was transferred for sale to unwholesome, underground vaults, near Sultan Suleiman's mosque; next, under the pressure of war, the importation of white slaves was positively forbidden; and finally, the traffic was declared to be abolished by an imperial firman. England and humanity had thus gained a notable these measures was, that last summer the slavemarket of Constantinople was so overstocked with white ladies, that they had fallen to one-third of their usual price; while black slaves, plentiful as blackberries in autumn, were almost as valueless. Never since the massacres of Scio had the faithful been able to stock their establishments on such reasonable terms.

and his habitual trainer-and whom he must look upon, in the first instance, as one of those very creatures whom, for years, perhaps, he has been setting at defiance, resisting successfully in their attempts to get the better of him, and regarding with feelings of mingled contempt and aversion. All this does, I confess, fill me with a degree of astonish-victory-upon paper. The practical result of all ment which I find it impossible to express in words; and which, I venture to say, will be shared in by others, just in proportion as they may have been close and attentive students of natural history, and patient observers of the habits, and, if one may so call them, the moral feelings of the lower animals. An entire reformation of this sort brought about without violence or any bewildering effect upon the senses of the subject, must be allowed on all hands to be a thing altogether sui generis, and without a parallel in any other branch of the treatment of animals by their

natural master.

It is impossible not to wish that some attempts should be made upon other beasts, with a view of testing the powers of this wonder-working system. We might more especially desire to see what it could do with other creatures of the genus equus, hitherto untamable.

Let any one observe the behaviour of the zebra in the Regent's Park, his restless desire to gnaw through the bars of his prison, and the savage way in which he receives any advances to kindness on the part of visitors; reflecting upon the fact, that, while his congener the quagga, is tamed with tolerable facility, the beautiful zebra has as yet successfully rebelled against man's dominion; let any one, I say, reflect upon all this, and I think he will agree that a most interesting field is here open for the talent of our modern horse-tamers!

It would be exceedingly curious if it should turn out in the end that the horse is the only quadruped, even in his own genus, susceptible of being brought under this wonderful influence, whatever it may be.

THE SLAVE-TRADE IN TURKEY.

THE newspapers gave an account, a few months ago, of the seizure, near Smyrna, of a slave-ship, and the liberation of the slaves it contained-one of those farces with which the Turks, from time to time, gratify their western admirers, and amuse, or rather abuse, the European public. No one, not even their bitterest enemies, can refuse them credit for the perfection to which they carry this art of throwing dust in the eyes of their too lover-like protectors; nor is their merit the less, that their success can be accounted for by the consideration that it is the only art they deign to cultivate. Like the dangerous man of one book, they are masters in their one art. It is the Alpha and the Omega of their civilisation-their way of expressing their regard for public opinion. To seem and not to be, is the problem which has been so successfully worked by the Sublime Porte for the last century and a half, especially for the last half-century.

England and English ambassadors-the only people who exercise a disinterested philanthropy in looking after the domestic concerns of the Turks-have laboured for the last twenty years to persuade the sultan to abolish, in all its branches, this one of his peculiar institutions. It is instructive to mark the progressive steps by which the power of the charmer's voice has been made evident. First, the fair daughters of Circassia were ordered to be kept for sale henceforward only in private houses; then the slave-market, a large airy court surrounded by small rooms, and with some fine old trees in the centre, situated in the very busiest part of the bazaar, was ordered to be closed, and the human merchandise

The fact is that the slave-trade is at this moment as active as ever in all parts of Turkey, excepting in Egypt, if Egypt must be called Turkey. Its pretended abolition is only one of those paper measures to which the government has recourse periodically, to satisfy the exigencies of some Frank, generally English, ambassador. Thank Heaven! while the representatives of other nations are carefully watching over their own interests, ours is even more actively and less selfishly promoting those of others.

