EFFECTS OF THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT. 655 



absorbed into the civilisation with which they came in con- 

 tact, or have been exhausted by the efforts of conquest. But 

 the Turk could not be assimilated by civilisation, and his 

 physical vigour has survived the effects of victory. He is 

 patient, sober, and possessed of stubborn courage, and apt 

 to the obedience of a fatalist. He destroys, but he can subsist 

 for a long time in the ruin which he has made. It might 

 have seemed almost impossible to make havoc of Egypt, of 

 Asia Minor, of the plain of Mesopotamia, of the great garden 

 which lies between the Danube, the Euxine, and the yEgean. 

 The Turk has made some of these regions a howling wilder- 

 ness, and has wasted the rest. At the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century his hateful presence almost severed Europe 

 from the East. 



The only means by which this vast frontier occupation of 

 barbarism could be eluded was by a movement to the rear. 

 At the conclusion of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese 

 Vasco di Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, rightly named 

 by those who foresaw what a boon the sea passage would be, 

 as an escape from isolation, or from the progress of intolerant, 

 destructive, but disciplined savages* The fall of Constantin- 

 ople, beyond doubt, stimulated research into the unknown 

 oceans of the west and south. The voyage of Columbus was 

 undertaken with the view of discovering a new route to 

 Hindostan. That of the Portuguese prince and of the Portu- 

 guese captain had the same object, and effected the object. 



The commercial decline of Venice, Genoa, Florence, and of 

 the free German cities near the sources of the Danube and down 

 the Rhine, begins with the conquest of Egypt by the Turks. 

 The stream of commerce which passed through Egypt as far as 

 Antwerp and the other Flemish towns slender rivulet as it 

 was by the side of what we know now had been marvellously 

 fertilising to all who lived upon its banks. The Turk dried it 

 up, it became in truth flumen epotum Medo. The wealth of 

 many a burgher, the resources of many a prince, began to 

 dwindle, although no one anticipated what was passing and 



