But fortunately for Europe the Turk had two inherent defects, which effectually prevented him from establishing himself permanently among civilised nations. He could not assimilate, he could not govern. Foresight, perseverance, organisation are denied to him, and they are among the primary and essential faculties of civilised government. The Turks swept down upon Europe as a mighty river flood pours itself out from its mountain gates into the plain below. With an impetuous, irresistible rush it spreads itself wide among the fields and the gardens, submerging one by one all the accustomed landmarks of hedge and tree and hillock, till all the horizon is but a vast waste of hurrying water. But the further the flood finds its way from the bed of the stream the quieter is its course, the less the damage which it causes. Eddies and back currents check the whirling tide, and even turn its headlong course at the extreme limit of the flood into gentle, fertilising rills which irrigate the meadows in obedience to the will of man. For days or even weeks the flood may last and the swirl of waters boil along, but in the end it wears itself out, the fountains of the hills above dry up, the stream falls quickly back into its accustomed channel, and one by one again the old familiar scenes reappear. Trees and hedges, fields and buildings, greet the eye, but how different indeed from what they were. Torn, ragged, desolate, choked with sand and debris, preserving a faint life amid the desolation, all seems so unlike the once smiling valley. So unlike and yet the same, the same fields, the same trees, the same vigorous life, only for the moment obscured by the sudden catastrophe. In the light and warmth of God’s sun, with a little aid from the forethought of man, the promise of rich harvest will soon be seen again. So it has been with the Turkish power in Europe. [Sidenote: =Want of assimilation.=] The Turks submerged the civilisation of south-eastern Europe, they did not uproot it. They injured it, they did not destroy it. They had nothing better to put in its place, and so it lived on, damaged and maimed, but alive. They imposed their own government over the conquered lands, but underneath, the old laws, the old religion, the old customs were still observed. In the extreme districts beyond the Danube they were content merely to exact tribute, and left their tributaries far more independence than the British government in India allows to the native states. To the larger part of the Turkish dominions in Europe conquest chiefly meant the imposition of a new governing class and of a new dominant religion, a governing class which was intermittently tyrannical, but a religion which was seldom persecuting. Consequently many Christians, who laboured under the taint of heresy or schism, found themselves actually better off under Mussulman than under Christian rule, and it frequently happened in the wars between Venice and the Sultans that the orthodox Christians