To attempt to abolish slavery in a Mohammedan country is no easy task, to pretend to do so when those Mohammedans are Turks under Turkish rulers, is almost a desperate one. The abolition of male slavery would be difficult, but perhaps, with certain exceptions, not impossible; but to do away with female slavery would be striking at the root of Turkish society itself. It would be the subversion of domestic life as Turks understand it, alike opposed to their habits and to their religious ideas. The sultan has no wives; it is beneath his dignity to marry-he has only slaves; he is the son and grandson of slaves, bought in the market with money current with the merchant.' The hundred or two of white ladies who bloom in the parterre of his harem, require a still larger number of black ones to wait upon them, for no respectable Mussulman woman in Turkey, however poor she may be, would accept domestic service. What is true of the sultan's harem, is equally true on a smaller scale of the households of all his subjects. Free domesticity is unknown among women, and the small shopkeeper's wife who with us would employ a charwoman or keep a servant-of-all-work, has in Turkey one or two slaves at her orders. Male slaves, black and white, are still more numerous than females, and they are the only servants who enjoy their master's confidence. We cannot imagine a Turk without slaves; he would be as helpless as a child. We have seen a Turk, one of the greatest men in the empire, ask one of the slaves who stood before him for his handkerchief. The slave told him he had it by him. The master fumbled on the cushions without finding it; the slave was not the less positive that he had it. He stepped forward to search for it, rolled his unwieldy lord first to one side, and then to the other, to see if it were under him, then he searched his pockets, and finally drew it from his waist-band. Abbas Pacha, for it was no less a personage than the late viceroy of Egypt, submitted to this search with an unconcerned air, which shewed that it was a common affair; and after the five or six minutes employed in it, resumed the conference with the English consul-general which it had interrupted.

Our readers do not require to be told who are the unhappy creatures employed by the sultan and by all wealthy persons to watch over the morals of their harems, but it is necessary to refer to them, not only to denounce the inhuman treatment they have been subjected to, to qualify them for their degrading duties-and their number has of late years little, if at all, diminished-but still more to call attention to

freshly imported. The Turks prefer slaves who have as yet received no instruction. The slavetrade is the principal branch of commerce in Tripoli, and up to the present time it has been encouraged by the government in every possible way, even to the loss of more legitimate traffic. The number of slaves exported from Tripoli in 1854 was three times larger than under the independent deys twenty years previously. About a year ago, after the publication of the firman forbidding the trade, we had occasion to speak with a merchant whose house is on the south-west frontier of Tripoli, and who trades to Timbuctoo. 'What will become of your trade now, if this firman is enforced?' was the question we asked. 'It would be time enough to answer you,' he said, 'when the firman is acted upon; but in those countries there is no want of objects of traffic. Slaves are at present the most profitable; but when these will no longer pay, there remain ivory, gold-dust, ostrich-feathers, and many other commodities. The people of the inner country cannot do without the articles we carry to them, and they will soon find wherewithal to purchase them. God is generous.' He seemed little disturbed by the idea of the suppression of the trade; but whether from a conviction that this was not really intended, or from the confidence that other profitable investments would be found, we do not pretend to say. The goods exchanged for slaves are coarse cottons, paper, and small articles of hardware. It will be impossible to abolish the trade in men with all its attendant horrors, so long as slavery is permitted to exist in any shape in Turkey. Only its final abolition can put a stop to importations which the authorities both in Tripoli and Constantinople are interested in encouraging. Even the sultan's ships-of-war are used for the conveyance of slaves.

We can understand the desperate efforts made by the Turk to maintain this institution; but we profess ourselves unable to understand or to forgive the lukewarmness in the cause of abolition of his European supporters. The very argument which induces the Turk to resist the attempt, is the strongest that can be urged in its favour. The abolition of slavery would effect a radical change in Turkish society; and if we demanded it on no other grounds, we should call for it on this one. If Turkey has become a European state, it can be permitted to take a place in the congress of Christian nations only on the condition of remodelling, not the government alone, but still more the social relations of its subjects. It is vain to hope for any real amelioration in these till slavery be abolished in every corner of the empire.

would go far towards extirpating domestic slavery; for the Arabian prophet teaches that the granting his freedom to a slave is a meritorious work in the eyes of God; he even enjoins it as a propitiatory sacrifice on certain occasions. In the opinions of all pious Mussulmans, it is not lawful to retain a slave who has embraced Islam in servitude more than a short number of years. It would therefore be enough to forbid the sale of slaves from this time forwards, either publicly or privately, and to decree the freedom of all slaves whatever after the lapse of a brief term. This would lead to their speedy emancipation; for their masters would in general rather free them at once of their own accord, than allow them to acquire their liberty as a right. Of course the law prohibiting the sale of slaves must be accompanied by the fixing of express punishments for its transgression; its mere publication and communication to the European ambassadors would give it no efficacy.

