hot describe to you the peculiar way in which their clothes were put on, and the wild and almost magnificent appearance they presented. There were, besides these and ourselves, B Pasha and four other gentlemen, in the modern Turkish dress. The three commissioners and their two dragomans sat on the divan under the window, all, except myself, with their legs sticking out, like people waiting for an operation in an hospital. Enveri Effendi sat on a cushion on the floor, in the right-hand corner, and the others were ranged on the two sides of the room. As we were fourteen people, on a sudden fourteen servants rushed into the room with pipes; then one brought coffee on a tray, the brocade covering of which was thrown over his left shoulder; and then came a man bringing to each of us a cup, well frothed up, and in a zarf, or outer cup, of a different kind, according to the rank of the person to whom it was presented. Enveri Effendi and the three commissioners had cups of enamelled gold, the rest of the Pashas, &c., of silver. When this ceremony was concluded, the door was shut, the servants disappeared, a curtain was drawn across the door, and two chaoushes, with muskets, put to guard it outside. Then Enveri Effendi lifted up his voice, and, after swinging himself about, and grunting two or three times, he told us that the gentlemen in the turbans had brought up a number of old firmans, teskerès, and other papers relating to the lands between Zohab and the Persian Gulf; that he examined them, and that now he begged the commissioners to put any questions they chose to the worthies before them respecting the lands, &c.

"Then we all looked at each other for a little time, then they all looked at me. Then I took up my parable, and desired the dragoman to ask Osman Pasha who he was. I am Osman Pasha,' said he; and I and my family have been sovereigns (or herediditary governors rather) of Zohab for seven generations.' Having asked him a great many questions, and written down his answers, which made him somewhat nervous, I turned to Sheikh Thamir.

What is your

fortunate name ?' said I, upon which Sheikh Thamir opened his eyes, then he opened his mouth, then he looked at Abdel Kader, then he shut his mouth again, and said nothing. So I asked him again who he had the honour to be. Upon this, Abdel Kader, who appeared to be his mentor or adviser, came and sat down by him, and said, 'He is Sheikh Thamir.' Sheikh Thamir upon this shouted out, at the top of his voice, 'Yes; I am Sheikh Thamir, the son of Gashban, who was the son of Osman, who was the son of 'Thank you,' I said, 'I only wanted to know from your own lips who you were, but am not particular as to the names of all your respected ancestors.' However, Sheikh Thamir was not to be stopped in that way

when he had once begun, so he shouted out a long string of names, and when he got to the end he said he was Sheikh of the Sheikhs of the great tribe of Chaab, and commander of the district of Ghoban, which his ancestors had held before him for one or two hundred years or more, or less, as I pleased. In answer to other questions, which Abdel Kader always accompanied with his own notes and commentaries, he said, 'I have no papers; we do not understand such things. What do I know? I am an old man. I am forty-five years of age; let me alone.' In course of time I did let him alone, and a difficult thing it was to draw out any information from this wild desert chief. Every now and then somebody else put in a word. At about four o'clock the meeting broke up."

His

The Koords, with every vice, have but the single virtue of courage. They live by theft and deeds of violence; nobody tells truth, and though they profess to be Mahomedans, the laxest Imaum would be ashamed to own them. Yet are they strongly superstitious, and, as the following circumstance shows, they hold the Mussulman tenet of fatalism with a very practical orthodoxy. A certain Koord, who had become remarkable for his daring robberies, and the number of murders he had committed, stole a horse in a valley near Erzeroom, leaving the traveller, from whom he took it, and whom he had beat about the head, as he thought, dead. A day or two afterwards he offered the horse for sale, when the owner, who had recovered, saw him selling it, and gave him in charge to the guard. conviction for horse-stealing was certain, but his punishment for that alone would not have been severe, and nobody in Erzeroom was acquainted with the fact, that he was the notorious offender for whom the Pasha's agent had been so long looking out. This he knew quite well, but when brought for judgment for the horse-stealing, and asked by the Pasha, "Who are you?" After a silence, the man said-"There is a fate in this, it cannot be denied. I am whom you have been searching for, these three years. My fate brought me to Erzeroom, and now I am taken up for stealing one poor horse. I felt when I took that horse that I was fated to die for it. My time is come. It is fate." And so he went to be hung without a murmur more, and was hung before the windows of Mr. Curzon's house. He was a young and very handsome man, with long black hair. No one knew him by

sight at Erzeroom, and there was no occasion for his making known his name, or confessing that he had committed outrages and murders repeatedly. Our author says that he will always regard his case as a remarkable instance of the power of fatalism, on which, as it affects the Turkish character at the present day, his observations deserve attention:

