[32] Univ. Hist. Modern, vol. iii. p. 346.
This empire, then, of the Turks was of a Tartar
character; yet it was the first step of their
passing from barbarism to that degree of civilization[{25}]
which is their historical badge. And it was their
first step in civilization, not so much by what
it did in its day, as (unless it be a paradox to
say so) by its coming to an end. Indeed it so
happens, that those Turkish tribes which have[{30}]
changed their original character and have a place
in the history of the world, have obtained their
status and their qualifications for it, by a process
very different from that which took place in the
nations most familiar to us. What this process[{5}]
has been I will say presently; first, however, let
us observe that, fortunately for our purpose, we
have still specimens existing of those other
Turkish tribes, which were never submitted to
this process of education and change, and, in[{10}]
looking at them as they now exist, we see at this
very day the Turkish nationality in something
very like its original form, and are able to decide
for ourselves on its close approximation to the
Tartar. You may recollect I pointed out to[{15}]
you, Gentlemen, in the opening of these lectures,
the course which the pastoral tribes, or nomads
as they are often called, must necessarily take
in their emigrations. They were forced along
in one direction till they emerged from their[{20}]
mountain valleys, and descended their high
plateau at the end of Tartary, and then they had
the opportunity of turning south. If they did
not avail themselves of this opening, but went on
still westward, their next southern pass would[{25}]
be the defiles of the Caucasus and Circassia, to
the west of the Caspian. If they did not use this,
they would skirt the top of the Black Sea, and
so reach Europe. Thus in the emigration of the
Huns from China, you may recollect a tribe of[{30}]
them turned to the South as soon as they could,
and settled themselves between the high Tartar
land and the sea of Aral, while the main body
went on to the furthest West by the north of the
Black Sea. Now with this last passage into
Europe we are not here concerned, for the Turks[{5}]
have never introduced themselves to Europe by
means of it;[33] but with those two southward
passages which are Asiatic, viz., that to the east
of the Aral, and that to the west of the Caspian.
The Turkish tribes have all descended upon the[{10}]
civilized world by one or other of these two roads;
and I observe, that those which have descended
along the east of the Aral have changed their
social habits and gained political power, while
those which descended to the west of the Caspian[{15}]
remain pretty much what they ever were. The
former of these go among us by the general
name of Turks; the latter are the Turcomans
or Turkmans.... At the very date at which
Heraclius called the Turcomans into Georgia, at[{20}]
the very date when their Eastern brethren
crossed the northern border of Sogdiana, an event
of most momentous import had occurred in the
South. A new religion had arisen in Arabia.
The impostor Mahomet, announcing himself the[{25}]
Prophet of God, was writing the pages of that
book, and molding the faith of that people, which
was to subdue half the known world. The Turks
passed the Jaxartes southward in A.D. 626; just
four years before Mahomet had assumed the royal
dignity, and just six years after, on his death,
his followers began the conquest of the Persian
Empire. In the course of 20 years they effected
it; Sogdiana was at its very extremity, or its[{5}]
borderland; there the last king of Persia took
refuge from the south, while the Turks were
pouring into it from the north. There was little to
choose for the unfortunate prince between the
Turk and the Saracen; the Turks were his[{10}]
hereditary foe; they had been the giants and
monsters of the popular poetry; but he threw
himself into their arms. They engaged in his
service, betrayed him, murdered him, and
measured themselves with the Saracens in his stead.[{15}]
Thus the military strength of the north and south
of Asia, the Saracenic and the Turkish, came into
memorable conflict in the regions of which I have
said so much. The struggle was a fierce one, and
lasted many years; the Turks striving to force[{20}]
their way down to the ocean, the Saracens to
drive them back into their Scythian deserts.
They first fought this issue in Bactriana or
Khorasan; the Turks got the worst of the fight,
and then it was thrown back upon Sogdiana[{25}]
itself, and there it ended again in favor of the
Saracens. At the end of 90 years from the time
of the first Turkish descent on this fair region,
they relinquished it to their Mahometan
opponents. The conquerors found it rich, populous,[{30}]
and powerful; its cities, Carisme, Bokhara, and
Samarcand, were surrounded beyond their
fortifications by a suburb of fields and gardens, which
was in turn protected by exterior works; its plains
were well cultivated, and its commerce extended
from China to Europe. Its riches were[{5}]
proportionally great; the Saracens were able to extort
a tribute of two million gold pieces from the
inhabitants; we read, moreover, of the crown
jewels of one of the Turkish princesses; and of
the buskin of another, which she dropt in her[{10}]
flight from Bokhara, as being worth two
thousand pieces of gold.[34] Such had been the prosperity
of the barbarian invaders, such was its end; but
not their end, for adversity did them service, as
well as prosperity, as we shall see.[{15}]
[33] I am here assuming that the Magyars are not of the Turkish stock; vid. Gibbon and Pritchard.
