it politic that I should pass some time in their camp, and be treated
courteously as the ambassador of a friendly prince. Accordingly, a very
comfortable lodging was assigned me in a village adjoining the camp.
The Turks were encamped in the neighbouring fields. As I stayed there
three months, I had opportunities of visiting their camp, and making
myself acquainted with their discipline. You will hardly be satisfied
if I do not give you a few particulars on the subject. Having put
on the dress usually worn by Christians in those parts, I used to
sally out incognito with one or two companions. The first thing that
struck me was, that each corps had its proper quarters, from which
the soldiers composing it were not allowed to move. Everywhere order
prevailed, there was perfect silence, no disturbances, no quarrels,
no bullying; a state of things which must seem well nigh incredible
to those, whose experience is limited to Christian camps. You could
not hear so much as a coarse word, or a syllable of drunken abuse.
Besides, there was the greatest cleanliness, no dunghills, no heaps of
refuse, nothing to offend the eyes or nose. Everything of the kind is
either buried or removed out of sight. Holes are dug in the ground, as
occasion requires, for the use of the men, which are again filled in
with earth. Thus the whole camp is free from dirt. Again, no drinking
parties or banquets, and no sort of gambling, which is the great fault
of our soldiers, are to be seen. The Turks are unacquainted with the
art of losing their money at cards and dice.
A little while ago I came across some soldiers from the borders of
Hungary, amongst whom was a rough fellow, who, with a woe-begone face,
sang or rather howled, to the accompaniment of a melancholy lyre, a
lugubrious ditty, purporting to be the last words of a comrade dying of
his wounds in a grassy meadow by the bank of the Danube. He called upon
the Danube, as he flowed to the country of his kinsfolk, to remember to
tell his friends and clansmen that he, while fighting for the extension
of his religion and the honour of his tribe, had met with a death
neither inglorious nor unavenged. Groaning over this his companions
kept repeating, ‘O man, thrice happy and thrice blessed, how gladly
would we exchange our lot for thine!’ The Turks firmly believe that no
souls ascend to heaven so quickly as those of brave heroes who have
fallen in war, and that for their safety the Houris daily make prayers
and vows to God.
I had a fancy also to be conducted through the shambles where the
sheep were slaughtered, that I might see what meat there was for sale.
I saw but four or five sheep at most, which had been flayed and hung
up, although it was the slaughter-house of the Janissaries, of whom I
think there were no fewer than four thousand in the camp. I expressed
my astonishment that so little meat was sufficient for such a number
of men, and was told in reply that few used it, for a great part of
them had their victuals brought over from Constantinople. When I asked
what they were, they pointed out to me a Janissary, who was engaged
in eating his dinner; he was devouring, off a wooden or earthen
trencher, a mess of turnips, onions, garlic, parsnips, and cucumbers,
seasoned with salt and vinegar, though, for the matter of that, I fancy
that hunger was the chief sauce that seasoned his dish, for, to all
appearance, he enjoyed his vegetables as much as if he had been dining
off pheasants and partridges. Water, that common beverage of men and
animals, is their only drink. This abstemious diet is good both for
their health and their pockets.
I was at the camp just before their fast, or Lent[216] as we should
call it, and thus was still more struck with the behaviour of the men.
In Christian lands at this season, not only camps, but even orderly
cities, ring with games and dances, songs and shouts; everywhere are
heard the sounds of revelling, drunkenness, and delirium. In short, the
world runs mad. It is not improbable that there is some foundation
for the story, that a Turk, who happened to come to us on a diplomatic
mission at one of these seasons, related on his return home, that the
Christians, on certain days, go raving mad, and are restored to their
senses and their health by a kind of ashes, which are sprinkled on them
in their temples. He told his friends that it was quite remarkable to
see the beneficial effects of this remedy; the change was so great
that one would hardly imagine them to be the same people. He referred
of course to Ash Wednesday and Shrove Tuesday. His hearers were the
more astonished, because the Turks are acquainted with several drugs
which have the power of rendering people insane, while they know of few
capable of speedily restoring the reason.
