The Races of the Danube. 225 



mantic splendour and the scientific achievements 

 which immortalize the memory of Bagdad and 

 Cordova, we must be glad that they have failed. 



There has been neither high romance nor use- 

 ful performance of any sort to reconcile one to 

 the unrighteous dominion which a tribe of Mus- 

 sulman Tatars has exercised for four centuries 

 over some of the fairest provinces of Europe. 

 The history of that dominion has been a monoto- 

 nous display of brute force without any noble ul- 

 terior purpose which might redeem its vulgarity. 

 It is the history of a race politically unteachable 

 and intellectually incurious, which has contributed 

 absolutely nothing to the common weal of man- 

 kind, while by its position it has been able to 

 check the normal development of a more worthy 

 community. 



The provinces which Muhamad II. wrested 

 from the Empire had at no time been very thor- 

 oughly Romanized, and such civilization as they 

 had acquired in antiquity had fared but ill amid 

 the everlasting turmoil to which their frontier 

 position had subjected them. Invading swarms 

 from the northeast, when unable to penetrate far- 

 ther into Europe, halted here and wrangled for 

 supremacy, and the ceaseless but ineffectual war- 

 fare of Avars, Bulgarians, Croats, Serbs, and Mag- 



15 