"Fatalism, in other cases, has a powerful influence over the true believers in the armies of Islam. The soldier goes to battle with the firm belief that, if his hour is not come, the cannon of the enemy can have no power over him; and that if his hour is arrived, the angel of death will call him, whether he may be seated on his divan or walking in full health in his garden at home: just as readily does he bow his head to fate in one place as in another. By this institution of the Koran, the wonderful genius of Mohamed has gained many a victory by the hands of his trusting and believing followers for the caliphs and sultans of his creed. Some of the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud, by treating lightly many of the ancient prejudices of the Osmanlis, have shaken the throne under his feet. The progress of infidelity, which has begun at Constantinople, is the greatest temporal danger to the power of the Turkish empire. The Turk implicitly believes the tenets of his religion; he keeps its precepts and obeys its laws; he is proud of his faith, and prays in public when the hour of prayer arrives. How different, alas! is the manner in which the divine laws of Christianity are kept! The Christian seems ashamed of his religion; as for obeying the doctrines of the Gospel, they have no perceptible effect upon the mass of the people, among whom drunkenness, dishonesty, and immorality prevail almost unchecked, except by the fear of punishment in this world; while in Turkey not one-tenth part of the crime exists which is annually committed in Christendom."

We are disposed to think that the military value of this Mussulman tenet is, as regards the Turks, overrated. They unquestionably possess, in a high degree, physical courage, and do not need it. Besides, as Colonel Chesney* remarks, it tends to make them careless. We suspect that Turkish teetotalism, their rigid abstinence from spirituous liquors, is the practice from which their troops derive the most advantage. Colonel Chesney's book, however, affords another and an amus

The visit and labours of Mr. Curzon and his fellow-commissioner were not without effect. Owing to their exertions, the border outrages have been kept down for more than ten years, during which time commerce has been extended, the roads have been safe, and the agricultural population, from Bussora to Mount Ararat, have had an immunity from oppression, and an actual prosperity which they never knew before. Mr. Curzon, too, has the deep satisfaction of reflecting, that he has been the means of putting down the infliction of torture in the pashalic of Erzeroom, and probably, to a great extent, through Kurdistan. This savage practice had been general, but the earnest efforts of Mr. Curzon, in some cases which came within his knowledge while residing at Erzeroom, led to its abolition. There is, too, reason to hope, that his intercourse with the pasha has directed attention, with like success, to other abnormaties in the administration of justice. A woman's evidence, for example, was never taken, and that of a Christian or a foreigner was of no avail against a Mahomedan.

Erzeroom being between 7,000 and 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, the cold in winter is extreme, usually sixteen degrees below zero of Farnheit, and often colder. The summer, though short, is hot. The upper lands in its neighbourhood, and in Armenia generally, are healthy, but the valleys are infested with the most fatal fevers. Near the dark lake of Torloom Mr. Curzon saw, mid a grove of peachtrees and in a lovely valley, a village of striking beauty; but every soul, or,

as he says, every body, was dead; one only man survived to tell of the fever which had killed the rest. One day as Mr. Curzon was dining with the pasha, he was, in a moment, prostrated by fever, and remained insensible for twenty-seven days. A favourable change, which led to his rapid recovery, took place, and under circumstances which are certainly remarkable. There was a fearful earthquake; the house creaked and trembled like a ship in a gale of wind; the noise increased to a roar, of a howling, rumbling sound, while the air was still. An immense beam which was above his head, split with a report like a cannon; two chambers in his house fell in, while the crash of falling buildings without increased the uproar. It was on that day that the ice was taken from his head, and the fever left him. He had afterwards a more tragic instance of the effect of fever in Armenia, in the case of one of his native servants. It occurred on his return journey, and is well told :—

"At Kalé Khan I had given leave to one Mustapha, my kawass bashi, or captain of the kawasses, to go and see his family, who lived in a village a short distance off the road; he had not seen them for a long time, and went on his way rejoicing. At a place called Porda Bakchelari, where I was resting on the 3rd, he made his appearance again; he was so altered in looks that I did not know him at first; so much so, that I asked him who he was, and what he wanted with me. His history, poor fellow! was as

follows:

"When he arrived at his village he rode up to the door of his own house, thinking to give a happy surprise to his wife and children, whose names he called out as he stopped his horse in the little street. No one answered, when he called again, and knocked loudly at the door several times. At last an old woman put her head out of the door of another house, and screamed to him to know what he was making such a noise about.

