do was to make himself safe against internal disturbances and revolutions which might upset him.  And it was then that he begot in the womb of his cold and cunning brain a policy that was all his own, except in so far as the Bulgarian atrocities, consequent on feuds between Bulgars and Greeks, may be considered the father of that hideous birth.  But it was he who suckled and nourished it, it was from his brain that it emerged, full-grown and in panoply of armour, as from the brain of Olympian Zeus came Pallas Athene.  This new policy was in flat contradiction of all the previous policy, as he had received it from his predecessors, of strengthening Turkey by tributes of man-power from his subject tribes, but it would, he thought, have the same result of keeping the Turk supreme among the alien elements of the Empire.  Times had changed; it behoved him to change the methods which hitherto had held together his hapless inheritance.

Now Abdul Hamid was not in any sense a wise man, and the ability which has been attributed to him, in view of the manner in which he successfully defied the civilisations of Europe, is based on premisses altogether false.  He never really defied Europe at all; he always yielded, secure in his belief that Europe in the shape of the Balance of Power, was unanimous in keeping him where he was.  He never even risked being turned out of Constantinople, for he knew—­none better—­that all Europe insisted on retaining him there.  As regards wisdom, there was never a greater fool, but as regards cunning there was never a greater fox.  He had a brain that was absolutely impervious to large ideas:  the notion of consolidating and strengthening his Empire by ameliorating its internal conditions, by bringing it within speaking distance of the influence of civilisation and progress, by taking advantage of and developing its immense natural resources, by employing the brains and the industry of his subject races, seems never to have entered his head.  He could easily have done all this:  there was not a Power in Europe that would not have lent him a helping hand in development and reform, in the establishment of a solvent state, in aiding the condition of the peoples over whom he ruled.  In whatever he did, provided that it furthered the welfare of his subjects, whether Turk, Armenian, or Arab, the whole Concert of Europe would have provided him with cash, with missionaries, with engineers, and all the resources of the arts and sciences of peace and of progress.  But being a felon, with crime and cunning to take the place of wisdom, he preferred to develop his Empire on his own original lines.  In Europe he was but suffered to exist.  There remained Asia.