During the days which immediately precede the season of abstinence,
they do not alter their former mode of life, or allow themselves any
extra indulgence in the way of food and drink. Nay rather, on the
contrary, by diminishing their usual allowance they prepare themselves
for the fast, for fear they should not be able to bear the sudden
change. Their fast recurs every twelve months; and, as twelve lunar
months do not make up a year, it annually comes some fifteen days
earlier. Hence it follows that, if the fast is at the beginning of
Spring, six years later it will be kept at the commencement of Summer.
The Turks limit their fast to the period of one lunar month, and the
most severe fasts are those which fall in summer, on account of the
length of the days. Inasmuch as they keep it so strictly as to touch
nothing, not even water—nay, they hold it unlawful even to wash out
the mouth—till the stars appear at even, it follows of course that a
fast which occurs when the days are longest, hottest, and most dusty,
is extremely trying, especially to those who are obliged to earn their
livelihood by manual labour. However, they are allowed to eat what they
please before sunrise, or to speak accurately, before the stars are
dimmed by the light of that luminary, the idea being that the Sun ought
to see no one eating during the whole of the fast. On this account the
fast, when it falls in winter, is not so hard to bear.
On a cloudy day of course some mistake might be made about sunset. To
meet this difficulty the priests, who act as sacristans, put lighted
paper lanterns on the pinnacles of the minarets. (It is from these
minarets that they utter the loud cry which summons the people to
prayer, and they therefore answer to our belfries.[217]) These lights
are intended to remove all doubt as to the time being come when food
may be taken. Then at last, after first entering a mosque and reciting
their customary prayers, they return to supper. On summer days I
remember seeing them making in crowds from the mosque to a tavern,
opposite our abode, where snow was kept for sale (of which, by the
way, there is an unfailing supply from Mount Olympus, in Asia), and
asking for iced water, which they drank, sitting cross-legged, for
the Turks have a scruple about eating or drinking standing, if they
can help it. But as the evening was too far gone for me to be able to
see what they were squatting down for, I got some of my acquaintance,
who understood Turkish customs, to enlighten me, and found that each
took a great draught of cold water to open a passage for their food,
which otherwise would stick in their throats, parched as they were by
heat and fasting, and also that their appetite was stimulated by the
cold drink. No special kinds of food are appointed to be eaten during
the fast; nor does their religion prescribe abstinence during that
season from anything which they are allowed to eat at other times.
Should they happen to have any illness which prevents their observing
the fast, they may disregard it, on condition, however, of making up,
when they get well, the number of fasting days which their health has
compelled them to miss. Likewise, when they are in an enemy’s country
and an engagement is apprehended, they are ordered to postpone their
fast to some other time, lest they should be hungry and faint on the
day of battle. If they hesitate to do so, the Sultan himself takes
food publicly at midday before the eyes of the army, that all may be
encouraged by his example to do the same. But as at other times of
the year they are forbidden, by their religion, to drink wine, and
cannot taste it without committing a sin, so they are most scrupulous
in observing this rule all the days of the fast, and even the most
careless and profligate people not only abstain from wine, but shun the
very smell of it.
I remember that, after I had made many enquiries as to the reason why
Mahomet had so strictly forbidden his followers to drink wine, I was
one day told this story. Mahomet happened to be travelling to a friend,
and halted on his way at midday at a man’s house, where a wedding feast
was being celebrated. At his host’s invitation he sat down with them,
and greatly admired the exceeding gaiety of the banqueters and their
earnest demonstrations of affection—such as shaking of hands, embraces,
and kisses. He asked his host the reason, and was informed that such
feelings were the consequence of wine. Accordingly on his departure
he blessed that beverage as being the cause of such affection among
mankind. But on his return the day after, when he entered the same
house, a far different sight was presented to his eyes; on all sides
were the traces of a cruel fight, the ground was stained with gore and
strewn with human limbs; here lay an arm and there a foot; and other
fragments were scattered all about. On his asking what had been the
cause of so much mischief, he heard that the banqueters he had seen
the day before had got maddened with wine and quarrelled, and that a
fearful butchery had been the consequence. On this account, Mahomet
changed his opinion and cursed the use of wine, making a decree for all
time that his followers should not touch it.
