practically independent. Bosnia and Herzegovina, like Macedonia, were until a recent date subject to Turkey.

The fact that these countries were inhabited by a kindred race with kindred languages could not fail at an early period to draw the attention of that rising Slavic State to the east of Europe, so near to them geographically as well as ethnologically. Russian interference in the Balkans dates back to the seventeenth century. Moldavia and Wallachia, oppressed by the Turks, naturally turned to Russia for protection, a boon for which Russia claimed some compensation in the form of an allegiance. An understanding was not reached until 1711, when an alliance was entered into, but in the end the Ottoman arms prevailed. However, there had been an entering wedge. Constantinople loomed up as a prize to be coveted, the dream of Pan-Slavism began, and the Eastern Question had assumed definite shape. Russian agents were hereafter to be active in the field. The peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji in 1774 gave Russia an intercessory power with Turkey in the affairs of Roumania, and made her a powerful factor in Wallachia and Moldavia, while her active interest in the other Danubian principalities went on apace.

The Treaty of Paris, after the Crimean war, came to modify the existing state of affairs and pave the way for future developments. The two principalities of Roumania became autonomous as far as their internal administration was concerned, although they remained subject to the suzerainty of the Porte. The Russian protectorate ceased, and they were placed under that of the contracting powers generally. Servia, too, remained subject to Constantinople, but under the united guarantee of the powers.

Affairs continued more or less in this condition, until the war of the Balkan Peninsula in 1877. The spark was struck by Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, in the summer of 1875, witnessed a rising of the Slavonian population against the Turks. A year later, Servia and Montenegro came to their aid and declared war against Turkey. The Servian troops were under command of the Russian general Tchernaief, who had volunteered his services. When Servia was about to get the worst of it, Russia intervened, demanding from the Turks a cessation of further hostilities against her. The result was an armistice of two months.

In the meantime, Bulgaria had been in the throes of a frightful agitation. The insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina had sent its echoes over that land, and the inhabitants, anticipating a general massacre of Christians, began to organize a revolt. It was not a success, and the terrible Bulgarian massacres followed. About fifteen thousand people were put to death in the district of Philippopolis alone, and fifty-eight villages and five monasteries were destroyed. It was this massacre that had decided the declaration of war by Servia. In 1877 Russia entered into the conflict most successfully. After the fall of Plevna her armies crossed the Balkans, captured Adrianople and the dream of Catherine II. was about to become a reality. But at the moment of victory her further advance was blocked by the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878. Now followed the Congress of Berlin, which reconstructed the Danubian principalities and added another phase to the Eastern Question.

In the recent complications Roumania had sided with Russia, and on May 14, 1877, she proclaimed herself independent. Russia was disappointed that the Balkan States, for whose sake she, ostensibly at least, had gone to war, did not, with the exception of Montenegro, proclaim themselves her vassals.

Roumania had thus taken the law into her own hands, although the powers did not recognize her independence until 1880. In 1881 both chambers voted to elevate the country to the rank of a kingdom, and the powers soon granted them recognition. Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who had ruled as Prince since 1866, was crowned King at Bucharest. The husband of Carmen Sylva, who had been Princess Elizabeth of Wied, was very popular with his adopted country, and he managed to conciliate his powerful neighbors, Austria and Russia, relations with which had been strained for some time.

At the Congress of Berlin Bulgaria was divided into three portions -Bulgaria proper, which was constituted an autonomous principality, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, with a Christian government and a national militia; the province of Eastern Roumelia, under the direct authority of the Sultan, and Macedonia, with part of the Vilayet of Adrianople, which remained under Turkish administration.

Prince Alexander of Battenberg was elected first Prince of Bulgaria in 1879. During his reign, which lasted about six years, Eastern Roumelia was annexed and a successful war was waged against Servia. After his abdication, Bulgaria continued its autonomous existence, and chose another Prince in the person of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who ascended the throne as Ferdinand I.

The independence of Servia was also recognized by the powers, and in 1882 Prince Milan assumed, with their assent, the title of King.

The provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the exception of the Sandjak of Novibazar, were to be occupied and administered by Austria-Hungary, and Montenegro was declared independent. The Danubian principalities were thus placed upon an entirely new footing.

Servia now became the principal theatre of the rivalry between Austria and Russia. The King inclined to Austria, while Queen Natalie and the people sided with Russia. The unpopularity of the King increased by his divorce from the Queen, and, finally, tired of his position, he abdicated in favor of his son Alexander, in 1889.

Since the beginning of the century two families had competed for supremacy in Servia. The one was descended from Kara George, the terrible old hero who toward the end of the eighteenth century had for a time delivered his country from the Turks. George Petrovich, surnamed Kara (the Black),1 is perhaps the greatest figure in Servian history. He was foully murdered by his rival, Milosh Obrenovich, who, in 1815, had once more proclaimed the independence of Servia. Two years later Milosh became hereditary Prince, and he remained in this position until 1839, when a revolution put his son Michael on the throne. In 1842 Michael was himself driven out and Alexander, the son of old Kara George, was proclaimed Prince. He held the throne until 1858, when he was deposed and the family of the Obrenovich once more ascended it in the person of old Milosh, who in 1860, when he died, was again succeeded by his son Michael. Eight years later Michael was murdered in the garden of his Belgrade palace and his cousin, Milan, followed him on the throne, the same under whom Servia became a kingdom. It seems scarcely credible that this tragic history of rivalry between two families, with its concomitant revolution and bloodshed, should belong to the nineteenth century and not to some obscure period of the barbarous past; and yet the tragedy was not at an end.

