210 THE RACES OF THE DANUBE. [xi. 



memory of Bagdad and Cordova, we must be glad 

 that they have failed. 



There has been neither high romance nor useful 

 performance of any sort to reconcile one to the 

 unrighteous dominion which a tribe of Mussulman 

 Tatars has exercised for four centuries over some 

 of the fairest provinces of Europe. The history 

 of that dominion has been a monotonous display of 

 brute force without any noble ulterior purpose which 

 might redeem its vulgarity. It is the history of a 

 race politically unteachable and intellectually in- 

 curious, which has contributed absolutely nothing 

 to the common weal of mankind, 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 thoroughly 

 Romanised, and such civilisation 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 north-east, when 

 unable to penetrate farther into Europe, halted here 

 and wrangled for supremacy, and the ceaseless but 

 ineffectual warfare of Avars, Bulgarians, Croats, 

 Serbs, and Magyars makes a dreary and unprofit- 

 able history. On a superficial view this whole region 