So, drinking being prohibited, peace and silence reign in a Turkish
camp, and this is more especially the case during their Lent. Such
is the result produced by military discipline, and the stern laws
bequeathed them by their ancestors. The Turks allow no crime and
no disgraceful act to go unpunished. The penalties are degradation
from office, loss of rank, confiscation of property, the bastinado,
and death. The most usual is the bastinado, from which not even the
Janissaries themselves are exempt, though they are not subject to
capital punishment. Their lighter faults are punished with the stick,
their graver with dismissal from the service or removal to a different
corps, a penalty they consider worse than death, by which indeed such
a sentence is almost always followed. For when the Janissaries are
stripped of their uniform, they are banished to distant garrisons
on the furthest frontiers, where their life is one of ignominy and
disgrace; or if the crime is so atrocious as to render it necessary to
make an example of the culprit, an excuse is found for putting him to
death in the place to which he has been banished. But the punishment
of death is inflicted on him not as a Janissary, but as a common
soldier.
The endurance of the Turks in undergoing punishment is truly
marvellous. They often receive more than a hundred blows on their
soles, ankles, and buttocks, so that sometimes several sticks of
dogwood are broken on them, and the executioner has to say repeatedly,
‘Give me the other stick.’[218] Although remedies are at hand, yet
it sometimes happens that many pounds of gangrened flesh have to be
cut off from the places which have been beaten. They are obliged
notwithstanding to go to the officer by whose orders they have been
punished, and to kiss his hand and thank him, and also to pay the
executioner a fixed fee for every stroke. As to the stick with which
they are beaten, they consider it a sacred thing, and are quite
convinced that the first bastinado stick fell down from the same place
from which the Romans believed their sacred shields descended, I mean
from heaven. That they may have some consolation for such pain, they
also believe that the parts, which have been touched by the stick, will
after this life be safe from the fires of purgatory.
In saying that the camp was free from quarrels and tumults, it is
necessary to make one exception, for some trouble was caused by my
people. A few of them had gone out of the camp to stroll along the
shore without Janissaries, having only taken with them some Italian
renegadoes. Among the various advantages which such renegadoes enjoy,
the greatest perhaps is the power of ransoming prisoners. They go
to the people who have possession of the captives, and pretend
that they are their relations or connections, or at any rate their
fellow-countrymen. After speaking of the great pain it gives them
to see their friends in such a position, they ask the masters to
take their value and emancipate them, or else to make them over to
themselves. To such a request the masters make no difficulty in
agreeing; whereas, if a Christian were to ask the same favour, they
would either refuse it or demand a much higher price. To return to my
subject, when my men had gone out they came upon some Janissaries,
who, by way of performing their ablutions, had taken a swim in the
sea. They had left their turbans behind, and their only head-dress was
a piece of linen roughly folded. The Janissaries seeing my men were
Christians began to abuse them. For the Turks not only consider it
lawful to call Christians by insulting names and otherwise abuse them,
but even think it meritorious, on the ground that they may possibly be
shamed into changing their religion for the faith of the Turks, when
they see what insults they are exposed to on its account. My men, when
thus assailed, abused them in return, and at last from words they came
to blows, the Italians I mentioned taking the side of my men. The end
of it was, that the head-wrapper of one of the Janissaries was lost
in the scuffle, how or where I cannot say. The Janissaries, having
traced my people to my quarters, went to their commanding officer and
charged them with having caused this loss. The officer ordered them
to summon my interpreter, who had been present at the skirmish. They
seized him, as he was sitting at the door, while I was looking down
from the verandah above. I felt that this was a very gross insult;
here was one of my people being carried off without my permission, and
not only so, but carried off, as I knew right well, having heard of
the affair from my servants, to receive a flogging. This was certain
to be his fate, for he was a Turkish subject. I went down and laying
my hand on him told them to let him go, which they did; but they went
off to their commander more savage than ever. He directed them to take
some more men, and bring before him the renegade Italians I mentioned,
charging them at the same time to be careful not to use violence to me
or the house where I was staying. Accordingly they came again making a
great uproar, and standing on the road demanded the surrender of the
men with loud cries and threats. But the Italians foreseeing what would
happen, had already crossed the Bosphorus to Constantinople. This went
on for a long time with much bad language on both sides, till at last
the cavasse I was then employing, an old man on the brink of the grave,
becoming nervous at the uproar, thrust into their hands, without my
knowledge, some pieces of gold as the price of the lost head-wrapper,
and thus our peace was made.
