SECTION X.

OF THE OTTOMAN POWER IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

1. FROM the period of the taking of Constantinople, in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Turks were a great and conquering people. In the sixteenth century, Selim I. (the Ferocious), after subduing Syria and Mesopotamia, undertook the conquest of Egypt, then governed by the Mamelukes, a race of Circassians, who had seized the country in 1250, and put an end to the government of the Arabian princes, the posterity of Saladin (1517). The conquest of Egypt by Selim made little change in the form of its government. It professed to own the sovereignty of the Turks, but was in reality still governed by the Mameluke Beys.

2. Solyman (the Magnificent), son of Selim, was, like his predecessors, a great conqueror. The island of Rhodes, possessed by the Knights of St. John, was a darling object of his ambition. These knights had expelled the Saracens from the island in 1310. Solyman attacked Rhodes with 140,000 men, and 400 ships. The Rhodian_knights, aided by the English, Italians, and Spaniards, made a noble defence; but, after a siege of many months, were forced to capitulate, and evacuate the island (1522), which has been the property of the Turks ever since. The commercial laws of the ancient Rhodians were adopted by the Romans, and are at this day the foundation of the maritime jurisprudence of all the nations of Europe.

3. Solyman subdued the greatest part of Hungary, Moldavia, and Wallachia, and took from the Persians Georgia and Bagdad. During his reign, the military power of the Turks was at its greatest height. His son, Selim II., took Cyprus from the Venetians in 1571. They applied to the pope for aid, who, together with Philip II. of Spain, entered into a tripple alliance against the Ottoman power. An armament of 250 ships of war, commanded by Philip's natural brother, Don John of Austria, was opposed to 250 Turkish galleys in the Gulf of Lepanto, near Corinth; and the Turks were defeated, with the loss of 150 ships, and 15,000 men (1571). This great victory was soon after followed by the taking of Tunis by the same commander.

The

4. But these successes were of little consequence. Ottoman power continued extremely formidable. Under Amurath II., the Turks made encroachments on Hungary, and subdued a part of Persia. Mahomet III., though a barbarian in his private character, supported the dignity of the empire, and extended its dominions. The Ottoman power declined from his time, and yielded to that of the Persians under Shah-Abbas the Great, who wrested from the Turks a large part of their lately acquired dominions.

SECTION XI.

STATE OF PERSIA AND THE OTHER ASIATIC KINGDOMS IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES.

1. THE great empire of Persia, in the end of the fifteenth century, underwent a revolution on account of religion. Haydar or Soofi, a religious enthusiast, established a new sect of Mahometans, which held Ali to be the successor of Mahomet instead of Omar, and abolished the pilgrimages to Mecca. The Persians eagerly embraced a doctrine which distinguished them from their enemies the Turks; and Ismael, the son of Soofi, following the example of Mahomet, enforced his opinions by the sword. He subdued all Persia and Armenia, and left this vast empire to his descendants.

.

2. Shah-Abbas, surnamed the Great, was the great-grandson of Ismael Soofi. He ruled his empire with despotic sway, but with most able policy. He regained the provinces which had been taken by the Turks, and drove the Portuguese from their settlement of Ormuz. He rebuilt the fallen cities of Persia, and contributed greatly to the introduction of arts and civilization. His grandson, Shah-Soofi, reigned weakly and unfortunately. In his time, Shah-Jehan, the Great Mogul, deprived Persia of Candahar; and the Turks took Bagdad in 1630. From that period the Persian monarchy gradually declined. Its sovereigns became the most despicable slaves to their own ministers; and a revolution in the beginning of the eighteenth century put an end to the dynasty of the Soofis, and gave the throne to the Afghan princes, a race of Tartars.

3. The government of Persia is almost as despotic as that of Turkey. The sovereign draws a small yearly tax from every subject, and receives likewise stated gifts on particular occasions. The crown is hereditary, with the exclusion of females; but the sons of a daughter succeed in their room. There is no other rank in Persia than that annexed to office, which is held during the monarch's pleasure. The national religion is the Mahometan, as reformed by Soofi. The sect of the Guebres preserves the religion of Zoroaster, as contained in Zendavesta and Sadder, (see supra, Part I., Sect. XX.) and keep alive the sacred fire.

4. The poetry of the Persians displays great fancy and luxuriance of imagery. The epic poet Firdousi is said to rival the various merits of Homer and Ariosto; and the writings of Sadi and Hafez, both in prose and poetry, are admired by all who are conversant in oriental literature.

5. Tartary. From this vast tract of country sprang those conquerors who produced all the great revolutions in Asia. The Turks, a race of Tartars, overwhelmed the empire of the caliphs. Mahmoud, a Tartar, conquered Persia, and a great

part of India, in the tenth century. The Tartar Gengis khan subdued India, China, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. Batu-khan, one of his grandsons, ravaged to the frontiers of Germany. Tamerlane, the scourge of the Turks, and conqueror of a great part of Asia, was of the race of Gengis-khan. Babar, great-grandson of Tamerlane, subdued all between Samarcand and Agra in the empire of the Mogul. The descendants of those conquerors reign in India, Persia, and China; but Tartary itself is no more than a vast desert, inhabited by wandering tribes, who follow the life of the ancient Scythians.

6. Thibet. This southern part of Tartary exhibits the phenomenon of a kingdom governed by a living god, the Dalai Lama, or Great Lama, whose divinity is acknowledged not only by his own subjects, but over China and a part of India. This god is a young man whom the priests educate and train to his function, and in whose name they in reality govern the kingdom.

SECTION XII.

THE HISTORY OF INDIA.

