abitants, feed about eight
million sheep, the value of which may be estimated at about two hundred
million piastres, (the Turkish piastre, is worth about 2-1/4d.) It would
have been impossible for such an important object to have failed
exciting the cupidity of a government constituted like that of the
Ottoman empire; in consequence, in 1829, they attempted to make a
monopoly of the wool-trade. Fortunately, the clamorous despair of the
owners of the flocks, and some good advice, caused the Divan to recall
the measure, which would in all probability not only have given a fatal
blow to the wool-trade, but have entirely put an end to the feeding of
flocks throughout Turkey. Instead, therefore, of monopolising this
branch of commerce, the government saddled it with such an exorbitant
duty, that the provinces definitively gained little by the change. The
price of wool was more than quadrupled, and in 1833 there was sold for
above 170 piastres the hundredweight what in 1816 cost but forty
piastres. The abolition of the monopolies and the modification of the
duties have given, since the last six or seven years, some facilities to
this trade, without, however, entirely restoring it to its former state
of prosperity. Partly destroyed by the severe blow it had received, and
shackled by the avarice of the Pashas, it languishes, as indeed does
every other branch of trade and industry in the empire.

Of Turkey, which men have rendered a country of misery and of famine,
the Almighty seems to have intended to have made a land of promise. For
agriculture, He has created immense plains, unequalled in fertility
throughout the globe, and in the bowels of the mountains He has hidden
incalculable treasures; and in return for all these gifts, these
glorious gifts, what have the inhabitants done? they have left the land
uncultivated, and the mountains unsearched. Mines of all sorts abound.
Copper, (which is sold in secret only, and is a contraband article,)
were its mines worked on a grand scale, would alone furnish a new
element of commerce to Constantinople, and might help to draw it from
its present state of torpor. But will the Turks ever dream of such a
thing? Never! For like the dog in the fable, the Ottomans will neither
profit themselves nor let others profit by what is in the territory. Too
indolent to work out the natural riches of their soil, they are too
jealous to permit others to do it for them. Besides, Europeans, by an
ancient