Such Is, And Such Will Be, The Character Of The Arab!
The Sublime Porte still preserves her possessions in the Tahamah, and the
regions conterminous to Yemen, by the stringent measures with which
Mohammed Ali of Egypt opened the robber-haunted Suez road.
Whenever a Turk
or a traveller is murdered, a few squadrons of Irregular Cavalry are
ordered out; they are not too nice upon the subject of retaliation, and
rarely refuse to burn a village or two, or to lay waste the crops near the
scene of outrage.
A civilized people, like ourselves, objects to such measures for many
reasons, of which none is more feeble than the fear of perpetuating a
blood feud with the Arabs. Our present relations with them are a "very
pretty quarrel," and moreover one which time must strengthen, cannot
efface. By a just, wholesome, and unsparing severity we may inspire the
Bedouin with fear instead of contempt: the veriest visionary would deride
the attempt to animate him with a higher sentiment.
"Peace," observes a modern sage, "is the dream of the wise, war is the
history of man." To indulge in such dreams is but questionable wisdom. It
was not a "peace-policy" which gave the Portuguese a seaboard extending
from Cape Non to Macao. By no peace policy the Osmanlis of a past age
pushed their victorious arms from the deserts of Tartary to Aden, to
Delhi, to Algiers, and to the gates of Vienna. It was no peace policy
which made the Russians seat themselves upon the shores of the Black, the
Baltic, and the Caspian seas: gaining in the space of 150 years, and,
despite war, retaining, a territory greater than England and France
united. No peace policy enabled the French to absorb region after region
in Northern Africa, till the Mediterranean appears doomed to sink into a
Gallic lake. The English of a former generation were celebrated for
gaining ground in both hemispheres: their broad lands were not won by a
peace policy, which, however, in this our day, has on two distinct
occasions well nigh lost for them the "gem of the British Empire"--India.
The philanthropist and the political economist may fondly hope, by outcry
against "territorial aggrandizement," by advocating a compact frontier, by
abandoning colonies, and by cultivating "equilibrium," to retain our rank
amongst the great nations of the world. Never! The facts of history prove
nothing more conclusively than this: a race either progresses or
retrogrades, either increases or diminishes: the children of Time, like
their sire, cannot stand still.
The occupation of the port of Berberah has been advised for many reasons.
In the first place, Berberah is the true key of the Red Sea, the centre of
East African traffic, and the only safe place for shipping upon the
western Erythroean shore, from Suez to Guardafui. Backed by lands capable
of cultivation, and by hills covered with pine and other valuable trees,
enjoying a comparatively temperate climate, with a regular although thin
monsoon, this harbour has been coveted by many a foreign conqueror.
Circumstances have thrown it as it were into our arms, and, if we refuse
the chance, another and a rival nation will not be so blind.
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