Thurii

“ All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their political communities were always organized, down to the lowest ranks. When cities rise into nations, we always find at first a division into tribes. Herodotus mentions such tribes when Cyrene was colonized, and in later times this was also the case at the founding of Thurii; yet when a city any where existed as such, its claim to this character consisted in this, that its citizens were at a certain time divided into communities (γένη) , which had a common chapel and the worship of a common hero. ”

“ Discontent exaggerates every burden, and a feather is as heavy as a mountain when laid on unwilling shoulders. When the new arrangement was made by Alcibiades or the later demagogues, Andocides asserts that some of the allies left their native countries and emigrated to Thurii. But how many Englishmen have emigrated to America from objections to a peculiar law or a peculiar impost, which state policy still vindicates, or state necessity still maintains! ”

“ Thuria, a great and glorious orb, swinging swift across the vaulted dome of the blue-black night, so low that she seemed to graze the hills, a gorgeous spectacle that held the girl now beneath the spell of its enchantment as it always had and always would.
"Ah, Thuria, mad queen of heaven!" murmured Tara of Helium. "The hills pass in stately procession, their bosoms rising and falling; the trees move in restless circles; the little grasses describe their little arcs; and all is movement, restless, mysterious movement without sound, while Thuria passes." ”

“ For years this went on very quietly, and all over the great field of the Ottoman Empire the first tiny blades of the crop that Germany was sowing began to appear. To-day that crop waves high, and covers the whole field with its ripe and fruitful ears. For to-day Turkey is neither more nor less than a German colony, and more than makes up to her for the colonies she has lost and hopes to regain. She knows that perfectly well, and so do any who have at all studied the history and the results of her diplomacy there. Even Turkey itself must, as in an uneasy dream, be faintly conscious of it. ”

“ The Thuringians seem at one time to have occupied territories stretching from the Elbe not far from Hamburg to the Danube at Ratisbon; but about 531 their empire was overthrown by the united Franks and Saxons. The north part of their lands fell to the Saxons, and was known for some time as the North Thuringian gau; the district to the south of the Thuringian Forest was called Franconia after its conquerors; and the name Thuringia was restricted almost to the narrow limits to which it now properly applies. ”

“ I. Throughout the thirteenth century Thuringia continued the centre and stronghold of German sanctity. The life of St. Elizabeth at the Wartburg had gone up from its midst like a purifying altar-flame to heaven. When she died in 1231, hundreds of men and women came in tears to honour the wasted body wrapped in its worn Franciscan cloak, lying dead in the poor little house at Marburg. From the memory of her life, from the pilgrimages to her tomb, a tradition and ideal of saintliness spread among the people. Fifteen years later, it was in Thuringia that the Pope found his champion. ”

“ Turkey holds sway over some of earth's fairest lands, the homes of its most ancient civilizations and lands familiar to us through Holy Writ and profane history, and the sources of Jewish, Christian, Moslem, and other beliefs.
The rulers of Turkey are the Turks, originally a nomadic tribe from Central Asia. Compelled to abandon their homes on account of the desiccation or drying up of large tracts of their country, which were converted into a desert, they swarmed into Armenia and Persia in quest of new pasture-lands for their flocks and cattle. ”

“ In Turkey it is grey desolation; the untilled land, the wretched Christian peasantry, the squalid huts, sodden and soaked, seem all rotting together in a land whereon the sun will never shine again. We splashed on. No one took any notice of us, for we were going to market. The Turkish blockhouses, "half an hour apart" along the frontier, were left behind us. We slopped past a yellow guard-house and more gaunt Nizams and rode into Berani, a small town of, for the most part, crooked houses of timber and mud, a wide main street, a large market-place, two wooden mosques, and a fortress. ”

“ The laws of the still pagan Thuringians and Saxons, in Germany, did not differ materially from those of the Christian Franks. Justice was administered in assemblies of the people, and, in order to secure the largest expression of the public will, a heavy fine was imposed for the failure to attend. The latter feature is still retained, in some of the old Cantons of Switzerland. In Thuringia and Saxony, however, the nobles had become a privileged class, recognized by the laws, and thus was laid the foundation for the feudal system of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Being the son of a concubine or slave, the king, according to the rules of descent of all the Tuareg, was himself of slave caste, nor could he ever achieve the distinction of being ranked among the nobles. As it is the law among the People of the Veil that the child must follow the caste of the mother and not the father, whatever the latter’s claims, only the offspring of a noble Tuareg woman can be noble. ”

“ East of Grondar, whose people were less highly cultured than those of their kindred kingdoms, stretched a wild and barren expanse of deserts. Among the less arid stretches of desert, in the jungles, and among the mountains, lived scattered clans and tribes of primitive savages. Far to the south there was a mysterious civilization, unconnected with the Thurian culture, and apparently pre-human in its nature. On the far-eastern shores of the Continent there lived another race, human, but mysterious and non-Thurian, with which the Lemurians from time to time came in contact. ”

“ A rapid current rushes through these channels, but in some places they are so narrow that you can shout across from Europe to Asia, and it is no uncommon thing to hear the dogs barking from the other side.
Turkey in Europe spreads northwards from these points up to Bulgaria, and consists of a long strip of country extending from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.
Turkey in Asia is more extensive, and stretches from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. Persia lies to its east, and the Red Sea and blue Mediterranean to its west. ”

“ In Asia also large tracts of country have been wrenched from Turkey by Russia; and in Africa, Egypt and Tunis are Turkish only in name.
ROUMELI HISSAR.
The splendid conquests of the Turks were due to the hardihood of a race brought up in frugality and nomadic pursuits. Their strength and courage were amazing, and their religious zeal made them reckless of their lives. Their early Sultans, too, were men of extraordinary energy and sagacity, and were the first among the Turks to organize regular soldiers. ”