"I want such a one,' said he, naming his wife.

"What, Eyesha?' said the old woman : who are you? You must be a stranger to this place not to know that she died of the fever and was buried two weeks ago.'

"And where is Hassan ?' said the poor kawass, asking for his eldest son.

"Oh, he died three months ago.' "And the two little ones?' he asked. "They were buried, I forget how long it is since,' said the old woman; 'the fever got into that house; the people are all

dismounted

"Mustapha kawass never from his horse in his native village; he turned slowly away, and rode back to the track of the mules and horses of my followers till he caught us up at Bakchelari Khan.

"Allahkerim!' (God is merciful!) said his companions, when he had told us this sad history. His family was swept from the face of the earth; there was not a servant left, not one old well-remembered face to greet him in his visit to the village where he had passed his childish days. He had heard nothing of the fever or of the infliction which had fallen upon his house, and suddenly he found himself alone in the wide world. We were all grieved for him, but what could we do? Everyone looked grave as we plodded on again through the snow and ice, and smoked the pipe of reflection in silence, on our weary way."

What, then, it may be asked, is the political importance of Erzeroom, and of its barren and fatal neighbourhood? Erzeroom is an entrepôt for the trade, and especially of the corn brought from the richer countries around it. It is the only place on the route from Persia to Turkey, where caravans can recruit their horses, and procure provisions. The number of camels and beasts of burthen assembled there at times is immense; and it is singular to see the Arabian camel tramping through the snow, and bearing well the exceeding cold of these elevated regions, From Georgia, Persia, and Trebizond, there is no other city where an army could rest to collect supplies. It is the key to these districts, and in the hands of an active power, would, as our author states, hold the fate of this part of Asia. Russia has been long aware of this. In 1829, it was occupied by her troops, but evacuated in pursuance of the treaty of Adrianople. Still she has her eagle-eye upon it, and is steadily advancing in that direction. In Persian-Armenia she has gained possession of Erivan, Mount Ararat, and Etchmiazin, and, if unopposed by Persia, might send supplies to her forces by the Caspian Sea. She has also heavy mortgage claims on Geilane and Mazeaderaun, the best Persian provinces in the neighbourhood of the Caspian.

In was in 1828 that Russia acquired Erivan, the capital of PersianArmenia, Mount Ararat, much venerated by the Armenians, and Etchmiazin, the residence of their patriarch. They are, none of them, unimportant, and the last has a political significance which our pensive public is not very generally aware of. Etchmiazin is a fortified monastery, where, as we have said, resides the patriarch of the Armenians, who is also looked up to, as not alone the spiritual, but also the temporal chief of that scattered nation. Whatever be the professed nature of his authority, his influence is certain, and it may be easily diffused through bishops, priests, and deacons, in Turkey, Persia, India, and other countries of the East. The Armenians are an active and industrious people, and, as is well known, are very commonly found throughout the East as juvella boaka, or confidential clerks, in commercial establishments. The possession, therefore, of the residence and the person of this Armenian Pope, opens to the Czar another element of obvious power, which he knows how to apply to the furtherance of his own interest in Bombay, Bushir, Madras, or any other eastern centre.

