The first settlements of the Ottoman Turks were on the banks of the Sangarios, which gave them from the beginning a threatening position towards Europe. ♦1299.♦ By the end of the thirteenth century they were firmly established in that region. In the first half of the fourteenth they became the leading power in Western Asia. ♦Conquest of Brusa. 1326-1330.♦ Brusa, the Asiatic capital, won in the last days of the Emir Othman, has a manifest eye towards Europe. ♦Of Nikaia and Nikomêdeia. 1330-1338.♦ Nikaia and Nikomêdeia followed, and the Ottoman stepped geographically into the same position towards the revived Greek Empire which the Nicene princes had held towards the Latin Empire. ♦Entry into Europe. 1354.
Conquest of Hadrianople. 1361.♦ In the last days of the Emir Othman came their passage into Europe, and a few more years saw Amurath in his European capital of Hadrianople, completely hemming Constantinople in. ♦Ottoman advance.♦ The second half of the fourteenth century was a time of the most speedy Ottoman advance, and the amount of real advance is by no means represented by the change on the map. We have seen in the case of Servia, of Greece, and of Hungary, that the course of Turkish invasion commonly went through three stages. There was first the time of mere plunder. Then came the tributary stage, and lastly, the day of complete bondage. ♦Bajazet first Sultan, 1389-1402.♦ Under Bajazet, the first Ottoman prince who bore the title of Sultan, the immediate Ottoman dominion in Europe stretched from the Ægæan to the Danube. It took in all Bulgaria, all Macedonia, Thessaly, and Thrace, save only Chalkidikê and the district just round Constantinople. Servia and Wallachia were dependent states, as indeed was the Empire itself. Central and southern Greece, Bosnia, Hungary, even Styria, were lands open to plunder.

This great dominion was broken in pieces by the victory of Timour at Angora. It seemed that the empire of the Ottoman had passed away like the empire of the Servian. ♦Break up of the Ottoman power.♦ The dominion of Bajazet was divided among his sons and the princes of the dispossessed Turkish dynasties. The Christian states had a breathing-time, and the sons of Bajazet were glad to give back to the Empire some important parts of its lost territories. ♦Reunited under Mahomet. 1413.♦ The Ottoman power came together again under Mahomet the First; but for nearly half a century its advance was slower than in the half-century before. The conquests of Mahomet and of Amurath the Second lay mainly in the Greek and Albanian lands. ♦Conquest of Thessalonikê. 1430.♦ The Turk now reached the Hadriatic, and the conquest of Thessalonikê gave him a firmer hold on the Ægæan. Towards Servia and Hungary he lost and he won again; he hardly conquered. ♦Mahomet the Conqueror. 1451-1481.♦ It was the thirty years of Mahomet the Conqueror which finally gave the Ottoman dominion its European position. ♦Conquest of Constantinople. 1453.♦ From his first and greatest conquest of the New Rome, he gathered in what remained, Greek, Frank, and Slave. The conquest of the Greek mainland, of Albania and Bosnia, the final conquest of Servia, made him master of the whole south-eastern peninsula, save only the points held by Venice and the unconquered height of the Black Mountain. He began to gather in the Western islands, and he struck the first great blow to the Venetian power by the conquest of Euboia. Around the Euxine he won the Empire of Trebizond and the points held by Genoa. The great mass of the islands and the few Venetian points on the coast still escaped. ♦Extent of his dominion.♦ Otherwise Mahomet the Conqueror held the whole European dominions of Basil the Second, with a greater dominion in Asia than that of Manuel Komnênos. From the Danube to the Tanais and beyond it, he held a vast overlordship, over lands which had obeyed no Emperor since Aurelian, over lands which had never obeyed any Emperor at all. At last the Mussulman lord of Constantinople seemed about to win back the Italian dominion of its Christian lords. ♦Taking of Otranto, 1480.♦ In his last days, by the possession of Otranto, Mahomet ruled west of the Hadriatic.