One reason for telling you this adventure is, that it gave me an
opportunity of learning from Roostem himself the light in which the
Janissaries are regarded by the Sultan. For when he heard of this
disturbance he sent a man warning me, to use his own words, ‘to remove
every cause of offence which might occasion a quarrel with those
atrocious scoundrels. Was I not aware, that it was war time, when
they were masters, so that not even Solyman himself had control over
them, and was actually himself afraid of receiving violence at their
hands?’ These were no random words of Roostem’s; he knew what he was
talking about, for his master’s anxieties were no secret to him. What
the Sultan dreaded most in the world was secret disaffection among
the Janissaries; disaffection which would lie hidden for a time, and
then break out at a critical moment when he had no power to counteract
it. His alarm is certainly not without foundation; for while there
are great advantages to a Sovereign in the possession of a standing
army, there are on the other hand, if proper precautions be not taken,
considerable disadvantages. The greatest of all is, that the soldiers
have it in their power to depose their Sovereign and place another on
the throne; and the fear of a revolution of this kind must be ever
present to the minds of the masters. Striking instances might be quoted
of Sovereigns who were dethroned by their own troops; but it is by no
means impossible to guard against such occurrences.
During my stay at the camp, Albert de Wyss,[219] a gentleman and a good
scholar, arrived. If I am not mistaken, he is a native of Amersfort.
He brought as presents from the Emperor to the Sultan some gilded cups
and a clock of skilful workmanship, which was mounted like a tower on
the back of an elephant, and also some money for distribution among
the Pashas. Solyman desired me to present these gifts to him in the
camp, in the sight of the army, as a fresh proof to his subjects that
he and the Emperor were firm friends. He was anxious that such an idea
should prevail, and also that an impression should be produced, that no
warlike movement on the part of the Christians was likely to take place.
I now return to the point from which I began this digression, namely to
Bajazet, who had retreated from the battle field of Koniah to Amasia,
his own government, apparently with the resolution of remaining quiet
there, if his father should allow him to do so. He had obeyed the
dictates of his passion and his youthful ambition; now he seemed to
intend for the future to play the part of a dutiful son. He continually
endeavoured to ascertain his father’s disposition by letters and
agents. Solyman did not show himself averse to a reconciliation. At
first he made no difficulty in giving the messengers audience, read the
letters and did not answer them harshly, so that a report was prevalent
throughout the camp that the father would be reconciled to the son,
and pardon his youthful indiscretion, on his promising to be loyal for
the future. But in reality the crafty old man was playing a very deep
game suggested to him by the Pashas, he was deluding Bajazet with hopes
of forgiveness until the toils should be prepared, and he should be
ready to seize his prisoner alive. For it was apprehended that, if he
was driven to despair, he would make his escape to the territory of
the King of Persia, which was his only refuge, before the governors
of the intervening country had time to guard and watch the roads.
Solyman kept sending messenger after messenger to them, urging them not
to leave any loophole however small for Bajazet to escape to Persia.
Meanwhile anyone suspected of a leaning towards Bajazet who fell into
the Sultan’s hands was secretly executed, after being questioned by
torture. Among them were some whom Bajazet had sent to clear his
character.
