OF THE TURKISH MONARCHY. 



9 



Rushwans are a tribe of wandering Kurds who inhabit the ancient 

 Cappadocia, and in parts of the year establish themselves in the 

 vicinity of Damascus and Aleppo. The Begdelees, a tribe of Turk- 

 mans, are described by Pococke as consisting of bodies of one thou- 

 sand persons, and raising contributions on different villages. These 

 wandering tribes increase in numbers, in consequence of the un- 

 quiet state of the country, and want of protection; peasants, 

 Christians as well as Mahometans, being driven from the cultivation 

 of their lands. 



In policy, as in architecture, the ruin is greatest when it begins 

 with the foundation. Under that very imperfect establishment of 

 order and law, which prevails in some part of the European, as well 

 as Asiatic provinces of the empire, the peasants are so depressed 

 and interrupted in the exercise of their occupations, that the 

 country is almost desolate. Five hundred villages are not found 

 in the district of Mesopotamia belonging to Mardin, which once 

 possessed sixteen hundred.* Cyprus before the conquest of the 

 Turks contained 14,000 villages ; in two insurrections great numbers 

 of the inhabitants were slain ; a dreadful mortality was occasioned 

 by the plague in 1624, and in less than fifty years from that time, 

 seven hundred villages only could be found, f Three hundred were 

 once comprehended in a part of the Pashalik of Aleppo, now con- 

 taining less than one-third of that number. X Many towns are men- 

 tioned in the history of the Caliphs, which no longer exist ; the 

 site of others may be traced on the route from Bagdad to Mosul. 

 In consequence of the decrease of agriculture and manufacturing in- 

 dustry, the sums formerly paid to the government by some of its 

 officers of revenue are diminished ; 50,0001. was the amount § of 



* Niebuhr, ii. 320. 



f Rycaut. State of the Greek church, p. 91. 

 % Russell, i. 339. 



§ Payments of money in the Turkish empire are made in purses; each purse containing 

 500 piastres. We find the payments made to the exchequer in the Greek empire were 

 called ' folles.' Clarke on Coins, 351. 



C 



