indite and poets sing, is a naked, barren,
forbidding region, over far the greater part of the
surface of which there is nothing to glean—
not even a supper for the insect. But this is
made up by the extreme richness and fertility
of certain valleys, and sheltered well-
watered and well-situated spots. Upon these
happy valleys the traveller stumbles in
amazement and delight. If in spring time,
he sees the fields alive with labour, the
fertilising water carefully distributed, the
silk or the fruit harvest proceeding with
exultant promise; and he extols the lot
of the Oriental peasant. Yet not a wretch
crawls the earth more miserable than he.
No portion of that rich valley, we may be
sure, belongs to him. Even by his very nature,
the farmer, as he might be called, is a yearly,
or rather a season, tenant. The rich Effendi,
who owns his land, will call the peasant to
him in early spring, advance him the money
to till, prepare, and to sow the land — the
money to be repaid out of the crop at harvest
time. As to rent, it is not talked of. It is
lost in the greater consideration of the money
advanced, and the interest of thirty, forty,
or fifty per cent, to be paid upon and with
the money. By the end of harvest the landlord
has swept the whole of the crop into his
storehouse. The peasant has lived, but no
more; and, instead of paying his debt, he
has merely liquidated a portion of it with the
interest, leaving himself the bond-servant of
the Effendi, who thus swallows up the labourer
with the crop. This is the Turkish rule. But
are Christians always better? We could, by
giving the history of almost any village in
Hindostan, show that nearly as bad things
take place under a rule, like our own, meant
to be humane, and which, no doubt, will one
day be so; but which requires wisdom, and
the turning of a powerful and leisurely mind
to the task, to be raised from the common
level of Oriental administrations.

There is an unfortunate proverb in the
East — unfortunate from its truth, and from
its being the most atrocious libel upon
humanity; — I say libel, for libels are not
necessarily deprived of truth, however
outrageous or insulting. The libel I speak of is,
that the more civilised or advanced the
government and the social system, the worse is the
condition of the peasant. Whether there is
room or probability for such an assertion in
Europe, we shall not yet consider; but in the
East there is no controverting the proposition.
The most miserable populations in the
East are those whom Mohamed Ali governed,
decimated, and oppressed, amidst the plaudits
of Europeans and the worship of Franks. A
far loftier, nobler, and freer man is the Arab
of any of the regencies—as Algiers, Tunis
and Tripoli were called — who, living far from
the accursed fertility of the Nile, scratched
his mountain or his valley in common with
his tribe, obeyed his sheik as an equal, paid
tribute in common with his tribe in a lump,
slung his own carabine upon his shoulder,
and mounted his own horse. These are the
men whom the French have been striving to
conquer for a quarter of a century, and who,
with time and God's blessing, will see an end
of the French and their jabber about carrying
civilisation into Africa.

It is no agreeable admission to make, that
the only peasantry in the East who are happy,
or who have any security that they shall
enjoy a due share of the produce of the soil,
are those who carry arms. Sling a musket
on the back of the best-tempered peasant,
and put a brace of pistols in his girdle, and
he will infallibly look upon these instruments
as nobler and more efficient modes of earning
his livelihood than scratching the earth with
either sword or plough. Compare the different
populations of Turkey: the Turk wears
arms, and he consequently will not dig. The
rayah or Greek in Turkey is not permitted
to wear arms; he has nothing left to wield
but the sickle and hoe.

Do you know the secret of Swiss heroism,
Swiss democracy, Swiss repudiation of knights
and barons, Swiss resistance to Austria and
to Burgundy, and to their legions of mailed
chevaliers? Do you know the origin of
William Tell, and of the three Swiss farmers
who took the oath to free their country — that
is, their valley — of lords and masters, and of
all who pretended to be lords and masters?

It is a prosaic explanation of a world of
heroism, but still it is the plain and naked
truth. The cultivators of the Swiss valleys
could afford to pay no rent. They drove the
plough in vain; they therefore plied the
sword. In their inability to pay rent lies the
whole secret of their republicanism and of
their independence. The soil, and clime, and
situation were such as could afford bare
subsistence to him who could wield the scythe
—the sickle was rarely wanting—who tended
the cattle, or who was contented with goats
for his only flock. Lords and landed
proprietors, therefore, the entire class which
lives by rent, disappeared from, or never
sprung up in, the high Swiss valleys. In the
low ground, at the mouth or entrance of
them, you may now and then find the ruins of
a schloss or castle, as if an attempt were made
to blockade the refractory and republican
inhabitants. But up the valleys, the only
fortifications to be seen are those of nature.

This is the plain history of Uri, Schwytz,
and Unterwalden. It was the peasantry of
the higher or forest cantons who first set the
example of democracy; and for the plain
reason, that they could not afford to pay, or
fee, out of the produce of the soil, any landlord
or aristocratic class. And the cantons of
the plains imitated them so far as to establish
republics too; but as their cantons had landed
proprietors, and could afford to pay them
rent, they established republics in which
there was a patrician class; and thus, by
retaining a strong hold of the places of