The change in productiveness which has really occurred in Palestine is due to decay of cultivation, to decrease of population, and to bad government. It is man, and not Nature, who has ruined the good land in which was “no lack,” and it is therefore within the power of human industry to restore the country to its old condition of agricultural prosperity.

Throughout Palestine the traces of former cultivation are well marked. The ancient vineyards are recognisable by the rock-cut wine-presses, and the old watchtowers are found hidden in the encroaching copse. The great terraces carved out of the soft marl hillsides, or laboriously built up, with stone retaining-walls, as in Italy, are still there, though they are often quite uncultivated, and grow only thistles and thorns, which, by their luxuriance, attest the natural richness of the soil.

The population of the land is insufficient; and it has been calculated that Palestine might support ten times its present total of inhabitants, if fully tilled, even though in the rude and primitive manner of the peasantry only; and that the plains of Sharon and Philistia might, under a proper system of irrigation, become an important corn-growing country. The soil is as good as ever, the crops are, even now, very fine in the cultivated parts: all, therefore, that is wanted is the men and the money to work the land.

The following statements with regard to the present commerce of the country, are taken from an able report by Consul Jago, which was published in 1873, and they include the most reliable details which I have been able to collect.

The Wâly of Syria governs 26,000 square miles, having under him eight Mutaserefliks: namely, Damascus, Jerusalem, Acre Hamah, Tripoli, Beyrout, the Belka and the Hauran.

The population can only be approximately estimated, as no census is taken, and because every village and town endeavours to conceal its numbers so as to escape taxation. The population of Syria is thought to be about 2,250,000, the principal towns being as follows: Damascus, 175,000; Beyrout, 70,000 (of whom two-thirds are Christians); Jerusalem, 21,000; Jaffa, 8000; Nâblus, 13,000; Acre, 8000; Hebron, 9000; Haifa, 4000; Gaza, 18,000; and Sidon, 10,000. The average of a country village is about 500 souls or rather less.

The majority of the population is Moslem, probably in the proportion of two-thirds, even though counting the large Christian district of Lebanon. The Druses number some 110,000, inclusive of those east of Jordan; the Jews are stated at 40,000 in the whole of Syria; the large majority of the Christians belong to the Greek Church.

The exports of the country are silk, cotton, wool, oil, sesame, millet, maize, wheat, barley, tobacco, madder, sponges, and fruit. The silk is made in Lebanon, and mulberries planted near Beyrout yield two crops, one used for the silk-worms, the second for fodder; the wool is purchased from the Bedawîn, especially at Nâblus; the oil is one of the most valuable productions of the country, being of very fine quality, especially that from Nâblus, Nazareth, Sidon, and Safed: 1800 tons were exported in 1871. Half the produce of the oliveyards is made into soap, about a quarter is eaten, and the rest exported. Sesame is another important production, and oil (which is sold for olive oil) is manufactured from it in France. Tobacco comes from the Lebanon district; cotton has never been as yet very successfully grown; a large amount of hemp is annually used up in making rope, and the value of the sponges fished along the coast is said to amount to nearly £1600 every year. The country is fitted for the growth of indigo and of sugar-cane, whilst its fruits, including grapes, figs, melons, bananas, pomegranates, apricots, plums, pears, and apples, oranges, lemons, and dates, are even now plentiful and of good quality.

The imports which find their way into Palestine vary greatly at different times, being chiefly cheap and inferior articles, such as calicoes, cotton, and ironwork, spirits, glass, and hardware, the total amount being about £1,000,000 annually. The want of harbours, and of any encouragement to trade, leaves the country almost without a market. The taxation of raw products is also said to have killed the native industry of Palestine, and only one attempt has of late been made at mining, namely, near Sidon, where coal (though of inferior quality) was discovered, with copper and tin. Coal was also found in Lebanon, but the works were abandoned after 12,000 tons had been obtained.

Such is the present condition of Palestine—a good country running to waste for want of proper cultivation: truly may it be said, “a fruitful land maketh He barren for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.”

There is but one fundamental cause for the ruined condition of the country, namely, the corrupt and inefficient system of government: so long as there is no stability or patriotism in the upper ranks, so long will the subordinates be venal and tyrannical, and every attempt at bettering the condition of Palestine will be foredoomed to failure.