It might have been deemed that the little cloud which now lighted on Otranto would grow as fast as the little cloud which a hundred and thirty years before had lighted on Kallipolis. But Bajazet the Second made no conquests save the points which were won from Venice. ♦Conquest of Syria and Egypt. 1516-17.♦ Selim the First, the greatest conqueror of his line against fellow Mahometans, had no leisure, while winning Syria and Egypt, to make any advance on Christian ground. ♦Conquests of Suleiman. 1520-1566.♦ But under Suleiman the Lawgiver, not only the overlordship but the immediate rule of Constantinople under its Turkish Sultans was spread over wide European lands which had never obeyed its Christian Emperors. ♦His African overlordship.♦ Then too its Mussulman lords won back at least the nominal overlordship of that African seaboard which the first Mussulmans had rent away from the allegiance of Constantinople. The greatest conquest of Suleiman was made in Hungary; but he also made the Ægæan an Ottoman sea. The early years of his reign saw the driving of the Knights from Rhodes, and the winning of their fortress of Halikarnassos, the last European possession on Asiatic ground. His last days saw the annexation of the Naxian duchy; at an intermediate stage Venice lost her Peloponnesian strongholds. ♦Algiers. 1519.♦ In Africa the Turk received the commendation of Algiers and of Tunis. ♦Tunis conquered by Charles the Fifth. 1531.
1535.♦ But Tunis, won for Christendom by the Imperial King of the Two Sicilies, was lost and won again, till it was finally won for Islam by the second Selim. Tripolis, granted to the Knights, also passed to Suleiman. ♦1574.♦ Under Selim Cyprus was added; the fight of Lepanto could neither save nor recover it; but the advance of the Turk was stopped. ♦Decline of the Ottoman power.♦ The conquests of the seventeenth century were small compared with those of earlier days, and, before that century was out, the Ottoman Terminus had begun to go back.

Yet it was in the last half of the seventeenth century that the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest geographical extent. ♦Conquest of Crete. 1641-1669.
of Podolia. 1672-1676.♦ Crete was now won; a few years later Kamienetz and all Podolia were ceded to the Turk by Poland. This was not absolutely his last European acquisition, but it was his last acquisition of a great province. The Ottoman dominion now covered a wider space on the map than it had done at any earlier moment. Suleiman in all his glory had not reigned over Cyprus, Crete, and Podolia. The tide now turned for ever. ♦The Ottoman frontier falls back.♦ From that time the Ottoman has, like his Byzantine predecessor, had his periods of revival and recovery, but on the whole his frontier has steadily gone back.

The first great blow to the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire was dealt in the war which was ended by the Peace of Carlowitz. We have seen how Hungary and Peloponnêsos were won back for Christendom; so was Podolia. We have seen too how at the next stage the Turk gained at one end and lost at the other, winning back Peloponnêsos, winning Mykonos and Tênos, but losing on the Save and the Danube. The next stage shows the Ottoman frontier again in advance; in our own day we have seen it again fall back. And the change which has given Bosnia and Herzegovina to the master of Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Cattaro has, besides throwing back the frontier of the Turk, redressed a very old geographical wrong. ♦Union of inland and maritime Illyricum.♦ Ever since the first Slavonic settlements, the inland region of northern Illyricum has been more or less thoroughly cut off from the coast cities which form its natural outlets. Whatever may be the fate of those lands, the body is again joined to the mouth, and the mouth to the body, and we can hardly fancy them again severed.

The same arrangements which transferred the ‘administration’ of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the King of Hungary and Dalmatia, have transferred another part of the Ottoman dominion to a more distant European power on terms which are still less easy to understand. ♦Cyprus. 1878.♦ The Greek island of Cyprus has passed to English rule; but it is after a fashion which may imply that the conquest of Richard of Poitou is held—not, it is to be hoped, by the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, but possibly by the Empress of India—as a tributary of the Ottoman Sultan.

During the former half of the eighteenth century the shiftings of the Ottoman territory to the north were all on the side of Austria or Hungary. ♦Relations of the Turk towards Russia.♦ But a new enemy of the Turk appeared towards the end of the seventeenth century, one who was, before the end of the eighteenth, to stand forth as his chief enemy. ♦Loss and recovery of Azof. 1696-1711.♦ Under Peter the Great Azof was won by Russia and lost again. Sixty years later great geographical changes took place in the same region. ♦Treaty of Kainardji. 1774.
Independence of Crim.♦ By the Treaty of Kainardji, the dependent khanate of Crim—the old Tauric Chersonêsos and the neighbouring lands—was released from the superiority of the Sultan. ♦Russian annexation of Crim. 1783.♦ This was a natural step towards its annexation by Russia, which thus again made her way to the Euxine. ♦Of Jedisan. 1791.♦ The Bug was now the frontier; presently, by the Russian annexation of Oczakow and the land of Jedisan, it fell back to the Dniester. By the treaty of Bucharest the frontier alike of the dominion and of the overlordship of the Turk fell back to the Pruth and the lower Danube. ♦Of Bessarabia. 1812.
Shiftings of the Moldavian frontier.♦ Russia thus gained Bessarabia and the eastern part of Moldavia. ♦Treaty of Hadrianople. 1829.♦ By the Treaty of Hadrianople she further won the islands at the mouth of the Danube. ♦Treaty of Paris, 1856;♦ The Treaty of Paris restored to Moldavia a small part of the lands ceded at Bucharest, so as to keep the Russian frontier away from the Danube. ♦of Berlin, 1878.♦ This last cession, with the exception of the islands, was recovered by Russia at the Treaty of Berlin. But changes of frontier in those regions no longer affect the dominion of the Turk.

