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THE DAY OF THE CRESCENT
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
C. F. CLAY, Manager
LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C. 4
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY
^CALCUTTA • MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
MADRAS
TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF
CANADA, Ltd.
TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKIKAISHA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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THE DAY OF THE CRESCENT
GLIMPSES OF OLD TURKEY
BY
G. E. HUBBARD
LATELY H.M. VICE-CONSUL FOR THE VILAYET OF MOSUL
Author of From the Gulf to Ararat
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1920
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PREFACE
THIS book issues from the press on the eve of the
conclusion of the Turkish Peace Treaty. The occa-
sion lends an added piquancy to the subject. Turkey
in defeat contrasts with Turkey triumphant and the gulf
between gives the measure of a nation's fall.
The Treaty, unless all the signs are at fault, will
reduce a straggling and divided Empire to a compact
and unified State, and launch Turkey on a new era of
existence as an ethnical unit. Her development on
these new lines will profoundly affect the course of
history in the Nearer East and will certainly be
watched keenly by all who study the trend of events
in that quarter of the globe. In this class of readers
one may safely postulate a retrospective interest in the
nation's past, and to them I confidently commend this
humble attempt to create a picture of the golden age of
Turkey.
For the rest, my aim will be rewarded if the book
makes an appeal to the sense we all possess for the
exotic and picturesque, while throwing a little fresh light
on the history and character of a people whom English-
men have found worthy of their steel ever since the
days when first they met
"in glorious Christian field,
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens."
{Richard II, IV. I.)
I am indebted to the editor of The United Services
Magazine for permission to incorporate in this book the
«3
vi Preface
greater part of an article entitled " The Fighting Turk "
which I contributed to a recent issue, and I have to
acknowledge the courtesy of the Hakluyt Society in
agreeing to use being made of the Society's reprints of
the Covel and Dallam diaries.
Professor E. G. Browne has most kindly corrected
the proofs of the book with a view to the orthography
of oriental names and words, and Mr Wratislaw, His
Majesty's Consul-General at Beyrout, and a direct
descendant of the Baron Wratislaw who figures in the
book as the hero of the last two chapters, has given me
most useful assistance in revising the text.
G. E. H.
April, 1920
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION i
A literary "find." The old travel-books and their authors. The
Turkish Peril. How the Grand Turke addressed the Princes of
Christendom. The taint of Byzantium. Turkish militarism.
The fate of an empire.
CHAPTER I
A LITTLE CONDENSED HISTORY 7
The period of the book. Last of the Crusades. " The scourge
of God." Selim the Grim. Suleyman the Magnificent. An
example of chivalry. Conquests and reforms. A dramatic death
scene. The story of Count Christopher. A series of royal de-
generates. Murad the Fourth. A family of great Vizirs. The
second siege of Vienna. Decapitation of an ostrich. A terrible
record. The end of an era.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD SERAGLIO AND THE ADVENTURES OF AN
ORGAN-BUILDER 25
A city of fair fame. Sandys describes the seraglio. A perilous
pleasaunce. A Sultan's pay-roll. The palace pages. A drastic
curriculum. Master Thomas Dallam. A gift to the Sultan. The
wonderful organ. The dress rehearsal. Seeing round the palace.
Sultanas at play. Chased by blackamoors. Safely home.
CHAPTER III
THE SULTAN'S ARMIES 39
Origin of the Janissaries. A ceremony of initiation. Life in the
ranks. The regimental cauldron. The Janissary's charter. From
body-guard to regicide. Spahis and piades. A prototype of the
Red Knight. Artillery. A remarkable gun-team. The corps of
" Mad-caps." The Tartar auxiliaries. Licensed freebooters.
viii Contents
CHAPTER IV
PAGE
A PALACE AUDIENCE . . .50
A stir in the bailaggio. The crossing of the Golden Horn.
Through old Stamboul. Entering the Seraglio. The two court-
yards. The Janissaries' dinner-call. Admittance to the divan.
A cabinet meeting. Business of state. A gargantuan feast.
The Sultan on his throne. A dazzling spectacle. A diplomatic
reconciliation.
CHAPTER V
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE (1) 62
Truce between Turkey and the Empire. The new ambassador.
Journey to Constantinople. Dr Quackquelben's misadventure.
Bulgarian costumes. The Sultan's zoo. The credulous hyena.
Suleyman at Amadia. A Persian banquet. An unpropitious
reception. Portrait of Suleyman. Homeward bound. An
agonizing sight. The price of a nose. A brief respite.
CHAPTER VI
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE (2) ... 78
"A bushel of troubles." Pertinacity in adversity. An invaluable
recipe. Gloomy quarters. The embassy menagerie. The pig
and the door-keeper. Affection in a crane. Gentle horses.
Morale of the Turkish army. A damaging comparison. The
symbolic melon. Outwitting a chaoush. A military march-past
A row with the Janissaries.
CHAPTER VII
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE (3) ... 93
The relics of a fleet. The fate of the prisoners. A work of hu-
manity. A puritanic monarch. The Pestilence. Escape to
Prinkipo. A fisherman's paradise. The fat Franciscan. Story
of the Hojfs sleeve. The end in sight. A surly farewell. Ameni-
ties of the road. Henry and the hatchet. A satisfactory ending.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO MARTIAL ADVENTURES (1) 106
The book-shelves of the " Green Dragon." A philosophic globe-
trotter. By caravan to Turkey. Serajevo. Falling in with the
army. Company for the Devil. A short way with miscreants.
A grisly tower. Luxurious ''bashaws." Wives and Catimites.
The pasha's offer. A bloody revenge. A reluctant parting.
Contents ix
• CHAPTER IX
PAGE
TWO MARTIAL ADVENTURES (2) 116
War between the Poles and Turks. The armies meet. The
opening attack. Running the blockade. A mediaeval trench
raid. The Turks' "big push." Holding the breach. Behemoth
bound. A petulant Sultan. Reception of the messengers. An
elephant as a peace-offering.
CHAPTER X
A PERSIAN INTERLUDE 130
The history of " Long Hassan." // Magnifico Barbaro starts on
his mission. Cyprian politics. Across Asia Minor. Ambushed
by Kurds. Arrival at Tabriz. The garden-palace. An exciting
tournament. The envoys from India. A punitive expedition.
Fete champs ire. A monstrous cake. The return to Venice.
CHAPTER XI
THE SULTAN'S NAVY 138
A Pera " chestnut." Origin of the Turkish navy. The Barbary
corsairs. Barbarossa. An apprenticeship in piracy. Doria
enters the stage. Well-matched opponents. Barbarossa and
Suleyman. The great Capudan Pasha. Battle of Prevesa. The
church-bells of Nice. Mat rais ul bahr. Captains Courageous.
Indian adventures. Account of a cyclone. Ceding the trident.
The victims of Jerba. The last fight of "The three halfe
moones." The feat of John Foxe, Gunner.
CHAPTER XII
A DRAGOMAN'S DIARY 161
The election of a bailo. A magnificent send-off. Overland to
Stamboul. Conflicting astrologies. Sports on the At Maidan.
Speeding the pilgrims. Preparations for war. Scenes at the
camp. The Sultan's secret. An ill-omened start. The court at
Belgrade. Premature rejoicings. The saving of Vienna. The
Sultan's home-coming. The return of the Embassy.
CHAPTER XIII
A BELATED CRUSADE 179
How Crete fell to Venice. The Turkish invasion. Candia be-
sieged. The crusaders leave Toulon. An escapade in Sardinia.
The landing at Candia. A discreditable episode. Manning the
walls. The great sortie. A hopeless struggle. Calling the roll.
A cosmopolitan garrison. Successive misfortunes. A survivor's
quarantaine.
Contents
CHAPTER XIV
PAGE
BUNDLE OF GLEANINGS 187
An adventurous Don. The circumcision of a Prince. Pyro-
technical marvels. Presents at a wedding. The cats' table d'hote.
"Fruits on a Dunghill." A lesson in modesty. Grelot's adven-
ture. The imam's lamps. Sketches of dervishes. A colony of
sorceresses. Mohammed's fowls. A Pasha in a powdering-tub.
CHAPTER XV
PRISONER IN THE GALLEYS, etc. (1) . . .200
Christian prisoners in Turkey. The mission to Constantinople.
The mission is interned. Spying on the Turks. A shameless
betrayal. The arrest of the mission. Threatened with "gauch-
ing." Refusal to apostate. The arsenal prison. Mass under
difficulties. The eating of "Marko." Condemned to the galleys.
Life of a galley-slave. Hunger and torture. Locked in the Black
Tower. The agha of the Tower. A living purgatory. A heart-
less joke.
CHAPTER XVI
PRISONER IN THE GALLEYS, etc. (2) 221
A ray of hope. Disillusionment follows. The new Grand Vizir.
A petition and its answer. Summoned to the divan. A friend
in need. Freedom from fetters. The adieux at the Tower.
Marching with the army. Promises of liberty. A serious hitch.
Escape from the army. Encounter with Tartars. Saved by a
thunderstorm. Crossing the lines. A target for cannon-balls.
Safe among friends. Arrival at Prague. A great-hearted
Englishman. Faith in captivity. Exeunt omnes.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
General view of Constantinople
Seraglio Point
A Turkish Lady
A Janissary . . ■ . ■
The Agha of the Janissaries
A "madcap"
A Cadilesker .
The Grand Vizir .
A Ho/a ....
Warship passing down the Bosphorus
Turkish wrestling
An officer of Janissaries
Turkish fireworks
Grelot's sketch of Sta Sofia
A "Geomailer"
The site of the Black Tower
F
rontispiece
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INTRODUCTION
A year ago, while delving among some of the dustiest
bookshelves of the Foreign Office library, I happened
on a row of ancient books on Turkey bound for the
most part in decrepit leather bindings with a faded, but
illustrious, coat-of-arms stamped on their covers. They
proved on closer inspection to belong to a collection
bequeathed some time in the last century by a noble
diplomat who, when attached to the Constantinople
embassy, had made a hobby of collecting books on
Turkish travel of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. Having been myself a sojourner and traveller
in Turkey, my curiosity was roused by these time-worn
records from an earlier age and I dipped into them with
an idle interest, to find myself rapidly engrossed in a
quite fascinating study.
The authors were a cosmopolitan and heterogeneous
lot, including among others such diverse characters as
a Flemish diplomat, a French artist, a Polish soldier,
a Venetian dragoman and an English man of science.
Their stories of how they travelled, painted, plotted or
fought according to their several capacities are full of
colour and romance and worthy products of the age of
adventure in which the actors lived. The old-fashioned
letterpress and quaint woodcuts which adorn their pages
opened the door, moreover, into what was to me — as I
venture to think it will be to most of my readers — an
almost unexplored subject, the "Golden Age "of Turkey.
No writer has given us a Rise and Fall of the Ottoman
Empire, or painted the life of Constantinople in the
2 Introduction
great days of the Turk as Gibbon painted it under the
Byzantine emperors. Modern histories of Turkey rarely
descend to picturesque detail and even the homely, dis-
cursive works of old Richard Knollys and Sir Paul
Rycaut penetrate but seldom beyond the regions of
affairs of state. These old travel-books, on the other
hand, raise the curtain on the Turkish life of their day
in all its intimate aspects. The stage is crowded with
picturesque figures — the proud and petulant Janissary,
the naked, screaming dervish, the "three-tail" Pasha
with his train of "catamites" and extravagant suite, the
wild, undisciplined Tartar, the Grand Vizir risen from
a swineherd to the highest post in the Empire and the
"Grand Turke" himself challenging Christendom, with
a sublime contempt for all brother kings and emperors.
The scenes among which the actors play are besides of
infinite variety, ranging the scale from the dazzling
splendours of the Grand Signior's court to the unspeak-
able horrors of life in the slave-galleys.
I have tried, by a process of selection and compres-
sion, to fit the most interesting parts of these old nar-
ratives into the pages of the present book, and have
aimed at doing so in such a way as to give as general
a picture as possible of the unique military and political
system which the Turks had developed when they
reached the summit of their power. It is easy to forget
how great that power was and what an immense menace
the Turks, with their incomparable military organiza-
tion, laid upon the rest of Europe during the period
with which we have to deal. One need only look at
the many references to the Turks in Shakespeare's
plays to realize how much the Turkish peril obsessed
the minds of our Elizabethan ancestors. A couple of
Introduction 3
instances taken from contemporary publications may not
be out of place.
In the preface of Knollys's Historie of the Turkes
published in 16 10, we come on the following dirge "The
Long and still declining state of the Christian Common-
wealthe with the dishonour done unto the blessed name
of Oure Savioure, the desolation of the Church militant
hereon Earth, thedreadfull dangers daily threatened unto
the poor remainder thereof, the millions of souls cast
headlong into eternal destruction, the infinity of woefull
Christians whose grievous groans under the heavy yoke
of Infidelity no tongue is able to express, might worthily
move even a stonie heart to ruth and give just cause to
any good Christian to sit downe and, with the heavie
prophet, to say 'Oh, how hath the Lord darkened the
Daughter of Zion in His wrath and cast downe from
Heaven unto Earth the beautie of Israel!'" Even al-
lowing that Knollys — a Fellow of Lincoln College and,
generally speaking, a well-balanced writer — may have
been something of an alarmist, one can hardly doubt
that his dismal forebodings of the overwhelming of
Christendom by the oncoming Turk reflected to a great
extent the current feeling of his day.
The second instance may help to explain how this
fear of the Turk came to be deeply implanted by
showing us the astonishing attitude which the Sultan of
Turkey felt able to adopt in his dealings with Christian
monarchs. It is taken from a pamphlet published in
London "at the Sign of the White Swan" in 1606,
giving an English translation of "A letter of the Great
Turke recently sent to all the Kings and Princes of
Christendom." The letter is too long to quote in full,
but the tenor of it is as follows :
4 Introduction
Sultan Ahmed, "Shadow of God upon Earth, Barron
of Turkie, Lord of the Upper and Lower Seas, Beloved
in Heaven" — with a dozen more titles in a similar strain
— calls upon the Great Champion of Rome {alias the
Pope) and his Confederates, the Princes of Christendom,
to submit themselves to his will and manifest their sur-
render by homages and tribute.
If they obey "and open their Townes and Gates,"
the Sultan will of his clemency suffer them to retain
their faith and "accustomed ceremonies," but if they
resist, then let them expect "nought else but mortall
warres and firing of cities, with greate occision and
deathe both of olde and young." The Christian Princes
are advised "to take example by the Great Souldan of
Babylon, whom we spoiled of his dignitie and pursued
unto deathe" (a bit of quite gratuitous perversion this,
as the Turks had, as a matter of fact, just suffered a
notable disaster at Bagdad at the hands of Shah Abbas
and his Persians), and are warned that presently the
whole world will bow down to Sultan Ahmed, whose
armies "are even now marching through Hungarie to
invade all Germanie and the noble countrie of France"
and will shortly capture Rome, "whose gorgeous temples
shall be used as was the temple of the Holy Sophie."
This wild braggadocio of the nineteen-year-old
Sultan strikes absurdly enough on modern ears, but we
can be sure that it held little of mirth for a generation
to whom the Turk was a veritable bogy and who could
never forget that thousands of their fellow-Christians
were labouring and dying as slaves in the Turkish
galleys.
In the various stories reproduced in this book one
can hardly fail to be struck by the two leading charac-
Introduction 5
teristics which marked the Turk in the days of his
prime — his inordinate love of display and his inherent
"militarism." The first of these was, I think one may
safely say, a borrowed characteristic. The Turk was a
simple primitive creature when he first emerged on to
the Anatolian plains to conquer a powerful empire.
But his victory over the Greeks contained the seeds of
his own ruin. The national failings which had weakened
the Greek defence infected their conquerors, who soon
acquired the true Byzantine taste for lavish show and
voluptuous luxury. This, with its inevitable accom-
paniment of bribery and corruption, slowly undermined
the government of Turkey in the succeeding centuries,
sapping the virility of her leaders and changing the
character of her sultans from hardy tribal chiefs to the
most contemptible of debauched despots. The process
of the disease is easily traceable in the series of narra-
tives embodied in the present volume.
Militarism, on the contrary, was inbred from the
start. The Turk has never regarded war as the devas-
tating interlude which we are wont to consider it, but
rather as a natural, and by no means undesirable, state.
Until recent times the administration of Turkey was
purely military and the usual distinctions between civil
and military authority did not exist. To quote from Sir
Charles Eliot's classical book on Turkey, "every Turk
is born a soldier" ; in fact the Ottoman race is essentially
a race of fighters. The course of history has done much
to abet their natural aptitude. Their early career was
passed in tribal warfare. Before they had fairly subdued
their primitive rivals, they embarked on a David and
Goliath struggle against the Western Empire, and on
finally capturing Constantinople they found themselves
6 Introduction
faced by enemies in every direction. A Christian con-
federacy opposed them on one side, the Persians
threatened on the other, while at sea they were at con-
stant warfare with the Italian maritime states. For
nearly three centuries they fought endless campaigns
against Austria and Venice, their hereditary enemies,
till with the consolidation of Russia a fresh and even
deadlier enemy entered the field. Their struggle with
Russia led on to the gradual disintegration of their vast
empire, resulting in the wars of liberation which have
lasted into the present century, only to be eclipsed in
our own time by the general Armageddon. Turkish
history, indeed, is one endless record of war — a fact
reflected in the very large part which military topics
occupy in the following pages.
The military "genius" and moral decadence which
this book thus illustrates have been the two great factors
in Turkey's existence, and the fate of the empire has
largely depended on the balance between them. On
the whole the latter has triumphed in spite of such bril-
liant exceptions even in modern times as the defence
of Plevna or the holding of San-i-yat and Achi Baba.
The disease contracted by the conquerors of Byzantium
sapped the strength of the race and hastened the close
of the brilliant epoch of Turkish history which it is my
object to present to the reader ; but it has left the Ana-
tolian peasant, thebackboneof Turkey, almostuntouched.
" Baluk bashdan kokar" says the Turkish proverb, "the
fish rots from the head" ; we have yet to see if the Turk
will succeed in arresting the process downwards.
CHAPTER I
A LITTLE CONDENSED HISTORY
The stories of Turkish travels in the pages of this book
all fall within a period beginning in the middle of the
sixteenth century and lasting some 1 50 years.
This century and a half saw the acme of the Turks'
power, the beginning of their downward course and the
brief recovery which, like a St Luke's summer, broke
with a short-lived burst of sunshine into the autumn of
their decline. It also covered the fiercest phases of the
struggle between Turkey and Christendom, including
the two occasions when Europe was seriously threatened
with a wholesale Ottoman invasion. It is, indeed, as
dramatic a period of history as you well could find, be-
sides playing an important part in the development of
the whole of Eastern Europe.
The present chapter by no means aims at giving
a serious rdsume of the times — anything of the sort,
even were it within the writer's compass, would be out
of place in the conception of this book as a collection
of picturesque sketches. But the sketches will be better
for being fitted into place, so for the sake of such of my
readers as are not familiar with von Hammer or Creasy,
I will attempt to reconstruct a slight historical back-
ground for the events of the chapters which follow.
To gain a connected idea of the relations between
Turkey and the countries of Europe, it is well to go
back nearly a century before the beginning of our period
8 A Little Condensed History
to the years immediately after the Fall of Constanti-
nople. That impressive event raised a thorough panic
throughout Europe and seemed likely for a time to re-
vive the old Crusading spirit. The most extraordinary
scenes resulted from the efforts of various princes to
rouse the enthusiasm of Christian chivalry and raise
volunteers for fresh crusades. Michaud describes, for
instance, in his history of the Crusades, a fUe which
took place in the course of a congress at Lille which
Philip of Burgundy had convoked to set on foot an ex-
pedition. The proceedings began with tableaux vivants
representing stirring classical scenes such as the Labours
of Hercules and the Quest of the Golden Fleece, fol-
lowed by a pageant in which a herald-at-arms carrying a
pheasant (the emblem of bravery) ushered in an elephant
led by a Saracen, with a "tower " on its back containing
a lady in black (a type of the Christian Church) who
recited inspiring verses. The knights who were present
were so fired by the spectacle that they one and all swore
by the lady never to rest again till they had met the
Turk in mortal combat and performed some prodigy of
valour against the foe of Christendom. Their ardour
was rewarded by a lady in white with "Grace dieu " in
golden letters on her back who presented to them seven
lovely damsels representing the cardinal virtues, where-
upon the whole assembly went off together to sup and
dance !
But such-like fantastic attempts to resuscitate the
crusades had little effect. The old spirit had been too
effectually smothered by the pagan influences of the
Renaissance, and the chronic state of discord in Europe
made co-operative action almost impossible. Pius II
made a brave attempt to organise and lead an army
Popes and Sultans 9
against Constantinople, but only a moderate host of poor
and badly equipped crusaders collected at the meeting-
place at Ancona. The knights and barons had ignored
his summons and the disappointed Pope died before
the crusade could start. From this time forward it was
left to the Knights of St John to champion the Cross
against the Crescent.
It was symptomatic of the change of mind which
had come over Europe that when Charles VIII invaded
Italy the King of Naples appealed for help simultane-
ously to the Pope and the Sultan !
Leo X tried, it is true, to continue the work of Pius
and again preached a crusade ; but his calls to the faith-
ful remained unheeded. The wars between Francis and
Charles were absorbing the energies of Europe, the
Reformation spirit was already abroad and Luther him-
self was preaching that the Turk was the Scourge of
God and that it was impious to resist him.
Turkey's Christian neighbours had meanwhile en-
joyed a breathing space since the whirlwind campaign
of Mohammed the Conqueror and his predecessors,
thanks to the diversion of Ottoman enterprise in other
directions. Selim the First, the cruel warrior-poet, spent
his reigning years in leading the Turkish armies to new
fields of conquest in the South and East. He had added
huge tracts of Asia and Northern Africa to the empire,
had forced the Persians back beyond Tabriz, and had
conquered Syria, Arabia and Egypt. His taking of
Cairo had, incidentally, resulted in an event of prime
importance to the future history of Turkey, the last of
the line of Abbaside caliphs — a creature at that time
in the hands of the Mameluke rulers of Egypt — having
been "persuaded" to transfer his hereditary office, to-
io A Little Condensed History
gether with the treasured standard and other relics of
the Prophet, to the Sultan of Turkey who henceforward
became Caliph of Islam.
Such was broadly the position in 1 520 when the Sul-
tanate passed to Suleyman the Second, surnamed "the
Magnificent," in whose reign the period covered by this
book begins. It is noteworthy that the half-century
during which he governed Turkey was one of the most
prolific of famous monarchs that history can show. His
contemporaries on the thrones of Europe and Asia in-
clude Queen Elizabeth, Francois Premier, the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, Shah Ismail the restorer of Persia,
and Akbar, the greatest of the Great Moguls. Suleyman
can claim an honourable place among these historic
figures. He was a man of most versatile talents, a fine
general, a great administrator and a legislator of such
note that he won the title of " Canuni" (the " Lawgiver").
Besides his sterner qualities he was a generous patron
of the arts, a student and writer of history and in philo-
sophy a disciple of Aristotle. He was also a very great
builder, and it is to him that Constantinople owes its
most splendid edifice of post-conquest date, the great
Suleymanieh mosque.
In the chapter dealing with the travels of Busbequius
the reader will find a sketch of Suleyman in his old age;
in his earlier years he has been described by an Italian
writer as a tall, thin man with a complexion "as if
smoked," prominent brow, fine black eyes "piu tosto
pietosi che crudeli," aquiline nose and a thin mouth
adorned by long moustaches and a forked beard. It
is the picture of a proud and unrelentless man, and
this Suleyman certainly was. He placed himself high
above all other crowned heads, refused to correspond
The great Suleyman 1 1
with them on equal terms and treated them on a level
with his own Vizir. Generous he could be when occa-
sion warranted, as he showed when de Lisle Adam
and the remnant of his knights surrendered Rhodes
after their heroic defence of the town. Far from wreaking
vengeance on the garrison for the enormous losses which
the siege had cost him, Suleyman was moved only with
admiration for their gallantry, and as they trooped out
of the town gate he sent for their leader and congratu-
lated him in public. The knights were allowed to leave
the islands with the honours of war, taking their be-
longings with them, and were even furnished with
Turkish ships to transport them home to Europe. As
a lasting mark of Suleyman's fine spirit on this occasion,
the arms of many of the knights still remain, left intact
by his orders, on the lintels of the houses which they
abandoned to the Turks.
The capture of Rhodes which was the scene of this
incident happened in the third year of Suleyman's reign.
Having disposed of this advanced outpost of Christen-
dom which had long been a sharp thorn in the Turk's
side, the Sultan turned his attention to Europe ; four
years later he conquered Hungary and seven years later
was besieging Vienna. Though the situation was saved by
the brave Comte de Salm, the appalling ddbdcle which the
Hungarians had met with at Mohacz and the narrowly
averted irruption of the Turks into central Europe
stirred the Pope to a last futile effort to raise a crusade.
Clement VII, though a prisoner of the Germans in
Rome, sent out a despairing cry to the Christian world
to unite against the infidel and actually ordered the
plate in all the churches in Italy to be sold to provide
funds. The appeal fell on deaf ears, and Europe might
12 A Little Condensed History
easily have been overwhelmed by the Turk but for the
intervention of fortune which distracted Suleyman's at-
tention to the more urgent task of repelling a Persian
invasion. The old bitter hatred between Sunnite and
Shhte and the Shah's efforts to regain his lost territories
held the Ottoman armies engaged on the eastern frontier
over the critical period.
But although the Turks did not again in Suleyman's
time come within sight of the walls of Vienna, they
made repeated campaigns into Europe and continually
advanced their northern frontier. Hungary remained
in vassalage to Turkey and the Emperor Ferdinand's
attempts to wrest it back, his failures to do so and
efforts to come to a settlement with Suleyman were the
occasion of the embassy of Busbequius whose adventures
fill chapters v, vi and vn.
Meanwhile with the help of the famous admiral
Khair-ed-Din Barbarossa, the Turkish empire was ex-
tended along the coast of Northern Africa till it included
Tripoli and Algiers; the only serious check to Suleyman's
Mediterranean ambitions being his failure to take Malta,
to which island the Knights of St John had migrated
after the loss of Rhodes.
At the same time that he was extending his power
abroad Suleyman was busy with reorganisation at home.
He split up the empire into pashaliks and sanjaks, the
same divisions roughly as exist to-day, laid down a
law for the rayaks, giving them for the first time the
right to hold property, remodelled the criminal law,
founded schools, endowed the ulema and indulged in
advanced economic experiments as, for instance, the
regulation of prices and wages. He granted the first
" Capitulations " (mark again the arrogant term to ex-
A dramatic death scene 13
press what was really a treaty) which were obtained by
the French in 1535.
His end was dramatic. He was an old man of
seventy when he marched into Europe for the last time,
leading a campaign against the Emperor Maximilian II
who had succeeded his old enemy Ferdinand two years
before. He had been checked on his last campaign by
the fortress of Szigeth and was resolved this time to
take it. The place was garrisoned by 3000 troops under
Nicolas Zriny. Suleyman with 50,000 men sat down
to besiege it. For months Zriny held out in the citadel
till all hope of relief had vanished. Then he made his
memorable sortie. On the chosen day every gun in the
place was lined up behind the gates and filled to the
muzzle, the remaining stock of powder was collected in
one huge mine and the garrison prepared for the final
sortie. All the knights put on their finest robes and
jewellery while Zriny armed himself with the keys of the
castle and a purse with a hundred pieces of gold " so,"
he said, " that the man who lays me out shall not com-
plain that his work is wasted." On the signal the gates
were thrown suddenly open, all the guns discharged
point-blank into the Turkish hosts outside and the
knights charged out in a body. The tremendous
numbers of the Turks bore them back within the citadel
when the mine exploded involving Turk and Magyar
alike in a mighty holocaust.
The city which had defied Suleyman and which he
had sworn to capture was taken, but Suleyman himself
knew nothing of it. For two days his lifeless corpse with
open eyes and cheeks artificially reddened had sat in
his tent propped upright on the divan. His Vizir and
a few of his trusted servants were alone in the secret,
14 A Little Condensed History
which they hid from the outside world by allowing no
break to occur in the ordinary daily routine. To all
appearance reports were regularly made to the dead
Sultan, meals served, messages received and sent. The
moment that Szigeth fell the royal tent was struck and
the royal carriage with the Emperor's person visible
inside headed for Constantinople. Selim, the heir to
the throne, had been privately warned and hastened to
meet the returning army.
They met at Adrianople, where the Sultan's death
was at last publicly announced ; Selim was acclaimed
emperor by the assembled troops and, the danger of
civil war being passed, it was possible to proceed openly
with the funeral arrangements and to carry Suleyman's
remains to their last resting-place in his own tomb-
mosque at the capital.
Fifty years later Suleyman's epitaph was written by
Richard Knollys the English historian, who commemo-
rates the great Sultan in the following verse :
Magnificent Soliman mounts his father's throne
With Christian slaughters formidable growne.
Rhodes, Naxos, Paros felt his crueltie
And the sweet waters of the Tyrrhenean sea.
Th' Hungarian territories he did invade,
And fierce attempts on fair Vienna made,
Till from the walls of Sigeth meanly come,
Th' aspiring tyrant crept to his long home.
The State archives of Vienna preserve a contem-
porary account of the adventures of one of Comte de
Salm's officers at the siege of Vienna which is worth
quoting as an example of the nobler traits of Suleyman
and his officers. Count Christopher von Zedlitz, a Cornet
in the Austrian army, was taken prisoner by the Turks
in a skirmish outside Vienna. After trying without
A test of chivalry 15
success to strip off his armour, his captors put him on a
baggage-mule and carried him to Headquarters.
There he was brought to Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand
Vizir, who gave orders that his cuirass should be re-
moved, but as none of the Turks present understood
the intricacies of plate-armour Count Christopher re-
mained safely ensconced in his shell. Eventually he
was interrogated by the Sultan himself. "To him,"
says the record, "Count Christopher made answer, that
if assured of his life he would undo himself. When
Ibrahim Pacha had given him such assurance, he showed
the interpreter two little screws at the side, which being
loosed, the cuirass came to its pieces, to the great wonder
of the Turks.
"As the account of these things spread itself through
the camp, much was said of the feats of this man-at-arms,
and of his singular dexterity under his strange attire, and
everyone was curious to see him, being, moreover, among
the first who had been taken prisoners out of the city
itself of Vienna. He was, therefore, ordered to exhibit
himself in full cuirass, armed at all points for the fight,
and to prove whether in this fashion he could, without
vantage, lift himself from the ground. On the following
day, mules and several kicking horses being produced,
Count Christopher laid himself on the ground with his
cuirass screwed, and rising nimbly, without any vantage,
sprung on a horse, and this he repeated several times ;
and then, with running and vaulting, afforded those
hellhounds a princely spectacle of knightly exercises to
their great admiration, and specially that of Ibrahim
Pacha, who soon after took him to himself, and kept
him safe in his own custody. Meanwhile, there came
to him certain officers to frighten or to prove him, telling
1 6 A Little Condensed History
him to hold himself in readiness, for that the Pacha
would do him right that same day. To these he answered,
that as a Christian he was in truth not afraid of death,
as one who, in honour of his Redeemer, in obedience
to his sovereign, and in defence of his country, had pre-
pared himself by prayer for death at any hour or instant,
and hoped and believed most certainly to enjoy eternal
joy and happiness through Christ ; but, nevertheless,
could not credit that such was the order of the Pacha, for
he knew for certain that what the Pacha had promised
he would perform like an honourable soldier. When this
reached the Pacha, the longer he considered, the more
he admired not only the knightly feats, but the noble
spirit of this hero. When, also, Soliman himself asked
him whether, if he should release him, he would still
make war upon him, Count Christopher answered, un-
dismayed, that if God and his Redeemer should grant
him deliverance, he would while life lasted fight against
the Turks more hotly than ever. Thereupon the Sultan
replied, ' Thou shalt be free, my man, and make war
on me as thou wilt for the rest of thy life.'
11 The Pacha, however, kept him in good case while
the siege lasted, namely, about a month ; and in place
of his cuirass gave him a dress of red velvet Tyrian
stuff, which he wore and lay in night and day, and sent
him from his own table meat and mixed drinks as daily
prepared for himself, and even in course of time offered
and gave him wine.
"When the assault took place, the Count was left in
the Pacha's tent without any special guard, but loose
and free of his person, and able to look about him in
the camp ; but when, by help of God, the Turks being
repulsed broke up their Camp, the Pacha took the Count
A human holocaust 17
with him the first day's march, but in the morning put
another Turkish robe of velvet on him over the former,
and added a present of a hundred aspers, and also a
cavalry prisoner whom the Count knew and had begged
for, and caused them to be honourably attended and
passed safe, so that on the following day they reached
Vienna, where the Count was honourably received by the
princes, counts, gentlemen and officers there present."
Such instances of chivalrous behaviour are not at
all rare, but to balance the picture one must remember
the appalling excesses of which the Turks were some-
times guilty. At this same siege of Vienna the azabs
and akinjis ravished and pillaged right into Styria,
burning villages by the score and blotting out every
trace of life over large areas. Worst of all was the scene
when the Turks realized that it was beyond their power
to take Vienna, and the order was given to break up
camp. The troops set fire to their stores and encamp-
ment and when the blaze under the city walls was at
its height a large number of the prisoners in the camp
were thrown alive on the flames in full view of the
Viennese populace. It is only fair to say that Suleyman
himself did not sanction, even if he failed to prevent,
this atrocious act.
Selim II, whom we left at Adrianople, confronting
the bedizened corpse of his father, was the first of a series
of dissolute sultans, but he continued Suleyman's agres-
sive policy during the short eight years of his reign.
The centre of his attacks shifted, however, east and
west, against the Venetians on one side and the Don
Cossacks on the other. He won Cyprus and lost the
battle of Lepanto. In one very important respect he
broke with the Turkish traditions. From the earliest
20 A Little Condensed History
Persia and Turkey have clashed throughout history
but their sternest struggles were in Murad's reign, when
the Turks took Erivan and recovered possession of
Bagdad which they held till the day when British troops
followed General Maude through its gates.
Murad was succeeded by the worst of all the bad sul-
tans, Ibrahim. Jewelled coaches, rare furs and Georgian
ladies were the only objects of his existence and the
little time he spared from them he devoted to the per-
secution of his rayahs. Regicide for once was justified
when the Janissaries rose and killed him. His only
interest for us is that, in revenge for the capture by a
Venetian sea-captain of one of his sultanas travelling
to Mecca, he started the Cretan war and the siege of
Candia whither Monsieur de la Feuillade led his forlorn
hope as recorded in chapter xm.
Ibrahim was followed by Mohammed IV who, though
by no means great in himself, had the sense to choose
a great man as Vizir. This man was Mohammed Kiu-
prulu, an Albanian by birth who started life as a palace
cook, rose to be Vali and at the age of seventy was
offered the Grand Vizirate. He took it on condition
that the Sultan should give him absolute powers and
at once began a thorough purging of the Turkish system.
His methods were similar to those of Murad IV, and
in the five years of his Vizirate he was credited with
no less than 36,000 capital executions.
His son Ahmed who followed him led a large army
into Hungary against the great Count Montecuculi.
The Thirty Years' War had taught Europe new methods
in military science and put European armies ahead of
the conservative Turks, who, for instance, kept to their
sabres and failed to realize the superior possibilities of
Second siege of Vienna 2 1
the pike as an infantry weapon. Nor could all the
Kiuprulus' efforts at regeneration cope with the indis-
cipline and corruption which had rooted themselves in
the nation. The consequence was that the great Im-
perialist general utterly routed a Turkish force four
times his own in numbers and took all their artillery at
the battle of St Gotthard. Ahmed retrieved the disaster
to a great extent by the astuteness he showed in the
subsequent treaty which left Turkey suzerain over Tran-
sylvania. He also won the Ukraine from John Sobiesky,
the chivalrous King of Poland, who was destined fifteen
years later to be the instrument of Europe's liberation
from the secular Turkish menace.
When Ahmed died in 1676 his immediate successor
was not, unhappily for Turkey, another of the same
family. Sultan Mohammed chose instead a man who
was noted throughout the country for boundless greed
and ambition. He was known as Black Mustafa and
he is believed to have aimed at advancing the boundaries
of Turkey to the Rhine and making himself Viceroy of
a huge province extending thither from the Danube.
With some such plan in view he urged the Sultan to
war with Austria. The situation in Hungary was most
propitious for the Turkish invasion as the country was
racked with internecine strife. The Hungarians had
lost all patience with the tyranny of the Emperor and
his ruthless measures to crush the Protestants, and had
formed a secret league against the Austrians. The in-
surgents invited the help of the Sultan who responded
only too readily and assembled the whole Turkish army
for an attack on Vienna. In chapter xn we have the
account of a Venetian dragoman who tells of the pre-
parations for the great campaign, the assembling and the
22 A Little Condensed History
march northward of the huge Turkish army numbering
nearly half-a-million men and of the desperate scenes
which occurred when they returned later in rout and
confusion. Vienna was saved by the unexpected acces-
sion of the Poles to the Austrian cause and the brilliant
and successful onslaught which their King Sobiesky
made at the eleventh hour on the beleaguering Turkish
army. An important contributory cause, however, was
the inordinate greed of Black Mustafa whose claim to
keep for himself all the money which might be taken
from the city so disgusted his men that they lost heart
in the fight. A proof of his extraordinary taste for fan-
tastic luxury is supplied in a letter which Sobiesky wrote
to his Queen describing Mustafa's camp as it was found
when the Austrian troops entered it.
He mentions the Vizir's charger discovered standing
at the door of the tent so weighed down with its heavy
caparisons including stirrups of solid gold as to be use-
less for flight, the tent itself full of carpets and furs,
jewelled arms and quivers studded with rubies and
pearls and the enormous private camp containing not
only fountains and baths, but even (mirabile dictu) a
rabbit-warren and a small menagerie. A parrot took
wing and foiled the pursuit of the Austrian soldiers
and, strangest of all, a pet ostrich was found which had
been beheaded by Mustafa's own sword to prevent its
falling into Christian hands. A trophy of special interest
was a large wooden cross which had regularly been set
up in the Turkish camp for the mass celebrations of
Contacuzenos, the Prince of Wallachia, the Sultan's
Christian vassal.
Mustafa paid the price of his failure with his life,
meeting the messenger with the bow string ere ever he
The great ddbacle 23
reached the shores of the Bosphorus. His head was
carried to be shown to the Sultan who ordered that it
should be taken to Belgrade and deposited there in a
mosque. When the Turks lost Belgrade they left the
grisly relic behind and it found its way to Vienna where,
for all that I know to the contrary, it still lies in the
city arsenal.
The victory of the Christian arms was set off by the
appalling depredations of the Turkish troops. A con-
temporary Austrian record mentions that 4092 villages
in the district of Vienna were burnt, and gives the
following table of prisoners carried off into Turkish
captivity :
Old men ... ... ... ... ... 6,000
Women ... ... ... ... ... 11,215
Unmarried women, 26 years of age at the
oldest, of whom 204 were noble ... 14,922
Children, boys and girls, the oldest between
4 and 5 years of age ... ... ... 26,093
Total 57,220 (sic)
The colossal ddbdcle at Vienna was followed by a
series of further disasters including the loss of Buda-
Pesth, which had then been Turkish for 145 years, and
the occupation by the Venetians of a large part of
Greece. Two more Kiuprulus held the post of Vizir,
the latter of whom, in the reign of Mustafa II, concluded
the treaty of Carlowitz.
On this famous occasion the Turks entered the con-
ference chamber possessing nearly a quarter of Europe,
if Russia be excluded ; they emerged with the loss of
all Hungary except the Banat, half of Greece, the
southern portion of Poland and a great stretch of the
24 A Little Condensed History
north coast of the Black Sea, to which Russia now
descended for the first time. But the treaty of Carlowitz
was signed in the last year of the seventeenth century
and we have already overshot the end of the period
with which we are immediately concerned.
CHAPTER II
THE OLD SERAGLIO AND THE ADVENTURES
OF AN ORGAN-BUILDER
No city on the earth has, I suppose, had such en-
comiums lavished upon it by literary travellers as
Constantinople.
One names it "the Mistress of two Continents,"
another "the Navel of the World" and all vie together
in enthusiastic praises of its natural beauties. The
limit of absurd hyperbole is reached by an early French
writer — whose name I forget — when he solemnly
affirms that not only do all the birds of the air flock to
the neighbouring shores to revel in its charms, but that
the very oysters of the Bosphorus may be seen leaping
high above the waves to catch a glimpse of its unrivalled
glories.
A captious critic might possibly observe that al-
though the Bosphorus furnishes the epicure with as
great a variety of piscatorial delicacies as any waters in
the world, these do not include oysters, and further that
the birds which are to be seen in such numbers flitting
to and fro along its shores, so far from being joyful
visitants, are of a particularly mournful species known
locally as the "souls of the damned" and reputed to
embody the spirits of drowned miscreants.
We can, however, easily forgive the old writer's
pretty bit of extravagance, for the subject which inspired
it has, in truth, hardly an equal in the world. Its seven
26 The Old Seraglio
hills crowned with minarets and mosques, its graceful
slopes falling away to the water's edge, its many cypress
groves and the sparkling girdle which the Marmora
and Golden Horn throw three-parts around it form a
truly exquisite ensemble.
Such a spot is, as Sandys felicitously puts it, a seat
of sovereignty, " by destinie appointed and by nature
seal'd"; in proof of which the city has never ceased to
harbour an Emperor for the last seventeen centuries.
The Byzantine emperors had their marble and por-
phyry palaces high up on the hill, but the Ottoman
Sultans built theirs down by the water's edge on a small
promontory jutting into the Sea of Marmora. Here a
vast rambling conglomeration of courtyards and kiosks
set among woods and gardens and surrounded by a
formidable wall three miles in circumference gave them
complete seclusion from the vulgar gaze of the populace.
Sandys during his visit to Constantinople in 1610 gained
admittance to the Serai which he describes as follows :
" The space within comprehendeth goodly groves of
cypresses intermixed with plaines, delicate gardens,
artificell fountaines, all varietie of fruit trees and what
not rare ; luxury being the steward and the treasure in-
exhaustible. The proud Pallace of the Tyrant doth
open to the South, having a loftie gate-house ingraven
with Arabick characters set forth with gold and azure
all on white marble. This leadeth into a spacious court
300 yardes long and about half as wide, on the left hand
whereof stands the round of an ancient Chappell con-
taining the armes that were taken from the Graecians
in the subversion of the Citie, and at the farre end of
this court a second gate hung with shields and cymitars
doth lead into another full of tall cypress trees. The
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A perilous pleasaunce 27
Cloysters about it are leaded above and paved with
stone, the roof supported with columnes of marble having
copper chapters and bases. On the left hand the Divan
is kept where the Bassas of the Porte do administer
justice, and on that side confined with humble buildings ;
beyond which court there is a stretch of kitchens. On
the left is a stable large enough for 500 horses. Out of
this second court there is a passage with a third not by
Christians ordinarily to be entered, surrounded with the
royal buildings which, though perhaps they come short
of the Italian for contrivement and finenesse yet not in
costly curiousnesse. Between the East wall and the water
a sort of terrible Ordnance are planted which threaten
destruction to such as by sea shall attempt a violent
entrie. Without, on the North side stands the Sultan's
Cabinet in form of a summer house, having a private
passage of waxed linen from his seraglio where he often
solaceth himself with the various objects of his harem
and from thence takes barge to passe unto the delight-
fulle places of adjoyning Asia."
These "delicate gardens" with their well kept par-
terres of roses, tulips and ranunculus are mentioned
with admiration by most writers on Constantinople.
Foreign travellers however who succeeded in bribing
their way past the Guardians of the Gate, were apt to
find their visits spiced with a good bit of excitement.