Attention has been especially directed of late years to the question of colonising the Holy Land. In the last chapter the history of the German colonies has been traced, but these are not the only experiments which have been made. One of the most practical suggestions put forward, was the idea that the Mughrabee Jews might succeed in establishing themselves as agriculturists; but the writer was apparently not aware that this has actually been tried, and has failed. In 1850 there were thirty families of these Jews at Shefa ’Amr in Lower Galilee, north-west of Nazareth, cultivating corn and olives on their own ground: but they gradually relinquished the task, and removed to Haifa where they engaged in trade; for, as the Jews themselves say, agriculture is not their vocation, and it must not be forgotten that their forefathers no sooner became possessed of the land, than they made “hewers of wood and drawers of water” of its primary inhabitants.

At Jaffa also many colonies have been started, the place being convenient from its position on the coast. There is art institution still in existence called the Mikveh Israel, or Agricultural Institution of the Universal Jewish Alliance, cultivating 780 acres, with the object of training children as market-gardeners, and of educating them at a school on the property. The native peasantry are employed, but there is a strong opposition to the institution among the surrounding villagers. It is said that 100,000 plants have been reared in the nurseries, and half a million of vines; but the land is close to the ever-encroaching sand-dunes, which are computed to be advancing inland at the rate of a yard, or even two yards, every year.

By far the most successful experiments yet made have been based on the employment of the native peasantry. It must not be forgotten that the present climate is quite unsuited to European constitutions, and for this reason all attempts to till the soil, by the employment of European labourers, are destined to certain failure. The plains in autumn are deadly, and the hill climate is not much better. Unseasoned to the fierce heat of the sun, and to the dryness of the climate, a European peasant will certainly fall a prey, sooner or later, to the fever of the country.

The native peasantry are a hardy and naturally energetic race, capable of enduring the climate, to which they are accustomed from their birth; and if directed by capable men, who understand them, and have authority to deal with them, they may be made to work well. The good mining work performed by the men of Siloam, under Captain Warren, is proof of the capacity of the native peasantry for hard work, under competent direction.

The northern half of the plain of Esdraelon belonged in 1872-5 to the Greek banking firm of Sursuk, who had factors (generally Christians) in their various villages. The productiveness of this part of the country increased, in a most marked manner, under the management of this family.

Probably the most successful undertaking of an agricultural kind in Palestine is the farm at Abu Shûsheh, belonging to the Bergheims, the principal banking firm in Jerusalem.

The lands of Abu Shûsheh belong to this family, and include 5000 acres; a fine spring exists on the east, but in other respects the property is not exceptional. The native inhabitants are employed to till the land according to the native method, under the supervision of Mr. Bergheim’s sons; a farmhouse has been built, a pump erected, and various modern improvements have been gradually introduced.

It is by these means, and not by any invasion of foreign agriculturists, that Palestine might most easily be reclaimed, and might become a rival in fertility even to the most fruitful parts of southern Italy, to which, in the character of its productions and cultivation, it is very similar.

The same hindrance is, however, experienced by the Bergheims which has paralysed all other efforts for the improvement of the land. The difficulties raised by the venal and corrupt under-officials of the Government have been vexatious and incessant, being due to their determination to extort money by some means or other, or else to ruin the enterprise from which they could gain nothing. The Turkish Government recognises the right of foreigners to hold land, subject to the ordinary laws and taxes, but there is a long step between this abstract principle and the practical encouragement of such undertakings, and nothing is easier than to raise groundless difficulties, on the subject of title or of assessment, in a land where the judges are as corrupt as the rest of the governing body.

There must be a radical reform in government, before anything can be done to restore Palestine to its former condition. The undertaking is beyond the power of either private individuals or of semi-religious societies, for it involves the entire opening up of the country, and the creation of public works, which have as yet no existence.

The first requisite would be the construction of roads, for there is not a mile of made road in the land from Dan to Beersheba. This would be a work of comparatively little difficulty; the engineering may be said to have been already done by the Romans, and all that is required is the remaking of the old highways. The streams are narrow, and easily bridged, and the metalling could be accomplished with material ready to hand, namely, the hard limestone and beautiful flint-rock which abounds, throughout the hills. It is extraordinary, however, to observe, that even the Romans do not seem to have drained their roads, and to this defect the final destruction of the ancient causeways is no doubt due. Until roads have been made, transport by wheeled vehicles will remain impossible, and the very rudiments of proper communication are thus wanting.

