks were masters of the military
art. “Constantinople,” the Duke of Ragusa said, “is the most important
position in the world, and the easiest to defend.” As to the defences of
the Dardanelles and Bosphorus they are too well known, and have been too
often enumerated for it to be necessary here to recapitulate them.
Tremendous and well-served batteries, guns that vomit stone-balls half a
ton in weight, strong fortifications, to say nothing of the frequent
fogs and difficult navigation of the Black Sea, render access to the
Turkish capital by a hostile fleet a very desperate undertaking.”
The ambiguous and undecided attitude of Austria and Prussia renders it
difficult to speculate on results in the case of the war on whose verge
Europe apparently now totters. When Vienna conferences abruptly
terminated, Olmutz and Warsaw interviews began, and it is impossible to
say how far the arguments, energy, and moral superiority of the Czar may
have influenced Prussia’s wavering king and Austria’s youthful emperor.
The mere fact of these monarchs having hesitated to take a side, the
neutrality they from the first attempted, the proposal of Austrian
mediation, and the adhesion of Prussia to the Conference, sufficiently
prove their real conviction as to what are their own interests and those
of the countries they reign over. Had they had a doubt they would at
once have declared themselves for Russia. But the course that common
sense and sound policy suggest to them, is a strict union with the
Western powers, than whom they are certainly not less interested in
preventing that destruction of the balance of power in Europe which must
result from Russia’s obtaining Constantinople. What does Russia care for
the Danubian provinces, save as a step toward the attainment of her one
great aim, the possession of the Turkish capital—which is at once the
key of the Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, and the passage between
those seas? Constantinople is the one great object on which her eyes
have for more than a century been covetously fixed. If she be allowed to
stretch her power that far south, none will be able to prevent her
afterwards extending it both east and west. And she will become as
dangerous a neighbour for Austria as she at present is for the decayed
empire of the Ottomans.
If Russia persists in her aggression, which we do not believe that she
will, and if Austria and Prussia stand aloof, which we doubt their doing
should war break out, the contest can hardly be of long duration. The
part taken in it by France and England will be chiefly maritime. The
Black Sea swept of Russian vessels, all its ports garrisoned or
blockaded, an Anglo-French army of moderate size supporting the Turks,
and occupying Rodosti on the Sea of Marmora, French and English officers
assisting the Turkish leaders with their counsels—such are the steps
that will obviously first be taken. But it would be madness on the part
of Russia to accept the struggle unless Austria and Prussia were with
her. In that case, indeed, the war would assume a terrible and
deplorable character: throughout Europe the democratic party would raise
its head; Hungary and Lombardy would be quickly in arms; Germany and
Italy would be the battlefields, and who shall foretell the issue of the
strife!
For whatever evils may arise out of the present critical conjuncture, as
well as for the prolongation of a state of suspense, which, in many
respects, and especially in a commercial point of view, is nearly as
prejudicial as war itself could be, Europe is indebted to the weakness
of Lord Aberdeen, and to the servility of his supporters in the Cabinet.
If Russia now gives way, she would manifestly have done so four months
ago, had England then shown herself determined to oppose her
aggressions. But the political predilections and illegitimate manœuvres
of the Premier, and the feebleness and incapacity of the present Foreign
Secretary, have prolonged the crisis and encouraged Russia; and if war
occurs, at their door it will lie—the sole compensation being that they
have at last shown themselves in their true colours, and utterly
disgusted the country in whose government they have ill-advisedly been
permitted to share.
_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._
ENDNOTES:
Footnote 1:
_Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, from his
Autobiography and Journals. Edited and compiled by_ TOM TAYLOR, Esq. 3
vols. London, 1853.
Footnote 2:
_Das Thierleben der Alpenwelt._ By FREDERICK VON TSCHUDI, Member of
the Swiss Society of Naturalists. Leipzig: Weber. London: Williams &
Norgate. 1853.
Footnote 3:
The hot south wind, which, when it sets in, usually in early spring,
melts the snow and ice with magical rapidity. In the Grindlewald it
often melts, in the course of twelve hours, a bed of snow more than
two feet thick. Its agency in this respect is far more rapid and
powerful than that of the sun, and in the upper Swiss valleys there is
no proper spring until it comes—just as in autumn, in many parts of
the Swiss lowlands, it is deemed indispensable to the proper ripening
of the grape.