[34] Gibbon.
It is usual for historians to say, that the
triumph of the South threw the Turks back again
upon their northern solitudes; and this might
easily be the case with some of the many hordes,
which were ever passing the boundary and[{20}]
flocking down; but it is no just account of the
historical fact, viewed as a whole. Not often indeed
do the Oriental nations present us with an
example of versatility of character; the Turks, for
instance, of this day are substantially what they[{25}]
were four centuries ago. We cannot conceive,
were Turkey overrun by the Russians at the
present moment, that the fanatical tribes, which
are pouring into Constantinople from Asia Minor,
would submit to the foreign yoke, take service[{30}]
under their conquerors, become soldiers,
custom-officers, police, men of business, attaches,
statesmen, working their way up from the ranks and
from the masses into influence and power; but,
whether from skill in the Saracens, or from [{5}]
far-reaching sagacity in the Turks (and it is difficult
to assign it to either cause), so it was, that a
process of this nature followed close upon the
Mahometan conquest of Sogdiana. It is to be
traced in detail to a variety of accidents. Many[{10}]
of the Turks probably were made slaves, and the
service to which they were subjected was no
matter of choice. Numbers had got attached to
the soil; and inheriting the blood of Persians,
White Huns, or aboriginal inhabitants for three[{15}]
generations, had simply unlearned the wildness
of the Tartar shepherd. Others fell victims to
the religion of their conquerors, which ultimately,
as we know, exercised a most remarkable
influence upon them. Not all at once, but as[{20}]
tribe descended after tribe, and generation
followed generation, they succumbed to the creed
of Mahomet; and they embraced it with the
ardor and enthusiasm which Franks and Saxons
so gloriously and meritoriously manifested in their[{25}]
conversion to Christianity.
Here again was a very powerful instrument
in modification of their national character. Let
me illustrate it in one particular. If there is one
peculiarity above another, proper to the savage[{30}]
and to the Tartar, it is that of excitability and
impetuosity on ordinary occasions; the Turks,
on the other hand, are nationally remarkable for
gravity and almost apathy of demeanor. Now
there are evidently elements in the Mahometan
creed, which would tend to change them from[{5}]
the one temperament to the other. Its
sternness, its coldness, its doctrine of fatalism; even
the truths which it borrowed from Revelation,
when separated from the truths it rejected, its
monotheism untempered by mediation, its severe[{10}]
view of the Divine attributes, of the law, and of a
sure retribution to come, wrought both a gloom
and also an improvement in the barbarian, not
very unlike the effect which some forms of
Protestantism produce among ourselves. But[{15}]
whatever was the mode of operation, certainly
it is to their religion that this peculiarity of the
Turks is ascribed by competent judges.
Lieutenant Wood in his journal gives us a lively
account of a peculiarity of theirs, which he[{20}]
unhesitatingly attributes to Islamism. "Nowhere,"
he says, "is the difference between European and
Mahometan society more strongly marked than
in the lower walks of life.... A Kasid, or
messenger, for example, will come into a public[{25}]
department, deliver his letters in full durbar, and
demean himself throughout the interview with
so much composure and self-possession, that an
European can hardly believe that his grade in
society is so low. After he has delivered his[{30}]
letters, he takes his seat among the crowd, and
answers, calmly and without hesitation, all the
questions which may be addressed to him, or
communicates the verbal instructions with which
he has been intrusted by his employer, and
which are often of more importance than the[{5}]
letters themselves. Indeed, all the inferior classes
possess an innate self-respect, and a natural
gravity of deportment, which differs as far from
the suppleness of a Hindustani as from the
awkward rusticity of an English clown." ... "Even[{10}]
children," he continues, "in Mahometan countries
have an unusual degree of gravity in their
deportment. The boy, who can but lisp his 'Peace be
with you,' has imbibed this portion of the national
character. In passing through a village, these[{15}]
little men will place their hands upon their
breasts, and give the usual greeting. Frequently
have I seen the children of chiefs approach their
father's durbar, and stopping short at the
threshold of the door, utter the shout of 'Salam[{20}]
Ali-Kum,' so as to draw all eyes upon them; but
nothing daunted, they marched boldly into the
room, and sliding down upon their knees, folded
their arms and took their seat upon the musnad
with all the gravity of grown-up persons." [{25}]
As Islamism has changed the demeanor of the
Turks, so doubtless it has in other ways materially
innovated on their Tartar nature. It has given
an aim to their military efforts, a political
principle, and a social bond. It has laid them under[{30}]
a sense of responsibility, has molded them into
consistency, and taught them a course of policy
and perseverance in it. But to treat this part
of the subject adequately to its importance would
require, Gentlemen, a research and a fullness of
discussion unsuitable to the historical sketch[{5}]
which I have undertaken. I have said enough
for my purpose upon this topic; and indeed
on the general question of the modification of
national character to which the Turks were at
this period subjected.[{10}]
The Turk and the Saracen
Mere occupation of a rich country is not
enough for civilization, as I have granted already.