“ It seems always to have been broken up into a great many tribes and peoples, whom it has been found convenient to gather under the general designation of Turanians, from a very ancient name,—Tur or Tura—which was given them by the white population of Persia and Central Asia, and which is still preserved in that of one of their principal surviving branches, the Turks. All the different members of this great family have had very striking features in common,—the most extraordinary being an incapability of reaching the highest culture, of progressing indefinitely, improving continually. ”

“ Turkey has been a highway of commerce and civilization between Europe on the one hand and Asia and Africa on the other. The history of this country and of its inhabitants cannot be understood unless one is thoroughly impressed by this fundamental fact. On the east the Persian Gulf followed by the Mesopotamian valley, its natural prolongation, formed a convenient channel for the northwesterly spread of human intercourse. To the west, land travel between Europe and Africa drained into the Syrian furrow. ”

“ The history of Turkey has been a sad and painful history. That race has not been without remarkable and even in some cases fine qualities, but from too many points of view it has been a scourge to the world, made use of, no doubt, by a wise Providence for the sins of the world. ”

“ He married Margaret, daughter of the emperor Frederick II., in 1254, and in 1265 received from his father Thuringia and the Saxon palatinate. His infatuation for Kunigunde of Eisenberg caused his wife to leave him, and after her death in 1270 he married Kunigunde, who had already borne him a son, Apitz or Albert. He wished to make Apitz his successor in Thuringia, a plan which was resisted by his two elder sons, and a war broke out which lasted until 1307, when he abandoned Thuringia, in return for a yearly payment, but retained the title of landgrave (see Thuringia.) ”

“ The name “Tuareg” is not their own: it is a term of opprobrium applied to them by their enemies, and connotes certain peculiarities possessed by a number of tribal confederations which have no common name for themselves as a race. The men of this people, after reaching a certain age, wear a strip of thin cloth wound around their heads in such a manner as to form a hood over the eyes and a covering over the mouth and nostrils. Only a narrow slit is left open for the eyes, and no other part of the face is visible. ”

“ Over the borders of Turkey in Europe came hosts of armed men, ably led, well trained, and purposeful. They came down the Valley of the Maritza, the Struma, down from the Black Mountains, and out of Greece in the south, nations in arms, and determined to end oppression in Turkey’s European possessions. ”

“ If nothing remains of the glories of the city of the Caliphs, it is certainly for Turkey a busy, growing, and passably wealthy nineteenth-century capital. It is said to have a hundred mosques, twenty-six minarets, and fifteen domes, but I have not counted them!
Its bazars, which many people regard as the finest in the East outside of Stamboul, are of enormous extent and 29 very great variety. Many are of brick, with well-built domed roofs, and sides arcaded both above and below, and are wide and airy. Some are of wood, all are covered, and admit light scantily, only from the roof. ”

“ V 1. But the Thuringians, though they had some time since received permission to cross the river, were still wandering up and down the banks, being hindered by a twofold obstacle; first, that in consequence of the mischievous dissimulation of the said generals they were not supplied with the necessary provisions; and also because they were designedly detained that they might the more easily be plundered under the wicked semblance of traffic. ”

“ The Tuareg wander as nomads over the country generally, the negroes and sedentary Libyans till the ground, and, in addition to a proportion of all those already enumerated, the towns are inhabited by yet another people of noble origin, whose connection with the ancient Garamantes of classical authors may be assumed if it cannot be proved. With the exception of the Fezzan the Tuareg are now predominant within their own country. It includes two great groups of mountains, Air and Ahaggar, together with certain smaller adjacent massifs. ”

“ So that, when these circumstances are embraced and weighed in the scale of reasoning, it is not altogether surprising to find that they are, beyond all else, past-masters in cunning war-craft; and that there is no Tuareg, over the age of childhood, who is not fully versed in every detail of a subject that is their primary education. Consequently, whatever the conditions under which they are met, the Tuaregs are, in foremost characteristic, a people skilled and able in war, and every man a disciplined soldier when need arises. ”

“ III With these suggestions, Anatolia and Turkish Nationalism may be dismissed from our survey. Shorn of their pretensions in Armenia and the countries south of Taurus, the Turks may experiment in the art of government without the tragedies which their present domination has brought upon mankind. The other lands and peoples of Western Asia, when they have ceased to be "Turkey," will be restored once more to the civilised world. What forces will shape their growth? ”

“ The wheels were turned by oxen, driven by Dinka slaves, who sang vociferous melodies the while, and the water was conveyed to fields distant from the river in the hollow trunks of the doum-tree.
There, where I expected to sail through a wilderness, I found a garden. Ethiopia might become, in other hands, the richest and most productive part of Africa. The people are industrious and peaceable, and deserve better masters. Their dread of the Turks is extreme, and so is their hatred. ”

“ Their dominion extended from the shores of the Adriatic on the west to the borders of China on the east; while in Africa it reached very nearly from the Atlantic to Suez. Accordingly we have been taught from our childhood of Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia, and Turkey in Africa. But I am not sure that we are all aware that the Turks, or Ottomans, are Asiatic invaders who obtained their dominions by conquest.
III. So much for the overflow. Let us now turn to the drying up, as predicted in the prophecy. ”

“ These things being so, it is no wonder the Hungarians and Turks should sympathise, nor that England should have a liking for Turks, England being the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Alliance and sympathy between England and Turkey has a deeper root and meaning than some are willing to admit. Turkey, however, as a distinct empire, is nearly at an end. The recognition of the Ten Lost Tribes, and their restoration with the Jews to Palestine, is connected with the downfall of Turkey. “Saviours are to come up on Mount Zion to judge the Mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s” (Obad.) ”