Instant decapitation was at least a possible result of
meeting with the palace eunuchs when they were es-
corting the harem ladies through the grounds, and one
writer tells how he and several Turks who were with
him, finding themselves suddenly face to face with a
fair, but well-guarded sultana, only escaped with their
lives by imitating the gardeners in Alice in Wonderland
28 The Old Seraglio
when the Red Queen made her appearance, and throwing
themselves flat on their faces till the lady and her com-
panions had passed.
All the Sultan's gardens were in the charge of the
Head Gardener, the Bostanji Baski, who had ten
thousand under-gardeners beneath him. The functions
of this dignitary extended far beyond the cultivation of
his flower beds ; indeed he ranked as one of the highest
officers of State, being more or less in the position of
a Lord High Chamberlain. There are even several
instances in Ottoman history of the Head Gardener
marrying the Sultan's daughter. The enormous number
of his underlings is an example of the lavish way in
which the imperial household was staffed. An Italian
book, written in 1470, gives the following table showing
the pay-roll:
"Cooks 50
Sweet-makers 30
Carpet layers 60
Door keepers 250
Grooms 1 50
Kennelmen 2000
Ditto for pet-dogs 600
Falconers 200"
These figures show the number of the personnel
at a period — only fifty years after the conquest of
Constantinople — when the extravagance of the court
was very far short of reaching the scale it did under
succeeding sultans, and a century later the numbers
were certainly many times greater.
Among the most peculiar features of the Turkish
court was the method of recruiting and training the
court officials. The janissaries, whom I shall have
Training of an ich-oghlan 29
occasion to describe in greater detail when dealing with
the army, were primarily intended to furnish fighting
men, but a certain proportion of them were educated
for the public services and the Sultan's own employ.
They were the sons of Christian rayahs ravished from
their homes at the age of ten under the cruel system of
human tithe which the Turks initiated at an early date,
and were trained for their vocation in life in a special
college standing within the grounds of the imperial
palace.
The early career of one of these lads, who were
known as ich-oghlans or "house boys," was very far from
enviable. After being initiated into the Moslem faith
he was put into the college and started on a course of
probationary training of the most rigorous nature con-
ceivable. He was bastinadoed for the slightest fault
and systematically bullied by the ill-tempered eunuchs
who had charge of the pupils. During their six years
novitiate the probationers never once left the confines
of the palace but spent their time acquiring a general
education designed to inculcate good manners, accuracy
and honesty. Humility was the keynote of the system
and — to borrow from M. Tournefort's book of Turkish
travels — the inmates of the college were " bred in ex-
emplary modesty and taught above all to remain silent,
keep their eyes lowered and their arms folded across
their breasts." This last describes the typical attitude
assumed at all times by the janissaries when in the
presence of their superiors.
At the end of the first period the pupils entered
upon a second course or, to use the Turkish phrase,
into the second " Chamber," where they studied Turkish,
Arabic and Persian literature and had instructors to teach
30 The Old Seraglio
them dart-throwing, pike and lance drill and equitation
Four more years brought them to the third and las
Chamber where they acquired the gentler arts o
music, needlework and embroidery, arrow-splicing
hair-dressing and manicure, valeting and the care anc
treatment of birds and pet dogs. In this Chamber the)
were allowed more freedom, but in the lower two the)
were kept under the sternest discipline and could not
even talk together except at certain fixed times of the
day.
Only a fraction of the boys who entered at the
bottom completed the whole course. Many were elimin
ated after the first Chamber and passed straight intc
the ranks of the fighting janissaries. Of those whc
reached the middle Chamber some would be allotted
to mediocre posts without further training, becoming
for instance clerks in the Treasury or servers in the
palace laboratory, where among other duties they had
to mix the Sultan's liquors and cordials.
Only aspirants to the higher offices continued into
the third Chamber — barely one-tenth of each batch.
Its members were a privileged class and discarded the
plain clothes of the novice for a sumptuous dress of
satin brocade or cloth of gold. When proficient in the
accomplishments taught in that Chamber, they were
appointed to various posts in the Sultan's personal suite,
such as his sword-bearer, stirrup-knight, master of the
wardrobe, barber and manicurist, turban-valet or keeper
of the pet dogs. A few chosen youths acted as pages. We
are told that Suleyman I had six of these, two of whom
were always with him both by day or night. Every
morning a page filled two purses, one with a thousand
silver aspers, the other with twenty ducats of gold, and
From Page to Grand Vizir 31
strapped them to his master's waist. With this fund
Suleyman met the current needs of the day, and what-
ever was left over at night became the perquisite of the
lucky page who undressed him. While he was awake
the two lads waited at his side, and when he slept they
stood with torches at the head and foot of his bed.
By a custom, which at first sight seems more typical
of a Gilbertian play than of real life, the ministers of
state and high functionaries of the empire were commonly
selected from among these royal lackeys and it was no
unusual thing for a favourite ich-oghlan to leave his duties
as parer of the Sultan's nails for the governorship of a
province. In point of fact, though, the long and very
liberal course of education which these Christian boys
went through before they graduated from the janissaries'
college probably made them fitter candidates for public
posts than any Turks in the empire, and the system
was certainly no worse than that which obtained in Euro-
pean countries. The difference in systems illustrates,
by the way, a peculiar feature of Turkish society — the
entire absence of the "hereditary principle." In Turkey
a great man could bequeath to his son neither title nor
honours so that he had no better claim to position
and rank than the son of a beggar. Most of the Grand
Vizirs rose from the ranks and had begun life as
porters or cowherds or in some other equally lowly
state of life, and a pasha's "tails" were well within the
reach of even a black eunuch. The sultanate itself did
not descend by right from father to son but passed on
a sultan's death to the doyen of the royal family, though
it is true that the golden rule of killing off all possible
rivals left little distinction in effect between the Turkish
system and the commoner one of primogeniture.
32 The Old Seraglio
But to return to the subject from which we hav
wandered, the ich-oghlans whom I have just describe
had humbler brethren known as ajami oghlans. Thi
class was drawn from the same source and reared o
the same general principles, but their training wa
shorter and confined to bodily exercises ; they lived als
in meaner quarters, in sheds along the shore and wer
clad — like Christ's Hospital boys — in a dress of dar
blue and yellow.
When they left school they were employed in sub
ordinate posts as chaoushes, capujis, gardeners, cooks
grooms, huntsmen etc., or, in the case of a favoured few
as archers of the guard or rowers in the Sultan's caique
The capujis, or door-keepers, who were a not unimpor
tant class, provided a guard of 1 5 men at each door
the Seraglio, where they levied heavy blackmail 01
foreign ambassadors visiting the Porte. The chaoushe
were primarily footmen and couriers (the Chaoush Bash
was incidentally Grand Master of Ceremonies), bu
their occupations were numerous and varied and the]
acted generally as men-of-all-trades. Not the least un
common of their multifarious duties was to travel unde
the Sultan's orders to the province of an objectionabli
Pasha and return with his head (pickled) in a bag.
This mention of the executioner's profession bring:
us to the palace mutes, the high priests of that gentl<
art. Highly placed victims, such as Vizirs who ha<
fallen from favour, were alone honoured with thei
attentions. The technique of that peculiarly Turkisl
institution the bowstring was highly developed at th<
Porte and in the hands of a skillful operator the mos
taciturn subjects could be made to part with their inner
most secrets before the fatal twist. The process o
A Royal Present 33
persuading a dumb man to speak doubtless held special
attractions for the tongue-tied executioner himself!
Much more could be added about the Sultan's court
and its surroundings, but these abstract descriptions are
apt to pall and the reader will doutless be better pleased
to pass on at once to the narrative of an Englishman
who was himself an actor in the scenes he describes.
Master Thomas Dallam is our man — an organ-builder
in Queen Elizabeth's reign. How a gentleman of his
craft should, in the pursuance of his profession, find
himself in the awesome presence of the "Grand Turke"
himself would certainly seem a mystery. Let me solve it
byexplainingthecircumstances. At a certain point in her
struggle with Philip, Elizabeth harboured the notion of
a Turkish alliance. The Ottoman fleet, though well
past its prime, could do much to embarrass the Spaniards,
and the Queen went so far as to appeal to Mohammed III
for assistance in the name of religion, on the grounds
that Moslem and Protestant were united in their hatred
of " image-worshippers." She thought well, however,
to back up the appeal with a more material argument
and so arranged with the Levant Company — then a
close corporation for trading with Turkey — for the
purchase and despatch to Constantinople of a gift to
the Sultan in the form of an organ.
Dallam, who had just finished the erection of the
organ in Kings' College, Cambridge, was entrusted with
the work and in the year 1599 the organ was completed
(it was the Levant Company, one need hardly men-
tion, who had to pay for it!) and, having been packed
in sections, was shipped together with Dallam to
Constantinople.
The room in the Seraglio which was set aside for
H - 3
34 The Old Seraglio
the erection of the instrument was a beautiful kiosk witl
walls of porphyry topped by a course of lattice worl
fitted with awnings to moderate the heat and a fish pone
in the centre with silk carpets all round. It had — s<
Dallam at any rate was made to believe — been specially
constructed as a theatre for the strangling of member:
of the royal family, for whose comfort in their las
moments these pleasant features were considerately pro
vided. Here in the course of a week or two Dalian
reconstructed his organ and a day was fixed for th(
Sultan to come and hear it play. The instrument ha<
an automatic arrangement by which it could be made
to play like a musical box and Dallam, after setting th<
clockwork to go off at the appropriate moment, wa<
made to wait outside. The Sultan arrived and the orgar
performed its tricks ; first it struck twenty-two times
then followed a chime of sixteen bells, after which i
played a four-part song and, as a grand finale, twe
figures with silver trumpets lifted them to their lips anc
played a fanfare, while a nestful of wooden blackbird;
and thrushes set in a holly bush at the top of the machine
flapped their wings and sang a chorus. This pyrotechnic
display greatly pleased Mohammed, and 'Dallam wa*
summoned into his presence. Let him from this poini
take up the narrative himself:
" When I came within the Dore that which I die
see was verrie wonderful unto me. I came in direcktl)
upon the Grand Sinyori's ryghte hande, but he woulc
not turne his head to louke upon me. He satt in greate
state, yeate the sighte of him was nothinge in Com
parison of the traine which stoode behind him anci
made me almost to thinke that I was in another worlde
I stood dazlinge my eyes with loukinge upon hi<
A Delicate Performance 35
people, the which was 4 hundrethe persons in number.
200 weare his principall padgis appareled in ritche clothe
of goulde made in gownes to the midlegge, upon their
heades litle caps ; greate peeces of silke abowte their
wastes ; upon their legges reade Cordovan buskins.
Theire heades weare all shaven savinge that behind
their eares did hange a locke of hare like a squirel's
taile. They weare very proper men and Christian born.
"The third hundred were Dum men who could
neither heare nor speake and they likewise in riche
clothe of golde but theire caps weare of violet velvett,
the crowne of them made like a lether bottell, the brims
divided into 5 peaked corners. Some had hawkes on
theire fistes.
"The fourth hundred weare all dwarffes, big-bodied
men but very low of stature; everyone did weare a
simmetare by his side.
" When I had stode nearly \ of an houre behouldinge
this wonderful syghte I heardethe Grand Sinyori speake
unto the Cappagan (viz. Capuji) who then came to me
and touke my cloake from aboute me and layed it downe
upon the carpetes and bid me go playe on the organ ;
but I refused because the Grande Sinyori satt so neare
that I coulde not come at the place and muste needes
turne my backe towards him and touche his knee with
my britchis, which no man in paine of deathe myght
doo save only the Cappagan.
"So he smyled and let me stande a litle. Then the
Grand Sinyori spoake again and the Cappagan with a
merrie countenance bid me go with goode curridge and
thruste me on.
"When I came verrie neare the Grand Sinyori I
bowed my heade as low as my knee and turned my
36 The Old Seraglio
backe righte tow him. He satt so righte behind me
that he could not see what I did ; Therfor he stoode
up and the Cappagan removed his chaire to one side
wher he myghte see my handes, but in his risinge from
his chaire he gave me a thruste forwardes and I thought
he had bene drawinge his sorde to cut off my heade.
" I stood thar playinge suche things as I could un-
till the cloke strouke. Then I went close to the Grande
Sinyori againe and bowed myself and wente backwardes
to my Cloake. When the Company saw me theye
seemed to be glad and laughed. Then the Grande
Sinyori put his hande behind him full of goulde which
the Cappagan receved and brought unto me fortie and
five peeces and then was I put out againe wheare I
came in beinge not a litle joyfull of my good suckses."
Left to the tender mercies of the Turks, the organ,
needless to relate, soon went out of order and Dallam
was called in again to repair it. While at work on the
repairs he made friends with some of the ajami oghlans,
who did their best to persuade him to turn Turk and
stay at Constantinople, in which case " they toulde me
the Grand Sinyori would give me two wyfes of the
beste I coulde chuse myselfe in cittie or countrie." To
escape their blandishments Dallam, who actually was
a bachelor, had to invent a wife and family at home in
England to whom, he said, the bonds of natural affection
forced him to return.
One day his palace friends took Dallam all round
the palace.' They came in the course of their tour to
a blank wall with a small iron grille in it which they
told him to look through, though they would not them-
selves go near. On looking he saw thirty or forty per-
sons playing at ball. " At the firste syghte of them I
TURKISH LADY IN INDOOR DRESS
From George Sandys' Travels, 1632
Spying on the Ladies 37
thoughte they had bene yonge men, but when I saw
the hair of theire heades hange doone on their backes
platted with a tasle of small pearles and by other plaine
tokens I did know them to be women and verrie prettie
ones in deede.
"They wore a litle capp which did but cover the
crowne of the heade, faire chaines of pearls and juels in
their ears, coats like a souldier's mandilyon some of red
sattan and som of blew, britchis of fine clothe made of
coton woll as whyte as snow and as fine as lawne. Som
did weare fine cordovan buskins and som had their leges
naked with a goulden ring on the smale of her legg, on
her foute a panttoble 4 or 5 inches hie. I stoode so long
loukinge upon them that he which had brought me be-
gan to be verrie angrie with me and made a wrye mouthe
and stamped with his foute to make me give over
loukinge ; the which I was verrie lothe to dow, for the
sighte did please me wondrous well."
He subsequently learnt that he had been watching
the ladies of the Sultan's own harem, an offence only to
be expiated by instant death or worse.
One last adventure befell our organ-builder before
he left Constantinople. He had nearly completed the
repair of the organ but still had some of the pipes spread
on the floor of the kiosk when his Turkish assistants
suddenly and without any explanation bolted. " By
chance," he writes, " I called to my drugaman and asked
him the cause. He said the Grande Sinyori and his
conquebines weare cominge and we must be gone in
paine of deathe. Then they all ran away and lefte me
behinde and before I gott out of the house they had run
over the greene quit out of the gate and I ran as fast
as my leges would carrie me after and 4 neagers or
38 The Old Seraglio
blackamoors came runninge towards me with their
semetars drawne; if they coulde have catchte me they
would have hewed me all in peecis. When I cam to
the wickett there stood a greate number of jemoglans
prayinge that I mite escape the handes of those runninge
wolves and when I was got out of the gate they were
verrie juyfull that I had so well escaped."
Having accompanied Dallam so far, let us see him
safe home again to his native town. He fell seriously
ill after his fright from the eunuchs with the "semetars"
and his boat had to sail from the Golden Horn without
him. He recovered sufficiently to follow a few weeks
after in another English merchantman and though in
a parlous state during most of the voyage was almost
restored to health when at length they reached England.
Full of satisfaction at having faithfully accomplished the
task on which he had set out months before, he welcomed
the sight of the English coast. "Then," he concludes,
"we wente ashore at Dover and our trompetes soundinge
all the waye before us into the towne where we made
ourselves as merrie as could. So at tow of the Clocke
we touke poste horse to Canterburie and from thence to
Rochester that nyghte and the nexte day to London."
CHAPTER III
THE SULTAN'S ARMIES
The Sultan's armies comprised five principal branches
— first and foremost the janissaries, then the feudal
troops, the spahis and piadts, thirdly the artillery,
fourthly the irregular troops, azabs, akinjis and the rest,
and lastly the Tartar auxiliaries.
All of them are interesting and picturesque, but
none so much as the janissaries, that wonderful corps
of which an eminent writer has said that "it was one of
the most remarkable bodies the world has ever seen,
and goes far to explain the character of the early Otto-
man Empire — that wild brilliancy and vigour in which
no ordinary ideas of humanity, morality or economy
find a place."
Tradition places the foundation of the corps in the
reign of Sultan Orkhan, who succeeded Sultan Osman
(founder of the Ottoman nation) and flourished 200 years
before the capture of Constantinople.
Several causes combined to bring it to birth. The
Ottomans were hopelessly unable — both from their lack
of assimilative power and the rapidity of their progress —
to digest their conquests in Europe and Asia, and the
numbers and strength of their subject populationsbecame
a serious problem. Conversion to Islam was an obvious
remedy and in seeking methods of encouraging this they
hit on the janissary system. It was a brilliant solution
from their own point of view, for it killed three birds at
40 The Sultans Armies
least with a single stone. It formed a deadly inducement
to Christian parents to abandon their faith for the sake of
their children ; where this failed, it lessened the danger
from the Christian element by removing the pick of
each generation, and it provided ideal material for
the Turkish armies.
Its invention is credited by Turkish historians to
one "Black Khalil," the Vizir of Sultan Orkhan, who
suggested to his master that he should levy an annual
tribute of one thousand children, selected at discretion,
from the Christians under his power. The scheme was
adopted and the boys were reft from their homes
with the same ruthlessness as the victims of the Mino-
taur, and forcibly initiated, by the customary rites,
into Islam. The initiation was performed by a notable
holy man, Hajji Bektash (founder of the Bektashi
order of Dervishes which still flourishes in Turkey),
who, we are told, blessed the neophytes by stretching
his flowing sleeve above the head of their leader lying
prostrate before him on the ground and pronouncing
the following words: "Let these youths be called the
Yeni Cheri (meaning the 'New Armies' and corrupted
by European lips to 'Janissaries'); let their coun-
tenance ever be bright, their hands victorious and their
swords clean, and whithersoever they go, may they
return always with a white face!" The corps adopted
the peculiar mystic tenets taught by the Hajji and for
centuries after preserved the memory of their baptismal
day by wearing a piece of stuff, shaped like a miniature
sleeve, attached to the peak of their caps.
The janissaries were forbidden to marry, and passed
their lives under a system of military discipline of the
sternest imaginable nature. To quote from Sir Charles
§e> iamjjatre auant a ia guerre*
A JANISSARY
From Nicolay's Peregrinations faictes en la Turquie, 1577
In the Ranks 41
Eliot, "they were thus a military religious order com-
posed of men selected for physical and mental excellence,
divorced more completely than any monk from all
worldly ties of birth, marriage or profession, and en-
couraged to give their vigour full and unscrupulous play
subject to no law save that of unquestioning obedience
to their superior officers." The system produced, indeed,
a corps d'dlite of incomparable fighters, and any fears
which their founders may have entertained as to the
standard of loyalty to be looked for from a body of forced
converts were speedily dispelled when the young con-
verts proved themselves capable of even fiercer acts of
tyranny and oppression towards their own Christian rela-
tions than the natural-born sons of the Prophet. In this
way the Turks organized the first regular standing army
which Europe had known since Roman times, and de-
veloped it steadily until, by the time of Suleyman I, the
corps reached a strength of 40,000.
We have already, in the first chapter of this book,
had a glimpse of the embryo janissary during his period
of training in the seraglio. On leaving school he was
posted to an orta or company, in which he usually re-
mained for the rest of his life. This was a self-contained
unit organized on such communistic lines as could not
fail to win the approbation of the most uncompromising
modern bolshevik. All pay and expenses were pooled,
and contributions were levied from each member of the
company to form a common purse which provided pen-
sions for the sick and funds for general purposes. The
principle of equality was carried so far that when issues
of stores or equipment took place the distribution was
made at night to prevent any possibility of favouritism.
One writer asserts, though one hesitates to believe it,
42 The Sultans Armies
that even the armour captured from Christian troops
(the Turks made none themselves and only used what
they obtained in this manner) was deliberately parcelled
out at haphazard, so that a janissary in the ranks could
often be seen wearing an assortment of ill-fitting pieces,
the original property of half-a-dozen Christians of vary-
ing girth and stature. The supreme instance of the
democratic foundation of the corps lay in the fact that
the Sultan, though like the Czar he was "father" to
every janissary, himself held the rank of a common
private and drew his weekly pay accordingly.
A curious feature among the janissaries was the
regimental "stew-pot." These great cauldrons played
a vital part in the life of the regiment ; they were vene-
rated as we venerate a regiment's colours, and were
carried at the head of the column on all occasions, while
a regiment which lost its cauldron in battle was dis-
graced eternally. The cooks held a proud and important
position in the corps and the prestige of the kitchen may
be gauged by the strange title given to company com-
manders, namely chorbaji or "soup-man."
The janissary's hierarchy was a simple one. At the
head was the Agha of the corps, who was accounted the
third greatest man in the Empire. Under him were the
commanders of buluks and jema'ats (the latter including
the cavalry), distinguishable from each other only by the
colour of their boots, red and yellow respectively. These
units were subdivided into the ortas mentioned above,
each of which was distinguished by an individual crest,
such as for instance an anchor, embroidered on its stan-
dard, painted above the barracks and frequently tattooed
on the persons of its members. The janissaries were di-
vided also into various 'arms', archers (sulaks), fusiliers
$<*o/#i CsfitMtne general des Ianijfaires.
THE AGHA OF THE JANISSARIES
From Nicolay's Peregrinations faictes en la Turquie,
1577
The Janissaries' Charter 43
(tufankjis), gunners (topjis), camelry etc, besides non-
combatant branches such as the foresters.
Side by side with the spirit of democracy there
existed an iron discipline within the corps. On the first
occasion that a batch of new janissaries entered the
palace they filed past the Agha each holding on to the
coat-tails of the man in front. The Agha gave every one
as he passed a hearty smack in the face and a twitch of
the ears and received in return a reverential salute from
the victim as a token of loyal obedience.
Absolute obedience to his superiors was indeed the
first article of the janissary's charter which consisted —
like another famous document — of fourteen points. The
remaining thirteen were: (2) perfect harmony within
the corps, (3) abstention from all things unbefitting a
brave man, (4) adherence to the precepts of Hajji Bek-
tash, (5) right to be recruited only in the established
way, (6) in the case of men condemned to death for
any misdeed, privilege of private execution by night and
of a coup de canon at the moment when the body was
thrown into the sea, (7) immunity from punishment
by anyone except officers of the corps, (8) promotion
by seniority, (9) pension for old age, (10) obligation
to shave the chin, (11) celibacy, (12) prohibition to
sleep outside barracks or (13) to follow a trade,
(14) liability in peace time to take part in manoeuvres
from June to November.
The janissary's uniform was of dark blue cloth,
plainly cut and comparatively free from ornamentation.
Its simplicity was compensated for by the elaborate
magnificence of their headdress. This consisted of a
white felt hat shaped after the fashion affected by Marl-
borough's Grenadiers, richly embroidered round the base
44 The Sultans Armies
and resolving itself behind into the sleeve-like append-
age which commemorated their religious initiation; to
the front was attached a gilt sheath encrusted with bas-
tard stones and into this was stuck — if the wearer was
a veteran soldier — a prodigious Bird-of- Paradise plume
which fell in a magnificent curve down his back and
reached nearly to the level of his knees. When stationed
at Constantinople the janissaries carried silver-tipped
batons some six feet long with which they performed
summary execution on anyone found breaking the laws.
A feature which distinguished them from the bearded
Turks was their shaven chins. This was supposed to
impart a fierceness of expression unattainable by the
wearer of a beard, and the effect was further enhanced
by the cultivation of long and ferocious moustaches.
Of the functions of the janissaries one of the chief
was to police the country, and under the great Sultans
they were such efficient guardians of the peace that
travellers reported the roads in Turkey to be as safe or
safer than in any Christian country. Especially in the
reign of Murad IV — the most bloodthirsty monster who
ever donned the cloak and mantle of Osman — the pun-
ishment of crime was so drastic and so sure that people
said, as in days of Charlemagne, that a woman could
carry a basket of jewels in safety from one end of the
empire to the other.
A foreigner of distinction, on entering the Turkish
dominions, was given a small bodyguard of janissaries
(a custom which survived until the beginning of the
recent war in the privilege accorded to diplomatic
and consular representatives to have a fixed number of
armed cavasses attached to their persons), and a delight-
ful sketch of one of these guards has come down to us
The decay of the Corps 45
in the memoirs of an old ambassador to the Porte,
written in the middle of the sixteenth century. "The
Janizaries," he says, "came to me by couples. When
they were admitted into my dining-room they bowed
their heads and made obeisance, and presently they ran
hastily to me and touched either my garment or my hand,
as if they would have kissed it; and then forced upon
me a bundle or nosegay of narcissuses, and presently
retired backwards with equal speed to the door, that so
they might not turn their backs on me, for that is ac-
counted undecent by the rules of their order. At the
door they bowed their heads again and wishing me all
happiness, departed. The truth is, unless I had been
told before they were Janizaries, I should have thought
them to be some kind of Turkish monks, or Fellows of
some College or other amongst them ; yet these are the
Janizaries that carry such terror with them wheresoever
they go."
As time went on the original strictness of the order
became relaxed, and when celibacy ceased to be enforced
the old method of recruiting from among the children
of the Christian raiahs gave way to the custom of en-
listing the sons of ex-janissaries. In these later days,
under a series of weak and dissolute Sultans, the janis-
saries followed in the footsteps of the Turkish Guards
of the Baghdad Caliphs and the Mamelukes in Egypt
though they never, like these, actually usurped the
throne itself. Even in Suleyman's time the janissaries
extorted higher pay by threats of mutiny or worse, and
in the reigns of the next few Sultans their power grew
to such an extent that no Vizir could be appointed
without their sanction. By the middle of the seventeenth
century they had become absolute arbiters of the Sultan's
46 The Sultans Armies
fate and had been guilty three times over of the supreme
sacrilege of assassinating their own Caliph, besides de-
posing three others. Affairs by the end of the century
had reached such a pass that an English traveller of the
period writes of them, "the mortallest corruption of this
Order hath set in of late yeares ; knowing their owne
strength and growne saucy with familiarity at Court
they have proceeded to such insolency as hath flesh'd
them in the blood of their Sovereigns and have learnt
that damnable Secret of making and unmaking their
King at their pleasure whereby the Foundation of all
Monarchy, that is the due awe towards the Blood Royall,
is so irreparably decayed in them that, like the lost State
of Innocence, it can never be restored."
They had a peculiar method of their own for ex-
pressing their discontent with the Government of the
moment. When the huge bowls of rice which formed
their daily rations were set out in the seraglio courtyard
(as is described by the Italian diplomat from whose
diary I quote in chapter iv), the Orta Baskis, instead
of quietly carrying them to their messes, turned them
upside down on the ground. This was a pretty sure
omen of riot and bloodshed and woe betide the reign-
ing Sultan when it happened. Not till early in the nine-
teenth century did Turkey free herself from the incubus
of these insolent tyrants, when that passionate reformer
Mahmud II abolished the corps for good and all by the
simple expedient of a wholesale massacre.
The spahis and piadts, who, unlike the janissaries,
were trueborn Turks, originated under much the same
system as our own feudal troops. The Sultans, as they
extended their conquests in Europe, parcelled out a
large proportion of the conquered land into fiefs, or
A " SftaMs" Marching Order 47
timars, which they gave to their followers in recog-
nition of special services in the field. The "timariot'
held his land on much the same terms as a Norman
baron, being bound to accompany his liege-lord when-
ever he went to war, and to bring with him a quota of
armed retainers proportionate to the size of his holding.
The military equipment of a spahi riding to the
wars has been detailed by an old English writer, whose
description reminds one of nothing so much as John
Tenniel's picture of the Red Knight. It reads as
follows: —
"First the girdle stuck with three or four pistols,
then on each side a knife as long as a man's arm with
another of a foot long for ordinary purposes tuck't into
his coat; an arquebus on his shoulder, and on his thigh
a scymitar; on one side of the saddle a petronnelle, on
the other a straight sword and, hanging by it, either a
little axe or a Hungarian mace, or both. On his back
bows and arrows."
Truly a portentous outfit!
The piadds need no particular description as they
were recruited and served under practically the same
conditions as the spahis, the difference being that they
were foot soldiers.
Of the artillery also there is not very much to say.
Originally the Turks borrowed this arm from their
Christian enemies, and for centuries the arsenals on the
Bosphorus were under the charge of renegades. They
developed it rapidly, however, as they did all instruments
of war, and soon outpaced the original inventors, so that
by the fifteenth century they were better equipped with
heavy artillery than any of their rivals. The size of
some of the guns was enormous. At the siege of Con-
48 The Sultans Armies
stantinople when guns were sent to the Bosphorus fron
Adrianople — then the capital of the Turks in Europe-
teams of 150 yoke of oxen were used to haul singl<
pieces. The batteries placed to guard the Narrows a
the Dardanelles were notorious. An English diploma
who visited them on his way to Constantinople in 182;
declares that one of the cannon was of 2-foot calibre an(
threw a solid stone projectile weighing a quarter of a ton
No unworthy ancestor, forsooth, of the monstrou
11 Asiatic Annie" of evil memory.
A considerable part of the Turkish army was madi
up of irregular troops. The chief of these were the azab
and akinjis, who, as cavalry and infantry respectively
played the role of "shock troops" and were mercilessh
sacrificed in action in order to prepare the ground fo
a charge by the invincible janissaries. Another and ver
extraordinary corps were the volunteers known as deli
(anglice', "Mad-caps"), who, under the influence of re
ligious fanaticism, used to offer themselves for any par
ticularly desperate enterprise, and of whom it was sai<
that not a single one had ever shown his back to th
enemy, whatever the odds. The dress worn by thes
"Mad-caps" was of an outrageous design, intended, lik
the masks of the old Chinese warriors, to strike fear int
the heart of the enemy. It consisted of a dolman an
breeches made of a lion or bear skin with the hair turne
outwards, and a bonnet of leopard's skin with a pair c
eagle's wings sewn on in such a way as to stand uprigh
on either side. Another pair of wings projected fror
their shields, so that the whole effect was that of a mov
ing mass of fur and feathers — even their horses bein
covered with the skins of various wild animals. Thei
usual weapons were a scimitar, a club and a long pik(
&™$iZZ^^
^'?&3^J&]gS*Z<^^
A "MADCAP"
From Nicolay's Peregrinations f aides en la Turqttie, 1577
Untamed Tartars 49
The Tartar auxiliaries — the last of the five elements
composing the Turkish armies — came from the Crimea
and the northern shores of the Black Sea. The Tartars
were hereditary allies of the Turks to whom they are
related by religion, race and language. The Tartar
Khans, heirs-presumptive to the throne of Turkey in the
event of the Ottoman dynasty becoming extinguished,
were therefore bound to assist the Sultans with troops in
all their campaigns against Christian nations. The bond
was made doubly secure by the retention of the reigning
Khans eldest son at the Sultan's court, where he lived as
a permanent hostage for his father's loyalty. Hordes of
Tartar cavalry accompanied the Turkish armies when
they marched into Europe, and acted as scouts and
skirmishers on the flanks. They were wild, undisciplined
horsemen who spent their whole lives in the saddle and
whose food was mare's milk, caviare and meat " cooked "
by being placed in slabs under their horses' girths till it
was bruised to a suitable state of tenderness. In enemy
country they advanced in loose order ahead, and on the
wings of, the regular army where they ambushed bodies
of the enemy and pillaged and murdered with complete
impartiality the inhabitants of the country and any un-
fortunate stragglers from the ranks of their own allies.
Their services were paid by a free licence to loot and to
them fell the lion's share of the plunder. In a later page
of the present volume we have a picture of them in
action as given by an English gentleman who fought
against them in the Polish wars.
H.
CHAPTER IV
A PALACE AUDIENCE
At daybreak on Aug. 15, 1682, there was a great stir
at the old Venetian bailaggio in Pera. H.E. Giorgio
Battista Donado, Senator of Venice and Ambassador
Plenipotentiary of the Most Serene Republic, was pre-
paring for his first audience with the Sultan Mohammed
IV which was to open the way to the resumption of
amity between Turkey and Venice after the long in-
terruption of the Candian war.
The ambassador and his suite had, in point of fact,
arrived at Constantinople more than a year before, but
matters had been delayed by a hitch of a very typical
character. For years past it had been the custom of the
Grand Vizir, the notorious Black Mustafa, to levy a
heavy tax upon each new ambassador on the occasion
of his first presentation to the Sultan, and as all petitions
for an audience passed through his hands the petitioners
had no choice but to submit to the robbery. The proud
senator, however, met these rapacious demands on his
purse with an absolute refusal which enraged the Vizir
and consequently barred his access to the palace. For-
tunately the Sultan's favourite son-in-law, who suffered
from a long-standing malady, had been cured by the
embassy doctor and showed his gratitude by befriending
his master. A short cut to the emperor's ear was thus
found. Mohammed, yielding to the persuasion of his
favourite, agreed to receive the ambassador and the
arrangements for the audience were complete.
The start 51
Now that the day had arrived, everything was
ordered in the finest style and with that degree of pomp
and circumstance which the stately traditions of Venice
demanded. As soon as it was light the subordinate staff
gathered in the large courtyard of the embassy where
the major-domo was already parading the escort. The
latter consisted of an Albanian bodyguard, a score of
Croatian couriers resplendent in crimson liveries, twelve
chamberlains in dresses of orange satin cut in the
Turkish fashion and an equal number of grooms in
pearl-coloured silk leading the horses ; the usual guard
of janissaries attached to a foreign ambassador to the
Porte completed the party.
Soon the ambassador himself appeared followed by
his "household," that is to say his secretaries, chaplains,
physician, surgeon, man-of-law and dragomans. These
last included several young men from the special school
at Venice where youths were taught the Turkish
language and trained for the duties of diplomatic
dragoman in Turkey. The name of one of these was
Antonio Benetti and it is to his memoirs 1 that we are
indebted for this account of the proceedings.
When all was ready the little party, augmented
now by a contingent of the better class merchants be-
longing to the Venetian colony, left the bailaggio and
riding down the steep cobbled street which leads through
Galata — the ancient Genoese quarter — reached the
edge of the Golden Horn. There was no "Galata
Bridge" in those days, but a fleet of caiques was drawn
up at the water's edge waiting to ferry them across to
Stambul. These delicate craft, built like a flat-hulled
gondola with a cushioned space amidships for the passen-
1 Viaggi <* Constantinopoli, published at Venice in 1688.
4—2
52 A Palace Audience
gers, are the typical pleasure-boat of the Bosphorus and
the most graceful things afloat. A special boat with
fourteen rowers, gilded woodwork and velvet hangings,
its cushions covered with gold-lace antimacassars, carried
the ambassador across followed by his party in smaller
caiques and their horses in clumsier built maiinas.
The Chaoush Bashi — the Grand Master of Cere-
monies — was waiting to receive them on the further
shore, and after the usual salutations a procession was
formed to march to the palace. Fifty picked mounts
from the royal stables had been sent, with the Master
of the Horse, for the use of the ambassador and his staff,
and their own beasts which they had brought with them
were led riderless, in obedience to a curious Turkish
custom, at the head of the procession. It was a glittering
cavalcade that wound its way first through the wharves
and ship-building yards, then through the covered
bazars and up the narrow streets which mount the first
of Stambul's seven hills. The splendid figure of the
Venetian senator in his dress of crimson taffetas faced
with gold brocade and lined with ermine riding alone
behind the Chaousk Bashi with a bostanji walking on
either side and followed by his staff clad in the fashion
of their day in tight juste-au-corps brought even the
impassive Turkish populace flocking to the route, and
the close-packed shingle houses with their projecting
bays of lattice-work were crowded with onlookers
curious to see the envoy of their great maritime rival.
Having reached the open space in front of Santa
Sofia the procession turned in at the main gate of the
seraglio, passing through a large archway under a gate-
tower which broke the massive line of the walls and
gave entrance into the first court of the royal palace.
A scene in the courtyard 53
This court, which was of huge dimensions, served as a
parade-ground for the household troops and as it marked
the limit beyond which no horses were allowed to pass,
the cortege dismounted and leaving their horses with
those of the Vizirs who had already arrived continued
towards the second court on foot.
Sitting on a bench within the gate-way separating
the two courts was the Agha of the janissaries with
twenty-eight of his colonels in their pointed brocade
hats with three large white plumes and three smaller
black ones set fan- wise in front, together with the com-
mander of the spahis with a group of his principal
officers in brilliant uniforms of green satin and cloth-of-
gold.
After exchanging salutes with both these military
"big- wigs," Donado and his following passed on
into the inner court. Here they found themselves in a
wide expanse surrounded on all sides by cloisters and
containing a grassy park dotted about with clumps of
trees under which tame stags and other beasts were
grazing. The place was filled with some 8000 janis-
saries passing the time in idle amusements.
As they walked along a path leading across the park
they were startled to hear a number of the janissaries
suddenly raise a terrific shout and dash tumultuously
towards a corner of the court thundering like a charge
of cavalry, with their heavy iron-shod shoes rattling on
the stone paving of the cloisters. At first they feared
that an outburst of fanaticism had been let loose against
them, but were soon reassured when they saw that the
object of this furious onslaught was nothing but a row
of tin cans which had just been brought into the court
and set down on the stones of the cloisters. The cans
54 A Palace Audience
were full of rice and chicken broth and contained the
janissaries' dinner. The scene which ensued is best
described in Benetti's own language which I will
render as nearly as I can into English: "Then these
barbarians began to gobble their food, silencing their
tongues meanwhile but making a deafening clatter as
they beat the tins with their hands, and all the time they
ate so ravenously that they beslobbered their faces all
over, and in less time than it takes to light a candle
every drop of the soup had vanished."
On the side of the court furthest from the gateway
by which our friends had entered stood the divan
chamber. The divan was an early Turkish institution
nearly resembling our cabinet meetings, being a con-
ference of the principal Ministers of State to discuss
all important matters of government. Originally an
informal council of the Sultan and his chief officers, it
had become stereotyped as time went on, and at the
period of which we are speaking was a regular assembly,
meeting two or three times a week, of certain of the
highest officials including the two Cadileskers (the Chief
Justices respectively of Europe and Asia), the Treasurer-
General and the Vizirs responsible for finance, justice
and foreign affairs. The president of the divan was the
Grand Vizir. In earlier days it had been the Sultan;
but the story goes that an Anatolian rustic entering one
day to ask for justice in some trivial affair and wishing
to make his plea in the highest quarter, shouted in
his rough peasant way kiminez padishah dir, "which of
you there is the Sultan?"; whereafter in order to avoid
further offences of the sort against his royal dignity the
Sultan ceased to attend the divan and deputed the
Grand Vizir in his stead.
A CADILESKER
From Nicolay's Peregrinations f aides en la Turquie, 1577
The divan chamber 55
Turkish procedure required that before the per-
sonal audience the ambassador should be presented to
the divan, so His Excellency, leaving his followers in
the court, advanced alone to the chamber, bowing pro-
foundly to the door of the royal apartments which he
passed on the way as sailors salute the quarterdeck on
a man-o'-war. Entering, he greeted the Grand Vizir
— whom his chief dragoman, sent on ahead for the
purpose, had already placated to some degree with
handsome presents — and was offered, in deference to
European habits, a chair to sit on.
The divan chamber was a large square room roofed
with a dome painted with flowers in the gaudy rococo
style much admired by the Turk, which terribly ruins
the interior harmony of some of the finest mosques in
Stambul. Three large windows gave light to the room
and a couple of feet above the head of the Grand Vizir
as he sat cross-legged on the dais was a little gilt grille
with silk curtains, behind which the Sultan sat when he
wished to hear, or take part in, the proceedings of the
council. Copies of the Koran, the Bible and the Talmud
lay ready to hand for use in "swearing in" witnesses
when called to give evidence at a meeting. All the
members of the divan were present, ten in all, including
the Cadileskers, while the Defterdar or Minister of
Finance, the Chaoush Bashi and the head of the Capujis
or Door-keepers were also in attendance.
A curious little ceremony was being enacted at the
moment that the ambassador arrived. The Grand Vizir
had just affixed his seal to an order on the Treasury for
a large sum for the payment of the troops which he
handed to the chief Capuji to take to the Sultan for
his ratification. The Capuji, kissing his hand, took the
56 A Palace Audience
paper and carried it out of the room, holding it at the
height of his shoulder. He soon returned from the royal
apartments now holding the paper, sanctified by the im-
perial tughra, on a level with his head, all the Vizirs
rising from their seats and bowing profoundly as he
passed. The Grand Vizir received back the order with
every mark of reverence, kissing the document and
laying it on his bowed head before proceeding to open
the seal and read it out to the company. As soon as
he had done so, chaouskes appeared carrying 800 purses
of gold which were counted and checked in the presence
of all by the Paymaster-General. The janissary chor-
bajis then entered to draw the pay for their various
"chambers." They first went up to the Grand Vizir
and kissed the hem of his cloak — a performance made
somewhat difficult by the enormous plumes in their hats,
to avoid thrusting which into the Grand Vizir's face
they had to contort themselves to most unnatural angles.
Afterwards they stood in a row while the Defterdar
handed to each the appointed number of purses, on re-
ceiving which the officer retired outside and called the
men of his chamber to carry them to their quarters,
whereupon — to the great entertainment of Benetti and
his companions — a scramble ensued, even wilder than
the rush for the soup-cans, those in front slipping on
the flagstones and tripping those behind so that in a
minute the ground was covered with struggling janis-
saries and littered with their shoes and plumed hats.
To return to the proceedings within the divan, the
distribution of pay being over, the next item on the
agenda was taken, consisting of the bestowal of a fur-
lined dress of honour (the Turkish equivalent of an
"O.B.E.") on the Defterdar and the Head of the
A Gargantuan feast 57
Customs. With the decoration of these two officials,
the formal business of the divan, of which the am-
bassador had to remain a passive spectator, was finished
and preparations were made for a banquet in his honour.
Some cloths were laid on the floor and the ambassador's
personal suite having been invited inside, they sat down
to eat, the ambassador himself sharing a "table" on a
raised dais with the Grand Vizir, his secretaries dining
with the Cadileskers, the chaplains with the Defterdar
and so on. On each " table" was placed a silver salver
of huge dimensions raised on a short pedestal, and on
this the sofrajis laid the dishes one by one, surrounding
them with a circle of little platters full of all sorts of
spices and condiments. The dishes themselves were
made of a kind of rough porcelain with a slightly
greenish hue reputed among the Turks to have the
property of neutralizing any poison which might have
insinuated itself into the viands. Each guest was
provided with a napkin and a single spoon with a very
long handle, their Turkish vis-a-vis dispensing of course
with such superfluities. The number and variety of the
courses is well-nigh incredible. One hundred and thirty
dishes of fish, game, meat, risottos, savouries, sweets
and ices succeeded each other in an endless procession,
while varieties of sweet sherbets supplied the necessary
liquid accompaniment.
When this colossal repast was at length over and
the diners' hands had been sprinkled with rose-water,
the guests were led to a loggia outside the divan. Here
a ceremony took place which formed the invariable
prelude to an audience with the Sultan. Officials arrived
with a number of handsome kaftans, or fur-lined cloaks,
and threw them over the shoulders of the ambassador
58 A Palace Audience
and those members of his suite who were to accompany
him into the presence. Although this feasting and
costly arraying of the guests were the outward and
visible signs — or perhaps one should say, the conven-
tional symbols — of the spirit of true hospitality which
was firmly implanted in the Turks as in all other races
of nomadic origins, the effect must have been a good
deal discounted by the guests' knowledge of the real
feelings of their hosts. Benetti, not unnaturally perhaps,
lays but little stress on the undignified position of a
Christian representative at the Porte and the boundless
arrogance which he met with at court, but we can judge
how it was by the following account, from another
source, of the formula regularly used between the Grand
Signior and his chief Vizir whenever a Christian am-
bassador came to the palace for an audience. The Vizir
would first announce the arrival of the envoy, where-
upon the Sultan would reply, "feed and clothe the dog
and bring him in to me." Sometime later, when the
ambassador and his followers had been feasted and
enveloped in kaftans in the way described above, the
Vizir would return and say, "the infidel is fed and
clothed and he now craves leave to lick the dusk beneath
Your Majesty's throne," "then," answered the Sultan,
"let the hound enter."