§ 9. The Liberated States.

The losses which the Ottoman power has undergone at the hands of its independent neighbours, Russia, Montenegro, and Austria or Hungary, must be distinguished from the liberation of certain lands from Turkish rule to form new or revived European states. We have seen that the kingdom of Hungary and its dependent lands might fairly come under this head, and we have seen in what the circumstances of their liberation differ from the liberation of Greece or Servia or Bulgaria. But it is important to bear in mind that the Turk had to be driven from Hungary, no less than from Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria. If the Turk has ruled at Belgrade, at Athens, and at Tirnovo, he has ruled at Buda no less. All stand in the same opposition to Tzetinje, where he has never ruled.

As the Servian people was the only one among the south-eastern nations of which any part maintained its abiding independence, so the enslaved part of the Servian people was the first among the subject nations to throw off the yoke. ♦The Ionian Islands.♦ But the first attempt to form anything like a free state in south-eastern Europe was made among a branch of the Greek nation, in the so-called Ionian Islands. But the form which the attempt took was no lessening of the Turkish dominion, but its increase. ♦Ceded to France. 1797.♦ By the peace of Campoformio, the islands, with the few Venetian points on the mainland, were to pass to France. ♦Septinsular Republic under Ottoman overlordship. 1798.♦ By the treaty of the next year between Russia and the Turk, the points on the mainland were to be handed over to the Turk, while the islands were to form a commonwealth, tributary to the Turk, but under the protection of Russia. ♦The Venetian outposts given to the Turk.♦ Thus, besides an advance of the Turk’s immediate dominion on the mainland, his overlordship was to be extended over the islands, including Corfu, the one island which had never come under his power. ♦Surrender of Parga. 1819.♦ The other points on the mainland passed, not so much to the Sultan as to his rebellious vassal Ali of Jôannina; but Parga kept its freedom till five years after the general peace. ♦All Albania and continental Greece under the Turk.♦ Thus the Turk made his last encroachment on Christendom, and held for a moment the whole of the Greek and Albanian mainland. ♦The Ionian Islands under English protection. 1815.♦ The islands meanwhile, tossed to and fro during the war between France and England, were at the peace again made into a nominal commonwealth, but under a form of British protection which it is not easy to distinguish from British sovereignty. Still a nominally free Greek state was again set up, and the possibility of Greek freedom on a larger scale was practically acknowledged.

It was only for a very short time that the Turk held complete possession of all Albania and continental Greece. Two years after the betrayal of Parga began the Greek War of Independence. ♦Extent of the Greek nation.♦ The geographical disposition of the Greek nation has changed very little since the Latin conquest of Constantinople; it has changed very little since the later days of old Hellas. At all these stages some other people has held the solid mainland of south-eastern Europe and of western Asia, while the Greek has been the prevailing race on the coasts, the islands, the peninsular lands, of both continents, from Durazzo to Trebizond. ♦General Greek revolt.♦ Within this range the Greeks revolted at every point where they were strong enough to revolt at all. ♦Extent of the liberated territory.♦ But it was only in the old Hellenic mainland, and in Crete and others of the Ægæan islands, that the Greeks were able to hold their ground. ♦1829-1833.♦ Of these lands some parts were allowed by Western diplomacy to keep their freedom. ♦Kingdom of Greece.♦ A Kingdom of Greece was formed, taking in Peloponnêsos, Euboia, the Kyklades, and a small part of central Greece, south of a line drawn from the gulf of Arta to the gulf of Volo. But the Turk was allowed to hold, not only the more distant Greek lands and islands, but Epeiros, Thessaly, and Crete. ♦Ionian islands added to Greece. 1864.♦ The kingdom was afterwards enlarged by the addition of the Ionian islands, whose nominal Septinsular Republic was merged in the kingdom. ♦Treaty of Berlin. 1878.♦ By the Treaty of Berlin, Crete, which had twice risen, was thrust back into bondage, but parts of Thessaly and Epeiros were ordered to be set free and to be added to the kingdom. ♦Its promises unfulfilled.♦ But even this small instalment of Greek emancipation has not yet been carried out.

