LETTER XIX. Usbek to his Friend Rustan, at Ispahan.

AT Tocat we continued but eight days; after a journey of five and thirty days, we reached Smyrna. Between Tocat and Smyrna we saw only one city, which merited that name. I was surprised to see the weak state of the Osmalin empire. This distempered body does not support itself by a mild and temperate government, but by such violent remedies as incessantly exhaust and destroy it. The bashaws, who procure their employments only by the power of money, enter those provinces in a ruined condition, and ravage them as conquered countries. An insolent militia, subject only to its own caprice; the towns dismantled, the cities deserted, the country desolated, the culture of the land and commerce entirely neglected. Under this severe government impunity reigns; the Christians, who cultivate the lands, and the Jews, who collect the tribute, are exposed to a thousand outrages. The property of the lands is uncertain, and consequently the desire of increasing their value diminished; as neither title nor possession are a sufficient security against

the caprice of those who have the government. These barbarians have so far abandoned the arts, that they have even neglected the military art. Whilst all Europe grows daily more refined, they remain in their ancient ignorance, and rarely think of improving by their new inventions, till they have been a thousand times employed against them. They have gained no experience at sea; no skill in naval affairs; a mere handful of Christians, the possessors of a barren rock These are probably the knights of Malta. ^†315, are a terror to the Ottoman race, and distress their whole empire. It is with anxiety they suffer the Christians, always laborious and enterprising, to carry on for them that commerce for which themselves are unfit; they imagine they are granting a favour, when they permit these foreigners to enrich themselves. Through this vast extent of country that I have passed, Smyrna is the only rich and powerful city that I have observed; it is the Europeans that have rendered it such, and it is no fault of the Turks that it is not in the same miserable condition with the others. See, dear Rustan, a just representation of this empire, which in less than two centuries will be the theatre of triumph to some new conqueror.

Smyrna, the 2d of the moon of Rahmazan,
1711.