“No one travels in Turkey with his eyes open without seeing that her government is a curse on mankind. Fears, feuds and fightings make miserable the councils of her rulers. They are bloodsuckers fastened on the people throughout her dominions drawing from each and all the last drop of blood that can be extracted. Turkey skillfully and systematically represses what Christian nations make it their business to nurture in all mankind as manhood. In her cities there are magnificent palaces for her sultans and her favorites. But one looks in vain through her realm for statues of public benefactors. There are no halls where her citizens could gather to discuss policies of government or mutual obligations. Their few newspapers are emasculated by government censors. Not a book in any language can cross her borders without permission of public officers, most of whom are incapable of any intelligent judgment of its contents. Art is scorned. Education is bound. Freedom is a crime. The tax gatherer is omnipotent. Law is a farce. Turkey has prisons instead of public halls for the education of her people. Instruments of torture are the stimulus to their industries.”—_The Congregationalist_, April 8, 1897. In reviewing the story of the Turks in Arabia, we will begin with Hejaz, the most important province of Turkey in Arabia, continue with Yemen, the most populous, and end with the Mesopotamian vilayets which were her richest possessions. It is not generally understood how highly the Sultan values his Arabian provinces. It is on them and on them alone that he can base his claim to the title of caliph. The possession of the Holy Cities in the hands of the Sultan makes him the chief Mohammedan ruler; there his name is blessed daily in the great mosques; in the eyes of all the pilgrims from every part of the Moslem world Turkey is the guardian of the Kaaba. How many thousands of Mohammedans daily in the mosques of India and Java call for blessings on the head of Abd-ul-Hamid the Caliph who would never pray for Abd-ul-Hamid the Sultan. Mecca, and Hejaz generally, was governed by the early Caliphs until 980 A. D., when it passed under the rule of the first Sherif, Jaafar.[70] Under Suleiman the magnificent (1520-1566) the Ottoman Empire reached the zenith of its power and greatness; at that time Arabia too was reckoned a Turkish possession, and the entire peninsula was included on the maps of Turkish Asia. But, as we have seen, at the beginning of the present century the Wahabis and not the Turks were the real rulers of Arabia. The Arabs have never taken kindly to the rule of the Turk, but the province of Hejaz, once snatched from the hand of the Wahabis, has ever since been held by the Sublime Porte. Plots of rebellion have been thick and Sherifs have succeeded Sherifs but the fort that frowns over Mecca has always a strong Turkish garrison and the Pashas eat the fat of the land at the expense of the people.