counsels, and no tangible advantages were thereby attained. And now a combination of unforeseen circumstances conspired to rescue the Porte from the pressing danger which threatened it. The neutrality preserved by Servia, or rather its Prince, Alexander Guirgievitch, infected not only the Bulgarian Christians, but even the Montenegrins themselves, who actually overran Herzegovina and a portion of the Bosnian frontier during the absence of the Mussulman Spahis of those districts. Undaunted however, by these mishaps, the members of the Congress returned to their homes; and, although powerless to act in concert, succeeded so well in stirring up a feeling of animosity against the government, that the spring of 1850 found the malcontents in a better position than ever for the renewal of the war. But rebellion had now reached its culminating point, and the sudden appearance of Omer Pacha, who threw himself with impetuous daring into the heart of Bosnia, gave a very different colouring to events. To form a just estimate of the difficulties which he had to overcome, ere order could be re-established in this confused chaos, it is necessary briefly to recapitulate the various conflicting elements, revolutionary and otherwise, which had been brought into play, the aim and inevitable result of which must have been the utter destruction of this unhappy empire. There are those who profess to believe that Russia has no malevolent designs upon Turkey, and who bring forward many plausible reasons in support of their opinion; but this number has very materially diminished since the disclosures which preceded the late Russian war. The character of the Turkish people, their religion, and their social and political institutions, may all have tended to produce the calamitous state of affairs. Yet when we probe the matter to the bottom, there we find the root of all evil--Russian policy and imperial ambition. It is not to say that this monarch or that was desirous of annexing by conquest, and holding by force of arms, a gigantic empire. Such a thought were madness. Far more subtle is the scheme which was, and is, inherent in every Russian ruler. It has been, and still is, their own aggrandisement, direct or indirect, based upon the ruins of Turkey. Ably and laboriously have they worked to effect that which still seems as distant as ever. No sooner were the bloody days of 1828-9 past, than they applied themselves afresh to the work of disorganisation, and in this appeared to succeed too well. They had launched the Slave against the Turk, and then the Christian Slave against the Mussulman Slave, whilst at the same time the Asiatic Turk--the Turk _pur sang_--was struggling throughout Anatolia against the reformed and European Turk. It now remained to find a pretext to justify her in effecting an armed intervention, that cloak for so much that is arbitrary and aggressive. This was soon found in an insignificant rising of the Bulgarians, brought on by her roubles lavishly dispensed by old Milosch Obrenovitch, the ejected Servian Prince, and the sympathy felt for Kossuth and Dembinski, who had taken refuge at Widdin. This rising, however, which was at first directed only against the Turkish Spahis or landowners, soon acquired more important dimensions, and on January 8, 1850, the three Nahias of Widdin, Belgradchitch, and Verkovats, were under arms. Having failed in an attack upon the fortress of Belgradchitch, they