now produce about one-tenth of the
manufactures they gave forth thirty or forty years
ago. In European Turkey there are about
three important manufacturing establishments:
the forges of Samagor and Fognitza
in Bulgaria and Bosnia respectively, and the
manufactories oi arms at Mostar and Traonik.
The stories of the commercial coma of Bagdad
and Aleppo are equally striking; yet this
general decay is easily accounted for, in the
dogged determination of the Turkish
manufacturers to cling to old and dear processes,
and thus they have found themselves ousted
from their old markets by the competition
from the manufacturers of western Europe.
To escape these terrible results there was yet
one resource for Turkey. Her inexhaustible
wealth of soil pointed her out as a great
agricultural country that might make her
perhaps the most important granary of the
world. This resource has only lately occupied
the attention of the government: the
establishment of an agricultural academy being
the first hopeful result.

Thus in estimating the Turk as an
individual, and Turkey as a nation, we are led to
curious contradictions. The old-school Turk
is still the devout believer in the prophet, the
slave-owner, the man who denies to woman
all the great blessings of her social life. In all
these points he is a barbarian; yet trace his
youth, follow him through his course of studies
at the mekteb, and in the higher schools, with
every office in the State fairly open to him;
with a rich country, and markets eager for
anything he may choose to produce, and you
see that he has the opportunities for energy
and greatness. He is lord over immense
tracts of the richest land, that would yield
him golden harvests in return for the lightest
labour, yet he allows them to grow rank
with weeds: he has the germs of splendid
manufactures, that, developed on the systems
of western Europe, would yield him
enormous revenues; yet they are dying out:
he has institutions of a liberal kind, a wide
system of gratuitous education and humane
laws; yet he cannot be measured for
intelligence or perseverance with the poorest
continental peasant. Daily his government
endeavours to rouse him from his lethargy;
but the Sultan is a second Hokman, and is
only tying his political medicines upon a dead
or, at best, a half-animated body. He cannot
take the amber mouth-piece of his tchibouk
from between his lips; he cannot rouse
himself from his luxurious carpet. The sea
before him is splendidly blue; the warmth
of the sun is exceedingly grateful; the fumes
of the aromatic coffee are delicious, and he is
content. In short, he is enjoying the kef, and
may not be disturbed. The spiders may be
the only busy spinners amid the looms of
Scutari: he cannot help it, the matter is in
other and higher hands than his. It was
written. His house is tumbling about his
ears; well, it is useless to send for the masons.
It is ordained to tumble. He is a clock;
he has been wound up for a certain number
of years; and, when he has run down, he
will stop and have his head turned towards
Mecca. He deplores the madness of those
of his countrymen who pretend to direct
events, to plan great projects for the prevention
of all kinds of accidents, to use all kinds
of infidel contrivances; these are not good
Mussulmans. He, good easy man, waits
patiently, prays devoutly, opens his doors
with a benevolent heart to all comers, is
beloved by his servants and slaves, and waits
events. Everything is written: of what avail
then any exertion on his part? And so his
life is one long kef; the amber mouth-piece
remains for ever in his mouth; his legs
remain crossed; and, with a dignified reserve,
and some philosophy, he looks out upon the
bright waters of the Bosphorus, and turns his
back upon Europe.

But behind him he has strong men in his
country. He is at war with his government
—for this government has determined to
make Turkey of some account in Europe;
to interpret their religion as men, and not as
blind and slavish bigots; to seize with a
strong hand upon all improvements from the
west that promise comfort and prosperity.
And the contest between the old Turk and
his new governors is one that, at this moment,
happens to interest us all very decidedly. If
the old gentleman be determined doggedly to
keep that amber in his mouth for ever, to
look to no quarter except that in which Mecca
lies, and to loll always upon his handsome
carpet; then we fear there is indeed little
hope for Turkey; and he does well, for the
repose of his bones, to have them carried
to the great cemetery of Scutari. But if his
sons, now imbibing new truths in the little
reformed mektebs of Constantinople, learn to
think otherwise, and to hail and help on all
human improvements, golden harvests will
wave over the great plains of the Ottoman
empire, artisans will be once more busy in
Anatolia and Broussa, and spiders will be
routed from the looms of Scutari.

SEVERAL HEADS OF HAIR.

NOT only has every woman a right to her
own hair, but she claims a right to every or
any other woman's hair also, which she wears
under various pretences. By a cunning
contrivance to cheat nature, she pretends that
her hair is not acquiring a pearly or a pepper
and salt tint; she presents to public gaze a
front of glossy black or brown hair, which, in
all probability, once belonged to a peasant
girl in Brittany. By a natural affection she
wishes to preserve, in the form of a locket or
brooch, a little of the hair which once decked
the brow of a departed sister or mother;
and she has a trusting faith that the jeweller
has really applied that very identical hair in
that identical locket. By a desire to be