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.