The next great public works would be for irrigation. The lands now covered with pestilent swamp would be reclaimed, and the water would be carried away through the old rocky tunnels made by the great engineers of former times; the climate would probably be sensibly affected, and drought would be almost unknown as soon as the ancient tanks and cisterns had been cleared and repaired. The old aqueducts might be mended, and the complicated network in the Jordan Valley restored; the cultivation of tropical fruits and vegetables would then become possible, in the Ghôr, at least by the use of negro labour, which would be easily obtained.

The third great undertaking would be the planting of the country. Forest laws must be enacted and rigorously enforced, in order to save the natural growth of the hills; the plantation, first of quickly growing grass and then of Indian fig and pines, is required to check the advance of the sand, and finally to reclaim the good soil buried beneath it. The climate of the plains would also, no doubt, be improved by the growth of trees suited to the situation, and the long tract north of Jaffa, now covered with the stumps of a former forest, is, no doubt, capable of supporting timber, such as exists farther north.

Sanitary laws must also not be forgotten, for the unhealthy character of the towns and villages is due almost entirely to the filthiness of the inhabitants.

Such is a slight sketch of the future which might be possible for Palestine; but the formation of a strong, wise, and benevolent government is the first requisite, and without this all partial attempts will effect nothing towards the restoration of the country.

The native population are quite as well aware of these facts, as any one from more civilised lands can be; they lay the blame of their misery on the shoulders of their rulers, and are only too anxious to pass into other hands. There is a very general belief that the land is destined to become once more the property of the Christians, and the Fellahîn often inquire of visitors when this time is to come. It may be that they flatter the vanity of an Englishman, when they declare a preference for an English occupation of the country; but the expression Kelim Inkleez, “an Englishman’s word” (to which I have formerly referred), shows clearly the high esteem in which our English countrymen stand, and reflects the greatest credit on our Consuls, and on others, who, by their probity and energy, have created this high public opinion of a nation which is represented by so few individuals.

The happiest future which could befall Palestine seems to me to be its occupation by some strong European power, which might recognise the value of the natural resources pointed out above; but until some such change occurs, the good land must remain a desolation.

“And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls” (Isa. xxxiv. 13).

CHAPTER XXV.

THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE.

Costume in the East is at least as indicative of habit and character as are the garments on which the “clothes philosophy” of Teufelsdroch was based, and all who have travelled in Moslem lands must be aware that the “Prophet’s Turban” is sacred in the eyes of the Moslem as the emblem of his faith.

Nevertheless we have witnessed during the last two years since the present volume first appeared before the public the efforts of European powers directed with much energy towards objects which are in effect indistinguishable from an attempt to deck the figure of Oriental despotism with the garb of Western constitutional government, to impose the ideas, the laws, the customs, and the government of European Christianity on people to whom both the motives and the methods of such a condition of society were naturally repugnant. We have seen men ignorant of the law of the Korân claiming to dictate as to the administration of justice. We have seen officers, unacquainted with the languages of Asia, charged with the delicate business of investigating complicated cases of fraud and oppression. We have witnessed, in short, honest efforts to redress wrong, and to protect the weak, rendered abortive in great measure by reason of an entire misconception of the character and the customs of Oriental peoples.

In England we are well aware that philanthropic and religious motives are among the causes of the interest which is so widely felt and expressed in the future of the Holy Land, and of Asiatic Turkey in general. Yet we must remember that in the East we are never likely to be credited with any such incentives to active interference. That England may covet the dominions of the Sultan, that certain strategic positions in Syria may be of immense military value to ourselves as the rulers of India, may be considered probable by those who discuss our policy in Levantine towns. That the Christians are bent on the reconquest of the land, which—as nearly every ruin in Palestine witnesses—was once under their rule, is devoutly believed by the Fellahîn and the Arabs. But that any unselfish desire to better the lot of the poor and oppressed, or any sentimental wish for the prosperity of the Holy Land, should influence the action of a busy and practical people, is an aspect of the case which the Syrian would find hard, if not impossible, to believe; and which has, moreover, not been rendered more intelligible by the proposals which have been made for the remodelling of a Moslem state on the basis of a Christian and occidental government.