The Turks came into the pleasant plains and
valleys of Sogdiana; the Turcomans into the
well-wooded mountains and sunny slopes of Asia[{15}]
Minor. The Turcomans were brought out of
their dreary deserts, yet they retained their old
habits, and they remain barbarians to this day.
But why? it must be borne in mind, they neither
subjugated the inhabitants of their new country[{20}]
on the one hand, nor were subjugated by them
on the other. They never had direct or intimate
relations with it; they were brought into it by
the Roman Government at Constantinople as its
auxiliaries, but they never naturalized themselves[{25}]
there. They were like gypsies in England, except
that they were mounted freebooters instead of
pilferers and fortune tellers. It was far otherwise
with their brethren in Sogdiana; they were
there first as conquerors, then as conquered.
First they held it in possession as their prize for
90 or 100 years; they came into the usufruct and
enjoyment of it. Next, their political ascendancy[{5}]
over it involved, as in the case of the White Huns,
some sort of moral surrender of themselves to it.
What was the first consequence of this? that,
like the White Huns, they intermarried with the
races they found there. We know the custom[{10}]
of the Tartars and Turks; under such
circumstances they would avail themselves of their
national practice of polygamy to its full extent
of license. In the course of twenty years a new
generation would arise of a mixed race; and[{15}]
these in turn would marry into the native
population, and at the end of ninety or a hundred
years we should find the great-grandsons or the
great-great-grandsons of the wild marauders who
first crossed the Jaxartes, so different from their[{20}]
ancestors in features both of mind and body,
that they hardly would be recognized as deserving
the Tartar name. At the end of that period their
power came to an end, the Saracens became
masters of them and of their country, but the[{25}]
process of emigration southward from the
Scythian desert, which had never intermitted during
the years of their domination, continued still,
though that domination was no more.
Here it is necessary to have a clear idea of the[{30}]
nature of that association of the Turkish tribes
from the Volga to the Eastern Sea, to which I
have given the name of Empire: it was not so
much of a political as of a national character;
it was the power, not of a system, but of a race.
They were not one well-organized state, but a[{5}]
number of independent tribes, acting generally
together, acknowledging one leader or not,
according to circumstances, combining and
coöperating from the identity of object which acted
on them, and often jealous of each other and[{10}]
quarreling with each other on account of that
very identity. Each tribe made its way down to
the south as it could; one blocked up the way of
the other for a time; there were stoppages and
collisions, but there was a continual movement[{15}]
and progress. Down they came one after another,
like wolves after their prey; and as the tribes
which came first became partially civilized, and
as a mixed generation arose, these would naturally
be desirous of keeping back their less polished[{20}]
uncles or cousins, if they could; and would do so
successfully for a while: but cupidity is stronger
than conservatism; and so, in spite of delay and
difficulty, down they would keep coming, and
down they did come, even after and in spite of[{25}]
the overthrow of their Empire; crowding down
as to a new world, to get what they could, as
adventurers, ready to turn to the right or the
left, prepared to struggle on anyhow, willing to
be forced forward into countries farther still,[{30}]
careless what might turn up, so that they did but
get down. And this was the process which went
on (whatever were their fortunes when they
actually got down, prosperous or adverse) for
400, nay, I will say for 700 years. The
storehouse of the north was never exhausted; it[{5}]
sustained the never ending run upon its resources.