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TURKEY IN ASIA. — IONIA AND THE GREEKS. 371
tectural effects of the mosques shooting up like marble
pillars, the dark plumes of the cypresses, the peopled hillsides
upon the Asian coast, and the stately, massive hospital,
scene of Florence Nightingale's noble, womanly work during
the Crimean war, thrilled my soul with intense delight. But
landing, and seeing the ruin, the filth, the dogs in the streets,
the mixture of races, the- crowded, dirty bazaars, our poetry
speedily chilled to rigid prose. Surely, —
'
'
Things are not what they seem.
Decline .
decay characterize the sluggish Turkish nation.
A deathly torpor has seized its vitals. It is truly the
" sick man " of the Orient. Russia wants the vast domain.
England and France say, " Hands off!" Germany and the
central nations of Europe, think it well to maintain the balance
of power as it is. May not the modernized phase of
Turkish theology have something to do with this stupor ?
The Moslems are fatalists. One article of their faith reads
thus :
*—
" It is God who fixes the will of man, and he is therefore not free in his
actions. There does not really exist any difference between good and
evU; for all is reduced to unity, and God is the real author of the acts of
mankind."
" The old Turk residing in the interior of the empire,"
said Mr. BroAvn, secretary of the American Legation, "is a
very different man from these modern Turks that linger
around the capital. The former wears his full trousers and
flowing robes, surmounts his head with the old-fashioned
turban, winds his shawl or girdle around his waist, carries
his pipes and pistols, prays to Allah five times a day, and,
despising trick, treachery, and duplicity, is sincere and truthful."
.
In point of honesty, truthfulness, and self-respect, nearly
all travelers unite in saying that the Mussulmans of the Orient
are superior to Christians, — the Christian masses of
* See J. P. Brown's Derv., p. 11.