The Venetian envoys, who were unaware, we will
hope for the sake of their self-respect, of the insulting
dialogue which had passed in relation to themselves,
were now formed up into line and, preceded by the
Grand Vizir, the Cadileskers and the other pashas of
the divan, were ushered towards the audience chamber.
Just as they passed the Guard of White Eunuchs,
which stood at the door, they were fallen upon
Into the Presence 59
by a number of capujis, two of whom gripped each of
them under either arm and pushed, rather than led,
them into the Sultan's presence.
This seemingly erratic proceeding needs another
short digression to explain it. On the day that the
Turks defeated the Serbs on the field of Kossovo,
Sultan Murad I was sitting in his tent just after the
battle had ended when Milosh, a Serbian patriot, who
saw that all hopes for his country had vanished, came
to the tent and asked leave to address a petition to
the Sultan. The Ottoman sultans in those early days
were not hemmed around as they afterwards were, and
the suppliant was allowed to enter. In an instant he
drew a dagger which he had concealed on his person
and stabbed the Sultan to death. Hence, by Turkish
tradition, arose the custom of never allowing a stranger
to enter the presence of the Sultan unless held by trusted
attendants. Sceptical historians have, it is true, tried to
discredit tradition and have traced the custom to a
similar procedure current at the Byzantine courts; for
myself, I prefer the Turkish derivation.
Thus propelled like automata, and buried in their
furs, the representatives of Venice entered the room
where the Sultan awaited them. Round the room hung
Persian carpets and in a corner stood the famous throne
with its panels of beaten gold and magnificent pearl
inlay. The throne was shadowed by a splendid canopy
incrusted with rubies and sapphires and supporting a
mesh of strings of pearls which hung round the Sultan's
head, the portion immediately over him containing the
largest pearls and ending in a fringe of emeralds. An
overlay of fine-drawn gold wire set with glowing car-
buncles adorned the arms of the throne.
60 A Palace Audience
Sitting in the midst of this splendour was the Grand
Signior himself, his dress a blaze of precious stones of
every description, while he wore on his head the im-
perial headdress consisting of a small turban with
a magnificent three-branched diamond tiara and an
aigret feather in the centre.
The Grand Vizir had taken up his post behind the
Sultan where he stood with his eyes lowered as though
unable to endure the dazzling radiance of the monarch,
when the ambassador's attendants brought him to a
halt three paces short of the throne. There, in accord-
ance with the fixed procedure, he handed his creden-
tials to a pasha standing by, who passed them to the
Grand Vizir who, in his turn, laid them on the Sultan's
knee. This done, he delivered a short set speech ex-
pressing the desire of the Most Serene Republic to live
thenceforward on terms of amity with the Ottoman
Emperor and the hope that all causes of offence between
the two Powers, in particular the inroads of the corsairs
on Venetian shipping, having now been suppressed,
both nations might reap the inestimable benefits of
peace.
The Sultan's reply to this eloquent oration consisted
of two short words "Euile o/sun," "be it so!" and without
further ado the ambassador was forcibly backed to the
door and hustled out with his suite behind him. A
military band of fifes and drums escorted them back
to the embassy, followed soon afterwards by an army
of servants carrying return gifts from the Sultan 1 .
1 Benetti does not record the nature of the Venetian ambassador's gifts
to the Sultan ; but it may not be out of place to quote the list of presents
which Mr William Harebone, the first English ambassador to the Porte,
took from Elizabeth to Murad III. They are as follows: "twelve fine
broad clothes,two pieces of fine holland, tenne pieces of plate double gilt,
An elaborate present 61
Thus were diplomatic relations restored between
Venice and Turkey.
one case of candlesticks, the case thereof was very large, and three foot
high and more, two very great Cannes or pots, and one lesser, one basin
and ewer, two poppinjayes of silver, the one with two heads ; they were
to drinke in : two bottles with chaines, three faire mastifs in coats of redde
cloth, three spaniels, two bloodhounds, one common hunting hound, two
greyhounds, two little dogges in coats of silke : one clocke valued at five
hundred pounds sterling : over it was a forest with trees of silver, among
the which were deere chased with dogs, and men on horsebacke following,
men drawing of water, others carrying mine oare on barrowes : on the
toppe of the clocke stood a castle, and on the castle a mill. All these
were of silver. And the clocke was round beset with jewels."
CHAPTER V
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE
(i)
In the year 1553 Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent
was at truce with the Holy Roman Empire for almost
the first time in more than a quarter of a century. He
had inaugurated the most brilliant reign in Turkish
history some thirty years before by crushing the forces
of Hungary in the bloody battle of Mohacz, when
King Louis with his entire company of bishops and
knights had met their death in a vain, though heroic,
charge against his invincible janissaries. Following up
his victory he had pressed on through Hungary into
the heart of Austria and laid siege to Vienna. For a
moment the fate of Christendom had seemed to tremble
in the balance ; but the tide turned and, failing to take
the city, Suleyman had retired again to his own terri-
tories after arranging a compromise with the Archduke
Ferdinand, heir of King Louis, which left his own
nominee, John Zapolya, on the Hungarian throne.
Zapolya had died and an effort by the German armies
to recover the lost dominions having ended in disaster,
the truce had been signed between the Sultan, Charles
the Fifth and the Archduke, Ferdinand binding him-
self for the time being to recognise the Turkish claim
over the greater part of Hungary and to pay a humili-
ating tribute.
A hurried departure 63
It was at this juncture of events that Malvezius,
Ferdinand's ambassador, received from Suleyman pro-
posals for a definite peace, and returned to Vienna
with the terms in his pocket. He had just started back
with Ferdinand's answer when he found himself
suddenly laid low by a fatal disease contracted origin-
ally during a two-years' incarceration in the Seven
Towers to which he had been consigned some time
before as the result of a fatuous attempt to hoodwink
the Grand Signior. It is at this point that Busbequius,
the hero of the following pages, enters upon the scene.
Busbequius, whose Christian name was Andreas,
was born in Flanders in 1522, being the bastard son
of a nobleman who secured his legitimization by a
special rescript of Charles V. His education was as
liberal and cosmopolitan as could be desired for the
training of an accomplished diplomat ; he had mastered
a dozen languages at an early age and matriculated in
turn at the Universities of Paris, Lou vain, Venice,
Padua and Bologna. When he was twenty-one years
of age he was attached by Ferdinand to a special
embassy sent to London to represent him at the mar-
riage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain. Returning
from this mission he was surprised at Lille by an
urgent despatch from Vienna appointing him to replace
Malvezius as Imperial Ambassador of Constantinople.
He left Lille on November 13, 1553, posted with all
speed across the Continent, received his orders from
the Emperor, snatched a bare two-days' interview with
his dying predecessor, and hurrying on reached Gran,
the Turkish frontier garrison on the Danube, in the
first days of December, where he was met by a Turkish
escort. At this point we will let Busbequius himself
64 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
take up the narrative, quoting from the English trans-
lation (published in 1694) of his Epistolae :
u As soon as the Turks saw me to draw near," he
says, "they rode up to me, and saluted me by my coach
side : thus we passed on a while together, discoursing
interchangeably one with another, (for I had a little
Youth for my I nterpreter.) I expected no other Convoy,
but when we descended into a low Valley, I saw my-
self on a sudden, surrounded with a Party of about
a hundred and fifty Horse. It was a very pleasant
Spectacle to a Man, unaccustomed to see such Sights,
for their Bucklers and Spears were curiously Painted,
their Sword-handles bedeck'd with Jewels, their Plumes
of Feathers party-coloured, and the Coverings of their
Heads were twisted with round Windings as white as
Snow ; their Apparel was Purple-coloured, or at least
a dark Blue ; They rode on stately Praunsers, adorn'd
with most beautiful Trappings. Their Commanders
came up to me, and after friendly Salutation they bid
me Welcome, and asked me, How I had fared on my
Journey ? I answered them as I thought fit ; and thus
they led me to Gran."
Busbequius s first experiences on Turkish soil were
not very propitious. He soon found, somewhat to his
disgust, that the Turkish conception of honouring a
travelling guest was to provide the choicest stabling
and fodder for the horses together with the most
meagre board and lodging for their master, who was
expected to content himself, according to local custom,
with planks for his bed and an invariable diet oipillau for
his stomach. The ambassadorial party were accom-
modated at the free hostels scattered along the road
which had been built and endowed by the Mother or
Advice to Drunkards 65
sisters of the Sultan and his predecessors — the only-
persons privileged to indulge their charity in this shape
— where a common hospitality was dispensed to all
wayfarers alike, whether Moslem, Christian, Jew ;
Pasha, merchant or mendicant. Another cause of much
grumbling among Busbequius's retinue was the absence
of wine in a Moslem country. The Ambassador him-
self had taken care to provide an ample supply of good
liquor for his own use, but as he kept a jealous eye on
the flagons which filled the spare corners of his coach,
his followers had to scour the villages far and wide in
search of Christian wine vendors. Busbequius seems in
this respect to have shown more liberality to strangers
than to his own folk, for he describes a dinner party
given to the local Turks at his first stopping place at
which his guests found his wines so much to their
liking that when he parted from them at midnight they
lay round the table dead drunk to a man. Philosophis-
ing on the subject of the Moslem attitude towards
alcohol, he illustrates his point by one of the quaint
little anecdotes which dot the pages of his letters and
lend to them so much of their special charm. "At
Constantinople " he writes " I saw an Old Man, who,
after he had taken a Cup of Wine in his Hand to
Drink, us'd first to make a hideous Noise ; I asked his
Friends, Why he did so ? They answered me, that, by
this Outcry, he did, as it were, warn his Soul to retire
to some secret Corner of his Body, or else, wholly to
Emigrate, and pass out of it, that she might not be
guilty of that Sin which he was about to commit, nor
be defiled with the Wine that he was about to guzzle
down."
An untoward incident occurred again on the arrival
H - 5
66 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
of the mission at Buda. The Turkish Governor of
the town happening to be indisposed at the time sent
to Busbequius and begged him to lend the services of
his private physician, a gentleman bearing the some-
what inauspicious name of Dr Quackquelben ; whether
it was that the Turkish constitution baffled the good
doctor's powers of diagnosis or through a stroke of
sheer bad luck, the Pasha after swallowing the pre-
scribed dose incontinently grew worse and on the
following day came near to expiring ; it was only after
the greatest efforts that the unfortunate physician pulled
the patient round and so saved himself and his master
from a grave suspicion of murder.
Leaving Buda, Busbequius shipped his horses,
coaches and all his " family " (as he calls his suite) on
rafts on the Danube and proceeded downstream to
Belgrade, as being not only the quickest route but also
the most secure from attack by brigands. He presently
found, however, that the risks of navigation on the
Danube were at least as great as those of robbery on
the roads, for the temerity of the Turks was such — he
writes — that they would sally forth in the mistiest
weather, the darkest night or the highest gale. The
fairway was often blocked by water-mills or stumps of
old trees and he was once awakened at midnight by
the sound of splitting timbers to find that his raft
(which was being towed by a 24-oared pinnace) had
hurtled against some such obstacle. He implored the
boatmen to have more regard for the safety of their
passengers, but had to content himself with the laconic
reply that their lives were in the hands of Allah and
" he might go back to bed if he would."
The journey through the Serbian vilayets occupies
A Serbian Clytemnestra 67
only a few pages of the ambassador's letters. His
attention was chiefly attracted by the forests of poles
which he saw planted in the churchyards as he passed;
bearing pictures of stags, hinds and other fleet-footed
animals. The explanation he received from the natives
was that when a Serbian woman died, her husband or,
if unmarried, her father, often erected a monument in
this form to commemorate the alacrity and diligence
which his wife or daughter had shewn in the execution of
her household duties. In the passage through Bulgaria
it was the costume of the peasant women that particu-
larly caught his eye, which is not to be wondered at
when we read the following description of their dress
— though it is less easy to understand why the sight of
these strangely apparelled females should have reminded
him, as he affirms, of " Clytemnestra in the flourishing
days of Troy."
" I must not omit," says he, "to acquaint you with
the Habit of these Bulgarian Women. They commonly
wear nothing but a Smock or Shift, made of no finer
Linnen-Thread, than that we make Sacks of. And yet,
these coarse Garments are wrought by them, with
several sorts of strip'd Needle- work, after a homely
Fashion.
" But that which I most of all admired in them, was
the Tower, which they wore on their Heads, for such
was the Form of their Hats. They were made of Straw,
braided with webs over them. In the space interjacent
between their upper and lower Part, they hang Pieces
of Coin, little Pictures or Images, small parcels of
painted Glass, or whatever is resplendent, though
never so mean, which are accounted very ornamental
among them.
68 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
11 Those kind of Hats makes them look taller, and
also more matron-like, though they are easily blown
off their Heads, by a Blast of Wind, or by any light
Motion they fall off themselves."
Early in the New Year Busbequius arrived at
Constantinople, only to find that Suleyman had been
called away from the capital by domestic disturbances
and was in quarters four hundred miles away at Amadia,
a town in Armenia lying between Sivas and the Black
Sea port of Samsun. Letters were at once despatched
to the Sultan announcing the arrival of Ferdinand's
ambassador and asking for instructions as to his move-
ments. In the meantime Busbequius settled down to
see the sights of the city and its surroundings. To the
beauty of the landscapes amid which the city stands
Busbequius appears to have been as blind as most of the
writers of his time. He spares hardly a word for those
incomparable harmonies of line and colour which have
rejoiced the heart of those of us who, like the old
Fleming, have been familiar with Stamboul's mosques
and serais and old grey walls and have looked across
from the wooded heights of Asia to its perfect con-
tours of dome, minaret, battlement and tower blend-
ing with the dark hillsides and the silvery gleam of the
Bosphorus flowing below.
The obsession for classical antiquities which marked
the age in which Busbequius lived had but a moderate
hold on him. His letters contain brief sketches of the
principal monuments dating from Byzantine days :
Santa Sophia, the Hippodrome, the serpent pillar and
the obelisk of Thothmes and he mentions en passant
the collection which he made of Greek coins, describing
especially his horrified indignation on finding that a
The Sultans Zoo 69
brazier of Stamboul had, just before his arrival, melted
down an entire roomful of antique coins and medals to
make pots and pans. On the other hand, he took the
keenest interest in all his living surroundings and
never tires of describing the customs of his Christian
and Moslem neighbours. A strong bent for natural
history had led to his bringing with him an artist whose
sole business it was to paint all the uncommon beasts
and flowers met with on their travels. His own letters,
however, contain as attractive sketches as any painter
could give of the animals they met with on their travels,
as an example of which let me quote a passage in which
he describes a visit to the Sultan's private Zoo :
"At Constantinople I saw several Sorts of Wild
Beasts, such as Lynxes, Cat-a- Mountains, Panthers,
Leopards and Lyons ; but they were so gentle and
tame that I saw one of the Keepers pull a Sheep out
of a Lyon's mouth, so that he only moistened his Jaws
with the Blood without devouring it. I also saw a
young Elephant so wanton that she would dance and
play at Ball. Sure you cannot chuse but laugh when
I tell you of an Elephant's dancing and playing at
Ball ; but why may you not believe me as well as
Seneca, who tells us of one that could dance upon a
rope ? Or of Pliny, who speaks of another that under-
stood Greek ? But that you may not think me an
egregious Forger, give me leave to explain myselt :
When this elephant was bid to dance, she did so caper
and quiver with her whole body, and interchangeably
move her feet, that she seemed to represent a kind of
jig ; and as for playing at Ball, she very prettily took
up the Ball in her Trunk and sent it packing hither and
thither as we do with the Palm of the Hand."
70 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
The " Camelopardus " was, one gathers from con-
temporary writings, a beast which excited a great deal
of discussion among naturalists of the sixteenth century.
Tales of travellers who had come across the giraffe in
Africa were received with a good deal of scepticism
on account of the unparelleled proportions attributed
to the animal, and many of the scientific writers of the
day affected to treat it as a fabulous monster. It must
therefore have been a great disappointment to Busbe-
quius that he just missed a chance of seeing one of
these creatures in the flesh. She had lately been an
inmate of the Zoo but had died shortly before his
arrival at Constantinople ; in his ardent pursuit of
science, however, Busbequius persuaded the Turks to
disinter her and made an exhaustive anatomical exami-
nation of the animal's remains.
He indulges also in the favourite "scientific" specula-
tions of the old travellers to Constantinople : the causes
of the double current of the Bosphorus, why the waters
of the Black Sea are salt and whether the floating islands
mentioned by certain classical authors really exist. It
is, by the way, interesting to note the apologetic tone
adopted by Busbequius in common with his contem-
poraries whenever venturing an opinion at variance with
that of Pliny and other classical authorities ; it was indeed
an uncritical age which hesitated to assume in itself any
knowledge in advance of that possessed by the world
of 1 500 years before !
The messengers sent to Suleyman to announce
Busbequius's arrival returned in due course with orders
that he was to proceed to Amadia. He, his horses,
coaches and baggage train are "wafted' across the
Bosphorus and the long land journey across half the
The Credulous Hyena 71
length of Asia Minor begins. Now again it is the variety
of wild animals seen on the way which chiefly attracts
the traveller's notice. First the vast number of tortoises
which strew the ground on the Asiatic coast "stalking"
he writes, "over all the Field without any Fear at all."
"We had certainly seized upon many of them as a
prey grateful to our Palates had it not been for the
Turkish Guides whom we were afraid to disoblige ; for
if they had seen any of them brought to our Table,
much more if they had touched them, they would have
thought themselves so defiled that I know not how many
Washings would not have been needed to cleanse their
imagined Pollution." To which he somewhat callously
adds: "I kept one Tortoise by me a great while which
had two Heads and would have lived much longer had
1 been as careful of it as I might."
Concerning the hyenas, which abounded in those
parts of Asia Minor, he has the following surprising
yarn to tell : " The Turks have a Tradition that the
Hyena, which they call the Zirtlan, understands what
Men say to one another. The Antients affirm'd that
they could also imitate Man's Voice, and thereupon
Hunters catch them by this Wile. They find out her
Den, which they may easily do by the heap of Bones
lying by it ; and then one of them goes in with a Rope,
leaving the other end of the Rope in the Hands of his
Fellows without ; and when he is creeping in he cries
with a loud Voice, Joctur, Joctur, Ucala 1 i.e. 'She is not
here, She is not here ! ' or T cannot find her ! ' where-
upon the Hyena, thinking she is not discovered, lies
1 Busbequius's scraps of Turkish are not always very intelligible. They
have probably got a good deal mutilated in the process of transliteration
and subsequent transcription by the English translator.
72 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
close, and he ties the end of the rope round her leg;
and then he goes forth, still crying, « I cannot find her!'
but when he is escaped quite out of the Hole, he cries
out loudly ' she is within, she is within ! ' which the
Hyena hearing and understanding the meaning of it,
leaps out thinking to escape ; but when they hold her
back by the Rope tied to her leg, and either kill her, or
if they use care and Diligence, take her alive, for she
is a fierce Creature and defends herself desperately."
Thirty days after leaving Constantinople the am-
bassador's party reached Amadia, then the chief city of
Cappadocia, a strong place overhung by a high hill on
the top of which was a castle garrisoned by a Turkish
force maintained there to repulse raids by the Persians
who occasionally penetrated even to this distance within
their neighbour's territory. Busbequius and his suite
were first introduced to the Grand Vizir and chief Pashas
and an audience with the Sultan was duly arranged.
When the day came Busbequius was introduced into
Suleyman's presence supported under each arm by a
Court Chamberlain in accordance with the ancient cus-
tom the origin of which has already been explained in
an earlier chapter of this book. Having thus laboriously
arrived at the goal of his journeyings, the ambassador
prepared to deliver himself of the message entrusted
to him by the Archduke Ferdinand. The scene is
described as follows :
" The Sultan sate on a low Throne, not above a
foot from the ground, but all covered over with rich
Tapistries and with Cushions exquisitely wrought. His
Bow and Arrows lay by his Side while he himself looked
sternly upon us ; and yet there was a certain Majesty
mixed with the Severity in his Countenance. After we
A Taciturn Monarch 73
had kissed his Hand, we were led backward to the
opposite part of the Room, for the Turks count it an
unmannerly Thing to turn any of their Back-parts upon
their Prince. From thence I had liberty to declare my
Master's commands. But they suited not Soliman's
lofty and imperious Spirit, who thought that nothing
ought to be denied him; so that he, as disdaining them,
said nothing but Giusel, Giusel; that is, Well, Well.
And so we were dismissed to our Lodgings."
While things went thus badly for Ferdinand's em-
bassy, a mission from the Shah of Persia which had
reached Amadia at about the same time, bound on a
similar errand, met with a far different reception.
Suleyman needed a respite from the Persian wars and
readily accepted the peace proposals brought by the
Shah's emissary with a mass of princely presents, which
included " many choice sorts of Hangings, Babylonian
Tents, gallant Horse-trappings and Saddles, Scymiters
made at Damascus, whose Handles were studded with
Jewels, and Shields of beautiful Workmanship, together
with that which exceeded all, namely the Alcoran which
is a counted the most noble Present of all."
The Persian negotiations having been speedily con-
cluded, the ambassador was offered a sumptuous banquet
by Ali Pasha, the Deputy Grand Vizir, in a garden out-
side the town. "The Table," relates Busbequius, "at
which the Bashaw and the Persian Ambassador sate
was covered over with a Canopy and the Dishes were
served up after this manner. There were one hundred
Youths which attended, like Waiters, all of them alike
habited. First of all they entered one by one at a small
distance from each other, till the Train of them reached
up to the Table where the Guests were sitting. They
74 -^» Embassy to the Grand Turke
had nothing at all in their Hands, that so they might
not be hindered in saluting the Guests which was done
in this manner; they laid their Hands on their Thighs
and bowed their Heads downwards to the Ground.
When this ceremony was performed, then he that stood
next the Kitchen took a Dish and gave it to the next
Page immediately before him, and he handed it to a
Third and he to a Fourth and so from one toanother until
it came to him that stood next the Table, who delivered
it to the Hands of the Gentleman-Server, who placed
it on the Table. And thus one hundred Dishes or more
were served up in excellent order without any Noise at
all. And when this was done, then these Waiters or
Pages saluted the Guests a second time and so retired
in the same order they came in."
It is greatly to Busbequius's credit that the invidious
distinction shewn in the treatment accorded to himself
and to the Persian evokes no echo of resentment in his
letters : but the motive behind the Sultan's behaviour
lay, as he was aware, not in any personal animosity
against himself but in Suleyman's wish to give visible
evidence of his determination not to treat with Ferdinand
on any other terms than those of a lord dealing with a
suppliant. The German terms of peace were such as
might be offered by a monarch to his peer and had
small chance of acceptance by the Sultan in his present
frame of mind. The most that Busbequius was able to
secure was a six-months' truce (for fighting had broken
out again since he left Vienna), and having accomplished
this, he decided to return to his master to acquaint him
by word of mouth with Suleyman's terms for a perma-
nent treaty. " I was then," he writes, "again introduced
into Solyman's presence and had two large embroidered
Portrait of Suleyman 75
Vests, reaching down to my Ancles, clap'd onto me;
they were so heavy that I could hardly stand under
them. My Family also, that attended me, were all clad
with silken Garments of divers Colours. In this Posture
I stalked along, like Agamemnon or some such piece
of Gravity in a Tragedy, and so I took leave of the
Emperor, having first received Letters from him to my
Master, seal'd and wrap'd up in Cloth of Gold. And
thus, after we had taken our leaves of the Bashaws, I
and my Colleagues departed from Amadia."
Before closing this chapter of his narrative, Busbe-
quius gives us a sketch of Suleyman the Magnificent.
" If you ask me," says he, "what manner of man Solyman
is, I'll tell you. He is an ancient Man, his countenance
and the mien of his Body very majestic, well becoming
the Dignity which he wears ; he is frugal and temperate
though he might have taken a greater Liberty to him-
self by the Rules of his own Religion, so that his very
enemies can object nothing against him on that Account,
but that he was too uxurious and that his over-indulgence
to his Wife made him give way to the Death of his Son
Mustapha [whom he caused to be bow-strung for an
alleged attempt to incite rebellion]. Yet even that
Crime was vulgarly imputed to the Ascendant that
Roxolana had over him by reason of her Inchantments
and Love-Potions.
" He is now sixty Years of Age, and for a Man of
his Years he enjoys a moderate proportion of Health ;
and yet his Countenance doth discover that he carries
about him some hidden Disease, 'tis thought a Gangrene
or Ulcer in the Thigh ; but at solemn Audiences of
Ambassadors he hath a Fucus to paint his Cheeks with,
that he may appear sound and healthy to them and
76 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
thereupon be more dreaded by foreign Princes, their
Masters. Methought I discovered some such thing at
my Dismission, for his Countenance was as sour when
I left him as at my first Audience."
The two ambassadors left Amadia on the same day,
parting outside the walls to go East and West each to
his native land. Within a fortnight the cumbrous train
of coaches rumbled once more under the massive gate-
way in those city walls which just a century before had
crumbled before the battering of Mohammed's guns
and let in his sanguinary hosts over the trampled corpse
of the last of the Greek Emperors.
As they left the town behind them the party came
upon a sight which must have made the proud but
kind-hearted ambassador grind his teeth with impotent
rage. Waggon after waggon-load of girls and boys
came pouring along the road, all of them Christian cap-
tives on their way from Hungary to Constantinople to
be sold in the slave-markets. "There was no Distinction
of Age ; Old and Young were driven in Herds or
Companies, or else were tied in a long Chain, as we
use to tail Horses when we carry them to Fairs.
When I beheld this woful Sight, I could not forbear
weeping and bemoaning the unhappy State of poor
Christendom."
After no worse experiences than a surfeit of carp
consumed on a fast-day at Belgrade and a narrow escape
from brigands when crossing a ford, the company arrived
at Buda. Here the same ill-fortune that attended their
entry into Turkey clung to them at their exit, for a
couple of Turkish soldiers lent as a guard by the Pasha
of Buda, being sent on ahead across the Danube, were
set upon and badly mauled by a party of Hungarians,
A Complacent Sanjak 77
one of them receiving a sword-cut across the face which
nearly severed his nose.
Matters had to be explained as best they could to
the local Turkish sanjak in the presence of the wounded
man himself who appeared '.* with his Nose sewed to-
gether and making a lamentable Moan through it, de-
siring Pity for his Condition." The sanjak fortunately
proved to be a mild tempered man and a few ducats
discreetly expended served to put things right ; so
Busbequius and his companions passed over the river
and, giving hearty thanks to Almighty God, set foot
once more on Christian soil.
Two days later, at Vienna, Ferdinand received the
Sultan's letter from the hand of his faithful agent, and
Busbequius retired for a brief rest to recuperate from
the excitements and fatigues of his eventful journeys.
CHAPTER VI
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE
(2)
Late in the autumn of 1554 Busbequius was invited
by Ferdinand to return to Turkey with his reply to
Suleyman's letter. The poor man naturally shews small
enthusiasm for the mission, being convinced that he will
accomplish little beyond running himself "into a Bushel
of Troubles " ; nor does he view with any pleasure the
prospect of the weary journey in the cold and rains of
December without even the element of novelty to com-
pensate for its fatigues. He reflects, however, that,
should he refuse, there is no one else to take his place
and so loyally deciding "not to slip his neck from the
collar " he again takes leave of his friends and sallies
forth.
He once more reaches Constantinople early in
January. There he finds the situation less promising
than ever, for the Sultan had by now not only settled
his account with the Persians but had also succeeded
in quelling for a time the sporadic rebellions of his two
sons, and so was free to undertake a campaign in Europe
whenever he chose, without the fear of troubles breaking
out behind his back. The Grand Vizir, to whom Bus-
bequius presented himself, took pains to impress him
with these facts and ominously remarked that unless he
was the bearer of terms such as would satisfy the Sultan,
A Bleak Reception 79
he had far better never have come back. " Therefore,
if you be wise," said he, M don't rouze a sleeping Lyon ;
for thereby you will but hasten your own Miseries which
are coming on fast enough of themselves." Busbequius's
old Turkish acquaintances also lent force to the Pasha's
warning by prophesying as the mildest punishment for
the Ambassador and his staff " that two of them would
be cast into a Nasty Dungeon ; and the third (which
was to be my Share) would have his nose and ears cut
off and so be sent back to his master."
The stout-hearted Fleming was as little deterred by
these threats as by the sour looks which the common
Turks cast as they passed his lodging or the coarse
treatment which he received at the hands of the officials,
who kept the mission penned up closely in their quarters,
"less Ambassadors than Prisoners."
Suleyman, as expected, would have nothing to say
to Ferdinand's proposals and after two whole years of
fruitless negotiation the embassy left Constantinople to
return home. Busbequius himself, however, would not
accept defeat and stubbornly remained on in the Turkish
capital exchanging a desultory correspondence with
Vienna and hoping by his persistent importunity to
bring matters to a compromise. The winter of 1558
was spent by Suleyman at Adrianople where he went
with the double purpose of hawking water-fowl in the
marshes and of striking further terror into the hearts
of the Magyars by his nearness to their borders.
Busbequius at once prepared to follow him and having
obtained an escort of a dozen Janissaries from the Grand
Vizir, started on the road. Of this journey he recounts
an amusing little incident which may serve as a useful
guide to travellers in Turkey. The roads were a morass
80 An Embassy to the Grand Tttrke
and his guard soon began to grumble at the long marches ;
"their complaints," writes Busbequius "troubled me not
a little, because I was loth to disoblige this sort of People,
and therefore I consulted with my Servants how I might
allay their Discontents and make them willinger to
Travel. One of mine told me he had observed that
they were much taken with a certain kind of Caudle,
or Gruel which my Cook used to make of Wine, Eggs,
Sugar and Spices : Perhaps (says he) if they have some
of that for their Breakfast, they will become plyable.
This seemed but a mean Expedient, yet we resolved to
try it and the Result answered our Expectation ; for
after this sweet Soop away they trudged as merrily as
need be and told me they would accompany me on the
same terms to Buda, if I pleased."
All that Busbequius could extract from the Sultan
during his stay at Adrianople was another six-months
truce. Returning again to Constantinople in March he
found himself more than ever a prisoner. His quarters
were, it is true, in the best part of the town and com-
manded a distant view of Mount Olympus and of the
Sea of Marmora, where he was able to watch the dolphins
sporting, besides overlooking the road by which the
Sultan passed from the Seraglio on his way to the
selamlik every Friday ; but there was no garden and
the house was, as he puts it, " all for use and nothing
for delight and pleasure." The whole lower story con-
sisted of stables opening on a courtyard which probably
accounted for the large colonies of snakes, lizards, scorpions
and weasels which infested the premises. Busbequius's
love for animals and his keen interest in their habits
provided an excellent antidote to ennui and his letters
contain some amusing notes on his domestic menagerie.
The Embassy Menagerie 81
" For my Part," he says, " I was not content with
the native Animals of the Country but filled my House
with outlandish ones too; and my Family busied them-
selves, by my Order, to our mutual Contents in feeding
them, that we might the better bear the absence from
our own Country. For seeing we were debarred from
human Society, what better Conversation could we have
to drive Grief out of our Minds than among Wild Beasts ?
Otherwise Stones, Walls and Solitudes had been but
lamentable Amusements for us.
"Amongst these Animals, then, Apes led the Van,
which making us good Sport occasioned great Laughter
amongst us, and therefore you could seldom see them
without a whole Ring of my People about them delighting
to observe their antick Tricks and Gestures. I also
bred up some Wolves, some Bears, some broad-horned
Stags (vulgarly miscalled Bucks) and common Deers ;
also Hinds, Lynx's, Ichneumons, or Indian Rats, and
Weesels of that sort you call Ferrets and Fairies, and,
if you would know all, I kept also a Hog whose noisome
smell was wholesome for my Horses, as my Grooms
persuaded me : So that in my nomenclature of other
Creatures it is not fit I should omit my Hog which made
my House to be mightily frequented by the Asiatics.
They came thick and threefold to see that Creature,
which is counted unclean by them, and by the Laws
of their Religion they are forbid to eat it, so that they
never saw one before. Yea all Turks are as afraid to
touch a Hog as Christians are to come near to those
who are infected with the Plague. This Humour of
theirs being well known, we put a pretty Trick on them.
When anyone had a mind to send me a secret Message,
which he would not have my Chiaux know of, he put
h. < 6
82 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
it into a little Bag together with a Roasting-Pig and
sent it by a Youth. When my Chiaux met him, he
would ask him what he had there ? Then the Boy, being
instructed before, whisper'd him in the Ear and said
that a Friend of mine had sent me a Roasting-Pig for
a Present. The Chiaux thereupon would punch the Bag
with his Stick to see whether the Boy spake true or
no ; and when he heard the Pig grunt, he would run
back as far as ever he could, saying ' Get thee in with
the nasty Present ! ' ; then, spitting on the Ground and
turning to his Fellows, he would say ' J Tis strange to
see how these Christian do dote on this filthy impure
Beast ; they cannot forbear eating of it though their
Lives were at stake.' Thus he was handsomely choused,
and the Boy brought me what secret Message was
sent me.
" I kept also a great many sorts of Birds, as Eagles,
Jackdaws, Muscovy Ducks, Balearick Cranes and Part-
ridges ; yea, my House was so full of them that, if a
Painter were to draw it, he may take from thence a
copy of Noah's Ark.
"If you please to hear me, I'll tell you a story of
a Bird : I have, among my other birds, a Balearic Crane
which differs from the ordinary sort of Cranes by a
white Plume of Feathers that grows hanging down from
both her Ears ; and besides, all the Fore-part of her
Neck-Feathers were black, and the Turks adorn their
Turbants with it ; and there is some difference in their
Bigness. This Balearic Bird was mightily affected with
a Spanish Soldier, whom I had redeemed out of his
Chains ; when he walked abroad, the Bird would walk
with him, though for many hours together ; when he
stood still so did the Crane ; when he sat down she
An Affectionate Crane 83
would stand by him and suffer him to handle her and
stroke down her feathers, whereas she would not suffer
any body else so much as to touch her ; whenever he
was gone from Home, she would come to his Chamber
Door and knock against it with her Beak ; if any body
open'd it, she would look all about, to see whether he
were in the Room ; and not finding him she would
traverse it about, making such a shrill Din and Noise,
that nothing living could endure it ; so that we were
forced to shut her up that her Noise might not offend
us. But when he returned as soon as ever she fixed
her eyes on him, she would make to him, clapping her
wings with such an antick Posture of her Body as
Dancers in a Jig use to do ; or if she had been to pre-
pare herself for Combat with a Pigmy. In fine, she at
last used to lie under his Bed at Night, where she laid
him an Egg.
" I must tell you I have Partridges too (to acquaint
you with my whole stock of pleasurable Recreations).
You would wonder, as 1 did myself at first, how tame
they are. They were brought from Chios with red Feet
and Beaks. They were so troublesome to me by standing
at my Feet and picking the Dust out of my Velvet
Pantoufle with their Beaks, that they might dust them-
selves therewith that, to be rid of the Molestation, I was
forced to shut them up in a Chamber where in a short
time they grew over-fat and died.
" Be pleased to know that I have also a breed of
fine Horses, some of them from Syria, others from
Cicilia, Arabia and Cappodocia.
"As I take Pleasure in my Horses on other Accounts,
so especially in the Evening when I behold them brought,
one by one, out of their Stables and placed in the Yard,
6—2
84 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
that so they may enjoy the Night- Air in Summer-time
and rest more sweetly. They march out so stately,
shaking their Manes on their high Necks, as if they
were proud to be seen, and they have fetters on their
Fore-feet and one of their Hinder-feet is tied by a Cord
to a Stake.
"There is no Creature so gentle as a Turkish Horse,
nor more respectful to his Master or the Groom that
dresses him. The reason is because they treat their
Horses with great Lenity. They will with their Teeth
take up a Staff or Club upon the Road, which their
Rider hath let fall, and hold it up to him again ; and
when they are perfect in this Lesson, then, for their
Credit, they have Rings of Silver hung from their
Nostrils as a Badge of Honour and good Discipline.
I saw some Horses, when their Master was fallen from
the Saddle, that would stand Stock-still, without wagging
a Foot, until he got up again. Once too I saw some
Horses, when their Master was at Dinner with me in
an upper Room, prick up their Ears to hear his Voice ;
and when they did so, they neighed for Joy."
In the middle of the sixteenth century the possibility
of another invasion of the Barbarians must have been
very present in men's minds. The Turk's insatiable
lust for conquest had for a generation past wrought
havoc in three Continents and now, at the zenith of his
power, he threatened to break loose upon Europe as
his forerunners from the steppes of Asia had done eleven
hundred years before. On this subject Busbequius
writes in a despondent tone. After dwelling on the high
efficiency of the Turkish army, the abstemiousness and
hardihood of their troops, the admirable organization
of their auxiliary services (such a striking contrast to
A Damaging Comparison 85
the happy-go-lucky methods of European armies of that
time) and the unwavering discipline of the men, he
exclaims : "Thus the Turks surmount great Difficulties
in War with a great deal of Patience and Sobriety. But
our Christian Soldiers carry it far otherwise ; they scorn
homely Fare in their Camps ; they must have dainty
Bits, forsooth, such as Thrushes, Blackbirds and Ban-
quetting Stuff. If they have not these, they are ready
to mutiny, as if they were famished ; and if they have
them, they are undone — their own Intemperance kills
them, if the Enemy spares their Lives.
"When I compare the Difference between their
Soldiers and ours, I stand amazed to think what will
be the Event ; for certainly their Soldiers must needs
conquer and ours be vanquished, both cannot prosper-
ously stand together : For on their side there is a mighty,
strong and wealthy Empire, great Armies, Experience
in War, a veteran Soldiery, a long Series of Victories,
Patience in Toil, Concord, Order, Discipline, Frugality,
and Vigilance. On our Side there is public Want, private
Luxury, Strength weakened, Minds discouraged, an
Unaccustomedness to Labour and Arms, Soldiers re-
fractory, Commanders covetous, a Contempt of Dis-
cipline, Licentiousness, Rashness, Drunkenness, Glut-
tony ; and, what is worst of all, they are used to conquer,
we to be conquered. Can any Man doubt in this case
what the Event will be ? "
In the following year, in spite of Busbequius's fore-
bodings, the tide of War turned slightly in favour of
Christian arms. A large Turkish force was repulsed
in an attempt to storm Szigeth — the city before whose
walls Suleyman was destined to breathe his last ten years
later. This success did much to restore the spirits of
86 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
the imprisoned ambassador. He had now for more
than four years been cooped up in his house with a
Ckaoush, or sentry, constantly on guard at his door,
who only allowed him out on the rarest occasions. The
Sultan's action in treating an ambassador in this shame-
ful manner was, as Busbequius himself admits, prompted
by motives of policy. Some time before the Republic
of Venice, Turkey's chief maritime rival, had sent their
Agent to Constantinople to treat about the town of N apoli
di Romania, lately recovered by the Venetians. The
Agent was given secret instructions to try every means
in his power to save the place from being handed back
to the Turks, but, if it became clear that war could be
averted by no other means, to offer its surrender in the
last resort. A traitor having obtained a copy of these
instructions, sold them to the Grand Vizir. When there-
fore the hapless Agent began the negotiations by swearing
that the surrender of the town was not a matter for
discussion, being quite outside his competence, he was
at once confronted with the stolen paper and, being un-
able to dispute the authenticity of the document, had
no choice but to sign away the town to the Turks. This
incident had convinced Suleyman that Christian ambas-
sadors usually possessed wider discretionary powers than
they were willing to admit, and he hoped, by making life
sufficiently intolerable for the unfortunate Busbequius,
to induce him to accept the Turkish terms for peace.
It happened that just at this time a messenger, one
Philip Baldus, arrived at Constantinople with despatches
for Busbequius from Vienna. Rustam, the Grand Vizir,
noted Baldus's arrival and drew his own conclusions
from the event, supposing that he carried orders from
Ferdinand to his ambassador to abate his terms.
THE GRAND VIZIR
From Rycaut's History of the Turks, 1669
A Clever Strategem 87
This seemed the moment for clinching the matter
by means of a veiled threat, so, on a very hot day, he
sent to Busbequius a large water-melon of the sort which
possesses a brilliant red core. The significance of the
gift did not escape Busbequius, who knew that, according
to the elaborate symbolism current among the Turks,
it was equivalent to a threat of war. Any possible am-
biguity was removed by the message accompanying the
melon which was to the effect that the Grand Vizir
advised Busbequius to use the fruit as it was suited to
the season, "being an excellent Cooler"; to which
Rustam added that it might interest the ambassador
to know that melons of a similar sort but of much greater
size grew in great quantities about Buda and Belgrade
— by which he meant cannon-balls. Busbequius
responded by thanking the Pasha for his gift which he
promised to use, but he wished to point out that, as
for the melons at Buda and Belgrade, it was no great
wonder that they should grow so well there seeing that
plenty of even larger dimensions flourished at Vienna.
"It was a Pleasure to me," he adds in his letter, "to let
Rustam know that I could retort Quibble for Quibble ! "
By mid-summer of 1 559 a fresh revolt by the Sultan's
son Bayezid forced his father to lead the army once
again into Asia. The departure of Suleyman and his
troops from the capital afforded a spectacle which
Busbequius decided on no account to miss. This gave
rise to a humorous situation which he shall describe
in his own words :
"When I was certainly informed that the Sultan
was ready to pass over into Asia and that the Day was
fixed for his Departure, I told my Chiaux that I had
a mind to see him march out, and therefore he should
88 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
come betimes in the Morning and open the Doors, for
he used to carry the Keys home with him at Night.
He promised me courteously he would do so. Then
I ordered my Janissaries and my Interpreters to take
me an upper Room in the Way the Emperor was to
pass, convenient for my View, they obeyed my Com-
mands. When the Day was come, I rose before t'was
Light expecting that the Chiaux had opened my Doors,
but finding them shut, I sent several Messengers to
him to come and let me out, both my Janissaries that
waited within and my Druggermen that waited without ;
this I did through the chinks of the Door, which was
very old. But the Chiaux still spun Delays, pretending
that he would come presently. Thus I spent some time,
till I heard the Noise of the Guns, which their Emperor
used to fire when the Emperor took Horse ; then I
began to fret and fume, seeing myself so deluded. My
disappointment and just Indignation did affect the Janis-
saries themselves ; they told me that if my People would
thrust hard with them, they without would so press upon
the Valves, which were old and loose, that the Bars
would fall out. I took their Council ; the Doors flew
open accordingly and out we went, hastening to the
Room I had hired.
"My Chiaux had a mind to frustrate my Desire,
and yet he was no bad Man either ; but having com-
municated my Request to the Bashaws, they were not
willing that any Christian should behold their Prince
marching with so small a Force against his own Son,
' and therefore,' said they to him, ' do you promise him
fair, but be sure to delay him until the Sultan is on
Shipboard'."
"When I came to the House where a Room was
A Glittering Cavalcade 89
engaged for me, the Door was shut so that I could no
more enter into that than I could go out of my own ;
when I knocked, nobody answered. Hereupon the
Janissaries again told me that, if I commanded them,
they would either break open the Doors or get in at
the Window and open them. I told them they should
not break open anything, but if they would go in at
the Windows, they might ; they presently did so and
opened the Door. When I went up Stairs, I found the
House full of Jews — a whole Synagogue of them. They
looked upon it as a Miracle that I should enter when
the Doors were shut ; but being informed of the Truth,
an old grave Matron, in comely Habit, address'd her-
self and complain'd to me in Spanish of the Violence
I had offered to her House. I told her she had done
me a Wrong in not keeping her Word, and that I was
not a Man to be thus deluded. She seemed dissatisfied
and the time would not admit of further Discourse. In
short, I was allowed one Window which on the back
side looked out into the Street, and from thence with
a great deal of pleasure, I saw all the Grand Procession.