Between the first and the second establishment of the Ionian commonwealth, Servia had been delivered and had been conquered again. The first revolt made Servia a tributary principality. ♦Second revolt and deliverance. 1817-1829.♦ It was then won back by the Turk and again delivered. ♦1826-1829.♦ Its freedom, modified by the payment of tribute and by the presence of Turkish garrisons in certain towns, was decreed by the peace of Akerman, and was carried out by the treaty of Hadrianople. ♦Withdrawal of Turkish garrisons. 1867.♦ Fifty years after the second establishment of the principality, its practical freedom was made good by the withdrawal of the Turkish garrisons. ♦Servia independent with an enlarged territory. 1878.♦ The last changes have made Servia, under a native dynasty, an independent state, released from all tribute or vassalage. The same changes have given Servia a slight increase of territory. ♦Servian territory left to the Turk.♦ But the boundary is so drawn as to leave part of the old Servian land to the Turk, and carefully to keep the frontiers of the Servian and Montenegrin principalities apart. That is to say, the Servian nation is split into four parts—Montenegro, free Servia, Turkish Servia, and those Servian lands which are, some under the ‘administration,’ some under the acknowledged rule, of the King of Hungary and Dalmatia.

While Servia and Greece were under the immediate rule of the Turk, the Rouman lands of Wallachia and Moldavia always kept a certain measure of separate being. The Turk named and deposed their princes, but they never came under his direct rule. ♦Union of Wallachia and Moldavia. 1861.♦ After the Treaty of Paris, the two principalities, being again allowed to choose for themselves, took the first step towards union by choosing the same prince. Then followed their complete union as the Principality of Roumania, paying tribute to the Turk, but otherwise free. ♦Independence of Roumania. 1878.♦ The last changes have made Roumania, as well as Servia, an independent state. Its frontier towards Russia, enlarged at Paris, was cut short at Berlin. ♦Change of its frontier.♦ But this last treaty restored to it the land of Dobrutcha south of the Danube, thus giving the new state a certain Euxine sea-board. Thus the Roumans, the Romance-speaking people of Eastern Europe, still a scattered remnant in their older seats, have, in their great colony on the Danube, won for themselves a place among the nations of Europe.

Lastly, while Servia and Roumania have been wholly freed from the yoke, a part of Bulgaria has been raised to that position of practical independence which they formerly held. ♦The Bulgaria of San Stefano. 1878.♦ The Russian treaty of San Stefano decreed a tributary principality of Bulgaria, whose boundaries came most nearly to those of the third Bulgarian kingdom at its greatest extent. But it was to have, what no Bulgarian state had had before, a considerable Ægæan sea-board. This would have had the effect of splitting the immediate dominion of the Turk in two. It would also have had the real fault of adding to Bulgaria some districts which ought rather to be added to free Greece. ♦Treaty of Berlin.
Division of Bulgaria.♦ By the Treaty of Berlin the Turk was to keep the whole north coast of the Ægæan, while the Bulgarian nation was split into three parts, in three different political conditions. ♦Free.♦ The oldest and latest Bulgarian land, the land between Danube and Balkan, forms, with the exception of the corner ceded to Roumania, the tributary Principality of Bulgaria. ♦Half-free.♦ The land immediately south of the Danube, the southern Bulgaria of history—northern Roumelia, according to the compass—receives the diplomatic name of Eastern Roumelia, a name which would more naturally take in Constantinople. Its political condition is described as ‘administrative autonomy,’ a half-way house, it would seem, between bondage and freedom. ♦Enslaved.♦ Meanwhile in the old Macedonian land, the land for which Basil and Samuel strove so stoutly, the question between Greek and Bulgarian is held to be solved by handing over Greek and Bulgarian alike to the uncovenanted mercies of the Turk.