1. THE earliest accounts of this great tract of civilized country are those of Herodotus, who lived about a century before Alexander the Great; and it is remarkable that the character given of the people by that early writer corresponds perfectly with that of the modern Hindoos. He had probably taken his accounts from Scylax of Cariandria, whom Darius Hystaspes had sent to explore the country. But it was not till the age of Alexander, that the Greeks had any particular knowledge of that extraordinary people. Alexander penetrated into the Punjab, where, his troops refusing to proceed, he embarked on the Hydaspes, which runs into the Indus, and thence pursued his course for above 1000 miles to the ocean. The narrative given by Arrian of this expedition was taken from the mouths of Alexander's officers; and its particulars tally yet more remarkably than those of Herodotus with the modern manners of the Hindoos.

2. India was visited by Seleucus, to whose share it fell in the partition of Alexander's empire; and Antiochus the Great, 200 years afterwards, made a short expedition thither. It is probable, too, that some small intercourse subsisted between the Greek empire of Bactriana and India; but, till the fifteenth century, no European power thought of forming any establishment in that country; though, from the age of Alexander, down to the period of the Portuguese discoveries, there had constantly been

some commercial intercourse between Europe and India, both by sea and across the desert.

3. The Mahometans, as early as 1000 A. C., had begun to establish an empire in India. Mahmoud, a Tartar, conquered a great part of the country, and established his capital at Ghizni, near the sources of the Indus, extirpating, wherever he came, the Hindoo religion, and establishing the Mahometan in its stead. Mohammed Ghori, in 1194, penetrated to Benares; and one of his successors fixed the seat of his empire at Delhi (1206), which afterwards continued to be the capital of the Mogul princes. The sovereignty founded by Mahmoud was overwhelmed in 1222 by Gengis-khan, as was his empire in the following century by Tamerlane, whose posterity are at this day on the throne of the Mogul empire.

4. The Mogul empire was, even in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the most powerful and flourishing of all the Asiatic monarchies, under Aurungzeb, the son of Shah-Jehan, who, though a monster of cruelty, and most despotic tyrant, enjoyed a life prolonged to nearly a hundred years, crowned with uninterrupted prosperity and success. He extended his empire over the whole peninsula of India within the Ganges.

5. The dominion of the Mogul was not absolute over all the countries which composed his empire. Tamerlane allowed the petty princes, Rajahs or Nawabs, to retain their territories, of which some of their descendants are at this day in possession. They paid a tribute to the Great Mogul, as an acknowledgment of his sovereignty, and observed the treaties agreed to by their ancestors but they were in other respects independent princes.

6. Bengal became a part of the Mogul's empire, by conquest, in the end of the sixteenth century, and was commonly governed by a son of the Great Mogul, who had under him several inferior nawabs, the former princes of the country. Such was its condition when the British East India Company, between 1751 and 1760, conquered and obtained possession of that kingdom, together with Bahar and part of Orissa, a large, populous, and most flourishing country, containing above ten millions of inhabitants, and producing an immense revenue. The East India

Company thence had the benefit of the whole commerce of the Mogul empire with Arabia, Persia, and Thibet, as well as with the kingdoms of Azem, Aracan, Pegu, Siam, Malacca, China, and many of the oriental islands.

7. [The East India Company, the most celebrated commercial association of ancient or modern times, which has now extended its sovereignty over the whole Mogul empire, with its population of upwards of 133 millions, was incorporated by royal charter from Queen Elizabeth, dated December 31, 1600, which conferred the exclusive right, for fifteen years, of trading betwen England and all places beyond the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan. The first expedition, of five ships, sailed

from Torbay, on the 13th February, 1601; and did not arrive at Acheen, in Sumatra, till June 5, 1602. In 1612, the Company obtained from the court of Delhi permission to establish a factory at Surat; and in 1640, the grant of five miles of territory along the shore, and one mile inland, with permission to build Fort St. George, or Madras, which in 1658, was raised to the station of a presidency. In 1698, Calcutta, and two adjoining villages, were obtained, with the right to exercise judicial power over the inhabitants, and to erect fortifications, which were soon after constructed, and received the name of Fort William. This district was also made the seat of the presidency of Bengal. In 1717, privileges were obtained from the native authorities, which rendered the Company nearly independent, and are now regarded as the first great charter of the English in Hindostan. The subsequent invasions of India by Nadir Shah and Alemghir II., so weakened the power of the Mogul emperors, that the nawabs, or governors of provinces, began to declare themselves independent, and to contend with each other. The capture of Calcutta by the nawab of Bengal, and the imprisonment of the British garrison in the Black-Hole, where the greater number were suffocated, led to hostilities, which were terminated by the victory of Plassey; when the whole provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, were occupied by the British, which were finally confirmed to the Company by treaty, in 1765. Since that time, the British empire in India has been gradually extending and consolidating, until it embraces nearly the whole continent of India, from the Indus to the Himalaya Mountains.]

The establishment of the British dominion in India has afforded the opportunity of obtaining much instructive knowledge relative to the ancient state of that country, of which we shall give a short sketch in the following section.

SECTION XIII.

ANCIENT STATE OF INDIA; MANNERS, LAWS, ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND RELIGION, OF THE HINDOOS.

1. THE remains of the ancient knowledge of the Hindoos have been preserved by a hereditary priesthood, in the Sanscreet language, long since extinct, and only known to a few of the Bramins (the priests of Brama, the supposed creator of the universe). The zeal of some learned Europeans has lately opened that source of information, whence we learn the most interesting particulars of this extraordinary people, perhaps the most early cultivators of the sciences, and the instructors of all the nations of antiquity. We shall briefly notice their singular division into castes, their civil policy, their laws, their progress in the arts and sciences, and their religiou,