" The Gulupagi and Ulufagi marched two by two ;
the Selchers one by one. The Spahis, that is the Grand
Seignior's Horse-Guards, were distinguished by their
Ranks and Troops, being about 6000, besides a great
number of the Domestics of the Prime Vizir and other
Bashaws. The Horses were set out with Silver and
Trappings studded with Gold and Jewels, and the Riders
clad with a Coat or Vest made of Silk Velvet, or other
Cloth of Scarlet, Purple or dark Blue Colour, intermixed
with Gold- and Silver. Each had two Cases hanging
by his Sides ; one held his Bow, the other his Arrows,
both of neat Babylonian Workmanship ; and so was
90 An Embassy to the Grand Tiirke
his Buckler which he wore on his left Arm which is
proof against Arrows, Clubs and Swords. In their right
Hands they carried light Spears painted in green. Their
Scimitars were studded with Jewels and made of Steel,
and hanged down from their Saddles. Their Heads
were covered with very fine white Cotton-Linen, in the
midst whereof stood up a Tuft of Purple Silk, plaighted ;
some also wore black Feathers a-top.
"After the Horse a large Body of Janissaries fol-
lowed, being a-foot and seldom carrying any other Arms
than Muskets. The Make and Colour of their Clothes
are almost the same, so that you would judge them all
to be the Servants of one Man. Yet in their Feathers,
Crests and suchlike military Ornaments, they are over-
curious or rather proud, especially the veterans in the
Rear — you would think a whole Wood of walking
Feathers were in their Fire-stars and Frontals. After
them their Officers and Commanders follow on Horse-
back, distinguished each by his own Ensign. In the
last Place marches their Aga or General. Then succeed
the chief Courtiers among whom are the Bashaws ; then
the Foot of the Prince's Life-guard in a peculiar Habit,
carrying their Bows bent in their Hands, for they are
all Archers ; next the Prince's Led- Horses, all with
curious Trappings. He himself rode on a stately Prancer,
looking sour with his brows bent, as if he had been
angry ; behind him came three Youths, one carrying
a Flagon of Water, another his Cloak, another his Bow.
There followed some Eunuchs of the Bed-Chamber ;
and at last a Troop of about Two Hundred Horse
closed the Procession.
"After I had the Satisfaction of viewing all this,
my only Care was to appease my Hostess, I sent for
A Deluded Chaoush 91
her and told her she should have remembered her Bar-
gain and not have shut the Door against me ; ' but
though you,' said I, 'don't remember your Promise, I'll
perform mine; yes, I will be better than my Word: I pro-
mis'd you but seven Pistoles, but here's ten for you, that
so you may not repent your Admittance of me into your
House.' When the Woman thus unexpectedly saw her
Hand filled with Gold, she was melted down into a Com-
pliance, and the whole Synagogue of them fell to Compli-
ments and giving me Thanks. They offered me Grecian
Wine and a Banquet which I refused, but, with great Ac-
clamations of all the Jews made haste to be gone that I
might manage a new Dispute with my Chiaux for keep-
ing my Doors fastened when I should have come forth.
" I found him sitting mournfully in my Porch, where
he began a long Complaint, that I ought not to have
gone abroad without his Consent, nor have broken open
the Door ; that I had violated the Law of Nations
thereby, and suchlike Stuff. I replied that if he had
come betimes in the Morning as he had promised, he
had prevented all this ; his Breach of Promise had oc-
casioned it. I demanded also of him whether he looked
upon me as an Ambassador or as a Prisoner ? ' As an
Ambassador,' says he. ' If you think me a Prisoner,'
said I, 'then I am not a fit Instrument to make a Peace,
for a Prisoner is not his own Man, but if an Ambassador,
as you confess, then why am I not a free Man ? Cap-
tives use to be shut up, not Ambassadors : Liberty is
granted to such in all Nations : they may claim it as
their public due : He ought to know that he was not
appointed to be my Serjeant or Keeper, but to assist
me with his good Offices, that so no other Man might
do an Injury to me or mine.'"
92 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
Shortly after his successful conflict with his jailors,
Busbequius succeeded in obtaining the Sultan's permis-
sion to visit the army encamped on the Asiatic shore. H ere,
being more in the public eye, he found himself far better
treated ; he was freed from all the petty annoyances to
which he was interminably subjected at Constantinople
and was, on the contrary, provided with a handsome
lodging and every facility for studying the habits and
methods of a Turkish army in the field. As before, he
is intensely impressed by the discipline and orderliness
of the soldiers and the complete absence of rowdiness,
drunkenness and gambling. His visit to the camp ter-
minated rather abruptly after a regrettable encounter
between a party of his own servants and some Janis-
saries. The latter returning en deshabille from a
swim in the sea, were insulted by the embassy servants
who failed to recognize them and paid handsomely for
their error. For a time relations were somewhat strained
between Busbequius and the Sultan, as the former, with
his usual stubbornness, refused to offer any satisfaction
for his men's behaviour ; there arrived however, on the
scene a learned and worthy person of Amsterdam " who
had been sent by Ferdinand to carry some royal presents
to Suleyman (including a clock " neatly made and borne
like a Tower on an Elephant's Back") which mightily
took the fancy of the Grand Seigneur and restored him
to comparative good humour. So Busbequius came
back again to his dismal quarters in the capital and
resigned himself to a further spell of his monotonous
existence, relieved only by the society of his family of
pets and his encounters with the petty tyrant who acted
as the guardian of his portals.
CHAPTER VII
AN EMBASSY TO THE GRAND TURKE
(3)
The year 1 560 saw Busbequius' exile in Turkey draw-
ing to its close: it also witnessed an event which
was to bring a great change into his life at the capital.
This was the arrival of the broken relics of the Christian
allied fleet defeated by the Turks off the island of Jerba
on the North African coast. Busbequius's description of
the sad spectacle of the captured ships being towed into
harbour is reserved for a later chapter, so we may
proceed at once to his account of the treatment of the
unfortunate crews.
"The Prisoners," he says "were brought into the
Seraglio, but so miserably Hunger-starv'd that some
could hardly stand on their Legs ; others fell down in a
Swoon from very Feebleness ; others had Arms put upon
them in a Jeer, in which Posture they died. The Turks
insulted over them on every Hand, promising to them-
selves the Empire of the whole World ; 'for who shall
now be able to stand before us (they said) since we have
overcome the Spaniards?'"
To be captured by the Turk in those days meant,
as a rule, a lifetime of misery in the slave-galleys and
it is hard to picture adequately the utter hopelessness
which must have filled the hearts of these wretched
prisoners. A few of the higher officers avoided the
common lot. Don Bellinger, the Genoese Admiral
purchased at a great price the privilege of internment
94 -^» Embassy to the Grand Turke
on Chios, but the military commander-in-chief, Don
Alvarez de Sande, Duke of Medina, was shut up
in a castle on the shores of the Black Sea, while
most of the rank and file were thrust into Galata
Tower. The tragic circumstances of his fellow-Chris-
tians deeply affected Busbequius and he lost no
time and spared no effort in doing what he could to
mitigate their sufferings. He describes the work as
follows: " I was forced to provide several sorts of Relief
for their several Necessities, different Diseases requiring
different Cures. There lay a Multitude of sick Persons
in a certain Temple of Pera, whom the Turks cast out
as Abjects, and many of these perished for want of con-
venient Broths for their sick Stomachs. When I was
told thereof, I dealt with a Friend of mine, a Citizen of
Pera, desiring him to buy some Weather-Sheep every
day and boil them at his own House to distribute the
Flesh to some, and the Broth to others, as their Stomachs
could bear, which was a great Relief to Abundance of
them. But those that were in Health required another
sort of Assistance and my House was full from Morning
to Night with many Complaints. Some were used to
good Diet, and a Piece of brown Bread — which was
their daily Allowance — would not go down well with
them; some that used to drink Wine could not bear the
perpetual use of Water only ; some wanted Blankets to
cover them, having never known what it was to lie on
the bare Ground; some wanted Coats, some Shoes, but
the most part desired some Footing-money to gratify
their Keepers, that they might deal the more mercifully
with them. Money was the only Remedy for these
Mischiefs, so that every day some Guilders were ex-
pended by me on their Account. But these Expenses
were tolerable, compared with certain greater Sums that
A Bushel of Troubles 95
were desired of me for some prayed me to be their Surety
for their Ransom-Money; and herein every one was
very forward with his Pretences, one alleging Nobleness
of Birth, another that he had great Friends and Alliances,
a Third that he was Commander in the Army and had
much Pay due to him, a Fourth that he had Cash enough
at Home and was able to imburse me. Some boasted
of their Valour in the Fight, indeed every one had some-
thing to say for himself. When I demanded them
whether they were sure to repay me? 'God forbid,'
said they 'for what is more unjust than to defraud a
Man that hath restored us to our Liberty, even out of
the Jaws of Death?'
"And the Truth is it was very grievous to me to see
their State, and so I was induced to pass my Word, in
all, for 1000 Ducats and have thereby run myself so
much into Debt that I fear I have but freed them from
Fetters only to clap them on my own Legs."
Poor Busbequius was now to experience the truth of
the old adage that troubles never come singly. His
next misfortune, which, though it may not seem of
so desperate a nature to us of the present day,
was evidently a most cruel blow to him, arose from
the growing cantankerousness and fanaticism which
the Sultan developed in his old age. "Solyman,"
writes Busbequius, "grows every day more and more
superstitious in his Religion. He used to delight him-
self in Musicke and in the chanting of young Singers,
but all this has now been laid aside by the work of a
certain old Sibyl, noted for Sanctity, who told him, if
he left not off that Sport, he would be severely punished
after his Death. He was also prevailed upon by her to
forbid the use of Wine. Hereupon an Edict was pub-
96 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
lished that for the Future no Wine should be imported
into Constantinople, either for Christians or Jews."
For several weeks Busbequius fought his case stoutly
with the Grand Vizir and the chief Pashas, appealing
to his ambassadorial privileges and pointing out the
disastrous effects which the drinking of water was likely
to have on his health, the sudden change being calcu-
lated, he assured them, to cause serious disease, if not
death itself. At last after a supreme effort, he extracted
from the Vizir a concession which permitted him to
convey, carefully concealed in a travelling carriage, as
much wine as could be transported between dark and
dawn on a single night from the nearest landing place
to the Embassy cellars.
A far worse thing befell the mission shortly after,
when the plague got a footing in the house. Once more
Suleyman's religious bigotry was their undoing, for when
Busbequius requested leave to abandon the plague-
stricken premises, the only answer the Sultan vouch-
safed to him was : " Is not Pestilence God's Arrow, which
will always hit his Mark? If God would visit me here
how could I avoid it? Is not the Plague in my own
Palace, and yet I do not think of removing ?" "And so,"
adds Busbequius, " I was forced to stay in a Pestilential
and Infected House." The Pestilence passed and the
Ambassador himself survived, but he lost his best friend
and faithful physician, the excellent Dr Quackquellen,
whom he buried with many tears in unconsecrated soil
erecting a monument over his grave "as a due testimony
to his Vertue."
All too late a capricious volte face on the part
of the Sultan brought permission for a change of air
and Busbequius left his dismal quarters in Stamboul for
A Fisherman s Paradise 97
a villa on the pleasant island of Prinkipo 1 , one of the
little group situated a few miles distant from Constan-
tinople in the Sea of Marmora. Here Busbequius spent
three months enjoying himself as he had never done
since he arrived in Turkey seven years before. The
island was inhabited solely by Greek fishermen and the
genial Ambassador joined with zest in their usual avo-
cation. "The Sea" he writes, "is full of divers sorts of
Fishes, which I took sometimes with Net, sometimes
with Hook and Line. Several Grecian Fishers with
their boats attended me and where we had hopes
of the greatest sport thither we sailed and cast our Nets.
Sometimes we played above board and when we saw a
Crab or a Lobster at the bottom, where the Sea was
very clear, we ran him through with a Fishspear, and
so hailed him up into a Vessel. But our best and most
profitable sport was with a drag-net ; where we thought
most fish were there we cast it in a round ; it took up a
great compass, with the ropes tied to the end of it,
which were to bring it to Land. To those Ropes the
Fisher tied green Boughs very thick, so that the Fish
might be frightned, and not seek to escape. Thus we
brought great Sholes of trembling Fishes to Shore.
Sea-Bream, Scorpion-Fishes, Dragon-Fishes, Scare-
Fish, Jule-Fish, Chane or Ruff-Fish, whose variety did
delight my eye and the inquiry into their nature did
hugely please my Fancy.
"When tempestuous Weather kept me from the Sea,"
he continues, " I delighted myself in finding out strange
and unusual Plants at Land. I would sometimes go
afoot all over the Island, having a young Franciscan
1 The home of another illustrious State prisoner in the person of
General Townshend, the defender of Kut.
98 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
Monk in my Company, a jolly Fellow, but very fat, and
not used to travel on Foot. I took him out of a Mon-
astry at Pera, to be my Partner in my Walks; he was
so corpulent and pursy, that when I went on a-pace to
catch myself a Heat, he would follow me at a Distance
panting and blowing, with these words in his Mouth,
1 What need all this haste ? Whom do we run from, or
whom do we pursue ? What are we carriers or Posts
that must make speed to deliver some important
Letters?' thus he mutter'd, till the very Sweat pierced
through all his Cloaths. In fine, when we came back to
our Lodging, he threw himself upon his Bed, wofully
complaining, and crying out, he was undone: 'What
Injury have I done, said he, that you thus hurry on to
destroy me ? ' And, in this fretting Posture, we had much
ado to persuade him to eat a bit of Dinner."
On the subject of monks Busbequius tells the follow-
ing story of a scene which took place after his return to
the capital. " Let me now tell you" he says "a wondrous
Story of a wandering Turkish Monk. He wore a Cap
and white Cloak down to his Heels, with long hair such
as Painters draw the Apostles with. He had a pro-
mising Countenance, but was a meer Impostor; and yet
the Turks admired him as a Miraculous Man. My In-
terpreters were persuaded to bring him to me that I
might see him. He dined with me soberly and modestly
enough; afterwards he goes down into the Yard, and
upon his return he takes up a huge Stone and struck
with it divers times upon his naked Breast as many blows
as would have felled an Ox : Then he took a piece of
Iron that was heated in the Fire on purpose, and thrust
it into his Mouth, where he stirred it up and down so
that his Spittle hiss'd again; 'twas a long piece of Iron,
The Hoji and the Sanziack 99
thick and quadrangular in that part which he thrust into
his Mouth and it was red-hot as a live Coal: Then he
put the Iron into the Fire again, and after I had made
him a Present, he saluted me and departed. My Domes-
ticks wonder'd at the Trick, all but one who pretended
that he knew more than all the rest ; Oh, says he, he is
a meer Cheat; and thereupon he takes hold of the
stronger part of the Iron, pretending he could do as
much as the Juggler. He had no sooner grasped it in
his Hands than he threw it away, and his Fingers were
well burnt for his Audaciousness, so that they were many
days acuring. This accident caused his fellows to laugh,
and jearingly to ask whether the Iron were hot enough
yet, and whether he would touch it again or not.
"The same Turk, while he was at Dinner, told me
that the Prior of their Monastery was a Man famous for
sanctity and Miracles, for he would spread his Cloak
over a Lake near adjoining and sitting on it, would row
up and down whither he pleased: And that he would
strip himself naked, and be tied to a Sheep newly kill'd
tying arms to arms, and Leg to Leg and so would be
thrown into the hot Oven till the Sheep were bak'd fit
to be eaten, then he himself would be taken out without
any harm at all: You will not believe this; neither do
I, only I relate what he told me ; but that part concern-
ing the red-hot Iron I saw with my own eyes."
Wandering on from one subject to another in his
pleasant discoursive way Busbequius entertains the friend
to whom he addresses his letters with a disquisition on
Turkish table manners and mentions the custom among
guests at a dinner-party of taking tit-bits home with
them for their women-folk. "Let me tell you" he adds,
"a Story to this purpose, which I know will make you
7—2
ioo An Embassy to the Grand Turke
laugh heartily, as it did me at the first hearing it. 'Tis
the custom of the Turkish Bashaws, some days before
their Fast to make a public Feast or Entertainment
for all Comings ; none are excluded, yet generally none
but Servants, Friends and Relations come. There is a
Napkin made of Leather spread over a long Tapestry
on the Ground, full of Dishes; the Table will hold
abundance of Guests ; the Bashaw himself sits at the
upper End and the choicest Guests next to him, and then
the ordinary Guests in ranks, till the Table be full. It
will not hold all at once, but some stand by till the others
havedin'd, which they do with great Decency and Silence;
and then drinking a Draught of Honey diluted with
Water, salute their Landlord and away they go. In
their Places others sit down, and the third Class after
them ; the Servants still taking off the old Dishes and
setting on new. A certain Bashaw, making such a
Feast, invited a Sanziack to sit next to him ; an old Man
of the Sect the Turks call Hojies, that is learned Men,
sat next to him, This Hoji, seeing such Plenty of Vic-
tuals before him, had a Mind to carry home some to his
Wife after he had filled his own Belly; but looking for
his Handkerchief to fill it with Victuals, he found he
had left it at home ; being then in a straight, he bethought
himself and resolv'd to fill his Sleeve which hanged on
his Back, but mistaking the Sanziack 's for his own, he
stuft it full of Dainties and stops it in with a Piece of
Bread that nothing might fall out. He was not to touch
his Sleeve till he had lay'd his Hands on his Breast or
Thigh and so saluted his Entertainer, as their Custom
is ; when he had done that he took up his own Sleeve
and finds it empty, at which he was much amazed and
returned home very sad. A while after the Sanziack
A HO J A
From Rycaut's History of the Turks, 1669
The End in Sight 101
also rose from the Table and, having saluted the Bashaw
at every Step, his Sleeve cast out the Dainties it was
replenished with unknown to him, and seeing a Train
of Junkets behind him, he blushed for Shame. The
Company fell a laughing, but the Bashaw imagining
how it came to pass, desired him to sit down again, and
sent for the Hoji; when he came, he accosted him thus :
' I wonder that you, an old Friend, and having a Wife
and Children at home, did carry home nothing to them,
seeing my Table was so well furnished.' 'Truly, Sir,'
said he, 'twas no Fault of mine, but of my Evil Genius;
for I stuffed my Sleeve with Viands and yet when I
came out I found it empty.' Thus the Sanziack was
cleared and the Disappointment of the Hoji, together
with the Novelty of the Case occasioned no small
Laughter throughout all the Company."
Busbequius's indomitable patience bore fruit at last.
He had indeed, after the recent Christian reverses, to
"draw in his Sails somewhat" — as he quaintly phrases
it — but a formula for a treaty was eventually agreed upon
between him and the Grand Vizir which satisfied Suley-
man and was approved in principle by the Emperor.
Busbequius's powers permitted of his signing the treaty
on behalf of Ferdinand, "but," said he " I knewtherewant
not Sycophants in Princes' Courts who go about to ob-
scure the best Services of their Ministers, especially if
Strangers. I therefore thought it fit to leave all to the
Pleasure of my Master." So he cautiously represented
to the Turks that certain of the treaty articles were ob-
scure and that, though confident of the Emperor's accept-
ance, he would prefer to travel to Vienna accompanied
by an Agent of the Porte who could explain their inter-
pretation and obtain Ferdinand's own signature. To
102 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
this the Grand Vizir assented, and appointed the Drago-
man of the Porte, a certain Ibrahim, to be their Agent.
When the time for his departure came, Busbequius
was invited by the Divan to the customary banquet
given to an ambassadoron the termination of his mission.
Adhering to his policy of leaving open the door to the
last moment, he refused the feast, though gladly ac-
cepting a queerly assorted gift from his old friend, the
Grand Vizir, consisting of three excellent Arabian horses,
together with a waistcoat embroidered in gold, a glass
of rare balsam and a box of Alexandrian treacle, "the
best in the World." The Sultan, surly to the last, gave
him none but thecommon gifts bestowed on petty envoys
and an ill-tempered homily on the futility of opposing
his imperial will.
Shortly before Busbequius had, by his unwearying
efforts, succeeded in obtaining the release of Don Al-
varez de Sande, the ill-starred general captured at the
fall of Jerba, and the grateful Spaniard accompanied
his benefactor on the journey home. De Sande was such
a man as Busbequius loved, a cheerful, facetious fellow
with a fund of anecdote and a nature as boyish as the
Ambassador's own. They found each other excellent
company capping one another's stories and running races
on the road "in which", says Busbequius, " I, being lean,
could easily out pace him who was fat and pursy and
just out of Prison." Ibrahim, possessed with oriental
notions of propriety, regarded with horror these undig-
nified performances on the part of the travelling com-
panions "and beseeched us, by all that we held dear,
not to be seen on foot by the Villages for it would be
accounted a Disgrace to us among the Turks." His
implorings sometimes availed to induce the pair back
Honest Henry 103
into their coach but often "the Pleasure of walking
afoot still got the better."
The inevitable contretemps near the frontier duly
repeated itself and again the Ambassador and his com-
pany got into serious trouble at the moment of leaving
Ottoman territory. A doctor and a Spaniard belonging to
the party accompanied by some of the guards were search-
ing for lodgings for the night and came to the house
of a local Janissary. " Hereupon the Janissary, Master
of the House, being told that some Christian passengers
were seeking for a Lodging at his House : came in a
great Rage with a Club like Hercules's in his Hand,
and without speaking a Word, strikes the Physician a
great Blow on the Shoulders as hard as he was able ;
the Physician, to avoid a second Blow, ran out of the
House. My Servant looking back saw him lift up his
Club to strike him also : but he, having a thing like a
Hatchet in his Hand held it crossways over his Head,
and so kept off many a lusty Blow, till at last the Handle
of the Hatchet, by his often striking, began to break.
Then my Servant was forced to close with the Janizary,
and was about to cleave his Skull with his Weapon :
Whereupon the Janizary fled and my Servant not being
able to overtake him, threw the Hatchet after him,
which cut him in the Hams and fell'd him to the Ground ;
by which Accident my People escaped. On hearing
what had taken place de Sande was tormented lest he
should be carried back to Constantinople. He was
much offended with my Servant who had wounded the
Janizary, especially for saying that he was very sorry
he had not killed him on the Spot. His Words to him
were these: 'Honest Henry, Prithee be not so Passion-
ate ; 'tis no Time or Place to shew thy Valour here ; We
104 An Embassy to the Grand Turke
must bear Affronts patiently, without any just Imputa-
tion of Cowardice whether we will or no ; we are in
their Power : This unreasonable Passion may bring
great Mischief to us: perhaps it may occasion us to be
brought back to Constantinople, and there our whole
Negotiation may be reversed or at least become very
dubious. I beseech Thee, therefore, for my Sake among
the rest, govern thy Passion.'
" But Henry was deaf to all his Persuasions ; he being
an obstinate Fellow and when angry would not hearken
to Reason. 'What care I,' replied he, 'if I had killed him?
Did he not design to kill me? If one of his many Blows
had gone home he had knock'd me down like an Ox.
Were I to be blamed if I slew him who would have
slain me first ? I am sorry with all my heart I did not
give him his Death's Wound. But for the Future (take
my Word for it) I'll spare never a Turk of them all; for
if he assaults me I'll give him as good as he brings,
though it cost me my Life.'"
In this dilemma recourse was had to Ibrahim who
saved the awkward situation in which "honest Henry"
had landed his masters by interviewing the injured
Janissary in bed and persuading him that any further
interference with a gentleman who stood in such favour
with the Sultan as Busbequius would inevitably cost
him his head. This bold threat " took down my Janizary's
crest," Busbequius remarks, "and put him into a terrible
Panick besides," and so the incident was happily closed.
Two days later, to the intense relief of de Sande,
who doubted his safety till he was actually across the
boundary, Busbequius's party found themselves on
Austrian soil.
At Vienna they learnt that the Emperor Ferdinand,
Home at Last 105
who had now succeeded Charles V as Emperor, was at
Frankfort attending the Imperial Diet where the pre-
liminaries were being arranged for the crowning of his
son Maximilian as King of the Romans. After an inter-
change of letters with Ferdinand the party continued
their journey to Frankfort where Busbequius was re-
ceived by his master "with all imaginable kindness" and
made his report of the results of his mission. The gates
of the town which were by ancient usage shut on the eve
of the assembly of the Diet were opened by express
command for the Turkish envoy and he was given a
special place at the procession from which to see — and
be duly impressed by — " the glorious and magnificent
Sight of so many Christian Princes in perfect Unanimity
passing by with great Pomp and Splendor." A few
days later the Emperor received Ibrahim and formally
confirmed the seven years' treaty of peace which had
been secured by the courage and untiring devotion of
his faithful ambassador during his seven years of exile
at the court of the Grand Signior.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO MARTIAL ADVENTURES
(i)
A stroller prying among the bookshops of St Paul's
Churchyard in the early part of the seventeenth century
might have had his eye arrested at the Sign of the
Green Dragon by a couple of recent publications de-
scribing adventures in Turkey, one a fat little duodecimo
entitled Voyages in the Levant by Hy. Blunt, Gent.,
the other a mere pamphlet headed " Newes from Turkie
by a Gentleman of Qualitie." The former describes a
journey through the Balkans in the train of a Turkish
Army marching to the wars ; the latter consists of the
diary of a volunteer who fought in the Polish army
against the Turks in Bessarabia. Both of the authors
are entertaining writers and between them they give an
excellent picture of the Turk in warfare, so their narra-
tives well deserve a place in these pages. We will take
the Voyages first.
Henry Blunt was a globe trotter with a strong
philosophical bias and is careful to explain the motives
which urged him to a tour of Turkey. The knowledge
of human affairs, says he, " which formeth the strongest
desire of intellectual complexions " is best advanced by
the study of peoples who differ most greatly from our
own. It is natural, he continues, that inhabitants of
the North-West part of the globe should meet with
their opposite extremes among the peoples who live in
A Philosophic Globe-Trotter 107
the South- East corner. Given these premisses he argues
that an English philosopher should find the fullest scope
for research in observing the customs of the Turks.
He adds to this excellent syllogism another good
reason for his decision to travel in Turkey. " The
Turke," he says, " being the only modern people great
in action, whose Empire hath invaded the world and
fixt itselfe such firm foundations as no other ever did,
I was of opinion that he who would beholde the
present times in their greatest glory could not find a
better scene than Turkic"
With these commendable objects in view Blunt set
forth on his travels. Let us overtake him at Venice
where he is making his final arrangements for the
journey and looking for a ship to take him down the
east coast of the Adriatic, at that time a notable bone
of contention between the Venetians and the Turks.
" First," he writes, " I agreed with a janizary to
find me Dyet, Horse, Coach, Passage and all other
usual charges as farre as a Venetian Gaily with a
Caravan of Turks and Jewes bound for the Levant,
not having any Christians with them beside myself;
this occasion was right to my purpose, for familiarity
of bed, board and passage together is more opportune
to disclose the customes of men than a much longer
habitation in Cities, where society is not so linked and
behaviour is more personate than in travell.
"The Gaily lying that day and night at Lido, set
saile the next morn and in four and twenty houres
arrived at Rovinio, a Venetian city in Istria ; from
thence wee came to Zara, which city stands in Dalmatia
and of all others within the Gulfe is, by reason of its
situation, most apt to command the whole Adriatique
108 Two Martial Adventures
and therefore hath formerly been attempted by the
Turke, wherefore the Venetians have fortified it ex-
traordinarily and now, though in times of firm peace,
keep it with strong companies of Horse and Foot.
After a day's view of this place wee sailed to Spalatro,
a city of Sclavonia, kept by the Venetians as their only
Emporium there, being plyed successively with two
Gallies which carry between Venice and that place
such merchandize as is transported into Turky, or from
thence brought in. It stands in a most pleasant valley
on the South side of great mountaines, and in the wall
towards the sea there appears a great remainder of a
gallery in Diocletian's Palace. In this Towne the
Venetians allow the great Turk to take custome of the
Merchandize whereupon there resides his Emir, or
Treasurer."
At Spalato the caravan landed and after resting
three days took the road across the Dinaric Alps to
Serajevo, or as the Turks still call it, Bosna Serai.
But let Blunt describe the journey in his own words.
" The first journey wee began about Sunset, our
lodging two miles off wee pitched upon a little hill
grown over with Juniper, once the seat of Salonae,
famous for their bravery against Octavius, there is
now not so much as a ruine left excepting a piece of
Diocletian's Aqueduct. Hence wee passed the Hills
of Dogliana, far higher then the Alps and so steep was
our descent for three days together that it was a greater
precipice than that coming downe from Mont Cenis
into Piemont. Having rode thus for nine days, wee
came into a spacious and fruitful plaine which at the
West, where wee entered, is at least ten miles over,
but at the North and South immured with ridges of
An Army on the March 109
easie and pleasant hills till, by degrees, after six or
seven miles riding it grows not above a mile broad.
There found wee the city Saraih which extends from
the one side to the other and takes up part of both
Ascents. At the East end stands a Castle upon a steep
rock commanding the town and the passage Eastward.
" This is the Metropolis of the Kingdome of Bosnah :
it is but meanly built and not great, reckoning about
fourscore Mescheetoes 1 and twenty thousand houses."
It was here that Blunt and his companions fell in
with the Turkish army. The Sultan at that time was
Murad IV, a despot of fierce, relentless temper and
almost fiendish cruelty who used to exercise the royal
prerogative of taking ten innocent lives a day by sitting
in his palace on the Bosphorus and practising "pot-
shots " in archery on any luckless passer-by. With
these unpleasant attributes he combined a real genius
for leadership and organization and succeeded in avert-
ing the dangerous anarchy which had set in under his
immediate predecessors and in making the Turkish
armies more formidable than ever to his Christian
neighbours.
At the moment of Blunt's arrival in Turkey Murad
was designing the invasion of Poland and orders had
gone forth to the Pashas all over the empire to as-
semble with their troops at the rendezvous at Belgrade.
The local contingent was starting just as the caravan
reached Serajevo and, for the sake of safety, they joined
themselves to it. It is to this accident that we are
indebted for Blunt's admirable description of an army
on the march.
1 Scil. mosques — "mescheetoes" representing a half-way stage in the
evolution of the word from the arabic masj'id, a place-of-adoration.
1 10 Two Martial Adventures
"At our departure," he says, "wee went along with
the Bashaw of Bosnah's troopes going for the Warre
of Poland, they were of Horse and Foot between six
and seven thousand, but went scattering. The Bashaw
was not yet in person, and the taking leave of their
friends spirited many of them with drinke and made
them fitter company for the Devill than for a Christian.
Myself, after many launces and knives threatened
upon mee, was invaded by a drunken Janizary whose
iron Mace entangling in his other furniture gave mee
time to flee among the rocks and so escape untouched.
" Thus marched we ten days through a hilly country,
cold, uninhabited and in a manner a continuous wood,
mostly of Pine trees ; at length we reached Valliovah,
a pretty little Towne upon the confines of Hungary
where the Camp staying some days, wee left them
behind. Having to pass a wood near the Christian
country and doubting it to be (as confines are) full of
Thieves, wee divided our Caravan of sixscore Horse
into two parts : half with the persons and goods of
least esteem we sent on a day before the rest, so that
the Thieves having a booty might be gone before wee
came — which happened accordingly. They were robbed
and one thief and two of our men slain, with some
hundred Dollars worth of goods lost. The next day
wee ourselves passed and found sixteen Theeves in a
narrow passage, before whom wee set a good guard of
Harquebuse and Pistolls till the weaker sort passed
by ; so in three days wee came safe to Belgrada."
Belgrade was not at this period the great outpost
of the Turkish Empire which it subsequently became
and still was in the early part of last century when
Kinglake wrote his grim account of the Styx-like
A Grisly Tower 1 1 1
crossing from Semlin to the plague-stricken portal of
the Sultan's dominions. A hundred years and more
before Blunt's time the town had fallen to Suleyman's
armies which swept beyond and established the frontier
far to the North ; but already in those days the huge
bluff which rises wedge-shaped in the angle where the
Save and Danube meet was topped by the forbidding
fortress which was often to check the Christian in-
vader in the later days of Turkey's weakness. The
town and castle are thus described by Blunt.
" The City stands most in a bottom encompassed
Eastward by gentle and pleasant ascents, employed in
Orchards and Vines ; Southward is an easie Hill, part
possessed with buildings and the rest a burial-place
well nigh three miles in compass so full of graves as
one can bee by another. The West end yields a right
magnificent aspect by reason of an eminency of land
jetting out farther than the rest and bearing a goodly
strong Castle whose walls are two miles about, fortified
with a dry ditch and out-works.
" This Castle on the West side is washed by the
great river Sava, which on the North side of the City
loses itself in the Danubius, held to be the greatest
river in the World.
"The Castle is excellently furnished with Artillery,
and at the entrance there stands an Arsenal with some
forty or fifty fair Brasse peeces, most bearing the Armes
and inscription of Ferdinand the Emperour. That which
to mee seemed strangest in this Castle (for I had liberty
to pry up and downe) was a round Tower, called the
Zindana, a cruelty not devised by the Turks and by
them seldom practised 1 . This Tower is large and
1 This was the "gauch," a pretty common instrument of death among
the Turks at that time despite Blunt's statement to the contrary.
1 1 2 Two Martial Adventures
round, but severed within into many squares with long
beams set on end about four foot asunder ; each beam
was stuck frequent with great flesh-hookes and the
person condemned was let fall thereon, which gave him
a quick or lasting misery as he chanced to light : then
at the bottom the river is let in by grates, whereby the
corpses are washt away.
"Within this great Castle is another little one with
works of its own. I had like to have miscarried with
approaching its entrance, had not the rude noise and
worse lookes of the guard given mee a timely appre-
hension to sweeten them with sudden passage and
humiliation and so get off; for, as I learnt after, there
is a great part of the Grand Signior's treasure kept
there to be ready when he warres on that side the
Empire, and it is death for any Turk or Christian to
enter."
The troops in whose company Blunt was travelling
had their rendezvous at Belgrade with the contingents
from Temesvar and Buda, and here the various Pashas
assembled with their followings of spahis, janissaries
and akinjis, while awaiting the arrival of the Grand Vizir
who was marching from the Capital at the head of
four thousand Timariots.
As soon as the Grand Vizir reached Belgrade the
whole army, our friend with them, started for Sofia,
twelve days distant. Blunt gives a very graphic picture
of the march of this large force. " The Bashaes," he
says, "did not all goe in company, but setting forth
about an houre one after the other, drew out their
troopes in length without confusion ; yet not in much
order of Ranke and File, as being near no ememy. In
this and our former march I much admired that our
Plain soldiers and luxurious pashas 1 1 3
Caravan loaded with Cloths, Silkes and Tissues and
other rich commodities remained so safe not only in
the main Army but also among straggling troopes,
where we often wandered by reason of the need to
recover the Jewes' Sabboth. But I found the cause to
be the cruelty of Justice, for Theeves upon the way
are empaled without delay ; and there was also a San-
jacke with two hundred Horse who did nothing but
coast up and down the country and every man who
could not give a fair account of his being where he
found him was presently strangled even though not
known to have offended."
It was by such drastic measures as these that
Sultan Murad had succeeded in restoring the iron
discipline of the Ottoman army which had lapsed into
licence under the feeble successors of the great Suley-
man. Judged by the standards of the day, when
European armies were only just emerging from the
condition of armed rabbles, the Turkish armies were
a model of organization.
"It was a wonder," says Blunt, "to see such a
multitude of men clear of confusion, violence, want,
sicknesse or any other disorder ; for, though wee were
almost threescore thousand and sometimes found not a
Town in seven or eight days, yet there was such a
plenty of good Bisket, Rice and Mutton that whereso-
ever I passed up and down to view the Spahyes and
others in their tents, they would often make mee sit
and eat with them very plentifully and well."
But while the old Turkish traditions of hardiness
and discipline were more or less rigidly maintained in
the ranks, there was a very different state of affairs
among the commanders, who had forsaken the stern
h. 8
1 14 Two Martial Adventures
simplicity of earlier days for a truly Byzantine rdgime
of luxury. Not even on active service would the beys
and pashas willingly abandon the habits of luxury
which were already sapping the pristine energy of the
race. Their decadent manners did not escape the
observant eye of the Englishman travelling in their
train, who thus describes the routine of their camp life.
" The severall Courts of the Bashaes were served
in great state each of them having three or fourscore
camels, besides six or seven score carts to carry the
Baggage ; and when the Basha himself took horse he
had five or six Coaches covered with cloth of gold or
rich tapestrie to carry his wives, of whom some had
with them twelve or sixteen, the least ten. When these
entered the Coach, there were men set on either side
holding up a rowe of tapestrie to cover them from being
seen by the people, although they were, after the
Turkish manner, muffled that nothing but the eye
could appear. Besides these wives each Basha had as
many, or likely more, Catamites, which are their serious
loves : for their wives are used (as the Turks themselves
told me) but to dress their meat, to laundresse, and
for reputation. The boys of twelve or fourteen yeares
old, some of them not above nine, are usually clad in
velvet or scarlet with gilt Scymitars, and are bravely
mounted with sumptious furniture : to each of them a
Souldier appointed who walks by his bridle for his safety.
" When they are all in order there is excellent Sher-
bets given to whoever will drink ; then the Basha takes
horse, before whom ride a dozen or more, who with
ugly drums, brasse Dishes and wind instruments noise
along most part of the journey. Before all goe Officers
to pitch his tent where he shall lodge or dine. When
A diplomatic refusal 1 1 5
meat is served up, especially at night, all the people
give three great Shouts."
It is not surprising that a solitary Englishman
travelling in such company should meet with strange
experiences and two adventures which befell Blunt
are well worth repeating. "That," he says, "which
secured and emboldened my passage these twelve days
march was an accident the first night, which was as
follows : the Campe being pitched by the shoare of
Danubius, I went (but timorously) to view the service
about Murad Basha's Court, where one of his favorite
boyes espying mee to be a stranger gave mee a cup of
Sherbet. I in thankes, and to make friends at Court,
presented him with a Pocket Looking glasse in a little
ivory case with a combe, such as are sold at West-
minster Hall at four or five shillings a-piece. The
youth, much taken therewith, ran and shewed it to the
Bashaw, who presently sent for mee and making me sit
and drink Cauphe in his presence, called for one that
spake Italian and demanded of my condition, purpose,
countrey and many other particulars. It was my fortune
to hit his humour so right that at last he asked mee if
my Law did permit me to serve under them against the
Polacke, who is a Christian, promising with his hand
on his breast that, if I would, I should be enrolled of
his Companies, furnished with a good horse and, for
other necessaries be provided like the rest of his house-
hold. I humbly thanked him for his favour and told
him that to an Englishman it was lawful to serve under
any who were in league with our King, and that our
King had not only a league with the Gran Signior,
but continually held an ambassadoure at his Court,
esteeming him the greatest Monarch in the World, so
1 1 6 Two Martial Adventures
that my service, especially if I behaved myself not
unworthy of my Nation, would be exceedingly well
received in England. I added that the Polacke, though
in name a Christian, was yet of a sect that for Idolatry
and many other points wee abhorred, wherefore the
English had of late helped the Muscovite against him
and wee would be forwarder under the Turks, whom
we not only honoured for their glorious actions in the
world but also loved for the kind commerce of Trade
which we find amongst them. But as for my present
engagement to the War, with much sorrow I acknow-
ledged my incapacity by reason I wanted language,
which would not only render mee incapable of command
and so unserviceable, but also endanger mee in tumults,
where I appearing a stranger and not able to express
my affection might be mistaken and used harshly.
For such reasons I humbly entreated his Highnesse
leave to follow my own poor affaires with an eternal
oblige to blazon this honourable favour wheresoever
I came.
"He forthwith bad mee do as liked me best, where-
with I took my leave. But such confidence had
I in his favour that I went often to observe his
Court."
The other and far more alarming adventure hap-
pened when the caravan had halted at Nish to allow
the Jews of the party to observe their sabbath.
"A little before night," says Blunt, "Wine having
possessed a Janizary and one other Turke who rode
in my Coach, they fell out with two country fellowes
and by violence took an Axe from one of them, not to
rob him but for present use thereof; which being done
I gave him his axe again as not willing in these parts
A bloody revenge 1 1 7
to have so much as an observer's part in a quarrel.
These fellowes dogg'd us : the Janizary they missed,
but at midnight came to our Coach where wee slept
and opened the cover. Whereat I speaking in Italian
they knew me, wherefore leaving me, they drew the
Turke by the neck and shoulders and gave him two
blows with a Scymitar, one over the arm, the other
upon the head, in such sort that they left him behind
in great danger of death. They then fled and I was
found there all bloody and, so taken, had surely the
next day been executed but that within lesse than halfe
an houre the hurt person coming to his senses cleared
mee, telling how the matter came and by whom."
In due course Blunt and his fellow travellers arrived
at " Sophya, the chieffe City of Bulgary," where the
local characteristic which most impressed him was
the diminutive size of the doors of the houses which,
he says, " are little above three feet high, which they
told me was that the Turkes might not bring their
Horses, who else would use them for stables in their
travels; which I noted for a greater sign of slavery
than in other places."
Much to his own disappointment, and equally to
his readers' loss, Blunt was forced to part company
with the Turkish army on reaching Sofia, as the
caravan which he had accompanied thus far broke up
here, while his own Janissary, having in him, as he
says, "more of the Merchant than the Souldier," stub-
bornly refused to go any further for fear of being
pressed into the war.
He reluctantly took his leave of the friendly spahis
who had proved so good-natured towards a chance-
met gkiaur, and heading southwards continued his
1 1 8 Two Martial Adventures
journey towards Constantinople. The remainder of his
travels and his long disquisitions on Turkish customs
and morals, though abounding in interest, would be
out of place in this chapter and it is time to introduce
the other " adventurer " whose acquaintance with the
fighting Turk, though as intimate as Blunts, was made
from a very different standpoint.
CHAPTER IX
TWO MARTIAL ADVENTURES
(2)
Our anonymous diarist was a volunteer enrolled in the
army of the famous Polish general Chodkiewiez. In
the year 1622 this army was sent by Sigismund III to
oppose the advance of Sultan Osman II who was
marching with a host of Turks against Podolia, accom-
panied by his ally the Krim of Tartary and the usual
horde of Tartar auxiliaries.
The Christians, who on their side were assisted by
large numbers of Russian cossacks from the Don and the
Volga, had marched down to the borders of Bessarabia
and crossing the Dniester at no great distance from
Kamenets had entrenched themselves round the little
town of Chocin lying in a bend on the southern bank
of the river. The Turks, marching northward, had
crossed the Pruth at the end of August and contact was
established between the two armies on September 2nd
on which day, to quote the first entry in the diary, "the
Turkes and Tartars encamped themselves by us within
a mile or halfe a mile." The Christian force held a
bridge-head, apparently of a mile or two radius, with
wooded country separating their own from the Turkish
lines. These the enemy, true to their old proud tradi-
tions, had left unentrenched, "scorning" as the writer
says, "to quarter themselves within Ditches." The
1 20 Two Martial Adventures
auxiliaries of each army guarded its flanks, while the
Tartars as usual scoured and pillaged all the surrounding
country.
Such was the position of the two forces when fighting
began. A reconnaissance by the Turks on September 3rd
led to no results as the Christians had orders "to remain
within their tents and trenches and play among the
Turkes with their greate Artillery."
An incident occured, however, in the evening which
closely affected the future course of the operations.
Prince Ladislas, King Sigismund's son, was marching
into the camp with supplies and reinforcements when
the bridge broke and left the army stranded on the
further bank. The results, as will appear later, nearly
brought disaster to the Polish force.
On the 4th September the Cossacks repulsed a
Turkish attack, making "so brave a salley, that they
put the Turkes to flight even to their tents, with such
a slaughter, and such a successe, that they surprised
their Artillery, tooke many Tents, and carried with them
much furniture, and so returned before dark night with
the booty, to their own Camp and lodging."