It would seem strange that at a time when the attention of Europe is riveted on the Eastern question, Syria should have so entirely escaped any political notice, were not the reason—namely, the sensitiveness of the French nation regarding any interference with the country—perfectly well understood as accounting for the very marked silence of diplomatists on the subject of the future of the Holy Land.

That Palestine must, in the event of any struggle on the borders of our Indian Empire, become a region of great military importance to England is not only well known and easily demonstrated, but has been practically confessed in the acquisition of Cyprus as a military base for any future action on the Levantine coast. Until, however, such necessity arises, we appear unlikely to see any very active political interference on the part of England in Syria, nor have we indeed any plea for such action so long as the number of British subjects and of Protestant communities continues to be as insignificant as it still is in the country.

But though English political action appears only likely indirectly to affect the fate of the country in the great crisis of the downfall of Turkish supremacy, it cannot be doubted that a very keen interest in the future of the land is felt among all the religious classes of our own country. We have had many schemes presented to us for the amelioration of the condition of Palestine, for colonisation, for railways, for the promotion of agriculture, and for the acceleration of the return of the Jews.

It may, however, be doubted whether, unless by conquest, the destiny of a country can be affected by the philanthropic aspirations of a foreign race. It may be considered more probable that a national impulse or native revival would be the means of restoring prosperity to a rich but neglected region, rather than the benevolent efforts of private societies formed among a people alien in race and in religion, and but little acquainted with the motives, the wishes, and the manners of those whom they desire to aid.

It is proposed then, in conclusion of the present volume, to add a few words on the subject of Jewish and European colonisation, on reformed government, and on the natural future of the Holy Land as it appears to be now developing.

As regards the proposal to give Palestine to the Jews, which has primâ facie an appearance of justice and good sense, two great difficulties are practically found to intervene. The first has already been noticed in the last chapter. The Jews are not an agricultural people, and the main resources of Palestine are, on the other hand, agricultural and pastoral. That the Jews should resume the position which they once held as a dominant race, ruling the Canaanite rural population, whose descendants have never been expelled from the land, but are found, as we have already seen, holding unchanged the customs and superstitions of the aboriginal inhabitants, whom Thothmes and Joshua successively subdued, would be perhaps a possible occurrence; but we find among European Jews no great anxiety to quit their prosperous avocations in a civilised and peaceful country, in order to undertake less congenial and more hazardous employment in a wild country, where the mass of the people and the government are alike prone to hatred and injustice towards the Jew. The second obstacle in the path of those who wish to encourage Jewish colonisation is the suspicion, which is thus not unnaturally excited among Jews, that a desire to proselytise and to convert to Christianity those whose temporal prosperity is the ostensible care of the Christian promoters, lies hidden beneath the surface of such schemes. The Jews are aware that they can find all the energy, the ability, and the wealth necessary for the successful prosecution of such a project among their own people, and they see no true motive for an external attempt to induce their return to Palestine, other than a vague hope that it may conduce to their final conversion to the religion of their philanthropic friends.

The fundamental fallacy in all schemes of European colonisation, which disregard the rights and the power of the native peasantry in Palestine, has already been noticed. The Fellah can outlive, outwork, and undersell the European agriculturist in his native land, and were a settled and prosperous condition of the country ensured, the numbers of the native population would soon rapidly increase, and the sickly colonist, even though backed by European capital and influence, would be inevitably shouldered out of the country.

The question of administration is, however, quite distinct from that of colonisation. It is a question of political, not of philanthropic action—of the influence of a great power, not of a private or semi-religious society. In India we have a living witness of the fact, that to some Western nations, and to England pre-eminently, is given the capability of governing Oriental races with benefit to both the ruler and the subject.

As regards Syria also, we have historical evidence of the possibility of Western rule becoming consolidated and prosperous; and the history of the Crusading kingdom is remarkably suggestive of the true principles on which such government should be framed, and of the causes of failure in the past, which might be avoided in the future.

