From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn Part 21

In expressing this confident opinion, I do not lay claim to any political wisdom or sagacity. Nor do I attach importance to my personal observations. But I _do_ give weight to the judgment of those who have lived in Turkey for years, and who know well the government and the people: and in what I say I only reflect the opinion of the whole foreign community in Constantinople. While there I questioned everybody; I sought information from the best informed, and wisdom from the wisest; and I heard but one opinion. Not a man expressed the slightest hope of Turkey, or the slightest confidence in its professions of reform. One and all--Englishmen and Americans, Frenchmen and Germans, Spaniards and Italians--agreed that it was past saving, that it was "appointed to die," and that its removal from the map of Europe was only a question of time.

So ends the year 1876, leaving Europe in a state of uncertainty and expectancy--fearing, trembling, and hoping. The curtain falls on a year of horrors; on what scenes shall the new year rise? We are in the midst of great events, and may be on the eve of still greater. It may be that a war is coming on which will be nothing less than a death-struggle between the two religions which have so long divided the lands that lie on the borders of Europe and Asia, and one in which the atrocities now recorded will be but the prelude to more terrible ma.s.sacres until the vision of the prophet shall be fulfilled, that "blood shall come up to the horses' bridles." But looking through a long vista of years, we cannot doubt the issue as we believe in the steady progress of civilization--nay, as we believe in the power and justice of G.o.d.

We may not live to see it, and yet we could wish that we might not taste of death till our eyes behold that final deliverance. Is it mere imagination, an enthusiastic dream, that antic.i.p.ates what we desire should come to pa.s.s?

It may be that we are utterly deceived; but as we look forward we think we see before many years a sadly impressive spectacle. However the tide of battle may ebb and flow, yet slowly, but steadily, will the Osmanlis be pushed backward from those Christian provinces which they have so long desolated and oppressed, till they find themselves at last on the sh.o.r.es of the Golden Horn, forced to take their farewell of old Stamboul. Sadly will they enter St. Sophia for the last time, and turn their faces towards Mecca, and bow their heads repeating, "G.o.d is G.o.d, and Mohammed is his prophet." It would not be strange that they should mourn and weep as they depart. Be it so! They came into that sacred temple with bloodshed and ma.s.sacre; let them depart with wailing and sorrow. They cross the Bosphorus, and linger under the cypresses of Scutari, to bid adieu to the graves of their fathers; then bowing, with the fatalism of their creed, to a destiny which they cannot resist, they turn their horses' heads to the East, and ride away over the hills of Asia Minor.