The Turks are too thoughtless to consider the sufferings of the poor slaves before they reach their hands; they only remember that they were idolaters, and that they have made them Mussulmans. They are persuaded that God has put them into their power that they may save their souls. There is every excuse to be made for the Turks, who seek to evade a change which would revolutionise their habits of life, and whose necessity as a matter of humanity they cannot appreciate; but there is no excuse for their government, which thus scatters firmans broadcast over Europe, for the sake of propitiating a public opinion which it seeks to deceive; and still less is it possible to excuse the Christian diplomacy which stands smiling by and winks, lending the sanction of its silence to the bad faith of its protegés.

OÇE OLA:

A ROMANCE.

CHAPTER LVIII.-OLD HICKMAN.

THE morning after, I went as usual to the recruiting quarters. Gallagher was along with me, as upon this day the volunteers were to be 'mustered into service,'* and our presence was necessary at the administering of the oath.

A goodly company was collected, forming a troop more respectable in number than appearance. They were mounted volunteers;' but as each individual had been his own quartermaster, no two were either armed or mounted alike. Nearly all carried rifles, though there were a few who shouldered the old family musket-a relic of revolutionary times-and some were simply armed with single or double barrelled shot-guns. These, however, loaded with in a skirmish with Indians. There were pistols of many sorts-from the huge brass-butted holsters to small pocket-pistols-single and double barrelled-but no revolvers, for as yet the celebrated Colt'† had not made its appearance in frontier warfare. Every volunteer carried his knife-some dagger-shaped with ornamented hafts; while the greater number were long, keen blades, similar to those in use among

But if slavery be an essential institution of Islam, then we are bound to hunt the professors of such a creed out of Europe. Humanity has a right to be intolerant of a standing offence against her laws; and if she proclaim a crusade in their vindication, free-heavy buck-shot, would be no contemptible weapons men of all nations and of all creeds will acknowledge that her object is holy. But this is not the case. Islam found slavery established, and it mitigated its rigours. In Tunis, slavery has for many years been entirely done away with-an unanswerable argument, by the way, in favour of the independence of the bey, whom our English policy seems inclined to reduce to his long-forgotten subjection to Turkey. If, on the part of the Turkish government, the desire to abolish slavery were sincere, and not a mere pretence to blind the people of Europe to the real nature of their rule, it would not be difficult to bring it about. The first step necessary is to cut off the supply. To effect this, a couple of steamers cruising off the coast of Tripoli, backed by more stringent orders issued to the English consul, would be sufficient; and the waters of the Mediterranean would no longer be stained by this traffic. The traditions of Islam itself

* In the United States, a volunteer corps or regiment' raises itself.' When the numbers are complete, and the officers elected, if the government accept its services, both officers and men are then mustered in-in other words, sworn to serve for a fixed period, under exactly the same regulations as the regular troops, with like pay, rations, &c.

+ The military corps first armed with Colt's pistols was the regiment of Texan Rangers. Its first trial in actual warfare occurred in the war between the United States and Mexico in querrilleros were put hors de combat in less than fifteen minutes a skirmish with the guerilla band of Padre Jaranta. by this effective weapon.

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butchers. In the belts of many were stuck small hatchets, an imitation of the Indian tomahawk. These were to serve the double purpose of cutting a way through the brushwood, or breaking in the skull of a savage, as opportunity might offer.

The equipments consisted of powder-horns, bulletpouches, and shot-belts-in short, the ordinary sporting gear of the frontiersman or amateur hunter when out upon the still hunt' of the fallow deer.

The 'mount' of the troop was as varied as the arms and accoutrements: horses from thirteen hands to seventeen; the tall, raw-boned steed; the plump, cob-shaped roadster; the tight, wiry native of the soil, of Andalusian race; the lean, worn-out 'critter,' that carried on his back the half-ragged squatter, side by side with the splendid Arabian charger, the fancy of some dashing young planter who bestrode him, with no slight conceit in the grace and grandeur of his display. Not a few were mounted upon mules, both of American and Spanish origin; and these, when well trained to the saddle, though they may not equal the horse in the charge, are quite equal to him in a campaign against an Indian foe. Amid thickets-through forests of heavy timber, where the ground is a marsh, or strewn with logs, fallen branches, and matted with prostrate parasites, the hybrid will make way safely, when the horse will sink or stumble. Some of the most experienced backwoods hunters, while following the chase, prefer a mule to the high-mettled steed of Arabia.

