the overwhelming forces preparing to cross it. The Balkan affords numerous passes which may be traversed at all seasons except in the depth of winter, and no points of defence that may not easily be turned. But after crossing this range the Russians will be more than three hundred miles from their base, and all their supplies will have to be brought over the mountains. Their numbers will have been so diminished by sickness and by the large detachments necessary for masking the fortresses in their rear, that out of the four hundred thousand with which Colonel Baker supposes them to open the campaign, they cannot be expected to operate with more than one hundred thousand south of the Balkan. They will still have a difficult country before them, and from Burgas, on the Black Sea, where Colonel Baker proposes the establishment of an entrenched camp, to be constantly supplied and reinforced by water-transport from Constantinople, their flanks may be harassed and their communications threatened, making it impossible for them to march on Adrianople before ridding themselves of this danger. "It may be argued," says Colonel Baker, "that this plan of defence would be giving over a large portion of the empire to Russian occupation, but the answer is, that Turkey, being in command of the Black Sea, could strangle all Russian commerce in those waters until that power released her grip of the Ottoman throat." But whatever be the merit or the feasibility of this plan, it presupposes not only a design on the part of Russia to advance upon Constantinople, which is doubtful, but a degree of energy in the Turkish government and military commanders which it is almost certain does not exist. The Ottoman power is to all appearance perishing of inanition, and the mere hastening of its dissolution through external shocks is not to be deprecated. But it is puerile to imagine that this will be the only or chief result of the war now going on, if not arrested by intervention in one form or another. In the delicate and complicated relations of the European states the dismemberment of one empire and the aggrandizement of another are not such changes as can occur without affecting the whole system, and that harmony of action which it was found impossible to secure as a means of averting war is not likely to show itself when some decisive catastrophe shall have developed the possibilities to be hoped or apprehended, brought conflicting interests into play and suggested new combinations. Whether a different course, with joint action, on the part of the powers that now affect neutrality would have led to a more satisfactory result, is itself a mere matter of speculation; but out of England few persons will be disposed to agree with Colonel Baker in putting on Russia the whole responsibility both of the war and of the events which are pleaded as the justification of it. While conceding the corruption, apathy and general incompetence of the Turkish government, he contends that