The kingdom of Persia, though Solyman has torn away from it much
territory by war, namely Babylonia itself, Mesopotamia, and part of
Media, includes at the present time all the tribes that dwell between
the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, with some portion of Greater
Armenia. The Sovereign of this country is Shah Tahmasp, who, besides
the territory I mentioned, reigns over regions still more remote, as
far as the dominions of the Prince who is called by the Turks Humayoum
Padischah.[220] The father of the present Shah was defeated many years
ago by Selim in a great battle on the plains of Tschaldiran,[221] and
from that time the fortunes of Persia have been declining, under the
powerful attacks of the Emperor Solyman, for Tahmasp has defended
himself with but little vigour and in no way displayed the spirit of
his father. At the present time he is said to be leading the life of
a mere voluptuary; he never leaves his harem, where he divides his
time between dallying with his favourites and forecasting the future
by means of lots. Meanwhile he neglects to enforce the laws or to
administer justice, and consequently, brigandage and outrages of
every kind prevail throughout the different tribes that are subject
to his sway, and so the poor and helpless throughout Persia are
suffering every kind of oppression at the hands of the strong, and it
is useless for innocence to resort to the King for protection. This
culpable neglect of his duty as a ruler has so little impaired either
his influence or the superstitious veneration with which his person
is regarded, that they think that a blessing falls on those who have
kissed the doorposts of his palace, and they keep the water in which he
has washed his hands as a sovereign cure for divers diseases. Of his
numerous offspring one son is called Ismael after his grandfather, and
on him has also descended his grandfather’s spirit. He is extremely
handsome, and is a deadly enemy of the house of Othman. They say that
when he first entered the world his baby hand was found to be full of
blood, and this was commonly regarded by his countrymen as a sign that
he would be a man of war. Nor did he belie the prediction, for hardly
had he grown up to manhood when he inflicted a bloody defeat on his
Turkish enemies. One of the articles of the treaty between his father
and Solyman was, that he should not be allowed to attack the Turks,
and in accordance with this stipulation he was sent to a distance from
the frontier and there confined in prison. He is, however, the person
marked out by the aspirations of the nation as successor to the throne
on his father’s decease.
Accordingly Solyman was afraid that the Shah, who, by the way, is
better known to us as the Sophi, would have a keener recollection of
their ancient quarrels than of the peace which he had been recently
compelled to make, and that consequently, if his son should escape into
Persia, he would not allow him to be taken away without a great deal
of trouble, and that possibly a long and harassing war would be the
result. He therefore took the utmost pains to apprehend Bajazet, before
he should escape thither. He remembered that the support, which, a few
years before, he himself had given to Elkass, the brother of Tahmasp,
who had taken refuge with him,[222] had been the cause of many years of
annoyance and anxiety to Tahmasp, and his conscience told him that this
would be an opportunity for the latter to retaliate, and perhaps to
make an attempt to recover the territory which he had lost in war.
Although the designs of Solyman were kept very secret, they were not
unobserved by Bajazet’s friends, who repeatedly warned him not to trust
his father, to be on his guard against plots, and to take betimes the
best measures in his power for his safety. A little matter is often the
immediate cause of a very serious step, and so it was in this case.
What drove him to take his friends’ advice was, as I have heard, the
circumstance that one of his spies, who was arrested in the camp, was
by Solyman’s orders publicly executed by impalement, on the pretext
that he had been enlisted by Bajazet after he had been strictly
forbidden to enroll any more soldiers. When informed of his follower’s
execution, Bajazet immediately felt that his only chance was to fly for
his life. Solyman, on the other hand, thinking he had now made certain
of his not escaping, or perhaps to deceive him the more, ordered his
army to return to Constantinople the day after the festival of Bairam.
At Amasia, on the very day of the feast, as soon as the usual
ceremonies were finished, Bajazet ordered his baggage to be packed up
and began his ill-starred journey to Persia; he knew right well that he
was going to the ancient enemy of the house of Othman, but he was fully
resolved to throw himself on any one’s mercy rather than fall into his
father’s hands. Every man marched out who was capable of bearing arms;
none but women and children unequal to the fatigues of a long journey
were left behind. Among the latter was a newly born son of Bajazet,
with his mother; his father preferred to leave the innocent babe to
his grand-father’s mercy, rather than take him as a companion of his
anxious and miserable flight. This child Solyman ordered to be taken
care of at Broussa, feeling as yet uncertain what his father’s fate
might be.