Turkish and Eastern proverbs have often a deep and significative meaning under a simple simile. They say, “a neighbor’s chicken has always so unreal a magnitude in covetous eyes, that it swells in its proportions even to the size of a goose!”

Human nature has in reality undergone but few changes since it descended upon this planet. The simplest shepherds and the richest sovereigns have been alike swayed by the demon of envy. The earth no sooner became the inheritance of man, than its treasures excited the desire of appropriation in his breast. Mine and thine were the earliest appellatives between man and his brother.

All-bountiful Nature provided a perpetual feast to their physical wants, in her luxuriant offerings, ready for use, without toil or labor. The flocks of the early pastoral days wandered from field to field, along with their shepherd kings. Ample was the territory as they forsook the soil when winter chilled, and roamed to summer climes exempt from care. Simple in their tastes, they grew and multiplied until they became mighty nations. But the monarchs of the animal world, the kings of the forests, could not brook any inroads upon their dominions, and self-defence awoke man’s ingenuity, and armed him with the war-club, the unerring stone and sling, the quivering arrow, and pointed javelin. The practised hand, thus trained in vanquishing the roaring lion, easily turned against his neighbor man, and the stronger prevailed in the usurpation of coveted territories.

Thus war, in the absence of the arts of modern civilization became the sole aim of these wandering tribes. Alliances were sometimes formed for mutual protection, and territories were ever changing masters. The primitive belief that the soil was common property, and that occupancy gave the only title to possession, induced them to trespass upon the neighboring territories. This same principle exists even at this present day among some of the people of the East, of whom the tribe of YÜrÜcks is well known in Turkey, traversing the whole dominion of Asia Minor, according to the climate they desire to find.

Passing by the days of Biblical History and the ancient pedigree of the Arabians, we will observe the first appearance of the Turks on the pages of history.

As early as the ninth century, a small but adventurous band of Scythians, known as the Turkomans, impelled either by famine or hostility, crossed the Caspian Mountains, and invaded the Armenian territories.

Although they were bravely repulsed, still the prosperous condition of the country was too alluring for them to give up all hope of its ultimate conquest, they therefore continued to harass the inhabitants by their incessant incursions.

In the middle of the eleventh century, a vigorous attempt was made, under the command of Toghrul Bey, a grandson of Seljuk, one of the principal families of Tartary, with an army of one hundred thousand men, who ravaged twenty-four of its provinces.

Toghrul, already so distinguished by his valor, now embraced Islamism, and thus added to the thirst of conquest, the ardor of the religion of the Prophet. Another more desperate sally was made with redoubled force, which met with similar discomfiture.

Fourteen years after, the infuriated Tartars collecting an army of no less than three hundred thousand men, renewed their assaults.

Armenia was at this time not only harassed on all sides by Greeks, Saracens, and Persians, but rent by the internal dissensions of its own princes; so that it now fell a prey to Toghrul, who massacred, in cold blood, 140,000 of the inhabitants, carrying many also into captivity.

The most flourishing provinces in due time were added to the conquests of the Turkomans, by Alf-arslan the nephew and successor of Toghrul. Their empire was greatly extended by the son of Alf-arslan, Melik-Shah, and was subsequently divided among three branches of the house of Seljuk. Suleyman, the third in descent from Melik-Shah, was the first Turkoman prince who governed Asia Minor.

Er-Toghrul, or Orthogrul, the son of Suleyman, having by his assistance on a certain occasion, secured a victory to Ali-ed-din, the sultan of Babylon, Kara-Hissar in Bithynia, was bestowed upon him, and there he settled with his family, which consisted of three sons. Osman, the eldest son and successor of his father, Orthogrul, was left by the death of Ali-ed-din, the ally of his father, without a rival in the government of Syria; he was accordingly proclaimed sultan.

In the year 1,300 he made Neapolis the capital of his dominions, and from thence is dated the foundation of the present Ottoman empire.

Osman was so distinguished by his conquests, and became so endeared to his subjects, that ever since his time, the appellation of Osmanlis has been adopted by them; and the word TÜrk, or Turk, so indiscriminately applied to them by the Europeans, is not only inappropriate, but of a disagreeable signification, for it is only used among themselves as an epithet of opprobrium.

In the twenty-sixth year of his reign, Osman took the city of Broossa, in Asia Minor, which his son Orkhan, who succeeded him, made the capital of his dominions. The desire, however, to possess the city of Stamboul, was transferred with increasing ardor from sultan to sultan; but the glory of its conquest was reserved for Mohammed II.

The effeminate condition of the Greeks favored his design; for out of a population of 200,000 men, there were scarcely 8,000 ready to defend their capital; and on the 29th of May, 1453, Constantinople fell into the hands of the Osmanlis, or descendants of Osman, who have held it in possession until the present day.

It is evident that the Osmanlis are the descendants of the Scythians, or one of the Tartar tribes; but who those Scythians originally were, may be questioned.

A very curious, but plausible theory is advanced by some persons, that the Tartars are of the Jewish race. Tarat-har or Tartar, in the Syrian language, signifies the remnant of a people.

Now, in the second book of Kings, it is recorded that the King of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan in the cities of the Medes. This was about 720 years before Christ.

Medea is situated near the Caspian Sea; possessed entirely by these Tartars.

The names which are given to their principal cities, are the same as were common among the Jews. For instance, the capital of Tartary is called Semerkand; which is a corruption of Samaryan, very similar to Samaria. There are, moreover, many relics of antiquity in this city, which bear undeniable evidences of having been Jewish monuments. They have also another town called Jericho, a Mount Sion and a Mount Tabor, with a river Yordon or Jordan.

They are divided into ten tribes, bearing names similar to the ancient patriarchs of Israel.

They are under one government, but avoid all intermarriages; which was also a peculiar observance of the Jews. There is also a great similarity between the Tartar and the Hebrew languages. The degeneracy of their language, may be attributed to the fact, that they were long captives in a strange land, and removed from all intercourse with more enlightened nations.

The Tartars have even been known to observe the Jewish rites of worship and circumcision, and they traditionally boast themselves to be descended from those Israelites, who, conquering their conquerors, became possessed of all the territories by the Caspian Sea. Indeed, Timour-link or Tamerlane the Great, is said to have proudly asserted, that he was descended in a direct line from the tribe of Dan.

From these facts, it seems very probable that the people known as the Tartars, are the ten lost tribes of the Jews; and it is historically certain, that the founders of the present Turkish Empire, are descendants of these Tartars.