We may end our survey of the south-eastern lands by taking a general view of their geographical position at some of the most important points in their history. ♦800.♦ At the end of the eighth century we see the Eastern Empire still stretching from Tauros to Sardinia; but everywhere, save in its solid Asiatic peninsula, it has shrunk up into a dominion of coasts and islands. It still holds Sicily, Sardinia, and Crete, the heel and the toe of Italy, the outlying duchies of Campania, the outlying duchy at the head of the Hadriatic. In its great European peninsula it holds the whole of the Ægæan coast, a great part of the coasts of the Euxine and the Hadriatic. But the lord of the sea rules nowhere far from the sea; the inland regions are held, partly by the great Bulgarian power, partly by smaller Slavonic tribes fluctuating between independence and formal submission. ♦900.♦ At the end of the next century the general character of the East-Roman dominion remains the same, but many points of detail have changed. Sardinia and Crete are lost; a corner is all that is left in Sicily; but the Imperial power is acknowledged along the whole eastern Hadriatic coast; the heel and the toe have grown into the dominion of all southern Italy; all Greece has been won back to the Empire. But the Empire has now new neighbours. The Turanian Magyar is seated on the Danube, and other kindred nations are pressing in his wake. Russians, Slaves that is under Scandinavian leadership, threaten the Empire by sea. ♦1000.♦ The last year of the tenth century shows Sicily wholly lost, but Crete and Cyprus won back; Kilikia and Northern Syria are won again; Bulgaria is won and lost again; Russian establishment on the Danube is put off for eight hundred years; the great struggle is going on to decide whether the Slave or the Eastern Roman is to rule in the south-eastern peninsula. ♦c. 1040.♦ At one moment in the eleventh century we see the dominion of the New Rome at its full height. Europe south of the Danube and its great tributaries, Asia to Caucasus and almost to the Caspian, form a compact body of dominion, stretching from the Venetian isles to the old Phœnician cities. The Italian and insular dominion is untouched; it is enlarged for a moment by Sicilian conquest. ♦c. 1090.♦ Another glance, half-a-century later, shows the time when the Empire was most frightfully cut short by old enemies and new. The Servian wins back his own land; the Saracen wins back Sicily. The Norman in Italy cuts down the Imperial dominion to the nominal superiority of Naples, the last of Greek cities in the West, as Kymê was the first. For a moment he even plants himself east of Hadria, and rends away Corfu and Durazzo from the Eastern world, as Rome rent them away thirteen centuries before. The Turk swallows up the inland provinces of Asia; he plants his throne at Nikaia, and leaves to the Empire no Asiatic dominion beyond a strip of Euxine and Ægæan coast. ♦c. 1180.♦ Towards the end of the twelfth century, the Empire is restored to its full extent in Europe; Servia and Dalmatia are won back, Hungary itself looks like a vassal. In Asia the inland realm of the Turk is hemmed in by the strong Imperial grasp of the whole coast-line, Euxine, Ægæan, and Mediterranean. ♦c. 1200.♦ At the next moment comes the beginning of the final overthrow; before the century is out, the distant possessions of the Empire have either fallen away of themselves, or have been rent away by other powers. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Trebizond, Corfu, even Epeiros and Hellas, have parted away, or are in the act of parting away. ♦1204.♦ Venice, its long nominal homage cast aside, joins with faithless crusaders to split the Empire in pieces. The Flemish Emperor reigns at Constantinople; the Lombard King reigns at Thessalonikê; Achaia, Athens, Naxos, give their names to more abiding dynasties; Venice plants herself firmly in Crete and Peloponnêsos. Still the Empire is not dead. The Frank, victorious in Europe, hardly wins a footing in Asia. Nikaia and Trebizond keep on the Imperial succession, and a third Greek power, for a moment Imperial also, holds it in Western Greece and the islands. ♦1250.♦ Fifty years later, the Empire of Nikaia has become an European power; it has already outlived the Latin dominion at Thessalonikê; it has checked the revived power of Bulgaria; it has cut short the Latin Empire to the immediate neighbourhood of the Imperial city. To the north Servia is strengthening herself; Bosnia is coming into being; the Dalmatian cities are tossed to and fro among their neighbours. ♦1300.♦ Another glance at the end of the thirteenth century shows us the revived East-Roman Empire in its old Imperial seat, still in Europe an advancing and conquering power, ruling on the three seas of its own peninsula, established once more in Peloponnêsos, a compact and seemingly powerful state, as compared with the Epeirot, Achaian, and Athenian principalities, or with the scattered possessions of Venice in the Greek lands. But the power which seems so firmly established in Europe has all but passed away in Asia. There the Turk has taken the place of the Greek, and the Greek the place of the Frank, as they stood a hundred years earlier. And behind the immediate Turkish enemies stands that younger and mightier Turkish power which is to swallow up all its neighbours, Mussulman and Christian. ♦c. 1354.♦ In the central years of the fourteenth century we see the Empire hemmed in between two enemies, European and Asiatic, which have risen to unexpected power at the same time. Part of Thrace, Chalkidikê, part of Thessaly, a few scattered points in Asia, are left to the Empire; in Peloponnêsos alone is it an advancing power; everywhere else its frontiers have fallen back. The Servian Tzar rules from the Danube to the Gulf of Corinth. The Ottoman Emir has left but a few fragments to the Empire in Asia, and has already fixed his grasp on Europe. ♦1400.♦ Before the century is ended, neither Constantinople, nor Servia, nor any other Christian power, is dominant in the south-eastern peninsula. The Ottoman rules in their stead. The Empire is cut short to a corner of Thrace, with Thessalonikê, Chalkidikê, and the Peloponnesian province which now forms its greatest possession. Instead of the great power of Servia, we see a crowd of small principalities, Greek, Slavonic, and Albanian, falling for the most part under either Ottoman or Venetian supremacy. The Servian name is still borne by one of them; but its prince is a Turkish vassal; the true representative of Servian independence has already begun to show itself among the mountains which look down on the mouths of Cattaro and the lake of Skodra. Bulgaria has fallen lower still; the Turk’s immediate power reaches to the Danube. Bosnia at one end, the Frank principalities at the other end, the Venetian islands in either sea, still hold out; but the Turk has begun, if not to rule over them, at least to harry them. Within the memory of men who could remember when the Empire of Servia was not yet, who could remember when the eagles of Constantinople still went forth to victory, the Ottoman had become the true master of the South-Eastern lands; whatever has as yet escaped his grasp remained simply as remnants ready for the gleaning.

