It should be borne in mind that at the time these deliverances were made Abdul Hamid[129] was not what he seems since to have become. He was then--and the late Sir William White was my informant--an enthusiastic reformer, with the wise and accomplished Midhat for his inspirer. Had he remained so Turkey would have achieved much for Asia Minor. Even now, Abdul may perhaps be sometimes excused for mistrusting the cant of reform on the part of unreforming powers. Perhaps it is impossible long to be Sultan of Turkey without falling into the faults bred by habitual suspicion. Perhaps the varying conduct of Western Powers conduces to cynicism. But at this period the Armenians themselves were hopeful. With the Russian aspiration I sympathise. Russia is destined to expansion and greatness; she is a cold power desiring to be warm, pushed by a military power eager to be forward. But she is also that strange anomaly--a new empire with a mediæval standard. With the freezing officialism of Russia, giant in profession and pigmy in practice, I entertain no sympathy at all. Nor are the Cossack barbarities a whit less infamous than those of the Bashi-Bazouks. What is always to be dreaded is the periodical recurrence of race-hatreds and barbarism on the confines of both countries. Turkey comprises many more races than Russia; at such times, therefore, when bad governors incense brutalised men, unspeakable horrors eclipse imagination and baffle even sympathy. Bulgarian or Servian Slavs massacre Macedonian Greeks, Albanians butcher Macedonian Serbs, and Turks both massacre and torture Macedonian Slavs. The name of the particular province inflamed at a specific time by revolutionary committees is constantly used as if designating the natural uprising of a united people or of a single race; but this is not the case. The recent blood-orgy, however, connived at by more than one of the powers, would seem to disgrace the Ottoman beyond any other single group concerned. And yet the normal Turk--soldier or peasant--is not naturally brutal. It is only when insulted fanaticism dements him that he becomes so; and his fanaticism seldom fans the flames unprovoked by foreign designs. Of course nothing could be more desirable than a practical, a permanent understanding with Russia; nothing more desirable than a complete reform of European Turkey, which the joint powers could enforce if they would unite. Both are consummations devoutly to be wished. But bearing in mind the panther tread of Russian diplomacies, their recent developments in China and Japan, their constant designs on India and in Persia, their stealthy hankering after Constantinople, their earlier annexation even of American territory, as Disraeli pointed out--is the former practical? By all means let Russia expand, as she has a right to expand; but by all means let England ascertain the due spheres of her expansion, and retain her own empire, that gives justice and freedom to countless races once oppressed. Nor