were; such they are. I see no valid reason
to assert that our Eastern allies are
much changed since Bertezena chastised the
Khan of the Geougen, or Disabul harried the
unwarlike subjects of Byzantine Tiberius.
Europe is changed, however. The Emperor of
Austria is no longer the insignificant person
he was when John Sobieski rescued Vienna
from the Ottoman hordes; and France
is another sort of country than it was
when Charles Martel saved Christendom
on the plains of Tours. Russia also could
hardly be brought to understand a joke as
well as when Achmet the Third dictated
peace to a snubbed Peter the Great upon the
banks of the Pruth. Four hundred years of
oppression have even united the Greeks,
have nerved their arms, and made them more
sharp-witted and unscrupulous than ever.
Thus, turn which way the Regular Turk will,
he has no elbow room. He would be delighted
to have a quiet little game of conquest and
pillage, or even one which was not quiet, for
the matter of that; but there is no longer a
field for Turkish talents, and many a stiff-
hearted elderly Turkish gentleman believes
firmly that the world is coming to an end in
consequence.

Our new acquaintances (I continue to call
them our new acquaintances, for really the
present generation of Europeans seem almost
to have been ignorant of their existence until
lately) have a great dislike to renegades.
They explain it from an interesting observation
of the Caliph Omar. An Arab chief
appeared before him, and desired to renounce
the faith of Islam because it did not allow
him to marry two sisters at the same time.
The caliph immediately applied a stout stick
with great vivacity to the applicant's head;
and, as if that were not sufficient argument
for such a person, the Commander of the
Faithful gave the wretch to understand that
an apostate ought to suffer death. Thus,
whatever your worthless adventurer now
setting out to swim in the troubled waters of
Turkey may think to the contrary, he will
gain nothing but contempt by turning Turk.
I have seen swarms of deluded miscreants
who did so; but they got nothing by it; and
shamble about Constantinople, haggard, seedy,
and despised.

One of the questionable things about the
Regular Turk in the eyes of all British gentlemen
of honour must be his inveterate dislike to
duelling; which he cannot be brought to
understand. He supposes that our duels are
fought by command of our Sultana, and
constitute merely a means at the disposal of that
august potentate for getting rid of disagreeable
people. They have an extremely convenient
custom for quarrelsome folk. At the feast of
the Bairam, every Turk is bound to make it
up with his enemy, be that "it" what it may.
Whether they hate each other more
cordially afterwards or not, this deponent
knoweth not.

They do not appear to object to duelling or
to danger of any kind from fear of death.
Their downright pluck on all occasions is
beyond all question or dispute. They decline to
go to lonely places on cold mornings for the
purpose of murdering a friend who has
trodden on their toes, because it is not in
accordance with their principles. They avoid
giving people a chance of treading on their
toes by persevering in the excellent old
system of tucking them out of the way
by sitting down cross-legged upon them;
while they carry on all verbal intercourse
with each other in such a flowery and
wonderful strain, that cause of offence can rarely
occur. No doubt, if cause of offence do
occur, they still prefer now and then poisoning
to any more noisy means of quieting a person
who has become obnoxious to them. They
have not, however, attained the elegance in
the art of silent destruction which has been
attributed to the Italians and Russians; nor
is (or ever was) the custom so common
among them. A Turkish difference,
especially with a Greek, is often settled by hired
servants, whose chief employment is to
shake and thump people who cannot be
brought to reason by other means. The
Greek gentlemen understand this; and avoid
personal encounters, therefore, as much as
possible.

Regular Turks are fatalists. They
are not of the opinion of Pope and most
modern philosophers. They think that nature
is not only held fast in Fate, but that
Fate holds the human will in its tight grasp
also. They believe that everything, from
the growth of little apples to the roasting of
Greek rebels, was pre-ordained. Thus, they
are not fond of taking useless steps to avert
disaster, and insurance offices are unknown
among them. They would consider such an
institution as a temple of Mammon and
unrighteousness. Even the Quarantine is an
institution, new, and by no means pleasing among
them. The doctor does not appear to them
the potent personage he seems to us.
They respect him indeed as a soother of pain;
but they hold that no man can avert that
which is written. For this reason the Regular
Turk is not fond of interfering with the
proceedings of Fate in the case of a house on
fire, and the best exertions of a Braidwood at
the recent catastrophe would have been held
by them as red-hot blasphemy. The Turk
would shake hands (if shaking hands were
his way) with an individual who had the
small-pox, with the utmost gallantry and
politeness. He is not averse either, to wearing
the clothes of an acquaintance who may have
lately died of the plague. Turkish logicians
reason upon this subject with marvellous
wisdom. They assert that the plague is
a spirit who walks the air, carrying two
lances, one white and the other black. With
these he strikes mankind. Men struck with
the white lance will not die, but nothing can