Footnote 4:
Hügelgebiet, or hill-district. Although he devotes his book to the
three upper circles, Dr Tschudi establishes in his mind, and
occasionally refers to, a fourth—the hill or hillock district, below
the 2500 feet above the sea at which he considers the mountains to
begin. There can be little difference between the flora and fauna of
this lowest circle and those of the plain itself.
Footnote 5:
Such, at least, appears to be the case in the canton of Uri, (_vide_
TSCHUDI, p. 365), but probably the regulation is not common to all the
cantons; for at page 372 we find a friend of the doctor’s
chamois-hunting in the Grisons in the month of June, and meeting
professional chamois-hunters out after game. The following passage is
worth quoting: “In the canton of Glarus the chamois has possessed, for
many centuries, a free and protected refuge. The ordinances that the
valleys and mountains situated between the Linth and the Sernf, as far
as Frugmatt, should be ‘free mountains’ for chamois and all Alpine
game, and that no one should shoot, or even carry a gun within those
limits, date as far back as the fifteenth century. At times other
mountain districts have been in a like manner protected, and the game
greatly increased. Eight sworn hunters, appointed by the authorities,
had orders to shoot, in the ‘free mountains’ between Jacobi and
Martini, two chamois for every citizen of the canton who got married
at that time, one chamois annually for the _landammann_, two for the
burgomaster of Zurich, &c. With these exceptions, they were forbidden
to shoot a single head of game in the fence-districts. In modern
times, these wholesome regulations have ceased to be enforced. The
canton of St Gall also possesses, in our day, preserved
districts.”—TSCHUDI, p. 350–1.
Footnote 6:
_Caledonia Romana; a Descriptive Account of the Roman Antiquities of
Scotland_, by the late ROBERT STUART. Second edition. Revised by DAVID
THOMSON, M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Natural
Philosophy in the University and King’s College of Aberdeen.
Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox.
Footnote 7:
_Griechische Reisekizzen._ Von HERMANN HETTNER. Brunswick, 1853.
Footnote 8:
We allude more particularly here to the German professor’s historical
work on the _Morea_, and to Mr Finlay’s _Medieval Greece and
Trebizond_, a work indispensable to every English historical library.
Footnote 9:
“_Das Geschlecht der Hellenen ist in Europa ansgerottet._”—Preface to
the _Morea_.
Footnote 10:
In the year 1825 its population was about 9000.—See GORDON’S History.
Footnote 11:
_Gemülde von Griechenland._ Von T. A. UKERT. Königsberg, 1810.
Footnote 12:
Athens is about four or five miles from the Piræus, while Edinburgh is
only two from Granton. This is another point of the architectural
position greatly in favour of Edinburgh. The firth, seen from Queen
Street, is quite near enough to supply the want of a large river in
the landscape.
Footnote 13:
This is wrong. About 27,000 was the number generally named to the
present writer, when he asked the question during the present year on
the spot. Strong, in his book, quoted below, gives 26,000. This was in
the year 1842.
Footnote 14:
There is a street of BYRON in Athens, below the Acropolis, at the
south-east corner, just beside the street of BACCHUS, as you go round
to the Dionysiac theatre.
Footnote 15:
_The Hellenic Kingdom and the Greek Nation._ By GEORGE FINLAY. London:
Murray. 1836.
Footnote 16:
Fraas is no longer in Athens.
Footnote 17:
Some interesting details on the statistics of education in Greece, and
conceived in a more reasonable spirit than the remarks of Mr Hettner,
will be found in Strong’s _Statistical Description of Greece_. London,
1842.
Footnote 18:
As many of our readers perhaps labour under the erroneous impression
that the language now spoken at Athens is a new composite language,
standing in the same relation to classical Greek that Italian does to
Latin, we can only advise them at present to procure a catalogue of
his most recent publications from the bibliopole Coromelas, street of
Hermes, Athens; and by ordering any of these works, they can satisfy
themselves with their own eyes of the genuine Hellenic character of
the language now used.
Footnote 19:
_Evidence_, p. 368.
Footnote 20:
_Evidence_, p. 226.
Footnote 21:
Ib., p. 154.
Footnote 22:
Ib., p. 218.
Footnote 23:
Ib., p. 21.
Footnote 24:
Ib., p. 218.
