

IBRAHIM PACHA'S SYRIAN CAMPAIGN. 



THE eyes of all Europe have been lately directed with feverish 

 anxiety towards the East. With the early history of the present 

 ruler of Egypt, and with his projects of military reform, our readers 

 are doubtless well acquainted. We shall, therefore, only rapidly 

 glance at the present condition of Syria, as on the causes that led to 

 the astonishing success of a campaign that at one time threatened to 

 reconstruct, upon a new basis, the political geography of the East. 



In contemplating the state of degradation and impotency into which 

 have fallen Syria, and that vast Peninsula which extends westward of 

 the Euphrates, after having occupied so proud a place in the page of 

 history, from the earliest traditionary periods down to the time when 

 the Turkish Sultans abandoned Broussa for Adrianople, we naturally 

 inquire what has become of the intellectual inheritance which the 

 ancient inhabitants of these countries left behind them. Where are 

 the successors of the skilful workmen of Damascus, of Mossul, and 

 of Angora ; the navigators of Phoenicia, the artists of Ionia, and the 

 wise men of Chaldea. Several distinct characters of civilization have 

 successively nourished in this part of Asia. To the primitive ages, 

 to the reign of the Pelasgi, correspond to subterraneous excavations 

 of Macri, and the Phrygian monuments of Sei'di Gazi ; to the Baby- 

 lonian power, the ruins of Bagdad, and the artificial mountains of 

 Van, to the Helenic period, the baths, the amphitheatres, and the 

 ruins of which strew the coast of the Archipelago j to the Roman 

 empire the military roads which traverse in every direction the whole 

 Peninsula ; to the Greeks of the middle ages, the church of Iznik. 

 And now that Mussulman civilization, which at its brightest periods 

 produced the beautiful mosque of the Sultan Bayazid, at Amasia, is 

 at its las( g as P > f r we can with safety affirm, that not a single grand 

 thought, either social, religious, or political, any longer connects 

 together the four millions of inhabitants which the Porte numbers in 

 this part of her dominions. All unity has disappeared, and the 

 Osmoulis who compose the predominating race, no longer obey but 

 some old habits and recollections. The downfall of the Janizarry 

 system destroyed their last connecting link. Forgetting that their 

 destiny was conquest that they were only encamped in the land 

 that they had received a military organization for a permanent state 

 of warfare that their head-quarters was Constantinople, they have 

 become attached to the soil, and shut themselves up in their harems, 

 have established a feudal system are divided among themselves by 

 hereditary enmities, and their contempt for foreigners is no longer 

 founded on their courage and power. Near the coasts of the Archi- 

 pelago the European intercourse has in some degree civilized the 

 manners of the Turks, but as the traveller advances into the interior, 

 civilization sensibly decreases. On approaching the central plateau 

 of Asia Minor, he perceives that cultivation seldom extends beyond 

 the distance of half a league round a village ; the inhabitants are 



