many letters from Montenegro, which is a state of the Postal Union, which France is not.

... Cetinje. October 10. Here we really are. We started about six-it was to have been five-and did the thing in about seven hours, allowing for a stoppage to breakfast on raki, wine and water, bread, onions, and the liver of some creature, may be a Turk. It is a wonderful road up out of Cattaro, zig-zag, with wonderful views of the mountains and the sea, but it was rather giddy for my head. It did better for me afterwards when the road became much rougher, but when there was not the same looking down. Once up, we never came down again the same height, but went on, up and down, sometimes walking, sometimes riding, through limestone mountains, which often reminded Horner and me of Cheddar and Ebbor, till we got into this plain-about the height of the Brecknock Beacons. Bating the village where we breakfasted, we hardly passed a house, but the land is tilled wherever it can be, and there are sheep and goats about, and sometimes cows. Wild as it is, the land is as safe as the most civilized lands; robbery is utterly unheard of, which it was not when Sir G. Wilkinson was here. We are quartered in the old Vladika's palace, a queer place enough, but Danilo lived in it after him; the prince Nicolas that now is has built him a new house. This looks as if it had become old before it was new, paper on the walls and gilding on the ceilings dying out, but the rooms are good enough, and the prince allows us soap. We look on the monastery on the hill-side and above it the tower where the Turks' heads used to be set, but there are none now. The monastery church is very small, but in it are the former princes in boxes-they opened the lid of Vladika Peter, and there he was in his robes, and a plate of coins on his body.

But here comes this; we have no notion how we got into this house. We were brought here somehow; an aide de camp of the prince has been to talk to us, and meals have come from some quarter-we suppose from the prince. But we thought we should be asked to the palace this evening, and we have not. Morley thinks we must have made some mistake of etiquette-that is, he has, as Horner and I, who do not profess to know the manners and customs of princes, trusted wholly to

him, who does know them. But we shall try again in the morning. I had brought up coat, waistcoat, trousers, white shirt, and Greek order to pay my respects in. We have turned somebody out, that is clear, for just now a grand looking Montenegrin officer came in and said it was his room; so I took him to Morley, who made a speech to him, and he very good-humouredly went off to another. They are a fine race here; every man goes armed. But they make the women carry things. But Sunday all the people were about, and they seem quite quiet and well-behaved. The prince's officers seem quite civilized people. I need not explain that here the nation is the army and the army the nation.

They are making roads here, and one is a-making to Cattaro, which will save the rough ride. So you may come here in 1877.

TO SIR H. MAINE.

Ragusa, October 12, 1875.

I have been up into Montenegro, seen the prince, walked about unhurt among pistols and yataghans, and mourned only that they were all idle, while there was so much Turk-slaying to be done within a stone's throw. They are noble fellows to look at, mighty civil, and the head men quite civilized. The land is now as safe as any part of Europe. But what brought you into my head while I was up there was that I hear that, besides state-lands and private lands, there are communal lands, both pasture and forest, but, I understand, no tillage. So pray turn your mind to Montenegro. I have no books to refer you to, but one may be sure that some German professor has taken that in hand, like everything else. Also is there not such a thing as a common Aryan, perhaps a common human, dress? The dresses in these parts, the Roman military dress, the Highland dress before army-tailors took it in hand, and the dress which our own forefathers are shown in in the tapestry, all seem varieties of one type. And the kind of shawl or blanket which the Montenegrin uses is very like a toga...

CHAPTER VIII.

THE EASTERN QUESTION. A VISIT TO GREECE.

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.

A.D. 1875-1878.

FREEMAN'S visit to Dalmatia, originally planned with a view to the study of antiquities in that country, occurred two months after the insurrection had broken out in Herzegovina, which soon swelled into a general revolt amongst the Slave population in south-eastern Europe against the rule of the Turk. It is needless to say that Freeman's sympathy with this movement would in any case have been very ardent, but it was intensified by his being brought into close contact with the scene of the first outbreak, and by learning from the mouths of eye-witnesses the tale of intolerable wrongs, which had driven the people to take up arms, and of the frightful cruelties perpetrated by their oppressors in their endeavours to suppress the insurrection. He had seen some of the refugees, the destitute women, children, and aged people, who had escaped from their merciless destroyers by flight into the Austrian territory of Dalmatia. He could 'bear witness,' he said, 'to the sight, as the saddest which his eyes had ever looked upon.' In the language of Burke, speaking of the

victims of another desolating war, 'it was a people in beggary, it was a nation which stretched out its hand for food.' During the next three years he was indefatigable in collecting money and clothing for these refugees, nor was he less industrious in stirring up public sympathy by his writings and speeches, not only in England but throughout Europe. He regarded it as a kind of sacred duty to do what he could to break down the mass of prejudice with which diplomatic sophistry and ignorance of history had surrounded the whole subject of Ottoman rule in Europe, and to urge the course of action which, as he thought, was demanded by Christianity, humanity, and justice. He never advocated any wild or chimerical enterprise for the total or immediate expulsion of the Turk from Europe, still less from Constantinople, although he devoutly longed for such a consummation. What he constantly urged was, combined action on the part of the Great Powers to secure the complete emancipation of some of the Christian provinces, and the practical independence of others. By practical independence he meant freedom from the presence of Turkish soldiers and officials of every kind, a fixed annual tribute being paid to the Porte as an acknowledgement of a certain kind of suzerainty. He did not wish to extirpate the whole of the Mussulman population, who often lived on good terms with their Christian neighbours and suffered as much as they did; but what he insisted upon was, the necessity of abolishing the rule of the Turk, since all experience proved that the Mussulman could live peaceably and happily under Christian rule, but that the Christian could not live happily under Mahometan rule.

The relations of England to the Porte had long been

to him a subject of real distress, and he trusted that the time had now come when his country would vindicate her honour, and stand forward as the champion of the oppressed. The speeches which he made, the articles and the letters which he wrote during the next five or six years on the Eastern Question, would fill a large volume. No doubt the fervour of his enthusiasm for a righteous cause, and the passionate antipathy which he felt towards certain prominent politicians whom he believed to be misleading public opinion and national policy, betrayed him sometimes into bitter and intemperate expressions which were injurious to the cause which he had at heart. At the same time, it is only fair to say, that his enthusiasm and his antipathy were not the outcome of caprice, imagination, or sentiment, but of convictions based upon a long and careful study alike of ancient history and of recent events1. In the following pages I have endeavoured to present in a condensed form his views and principal lines of argument upon the Eastern Question, collected from his writings and speeches upon the subject.

He regarded the perversion of feeling which induced Christian nations in western Europe to support the Mahometan oppressor of Christian nations in eastern Europe, as being in some measure a survival of the old rivalry between the eastern and western divisions of the Roman empire, the old jealousy between the eastern and western divisions of the Church. The Christian nations of the west had for ages looked upon the Christian

1 His old college friend, Sir G. W. Cox, says, 'I can answer for it that his enthusiasm on behalf of all nations which were oppressed or in practical slavery was just as keen fifty years ago as it was when he set out on his last southward journey.'