Footnote 25:
Did the learned Commissioners so little “know their man” as really not
to detect in Mr Mansel’s evidence the happy vein of humour which has
so often set St John’s common-room in a roar? Or was it that,
conscious of the dulness of Blue-books in general, they purposely
enlivened theirs with a few stray _faceticæ_?
Footnote 26:
_Evidence_, p. 218.
Footnote 27:
Ib., p. 56.
Footnote 28:
Ib., p. 196.
Footnote 29:
Mr Mansel’s evidence, p. 21.
Footnote 30:
_Evidence_, p. 12.
Footnote 31:
_Vide_ Report, p. 96.
Footnote 32:
It appears from the evidence that there are at—
Tutors. Lectures.
University College, 4 giving weekly about 50 equal to 12½ each.
Balliol „ 5 „ „ 50 „ 10 „
Merton „ 3 „ „ 35 „ 12 „
Corpus „ 4 „ „ 30 nearly 8 „
Wadham „ 4 „ „ 65 to 70 about 17 „
Pembroke „ 3 „ „ 52 „ 17 „
St John’s—each tutor 3 hours daily for 5 days in the week; and this is
probably a fair guide to other colleges.
Footnote 33:
_Evidence_, p. 216.
Footnote 34:
The writer of these pages may be excused for inserting here a fact
from his own experience. He read, while an undergraduate, with one of
the most distinguished private tutors of that day, of whose ability
and energy he would be ungrateful to speak a disparaging word. At that
time this gentleman had about ten hours of each day occupied in
tuition. The only hour at which the writer could secure his services
was at half-past seven in the morning; and it was not surprising,
however inconvenient, if, after the labours of the preceding day, that
hour often found the tutor in bed. In bed, however, or during the
intervals of dressing, the Ethics or the Rhetoric were duly discussed,
he is bound to say carefully and ably, though certainly under
difficulties. He was more fortunate, perhaps, than one of his
fellow-pupils, who had the same hour assigned him in the evening.
Punctually at the time appointed the tutor left his common-room, and
the pupil his wine-party, and took up their positions in two
arm-chairs on each side the fire in the tutor’s room. Both had worked
hard during the day; if both had taken a glass or two of wine, no men
deserved it better, or enjoyed it more; and sitting by the fire does
make one sleepy. My friend confessed that, now and then, when the
scout brought in tea, they used to look at their watches, and not feel
quite certain whether they had construed that last chapter.
Footnote 35:
_Evidence_, p. 274.
Footnote 36:
_Report_, pp. 92, 93.
Footnote 37:
_Evidence_, p. 274.
Footnote 38:
MADDEN’S _Travels in Turkey, &c._, vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 27.
Footnote 39:
COTTLE’S _Early Recollections_, vol. ii. p. 157.
Footnote 40:
Ibid., p. 185.
Footnote 41:
Among external symptoms he mentions that excessive perspiration, even
at Christmas, attended in his case any great reduction in the daily
dose of opium, and that in July this was so excessive as to oblige him
to use a bath five or six times a-day.
Footnote 42:
_First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Large
Towns_, 1844. Appendix, pp. 46, 48.
Footnote 43:
BURNES’S _Visit to Scinde_, p. 230, quoted by Meyen. _Geog. of
Plants_, p. 360.
Footnote 44:
MOREHEAD, _On the Use of Inebriating Liquors_, p. 106. London, 1824.
Footnote 45:
_Pharmaceutical Journal_, vol. xi. p. 364.
Footnote 46:
_Pharmaceutical Journal_, vol. i. p. 490.
Footnote 47:
See _British and Foreign Medical Review_, vol. xxiii. pp. 217–225.
Footnote 48:
“Madness hath imaginary bliss, and most men have no more.”—TUPPER.
Footnote 49:
MOREAU—_Du Haschisch et de l’Alienation Mentale_, p. 67. Paris, 1845.
Footnote 50:
_British and Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. xxiii. p. 225.
Footnote 51:
The word _Coca_ is derived from the Aymara word Khoka, signifying
“plant,” in the same way as in Paraguay the indigenous tea-plant is
called _Yerba_, “_the_ plant” par excellence.
Footnote 52:
PÖPPIG, _Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazon Ström_, 1827 to 1832,
chap. iv.
Footnote 53:
Dr Weddell states that the saliva is _never rejected_, and being a
later authority than Von Tschudi, whom we have followed in the text,
he is probably correct.
Footnote 54:
Paris, 1853. Vol. ii. p. 469, 470.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final
chapter.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.