The kingdom of Jerusalem, according to the constitution of John d’Ibelin, included in the thirteenth century the four baronies of Jaffa (including Ascalon and the seigneury of Ramleh, with Mirabel and Ibelin), of Sidon (with Cæsarea and Bisan), of Hebron, and of Galilee. Jerusalem, Tyre, Acre, and Nâblus, belonged directly to the Crown; and there were two grand fiefs, or tributary states—namely, the principality of Antioch (embracing the greater part of Northern Syria), and the county of Tripoly extending along the shore north of Beirut.

The Assizes of Jerusalem inform us that two great courts were instituted by King Godfrey for the government of the land. The high court had for its president the king himself, and its judges were taken from the liege barons and knights, who tried those of their own rank, and assigned the number of knights and yeomen, who were to be furnished by the fiefs, the church, the military orders, and the burghs, for the king’s army.

The second court, that of the burgesses, was presided over by a viscount appointed by the king, and consisted of a jury of burghers, or citizens of Frank extraction. It exercised authority over all freemen who did not appeal to the high court, but was not capable of judging nobles, while the burghers were in like manner free from the authority of the superior tribunal. Each court had its own code of laws, and these applied not only to Jerusalem, where the great tribunal sat, but also to the principal towns where similar courts existed.

As the kingdom became consolidated, another tribunal arose for the judgment of the native subjects of the realm. It consisted originally of a Reiyis, or head man, with a jury of natives, who administered native laws, and followed native usages, but who had no power in capital or other criminal cases, or in matters connected with the ancient institution of the blood-feud.

Abuses appear to have occurred which rendered necessary the conversion of this native Mejlis into a mixed court, called Cour de la Fonde, presided over by the Baillie de la Fonde, with a jury of four Syrians and two Franks.

Such was the civil constitution of the Frankish kingdom. Accustomed as we are to think of the history of the Crusades as that of a series of marvellous raids gradually decreasing in impetuosity and success, we are apt to forget that for nearly a century the French kings of Jerusalem ruled a dominion embracing some 15,000 square miles, and that the princes of Antioch preserved their power until the fierce Bibars recaptured the city in 1268 A.D., eighty years after the fall of Jerusalem. For more than 150 years the Syrians were ruled by a Latin race, and there is every reason to believe that they were content to be so governed.

The subjects of the Latin kingdom were divided into the three classes of lieges, burgesses, and vilains. The first two—the knights and citizens—were free Franks, owing military service, but the vilains, or native serfs (whether Greeks, Turks, or Syrians, Christian or Moslem), were, as a rule, exempt from military duty, and payed taxes for every Casale or village community.

During the prosperous period of the kingdom, the Bedawîn, and even the wild Ismaileh assassins, were reduced to tribute; and the confidence which the foreign rulers felt in their subjects is evinced by the institution of the Turcopoles, or native irregular cavalry, who were commanded by an officer known as Grand Turcopoler.

The Christian princes remained, moreover, on friendly terms with the Sultans of Aleppo and Damascus. Mutual permission to hunt in each other’s territory was often accorded, and a special coinage was struck for trade between the Frank and the Syrian, having on one side the Latin cross, and on the other an Arab inscription.

It was not through any effort of the native population of the kingdom that this power of a Christian state in a Moslem land was shattered and finally destroyed. The impulse came from without, from the free Arabs who had never been conquered; and we may well inquire the reason for the decay of Frank influence, and for the demoralisation of Frank energy and courage, which are only too evident in reading the history of the Latin kingdom.

We shall perhaps not be far wrong in supposing that the effects of climate were among the most important causes of the final overthrow of the Frank power. In the earlier Crusading times, the forces of the conquerors were constantly recruited with fresh blood from the West. Foucher of Chartres describes the eagerness with which men hurried to colonise the newly-won territory, but he also tells us of the intermarriages with Armenian, Greek, and even Moslem women, and we know that the children of such marriages (the Pullani of the Crusading chroniclers) reproduced, as in our own times, the vices and weaknesses of either race rather than the virtues of their parents, and that the fatal influence of an enervating climate must have even robbed the children of unmixed blood, brought up in Syria, of the vigour and energy of their fathers nourished in a colder climate.