Three days later the Turks made a more serious
attempt to break through the lines which is described
as follows : " The seaventh of September the Turkes
came upon us againe in the after noone, and very out-
ragiously in great companies assaulted our Bulwarkes,
which were yet unperfected, and lay somewhat naked
to opposition, ascending the same, and taking as it were
possession : but with equall losse, as it appeared for the
time, untill the noble Lord Steward of the Kingdome,
who came there by chance with his troope of Horse,
set upon them most valiantly, and put them off the walls
Opening attacks 121
to a fore-flight, as farre as the wood scited even before
the Turkes Campe, whither they followed them in the
slaughter. The assault endured from noone to night
and with so fearfull effects that the multitude of the
slaughtered lay in heapes in the fields. Yea, it was
remarkable, how all that night the Turkes made a search
with lighted fire-brands, and other Lamps, for some
person of account amongst the dead bodies, which as
some of their owne fugitives affirmed, was one of the
Viceer Baffas, who, was missing, and could not be
found."
Rain interfered on the following day and although
"both Armies drawne up in battaile array stood looking
upon one another even to Sunne setting," no more
fighting actually took place beyond a little affray with
the Tartar horsemen who " inconsiderately came upon
the Cossacks againe."
The Turks meanwhile took advantage of the col-
lapse of the bridge, which the Poles were making frantic
efforts to rebuild, to occupy a position in their rear and
transported their guns across the river to a point where
they could play upon the Cossacks' quarters and interfere
with the repairing of the bridge. A brilliant sortie,
however, drove them out of their new positions, for
which our hero was duly grateful. " God graunt " says
he " wee may be thankfull for these things. For with-
out controversie, Gods onely hand hath protected us,
that both on the one side the Turke is more remiss
than his former threatnings, and this present appearance
promised; and we on the other side, we have had
greater courages, and better successe than wee could
any manner of way expect."
Every success of the Christian arms is in the same
1 22 Two Martial Adventures
way devoutly ascribed to the help of the Almighty.
On September 15th, for example, the enemy made
another determined attack " neither fearing our Artillery,
nor making accompt of our Trenches : the great Turke
himselfe being a spectator on an eminent Hill, whose
youth apprehended the mischiefe but as a sport. For
without any manner of remorce for the perishing of so
many thousands, they came forward like furious beasts
without Discipline or order, and so perished like beasts,
when the Artillery played upon them, and wee rushed
out as violently, well armed and appointed, in the smoake
against them. This Battaile lasted from Noone to Night,
and the God of Battailes for his mercy sake did frustrate
and annihilate both the purpose and the rage and fury
of our Enemies ; nor ended it so, but for his Glories
sake wee prevailed with a great slaughter, and little
losse on our side : So that it should seeme all their
threatnings and fury was in vaine, concerning the
attempting of our Trenches, and the Angels of the Lord
spred his wings over our Tents."
By this time the situation of the Christian forces,
cut off as they were from all supplies, had grown des-
perate and on the 17th the Great Lord General held a
" Martiall Counsell with the Lord Senators, Dukes,
Governors and Captaines, together with the General of
the Cossacks with all his Colonels and Officers" and put
the position before them, explaining that unless pro-
visions could be brought into the Camp within a few
days they would be faced with starvation. His doughty
officers after hearing what their leader had to say "with
one voyce and unanimity of Spirit concluded and agreed
rather to die manfully in the field than to goe backe
one foot of ground or give the Enemy cause of pre-
Tricking the Tartar 1 23
sumption." This spirited resolution was followed by
prompt action. A nobleman named Koskakorffski
volunteered to make an expedition to Kamenets and
try to smuggle in stores from there. He left the camp
with a small escort but not without exciting the attention
of the Turks who, being thus forewarned, prepared to
fall on the convoy on their way back, " advancing a
strong Battalion with many shot on foote, and divers
field Pieces to intercept his returne, and so lay betweene
the Towne and our Campe, being not 15 myle assunder."
With the enemy holding the road in force there
seemed little or no hope of the convoy breaking their
way through, but in the end the feat was accomplished
by a very neat ruse de guerre on the part of Koska-
korffski. Let me quote the incident in full.
"When the towne sawe the fields thus overspred
with Tartars so well appointed to intercept the Carriages,
considering nevertheless the necessity of relieving the
Campe, the Lord Koskakorffski with the other Cap-
taines, thought it best to put a trick upon their Enemies,
and deceive them if they could by a petty Stratagem,
which they thus effected : When all thinges were ready
for their returne within Eight dayes after their departure
from the Campe, they set forward backe againe with
many Waggons of Wine and Corne, and so issued out
with certaine Troopes well appointed, whom they flancked
with light Waggons full of Strawe and Hay, yet not so
full but they went in a manner as fast as the Horse.
Which when the Tartars perceived, they brought up
their Pieces and came forward with their shot, to dis-
rancke these Cartes, verily supposing the maine booty
was in the midst of the troopes : but the Cartes went so
fast, and the Horse upon the trot, that they were quickly
1 24 Two Martial Adventures
out of shot of their Ordinance, and made the Tartars
weary to follow them. Yet as they were instructed they
made divers stands, as if the Waggons ment to take
some rest, and then as the Tartars approached they
would trot away againe, and thus they continued till
night : by which time the Tartars were quickly drawne
from the Towne, and thought it worke enough to secure
the field Pieces from surprizing: When night came, then
issued out the Lord Koskakorffski with the mayne
Convoy indeed, which consisted of Corne, Oyle, Wine,
Honey, and Cattle, and went a cleane contrary way
unknowne to the Enemy, though somewhat about, to
a Towne called Sarno Kovonicie, where he was ac-
comodated to the River of Ister [i.e. Dniester]. But
by that time the Turkes knew how they were deceived
and, exasperated with very rage, ranne downe in whole
Companies to beset the River on both sides, and brought
their Ordinance to play upon the Boates, who kept the
streame, but the most were passed by ere they came ;
and the rest kept the Channell, which was heere so
broad, that the Ordinance played on the Banckes and
could not doe them much harme : Yet did the Turkes
follow them as farre as our Trenches, but we having
certaine Towers well fortefied on both sides the River,
played out of them so violently, that wee cut off some of
them in their speediness,and those who were within reach
of the shot of our Trenches, were faine to recoyle, and so
the Turkes and Tartars returned with great sorrow on
all sides to be thus disappointed, and we entertained
our friends with joy on every side to be thus releeved."
Although the Christian army was in the position of
a beleaguered garrison, they were not content to remain
wholly on the defensive but from time to time ventured
A mediaeval trench raid 1 25
on night attacks which, from the detailed descriptions
given of them, bore a singular resemblance to the
organised trench raids which were a marked feature
of the fighting on the western front during the Great
War. Here is the account of one such attack.
"The 1 8th of September certaine Companies of
Foot made a salley out of the Cossacks quarter in the
night upon the Turkes Army, which was done so
secretly and suddenly, that they overturned many
Tents, ransacked divers Cabins, and killed some hun-
dreds of men with Javelings, Pollaxes, and Launces,
without the report of a Peece, or carrying any Artillery
with them : yea, herein they were so fortunate, that they
returned with great spoil, without the losse of a man.
The next night they performed as much, and with the
like stratagem set upon the Bridge they had newly
builded and erected, and slew Corkan Baffaw, to whose
custody and charge it was committeed. They also killed
many Turkes, tooke nine prisoners, and returned with
great spoils and a rich prey, wherein were divers gar-
ments furred with costly Furres." It is noteworthy that
it was the enterprising Cossacks who were responsible
for these bold ventures.
Escaped prisoners from the Turkish camp were
continually creeping through the lines with news of the
enemy's preparations, and through them the Poles re-
ceived warning of the Sultan's determination to throw
his whole force into a desperate and decisive assault on
one of the last days of the month.
While waiting nervously for the promised attack,
the Christian army suffered a heavy blow in the loss of
their brave General who on the 24th "after labouring
long in his sickness, and being wearied and spent againe
1 26 Two Martial Adventures
with intolerable convulsions and distemperature of the
ayre, yeelded to the commaund of a higher Generall, and
so died in the Camp." The Quarter- Master General,
as the next Senior Officer, took over the command.
The Turks' "big push" was duly launched on the
27th when, says our hero, "the Emperour of Turks made
a great preparation to set upon us on all sides, drawing
out from their severall Quarters, both Horse, Foot, and
Artillery, to oppresse and expugne us with an unresist -
able power and because he would make, as it were, sure
worke of the matter, he acquainted Tartar Chocin, and
he, either of necessity obeying or out of custome con-
senting, by breake of day brought all his Tartars to the
place appointed for the expugnation. Having strongly
mounted divers great Peeces and placed their gabbions
about them, the Turkes played fearfully over our heads
into our Camp. Then they transported over the river
thirty more great Ordnance which beat continually upon
ours, the Lissavonians, and the Cossacks Tents, and
that for the space of divers hours, sending likewise fiery
Speares, burning Darts, and sulphury Balls amongst us.
11 After this, with strange assaults and fearfull
violence, they pressed upon the two special passages of
our Camp : in a word, wee were all in Armes, and the
Cannons played on both sides as farre as they could for
hurting those in their owne Quarters. At last on a
suddaine with accustomed cry the Tartars gave on, and
were ready to scale the trenches and enter in at the
Ports. Then followed the Janizaries, as their seconds,
and lastly, the Spahies and Chawses on Horseback, who
by their bravery made themselves sure of the entrance,
for the truth is we gave ground, and lost many men :
For they pressed so thick upon us, that our shot did no
The "big push" 127
good, and wee came to handey blowes within our owne
trenches, till certaine Cossacks on that quarter, and
Masters of Pole on ours, finding the Tartars disordered
and disarmed, rushed upon them with fury that they
were driven as fast back againe as they came in and
they also bare down the Janizaries and pushed them
much with their violence.
" Yet the Turkes still sent fresh men forward who
with a strange pertinacity and unchangeable valour
continued until Sun-set in the expugnation and nigh
made a shrewd adventure and opened a gap of entrance
into our country."
The Tartars meanwhile had found a congenial role
in the battle by crossing the Dniester and making a
sudden descent upon the Polish army's baggage lines
from the rear. "They thought," the writer explains,
''that we had left the backside of our Campe naked and
undefended, but when they came, they found the Carts,
Waggons, and Carriages, so strongly to Barricade it,
that they thought it in vaine to hazard themselves, and
so returned disappointed : yet because they would be
doing, they threw wild-fire amongst the carriages, and
put the cattle in a great feare, whose roarings and bel-
lowings amazed us much, and in a manner begged reliefe
at our hands, so that we thought it meete to send out
certain Troopes of Horse, who fell upon them so oppor-
tunely, that they let in 200 Polaxes amongst them, yea
the very Pyoners came with their Pixes and hutches,
and played their parts like men and Souldiers: So that
in the end wee compelled them to swim over the River
backe againe."
Throughout the whole day the Turks continued
the struggle but without success for, as the diary
1 28 Two Martial Adventures
modestly puts it, "God bethanked, with our accustomed
constancy we kept our ground, and though with some
losse constrayned them to let goe the hold they had, and
in the end with a great shame and a greater slaughter,
they hid their heades within their owne hedges."
Thus the attack was foiled and Poland saved from
the Turkish irruption. The relief which their victory
brought to the heroic defenders finds words in a quaint
outburst with which the diarist's account of the great
battle closes.
He reviews the terrible consequences which must
have ensued if the enemy had broken through. "God
knows," he says, " whither this inundation would have
runne. For you see, when raging Seas beate upon the
bankes of low ground, if they prevaile in bearing them
before them, whole Countries are swallowed up in the
Vast paunch of the Ocean : But the same God, that
puts a hooke in the nostrils of Leviathan, and bindeth
Behemoth with a chayne, set a limitation for these
raging Mahumetans and furious and barbarous Tar-
tarians, over which they should not passe at this time."
Sultan Osman was furious at his defeat and for some
days sulked in his Camp where, according to the re-
ports of Christian Prisoners who subsequently returned
thence, he was " so franticke that he would excruciate
and torment himselfe with actions of distemperature, as
throwing of his Turbane, beating his breast, and kicking
his very Basshawes, who durst not reply, but were sub-
ject to a very sauish prostitution." His thoughts turned
to peace however and, not daring to risk the displeasure
of the Janizaries by openly beginning negotiations, he
privily conveyed to the Christian Commander that if he
would send plenipotentiaries to the Turkish Camp they
A Cumbrous Peace Offering 129
would find the Turks ready to settle terms. So after
holding a Council of War the General elected two Com-
missioners "to tractate with the Turkes" and sent them
accompanied by ' ' 20 of the best Gentlemen of the Campe
well furnished with a flag of truce." Their reception was
as follows.
11 By this time the Trumpers had given warning of
their accesse, and when they approached very neere the
Turkes Camp 200 Spahies and Chawses on Horse-
backe with Velvet Gownes, rich silver Maces, and brave
Turbanes, came to entertaine them, and bring them by
way of conduction through the first Guard of Janizaries,
and so through many Troopes of Horse, and field Pieces
mounted on delicate Carriages, till they came to the
Tent of the Viceer, who welcomed him in his Masters
behalfe: but according to former custome hee must
attend a while, ere hee could have Answer from the
Grand Signeur himselfe, and peradventure not speak
with him at all : For you must know, that however they
were glad of composition, yet the Turke would not dis-
cover any inclination to Peace, but if he did condiscend,
it was meerly out of Heroyick compassion, not any
necessity of his part."
Six days were spent in discussing terms, but on
October 9th peace was signed on the basis of the earlier
treaty which the ambitious young Sultan had upset when
he led his army against the Poles, and the Turkes with-
drew again over the river Pruth.
The settlement was sealed by the usual exchange of
gifts between the principals, King Sigismund sending
" dogs and certaine payres of guns made in the Low-
Countries," while the Sultan " regratulated " with a
present of a living elephant.
H. Q
CHAPTER X
A PERSIAN INTERLUDE
A collection of Italian "viaggi" published at Venice
in 1 543 contains the story told by himself of the " Mag-
nifico Messer Josophat Barbaro's" mission to Uzun
Hassan, the King of Persia. As the narrative bears
only indirectly on Turkey some excuse is needed, per-
haps, for its inclusion in the present volume. I can only
plead that the book which contains it happens to be
among the Turkish collection mentioned in my preface
and that it gives an undoubtedly interesting glimpse of
Turkey's great Mohammedan neighbour.
" The long Hassan " (to render his name into
English) was indeed closely related to the Turks as
leader of the "White Sheep," a Turcoman horde centred
round Diar Bekir. By dint of fighting he had made him-
self 'King' of Persia — at that time barely emerging
from the wreckage of Tamerlane's empire — though he
had a rival who challenged his title from the distant
capital of Herat. A bond of union had arisen between
Venice and this Turcoman chief in their common enmity
to the Turks who were busily engaged in chasing the
Venetians out of the archipelago while at the same time
expanding their empire eastward at Persia's expense.
With the object of arranging for a concerted plan of
action against Turkey, the Signoria of Venice deputed
Messer Barbaro to travel to Tabriz and discuss things
Venice to Tabriz 131
with Hassan. He left Venice accordingly in 1471 and
sailed to Cyprus, the first stage of his journey, with a
strong naval escort. There he landed and exchanged
civilities with King James, the last of the dynasty
established on the throne of Cyprus by our own King
Richard at the time of the third crusade. Incidentally
he lent a hand in the intrigue then forward for annexing
the island to Venice while at the same time making
arrangements for his long overland journey through
Asia Minor.
Luckily for him the Ottomans had not yet consoli-
dated the whole of the Anatolian provinces, and the
Sultan of Caramania, whose coast faces on to Cyprus,
was at that particular moment at war with Mohammed
the Conqueror. Barbaro first of all aided the Sultan by
landing a force of marines and reducing a couple of
forts held by Ottoman garrisons, then disembarked his
own party near Mersina and started on his perilous
journey.
His way lay through Adana, Urfa and Mardin to
Sirt on the Tigris. We need not stay to accompany
him on his route except to mention his naive belief that
Mardin, perched on the top of its towering cliff, was of
such an altitude that no bird could fly over it, and his
delight in Sirt — which must in his day have been a
remarkably flourishing town— with its beautiful mosques
and fountains and bridge over the Tigris so high above
the stream that, to use his own phrase, a full rigged
ship with all sail set could easily have passed under it.
On entering Kurdistan Barbaro was struck by the
murderous appearance of the Kurds. He was soon to
make an intimate acquaintance with these inveterate
brigands.
9—2
132 A Persian Interlude
The caravan was crossing the great mountain range
between Van and Urmia 1 when it was attacked by a
party of them who killed Barbaros cancelliero, as well
as the Persian ambassador returning home from Venice
in Barbaros company, and stole all the baggage. Bar-
baro himself was slightly wounded while escaping on
horseback up the mountain side; he succeeded, how-
ever, in getting clear away and, falling in presently with
a band of pilgrims, accompanied them, by way of Khoy,
safely to Tabriz.
Barbaro had left Venice well loaded with presents
from the Signoria for Uzun Hassan — gold and silver
plate, silks and woollens and rolls of the famous scarlet
cloth which was a "specialite" of his native town. All
these, with his personal belongings, had remained in
the hands of the Kurds and he arrived at Hassan's
residence utterly destitute, with nothing but the clothes
he stood in and not even a hat. He sent a messenger
at once to Uzun Hassan to acquaint him with his mis-
adventures and the present sorry plight in which he
found himself. The Shah sent his condolences with a
promise to make good his losses, a couple of suits of
silk, a piece of cotton for a turban (one wonders what
sort of a job the old Venetian made of it) and a sum of
twenty ducats.
Being thus restored to self-respect, Barbaro went to
pay his respects to Hassan and present the letters he
had brought with him from Venice.
His description of Hassan's court gives an im-
pression of barbaric luxury touched with the whimsical
1 By a rather curious coincidence this is precisely the place where the
author of the present book was similarly attacked and wounded by Kurdish
tribesmen in the autumn of 1914.
A Lively Tournament 133
delicacy which is characteristic of all things Persian.
The Shah lived in a kind of garden palace which,
though beautifully appointed, did not at all reflect the
stolid splendours of the Ottoman court. On going to
his audience Barbaro was led into a walled quadrangle,
carefully turfed, with a sand path leading up to a
loggia in the centre of one side. A fountain and basin
occupied the middle of the loggia and by the side of
the basin Hassan sat on a gold embroidered cushion
with his scimitar and a water-jug ready to hand,
sheltered from the sun by an overhanging canopy
supported from the branches of trees. The floor was
strew, with beautiful carpets and the walls covered
with painted tiles. A company of singers and musicians
playing on harps, lutes, and cymbals, discoursed music
at the further end of the loggia.
After settling affairs of state, Hassan courteously
invited the Venetian envoy to a tournament to be held
on the following day on the great maidan. Barbaro
accepted and betook himself next day to the place,
where he found a crowd of four or five thousand on-
lookers, half of them mounted like himself on horse-
back. A number of different sort of games and displays
took place, but the great feature of the day was a wolf-
fight. The wolves were led on by cords tied to their
hind-legs and loosed one by one against the wolf-fighter.
The latter was armed with a knife and had his left
forearm swathed in a sash. With his padded limb he
warded off the wolf's attacks till he found a chance of
driving his knife into the creature's heart. Incidentally
the savage rushes of the maddened beasts so terrified
the spectators' horses, that, as Barbaro recounts, they
broke and fled in every direction, falling over each
134 si Persian Interlude
other and plunging many of their riders into a canal
bordering the maidan. A similar sort of entertainment,
he mentions, took place every Thursday for the Shah's
diversion.
Shortly after Barbaro's arrival an embassy reached
Tabriz from one of the Indian princes, who, as a de-
scendant of Tamerlane, was related to the Persian
ruler. The envoys brought magnificent presents con-
sisting largely of wild animals and they paraded these
in front of Hassan and his officers, Barbaro also being
present. The beasts were led past by keepers, the more
dangerous of them being secured by chains. There were
a lion and lioness, a very fierce leopardess, two civet
cats, a giraffe ("animal bellissimo" Barbaro calls it, and
proceeds to describe it as a long-necked creature, short
haired like an ass, with horns like a goat, a head like
a stag, but "piu polita" and a tongue the length of one's
arm), cages of parrots and cockatoos, and lastly a couple
of elephants who performed tricks such as levelling
trees by leaning against them.
Afterwards the chief envoys sat down with the Shah
in the loggia and had the inanimate presents brought
in by their servants. A string of a hundred slaves
came with bales of cotton, six men with fine silks thrown
over their arms, nine with silver cups full of rare stones,
others with porcelain basins and ewers, aloes and sandal
wood and finally a number of men carrying poles with
packets of specie slung from them.
After the ceremony the Shah sent for Barbaro to
come to his private room, a delightful little chamber
with walls panelled in silk and a beautiful door of sandal
wood inlaid with gold wire and pearls. Here he ex-
hibited his treasures, rubies from India, pearls from the
A People on the March 135
Persian Gulf, vases from China and antique cameos,
probably recovered from Hellenic or Sassanian ruins.
One of these last was engraved with the head of a
Greek goddess and Barbaro was much entertained when
the Shah, in showing it him, asked if it were not a
portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary!
About this time one of Hassan's sons raised the
standard of revolt at Shiraz and his father marched
south to quell the rebellion. Barbaro went also and
describes the march, or rather one should say the mi-
gration, for the Shah and his Turcomans, following
their nomadic instincts, took most of their property, in-
cluding their families, with them. The endless caravan,
half-a-day's journey from first to last, meandered across
Persia, the men and women on horseback and the
babies in paniers. Barbaro enumerates the animals
which composed the train ; 20,000 riding horses, many
covered with armour, 5000 horses of burden, an equal
number of pack-mules, 2000 donkeys and 30,000 camels.
The actual fighting force consisted of 15,000 swords-
men, 1000 archers, and 8000 common soldiers on
foot, with a host of armourers, cobblers, tailors and
other supernumeraries. The children of under ten alone
numbered 6000. For sporting purposes there were 100
hunting leopards, 3000 greyhounds (Persia is the home
of the breed) and 200 falcons "gentili e villani." Two
thousand led-horses beautifully caparisoned belonging
to the various chieftains, accompanied the army, and to
crown all there were no fewer than eight thousand two-
humped dromedaries adorned with bells and trappings
embroidered in gold with Koranic texts, which carried
no loads and were for pure ostentation. The Shah
with a personal guard of 500 horsemen was preceded
136 A Persian Interlude
by numbers of runners continually shouting to clear the
road.
They marched down through Kum, famous then as
now for its blue-glazed earthenware, Ispahan, a mere
mound of ruins ever since Tamerlane had, a hundred
years before, razed it level with the ground and mas-
sacred every living soul within it, and Yezd (at that
time the great emporium where merchants met from
Turkey, Tartary and Hindustan), till the rebel prince
was finally met and subdued on the borders of Fars.
Then the great host returned again in the same manner
to its starting place. On the march the traditions of
his cruel predecessor were worthily upheld by the Shah,
who on one occasion, learning that a certain old chief-
tain was intriguing with his son, had him brought before
him trussed and skewered like a partridge!
Barbaro had one more experience after returning to
Tabriz which is worth recording. It was a sort of
fHe champitre to celebrate the circumcision of two of
Hassan's sons. A large number of tents were set up
for the merry-makers in a field of young corn. First
there were wrestling bouts, which must have been of a
peculiarly brutal nature as Barbaro mentions that the
champion was excused from wrestling because he had
killed several of his opponents on the last occasion.
Then there were foot-races and, lastly, races for the
professional "runners" who, naked except for a leather
apron and oiled all over "to preserve their energies,"
trotted incredible distances, some of the Shah's own
runners being actually credited with ten days on end
without a stop.
The prizes were heaped in one of the tents and
consisted chiefly of silk dresses and saddles. Some had
An embarrassing present 137
a touch of the grotesque, as, for instance, an enormous
sugar-loaf hat covered with pompons, which stood on the
ground in front of the tent. When the time came the
Shah sent a servant to clap it on the head of the winner
who was then commanded to dance in it before the
assembled company. Barbaro himself, with other dis-
tinguished guests, was presented in the course of the
proceedings with an enormous iced cake brought in by
two men on a large wooden tray and surrounded with
little cups of fruit and coloured sweets. He does not
tell us how he disposed of such a "white elephant."
Shortly after these festivities there arrived at Tabriz
another embassy which had travelled from Venice by
the very arduous and circuitous route through Austria
and Russia, and Messer Josophat Barbaro returned home
to his native city to render an account of his mission
and describe to the wondering Venetians the marvels
of Uzun Hassan's Court.
CHAPTER XI
THE SULTAN'S NAVY
There is a story which used to be current among
"Frankish" circles at Pera of a Turkish High Admiral
who was sent, much against his nature, on a cruise to
Malta and, on returning some months later, was sum-
moned to give a report to the Sultan. "Well," said the
Monarch, "what sort of a place is Malta?" The ad-
miral's answer was terse and conclusive; all he said was
" Malta y ok" which, freely rendered, means "there ain't
no Malta." He had searched for it in vain all round
the Mediterranean!
The story owed much of its zest to the sight familiar
to dwellers in Constantinople of the Turkish fleet
perennially anchored in the Golden Horn, and I quote
it here merely as a parable of Turkish inaptitude for
navigation. Yet in Suleyman's day the Turkish navy
swept the ocean and on one occasion at least put to
rout the combined navies of the great Mediterranean
Powers. The paradox is easily explainable ; the Turkish
navy of the old days was hardly Turkish at all ; half of
it was corsair and the remaining half recruited almost
entirely from among Christians, renegades and prisoners.
The horrible life of the Christian galley-slaves is de-
scribed in the concluding chapters of this book. They
shared their miserable existence with convicts from the
jails and ordinary slaves hired out by their lawful
Dutch Courage 139
owners for the summer months — the only part of the
year in which the fleet was ordinarily mobilized — at so
many aspers the season. One may note in passing
a curious consequence of this method of recruitment,
which was that on board Turkish men-of-war objects
were named, and orders were given, not in Turkish but
in the bastard Italian which serves to the present day
as the lingua franca of the Levant 1 . Only the militia
carried in the larger ships was genuinely Turkish, being
raised mainly by the same system as prevailed in the
army, a certain proportion of za'tms and timariots holding
their lands as sea-fiefs and being pledged to render
service, either in person or by proxy, at sea instead of
on land.
The best of the ships themselves, especially in the
seventeenth century, were prizes captured from the
Christians. Blunt, influenced perhaps by national pre-
judice, declares that in his time the majority of them
were Dutch, because, he asserts, the Dutchmen, who
did a large carrying trade in the Mediterranean, lacked
the pluck to fight and when attacked took advantage
of the Turkish custom of liberating the crews of ships
which struck their colours without firing a shot. English
ships, he adds, besides being better armed, were less
sought after by the Turks because they were slow goers
and consequently of less use as men-of-war. He took
care, however, to disabuse the Turks of any miscon-
ceptions they might form of England's naval power, and
when asked how his country could claim the mastery of
the seas when possessing such slow craft, answered
"that these ships which came into their [the Turks']
1 By a curious contradiction we, on our side, derive the term " admiral "
from the Turkish corsairs, corrupting it from the arabic Amir-ul-bahr.
140 The Sultan's Navy
Seas were private merchantmen, slugs only made for
burthen and weather : but for Warre our King had
a Navy Royall of another frame, the best for sail and
fight in the World."
An amusing sketch which he gives elsewhere of
Turkish sailors on a small sailing ship in which he
travelled as passenger deserves quotation for its own
sake. " I," he says, "who had often proved the Bar-
barisme of other nations at sea, and above all of our
owne, supposed myself among Beares, untill by experi-
ence I found the contrarie, and that, not only in ordinary
civilitie but with so ready service, such a patience and
so sweet and gentle a way as made me doubt if it was
a dreame or reall. If at any time I stood in their way
or encombered their ropes, they would call me 'janum 1 ,'
a term of great affection among them and that with an
incline, a voice and a gesture so respectful as assured
me their other words (which I understood not) were of
the same strain.
" Nor were they irreligious ; thus all the Voyage
morning and evening they would salute the Sunne with
three great shouts and a priest saying a kind of Litanie,
every prayer ending with 'Macree Kirchoon'(«V) that
is 'be Angels present' and the people answered 'Amen,
Amen."'
In the same way that the Turks depended on their
Tartar auxiliaries in land warfare, they leaned — but in
a far greater degree — on their corsair allies at sea.
The link between them was naturally a loose one, for
the Barbary corsairs, even when nominally under the
Sultan s dominion, could act pretty well as they liked
1 i.e. "my soul," commonly used between Turks in the same sense as
we say "old fellow."
Khaireddin Barbarossa 141
with but little fear of retribution. They appreciated,
however, the value of Ottoman prestige and both parties
gained by uniting their forces against the Christian
world. The haughty Turk looked, indeed, somewhat
askance at his ally as a professional pirate, but he was
glad enough of his help against the Venetian or Spaniard
and by no means disdained a share in casual plunder.
The Turks owed a great deal also to the fourteen Beys
of the Archipelago who contributed a galley a-piece to
the Sultan's fleet whenever it put to sea; in the summer
season when they joined the navy the prizes they took
were claimed by the Sultan, but the Beys were free to
pirate what they could on their own account in the
winter months.
The mention of the corsairs brings us to that romantic
figure, the greatest of Turkish sea captains, Khaireddin
Barbarossa. Barbarossa's life is so much an epitome of
Turkey's sea power that, even at the risk of repeating
facts already well known to the reader, I will include a
short sketch of his career. His autobiography, written
in his old age at the command of his master, Suleyman II,
has been handed down in a paraphrased form in the
pages of Hajji Khalifa, a Turkish naval historian of the
early seventeenth century (whose work was translated
into English about a hundred years ago by_James
Mitchell), so we are fortunate in being able to go to the
fountain head for our knowledge.
Khizr Khaireddin and his brothers, Oruj, Ishak and
Elias were the sons of a peasant of Mitylene of
Christian descent, and like most of the Archipelago
islanders, took to the sea at an early age. In other
words they were born pirates. In an encounter with a
Rhodian galley (the island was at the time still in the
X
142 The Saltans Navy
possession of the Knights) one of the brothers, Elias,
lost his life and the others were taken prisoners and were
for some time slaves in Rhodes. Ishak from this point
vanishes from the scene but Khizr and Oruj, having es-
caped from Rhodes and obtained from Sultan Bayezid
the Turkish equivalent of letters of marque, set up in
partnership as privateers. They had spent a few profit-
able years in this occupation, ranging the Aegean by
summer and wintering snugly at Alexandria, when the
new Sultan, Selim, issued a decree against free-lancing
pirates, and the brothers were driven to offer their ser-
vices to Sultan Hassan of Tunis, the last of the in-
dependent dynasty of the Beni Hafs. They were given
by him a stronghold on the coast and a free hand to
plunder Christian shipping on condition of surrendering
half the proceeds to the Sultan. Those were the golden
days of Barbary piracy and the brothers soon amassed
a respectable fortune, sometimes taking as many as
20 ships and 3000 prisoners in a single month. The
prisoners — ravaged for the most part from small fishing
villages on the Italian coast — they sold wholesale in
the Tunisian slave markets at a florin ahead.
Their ambition grew with their success and they
presently transferred themselves to Algiers where Khizr
proclaimed himself as an independent sultan. The
establishment of such a hornet's nest on the opposite
coast seriously alarmed the Spaniards who sent a fleet
to annihilate the upstart sultan. The fleet and not the
sultan, suffered annihilation, the engagement, according
to Hajji Khalifa's account, resulting as follows:
" The Admiral Ferdinand from Spain entered the
harbour with a fleet of one hundred and ten ships.
K hair-ad-din immediately came into the harbour and
A Merciless Victor 143
after a hot engagement entirely routed the infidels.
The Admiral's ship struck on the sand, when, in despair,
he and six hundred infidels jumped overboard, and with
thirty-six captains, and in all about three thousand men,
were made prisoners. Two prisons underground were
filled with them, and the city was crowded with those
assigned to the natives. Some of them formed a con-
spiracy, and had made arrangements for their escape
but were detected. Soon after a messenger arrived from
Spain offering 100,000 ducats for the ransome of the
thirty-six officers. To this the Ulemas would not give
their consent, saying that the captains being expert in
naval matters, and everyone of them brave fellows, the
sum ought to be doubled : this, however, was not effected.
Khair-ad-din then sought some pretence for having
them killed ; and when he heard of their attempt to es-
cape, ordered a general execution. For the body of the
Admiral Ferdinand seven thousand florins were offered ;
but the Moslem considering it improper to deal in car-
cases, threw it into a deep well."
It was soon after this event that the first encounter
took place between Barbarossa and his life-long enemy
Andrea Doria. *
The appearance on the scene of the great Genoese
patriot is described with characteristic bombast by the
Turkish historian. "When the infidel could no longer
navigate the sea," he says, "and there was no safety
along their coasts, the King of Spain called a council
to determine what measures to adopt against Barbarossa.
Andrea Doria, one of the most valiant admirals of Spain
taking his hat in his hand said, if the king of France
would give him twenty of his galleys, he would venture
to attack Barbarossa." The French ships were supplied
144 The Sultan's Navy
and Doria was about to set out for Algiers when Khair-
eddin forestalled the attack by sailing with his corsair
fleet into the Gulf of Lyons. He laid an ambush off
Marseilles but his plans were defeated by the brave
captain of a vessel, captured by the corsairs on its way
to Majorca with a cargo of cheeses, who escaped and
gave information to the Christian Commander-in-chief.
Doria, however, feeling too weak to fight Barbarossa
until he had received a reinforcement of several galleys
from his native town which were on their way to join
him, slipped by the corsairs and took shelter in a Spanish
port. Barbarossa getting in his turn intelligence of the
enemy's movements, waylaid the Genoese detachment
and captured them with all their crews, including, as
the record says, "twenty men of rank and captains and
a hundred and twenty brave infidels who wore golden
chains about their necks." A ransom of 20,000 pieces
of gold was offered for the prisoners by the Genoese,
but Barbarossa refused to deal and put the unlucky
victims to death en masse.
For some time the two great seamen fought for the
upper hand in the Western Mediterranean, manoeuvring
endlessly to cut off each other's ships and pitting their
wits against each other in every manner of ruse. Doria,
for instance, sent one of his officers with a barge of
valuable merchandise to cruise about off Algiers with
the express purpose of getting captured and giving a
false report of his intention to attack the town. Which
duly happened but with small gain to Doria, for
Barbarossa saw through the stratagem and weaved a
plot of his own, ostensibly unmanning his fleet and
digging trenches as though in preparation for the attack,
until the crew of the captured barge, whom he generously
Barbarossa Becomes Capudan Pasha 145
allowed to return home, had left with the news, when
he at once mobilized his ships and slipped off to raid
the Italian coast.
In the meantime Selim, who had put the embargo
on Barbarossa's early Aegean exploits, died and Suleyman
came to the throne. He at once showed the strength
of his arm by capturing Rhodes and attacking Vienna.
Barbarossa, seeing how the wind was blowing, took the
great decision of his life and abandoned the freedom of
a sea-rover and independent corsair-king in favour of
the more secure dignity of a liege of the Ottoman Sultan.
He therefore left his brother Oruj in charge of Algiers
and sailed with most of his fleet and presents of fabulous
value to Constantinople, where he paid homage to Suley-
man. The Sultan at once made him Capudan Pasha, or
Lord High Admiral, at the same time confirming him in
the sultanate of Algiers under his own suzerainty. Barba-
rossa lost no time in taking in hand the Turkish fleet
which he entirely reorganised, building numbers of new
ships and adding his own Algerian vessels. With this
remodelled fleet, the greatest the Turks had ever known,
Barbarossa launched a series of marauding expeditions
into all parts of the Mediterranean, terrorizing all
Christian shipping and ravaging the coasts of Italy,
France and Spain, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands and
even the Adriatic coast. A more serious campaign for
the capture of Corfu, undertaken with a hundred and
thirty-five galleys and thirty thousand sailors and ac-
companied by Suleyman in person and two of his sons,
failed after a determined siege, and the Venetians suc-
cessfully repulsed several attempts against Crete ; the
Turks captured, on the other hand, a number of the
Venetian islands in the Eastern Mediterranean. In
/
1 46 The Sultan's Navy
the matter of plunder the operations were highly re-
munerative, one single expedition bringing over half-a-
million pieces of gold into the exchequer besides other
booty. The admiral meanwhile enriched himself beyond
the dreams of avarice but was careful to propitiate his
royal employer by handsome gifts. " On the morning
after his arrival," says the Hajji, describing the return
of the fleet from a season's cruise, " the pasha dressed
two hundred boys in scarlet, bearing in their hands
flasks and goblets of gold and silver. Behind them
followed thirty others, each carrying on his shoulders
a purse of gold ; after these came two hundred men,
each carrying a purse of money ; and lastly, two hundred
infidels wearing collars, each bearing a roll of cloth on
his back. These he took as a present to the Emperor,
and having kissed the royal hand, was presented with
robes of the most splendid kind, and received the highest
marks of honour; for never at any period had any
capudan done such signal service."
On June 8th, 1 53J>j arDarossa sailed from the Porte
on the greatest exploit of his life, a desperate struggle
with the fleets of Spain, Portugal, Genoa, Venice and
the Papal States, united under the command of Doria.
The alliance had been formed in a determined attempt
to free the Mediterranean from the incubus of the red-
bearded pirate, and the fleets assembled for the purpose
at Corfu. Khaireddin as soon as he heard of the alliance
set out to meet the enemy. When he came near Corfu,
being uncertain of their exact position, he prayed for
divine guidance and was rewarded by a vision of a great
shoal of fish rising from the sea in the direction of the
Gulf of Arta on the Albanian coast. Setting his course
accordingly he sailed on and when near Prevesa his
The Battle of Prevesa 1 47
look-out reported the Christian fleet in sight. Barba-
rossa invoked the aid of Allah, inscribed some verses
of the Koran on slips of paper which he scattered on
the waves on either side of his ship, and steered to the
attack. The action which followed is historic. The
huge Spanish galleons on which Doria chiefly relied
fared no better than those which the Duke of Sidonia
led against Drake fifty years later, and the day ended
in a complete victory for the Turk. The story of the
battle is told in the Hajji's pages as follows:
11 The enemy's light vessels came up to the strait
[of Prevesa] where the arrogant wretches opened fire
upon the Moslem vessels. The brave and experienced
Pasha, unable to bear this insolence, beat his drum and
cymbals, hoisted his flags and sailed out of the bay to
meet the fleet of the despicable enemy.
'* The unfortunate infidels, stationing themselves in
regular lines, now began to discharge their artillery;
which, however, wanted strength to make it efficient.
A galleon first came out and opened a heavy fire, but
was driven back by the fire of the fleet. Khair-ad-din
succeeded in taking several barges by attacking them
from a distance, and thus gradually weakening them.
Andrea Doria and the general having now come up
with their galleys, were about to commence an attack,
when the brave Pasha bore down upon them, and com- >
menced a heavy fire, which obliged them to bring round
their barges. The balls from the barges now fell like
rain, and the two fleets were so enveloped in smoke,
that they could not see each other. The enemy's galleys /
several times attempted to take the Moslem vessels in
the rear, that so they might take up a position between
them and the other ships and barges. The latter, which,
10 — 2
148 The Sultan's Navy
from their size resembled floating castles, were dashing
against each other with great violence ; nor was it
possible to separate them. At length, after nine of the
barges had been driven back by the strength of the
Moslem vessels, the pasha of lion-like courage redoubled
his exertions, and keeping up a brisk fire, sunk several,
and clearing a way through them, passed on to the
galleys, strictly prohibiting his men from plundering a
single barge. The infidels were astonished, and over-
whelmed with terror at the impetus of the warriors : and
the ir galleys being unable any longer to maintain the
fight, they turned their faces to flight. The slaughter
continued during the whole of the interval between the
two hours of prayer and most of the barges were either
destroyed or sunk by the cannon. Andrea Doria seeing
this tore his beard, and took to flight, all the smaller
galleys following him."
The victory left the Turks with the definite mastery
of the Mediterranean, a mastery which they retained
until their still more famous encounter with an allied
Christian fleet at the battle of Lepanto.
Four years after the battle of Prevesa, Francis I
enlisted Suleyman as his ally against the Emperor
Charles, and Barbarossa sailed to Toulon to join the
French fleet. The campaign was not particularly note-
worthy except for this unnatural union between the
most Christian King and the Caliph of Islam. The
strangeness of the alliance was accentuated by an incident
which befell when the two fleets were anchored side by
side at Nice. When Sunday came the church bells rang
out across the harbour and reached Barbarossa's ears.
The hateful sound, identified with the religion of the
despised Nasarinis, infuriated the devout old pirate
Captains Courageous 149
who at once sent a message to say that he would brook
no other summons to prayer than the Muezzin's call as
long as Moslems and Moslem ships remained in harbour.
The sultan of Tunis who had given Khizr and Oruj
Khaireddin their start in life had long before been de-
feated and deposed by the Spaniards, who for a number
of years held Tunis as a Spanish possession. Barbarossa,
however, had held firm in his own sultanate of Algiers,
which he governed chiefly by proxy. The emperor now
in 1 54 1 made a last desperate effort to oust the corsair
from his lair. Charles led a fleet in person to Algiers
with 50,000 men, including 4000 cavalry, on board.
The fortune which followed Barbarossa through life
helped him again on this occasion. A fearful storm
caught Charles's fleet just as it reached the African shore
and scattered it in all directions. One hunded and six
of the Spanish ships were driven on shore, fourteen
hundred Moslem galley-slaves escaped to freedom and
Charles returned discomfited to Spain.
Five years later Khaireddin died at the age of eighty,
the date of his death being incorporated, in the favourite
Turkish fashion, in a chronogram which runs " mat rats
ulbahr" ("dead is the lord of the seas"). The Genoese
hero who had fought him in many waters outlived him
by fifteen years, dying in 1561 at the yet maturer age
of ninety-two.
The period of Barbarossa's exploits produced many
other admirals famous for ever in Turkish history.
Turgud, "the drawn sword of Islam," a Christian born
and at one time in his career a slave in Doria's galleys,
and Piale, the conqueror of Tripoli, rank second only
to Khaireddin himself. Their names, like his, are
associated chiefly with the Mediterranean. But there
150 The Sultan's Navy
were others who won their fame in more distant waters,
for Turkish seamen contributed their full share of ad-
venture in that great age of exploration. Without
boasting a Columbus or Magellan, Turkey can claim
many a bold spirit who, sailing unchartered seas, added
his quota to the world's knowledge of geography and
navigation.
The sphere of their adventures lay chiefly in the
Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, then
almost unexplored except by a few of the Portuguese
captains. As early as 1530 Sultan Suleyman sent his
namesake Khadim Suleyman Pasha to help the King
of Gujerat against the Portuguese settlers. The expedi-
tion failed in its object after a month's vain siege of
the Portuguese stronghold at Div, and in the reaction
following on their defeat the Turks lost Aden. Another
admiral, Piri Pasha — famous for his works on the science
of navigation — recovered Aden some years later and,
sailing on round the coast of Arabia and taking Muscat
on his way, anchored with a Turkish fleet at Basra.
He found it easier, however, to get into the Persian
Gulf than out again as the Portuguese held the straits of
Ormuz, and on the return he lost half of his ships and
his head as well when he reached the capital. For years
the remnant of his fleet remained shut up in the Gulf
and many attempts were made to save them. At last
Saidi Ali, a famous astronomer and poet, retrieved his
country's reputation by defeating the Portuguese near
Ormuz and freeing a passage for the ships. The experi-
ences of his fleet while returning through the Arabian
Sea are graphically described in Hajji Khalifa's history.
