ce
manifested by the Ottoman government for this portion of the empire,
often rendered it the safer policy for the Vizier to make common cause
with the recusant Kapetans, who were too powerful to be subdued by
force, and too wily to be entrapped by treachery or fraud.

But another and more self-subsistent power had taken deep root
throughout the Ottoman dominions, and nowhere more than in those
provinces which lie between the Save and the Adriatic. 'In Egypt,' says
Ranke, 'there was the power of the Mameluke Beys revived immediately
after the departure of the French; there was the protectorate of the
Dere Beys in Asia Minor; the hereditary authority of the Albanian
chieftains, the dignity of the Ayans in the principal towns, besides
many other immunities--all of which seemed to find a bond of union and a
centre in the powerful order of the Janissaries.' Of all the provinces
of the empire Bosnia was perhaps the most deeply imbued with the spirit
of this faction, the last memento of that ancient chivalry which had
carried fire and sword over a great part of civilised Europe.

But to that same spirit of turbulent independence, the very germ of
existence of the Janissaries, and so predominant among the natives of
Bosnia, may in a great measure be attributed the successes of the
Turkish arms in Europe in the campaign of 1828, an era fraught with
danger to the whole Ottoman empire, dangers which the newly-organised
battalions of the imperial army would have been unable to overcome but
for the aid of the wild horsemen of the West. That the same spirit
exists as did in bygone times I do not say; but whatever does yet remain
of chivalrous endurance or reckless daring is to be found among the
Mussulman, and not amongst the Christian, population.

Towards the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth
century, affairs assumed so critical an aspect that it became incumbent
upon the central government to adopt some coercive measure. Sultan Selim
was the first who endeavoured to suppress these turbulent spirits. He
was unequal to the task, and fell a victim to their revengeful
displeasure. 'Bairaktar, the hero of those times,' was equally
unsuccessful, and the imperial authority bid fair to perish from the
land; but in those days there arose one who, like our own Cromwell,
moulded circumstances to his will, resolute of purpose, fearing and
sparing none. But if Mahmoud was stern and inexorable to rebels, he is
entitled t