246 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



when the Turk arrived, in the next century, there 

 was no solid power in the peninsula which could 

 check his baleful progress. 



To recount the vicissitudes of Serbia as princi- 

 pal battle-ground between Christian Austrian and 

 infidel Turk would be a task as tedious as profit- 

 less. We have seen how the Slavs of the Byzan- 

 tine Empire failed to become a nation, and this is 

 the only point which need concern us. There is 

 neither interest nor instruction in the record of 

 incessant fighting without definite issue ; and to 

 the philosophic historian the career of Slavonic 

 Turkey becomes almost a blank until the begin- 

 ning of the present century, when the uprising 

 of the Serbs against the Janissaries, under the 

 leadership of the eccentric and infamous Kara 

 ' George, reopened the Eastern Question, and per- 

 haps heralded the rise of a new national life 

 among the southern Slavs. 



This sketch of the Danubian peoples has of 

 course been but the merest outline. I have not 

 attempted, and should indeed feel quite incompe- 

 tent, to do more than define, by a few salient 

 facts, the ethnological relations of these peoples 

 and their position in the general history of Eu- 

 rope. Even so rudimentary an outline as this, 

 however, would be incomplete without some allu- 