"In the neighbourhood of Zaffer," the writer says,
"they were overtaken by the storm called the Elephant,
Riding the Whirlpool 1 5 1
before which they scudded, being unable even to carry
the foresail : Compared with this, a storm in the Medi-
terranean is as insignificant as a grain of sand: day
could not be distinguished from night, and the waves
rose like huge mountains. Their vessels were thus
greatly injured and they were obliged to throw over-
board a great part of their ammunition and stores. In
this way they drifted before the wind for ten days, during
which time it rained incessantly and there was no ap-
pearance of daylight. The sailors here saw immense
fishes, of the length of two galleys ; at which their spirits
rose, because they consider them animals of good omen.
They also saw sea-horses, huge serpents, tortoises as
large as millstones and seaweed. After having been
detained a long time, they at last approached the bay
of Chekd.
" Suddenly the colour of the sea became changed to
a whitish hue, and the sailors began to cry out. The
cause of their alarm was what in the Indian Ocean
was called a whirlpool, a thing very common about
Gerdefoon on the Ethiopian coast, and in the bay of
Chekd near Sind. It is stated in maritime works that
ships getting into one of these must inevitably perish.
Having sounded and found they had only five fathoms
of water, they took in their sails. Towards morning the
wind fell a little and they sent up an able seaman to
the mast-head, who descried a temple on the land.
Soon after they passed Kormian, Mangalore, and
Somnat and came very near Div ; but the latter place
being in the hands of the infidels, they did not show
their sail that day, but made the best of their way.
Again the wind increased, and the helms became quite
unmanageable; the boatswain's whistle could not be
1 52 The Sultan's Navy
distinguished from the whistling of the wind and no
one could walk the decks. They were also obliged to
shut up most of the troops in the holds. In short the
horrors of this day were comparable only to those of the
resurrection. At length they reached the coast of
Guzerat, in India, when the sailors suddenly cried out
that a hurricane was before them; upon which they
dropped anchor; but the sea was so heavy that the ships
were nearly upset. The galley slaves broke their chains,
and all the men stripping themselves naked, began to
provide themselves with barrels and leather bottles for
their escape. Some of the anchors however broke and
thus the vessels escaped the hurricane. This occurred
at a place between Div and Daman. Towards afternoon
the weather became somewhat fairer, which enabled
them to proceed to the port of Daman in the district of
Guzerat, where they anchored about two miles from the
shore. For five days the hurricane continued to blow
with great violence, and was accompanied with incessant
rains. The vessels had now shipped much water, and
three of them, losing their anchorage drifted ashore;
but all on board landed in safety."
The era of Turkey's greatness at sea was as short
as it was brilliant. It had reached its climax when
~^ius V in 1571 formed the Maritime League to break
the Ottoman supremacy in the Mediterranean. Don
Juan of Austria in command of the massed fleets proved
more than a match for Muezzin-zadeh Ali, at that time
Capudan Pasha, and at the battle of Lepanto (in which,
by the way, the author of Don Quixote fought and had
his left hand maimed for life by a bullet), the Ottoman
navy-Avas^practiGally- wiped off the sea.
Turkey escaped, it is true, the full results of the
Turkey Yields the Trident 153
disaster thanks to the futile bickerings of the Christian
allies and had soon built another fleet to replace that
which was lost, but she never regained her former posi-
tion. The race of her great admirals was extinct and
her history records no more triumphs like those of
Barbarossa. Venice, her old Maritime rival, drew\
rapidly ahead in the struggle and within a century such j
a change had taken place that a squadron of half-a-dozen \
Venetian ships could block the Dardanelles and imprison
the Turks in their own waters for months on end.
Delfino and the Morosinis robbed Turkey of the last
vestiges of her naval prestige, the former on one occa-
sion attacking and routing a Turkish fleet of thirty-
four vessels with his own galley and three others.
Sandys, writing in the first decade of the seventeenth
century, says that even in his time the Egyptian tribute
came overland from Cairo as the sea passage was closed
to the Turks, while Rycaut half a century later disposes
of Turkish sea power in the following words :
"The Turks are not likely to be Masters of this
Seat of Neptune whilst they so unwillingly apply their
minds to Maritime affairs and make so little use of the
advantages they have for Shipping. They indeed ac-
knowledge their inabilities in Sea-affairs and say That
God hath given the Sea to the Christians, but the Land
to us. And no doubt but that the large Possessions and
Riches they enjoy on the stable Element takes off their
minds from a deep attention to matters of the Sea,
which is almost solely managed among them by Rene-
gadoes who have abandoned their Faith and Country.
And it is happy for Christendom that this faintness
remains on the Spirits of the Turks and aversion from
all Naval employment, whose number and power the
154 The Sultan s Navy
Great God of Hosts hath restrained by the bounds of
the Ocean as He hath limited the Ocean itself by the
Sands of the Sea-shore."
Having looked at the exploits of Turkey's great
admiral through the eyes of one of his compatriots let
us now turn to a similar scene described by the pen of
a Christian writer. In 1560 a Christian alliance was
formed for the purpose of ousting the Turks from the
island of Jerba one of their main strongholds on the
North African coast. Doria himself led the fleet, which
counted 200 sail, with Don Alvarez de Sande, Duke of
Medina, in command of the troops. Their first attack
was successful and they established a garrison on the
island. As soon as the news of this reached Suleyman
he sent Piale with the Turkish fleet to repel the intruders.
A hard fought battle ended in the total defeat of Doria
and the garrison remained stranded on the island. The
brave little force withstood a siege of several months,
but, decimated by famine and disease, was finally forced
to capitulate in the early autumn.
Busbequius, the imperial ambassador whose diary
fills some of the early pages of this book, was in resi-
dence at Constantinople when the victorious Turkish
fleet returned to the Golden Horn and he describes the
scene as follows :
"In the month of September the victorious Navy
of the Turks returned to Constantinople, bringing the
Christian Captives with their Gallies along with them.
A joyful Spectacle for the Turks, but a sad one for the
Christians that live among them ! That night it lay at
Anchor over against Byzantium, that so they might enter
the Port the next Day in greater Pomp and Splendour.
Solyman came down into an Apartment in his Gardens
A Pitiable Spectacle 1 55
near the Sea-side, that from thence he might see the
Prisoners ent'ring in. Don Alvarez de Sande was in
the Stern of his Admiral's Galley and with him Don
Sancho de Leyva and Don Bellinger de Requesne, one
the Commander of the Sicilian Galleys, the other of the
Neapolitan. The Galleys of the Christians were de-
spoil'd of their Ornaments, Streamers etc., and hall'd in
Barques (sic) that they might appear little and con-
temptible in the sight of the Turks. They who observed
Solyman's Countenance at that time say that they per-
ceived no sign of insolent Mirth therein, nor, when I
saw him go to his Devotion the next Day, was his Face
altered from its usual Hue, as if that Victory had not
concerned him at all, so well was this cunning old man
able to bear the Breath of his smiling Fortune. The
Prisoners were afterwards brought into the Seraglio,
but so miserably Hunger-starv'd that some could hardly
stand on their Legs; others fell down in a Swoon from
very Feebleness, others had Arms put upon them in a
Jeer, in which Posture they died. The Turks insulted
over them on every hand, promising to themselves the
Empire of the whole World ; • for who shall now be able
to stand before us (they said) since we have overcome
the Spaniards?'"
The pitiful tale of the prisoners' subsequent fate as
told in Busbequius's narrative has already been quoted
in Chapter VII.
Though Blunt had no doubt good reason for his
remarks as to the relative immunity from capture by
the Turks enjoyed by the English "slugs," one has only
to look in the pages of Hakluyt to see what a hazardous
adventure a voyage in the Mediterranean was for an
English ship in the sixteenth century, and I can find no
1 56 The Sultan's Navy
more fitting end for this chapter than an account by a
British sea-captain of a fight with Turkish galleys which
ended in the capture of ship and crew.
"'The three halfe moonesl manned with 38 men and
well fensed with munitions, set from Portsmouth, 1563.
Falling neere the Streights they perceived themselves
to be beset around with eight gallies of the Turkes in
such wise that there was no way for them to flie or es-
cape away, but that they must either yeeld or els be
sunke. Which the owner perceiving, manfully en-
couraged his company, exhorting them valiantly to shew
their manhood, shewing them that God was their God
and requesting them not to faint in seeing such a heape
of their enemies ready to devour them, putting them in
mind of the old and ancient woorthiness of their countrey-
men who in the hardest extremities have alwayes most
prevailed and gone away conquerors, yea and where it
hath bene almost impossible.
" With other like encouragements, exhorting them
to behave themselves manfully, they fell all on their
knees making their prayers briefly unto God: who being
all risen up again perceived their enemies by their signes
and defiances bent to the spoyle, whereupon every man
tooke him to his weapon.
" Then stood up one Grove, the master, being a
comely man with his sword and target, holding them up
in defiance against his enemies. So likewise stood up
the Owner, the Master's mate, Boateswaine, Purser and
every man well appointed. Nowe likewise sounded up
the drums, trumpets and flutes which w d have en-
couraged any man had he never so little heart in him.
"Then taketh him to his charge John Foxe, the
gunner, in the disposing of his pieces and sent his bullets
The Fight of ' The three halfe moones' 157
towards the Turkes, who likewise bestowed their pieces
thrice as fast towards the Christians. But shortly they
drew neere so that the bowsmen fell to their charge in
sending forth their arrowes so thicke among the Gallies
and also in doubling their shot so sore upon them that
there were twice as many of the Turkes slaine as the
number of the Christians. But the Turkes discharged
so fast and so long that the ship was very sore stricken
and bruised under water. Which the Turkes perceiving,
made the more haste to come aboord the Shippe; which
ere they could doe, many a Turke bought it deerly with
the losse of their lives. Yet all was in vaine and boorded
they were, where they found so hot a skirmish that it
had bene better they had not meddled with the feast.
For the Englishmen shewed themselves men in deed,
in working manfully with their bills and halbardes;
where the Owner, master, boateswaine and their company
stoode to it so lustily that the Turkes were halfe dis-
maied. But the Boateswaine shewed himselfe valiant
above the rest, for he fared amongst the Turkes like a
wood Lion and there was none of them that either c d
or durst, stand in his face, till at the last there came a
shot from the Turkes which brake his whistle asunder
and smote him on the brest so that he fell downe, bidding
them farewell and to be of good comfort encouraging
them likewise to winne praise by death rather than to
live captives in misery and shame. Which they hearing,
indeed intended to have done, but the press and store
of the Turkes was so great that they were not able long
to endure but were so overpressed that they c d not
wield their weapons, by reason whereof they must needs
be taken. Which none of them intended to have bene
but rather to have died, except onely the master's mate
1 58 The Sultans Navy
who shrunke from the skirmish like a notable coward,
esteeming neither the value of his name nor accounting
the example of his fellowes or the miseries whereunto
he should be put.
"But, in fine, so it was that the Turkes were victors.
Then w d it have grieved any hard heart to see those
Infidels so violently entreating the Christians not having
any respect of their manhood which they had tasted of.
But no remorse or any thing els doth bridle their fierce
dealing so that the Christians must needs to the Gallies
to serve their new masters. And they were no sooner
in them but their Garments were pulled over their eares
and torne from their backes and they were set to the
oares."
The sequel to this unhappy incident as told by
John Foxe, the gunner, is of so dramatic a nature that,
although it has no particular connection with the subject
of this chapter, I cannot refrain from repeating the story
in a few words. Fourteen years after the loss of " The
three halfe moones " Foxe and such of his companions
as had not in the meantime either died of hardship or
been ransomed by their friends in England found them-
selves shut up for the winter in Alexandria. Most of
them were languishing in the prison, which contained
in all 266 Christian slaves of all nationalities, but Foxe,
who had gained a reputation as a barber, and half-
a-dozen others were allowed to ply their trades outside
the prison walls. Foxe had never given up the hope of
escape and, finding at last a willing confederate in the
person of a Spaniard, captured 30 years before and now
the privileged keeper of a "victualling house," evolved
a plot for rescuing himself and the whole body of
prisoners. With his friend's help he secured a number
A Marvellous Escape 159
of files which he smuggled into the jail and distributed
to the prisoners warning them to be ready for escape
on a certain night. When the time came he repaired to
the Spaniard's tavern with the other ticket-of-leave men
accompanied by their Turkish guard. The Spaniard,
acting on a pre-arranged plan, enveigled the guard
away while the others sacked the premises for whatever
instruments they could turn to use as weapons. Foxe
himself "tooke to him an olde rustie sword blade with-
out either hilt or pomell, which he made to serve his
turne by bending the hand-ende instead of a pomell,"
while the others armed themselves " with such spits and
glaives as they found in the house."
Shortly after the guard returned and as soon as he
entered the house realized the situation ; whereupon
turning to our hero he said — presumably in the ver-
nacular — " O Foxe, what have I deserved of thee that
thou shouldst seeke my deathe?" "Thou vilain," Foxe
replied, " thou hast been a bloodsucker of many a
Christian's blood, and now shaltst know what thou hast
deserved." "Wherewith," the tale continues, "he lift
up his bright shining sword of tenne yeares rust and
stroke him so maine a blow as that his head clave
asunder and he fell starke dead to the ground."
The guard having been thus satisfactorily disposed
of, the plotters started for the prison and having dis-
patched six of the warders whom they found in the
jailor's lodge, secured the keys and exchanging their
improvised weapons for proper knives and swords,
broke into the prison where they found the prisoners
free of their shackles thanks to the imported files.
Hastily barricading the landward gates (the prison
stood on the harbour edge), they slipped out by a water-
160 The Sultans Navy
gate and took possession of a fast Turkish galley lying
just outside.
By this time the whole town was in an uproar, and
the Turks, rushing to the forts which commanded the
harbour's entrance, trained their guns on the galley as
she headed for the sea.
u Now is the gaily on flote : now have the Castles
full power upon it : now is there no remedy but to sinke.
The canons let the from both sides. What man can
devise to save it ? There is no man but would thinke it
must needes be sunke. Yet there was not one that feared
the shotte which went thundring about their eares, not
yet were once scarred nor touched with five and forty
shot which came from the castles. Here did God hold
foorth his buckler and shieldeth the gaily, for they saile
away, being not once touched with the glaunce of a shot
and are quickly out of the Turke's reach."
It is comforting to know that when Foxe, after this
wonderful exploit, returned safely to his native land he
was invited to tell his story to the Council, " who con-
sidering of the state of this man in that hee had spent
and lost a great part of his youth in thraldome and
bondage, extended to him their liberalitie to helpe and
maintaine him in age to their right honour and to the
encouragement of all true hearted Christians."
CHAPTER XII
A DRAGOMAN'S DIARY
The chapter entitled " An Audience " has already in-
troduced the reader to Dr Antonio Benetti, dragoman 1
to the Venetian Embassy at Constantinople.
The three years which Dr Antonio spent on his
mission to the Turkish capital were particularly stirring
ones coinciding as they did with the second siege of
Vienna, and the story of the immense preparations for
the campaign and its disastrous sequel fills a great part
of his diary 2 , interwoven with a wealth of humbler in-
cident. He begins with the appointment of the new
ambassador to the Porte in the year 1680. With the
exception of Genoa, Venice was the first European State
to maintain a regular embassy at Constantinople and
on account of her leading position in the Levant trade
there was always a vast amount of diplomatic business
to be settled between the two Governments. The selec-
tion of a new bailo was therefore an important affair of
state, especially on this occasion when full diplomatic
relations were to be resumed for the first time since
peace had been declared after the twenty years' war
ending in the Turkish conquest of Candia. Such were
the conditions when the Senate invited applications for
the post of bailo. The successful candidate was a certain
1 Every Embassy at Constantinople has — or had — a Turkish speaking
"dragoman," who conducted all verbal conversations with the Turkish
Ministers besides acting as an expert adviser on Turkish affairs. The
word " dragoman " is a corruption of the Turkish word terguman, meaning
interpreter. 2 Viaggi a Constantinopo li printed at Venice in 1687.
H. II
1 62 A Dragoman's Diary
Senator Donado, who was singled out "for his nobility
of birth, loftiness of mind, firmness of character and
opulent wealth." Donado at once set to work to collect
a staff including secretaries, professors of medicine and
surgery respectively, dragomans (of whom Benetti was
one) and a spiritual adviser. Meanwhile the Turkish
Government were asked to send an escort to conduct
the new representative through Turkish territory to his
post. The escort, accompanied by a dragoman of the
Porte, duly arrived at the end of October, but Donado
considering the season too advanced for so long a
journey, postponed his departure till the following year.
When the mild spring weather came preparations
were made for the start and a frigate named the " Dove,"
equipped with all manner of provisions, lay anchored
off the Lido ready to transport the party to Spalato
which was then the usual starting place for overland
travellers to Constantinople. The Pope sent an autograph
letter wishing Donado God-speed, the Doge and his
brother-senators gave him a formal farewell and after
taking leave of his numerous friends the ambassador-
designate was fetched from his palace in a decorated
barge flying the standard of Saint Mark and, accom-
panied down the Grand Canal by a countless fleet of
gondolas, was rowed in state aboard his ship. The
" Dove " weighed anchor the following day and after
coasting safely down the Dalmatian shore, landed her
passengers at Spalato.
Having solemnly received the Holy Sacrament for
the last time before leaving Christian soil, the little band
set out on their journey through the Balkans. They
were protected by a squadron of Turkish horse and
lodged on the road at the common khans, where the
A Problem in Astrology 163
proud Venetian Senator kept up a dignified exclusiveness
by living behind a shelter of canvas screens.
The chief incident of the journey occurred near Bel-
grade where they came upon a wounded fellow country-
man who had been robbed and stripped by brigands
and left half-dead on the road. The rescued man proved
to be a Roman by birth who at the tender age of ten
had been captured by the Turks together with his uncle,
a Knight of Malta. The knight had died in the Galleys,
but the boy was made to renounce his faith and be-
came the slave of a Turkish agha. He regained his
freedom on his master's death and at once renouncing
Islam had started off for his native land, only to fall
into the brigands' hands en route. The unlucky man
was treated by the embassy surgeon and being restored
to health was admitted a member of the suite.
Two months after leaving the Adriatic, Donado and
his party reached their destination and entering Stambul
by the Ayoub Gate, crossed the Golden Horn and took
up their quarters in the ancient bailaggio. A striking
phenomenon which occurred at the moment of their
arrival fills several pages of the diary. An enormous
comet stretching across more than a quarter of the firma-
ment appeared in the Northern sky and evoked the
wildest speculations among the superstitious inhabitants.
Each of the manyraces living within thewalls of Stambul
had its own astrologers and these had each his own
interpretations of the celestial portent. Benetti was
somewhat entertained by the divergence of their views.
The Turks — who may have already scented the coming
turn of events — declared that the comet sweeping from
East to West foretold the onward march of Turkish
conquest in Europe. The Jews, true to their racial
11 — 2
1 64 <d Dragomans Diary
trait, gave it a religious significance and discerned in
it a sign of the Messiah's coming birth ; the Persian
colony augured a revival of their country's power and
the recovery of Bagdad ; while the opportunist Greeks
loudly proclaimed it a token from heaven against the
Roman church and a solemn warning from God to the
Pope to renounce his heresy and make submission to
the Patriarch.
Shortly after his arrival, the new bailo "took over"
from his predecessor, who left for Venice after having,
as a noble parting act, ransomed a dozen Christian slaves
from the bagno to take home in his ship. The succeeding
year passed with little of interest for the diarist to note.
I n the following August (1682) the ambassador presented
his credentials amid the scenes described already in the
previous chapter, and he gained meanwhile a firm foot-
hold by winning the gratitude and friendship of Mushib
Pasha, Mohammed's favourite son-in-law, who was cured
of a ten years' lameness by Dr Tilli, the Pisan surgeon
attached to the embassy.
In the same month as the audience an event took
place which put all the foreign embassies in the greatest
flutter. The horse-tails were set up in the courtyard of
the Palace. This was the call to arms and, like the fiery
cross in old Scottish days, the signal spread rapidly
through the length and breadth of the land, so that
within a week or two every pasha from Epirus to the
Persian Gulf had received the news and planted his
own horse-tail as a rallying point for the troops of his
province.
But with all this open preparation for war the enemy
was yet to seek. No breach had occurred with any
Christian State and Donado and his fellow diplomats
$«► Pleuianders luytants.
TURKISH WRESTLING
From Nicolay's Peregrinations faictes en la Tnrquie, 1577
Turkish Sports 165
were kept on tenterhooks not knowing on which of their
countries the blow was to fall. All their attempts to
probe the Sultan's secret were in vain and they could
only report home that every night thousands of troops
and masses of supplies and ammunition were passed
across the Bosphorus, but what their destination was
no one could tell.
This condition of affairs lasted for several months,
during which time the Sultan hid his intentions, what-
ever they were, under a veil of forced frivolity. First
a great regatta was held in front of one of his waterside
palaces on the Bosphorus, Mohammed himself looking
on from a balcony while the embassy party boarded
one of their own merchantmen, which was moored near
the spot. A suspicious ruse attempted on this occasion
increased the Venetian's apprehensions. A message
arrived from the Sultan asking that the captain of the
ship should favour the Turks with an exhibition of naval
drill and Venetian fighting tactics. The trick was a little
too obvious and the wily ambassador had an answer
returned that his countrymen never fought in narrow
waters and the Bosphorus was not wide enough to give
scope for their regular manoeuvres.
There were also games, wrestling and jerid
throwing on the At Maidan, the Hippodrome of old
Byzantine days. The last was a Turkish form of tilting
and the favourite sport of the palace pages. Benetti
describes how the players divided into two " sides " of
twenty or thirty each and drew up facing each other
across the maidan. Then a champion from one of the
ranks would ride out, poising his jerid (a short
wooden staff), dash across the space and turning sharply
in front of the opposite line hurl his weapon at the head
1 66 A Dragoman 's Diary
of one of his opponents. The latter was either knocked
off his horse, or, if he successfully dodged the blow,
rode out in turn and chased his assailant trying to
unhorse him. While the pursuit continued, two more
players would issue from the original line and attack in
the same fashion, followed by a team of three and so
forth till both sides were locked in a general milte. No
protection was worn and the jerids being of stout
dimensions there were broken heads galore ; in fact it
was no uncommon thing, as we learn from other writers,
for a player to be knocked dead on the spot.
A much more placid form of entertainment was pro-
vided by a friendly pasha who invited Donado and his
dragoman out to his country seat at Ayoub, a pretty
village on the Sweet Waters of Europe. They found
a meal spread in an Italian Garden built in terraces
up a hill side with a beautiful view down the Golden
Horn. Magnificent tulips — some, Benetti assures us,
growing three or four on a stem — anemones of every
colour imported from Crete and many other flowers
filled the beds, while in a delicate loggia near the water
they were shown a peculiar floral confection (borrowed,
one suspects, from the Persians) which consisted of a
pyramid constructed in tiers on each of which stood a
row of vases of flowers arranged in different colours
with a specially selected blossom placed on the apex to
crown the whole. They dined al fresco on all manner
of luxuries including even the forbidden liquor, though
Benetti is careful to mention their host's request that
they should not spill a drop of wine for fear of polluting
his garden.
During this time of suspense the great hajj started
for Mecca and Dr Antonio crossed over to Scutari to
Speeding the Pilgrims 167
see the pilgrims start. For some days previously the
" holy carpet," which the Caliph sends yearly to be
spread on the Kaaba, had been lying in state in its
carved wooden box in the mosque at Beshiktash. When
the day arrived it was closed, sealed with the imperial
cypher and loaded on the sacred camel which was to
carry it over its 1500 mile journey. The imam who
led the camel and was destined never to leave its side
till Mecca was reached ferried his charge across the
Bosphorus to the place of assembly. As they passed
through the streets the people hung garlands round the
beast's neck and strewed flowers in its path wishing it
luck for the journey. The Hajjis, flocking from the
khans where they had been lodging, collected at the
appointed spot and formed up to take the road. In front
of the carpet marched a military band and a mob of
yelling dervishes, together with the "pasha of the pil-
grimage " with royal letters to all and sundry to help
the pilgrims on their way ; behind came the pilgrims
themselves old and young, rich and poor, some on horses,
most on foot and a few infirm old men in carts, even
little children unable to walk riding on their fathers'
shoulders. I n accordance with the kindly eastern custom
a multitude of friends and relatives accompanied the
pilgrims to their first night's halting place to speed them
on their way, returning on the morrow to the capital.
While the gathering of the army on the shore of
Marmora near Silivri was proceeding apace, Mohammed
started yet another diversion to distract attention. He
is known to history as Mohammed Avji — Mohammed
the Hunter — and on this occasion he lived up to his
name by organizing a game drive on a quite unparalleled
scale. The scene of the drive was the forest of Belgrade
1 68 A Dragoman's Diary
which lies close behind Constantinople. Thirty thousand
men were impressed to round up the game in an enor-
mous circle at the centre of which kiosks were erected
for Mohammed and his favourite wife. The work of
narrowing the circle lasted for fifteen days during which
time several hundreds of the wretched beaters, who
were flogged mercilessly into the thickets and jungles,
died of hunger and exhaustion, and this was in spite of
the fact that a special tax had been levied throughout
the European vilayets to provide funds for the occasion,
the yield of the tax having as usual remained in the
pockets of the palace officials. The "bag" from this
monstrous drive was frankly pitiable — a leopard, six
ibex and a few dozen hares. The total kill included,
in fact, many more human beings than beasts.
At last by May 1683 the army was ready to march
and, further concealment being useless, the Sultan, egged
on as always by Black Mustafa, arranged for a specta-
cular show to popularize the campaign. The camp at
Silivri contained by now many thousands of men, re-
presenting the levies from Asiatic Turkey including
Mesopotamia. On one flank was the Sultan's private
camp, a vast enclosure more than a quarter of a mile in
circumference shut in by screens and containing within
it an enormous tent in three compartments, one of which
served as a throne room, as well as a hall of justice,
domed Turkish baths with fountains laid on and a
hundred other extravagances. The Grand Vizir was
camped near by in almost equal luxury and the army
itself occupied a large well-watered valley, where the
countless variegated tents of red, green, white and
orange presented a wonderful sight.
The favourite Sultana travelled out to see the
A Royal Progress 169
spectacle and Benetti was fortunate enough to see her
start from her palace on the Bosphorus. Little could,
it is true, be seen of the lady herself as she was shielded
from the public gaze by a double line of black eunuchs
holding hangings of green silk above the level of her
head. The same eunuchs formed a human curtain round
her as she sat in her caique, which the Bostanji Bashi
steered standing with averted face in the stern. Crowds
of bostanjis lined the banks as the caique passed on its
way to Stambul and according to custom handfuls of
silver were thrown to them whenever the boat came
near the shore. From Stambul the Sultana drove out
to visit the camp in a cart drawn by four horses harnessed
abreast and with all the usual iron work replaced by
silver.
Finally Mohammed himself made a royal progress
to the camp. The scene must have been one of the
most magnificent that even Constantinople, that city of
splendours, had ever seen. I cannot do better than give
the picture just as Benetti describes it.
At the head of the procession went the Prophet's
green standard borne by an emir with a dervish by his
side shouting "huwa, huwa " (i.e. "He! He!" a
periphrase for God) ; more dervishes in hair coats,
preachers of the jehad, followed him. Then came the
Stambul Efifendi and the two Cadiaskers (the highest
judicial officers) wearing turbans of such a size that a
man's arms could hardly embrace them. Then the Grand
Mufti (the Primate of Islam) in plain white. Then some
ichoghlans leading wolf-hounds in gold-embroidered
coats and red spiked collars, and four horsemen carrying
hunting leopards on their saddles. Two plumed camels
came next, one carrying the Koran in a green case, the
170 A Dragomans Diary
other a piece of cloth from the Prophet's tomb wrapt
in a gold cover. After these a chorbaji with 100 janis-
saries marching by twos and carrying their cauldrons,
who had with them their cooks in black leather aprons
and their sakkas, or water carriers, riding on belaurelled
horses. Next 100 saimens, the Sultan's archer body-
guard, in their peculiar helmets of beaten gold, followed
by dellis in tiger and panther skins, and detach-
ments of Bosnians and Tartars. Next an important
Pasha with a white martingale on his horse made of
plaited hairs from the tail of the Prophet's own
steed.
Next 150 pikemen (a late introduction into the
Turkish army) in mail with green and yellow cloaks
worn plaidwise over their shoulders, their horses also in
armour, with metal plates on flanks, shoulders and rump,
and gay with fringed velvet saddle-cloths, bridles a-
jinglewith little gold plaques, and twisted coloured reins.
Then four silk banners with an escort of 80 aghas. Then
a dozen chaoushes carrying black staves hung about
with little silver chains. Then the massed "tails" of
the Sultan himself, the Grand Vizir and the principal
pashas ; white horse-tails these were, mounted on red
poles with silver balls on the top. Next came the Grand
Vizir preceded by a band of horsemen with kettle drums,
pipers, cymbal-players and trumpeters (military bands,
one may observe, are said to have originated with the
Turks). He was followed by a group of the palace
pages resplendent in shining mail with caps plastered
with gold disks and twined around with green and red
silks.
Immediately behind them rode Mohammed in person,
a dazzlingfigure in a white " toga " with gold-embroidered
AN OFFICER OF JANISSARIES
From Nicolay's Peregrinations faictes en la Tnrquie, 1577
The Sultans Secret 171
flowers and frogs composed of brilliants ; a fur-lined
hood hung on his back and he wore on his head the
narrow turban with a diamond spray which was part
of the imperial insignia. The man himself was a sad
contrast to his magnificent trappings as he rode along
with bent shoulders, his peaked nose, thin beard,
scraggy neck and undistinguished features relieved only
by the fine black eyes which were the heirloom of the
imperial house. The Shakzadeh (the Crown Prince), a
fine young man of 18, rode behind his father, and after
him came more pages including the silihdar with the
sultan's sword and the turban-valet with two of the royal
turbans. Six coachfuls of sultanas came next, the first of
them, containing the favourite wife, drawn by eight white
ponies, the others by six. The vehicles were covered with
rounded hoods painted in arabesques and curtained in red
and green. Other ladies of the harem followed in horse-
litters and a score of buffalo carts carried members of
their households. A regiment of spahis and the royal
corps of tent-pitchers with twenty camels loaded with
carpets and other furniture of the camp brought up the
rear.
In and out of the procession as it passed along ran
a number of excited dervishes, naked except for their
little green aprons fringed with beads of ebony, but
wearing the towering Persian hat of brown camel's hair
peculiar to their order. Their business was to stir up
the troops to a religious ferment, which they did with
fanatical cries and deafening blasts on cow-horns.
When the Sultan had joined the troops at Silivri
the nervous apprehensions of the foreign ambassadors
were tenfold increased. It was clear that an attack on an
unprecedented scale was on the point of being launched
172 A Dragomans Diary
against some Christian Power, for besides the army
encamped near the capital such enormous numbers of
spahis had crossed the Bosphorus and marched on to-
wards Adrianople that it was clear that every pasha,
sanjak and bey in Asia had obeyed the summons. At
the same time naval preparations were going ahead,
all the old galleys being overhauled and many new ones
built. Each representative used his powers of diplomatic
persuasion to head off the Turk from his own country
and encourage an attack on his neighbour, and the
prospect looked black for the case of Venice when news
arrived of a deplorable fracas at Zara where a number
of Dalmatians had risen against their Turkish masters,
killed the sanjak s brother, massacred some hundreds
of Turks and pillaged and burnt the aghas homesteads.
On hearing this dire report Donado at once asked for
another audience, but the Sultan being now in his camp
refused to see any foreign envoy on the typical pretext
that his dignity would be sullied by sitting on the tent
floor on the same level as a Christian. At this point,
however, the friendship of Mushib stood the ambassador
in good stead. Through his agency he managed to
induce the Mufti to issue a fetva to the effect that the
Zara outrage was not a casus belli. A week later the
secret was out. Vienna was the Turkish objective and
the troops were to march at once. The German and
Polish ambassadors received instructions to accompany
the army; the "subject "envoys of Ragusa,Transylvania,
Moldavia and Wallachia had to go too ; the French,
British and Venetian representatives determined to
remain at the capital.
The day before the start a terrific storm swept across
Constantinople and wrought dire confusion in the camp.
An Ill-omened Start 1 73
All the tents were levelled and the streams coming down
in spate flooded the valley, drowned men and beasts,
ruined a large part of the stores and reduced the Sultan's
sumptuous quarters to a pulp. This in itself was a bad
enough omen, but what really devastated the minds of
the Turks was the seemingly trivial occurrence of the
Sultan's turban being blown off his head by a gust of
wind. From this moment popular confidence in the suc-
cess of the war was badly shaken and Black Mustafa,
who was known for its real author, became the object
of the people's hate.
The ambitious Vizir, could not, however, be daunted
by an accident of nature and he persuaded the Sultan
to lead out the army as soon as the damage was repaired.
Though the streams were still almost impassable and a
special carriage with 6-foot wheels drawn by twelve
horses had to be made to transport the Sultan across
country, on April 7th, 1682 the troops marched out,
the Janissaries defiling according to custom in front of
their agha and presenting him with baskets of fruit and
flowers as they passed.
With the Turkish army went Mushib Pasha accom-
panied by Dr Tilli, the embassy surgeon, whose letters
written to Benetti en route and reproduced in the latter's
diary tell of some of the features of the great march.
The rains which had made such havoc of the Silivri
camp continued to fall and so sodden was the country that
the troops, spreading out to avoid the trodden ground,
churned a track four miles wide across the plains. On
reaching Belgrade the Sultan handed over command
to the Grand Vizir consigning the Prophet's standard
to him in the presence of the troops. He took up his
own residence in the town and settled down with his
174 A Dragoman s Diary
wives and household to pursue his usual life of pleasure.
Hunts were held in the surrounding country and a fleet
of caiques on the Bosphorus model was built to carry
the royal party for pleasure trips on the Danube. One
of the files organized to amuse the Sultan included a
sort of Lord Mayor's procession, and Dr Tilli specially
mentions a freakish and rather gruesome item invented
by a Persian servant of one of the pashas. A cart
paraded through the streets bearing what to all appear-
ance was the dismembered trunk of a man with his head
severed and lying apart from the body. Although
seemingly decapitated and wallowing in gore, the body
breathed and occasionally moved its position to the
intense stupefaction of the on-lookers. The surgeon's
scientific curiosity was naturally aroused by such an
incredible phenomenon and he tracked the mystery
to its source, only to find that this early exponent of
Mr Maskelyn's art had concocted the scene with the
help of five separate men protruding different parts of
their anatomy from under a black cloth and a liberal
splashing of red paint !
The army meanwhile began to suffer from the
inevitable defects of its enormous size, and the com-
missariat threatened to break down, the lack of bread
becoming so severe that the janissaries actually raided
the Grand Vizir's own bakery. Many of the guns more-
over became bogged through the persistent bad weather
and the spirits of the troops were badly damped by the
news that Poland was preparing to join forces with their
old enemy Austria to repel the Turks.
At Constantinople, however, enthusiasm ran high
and on the day that news arrived of the crossing of the
Raab the deputy Mufti ordered a day of prayer and
Joy Turned to Mourning 1 75
thanksgiving. The morning service in the mosques was
attended by the children from every school in the capital
and after it was over the congregations formed up out-
side in columns of two each led by an imam. The pro-
cessions marching from the various mosques met on the
At Maidan where temporary pulpits had been erected
beforehand. Here the whole immense assembly prayed
towards Mecca and were afterwards addressed by a
number of preachers who enjoined prayer and fasting,
abstention from all vices and constant warfare on behalf
of Islam, urging the hearers to risk martyrdom for the
sake of the faith and to fight for pure religion and not
for worldly profit. Having listened to these admirable
sentiments from the lips of the hojas, the crowd de-
parted in profound silence broken only by the chanting
of suras from the Koran. The populace were not con-
tent, however, with these religious performances, but
vented their exuberance in an outburst of jollification
which bore a singular resemblance to our modern
celebrations ; the whole town was illuminated, fireworks
were discharged in the open spaces, guns fired from the
Topkhaneh and effigies of Christian princes, bishops,
cardinals and the Pope himself were carried about the
streets and then burnt.
In the midst of these celebrations the report came
of the death of the Sultan- Valida (the Turkish Queen
Mother) which had taken place at Adrianople. Mes-
sengers were sent out at once to spread the news through
the empire and special envoys were sent with alms to
Mecca. The body had been partially embalmed and
placed in a wooden coffin packed with ice which was
loaded on a cart and brought at the trot (an unusual pace
for these cumbersome Turkish vehicles) to the capital,
176 A Dragoman's Diary
followed by a string of carriages full of the deceased
lady's servants. At the city gate the cart was met by
such of the Ministers of State as had remained behind
when the army left and the coffin, draped with coloured
silks and tissue of gold, was carried on their shoulders
through the town followed by a great multitude of
mourners including a host of indigent females who
had lived on the charitable Sultana's bounty. The pro-
cession went at the rapid pace customary at Eastern
funerals till they reached the mosque which the Sultan-
Valida had built in her life-time to accommodate her
remains, and there was left in the little domed chamber
made for it, the imam of the mosque having first spread
it with a green embroidered cloth and placed a turban
at its head.
It was not long before the blow fell which was to
turn Constantinople from joy to mourning. For some
weeks after the investment of Vienna had begun there
was a complete stoppage of news from the front. One
day a solitary spahi arrived breathless with the news
that Vienna had fallen and a fresh outburst of jubilation
took place, while the carrier of the good tidings was
feted by everyone and loaded with presents. Next day
the spahi had disappeared and the people of Stambul
realized that they had been duped. A few days later it
was known that the Grand Vizir's army, after taking
the outer forts and all but breaking the Christian line,
had been fallen upon unexpectedly by Sobiesky and
had fled in disorder. Presently the fugitives began to
arrive. They had poured back through the Balkans in
utter confusion committing horrible atrocities on the
way, murdering the Christian rayahs and burning their
houses to warm themselves at night. When the Asiatic
The Suit mi s Home-Coming 1 77
soldiery reached the shore of the Bosphorus the Bostanji
Bashi, who had charge of the small craft, tried to prevent
their crossing, but the threat to the capital itself became
so great that it was decided to let them go over.
The Sultan meanwhile had left Belgrade upholding
the tradition of his house by refusing to admit the
slightest recognition of defeat. He marched out of the
town with a double band playing before him, having
continued his huntings and junketings to the last. One
symptom of his true feelings he gave, namely to order
a St Bartholomew's massacre of all the Christians at
Constantinople and that the foreign envoys in particular
should be sliced into small pieces. Fortunately for
Donado and his colleagues the Grand Mufti dissuaded
Mohammed from carrying out this drastic measure,
pointing out that it was no moment for adding to the
number of Turkey's enemies abroad.
Before leaving Constantinople Donado successfully
fulfilled his mission by getting the Sultan's signature
to a new treaty of amity and commerce with the Serene
Republic. He had asked the Senate to relieve him of
his post after the severe strain of the last two years
and a successor having been appointed, he made his
arrangements to return to Venice. The route he had
come by was now impossible as the whole of the country
was seething with rapine and anarchy owing to the flood
of deserters from the army, so he again had recourse
to the goodwill of Mushib who provided the party with
a vessel to take them home by sea. A Turkish admiral
who was just then sailing for Candia was ordered to
take the Venetians' ship under his charge as far as Crete
as there was grave danger from corsairs. One little
contretemps occurred before they were clear of the
1 78 A Dragoman's Diary
Bosphorus, the current having driven the ship ashore
where the bows made havoc of the stucco facade of a
pasha's palace. The incident, though slight, seemed
likely to have serious consequences in the then irritated
state of public feeling, but harm was happily averted by
the renewed good offices of the Sultan's son-in-law.
When Constantinople had at length been left behind
and the two ships had passed the Dardanelles, Donado's
first care was to give the slip to his escort, reckoning
that a revengeful Turkish admiral might well be a worse
danger than any corsair to a defenceless shipload of
Christians. He therefore stole away at night and navi-
gating the ship himself brought her safely to Suda Bay,
one of the three diminutive possessions which his country-
men still maintained in Crete. After a cordial reception
by the Proveditore and the small Venetian garrison and
a stay of several days which the enterprising senator
devoted to spying out the Turkish defences of Canea,
the party put to sea again and, joining forces with the
great Morosini who had been cruising in the neighbour-
ing waters, arrived safely home again in the first week
of June 1684.
CHAPTER XIII
A BELATED CRUSADE
The following story of a forlorn hope undertaken by a
company of French gentlemen against the Turk in
Crete has come down to us in a little book published
in 1669 by a bookseller of Grenoble into whose hands
the diary of a member of the expedition happened to
fall.
The event itself took place in the previous year,
the twenty-first year of the siege of Candia, and to
make the circumstances more intelligible it may be
well to take a glance back over Cretan history. The
island, when the Turks began to threaten it, had en-
joyed Christian rule ever since the days of Constantine
the Great, except for a brief possession by the Arabs
in the caliphate of Harun er-Rashid. The Venetian
occupation dated back to 1207 when the Republic
secured the island in a rather curious manner. As a
part of the Byzantine empire it had fallen to the leaders
of the fourth crusade when they abandoned their cam-
paign against the Saracens and captured Constantinople.
Baldwin I, on crowning himself emperor, allotted Crete
to one of his subalterns, Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat
and "King of Thessalonica," who, finding the property
of little use to himself, sold it to Venice for 1000 marks
and a portion of territory in Macedonia
The island had thus been a Venetian colony for
1 80 A Belated Crusade
nearly five centuries at the time of its invasion by a
i Turkish army in 1644. In that year one of the wives
£ 1 s- of the Sultan (the degenerate Ibrahim) happened to be
going on a pilgrimage to Mecca and was sailing past
Crete in a Turkish ship when they met a Venetian
galley which promptly captured the vessel. The sultana
was taken prisoner together with the rest of the
passengers, and this so infuriated the sultan that he
at once declared war on Venice. His first act was to
send his Vizir with an army to Crete under orders to
capture the island. Canea (the modern capital) was
taken almost immediately, Retimo, another of the
three main towns, fell a year later and Candia alone
held out. Into this fortress, behind fortifications so
tremendously solid that — except where intentionally
demolished — they stand intact to this day, the Governor
of the island, Morosini, withdrew with his troops and
endured a siege of twenty years.
Though locked in this fortress on the land, the
Venetians maintained the upper hand on the sea, which
enabled them to keep the garrison supplied with pro-
visions and reinforcements. By 1668, however, their
resources were nearly exhausted ; twenty years' warfare
had emptied the treasury almost to the last sequin and
the garrison of Candia, long unrelieved, were clearly
unable to hold out much longer. When things reached
this pass the Pope intervened in the name of religion
and sent a pressing appeal to Louis XIV to assist in
repulsing the infidel. A definite breach with the Turks
was too great a risk for Louis, but he salved his con-
science by privately ordering one of his officers, a
certain M. de la Feuillade, to raise volunteers to go to
the help of the Venetians at Candia in the guise of
An Adventure on the Way 181
private adventurers. Five hundred nobles and gentle-
men of France volunteered for the enterprise and in
the autumn of the year sailed out from Toulon in ships
flying the flag of Malta.
When off the Sardinian coast they found themselves
windbound near the bay of Palmas and there met with
an adventure which is worthy of mention if only to
show how little the inhabitants of that island had
advanced from the primitive state by the end of the
seventeenth century. A party from the ship going
ashore found a number of roughly made skiffs drawn
up on rollers near the foot of the cliffs in front of a row
of troglodytes' caves. They entered a cave and dis-
covered hanging from the roof a quantity of game
which they promptly annexed for their own commissariat.
As they were leaving with their plunder, a crowd of
" ugly great satyres" emerged from neighbouring caves
and set on them with clubs and boulders, trying to
head them off from their boat. Luckily their friends
of the ship perceived their predicament and an armed
crew rowed to the shore just in time to save them from
the fury of the despoiled islanders.
Twenty-five days out from Toulon the ship reached
Malta, where M. de la Feuillade interviewed the Grand
Master and begged him, for the honour of his Order
and the Holy Catholic Church, to do what he could to
forward the expedition. An appeal for volunteers was
answered by nearly all the French knights at Valetta,
a fair number of the Germans and Italians and a
solitary Spaniard, and with this accession to their force
the party sailed on towards Crete.
