The approaching completion of the railway from Vienna to Constantinople cannot fail to work a commercial revolution as far as the trade of a considerable portion of Eastern Europe is concerned. It will form a link in the direct line {150} between England and India, and to travellers and merchandise will afford the shortest route from the centre of Europe to the Bosporus. On its opening, Constantinople will be enabled to avail itself to the fullest extent of the highways of commerce which converge upon it. Still greater must be the political consequences of opening this line, for it will bring the populations of the Balkan peninsula into more direct and active contact with those of Austro-Hungary and the rest of Europe. [Illustration: Fig. 41.—COMMERCIAL HIGHWAYS CONVERGING UPON CONSTANTINOPLE. Scale 1 : 17,100,000.] VIII.—GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION. The Turkish empire occupies a vast area, the greater portion of which is governed by vassals, almost independent of the Sultan at Stambul. The vast territories of Egypt and Tunis are in that position. The interior of Arabia is in possession of the Wahabites; the coast of Hadramaut is inhabited partly by tribes acknowledging the suzerainty of England; and even between Syria and the Euphrates there {151} are numerous districts only nominally under the government of Turkish pashas, but in reality in the possession of predatory Bedwins. The Ottoman empire, properly so called, includes the European provinces, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, the basins of Tigris and Euphrates, Hejaz and Yemen in Arabia, and Tripoli, with Fezzan, in Africa. These territories, with their dependent islands, cover an area of no less than 210,156 square miles; but their population, being far less dense than that of Western Europe, hardly numbers 47,000,000 souls. [Illustration: Fig. 42.—THE TURKISH EMPIRE. Scale 1 : 55,000,000.] The area of Turkey in Europe, exclusive of Rumania, Servia, and Montenegro, is about equal to that of the British Islands. Constantinople, with the surrounding country, forms a district under the immediate supervision of the Ministry of Police. The remainder of the country is divided into eight _vilayets_, or provinces; the vilayets are subdivided into _mutesarifliks_, or _sanjaks_; these latter into _kazas_, or cantons; and the kazas into _rahiés_, or parishes. Lemnos, Imbros, Samothrace, and Astypalæa, with Rhodes and the islands along the coast of Anatolia, form a {152} separate vilayet. These political divisions, however, are subject to frequent changes.[43]