to satisfy what is insatiable—the avarice of the Divan. The Bosniacs themselves are still blessed with many of the virtues of a primitive people, and left to themselves might secure honesty and justice in their public officers. At present the Bosnian _employés_ must first learn their Osmanlì language, and imbibe the secrets of Osmanlì government, at the source and seminary of Turkish demoralization; and the alien bureaucracy which results, acts in Bosnia as a propaganda of corruption. Why not then sever a connection as malign as it is artificial? Why not divorce Stamboul from Bosnia, and erect an independent State under an European guarantee? The democratic genius of the people would suggest a Republic as the best form of government, but the divided state of the country would preclude such a government to begin with, and a Principality after the model of free Serbia might combine Parliamentary government with the coherence of a monarchy. When it is recognised by what an extremely precarious tenure the Porte holds Bosnia at present, and it is remembered that the chief aim of the native Mahometans, as of the native Christians, is Provincial Independence, even Englishmen may be inclined to accept the conclusion that the present connection between Bosnia and the hated government of the Osmanlì must be severed; the more so as the geographical configuration and position of Bosnia—a peninsula connected only with the rest of Turkey by a narrow neck—make it almost impossible to hold out against a serious invasion, and put it always at the mercy of foreign agitators. Such a revolution may seem an Utopian dream; but when the purely artificial character of the present government of Bosnia is realized, it would be an impertinence to the confederate statesmanship of Europe to suppose that it was unable to effect it. For the moment, however, the ultimate form of Bosnian government is a question of secondary importance to the paramount necessity of re-establishing order in that unhappy land. At the moment that I write this, nearly 3,000 Bosnian and Herzegovinian villages and scattered hamlets are blackened ruins, and over 200,000 Christian refugees are starving among the inhospitable ravines of the Dalmatian Alps. In the interests of humanity, as well as of European peace, in discharge of responsibilities which no adroitness of European statesmanship can disavow, an armed occupation of Bosnia by civilized forces has become indispensable. When the Christian population of Bosnia have been rescued from the grave that yawns before them, when the robber bands of fanaticism have been disarmed, and the remnant of the refugees enabled to return to what were once their homes; then it will be time for the governments of civilized Europe to turn their energies to securing the necessary reforms, and to re-establishing the administration of the country on a sounder basis.