Alexander, who had succeeded his father Milan, married in 1900 Madame Draga Maschin, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie. This marriage was most unpopular, and the influence of his wife over the King rendered it still more so. All this resulted in a military conspiracy, and on June 11, 1903, Alexander and Draga were brutally murdered in the palace of Belgrade. This assassination once more placed the Karageorgevich family on the throne in the person of King Peter, who, in course of time, was recognized by the powers.

We may now turn our attention to Turkey, for while the principalities and kingdoms on the north were passing through the various phases of revolution, war and diplomacy, undercurrents were at work which were destined to revolutionize the Ottoman empire, and which may settle the Eastern Question unless a reaction set in.

It would appear that from the earliest times despotism was the favorite form of government in the Orient, a consequence perhaps in the unchangeable East of the patriarchal system. Yet the Koran does not seem to have especially favored it. Writing of Islam, Vambery says that "there is no other religion so democratic in character, nor has the sovereign power ever been circumscribed to the same extent as by the maxims of the teaching of Mohammed." Nor can it be said that the Koran is opposed to the pursuit of knowledge. In the Middle Ages the Saracen race flourished in the East and in Spain by its intellectual attainments, and before the great mediæval universities had arisen, Baghdad and Cordova were intellectual centres.

It may probably be affirmed with greater truth, that the want of progress in the Ottoman empire is to be attributed to the character of the Ottoman Turks, rather than to the teachings of the religion they profess. Still, there have not been wanting occasional efforts at reform among them, and there have been times of great pros. perity. Under Suleiman the First education was promoted, and the fine arts as well as literature flourished. With the death of this Prince, the decline of the Ottoman empire began.

Late in the seventeenth century the Köprili, Grand Viziers under several Sultans, introduced a series of reforms which were not destined to last. However, towards the close of the century, contact with European civilization began to tell on the character of the Ottoman people, who gradually became more humane, while the printing press contributed its share toward the cultivation of more civilized principles. But the progress made was slow, and when, toward the end of the eighteenth century, Selim III. endeavored to inaugurate an era of reform and to learn what he could from the French monarchy, then tottering to its ruin, he forfeited his throne and his life. His nephew and successor, Mahmud II., who ascended the throne in 1808, was more successful. He annihilated at one blow the power of the janizaries and established the nizami djedid, or regular army. His greatest obstacle lay in the people, whose contempt for the giaours was so great that they could not be induced to accept Western civilization as a model, while they regarded the Koran as the source of all knowledge. One cannot help admiring Mahmud, who, convinced that European civilization was superior to the Asiatic of his own dominions, pursued a steady course, with little or no encouragement and in spite of obstacles innumerable. Yet, for various reasons, his life work seemed a failure, although the effendi class was more and more brought under the influence of Western civilization, owing no doubt to the impulse given by Selim III. and followed by Mahmud II. The latter's successor, AbdulMejid, preferred the seclusion and pleasures of the palace of Dolma Baghtché to the cares of state, which he left to others. Fortunately there were then some remarkable statesmen in Turkey, such as Reshid Pasha, and others who owed their ability to the influence of the Western civilization which had been invading Constantinople. The reforms they succeeded in introducing were, however, more apparent than real, while the true Turkey beneath the surface remained intensely Oriental. One of the greatest evils that befell the country at this period was the facility with which it obtained large European loans, and the facility with which the money was squandered on luxuries, the jewels for the ladies of the harem alone having cost millions. This reckless expenditure of money, without any real advantage to the country, sank Turkey into an enormous debt, and naturally tended to place it at the mercy of its creditors. Abdul-Asiz, brother and successor of Abdul-Mejid, instead of remedying the evil, continued the expenditure on his useless buildings.

It was in the reign of Abdul-Mejid that society in Constantinople, by this time fully under European influence, began to dream of liberty and a constitution, while in foreign countries a revolutionary propaganda began. Under the present Sultan, Abdul-Hamid, government assumed the most personal, autocratic and absolutist form, while the country at large tottered to its ruin, the navy went to pieces and the army suffered. Corruption and peculation spread over the empire, and Turkey became a byword for the nations of the earth.

On the other hand, education has greatly increased, the beautiful Turkish language has improved and the literature of other European countries has greatly enriched it. In spite of the opposition of the government, the country has become more and more imbued with the civilization of the West. Vambery writes: "Nothing would be simpler than to force the Sultan to introduce reforms by a joint fiat from the powers." What the powers have failed to accomplish the party of Young Turkey has finally effected.

The fact, however, that Abdul-Hamid was able to carry the ship of state with comparative safety through the long period of his reign, argues well for his personal ability, which, I think, even his worst enemies will concede. Although Turkey has groaned under his despotism, yet it owes him more than one benefit, if nothing else, then surely the decrease of the national debt. He found the country indebted to the extent of over £200,000,000, with an interest of nearly £17,000,000, and further, as a result of the Russian conflict, a war indemnity of £30,000,000 was laid upon Turkey. The national debt has been reduced to £80,000,000 and the war indemnity to