As the attention of Europe became self-centred, and as the annual levies from the West gradually dwindled and the kingdom was left to care for itself, a generation of enervated and dissipated voluptuaries succeeded the hardy conquerors of the country, and the Christian power decayed through want of the constant infusion of fresh blood into its exhausted veins. This again furnishes a lesson of the inevitable failure of foreign colonisation, just as the earlier years of the twelfth century present us an example of the success of the Latin administration of an Oriental state.

So unchanged is the East in our own times, that the revival of a semi-feudal method of government on the lines of the Jerusalem constitution of the thirteenth century, might be more in harmony with the requirements of the native race than would be any reproduction of our own system of constitutional rule. The scheme for reform in Asia Minor which we have seen frustrated by the corruption and suspicion of Turkish Pachas bore indeed, in some respects, a very striking resemblance to the feudal system of the Latin kingdom, and might for this reason have proved well suited to the object in view. The institutions of mixed courts and of a native force officered by Europeans, remind us of the Cour de la Fonde and of the Turcopoles; but in such a scheme the source of failure, which lay in hereditary government, would have been avoided; and as in India, so in the Levant, the strength of the Franks would have been constantly recruited by the arrival of fresh governors, fresh officers, and fresh judges from England, and thus by a constant infusion of new blood among the staff of the government.

It would, however, appear that some fresh crisis must supervene before any such system of English or European administration can be expected in Palestine, and it is to the country itself that we must look for indications of the immediate future in store for the Holy Land.

The power of Turkey is crumbling before our eyes. The region extending southwards, from the Taurus along the Mediterranean coast, contains no indigenous Turkish population. It is inhabited by races mainly of Semitic origin, and it has been held by the right of the sword since the year 1516, when the Turkish Sultan Selim defeated at Aleppo the Mameluke Sultan, whose ancestors had won Syria from the successors of Saladin.

On every side we see the nationalities once conquered by the Turks recovering their freedom and the right of self-government. We hear of Panslavism, Panhellenism, and Albanian independence; but we are apt to forget that the Arab races in Western Asia occupy a territory of 1,000,000 square miles, whereas the dominions of Turkey in Asia-Minor (where a large portion of the native population is Turkish) extend over not quite 300,000 square miles. Thus more than half the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan are inhabited by a race not of common stock with the Turks, and when once the power of the sword is lost, no further claim exists on the allegiance of the Arabs any more than on that of Greeks or Armenians, Bulgarians or Servians.

It may perhaps be argued that as the head of the Moslem faith the Khalif of the Prophet has still a spiritual right to the supremacy of Islam, but Moslems are better acquainted than the majority of Christians with the bearing of this question. How, we may ask, can a Turkish Sultan claim to be the representative of the Arabian Prophet? The history is a repetition of that of the French Maire du Palais Pepin and his liege lord the Faineant.

It was no less than four hundred years after the death of Mohammed that Togrul Bey, of the Turkish race of the Seljuks, defeated the Khalif Mahmud and usurped the position of Emîr el Omara, becoming virtually the protector of the monarch whose religious supremacy he admitted and whose faith he adopted. It is from this origin that the dynasty of the present Turkish Sultan traces its descent; and the right to be considered the “Khalif” or “successor” of the Prophet in the eyes of all the Sunni Moslems was thus derived originally from the sword. We have already had more than one indication of the discredit which has lately overtaken the pretensions of the usurper, whose claims to be regarded as the spiritual head of Islam are founded on no surer basis than that of the Czar, whose religious supremacy is derived from the usurpation of the Russian patriarchal dignity by Peter the Great.

It must not be forgotten, moreover, that in Arabia are still to be found the germs of a revolutionary movement among the Wahabi princes of the Nejed. The desert puritans were indeed discouraged by the persecution of Mohammed Aly, but the anti-Turkish sentiment of the revival is an element of considerable danger to the supremacy of the Sultan; and it needs but slight discernment to feel assured, that when next Turkey finds herself engaged in a struggle for existence in Europe, the opportunity will have arrived which will be eagerly seized by the Arab and the Syrian alike to shake off the hated yoke of their Turanian masters. We may perhaps see more than one Moslem state rising on the ruins of Turkish decadence, and from Persia to the Mediterranean, from Aden to the Taurus, the emancipation of Semitic nationalities must either accompany or immediately follow the self-liberation of Slavs and Greeks in Europe.

