TURKEY IN EUROPE. 603 



minarets five times a day to call the people to prayers, do not belong to 

 this body ; they may be dismissed from their office, or voluntarily 

 resign it, and return into the class of simple private persons. 



The toleration of the Turks has been much extolled, but they make 

 this toleration a source of revenue. The Christians are tolerated 

 where they are most profitable ; but the hardships imposed upon the 

 Greek church are such as must always dispose that people to favour 

 any revolution of government. Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alex- 

 andria, and Antioch, are patriarchates ; and their heads are indulg- 

 ed, according as they pay for their privilege, with a civil as well as 

 an ecclesiastical authority over their votaries. The same may be said . 

 of the Nestorian and Armenian patriarchs ; and every great city that 

 can pay for the privilege, has its archbishop or bishop. All male 

 Christians pay a.soa capitation tax from seventeen years old to sixty, 

 according to their stations. 



The insulting distinction of Christian and Mahommedan (says Mr. 

 Eton) is carried to so great a length, that even the minutiae of dress 

 are rendered subjects of restriction. A Christian must wear only 

 clothes and head-dresses ol dark colours, and such as Turks never 

 wear, with slippers of black leather, and must paint his house black, 

 or dark brown. The least violation of these frivolous and disgusting 

 regulations is punished with death. Nor is it at all uncommon for 

 a Christian to have his head struck off in the street, for indulging in 

 a little more foppery of dress than the sultan or vizier, whom he may- 

 meet incognito, approves. It a Christian strikes a Mahommedan, he 

 is most commonly put to death on the spot, or at least ruined by fines 

 and severely bastinadoed ; and if he strikes, though by accident, a 

 sherii, or descendant of Mahommed, who wears the green turban, of 

 whom there are thousands in some cities, it is death without remis- 

 sion. 



Literature. ...The Turks till of late professed a sovereign con- 

 tempt for our learning. Greece, which was the native country of 

 genius, arts, and sciences, produces at present, besides Turks, nu- 

 merous bands of Christian bishops, priests, and monks, who in gen- 

 eral are as ignorant as the Turks themselves, and are divided into 

 various absurd sects of what they call Christianity. The education 

 of the Turks seldom extends further than reading the Turkish lan- 

 guage and the Koran, and writing a common letter. Their juris- 

 prudence and theology consist only of commentaries on the Koran ; 

 their astronomy is astrology, and their chemistry alchemy ; of the 

 history and geography of other countries they are perfectly ignorant. 

 Some of them understand astronomy, so far as to calculate the time of 

 an eclipse ; but the number of these being very small, they are look" 

 ed upon as extraordinary persons. 



Language. ...The Turkish language is derived from the Zagatai, 

 a dialect of the Tartarian. It is the easiest of any we are acquainted 

 with, because it is the most regular. It has only one conjugation of 

 verbs, one declension of nouns, and no gender. There is no excep- 

 tion nor any irregular verb or noun in the language. It is not very 

 copious, yet it is manly, energetic, and sonorous. To supply the 

 want of words, their writers frequently mix with it the Arabic and 

 Persian. The Lord's Prayer in Turkish is as follows : 



JBahamuz hanghe guiglesson, chudusa olssum ssenungh adum ; gelson 

 ssenung memlechetnn ; olssum ssenungh istegung ni esse gugthaule 

 gyrde ; echame gumozi hergunon vere bize begun.) zem bassa bize bo 