We have read in some recent works of the improvement observed by travellers, in regard to their protection, and the safety of the public routes in certain Asiatic districts, since they came under the dominion of Russia. This may be ; but we believe there is no reason to doubt that the rule of Russia is abominated by the people, and that of their old and milder masters longed for, owing, in addition to other causes, to the tyranny of the Russian underlings and their ruthless conscription. It is well known that the Nogai Tartars gave up the Christian religion, and migrating from Russia, became Mahometans, in the hope of securing the less painful protection of Turkey, and probably feeling, like the Mexicans who rejected the religion of the Spaniards, that they could not believe in a heaven where they were to meet with such oppressors. It is also known that, in 1771, a Kalmud tribe, who had emigrated from the confines of China to Russia, unwilling to endure her injurious rule, fought their way back to the far-off home of their fathers, and received from the Emperor of China the protection which they

asked for, and large tracts of lands for the pasture of their flocks. In the year 1829, sixty-nine thousand Christian Armenian families, relying on the professions of the Czar, left the Mahometan dominions, and placed themselves under his protection. "Over their ruined houses," says Mr. Curzon, “I have ridden, and surveyed with sorrow their ancient churches in the valleys of Armenia, desecrated and injured, as far as their solid construction admitted, by the sacrilegious hands of the Russian soldiers, who tried to destroy those temples of their own religion, which the Turks had spared, and under whose rule many of the more recent had been rebuilt on their old foundations. The greater part of these Armenians perished from want and starvation; the few who survived this sharp lesson, have since been endeavouring, by every means in their power, to return to the lesser evils of the frying-pan of Turkey, from whence they had leapt into the fire of despotic Russia.'

These circumstances may encourage us to hope that crippling the power of Russia is no impossible achievement. This must be done, or, east and west, she will be the ruling power. At present all her objects are subordinated to the great one of the conquest of Constantinople. Absorbed by military views, she derives, as yet, but little revenue from her Asiatic accessions, and neglects resources within her own control. Attention to the navigation of her great rivers, would bring more money to St. Petersburg than any territorial extensions, excepting only that of Constantinople. Mr. Curzon says that the simply cutting a canal from Tzaritzan, on the Volga, to the nearest point upon the Don-a distance of not more than thirty miles-would be the means of bringing, with all facility, to the Black Sea, the silk of the northern provinces of Persia, and would develop the rich resources of the two great districts of Geilaun and Mazenderaun, which are at present virtually Russian; and that Russia would gain more by the construction of that canal than by the conquest of Armenia. Dazzled, however, by the gains of war, she is inattentive to the surer wealth of peace. Once, however, in the possession of Constantinople, she will become not merely a military, but a commercial power,

and thus immeasurably increase her influence. To preclude the eventual occurrence of so fatal a catastrophe, it may be well for the English public to watch not only the war, but the peace. The Crimea must be restored to Turkey, or that peace will be an unavailing truce. Turkey must be reimbursed the expenses of the war, or she will be shackled for a length of time to come, and Persia must be released by the Czar, for what he calls her debt to him of two millions sterling, or else she is a Russian serf. These must be among the terms of that peace, which, as matters look at present, is, to use a phrase of Locke's, rather to be hoped for than expected.

These are our views on present politics, and we have said what is substantially the same in previous papers; but what is of more consequence, they are the views of Mr. Curzon. It is to him, and Mr. Layard, and persons who, like them, have had peculiar opportunities of knowing the states, statistics, and people of the East, that the country had best look for information to be relied on.

We are conscious that we have

done less than justice to Mr. Curzon's Armenia, that we have dealt but imperfectly with its topics, and have left unnoticed one of its striking features its anecdotes those tales of the East, which are at once well told, and characteristic of life there. The preface tells us that the work was written in a few days, and at a time when the author was pressed by other engagements. It wears, perhaps, the marks of haste. There may, possibly, be one or two expressions of opinion which, had the author leisure for these second thoughts, said always to be best, he might have qualified. The style, too— the costume-may be undress; yet whatever it may gain by this, it loses nothing of that easy, Horace-Walpole manner, which few can reach without the possession of high literary talents, and the advantage of having had early intercourse with the best society. If, however, we compare Mr. Curzon to Walpole, it is but right to say that, with all his liveliness, he is without that levity on serious subjects which taints the humour of the hermit of Strawberry Hill.

In a review of Kennedy's "Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain," in a late number of this Magazine, though the name of Zorrilla was mentioned, no translated specimen of his poems was given. We are, therefore, desirous to offer a few of our own translations from this poet, who has been popular in Spain since his twentieth year. He is now about thirty-six, having been born at Valladolid in 1817. Living on his patrimonial estates in ease and independence, he devotes himself to "Belles Lettres" as equally his occupation and his amusement; and since 1837, has published many volumes of his works in quick succession. Mr. Kennedy, in his book, has confined himself to the first volume of Zorrilla's poems, and with his translations we