Were I desired to point out the most glaring defect of the Turkish character, I should unhesitatingly specify the want of sincerity and good faith. I am obliged to concede that the Turk is habitually false—that he sacrifices his truth to fine phrases, and to set terms—that he is profuse of promises, and magnificent in words. But it is nevertheless certain that he himself looks upon all these splendid pledges as mere compliment; and scarcely appears to reflect that a Frank may be induced to lend to them a more weighty meaning. I had not been long in the country ere I learnt to estimate all this hyperbole at its just value; and once having done so, I found reason to feel grateful for many unexpected and unsought courtesies. Profit by the first kindly impulses of a Turk, and you will be his debtor; but trust nothing to his memory, for he will fail you. Let not individual bad faith, however, be too harshly blamed in a people who have suffered so severely as the Turks from the same vice, in their best and dearest interests; on the part, not only of individuals, but of nations—of those civilized and enlightened nations, to which they looked alike for precept and example; and which they have found wanting. Naturally haughty and self-centered, the Osmanli placed his honour and his liberty in the hands of his European allies. They were pledged to preserve both—and it was not until the Banner of the Crescent was trailing in the dust; and a half-barbarous power bearding the Sultan in his very halls of state, that the unwelcome truth burst upon him that his trust had been misplaced. The discovery was made too late—made when he had no alternative—the supineness of the Turk was no match for the subtlety of the Russian; it was a combat unequal in all its bearings; and dangerous to the Osmanli in all its relations. The natural result followed: Turkey was bowed beneath a force too mighty for her to resist; the partial civilization of the North produced its effect on the comparative barbarism of the East; and the Turk, dazzled and deluded, bewildered by the speciousness of a policy that he could not fathom, and consequently did not suspect; abandoned by the European powers on whose assistance he had relied; and unable singly either to resist the covert threats, or to reject the proffered friendship of this voluntary ally, fell into the snare which had been laid for him, and betrayed his want of internal strength to his most dangerous enemy.