To such a future for Syria England might well look forward with satisfaction. Among the sturdy peasantry and warlike nomads of Palestine and the desert, she might find allies of extreme value in the great task of defending the communications with her Indian Empire. Military authorities are not wanting who believe in the further advance of Russia on the Euphrates, and on the Syrian shores of the Mediterranean, an advance to which England could not remain indifferent. It is in the hatred of Greek Christianity and of Russian cruelty among the Moslems of Arab race that our hope of organising an effective resistance must lie. Turkish weakness and corruption lays the present rulers of Syria open to the designs of her worst enemy, but a strong and patriotic Moslem government would no doubt reflect those feelings of friendship and admiration with regard to England which are so commonly expressed among the natives of Syria; and the value of such an ally in defence of our two highways to India, by the Red Sea and the Euphrates, would be beyond calculation.

The policy which has been pursued by the Turks towards the great families of their Asiatic possessions has become the nemesis of their tyranny. Hidden in the country districts among the mountains and in the more remote villages, the great families of Sheikhs and Emîrs still linger in decay. In the preceding chapters we have made acquaintance with some of these native chiefs: the Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem, the Jerrâr north of Nâblus, the Jiyûsi at Kûr, the Zeidanîyin in Galilee. Driven from power, plundered and oppressed, still respected by the peasantry, and still mindful of their past history, these native leaders must constitute a danger to the state in the present decadence of Turkish power, and form the nucleus round which the rebellion of Syria might gather. Had the Sultan been able in time of need to call round him these descendants of a feudal aristocracy, he might have counted on the devotion of his subjects. The mongrel caste of the present Pachas, Greeks, Albanians, Armenians, Jews, Levantines, and renegades of every nationality, can only be trusted to care for their personal interests in the great impending catastrophe.

The history of the Turks has been that of an uncivilised, a cruel, and a rapacious race, whose transitory conquests were due to the decay of a superior civilisation, and whose literature, religion, and law have all been stolen from the conquered Arab. The history of the Arab race has been that of a progressive and intelligent people of peculiar genius, whose civilisation is founded on the most ancient civilisation of Asia; a commercial race, moreover, of hardy traders who, from the earliest times, have explored for the rest of the trading nations of the world the great highways of commerce in unknown lands.

When first the conquering armies of Islam marched forth from the desert to the Euphrates and to Syria, they were no further advanced in civilisation, in art, or in science, than the Bedawi of our own times, but the capacity of the race was evinced by the rapid assimilation of all that was most valuable in the civilisation of the lands they conquered, and of the neighbouring kingdoms of Persia and India. The earliest efforts of Arab architecture under the Ommîyeh Khalifs may be contrasted with the glorious and original style of Saracenic art in Spain as an indication of the genius which so rapidly surpassed the clumsy art of the Byzantine Empire.

As early as the time of Aly, the fourth Khalif, the study of grammar, which the Arabs have raised to the rank of a fine art, had commenced, and historians recorded the victories of the faithful in the days of Othman. Under Walid, coins were struck, and works on astronomy and philosophy translated into Arabic. It was only about 200 years after the death of Mohammed that Baghdad became the centre of the science and literature of the east under the glorious family of Abbas; and thus at a time when Europe was still plunged in barbarism, and England not as yet a nation, the Arabs had become the teachers of mankind, and the guardians of our most precious sciences.

The glories of the great age of Arab literature and civilisation are almost forgotten by those who have most reason to remember their obligation to this gifted race. A just government, a polite and learned society, a tolerant creed and a wide-spread trade, were the distinctive features of the rule of the Abbasside Khalifs of Baghdad in the ninth century of our era, when Harûn-er-Rashid sent an embassy to Charlemagne in France.

The water-clock measured time in the capital of his empire a century before the horn lamps of Alfred were invented, and a golden age of literature had commenced at Baghdad in the time of Mamûn, when grammar, poetry, music, history, archæology, astronomy, and mathematics were studied, more than a century before its influence was extended through the Arab colleges of Spain to the distant shores of Italy, France, and England.