We will take our next glance in the later years of the fifteenth century, a few years after the death of the great conqueror. The momentary break-up of the power of the Ottoman has been followed by the greatest of his conquests. All now is over. The New Rome is the seat of barbarian power. Trebizond, Peloponnêsos, Athens, Euboia, the remnant of independent Epeiros, Servia, Bosnia, Albania, all are gathered in. The islands are still mostly untouched; but the whole mainland is conquered, save where Venice still holds her outposts, and where the warrior prelates of the Black Mountain, the one independent Christian power from the Save to Cape Matapan, have entered on their career of undying glory. With these small exceptions, the whole dominion of the Macedonian Emperors has passed into Ottoman hands, together with a vast tributary dominion beyond the Danube, much of which had never bowed to either Rome. ♦1600.♦ At the end of another century, we see all Hungary, save a tributary remnant, a subject land of the Turk. We see Venice shorn of Cyprus and all her Peloponnesian possessions. The Dukes have gone from Naxos and the Knights from Rhodes, and the Mussulman lord of so many Christian lands has spread his power over his fellow Mussulmans in Syria, Egypt, and Africa. ♦1700.♦ Another century passes, and the tide is turned. The Turk can still conquer; he has won Crete abidingly and Podolia for a moment. But the crescent has passed away for ever from Buda and from the Western isles; it has passed away for a moment from Corinth and all Peloponnêsos. ♦1800.♦ At the end of another century we see the Turk’s immediate possession bounded by the Save and the Danube, and his overlordship bounded by the Dniester. His old rivals Poland and Venice are no more; but Austria hems in his Slavonic provinces; France struggles for the islands off his western shore; Russia watches him from the peninsula so long held by the free Goth and the free Greek. ♦1878.♦ Seventy-eight years more, and his shadow of overlordship ends at the Danube, his shadow of immediate dominion ends at the Balkan. Free Greece, free Servia, free Roumania—Montenegro again reaching to her own sea—Bulgaria parted into three, but longing for reunion—Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus, held in a mysterious way by neighbouring or distant European powers—all join to form, not so much a picture as a dissolving view. We see in them a transitional state of things, which diplomacy fondly believes to be an eternal settlement of an eternal question, but of which reason and history can say only that we know not what a day may bring forth.