Motley were the dresses of the troop. There were uniforms, or half-uniforms, worn by some of the officers; but among the men no two were dressed in like fashion. Blanket-coats of red, blue, and green; linsey-woolseys of coarse texture, gray or copper coloured; red flannel shirts; jackets of brown linen, or white-some of yellow nankin cotton-a native fabric; some of sky-blue cottonade; hunting-shirts of dressed deer-skin, with moccasins and leggings; boots of horse or alligator hide, highlows, brogansin short, every variety of chaussure known throughout the States.

'In coorse-it's the hul talk o' the country. Durn me, George Randolph, if I'd let him. Yur sister— the putty critter-she ur the finest an' the hansomest gurl in these parts; an' for a durned skunk like thet, not'ithstandin' all his dollars, to git her, I can't a bear to hear o't. Why, George, I tell you, he'll make her mis'able for the hul term o' her natʼral lifethat ere's what he'll be sartint to do-durnation

to him!'

"You are kind to counsel me, Hickman; but I think the event you dread is not likely ever to come to pass.'

Why do people keep talkin' o't, then? Everybody says it's a goin' to be. If it wan't thet I'm an old friend o' yur father, George, I wudn't ha' tuk sich a liberty; but I war his friend, an' I im yur friend; an' thurfor it be I hev spoke on the matter. We may talk o' Injuns; but thur ain't ne'er a Injun in all Floridy is as big a thief as them Ringgoldsfather an' son, an' the hul kit o' them. The old un, he's clurred out from hyar, an' whar he's gone to 'tain't hard to tell. Ole Scratch hez got hold o' him, an' I reck'n he'll be catchin' it by this time for the deviltries he carried on while about hyar. He'll git paid up slick for the way he treated them poor half-breeds on tother side the crik.' "The Powells?'

"Ye-es-that wur the durndest piece o' unjustice I ever know'd o' in all my time. By

wur!'

it

Hickman now proceeded, at my request, to detail with more minuteness than I had yet heard them, the facts connected with the robbery of the unfortunate family.

It appeared by his account that the Powells had not voluntarily gone away from the plantation; that, on the contrary, their removal had been to the friendThe head-gear was equally varied and fantastic. less widow the most painful thing of all. Not only No stiff shakos were to be seen there; but caps was the land of great value-the best in the whole of skin, and hats of wool and felt, and straw and district-but it had been to her the scene of a happy palmetto-leaf, broad-brimmed, scuffed, and slouch-life-a home endeared by early love, by the memory ing. A few had forage-caps of blue cloth, that gave of a kind husband, by every tie of the heart's affecsomewhat of a military character to the wearers. tion; and she had only parted from it when driven out by the strong arm of the law-by the staff of the sheriff-officer.

In one respect, the troop had a certain uniformity; they were all eager for the fray-burning for a fight with the hated savages, who were committing such depredations throughout the land. When were they to be led against them? This was the inquiry constantly passing through the ranks of the volunteer

array.

Old Hickman was among the most active. His age and experience had procured him the rank of sergeant by free election; and I had many opportunities of conversing with him. The alligator-hunter was still my true friend, and devoted to the interests of our family. On this very day I chanced to be with him alone, when he gave proof of his attachment by volunteering a conversation I little expected from him. Thus he began:

'May a Injun sculp me, lootenant, if I kin bar the thought o' that puke a marrin' yur sister.'

'Marrying my sister-who?' I inquired in some surprise. Was it Gallagher he meant ?

"Why, in coorse the fellar as everybody sez is a goin' to that cussed pole-cat o' a critter, Ary Ringgold.'

Hickman had been present at the parting scene, and described it in rough but feeling terms. He told me of the sad unwillingness which the family exhibited at parting; of the indignant reproaches of the son of the tears and entreaties of mother and daughter-how the persecuted widow had offered everything left her her personal property-even the trinkets and jewels-souvenirs given her by her departed husband-if the ruffians would only allow her to remain in possession of the house-the old homestead, consecrated to her by long happy years spent under its roof.

Her appeals were in vain. The heartless persecutor was without compassion, and she was driven forth.

Of all these things, the old hunter spoke freely and feelingly; for although a man of somewhat vulgar speech and rough exterior, he was one whose heart beat with humanity, and who hated injustice. He had no friendship for mere wrong-doers, and heartily detested the whole tribe of the Ringgolds. His narration rekindled within me the indignant emotions I had experienced on first hearing of this monstrous act of cruelty; and my sympathy for Oçeola-interrupted *The horse was introduced into Florida by the Spaniards, by late suspicions-was almost restored, as I stood listening to the story of his wrongs.

'Oh! him you mean? Everybody says so, do they?'

hence the breed.