Thirteen days later they anchored off Standia, an
island lying some half-a-dozen miles from Candia and
1 82 A Belated Crusade
serving the Venetians as a naval base for the island.
The same evening their leader was taken to the main-
land to confer with General Morosini. The situation
which he found on arrival was a very unpleasant shock
to his religious ardour. A small French force under
the Marquis de Ville had for some time past formed
part of the garrison and an important redoubt, the
bastion of St Andre\ had been committed to them to
defend. But the strain of the interminable siege, added
to the jealousy between the two nations, had raised ill-
feeling between them to such a pitch that the Venetian
commanders had recently made a traitorous anddastardly
attempt to get rid of their allies by a secret arrangement
with the Turks. The latter were invited to attack the
bastion on a certain day when the Venetians were to
fire their guns on the Frenchmen from the rear. By a
fortunate chance the Marquis de Ville intercepted a
letter and learnt of the plot. He kept his own counsel,
but made quiet arrangements to embark all his men,
and having done so successfully, sailed straight off to
Venice and laid his charge before the Senate. The
Senate, to save their country's fair name, heavily bribed
the Marquis to hush up the matter and sail back to
Candia as though nothing had happened. The bribe
did its work and the Frenchmen returned to the island
shortly before their compatriots arrived on the scene.
The Turks meantime had taken the bastion
abandoned by the French and blown it up with gun-
powder, thus making a serious breach in the defences
and bringing the forces so close to each other that the
soldiers could actually touch one another with the ends
of their muskets and exchange food and tobacco. As
soon as M. de la Feuillade had brought his men into
A Desperate Enterprise 183
harbour — which he managed to do with very slight loss
from the Turkish batteries commanding the entrance
— Morosini assigned to them a place in the line near the
ruins of St Andre's bastion.
The new arrivals were full of eagerness for the fray
and at once began a series of raids on the Turkish
trenches carried out at night by parties of twenty or so
armed with grenades, pots-a-feu and other devices for
harrying the enemy in his earthworks. Not content
with this they presently clamoured for a general sortie.
The Venetians' ardour had had time to cool in the
long years of the siege, and at first Morosini refused to
listen to any suggestion of the sort. The most that
M. de la Feuillade managed to extort by importunate
pleading was a grudging promise to support the French
with the garrison artillery if they chose to conduct an
attack "on their own."
The French held a council of war in their camp
and it was unanimously carried that sedentary warfare
was unworthy of the traditions of the noblesse de France
and that chivalry demanded more brilliant feats of arms.
It was therefore resolved to launch a determined offen-
sive on the part of the Turkish lines opposite their
sector of the fortifications. By this time, as a result of
disease and casualties in the raids, the numbers of the
force had dwindled to barely 450. These, with another
100 men, lent at the last moment by Morosini, attacked
at daybreak on December 16th a force of 2500 Turks.
Each man in the attack carried a half-pike and a
pair of pistols, swords having proved themselves value-
less weapons against the Turkish scimitars. Armour
was not worn because of the sultry weather. The odds
in favour of the Turks were further enhanced by the
184 A Belated Crusade
fact that they possessed far better muskets than the
Christians and were admittedly better shots.
The Venetians refused to allow any gates to be
opened to let the attacking party out of the fortress,
so the latter were reduced to knocking a hole through
the wall large enough to give passage to one man at a
time. Creeping through this aperture while it was still
dark, they lined up in the " fausse-braye " immediately
under the walls and waited for dawn.
The signal for the start was given by a grenade
fired from the battlements above, and the attackers at
once rushed forward under a heavy fire from the
Turkish trenches which, in their turn, were pounded
by the Venetian guns. The French crusaders had
spent the previous night in prayer and devotion and
a religious fervour spurred them on to victory or
martyrdom. One of their priests, Pere Paul by name,
a Capucin monk, took the lead and, with a crucifix
held aloft, forged recklessly ahead across the Turkish
lines followed by his countrymen. The Turks fought
desperately as the Frenchmen forced them back and
the slaughter was terrific, the Turkish killed — according
to a prisoner captured next day — amounting to twice the
total number of their assailants. Reinforcements, how-
ever, soon began to pour in from other parts of the
line and it became clear that if the advance continued
the French force would be cut off beyond hope of
retirement. Seeing this, M. de la Feuillade hastened
ahead and, catching up Pere Paul with the greatest
difficulty, succeeded, after addressing "une petite repri-
mande " to the priest, in checking his wild career and
turned his men back towards the fortress. When they
began to retire, the Turks, never dreaming that such a
The Toll of Valour 185
handful of men could have dared to attack without
strong reserves, and suspecting a trap, held back from
pursuing them. Thus the survivors effected their re-
treat and regained the fortress by the miserable opening
through which they had issued.
When the roll was called after the battle only a few
score were found to remain of the gallant 500 who had
sailed from Toulon and the hundred or so knights who
had joined them from Malta. They decided therefore
to wait only for some of the wounded to recover before
sailing back to France. The war-worn remnant were
not put back in the line but spent the interval in the
town itself which gave them the chance of observing
conditions in Candia.
It was found that the place contained an extra-
ordinarily mixed population. The prospect of Turkey
obtaining a foothold so far west as Crete had awakened
a glimmer of the old solidarity among the European
nations, many of whom, like the French, had sent con-
tingents to help the Venetians in defending the island.
Hence the garrison of about 7000 was a most cos-
mopolitan force including, besides the Venetians and
their Greek and Slav subjects, representatives of other
Italian States, French, Germans, Swiss, Savoyards and
knights of St John of Jerusalem.
The whole of this force, and the native population
as well, " fed," as the diarist puts it, " on the bread of
St Mark " ; in other words, they drew all their pro-
visions from Venice. Rations were consequently ex-
ceedingly short and even the wounded in hospital lived
chiefly on broth made from bread-crumbs, a diet " not
very agreeable to the taste, nor calculated to restore
strength to sick men, but a good reducer of fever."
1 86 A Belated Crusade
At last in the middle of January M. de la Feuillade
re-embarked his men and, choosing a murky night,
slipped out of the harbour unharmed by the salvos of
cannon-balls with which the Turks sped his departure.
Even now their trials were not over, for being
caught in one of the furious storms which habitually
rage round Crete, they were driven southward from
their course and nearly wrecked on the Barbary coast.
No sooner was this peril past than plague broke out on
the ship and carried off many of the remaining survivors.
Touching again at Valetta, they landed their Maltese
friends and then sailed on to Toulon which they reached
by the end of February.
Here one of the party, celebrating a quarantaine
in thankfulness to God for his safe home-coming,
employed the leisure it gave him in writing up the
diary from which the foregoing pages are borrowed.
The year was not out before Candia fell. Venice
then concluded a peace with the Turks, surrendering
Crete all but Suda Bay and a couple of second-rate
fortresses ; even these were yielded to the Turks in the
course of the next few years. It is interesting to note
that Francesco Morosini, the defender of Candia, be-
came soon afterwards Doge of Venice.
CHAPTER XIV
A BUNDLE OF GLEANINGS
One of the most entertaining of English writers of
Turkish travels was a certain Dr Covel, Fellow of
Christ's College, Cambridge, and later Vice-Chancellor
of the University. In 1675, when on his way to the
East he found himself a spectator at the circumcision
festivities of a Turkish Prince. The boy, whom Covel
describes as an "ugly ill-favoured chit," was the son of
Sultan Murad III and the ceremony took place at
Adrianople where his father was then in camp.
It was a charitable Turkish custom for a rich man,
when his son was circumcised, to allow a number of
poor boys, whose parents could not afford the cost of a
decent ceremony, to share in the rite. In the case of
princes of the royal blood the fortunate urchins received
afterwards the name of " Prince's pensioners" and drew
three aspers a day for life from the privy purse. Accom-
panied by a score or so of his future "pensioners" Prince
Mustafa was led on horseback to his father's tent.
As the weather was hot he had men riding on either
side with large fans of Bustard's feathers to fan him
and shelter him from the sun ; sakkas with water-skins
ran in front sprinkling the road and a corps of tooloonjis,
as they were called, kept back the crowd with the aid
of blown-out bladders daubed in tar, from which, the
observant don remarks, "the spruce Turks fly as from
the Divel."
1 88 A Bundle of Gleanings
A procession followed in which the most remarkable
feature consisted of a number of so-called nakuls. These
peculiar objects were in somewhat the form of a may-
pole, being upright poles with wire cones on the top
covered with coloured paper ornaments and little wax
flowers and fruits. Two specially large ones, nearly
30 feet high, were supported on frameworks carried by
100 slaves each, whose movements were directed, as
though they were the crew of a ship, by a galley-
master standing on top and giving blasts on a whistle.
When the procession reached the camp the Prince was
received with kisses by his father, and the nakuls, which
served no other purpose than ornament, were planted
in front of the tent.
The ceremony was then performed by the Sultan's
chief surgeon, an Italian renegade who received as his
fee a sum equivalent to ^6000 (so, at least, he assured
Covel) which was presented to him by the Valida, the
prince's mother, in a silver basin.
On the evening of the day a public fHe was held in
front of the camp, and Covel gives an interesting account
of the various sports and side-shows, which were sur-
prisingly like those at an English fair. First he de-
scribes the dancing. The dancers, who in this case were
men, wore tights with elaborate girdles and a full petti-
coat "of some merry colour" reaching to their ankles.
A space was cleared for them into which they came
bounding on and forming up in a semicircle performed
"wriggling" dances to the accompaniment of castanets;
they finished the dance with a giddy twirl and with a
bow to the audience bounded off again.
There were pantomimes in which men dressed up
as beasts, notably a large deer, "played 1000 freakes"
Pyrotechnical Marvels 189
and there were games such as follow-my-leader in
which the actors had to copy faithfully the elaborate
gestures and grimaces of their captain. The familiar
strong man was represented by a bostanji who juggled
with balls of stone and stood with bare feet on the edges
of scimitars; his fellow, having rigged a pulley on some
scaffolding and taken a young camel on his shoulders,
pulled himself up off the ground by a rope secured to
his own hair. An elderly Arab, whom Covel describes as
''exceeding black and shrivelled, his head bald and
shining like soot and clad like a Dominican," performed
the time-honoured trick of producing such objects as
snakes and eggs from the onlookers' noses and other
parts of their anatomy.
Bear-baiting with mastiffs went on at one spot,
wrestling at another and an opera company (imported
en bloc by the Venetian ambassador to honour the
occasion) performed elsewhere.
But the great feature of all was the fireworks, for
which the Turks have always had a great affection,
though, as with many other inventions which they
adopted from their Christian neighbours, they relied on
foreigners to supply the technical skill. A Venetian
and a Dutchman were the experts on the present
occasion, and they seem to have provided a display
of which even Mr Brock might be proud. Some of
their set pieces were truly wondrous confections. There
were enormous figures of giants made of wooden
hoops covered with paper, their hollow insides filled with
crackers which spurted out of ears, nose and mouth
when the machine was fired ; movable pyramids hung
all over with little dishes of camphor which were all lit
at once; paste-board castles spouting fountains of fire;
190 A Bundle of Gleanings
a small replica of the old Venetian fort at Candia (which
had braved a Turkish siege for 20 years) with men con-
cealed inside who let off rockets through the port holes,
and — the most wonderful show of all — a mock naval
battle between model ships of war which were slung
from cross-beams and manoeuvred by their crews with
the help of running ropes while they fired broadsides of
blank cartridge at each other. A wholesale discharge
of star rockets brought the/2/te to a finish.
The subject of Turkish festivities brings us to a
description given by another writer, of the extravagant
sights to be seen at a royal wedding. On the day of
the ceremony the Princess rode through the streets of
the capital in a silver-plated coach with all the iron work
picked out in gold and an awning edged with precious
stones. She was drawn by six white horses in harness
of gold and silver with jewelled plumes stuck in their
brow-bands. There were postilions on the horses and
on each side of the coach rode eunuchs scattering
largesse to the crowd. The Sultan's presents to his
daughter were also paraded through the town. They
included a wax model of a garden with birds and beasts,
trees and flowers and clockwork fountains and other
models in sugar in the forms of peacocks, ostriches, lions,
elephants and sundry other beasts. Among the more
substantial gifts there were rolls of stuffs, jewelled
slippers, gold-framed mirrors, girdles and bracelets,
bottles of rare scent, cabinets and dress-boxes, a beautiful
sable vest with diamond and ruby buttons, and finally a
team of thirty mules loaded with little painted chests full
of bullion and a complete household staff of janissaries.
The writer mentions that one of the events in the
sports held to celebrate the wedding was the feat of a
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Cat's Meat 191
man who walked up a rope stretched from the ground
to the top of one of the minarets of Sultan Selim's
mosque, down which he afterwards slid with a boy on
his shoulders hanging by his hair from a pulley.
A Turkish trait which most of the old writers refer
to is their kindness to animals. Anyone who knew Con-
stantinople in the days before the great massacre of the
street dogs will remember how Turkish households
would adopt and feed families of these mangey brutes,
and an amusing example of this soft-heartedness of the
people of Stambul towards the brute creation is given
by a writer who visited the town rather more than two
hundred years ago.
"It is customary," he says, "among Turks to boil
and bake paunches, lights, livers and pieces of meat and
carry them in wooden buckets up and down the City
crying out 'Cats Meat.' The Turks buy the food and
give it to the Cats who sit on the walls for they imagine
that they obtain especial favour in the eyes of God by
giving alms even to irrational cattle, cats, dogs, fish,
birds and other live creatures; and therefore they con-
sider it a great sin to kill and destroy captured birds,
and prefer to ransome them with money and release
them. They throw bread to fishes and give food to cats
and dogs at definite times and places. The cats break-
fast in good time in the morning and assemble for the
second time at the hour of the evening meal in large
bodies out of the whole City.
"We went purposely to these walls, listened to their
caterwauling and with great laughter watched how they
ran out of the houses and assembled. So, too, we saw
Turkish Matrons and old women buying pieces of meat
on the spit from the kitchen boys and handing them on
1 92 A Bundle of Gleanings
a long wand to the cats, muttering meanwhile a kind of
Turkish prayer,"
Another English writer mentions that birds were
always allowed to feed as much as they liked from the
great granaries, several thousand dollars a year being
written off the accounts to balance their depredations.
The birds in Turkey being never molested, were so
tame that, he adds, " I have thrown my coat over turtle
doves in the highways, and quails would ordinarly hop
upon our legs and arms as we slept in the fields."
The natural charitableness of the Turk found
another outlet in the erection by wealthy men of hos-
pices all over the country for the benefit of wayfarers.
Lodging was gratis and any genuine traveller, be he
Turk, Jew, infidel or heretic, was allowed to rest for
three days on end in any of these khans, during which
time he had the use of a room to sleep in and a generous
ration of bread, rice and honey. Some of the larger
hostels, built for a great part by members of the im-
perial family, had accommodation for a thousand guests.
These monuments of charity were in such strange
contrast with the brutality towards the subject races of
Turkey that Blunt compares them to "daintie fruits
growing on a Dunghill." As outward signs of sub-
servience to their conquerors, Ottoman Christians had
to paint their houses black, wear nothing but black
clothes and when riding, dismount whenever they met
a Moslem. Christian travellers from foreign countries,
on the other hand, were seldom molested if they walked
circumspectly and studiously avoided offending against
native susceptibilities in manners or dress.
An English traveller remarks that" if ever I appeared
clothed in the least part like an Englishman, I was
A Lesson in Modesty 193
tufted like an Owle among birds. This I at first im-
puted to Barbarism but on lamenting thereof to a Turk
of the better sort, he told me his nation would stand no
novelties and therefore disgraced all new examples; so
that I perceived it to be rather a piece of Institution
than any incivilitie." As a practical instance he tells
the following story.
"I clad in Turkish manner was riding with two
Turks an hour ahead of the caravan. We found four
Spahi Timariots by a river where we stayed; they were
at dinner and seeing by my head I was a Christian they
called to me. I not understanding what they would,
stood still till they menacing their weapons, rose and
came to me with looks very ugly. I smilingly met them
and taking him who seemed of most port by the hand
layed it to my forehead, which with them is the greatest
sign of love and honour. Then, often calling him Sul-
tanum, spoke English which, though none of the kindest,
gave I it such a sound as to them who understood no
further might seem affectionate, humble and hearty.
This so appeased them as they made me sit and eat
and we parted lovingly ; presently after, they met the
Caravan where was a Ragusan merchant of quality.
He being clothed in the Italian fashion and spruce, they
justled him and he not yet considering how the place
had changed his condition, stood upon his terms till
they with their axes and iron maces broke two of his
ribs, in which case we left him behind half-dead either
to get back as he could or be devoured of beasts."
A danger from which foreigners in Turkey were
never quite free was that of being seized by a chance
Turk, usually a Janissary, and sold as a slave to the
first slave buyer. Indeed the author of the last quota-
h. 13
194 si Bundle of Gleanings
tions mentions that on one occasion he was attacked
by a sort of press-gang who tried to hustle him into a
house, presumably for this purpose, and was only saved
by using his knife.
In spite of the barriers which the Turks set up
against their Christian fellows, they were, on the whole,
not a fanatical nation. To show how tolerant even a
religious functionary could be on occasion, I will repeat
a story told by an amusing French artist named Grelot
who visited Constantinople in the latter half of the
17th century to make drawings of its principal buildings
and other features, which he published with a dedica-
tion to Louis XIV in 1680.
In order to sketch the interior of Santa Sofia, Grelot
had to arrange for admission to the galleries under the
great dome. He first approached a Greek jeweller of
his acquaintance who kept a shop in the mosque
precincts and was introduced by him to one of the
kandil-agassis, or lamp-trimmers. With the help of a
cheap watch, bought for the occasion from his friend the
jeweller, Grelot overcame any scruples of the lamp-
trimmer about allowing a Christian into the mosque for
so doubtful a purpose as sketching, and the next day,
dressed a la turque and wearing a long false beard, he
was smuggled in. Each day he entered before sunrise,
spent the day hidden in a dark corner of the gallery and
emerged again after sunset and continued to do so until
he completed an elaborate set of sketches, suffering no
greater inconvenience than that of having to meet
frequent demands for further bakhshish from his accom-
plice the lamp-trimmer. But on the very last day he was
seized with a mischievous desire to play a trick on the
Mohammedans by committing a shocking act of sacrilege
•3
.«
° *
CO ^
The Story of the Dervish and the Lamps 1 95
unknown to the worshippers in the mosque. So he
bought a bologna sausage and a bottle of wine and,
having smuggled them into his usual nook in the gallery,
sat down, after finishing his drawing, to a hearty meal.
To his unutterable horror just as he had cut up his
sausage and was raising the bottle to his lips an elderly
Turk appeared round a corner of the gallery. He hastily
stuffed his papers in his pockets, bundled sausage and
bottle under his skirts and fell into the posture of a
moslem at prayer. The Turk came up and told him
that the door of the gallery was about to be shut and
he must descend at once. The wretched Frenchman,
unable to move without discovering the damning relics
of his meal, had already resigned himself to a horrible
death when the Turk burst into a roar of laughter
and told him that he had witnessed his performance
from the start, strongly advising him to avoid such
foolishness in the future. He then revealed himself as
a mosque official who was party to the plot for admitting
Grelot to the building and a sharer, of course, in the
bribes extorted by the kandil-agassi.
It is Grelot again who tells the story of a dervish
who sought and obtained from the imam of a mosque
in the outskirts of the city permission to spend his nights
praying in the sanctuary. The dervish belonged to a
poor and ascetic order and was very lean and emaciated.
His nightly vigils appeared to do him good, for he soon
grew better favoured and by the end of a month showed
positive signs of plumpness. Meantime the imam had
more than once been surprised and annoyed by the
sudden extinction of some of the lamps which, as is
usual in Turkish mosques, hung in large numbers on
chains from the roof. At a late hour one night he
13—2
196 A Bundle of Gleanings
happened to enter the mosque to see to their filling, and
there was the dervish sitting on the ground with three
or four lamps around him — safe as he thought from
censorious eyes — and enjoying an excellent repast of
hunks of bread soaked in olive oil !
The story can the more easily be credited as many of
the Turkish dervishes were, like their cousins the friars,
most accomplished hypocrites. Nicholas de Nicolay,
gdographe ordinaire to Charles IX of France, who
travelled for many years through Turkey collecting
data of every description for his royal master, has left
a description of the various dervish orders flourishing
in his day.
One, which he calls "Geomailers" (an unrecogniz-
able title) consisted, he writes, of gay young men whose
sole ambition in taking their vows was to see the world
in jolly company and at other peoples' expense. They
journey about, he says, singing amatory songs to the
accompaniment of cymbals and making love to all the
ladies they meet. Their only garment is a short tunic
of purple, bound with a silken sash ending in a tassel
of bells ; they have bells again round their legs fastened
below the knee like garters, and they sometimes wear
a lion skin over their shoulders with the forelegs knotted
in front. They take pride in their hair, which they wear
excessively long, even twining in portions of goat's hair
(the long-haired Angora variety, of course) to increase
its natural length.
To the Calenders he gives a better character as
sincere and devout ascetics ; but a third order, whom he
calls simply "dervis," he describes in anything but
flattering terms. They spend the winter, he says, in
their tekyts but during the summer they range the
$<► Gcomailer Reli^iettx Turc.
H
A "GEOMAILER"
From Nicolay's Peregrinations faictes en la Turquie, 1577
Mohammed 's Fowls 197
country committing "mechancetes et volleries" under
the aegis of sanctity. They will rob any one they meet
and with the hatchet which they carry in their belts they
are ready to crack in the skull of a lonely traveller on
the smallest possible excuse.
As for their appearance, he adds that they shave
the whole head, brand their foreheads with irons, wear
jasper earrings and dress in a pair of sheepskins worn
one down the back and the other on the chest and tied
together down the sides. Often members of this order
would catch wild creatures, such as wolves, bears,
eagles and stags, and lead them about with bells round
their necks as evidence that they had renounced the
world and adopted the life of the beasts of the
field.
To turn to another subject, the art of witchcraft has at
all times been abominated by the Turks. A propos of this
an old French traveller relates that on landing once at
Gallipoli he found quite a colony of sorceresses, mostly
Jewish, who compounded love-potions, sold charms
and worked magic. They were careful however to
practise their trade in secret, for the cAorda/'z was always
on the watch and anyone apprehended in witchcraft
was at once put in a sack and thrown into the straits.
Superstition, on the other hand, was by no means
foreign to the Turk and there is a rather curious case
referred to in more than one of the old travel books.
Briefly told the facts are as follows. At a place called
Kerch in Asia Minor there existed a well of magical
healing powers. Round the well lived a peculiar species
of birds of a largish size and red and black plumage which
were called "Mohammed's fowls." These birds made
their principal diet off locusts and attacked them so
198 A Bundle of Gleanings
vigorously whenever they appeared that a plague of the
insects would be entirely devoured in a few hours. This
trait in the birds was of course invaluable in a part of the
world where locusts abound. But the birds — and here
comes the superstition — had another peculiarity of their
own which seriously diminished their usefulness; they
could only live in the vicinity of water from the miracu-
lous well. A single drop of the water was sufficient, but
in its absence they slowly languished and died. It is
related that the locust plague was especially bad in
Cyprus and for years the Cypriots regularly lost the
greater part of their crops. At last they chanced to hear
of Mohammed's fowls and sent a mission to the remote
Anatolian village. They were allowed to take a pitcher
of the water and returned with it, followed by several
of the birds. The pitcher was carefully lodged on the
top of a tower in the middle of the island and for
some generations the birds and the crops flourished.
Then one year the former suddenly vanished. The
anxious Cypriots went to their tower and examined the
pitcher; it had sprung a leak and was dry.
The practice of medicine, like most of the sciences,
was limited almost entirely to Greeks and other
Christians. The Turks indeed have always credited
Christians with peculiar powers of healing derived,
they believe, by transmission from Christ Himself,
whom Mohammedans recognize, as the reader probably
knows as one of the greatest of the "prophets." The
consequence is that a person who is both a Christian
and a recognized doctor commands very great confi-
dence and a large clientele.
As an instance we have the story — told by
M. Tournefort, another geographer royal — of an Irish
A Pasha in a Powdering Tub 199
surgeon who, after serving in the wars in France, went
out to Turkey attached to the French Ambassador to
the Porte. Their ship touched at Crete some years after
the conquest of the island by Turkey, and it happened
that a new Viceroy had just arrived, one Ali Pasha an
ex-Grand Vizer, suffering from a grievous distemper.
On greeting the Ambassador the first thing he asked
him was to lend him the services of his surgeon, so our
Irish friend went ashore to do what he could to relieve
him. He examined his patient and, diagnosing his
trouble, popped him into a "powdering-tub."
I am entirely ignorant of the properties of this
antique apparatus but the treatment seems to have
been drastic, for when at the height of his "salivation"
the Pasha concluded he was dying and summoned his
Council to decide on a punishment for the surgeon.
The Council wisely advised that having made a begin-
ning of the cure he should carry it through to the end
and suspend sentence on the surgeon in the meantime.
This he grudgingly consented to do and presently, the
inflammation subsiding, he emerged from the treat-
ment cured. The Irishman was suitably rewarded with
a dress of honour and other presents, but he had little
peace during the rest of his stay in Candia for every
sick agha in the island flocked to his powdering tub and
he was, as M. Tournefort puts it, " tired out of his life
anointing Musulmans."
CHAPTER XV
A PRISONER IN THE GALLEYS AND
THE BLACK TOWER
(i)
Of all the grim fates which could befall a Christian
gentleman in the sixteenth century none assuredly could
exceed for sheer horror captivity in the hands of
the Turks. Nor was it the remote danger which it
might easily seem. The Turkish fleet, one must re-
member, was manned to a very great extent by Chris-
tian prisoners, some — and many Englishmen among
them — captured from merchant vessels in the Mediter-
ranean, others ordinary prisoners of war. Their total
number at any given moment would have amounted to
several thousands ; and the possibility of capture by the
Turks entered sufficiently into the calculations of the
men of that day to lead Luther to publish a little manual
of advice for Protestant soldiers who might fall into
Turkish hands.
We have already read Busbequius's account of the
melancholy scene when the remnants of a whole Chris-
tian fleet were towed into the Golden Horn and the men
taken off into thraldom, and there is hardly a writer of
those days who does not refer to the miserable plight
of his fellow countrymen languishing in the galleys or
in the terrible "Black Tower" which stood at the Eastern
mouth of the Bosphorus. Many are their stories of
ransomings or escapes. Sandys tells the history of
An Exciting Escape 201
Hadrian Cant, a Dutchman who escaped from the
Tower and was smuggled by the English ambassador
home to Holland while the Agha of the Tower, taking
warning of the fate of his predecessor who in similar
circumstances was "gauched," arranged a mock funeral
and lowered a coffin full of stones and clay to the bot-
tom of the Bosphorus.
Grelot, the artist, recounts again how a certain M.
de Beaujeu, a knight of Malta, after 16 years of intern-
ment in the Seven Towers (the prison for persons of
rank), broke out by night and took to the sea chased by
dogs, was hit on the head by the oar of a passing caique
and nearly drowned but managed to flounder on board
the vessel of M. d'Aplemont, the French ambassador
who was just then sailing for home; how the gaoler
having on this occasion duly reported the escape, the
ship was stopped at the Dardanelles by the Sultan's
orders and a demand made for the surrender of the
prisoner and how M. d'Aplemont returned a spirited
reply that the first man who came on board to fetch his
guest would swing from the yardarm, and finally, with
his guns trained on the forts, bluffed his way through,
the crew — as it happened to be Christmas Day — singing
a mass on deck as they sailed down the straits.
Hakluyt too has preserved the account of "the
woorthy enterprise of John Foxe in delivering 266
Christians out of captivitie of the Turkes," that stirring
feat of an English ship's gunner who rescued himself and
his friends from a living death after fourteen years in the
galleys, of which fragments have already been quoted.
But the best and fullest history of a Christian's
experiences as a prisoner in Turkey is one which was
written in 1 599 by a young Bohemian noble and trans-
202 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
lated into English in the middle of the last century by
his lineal descendant the Rev. A. H. Wratislaw, Head-
master of Bury St Edmunds Grammar School.
Baron Wencelaus Wratislaw (for such was the young
man's name) was, to use his own words, "entrusted by
my relatives to the care of Frederic Kregwitz, who was
sent to Constantinople with rich presents, in the year
1591, by his Majesty the Roman Emperor Rudolph II,
as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Turkish Emperor,
Sultan Amurath III The object of my relatives was,
that I should gain experience and see eastern countries."
After passing by Augsburg to buy jewellery as pre-
sents for the Turks, Herr von Kregwitz and his suite
embarked in boats on the Danube, carrying their coaches
with them, and rowed down to the frontier near Raab.
Here they were met by a Turkish flotilla and towed on
past Buda-Pesth (then a Turkish town) to Belgrade,
whence they drove overland to Constantinople.
At Constantinople the embassy lived comfortably
for some weeks, during which Baron Wratislaw made
the most of his time by exploring the capital and getting
into various scrapes. The Hungarian tribute, however,
had just then fallen into arrear and Murad (to use the
modern and more correct rendering of the Sultan's name)
began to show himself very disagreeable.
The Grand Vizir was an ambitious old man named
Sinan Pasha, who had started life as an Albanian swine-
herd, had been taken for an ajami oghlan and became a
palace cook, from which post, having captured the
Sultan's fancy, he had risen successively to be page,
captain of janissaries, beylerbey, pasha and now ulti-
mately Grand Vizir. It came presently to the ambassa-
dor's ears that Sinan, trading on the Sultan's cupidity, was
A Base Betrayal 203
working up for a war on Hungary and that secret pre-
parations for a campaign were already in progress. Deter-
mined at all costs to give the Emperor warning, von
Kregwitz at once began to employ secret agents to
obtain information of the Turkish plans, and was so suc-
cessful that after a time he actually had several of the
vizirs and the Sultan-valida herself in his pay. The in-
telligence he thus obtained was kept in a secret place
in the embassy vaults.
The Grand Vizir, growing suspicious, seized on the
excuse of a fracas on the Hungarian frontier, in which
some Turks had lost their lives, to intern the ambassador
and his suite in their house, cutting them off from all
communication with the outside world by placing a
guard around and only allowing the inmates out to
purchase food under a close escort. It happened just
then that the embassy steward, one Ladislaw Morthen by
name, got into trouble with the ambassador, who locked
him up in his own room as a punishment. Morthen,
indignant at this treatment, took the opportunity of the
main door being opened to admit one of the janissaries,
to break open his door and rush into the street shouting
out that he was a convert to Islam. He was taken to
Sinan, to whom he betrayed all that his master had been
doing and told of the hidden papers.
The following day the Turks searched the embassy
and found the incriminating documents. Von Kregwitz
was taken away and apparently never heard of again.
The fate of the others forms our present story, which
from this point onwards shall be told in Wratislaw's
own words, his narrative, which is somewhat diffuse in
parts, being condensed within the necessary limits.
'After about two hours we saw people running from
204 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
all quarters by thousands to our house, placing them-
selves in rows, and creeping on the roofs, and at last
so many collected that we could not see to the end of them.
Not knowing what this indicated and what kind of spec-
tacle was about to be exhibited, we imagined at first that
some part of our house was on fire; till, after a short time,
we saw the guard which was usually employed at exe-
cutions making straight for our hotel. Behind this guard
rode the sub-pasha, the judges, the head-executioners,
heralds, and under-executioners, bearing fetters in their
hands. The eyes of all the people were then directed
upon us. When they arrived at the house, the sub-pasha
and the other Turks dismounted : the janissaries opened
our house with a noise and shout and led and dragged
all of us, wherever they could seize us, down the gal-
leries and out of the house. They then opened the door,
and counted us out, one after the other, for they had a list
of us all. Then an executioner took each by his iron
ring, the sub-pasha mounted his horse, the guards began
to close round us, and make a way through the people.
As I could not stand upon my feet, they brought me a
Turk, whom they call a hamola, or porter, who carries
all manner of things from the sea about the city for hire,
on whose pannier, which was stuffed with rushes, they
perched me like a landrail, and I sat upon it like a dog
on a bank. [Wratislaw was suffering from dysentery at
the time.]
They led us, for greater disgrace and ridicule, through
the most populous squares and streets, and it was very
hot weather, so that we could have died for excessive
thirst. Some pitied us, others gnashed their teeth at us,
and said the best place we could go to was the gallows.
When they had led us up and down the city to their
Beneath the Gallows 205
satisfaction, they conducted us straight to the sand-gate,
where the fish-market is held. On both sides of us, in
front and behind, walked a countless multitude of people,
for never before had so many persons been seen led to
execution at once. Looking round I saw John von
Winorz, the priest, and asked him where we were. He
answered that we were not far from the gallows, and,
therefore, had better resign ourselves to the Will of God,
and commit our souls to Him. Meanwhile, we kept
advancing further, the janissaries making a road for us
by the use of their sticks. When I saw the hooks on
the gallows, and two executioners upon it holding the
pullies, I immediately lost my self-command, swooned,
and became entirely unconscious. Nor did we expect
aught else than that they would hang us all up, since
that was exactly the course of proceeding which they
observed with others at their execution.
My comrades related to me afterwards (for, as afore-
said, I had lost the power of thought and recollection,
as well as sensation) that, when they brought us under
the gallows, two more executioners climbed up, and
meanwhile a judge addressed us to the following effect,
telling us that we saw a terrible death before our eyes,
and, therefore, for the great compassion which he felt
for us, promised, by the head of the Sultan, his lord,
that our lives should be granted us if we would but turn
Mahometans. But, by the grace of God, none of us did
this, but we were all ready to lose our lives in preference ;
although, on the other hand, we were so overwhelmed
by fear of death that none of us knew whether he was
alive or dead.
After remaining still for about a quarter of an hour,
the sub-pasha gave orders to conduct us to the sea,
206 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
which was close at hand. The vulgar, therefore, as they
had not hung us on the hooks, had no other expectation
but that they would drown us in the sea. Every living
soul, therefore, ran down to the sea, and took their seats
in boats and barges, for greater convenience in looking
on. When they had brought us to the shore, they thrust
us almost head-over-heels into a boat, in which camels
and mules, with all manner of mercantile burdens are
ferried over from Europe to Asia, cursing at us, mean-
while, vehemently, and pushing us in such a manner
that the poor wretches pulled each other down by their
chains. Coming to myself again, I thanked my God
that it had pleased Him to release me from that terrible
death. Having thrust off from the shore, the chief judge
and his attendants sailed with us in the boat, and we had
no other idea but that they would drown us, or take us
to that frightful black tower, on the Black Sea, for they
turned with us in that direction. Then they stopped
and asked us again whether we were willing to become
Turks, saying that it was now our last hour, as they
were about to drown us all by Synan Pasha's orders ;
that we should, therefore, have compassion on our youth,
and that they were willing to make imperial gentlemen-
in-waiting, spahis, and janissaries of us, and give us fine
clothes and horses. But we constantly prayed to God,
and, committing ourselves to Him, persevered in saying
that whatever pleased His gracious Goodness should
be our fate, acknowledging that we had deserved all this
misery by our sins. We had spectators round us in
thousands, who wished to gaze upon our watery funerals,
for the upper and under executioners were also with the
judge in our boat.
As soon as they saw our steadfastness, and that not
In a Turkish Prison 207
one of us would become a Turk, they threatened us,
and angrily impressed upon us that they would put us
into such a prison that, when there, we should wish to
be dead rather than alive. After bullying us till they
were satisfied, they brought us round at last to the im-
perial arsenal, or magazine, where there are many hun-
dreds of various boats, and where stores of galleys, and
other military requisites are kept in vaults. Having
brought us to this place, the judges presented letters or
orders from Ferhat Pasha to the Quardian Pasha, in-
structing him how we were to be dealt with. After this
the executioners took the chains and rings off our necks,
and two or three of them ran up, and tripped up the feet
of each, so that he fell on the ground. Here we poor
wretches expected that they would beat us with a stick,
but, thank God, that did not take place ; but gipsy smiths
came, and putting an iron ring round the feet of one
who lay on the ground, passed a chain through it,
clinched it on an anvil, and then fastened a second,
whom he selected, by the foot to the same chain. Seeing
that this was all they did, each of us had himself coupled
to the companion whom he liked best. As soon as two
were coupled together, they were obliged to go imme-
diately into the common prison. Not knowing to whom
else to have myself fettered, I looked at our chaplain, my
countryman, and asked him to have me fettered to him.
In this prison there are three buildings. In the
principal building there are captives of various nations,
artizans who construct galleys, and divers other things;
for instance, carpenters, joiners, smiths, ropemakers,
sailclothmakers, locksmiths, and coopers, who are con-
ducted every day into this or that workshop. These are
the best off of all, for they have it in their power to filch
208 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
things, sell them secretly, and buy something to eat :
nay, when they work industriously, porridge is given
them on Friday, (the Turkish Sunday), and, above all,
they have hopes of release before the rest. Such prison-
ers as are priests, scribes, scholars, citizens, or gentle-
men, are in the greatest misery, because they have not
learnt any handicraft, and no value is set upon them.
The second prison is for common prisoners who
know no handicraft. Of these there were then about
700 persons, of all the various nations that there are
beneath the sky. These are taken in the beginning of
spring, on board the galleys as rowers. When they
return from the voyage they must hew stone and
marble, construct earthworks, carry materials for building,
and in a word, like day-labourers, if there is any con-
temptible work to be done anywhere, they must perform
it. They receive from one year's end to another nothing
more for food than two loaves of bread per diem, and
water to drink. The Turks strike and beat them like
cattle for the least misconduct. Nay, not even at night
do they enjoy repose, but must go to work if anybody
wants them.
The third building is a hospital, in which the sick
prisoners lie, and where the old men who are past work
through age loiter about. These, besides bread, receive
soup and porridge. This building is called Paul's prison.
As long as they are there they are made comfortable ;
when they get well, they must work to make up what
has been neglected ; if they die, they are given to the
prisoners to be buried, or thrown into the sea.
There were then but few prisoners in the gaol, for
they had gone as rowers on board the war-boats, but
they were from time to time expected. They at length
A Prison Mass 209
returned from rowing on board the vessels of war, and
came into the gaol amongst us. Learning that we had
a priest amongst us, they treated him very reverentially,
and went all before the superintendent of the guard, and
humbly besought him to allow them on certain days,
which were hallowed among Christians, to perform
Divine Service before daylight and before they went
to their work. They offered to give him a present for
this permission, which was, accordingly, granted them.
Many years ago there had been an altar in the com-
mon prison, consecrated by a regular bishop, and fenced
round with rails; and the prisoners possessed, also, a
silver cup and the other requisites for the celebration
of holy mass. On every great and apostolical festival our
chaplain, who was temporarily released from his chains,
celebrated holy mass, while I, with the chain, acted as
acolyte, sang the epistle, and gave the prisoners the
crucifix to kiss. They contributed alms according to
their poverty, so that we always had a kreutzer or so
by us for food, and were easily able to support ourselves.
After mass the Turkish gipsies fettered the chaplain to
me again by the chain.
Once, on a festival after holy mass, a master-
carpenter, a Christian prisoner, invited the chaplain and
me to partake of a fine tabby tom-cat, which he had fed
up for a long time and named Marko. It was a fine and
well-fatted cat, and I saw, with my own eyes, when the
carpenter cut his throat. As my partner, Mr Chaplain,
would not go, and fettered together as we were I could
not go without him, he sent us, as a present, a fore-
shoulder of the cat, which I ate. It was nice meat, and
I enjoyed it very much, for hunger is a capital cook, so
that nothing makes one disgusted; and if I had only
h. 14
210 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
had plenty of such tom-cats, they would have done me
no harm.
At this time news arrived that our friends had ob-
tained a glorious victory over the Turks in Hungary,
and cut to pieces many thousands of them. On hearing
this we were again in great terror, for the Turks looked
sour at us, gnashed their teeth, and threatened to have
us hung on the hooks. Then came the imperial kihaja,
had us all called out, and said that they would cut off
our noses and ears, because our friends, brothers, and
cousins had slain so many Mussulmans.
The pasha of the guard then came to our prison,
bringing with him two barbers, or hair-cutters, had us
all summoned out, and ordered us all to sit down on
the ground. We all wept, and entertained no other
idea but that it would be done as we had been told,
and, therefore, no one was willing to be the first to sit
down, until the scourge compelled us so to do. Any-
body can imagine how we, at this time, felt about the
region of the heart. We were all as pale as a sheet, and
the barbers, stepping up and seeing us so frightened,
laughed heartily, and all our stomachs began to ache.
When we had seated ourselves on the ground, instead
of cutting off our noses and ears, they shaved our heads
and beards with a razor, for some of us had their hair
and beard grown to a considerable length, and, after
laughing at us to their heart's content, bade us go back to
prison. When our terror passed away, and we looked at
and saw each other all clipped round and beardless, like
so many calves' heads, we could not help laughing, be-
cause we could scarcely recognise one another. Neither
did we bear them any malice for the state of baldness
to which they had reduced us, and they were satisfied
Galley-Slaves 2 1 1
with having frightened us abundantly about nothing.
Afterwards more trustworthy Turks informed us that the
grand vizier had really ordered our noses and ears to be
cut off, and ourselves to be sent, thus shamefully handled,
to Christendom; but the mufti, their chief bishop, on
learning it, had opposed it, and would not allow that
maltreatment to be inflicted upon us, as we had not
waged war against them, but had only been attached
to an embassy, and were in no wise in fault ; at any
rate, he said, it would have been a sin to maltreat us
thus. The grand vizier, not being able to revenge him-
self upon us in any other way, had our heads and
beards shaved with a razor, and the next day all of us
chained to the oars amongst the other prisoners on
board the galleys.
We were conducted on board the galley, or large
war-boat, under the care of a vigilant guard, and
Achmet, the reis, or captain, who commanded on board
the vessel, a Christian born in Italy, but who had now
become a Turk, immediately received us and ordered us
all to be chained to oars. The vessel was tolerably large,
and in it five prisoners sat on a bench, pulling together
at a single oar. It is incredible how great the misery
of rowing in the galleys is ; no work in the world can
be harder : for they chain each prisoner by one foot
under his seat, leaving him so far free to move that he
can get on the bench and pull the oar. When they are
rowing, it is impossible, on account of the great heat,
to pull otherwise than naked, without any upper clothing,
and with nothing on the whole body but a pair of linen
trousers. When such a boat sails through the Dar-
danelles, out of the narrow into the broard sea, iron
bracelets, or rings, are immediately passed over the
14 — 2
2 1 2 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
hands of each captive, that they may not be able to
resist and defend themselves against the Turks. And
thus fettered hand and foot the captive must row day
and night, unless there is a gale, till the skin on the
body is scorched like that of a singed hog, and cracks
from the heat. The sweat flows into the eyes and
steeps the whole body, whence arises excessive agony,
especially to silken hands unaccustomed to work, on
which blisters are formed from the oars and yet give
way with the oar one must; for when the superintendent
of the boat sees any one taking breath, and resting, he
immediately beats him, naked as he is, either with the
usual galley-slave scourge, or with a wet rope dipped
in the sea, till he makes abundance of bloody weals
over his whole body.
Frequently some jackanapes of a rascally Turkish
boy amuses himself with beating the captives from
bench to bench one after the other, and laughing at
them. All this you must not only bear patiently
from the snivelling rascal, and hold your tongue, but,
if you can bring yourself to it, you must kiss his hand,
or foot, and beg the dirty boy not to be angry with you.
For food nothing is given but two small cakes of
biscuit, but when they sail to some island where
Christians live, you can sometimes beg, or, if you have
money, buy yourself a little wine, and sometimes a little
porridge, or soup. So too, when we rested one, two,
three, or more days by the shore, we knitted gloves
and stockings of cotton, sold them, and sometimes
bought ourselves additional food, which we cooked our-
selves in the vessel. Each of us had two blue shirts and
a reddish blouse — there were no other upper clothes,
but we only dressed ourselves in them at night. In-
Queer Delicacies 2 1 3
deed, we had a most miserable, sorrowful life, and worse
than death, in that vessel.