The progress which had been made in the ninth century in the great science of astronomy by the learned men who flourished at Baghdad, “the City of Peace,” is evidenced by the fact that an arc of the meridian was then measured in more than one place; and the Arab power of assimilating the learning of other races is illustrated by the translations of El Fahdl, for Mamûn, of the Persian and Greek works found in conquered cities. Syriac, Sanscrit, and Chaldee manuscripts were in like manner ransacked in the search for knowledge, and a great observatory was built at Baghdad in the same century.

Nor was Europe less indebted for its song to the Arabs. In the love-songs of Omar and of Baghdad is to be found the original inspiration not less than the original diction and rhythm of the Provençal poetry, and rhyme derived from the Arabs has banished the native alliteration of Northern bards.

Not less do we owe to the same great race the discovery of many highways of commerce along which the Arabs still advance in the van of discovery. In Africa the Arab precedes the European explorer; in Asia a trade with China and with Spain had already been opened by the Khalifs in the ninth century. Thus, while our first navies were timidly coasting the shores of the German Ocean, caravans were already pushing from the great centres of Damascus and Mecca over the whole of the Eastern world. From Basrah they journeyed, in the days of the Prophet, to Merv, Herat, Balkh and Samarkand, to India and Ceylon, to China and Spain, to Constantinople and the Euxine, to the Oxus, and to the shores of Africa.

From the dawn of history, indeed, we find Semitic merchants journeying along the same lines of travel which they follow in our own times, and throughout the history of Asiatic commerce we find the Tartar and the Turk to be the great enemies of peaceful intercourse and trade.

The tolerance of the religion of Islam, as set forth in the Koran and as practised by the early Khalifs, was moreover far in advance of the narrow hatreds of the numerous sects of Eastern Christians. After the conquest of Jerusalem by Omar, we find the holy places left freely accessible to the annual influx of pilgrims, and the monks and priests of the Greek Church still allowed to hold possession of their churches and convents. It was the cruelty not of Arab Moslems, but of the fierce Kharezmian invaders who seized Jerusalem—a race of common origin with the Turk—which roused the fanatical zeal of Europe and gave cause for the first Crusade. The Arab of our own days does indeed hate the idolatrous worship of the Greek Church, but his sentiments in regard to the Protestantism of the English are of a tolerant if somewhat confused nature. The Syrian peasant believes that the English Queen, who rules so many millions of Moslems, is herself a believer in some kind of occidental Mohammedism.

Is such a people, we may ask, without any claim to our consideration? Those who have advocated the colonisation of Palestine by Englishmen, Germans, or Jews, seem to forget that a native Moslem population still exists, or to consider them only fit for the fate of the Red Indian and the Australian, as savages who must disappear before the advance of a superior race. Yet the Arabs were a civilised people when our ancestors were painted with wode, while the vitality of the creed of Islam has been in our own days evinced by the great Wahabi revival. In the faith of Islam the connecting bond may be found which may knit the scattered Arab and Syrian peoples into a nation, and it is not among the degraded sects of Eastern Christians of mixed nationality, but in the sturdy stock of the native Moslem race, that the future hope of Syria is to be found.

If, with the destruction of the Constantinople government, Syria should obtain freedom and native self-administration, a prosperous future must lie before her. A people progressive and apt to learn, naturally prone to commerce, tolerant in religion, and willing to avail themselves of the superior knowledge of other nations and of the assistance of friendly Western powers; a native Moslem government, ruling justly and in accordance with the law of the Koran; an aristocracy of ancient lineage, governing in patriarchal simplicity those districts where the names of their families are household words; a sturdy agricultural peasantry and an energetic trading class, would form a state whose alliance might be of the highest value to England and to Europe generally.

It is for such a future in the Holy Land that we should earnestly hope, and it is to such a future that we may perhaps look forward as not far distant. The religious and sentimental claims of France; the strategical requirements of England; the schemes of philanthropists and engineers, may be best reconciled and rendered practicable, not by annexation or colonisation, but by the building up of a strong friendly intelligent native state, and a wise and honest native government in the place of a decrepid tyranny.

APPENDIX.

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED.

INDEX.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z