Sometimes a draught of wine, which grows on the
island Alia Marmora, where they hew marble, and is
very good, cheered and strengthened us amidst this
torture. We likewise enjoyed the good Wallachian
cheese.
Six of us who were in partnership, having sold the
gloves and stockings which we had made, bought a
tolerably large piece of this cheese mixed with hair,
which certainly came to us very acceptably, and tasted
to us then better than macaroons ; for we made soup
of it, crumbled our mouldy biscuit into it, and eat it
with remarkable appetite, paying no attention to and
feeling no disgust at the circumstance that there were
hairs in it. Ah ! how many times, and indeed times out
of number, did I remember, how in Bohemia they made
soup of fine and good cheese even for useless greedy
dogs, crumble fine bread into it, and give it them to
eat ; whereas, I, poor wretch, must thankfully receive
such miserable hairy cheese and mouldy biscuit, and
suffer hunger! Often did I wish, that, in point of food,
I might be a companion to those dogs!
Once too a Turk brought us a bag of boiled sheep's
heads for sale and we bought the heads from him and
thanked him besides.
When we had already been half-a-year at the galleys,
the Turks became fearful lest some of us should escape,
and conducted us all back again from the galleys to our
first prison, where they left us about a week.
Intelligence was again brought that our men had
gained a glorious victory over the Turks in Hungary,
whence great sorrow and lamentation arose on all sides ;
214 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
and the clerk of the prisoners, Alfonso di Strada, a
Spaniard, who had gained his liberty by work and
service, came to us early in the morning, and sorrow-
fully informed us that the Turks were violently enraged
with us, and in short, were on the point of putting us
in the Black Tower.
After dinner the pasha's kihaja ordered us to be all
called out, and made known to us the will of his pasha,
and also bade us take our things and follow him, saying
that we were to sail to the Black Tower. As soon as
we heard the Black Tower mentioned, and received
the unhappy news that we were to be placed in so
gloomy a prison, we all with one voice began to weep
and lament, till our hearts were breaking. All the other
prisoners pitied us too, and wept with us ; moreover,
we would rather have undergone death than go to so
unendurable a prison. Having, therefore, tied up our
things in wallets, and each taking his own property on
his shoulders, we mournfully bade adieu to the prisoners,
but were unable to speak for excessive weeping. All
who were in the prison accompanied us with tears and
lamentations to the gate. One prisoner gave us half a
loaf of bread as a parting gift, another some sewing
needles, another a piece of cotton, and each what he
had. When we came to the gate, and thus sorrowfully
weeping, thanked the Quardian Pasha of the place for
having been kind to us, he too wept over us with
compassion.
Thus we got into the boat, not with tears, but with
great moaning. When we drew near the fortress where
the Black Tower is, the Turks pointed it out to us,
comforting us and bidding us have hope in God, saying
that He was mighty and could release us from it, as
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' 'Abandon Hope. . . " 215
indeed half-a-year before the prisoners had got out of
it ; but we could neither speak nor look for weeping
and anguish, and it is wonderful where so many tears
stow themselves away in the eyes.
As soon as we ran ashore under the fortress itself
a ladder was let down to us, up which, each carrying
his wallet on his shoulders, we walked into the fortress
after our reis, or captain. On approaching the great
iron gates, which were opened to us, we saw a square
with a gallery round it reaching to the tower itself,
which was entered by an iron door. The captain of
our boat handed to Mehemet, the aga, or governor, of
the Black Tower, a letter from the chief pasha, on
perusing which the aga said with a loud voice: — '* What
am I to do with these poor prisoners ? They have not
deserved so severe a prison. Is there no less severe
prison to be found for them ? It is not just to punish
guiltless people thus." And looking at us, for we were
all weeping from the bottom of our hearts, and had
our eyes bloodshot from weeping, he said : — "Allah
Buickter, kurtulur Siue ! " i.e. " Fear not, God is a
mighty liberator 1 ." He then ordered that terrible door
to be opened, and bade us go into the tower.
The tower is very lofty, but not very wide, so that
two-and-twenty of us and the first four, that is, six-and-
twenty persons, could scarcely lie down alongside of
each other ; and, indeed, could not help touching each
other. Inside the tower is a thick oaken lattice, like a
cage in which lions are kept, so conveniently con-
structed that the guards can walk inside round the
lattice within which the prisoners sit, and see what they
1 The agkds words were probably "Allah buyuk dir qurtarir sizi,"
i.e. " God is great. He will deliver you."
216 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
are doing. In the middle of this cage burns, day and
night, a glass lamp, and round are stumps, or blocks,
on which we supported our feet. We were, indeed, to
have had our feet fastened in these blocks, but, as it
pleased God to grant us to find favour in the eyes of
the governor, he did not put us into the blocks, except
when Turks whom he did not know were to come to
the tower, when he sent guards in first with orders
to put both our feet into the blocks and fasten us in.
On the departure of the Turks he used to order us to
be let out again.
This governor had been a Christian child, born
in Croatia, and was then more than ninety years old ;
zealous in his religion, and compassionate towards us,
but careful in his duties. He looked to the guards
himself, came frequently into the tower, and had the
fetters examined every day. Every week the guards
examined all our clothes over the whole body, to see
whether they could find a knife or file on any one, and,
taking warning from the aga who had been hung, he
did not allow his diligence to relax in the least.
When the third day came, and neither bread nor
other food was given us, we sent for our aga, and asked
what they wanted to do with us. And it being already
the third day since we had had anything in our throats,
if they wanted to kill us with hunger,, we bade them
throw us into the sea and drown us, that we might, at
any rate, be quit of our misery. When we wept before
him, he had such compassion on us that tears fell from
his eyes, and he said to us : — "As God lives, and his
great prophet Mahomet, I do not wish you so grievous
and gloomy a prison ; and I cannot wonder sufficiently
why they imprison you, and give no orders what is to
Life in the Tower 217
be done with you further. I do not think that they are
going to kill you with hunger, for surely they would
not have put you among the other prisoners ; but you
would have been put into a vault, where they kill the
other Turks with hunger. Therefore, I will go im-
mediately to Constantinople, and ascertain, and inform
you directly, what is to happen with you further." All
of us then kissed his hand, his clothes, and his feet,
recommended ourselves to his care with tears, and
waited in great terror for his arrival.
Returning before evening from Constantinople, he
comforted us by telling us that they were not going to
kill us, and declared that he had obtained orders to the
effect that three aspers, or kreutzers, a-day should be
given to us to live upon by the pasha, adding also as
follows : — " Since ye still have to wait long for the
payment, for the wages of court officials and soldiers
are paid quarterly, and your pensions will be paid then,
I must, therefore, provide you with means of support
in the interval." And these he provided as follows.
Knowing we could not wait for the money, like a good
man, he made himself our surety to the bakers in the
town by the Black Tower, arranging that they should
give each of us two loaves of bread daily, and he would
pay them the money every quarter. He also kept his
promise, for at the conclusion of the quarter he paid
the bakers, and kept for himself the third kreutzer per
diem for his trouble, though certainly he said that they
refused to give us more than two aspers, a sum which
we were obliged to receive thankfully. And since the
salt sea-water could not be drunk, they brought good
water from a spring on a hill some hours from the town,
and gave us two pitchers of it daily, so that, hot as it
218 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
was in our prison, we could scarcely quench our thirst,
and often quarrelled together for the water, when one
drank more of it than another. Therefore, that there
might be equality amongst us, we took up the stocking
trade, and made partnerships of five or six persons in
each — one spinning the cotton, another winding it
together, a third knitting, and so forth. When we had
earned some money by selling what we had knit (for
sometimes they sent us for it meal, oil, bread, vinegar,
and even some aspers), we all clubbed together and
bought as many mugs as there were persons, and also a
large wooden tub, in which we set our mugs, and when
the water was brought we filled them one after the other,
till we had all had our turn ; but when there was any
water remaining in the tub each took it for a day in turn,
and kept it for himself in a large pitcher.
We bought ourselves, moreover, a large pot, and
plastered it with clay, which our guards brought us,
and made a kind of oven of it. We also bought coals
and a bag with the proceeds of our knitting, and being
already in partnership by fives and sixes, and having
saved several pitchers of water, each had to boil and
act in turn as cook for a week ; that is to say, taking a
small loaf and two or three pieces of bread he crumbled
them into the water, got up the fire, boiled the porridge,
and gave it to his fellow-craftsmen to eat. The porridge
was extremely nice, especially when at times we pro-
cured some olive oil, made it rich for ourselves, and
licked our fingers afterwards.
When we had got used to the frightful darkness,
and had formed this arrangement together, we obtained
some Latin and German books, that is to say, the
Bible, poems, and legends ; and whenever our guards
A Cruel Joke 219
were changed we concluded that it was day, and all
sang a morning hymn, and read a legend, praying to
the Lord God for our release, and for the victory of
the Christians over the Turks ; after which each turned
to his work and worked all day. In the evening, when
they had examined our fetters, we again sang an
evening hymn, and, after performing our devotions,
concluded that it was night, and betook ourselves to
repose, or read a brief hour by the light of the lamp.
It was, indeed a great comfort that we obtained those
books, and read to each other. The Turks certainly
laughed at our singing and praying, but they offered
us no hindrance therein, and when the time of their
own devotions came they observed it also.
When we had been more than four quarters of a
year in this Black Tower, with only one shirt and one
rug a-piece, the violent frosts and cold wet west-winds
tormented us in winter, just as much as the great heat
had done in summer, and therefore our aga made us
each a coat of cloth, in which we clad ourselves and
kept out the cold.
Being all emaciated with hunger, our guards begged
for us, from the fishermen, a large fish, just like a
round table, and with a long tail, which the Turks call
a kedy baluk, or cat-fish. This fish is not eaten, but
its fat, for it is very fat, is melted down. Our guards
begged this fish, which had been caught in the sea, from
the fishermen, and when they gave it us we received it
with great gratitude, and asked them to cut it in pieces
for us. When they had done as we wished, we were off
with several pieces immediately to the pot, boiled some,
baked the rest, and breakfasted off it with remarkably
good appetites, though afterwards we paid for it bitterly.
220 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
For we ate this fish's fat, and drank water after it, till
our stomachs and bellies swelled, so that for many
weeks we did not rise from our places. We informed
our aga that we were seriously ill and that death awaited
us. He came amongst us and, seeing our condition,
vehemently reproached the Turks and threatened to
punish them for poisoning us ; he also strictly forbad
anything to be given us without his knowledge. They,
nevertheless, gave us snails and tortoises, which we
boiled and ate with a good appetite. Neither did they
do us any harm, for we had fortified our stomachs with
hunger, and digested everything well, with the ex-
ception of that nasty cat-fish.'
At this stage of Wratislaw's imprisonment important
outside events took place which reacted strongly on
his fortunes, but which for our present purpose may be
very briefly summarised as follows. In the first place
the Turks won a notable success by capturing the town
of Raab (half-way between Buda-Pesth and Vienna)
from the Emperor. Almost immediately afterwards
the Sultan died and was succeeded by Mohammed III.
Sinan Pasha having won great kudos by the victory
at Raab retained the Grand Vizirate under the new
Sultan, and at once began preparations for another
campaign, which was to prove disastrous to Turkey
owing to the revolt of the subject principalities of
Moldavia and Wallachia (the modern Rumania) and
Transylvania. In his absence a certain Ibrahim acted
as his Kaimmakam, or deputy, at Constantinople.
After this necessary parenthesis, the story shall be
resumed as Wratislaw himself tells it.
CHAPTER XVI
A PRISONER IN THE GALLEYS AND
THE BLACK TOWER.
(2)
'On one occasion Ibrahim invited the Sultan to his
gardens, on learning which our aga came to us, shouting :
"Good news, Christians! good news! The most mighty-
Sultan makes an excursion tomorrow to Ibrahim's gar-
dens. Therefore when a cannon is fired on the tower,
shout with all the voice you have, and wish the Emperor
prosperity and victory over his enemies."
In the morning the Sultan issued magnificently from
his palace and sailed along the shore past the tower
where we were in a boat gilded all over, as our guards
told us. When he passed the tower the Turks fired
heavy artillery. As soon as they ceased firing, we all
called out and shouted with a loud voice, wishing him
prosperity, our guards also assisting us in so doing.
The Emperor heard the noise, but could not understand
anything. When the Emperor sailed gently on, and
the shouting increased more and more the farther he
went, he asked what the noise was, and whence it came.
Then the Lord God raised up a friend for us, Bostangi
Pasha, the grand superintendent of the gardens, who
stood behind the Emperor, and commanded the guard
in the stern of the boat, and he said to the Emperor :
" This voice, most gracious Emperor, is that of poor
prisoners, who have now been long in yon tower, and
222 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
see not the light of the sun ; they are calling and beg-
ging for mercy." The Emperor stopped, and asked
what manner of prisoners they were. Information was
given him that they were the servants of the ambassador
of the Viennese king, who had been sent to his father,
Sultan Amurath, with the annual gift and handsome
presents, and that their lord had been a traitor, and
had written down all manner of intelligence for his king ;
also that Synan Pasha had commanded him to be put
to death in prison, and his suite to be placed in that
tower, and that, though guiltless, they had already been
three years imprisoned in irons.
Upon this the Emperor said : " Since they are guilt-
less prisoners, and have never drawn the sword against
us, it is not a proper thing to afflict them by imprison-
ment ; therefore, I command that they be released."
He then went on his way. Then the kind Turks and
guards who heard this ran tumbling over each other to
us, hoping to receive presents for telling us some very
good news. And when we promised them, they informed
us that their Emperor had given orders to set us at
liberty. Then, being filled with boundless joy, we dis-
tributed to them everything that we had, rugs, clothes,
and spirits, and kissed and embraced each other, not
imagining but that we should be set free in the morning.
But we were shamefully deceived. For there in heathen-
dom, just as with us Christians, when the Emperor
makes any promise to any one, if that person has not
a good friend at court, and if he makes no presents, his
just matter is often left in the lurch. Thus it happened
to us poor wretches. For having given away everything
that we possessed, we had afterwards to suffer hunger
and all manner of want ; and whereas we might have
Hope Deferred 223
lain on the rugs, we were obliged to be satisfied with
the bare ground.
News now arrived that Synan Pasha had returned
to Constantinople and having appeased the Emperor
for the losses of his army was received into high favour.
After this our allowance of two aspers each was not
paid for a whole quarter, and our aga went to court and
mentioned us to the vizier, who answered angrily that
he would have us flayed alive, and our skins made into
drums. This was told us sorrowfully by the aga, who
bade us entreat God that the vizier's anger might be
appeased.
Presently our men and the Transylvanians took
some fortresses from the Turks and slew a good many.
Whereupon the Turks immediately prepared for war
and Synan was proclaimed commander-in-chief. Since
he had been so unfortunate in the previous year he
used every exertion to prevail upon the Sultan to march
into Hungary in person, and when through his and the
soldiers' urgency the Emperor was inclined to go, he
had all manner of military engines prepared, everything
requisite for an imperial campaign got ready and the
soldiers mustered. But through his great exertions a
dysentery suddenly attacked him and he died.
At that time very cold and disagreeable north winds
began to blow and many of us fell very sick, so that
we longed to die being utterly enfeebled by hunger and
tortured by the intolerable darkness, for we had no hope
of getting out of the tower unless peace were made
between our Emperor and the Sultan.
While we were thus mournfully lamenting and sing-
ing sad songs, and had lost all hope of quitting the
tower till death, in comes our aga amongst us, with a
224 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
cheerful countenance, bidding us give him a reward,
because he was about to tell us good news. Waking
up, as it were from sleep, we all crowded round him,
like chickens round a hen, beseeching him to tell us
the good news, kissing his feet, hands, and clothes. Not
having the heart to refuse our request, he informed us
that Ibrahim Pasha was chosen grand vizier, and gave
us good hope of our release. On hearing this, without
having had any expectation of it, we raised our hands
and thanked God heartily, and asked the aga to advise
us what we should do, for we scarce knew what to do
for joy. For in truth, if a man has not experienced
misery, want, hunger, cold, heat, and grievous imprison-
ment, he cannot possibly believe one who has been in
such a condition. He advised us to send a petition to
the pasha, and wish him prosperity in his new office,
long life, and victory over his enemies, promising to
deliver the petition to the pasha and to intercede for
us. In return for this we kissed his hands and feet for
joy, and promised to give him much more ; and having
given the writing to a Turkish priest to copy out, we
sent it to the aga to look over, committing ourselves
to the Lord God and to him. He got into his caique,
or six-oared boat, and going to Constantinople, first
wished Ibrahim joy of his new office, and then delivered
the writing from us.
The pasha received our letter and said : " Dear aga,
thou perceivest and knowest how great a burden is
placed upon me, so that I have more cares than hairs
in my beard. Therefore, it is impossible to attend to
them before I set more important matters in order.
Remind me in about two or three weeks' time, and
conduct them to the divan (the national council) and
A Joyful Announcement 225
I will use every means that they may be freed from
this imprisonment." When the aga made this known
to us we were filled with great joy, and waited anxiously
for the time to come.
When the longed-for time came, the aga gave orders
for us all to be let out of the tower, and the fetters to
be taken off one foot. These we tied to our girdles,
that we might carry them the more easily. On coming
into the open air we were refreshed, as if born anew ;
yet we could not look at the sun, but, on coming sud-
denly out of such great darkness into the light, tears
streamed from our eyes, till they became accustomed
to it again. Meanwhile the aga ordered the caique to
be prepared for us to sail to Constantinople ; and on
looking over us, and seeing me, the youngest of all,
with long hair and no beard, pale and emaciated, he said
that I should stay there below with the guards and walk
about, till he returned with my comrades, otherwise, on
account of my youth, I might easily be seized by some
pasha and forced to turn Mahometan.
Wishing with my whole heart to make the excursions
and see Constantinople, I kissed the aga's hand, and
besought him, for God's sake, to take me also with him.
He said to me : " If thou wilt have it so, thou shalt
come with us ; but I do not promise thee that thou wilt
return." Thus we got into the boat and sailed to Con-
stantinople, landed from the boat, and went into the
city, where a great concourse of the Turkish mob sur-
rounded us, asking who and whence we were ? But
our aga answered them himself, and forbad us to say a
word. Having very long hair flowing over my shoulders,
and being beardless, I was the most tormented ; for
one pulled me by the hair, another stared in my face,
h. 15
226 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
a third talked to me, and asked me who I was ; but the
aga seeing this, and fearing for me, did not venture to
take me into the divan : but going to the church of
St Sophia, left me there with two Turks, under a pro-
jection of the roof, where some lime was lying, and
ordered me to sit down on the ground, that the Turks
going that way might not see me.
When my companions entered the divan, all the
pashas present arose, went to the Sultan, and made
intercession that we might be released from prison,
saying that peace would be made between the Emperors
so much the sooner. But orders were given to our aga
to place us again in the tower, and bring me also, if I
were still alive, to the divan in a fortnight. The prisoners,
my comrades, thanked the pashas, and returned towards
the Black Tower, past the church of St Sophia, where
I sat in the lime-vault. I crawled out of the lime-vault
and joined them with my two guards, and we went to
the tower, and anxiously waited for the last day of the
fortnight.
After a fortnight we all sailed again to Constanti-
nople with one fetter. On going into the divan we were
informed, through an interpreter, that the mighty Sultan,
out of his natural goodness, released us all from so
grievous an imprisonment, and counselled us to show
gratitude in return, and never to wage war against him ;
otherwise, if any of us were seized and captured in war,
he would be immediately impaled. Likewise, when we
returned to our own country, he bade us, with the aid
of our friends, bring it to pass that our king should seek
peace from the mighty Sultan, and that the prisoners
on both sides should be released. Upon this they in-
scribed us by name in the record books, and all of us,
Friends in Need 227
falling at the feet of the pashas, wished to kiss them,
which, however, they did not permit, and, thanking
them for their great kindness, promised that none of us
(knowing their great power and might) would serve in
war to the day of our death ; but that, as soon as we
arrived in Christendom, we would in every wise counsel
our Emperor and our friends to humble themselves to
the Sultan, and seek peace from him, and that we knew
that negotiations for peace would be begun as soon as
we informed them of such enormous preparations.
There were also there present the ambassadors of
the King of France and the Queen of England, who
were to follow the Turkish army to the city of Erlau,
and to whom several camels and horses had been as-
signed, and also a chiaous appointed, with twenty janis-
saries, to protect them and prevent the Turkish multitude
from injuring them in aught. These ambassadors be-
friended us, and entreated that we might be freed from
prison immediately, and sent to Christendom by sea,
by way of Venice. That request being made, the am-
bassadors and we were commanded to leave the council,
and, after a short time, the pashas summoned the English
ambassador, and bade him, whenever he should follow
the Sultan, to take us under his protection, and provide
for us, as far as Greek Belgrade. They then assigned
us thirty-five camels and four carriages, to put our bag-
gage on, and also ride on ourselves ; and also promised
to give us five tents and six janissaries for our safety,
and meanwhile commanded us to depart to the tower,
take our necessaries (i.e. our rags), and wait upon the
English ambassador.
Some days later we were released by the gipsy
smiths from our irons and fetters, and could not sleep
15—2
228 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
all night long for joy, but tied our rags together, dis-
tributed something to the poor prisoners who remained
there after us, and bade adieu to them ; for the poor
fellows wept bitterly, knowing that they were to remain
still longer in that miserable prison, and must almost
despair of their freedom.
These miserable prisoners begged us, if we reached
Christendom, to entreat our Emperor on their behalf,
that they might be freed from that cruel tower by the
exchange of other Turks for them. This we promised
to do.
Next day we bade adieu to them with great weeping,
and quitted, on the festival of St Peter and St Paul,
that most gloomy Black Tower, in which we had been
shut up two years and five weeks without intermission,
and going to the aga, thanked him and the rest of the
guards for the kindness and favour that they had shown us,
and promised (and also afterwards fulfilled our promise)
to send them handsome knives, and the aga a striking-
clock. The aga then had us conducted to the English
ambassador at Galata, who received us in a friendly
manner, and ordered a bath to be prepared for us, that
we might be cleansed from the filthy condition in which
we were. After the bath we visited the Catholic churches,
of which there are seven in Galata, and gave thanks to
the Lord God for our deliverance, from so exceeding
cruel an imprisonment, fervently beseeching Him to
be our Guide and Gracious Protector to our own dear
country.
About that time Sultan Mehemet marched with
great pomp from Constantinople, with all his court and
his principal warriors, and having had tents pitched
before the city, rested there several days according to
With the Army on the March 229
custom, waiting for more soldiers. For several pashas
from Egypt, Palestine, Cairo, and other lands beyond
sea, were still marching up with their armies, and they
were waiting for them.
When the Sultan had marched with the main army,
the beglerbeg of the land of Greece pitched his tent
with the rest of the army, about 80,000 strong, in the
same place where the Emperor had previously been,
and rested there two days. The English ambassador
stayed with us, two days at Galata, and on the third
day we marched in good order with these 80,000, always
pitching our tents where the Emperor had rested for
the night. When we arrived at Greek Belgrade, the
whole army was concentrated together.
The Emperor would not lodge in the castle, but lay
in the open country ; and some thousand Tatars also
joined him, who day and night were burning the vil-
lages of Christians living under the protection of the
Turks, and driving herds of cattle, and droves of un-
broken mares into the camp. These Tatars obtained
such an abundance of cattle that they sold two Hungarian
oxen for a dollar, more or less, and cows for twenty or
thirty aspers the pair. We, too, bought a calf from
under a cow for eight aspers, and eat meat to our
heart's content.
Meanwhile the English ambassador made applica-
tion to Ibrahim Pasha to send us to Buda and set us
at liberty, because he wished to write to our Emperor
about making peace. He also procured us access to
him and the aga in command of the janissaries, and
when we were admitted into his presence in his tent,
we kissed his feet, and besought him to set us free
before the mighty Sultan marched to Erlau, because
230 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
eventually, our Emperor, owing to us, would send off
commissioners to humble themselves to the Sultan in
his stead, and sue for peace. He replied that we should
be set free but that we were to remember the kindnesses
shown us, noise their great forces abroad everywhere,
and induce the Christians to make peace before they
arrived at Erlau. . And if our Emperor wished to send
any of us to the Turkish emperor to negotiate such a
peace, we were not to fear aught, but boldly and willingly
to make ourselves useful in the matter, he swearing by
the beard of the Sultan, his lord, that no harm should
happen to us, but that we should be presented with
distinguished gifts, handsome clothes and horses, and
dismissed in safety to our own country.
When we had promised all this and much more, a
letter credential and emancipatory was given us, and
also one to the pasha at Buda (five of our party having
been in a tower there ever since the death of my lord
the resident), to the effect that he was to release them
from prison, and entrust us to boatmen, to go to a
fortress of our own up the Danube. In return for this
kindness we all fell at his feet and thanked him. It was
our great good fortune, that we received the letter to
the pasha at Buda, and the letter credential that day,
for, had it not happened so, we should certainly have
all been cut in pieces, as will soon be related.
When we arrived at Zolnak we heard news that our
people had taken the fortress of Hatwan from the Turks,
and that the Walloons had behaved like dogs, not like
Christians, to the Turks torturing them and killing their
wives and children so that it was grievous to hear the
lamentations of the Turks, who affirmed that it was the
Germans who had exercised such cruelty. In this ill-
A Serious Hitch 231
humour they cut their lately-captured prisoners in pieces
and wished to sabre even the Christian ambassadors,
end more especially us prisoners, and would have carried
this into execution had it not been, firstly, for the Divine
protection, and secondly, for Ibrahim Pasha and the
aga in command of the janissaries, who immediately
surrounded the whole place where the Christian am-
bassadors were living with us with a strong guard of
janissaries, and allowed no one to have access to us.
Orders were then given to us not to show ourselves to
any one, but to remain in our tent, and not to quit it
under pain of death.
As the Turks remained three days at Zolnak for
sorrow and never moved, our ambassador kept con-
stantly applying to the pasha, through his chiaous, that,
according to his promise, fifty hussars, or Turkish archers,
should be assigned us, to escort us as far as Buda. But
the pasha was vehemently enraged, and threatened to
have us all put to the sword, asking whether it was in
return for this that he was to set us at liberty, because
our fathers, uncles, and brothers, had behaved so dis-
honourably to their dear friends the Turks at Hat wan?
Therefore, he bade him leave him quiet in the matter,
and not press him, if he did not wish to meet with some-
thing worse himself.
When the English ambassador sorrowfully made
known this sad intelligence to us, and said that we were
in danger of our lives, we were greatly terrified and
cast down. He also counselled us to pray fervently to
the Lord God, that, since it had pleased him to free us
from so grievous a prison, it might please Him to be
our God still further, and grant us a happy return to
our own dear country. And as he understood, that, as
232 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
soon as the camp moved, we might have some difficulty,
and might even perhaps be put to the sword, he cared
for us faithfully, hired four peasant carts to go to Buda,
gave us 100 ducats for the journey, assigned us his own
interpreter, and a janissary to guard us, and counselled
us in God's name, as soon as the Emperor marchec
towards Erlau, to turn by another way towards Buda
since we already had our credentials and the letter to
the Pasha of Buda.
As we were obliged to travel that night by a most
dangerous road, where day and night the Turks and
Tatars and our hussars were skirmishing — and, in fact,
they brought into the camp daily captured heyduks of
ours, and wounded hussars, and also multitudes of
Christians' heads — we were constrained to swear to the
janissary that, if Christians came upon us, no harm
should happen to him, and he, on his part, promised in
return that, if Turks came upon us, we should travel
on in safety, since we had the Turkish emperor's pass-
port; but he acknowledged that he could not make any
promise for the Tatars if we fell into their hands, but
said that he should be cut in pieces with us himself,
for the Tatars did not even spare a Turk, but when
they fall upon them by tens or twenties, and are more
than a match for them, they sabre them, and plunder
them of everything, without paying the least regard to
any orders. For this reason we took a guide with us,
and, after bidding adieu to the ambassador of the
English queen, and thanking him for his great kind-
ness, as soon as the Sultan moved from Zolnak towards
Erlau we turned, with great terror, towards Buda, in
the name of God.
As we went on our way we kept continually looking
An Unlucky Encounter 233
back, with a timid and terrified heart, to see whether
they were pursuing us, and were in constant expectation
of being cut to pieces, since we were obliged to travel
through the most dangerous localities, where Turks,
Tatars, and Christians were skirmishing, it being impos-
sible, as our guide informed us, to go by any other road.
Nevertheless it pleased a merciful God so to order it
that during the whole day, from morning dawn to
evening twilight, we never met a single human being ;
only on arriving, when it was almost twilight, at a large
Hungarian village, we saw about a hundred Tatars
moving about the vineyards. Filled with terror, we
hastened to the village, which was entirely surrounded
by a moat, and besought the inhabitants to protect us
against the Tatars and admit us into the village, which
they did. The poor peasants threw a little bridge over
the moat, bade us sorrowfully welcome, and informed
us what excessive ill-treatment they were compelled
to endure from the Tatars, about 500 of whom were
encamped in the village. They, therefore, counselled
us to go without delay to the vicarage, and conceal our-
selves somewhere, that the Tatars might not see us.
We listened to their advice, went to the vicar, and
begged him to open the church to us. He kindly gave
us cheese and slices of bread, and admitted us into the
church, where, with a contrite heart, we besought God
for mercy and protection against the Tatars. Not
knowing what plan to adopt, we also hoped in the
janissary, and trusted that our Turkish passport would
be available for us. But the janissary was as much
afraid of the Tatars as ourselves, and consequently
turned quite pale, and forbad us to speak to him in
Turkish.
i5-5
234 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
Meanwhile the Tatars lighted large fires in the
village, roasted oxen and sheep whole, cut off the
cooked flesh, and ate like dogs. When we quitted the
church, and began to feed our horses, the Tatars got
intelligence of us, and immediately crowded to us, to
the number of about 200, and, surrounding us, asked
us who and what we were. We and the janissary made
them a low Turkish obeisance, answered that we were
going to Buda by order of the Sultan, and exhibited
the Sultan's letters. But they replied, contemptuously,
that it would be an improper thing to let us go, and
sent for their captain, and the good God knows what
they intended to do with us. Perceiving that it would
not go well with us, and that we should either be made
prisoners, or put to the sword by them, we prayed
very penitently in heart, and besought God that it
might please Him to be our protector, which, in fact,
came to pass at sunset.
Wonder of wonders, and mighty power of God!
Although the whole of that day had been very bright,
the sun shining beautifully throughout, and not the
least vapour or cloud had been visible, it nevertheless
pleased a most merciful God, who never forsaketh them
that trust in Him, to raise an exceedingly violent wind,
and after it a tempest, so that it did not rain but pour,
and a water-spout must have burst. The whole village
and the trenches were filled with water, and the Tatars
returned to their horses, the tempest having extin-
guished all their fires. During this violent tempest we
harnessed our horses to the carriages, by the advice of
the poor peasants, and quitted the village, taking with
us a peasant to guide us by a route different from that
which we had intended to pursue, as there were Tatars
Arrival at Buda 235
encamped in all the surrounding villages. This violent
rain lasted without intermission till midnight, and
during it we nevertheless travelled onwards, though
we were obliged to pull the horses and carriages out of
quagmires and help them forwards. We also travelled
through a great number of burnt and forsaken villages,
and heard the crying, weeping, and wailing of the poor
people, and the lowing of the captured cattle. How-
ever, we made our way gradually onwards, for God
strengthened our horses and ourselves, and arrived,
about three hours before daybreak, at a heath, where
we gave our horses hay and rested ourselves. But as
soon as the horses had eaten a little we commenced
our journey.
When day had fully dawned we heard loud salvos
of artillery from Buda, which, at so great a distance,
was surprising to us. It again occurred that no one met
us On our journey till it was just noon, when we saw a
large number of cavalry riding towards us on the plain.
When they approached us we found that it was an
exceedingly fine body of about 10,000 cavalry, with
which the Pasha of Bosnia was on his way to reinforce
the Sultan at Erlau. They all had long lances and
various-coloured pennons upon them. As soon as they
espied us about a hundred of them darted forwards,
and rode at full gallop towards us with their lances in
the rest.
As soon as our janissary knew that they were Turks,
he dismounted, saluted them, and informed them who
we were and whither he was conducting us. Our inter-
preter also rode with him to the pasha, showed him
our letters, and informed him that the Sultan was
already moving towards Erlau with his whole army.
236 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
He then returned to us again. When the pasha's army
had passed us, we made for Pesth, and arrived at the
city about an hour before sunset.
In the morning when the pasha of Pesth returned
the Sultan's letter was delivered to him by us, in which
orders were given him to escort us to the nearest
Christian fortress, and set at liberty our five comrades,
who had been in prison at Buda ever since the death
of our ambassador. The pasha read the letter through,
and not only immediately set our comrades at liberty,
but also gave us plenty to eat and drink, and ordered
boatmen to take us up stream to the fortress of
Towaschow.
The next day, early in the morning, we sent the
peasants, with the carriages and some of our things,
forwards to Towaschow, requesting them to inform the
Christian soldiers there of our liberation and arrival,
and intending to recompense them there for the use of
the carriages. But the poor fellows fell in with some
Tatars and were put to the sword by them. We then
got into a boat, and were pulled up stream, while
our janissary and dragoman, or interpreter, rode on
horseback along the bank. When we got close to
Towaschow, we saw the bastions full of German soldiers,
and imagined that our peasants had already made known
our approach in the fortress. Such, however, was not
the case. For a few days before some Turks, disguised
in women's clothes, had sailed in a boat to the very
skirts of the fortress, had seized and bound two fisher-
men and a woman, and had carried them off to Buda.
Thus the people at Towaschow imagined that some
more Turks were coming on a plundering expedition,
and had disguised themselves like captives, in order
A too JVarm Welcome 237
the more easily to delude the Christians. Moreover,
seeing the janissary and dragoman on the other bank
of the Danube, they determined to allow us to approach
the fortress within point-blank range of their cannon.
Being then so close to the fortress, and not knowing
what to do for joy, we began to embrace and kiss each
other. At this moment our friends fired two pieces,
one at the janissary, and the other at our boat, so that
the water splashed over us, the artilleryman having
fired a little too low. The boatmen, therefore, saw their
danger, and wanted to let us fall again down stream.
We prevented them from doing this, took the oars out
of their hands, and raising a hat on the point of a spear,
called out with a loud voice that we were Christians.
The commander, Rosenhahn, a German by birth, saw
this, and stepping up to the artilleryman, forbad him
to fire any more, otherwise he would have shot our
boat through with a second discharge, and we must
have been drowned. In fact, I afterwards ascertained
myself that he had taken better aim than the first time,
and would certainly not have missed us.
Terrified as we were, we, nevertheless, approached
the fortress, and calling out in German and Hungarian,
made known who we were. Then there came to meet
us a couple of boats, with two guns each, which first
made a circuit round us, that we might not escape, and
occupied the Danube behind us. They then rowed
straight up to us, with their firearms cocked, and asked
who we were. Upon our briefly informing them, they
immediately lashed our boat to theirs, and pulled to the
front of the fortress, where we got out, and all kneeling
down, thanked God with heartfelt tears for our deliver-
ance from so grievous an imprisonment.
238 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
In the morning we went in a boat to Gran where
we begged to be conveyed to Vienna.
We arrived at Vienna, which was then under his
grace the Archduke Maximilian, and were permitted
to have an audience. We kissed his hand, and after
giving him certain information about the Sultan's march,
and the strength of his army, petitioned for pecuniary
assistance to enable us to travel to Prague. We obtained
our request, and he not only gave us money for the
journey, but also ordered us to be conveyed to Prague
to his brother, his Imperial Majesty Rudolph the
Second.
When we arrived at Prague, and met our friends,
O! it is impossible to describe the joy! His Majesty
the Emperor, hearing of us, was graciously pleased to
summon us to his presence. We kissed his hand and
related how much we had had to endure in his service
for all Christendom, and humbly entreated him to be
our gracious emperor, king, and lord, and to be pleased
to grant us some acceptable recompence for it. His
majesty looked kindly upon us all, and said, in
German, — " Wir wollen thun!" "We will do so!" It
was then his pleasure to leave us ; and, although orders
were certainly given by him that a considerable sum
of money should be divided amongst us, yet God knows
in whose hands it remained; for 100, and 150 dollars,
more or less, were given to some of us, who were
foreigners, to enable them to reach their homes; where-
as, after much entreaty, and many applications, nothing
was given to us Bohemians, but merely the offer made
that, if we liked to take service in the Emperor's court,
we should take precedence of others. But we com-
mitted all to God, and preferred to return without
The Prisoners" Saviour 239
money to our parents, friends, and acquaintances, who
received us, as everybody can judge, with exceeding
joy of heart. Thus, every one of us may, and ought to
rejoice at this, and thank God, the best of comforters
and succourers in sorrow, with heart and lips, to the
day of his death. For, when all hope failed, all succour
came to nought, and it seemed impossible to all men,
both Turks and Christians, that we should return to
our own country out of a prison so grievous, and, in all
human judgment, so beyond the possibility of libera-
tion, He set us at liberty by His mighty hand, to Whom,
One true and living God in Trinity, be ascribed, honour,
glory, and praise for ever and ever ! '
The deliverance of Wratislaw and his companions
was ultimately brought about, as we have seen, by the
intervention of the English and French envoys, and
their actual escape from Turkey was entirely due to
the efforts of our own ambassador. However natural
it may seem at the present day for a foreign ambassador
to do all in his power for subjects of another Christian
Power reduced to such a plight, one has only to re-
member how different the conditions were in the last
decade of the sixteenth century to experience a real
feeling of pride in our fellow-countryman's behaviour.
The prisoners had failed in their appeal to their com-
patriots in Pera, whose refusal to advance even the
sum needed to redeem the poor wretches from their
vile durance in the Black Tower is an eloquent com-
mentary on the existing standards of humanity.- The
English ambassador, meanwhile, was not only alien to
the prisoners by birth and language, but — a greater
bar still in those days of religious intolerance — he pro-
fessed a different faith. In spite of this, and careless of
240 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
the personal risk in befriending the subjects of a nation
at war with Turkey, he first of all cajoled the Grand
Vizir into letting the prisoners separate from the army
and, when they started on their solitary journey, pro-
vided them with every material assistance in his power.
If only on account of his great-hearted action on this
occasion, he deserves a special mention in these pages.
Sir Edward Barton was, technically at least, the
first ambassador from England to the Porte. William
Harebone — whose voyage to Turkey in " The Great
Susan" in 1582 is recounted in Hakluyt — had, indeed,
preceded him as Queen Elizabeth's Agent at the
Sultan's court, but it was Barton who first received the
ambassadorial title after having already spent some
half-a-dozen years at Constantinople. During those
years, Murad IV had died, and had been succeeded, as
already related, by Sultan Mohammed, who inaugurated
his reign by killing off his nineteen brothers in one fell
swoop, a " record " even in the bloody annals of the
royal house. He displayed a paradoxical leniency to-
wards slaves and Christian prisoners, one of his first
sovereign acts being to emancipate the whole crew of
the galley which brought him to the capital. Towards
Sir Edward Barton he showed a good deal of kindness.
He required him, however, to go with him on his
military campaigns, and in one of his letters to the
Queen of England he mentions that her ''well-beloved
ambassador " having been bidden by himself to follow
the imperial camp, there not being time enough to ob-
tain sanction from his royal mistress, had rendered
services in the campaign which caused him (the Sultan)
the greatest satisfaction. The strain of the frequent
marches under war conditions finally broke Barton's
Faith among Prisoners 241
health and, on his return from the campaign ending in
the famous battle of Cerestes, he expired at his post
from sheer exhaustion. His memory is preserved by
a brass tablet in the Embassy chapel in Pera.
Turning again to the stories which we have of life
and captivity among the Turks, it is remarkable how
strongly they bring to light the religious constancy of
the authors. Protestants and Roman Catholics alike
appear as finding their main hope and comfort in the
firm belief that they are the individual objects of divine
interposition. Each hairbreadth escape from death at
the hands of fanatical Turks or of " raging Tartarians,"
by sudden decapitation or by the lingering torture of
the gaucky is duly ascribed to the protection of the
Almighty and is followed invariably by a pious tribute
of thanksgiving. The steadfastness of Christian cap-
tives and the palpable faith of such men as those, who,
in the appalling surroundings of the arsenal prison,
would sacrifice their infinitesimal gains to provide them-
selves with an altar and the necessary accessories for
the celebration of mass, must surely have turned many
a strict Turk to secret admiration of the religion which
he was bound outwardly to spurn.
A perpetual reminder of the days when the sufferings
of prisoners in Turkey were constantly present in men's
minds exists still in the special intercession in the
Litany framed originally in their behalf — and during
the recent war restored awhile to its old significance : —
That it may please thee to have mercy on all prisoners
and captives ; we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
All our characters have now passed across the
stage, from the Sultan to the galley-slave, and, on the
242 Prisoner in the Galleys and Black Tower
exit of this last, the curtain falls. The scenes have,
perhaps, somewhat lacked cohesion, and chronology
has been sadly ignored, but I have done my best to
compound a whole which will tempt the reader's ima-
gination to reconstruct a picture of old Turkey. A
picture it will be of motley colours and fantastic outlines,
a blending of East and West meeting for once on the
common borderline and giving birth to as strange an
outcrop of civilization as has ever flourished in the
world's history.
GLOSSARY
Turkish and other foreign words which occur in this book, excepting
those whose meaning is given in the text
Asper. An old Turkish coin.
Bailo. Bailiff or diplomatic agent (Italian).
Caique. A light build of boat, peculiar to the Bosphorus.
Capitulations. The early treaties between Turkey and the European
Powers by which the latter claim extensive extra-territorial rights, in
particular that of exercising jurisdiction over their nationals through
the Consular Courts. The Capitulations were still in force when war
broke out in 1914.
Divan. The Turkish Council of Ministers ; also a long, low settee running
round the sides of a room.
Fetva. Legal decision or verdict pronounced by the Sheikh-ul-Jslam or
other qualified doctor of Mohammedan theology and law.
Gauch. An instrument of torture and death, consisting of a scaffolding
set at intervals with large meat-hooks on to which the victim was
thrown from above, and, being impaled, was left to die slowly.
Ghiaour. An infidel (i.e., non-Mussulman).
Hajji. Pilgrim, a title retained for life by one who has made the pilgrimage
to Mecca.
Hoji. Corruption of the foregoing, or of Hoja (Khwaja) = " Dominie " (a
schoolmaster or teacher).
Imam. A minor religious functionary who leads the faithful in prayer and
may have charge of a small mosque.
Jehad. Religious war.
Khan. Chieftain; also an inn.
Maidan. A large open space.
Maiina. A sailing boat resembling a dhow (from the Italian).
Mufti. An interpreter of Koranic law, from whom a fetva (see above) is
sought.
Oghlan. Boy.
Pashalik. A large administrative area, governed by a Pasha.
Pillau or Pillaf. A dish of boiled rice, spiced and garnished with various
delicacies.
Proveditore. A Venetian colonial governor or commander-in-chief.
Rayah. Christian subject of the Turks.
Sakka. Water carrier.
Sanjak. A small administrative area ; also the official governing the same
(lit. : a flag).
Sanziacke. Corruption of foregoing.
Selamlik. Friday service at one of the mosques at the capital, attended
by the Sultan in state.
Seraglio. Palace (Italianized form of Turkish word serai).
Sofraji. Butler.
Sultan-valida. The mother of the reigning Sultan.
Tekye'. Monastery.
Top. A cannon.
Tufang. A gun.
Ulema (plural of the Arabic word alim). The body of " doctors " or pro-
pounders of the religious law (lit. : men of knowledge).
Zaim. The holder of a ziamet or fief.
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Hubbard, Gilbert Ernest
The day of the crescent
