and lastly several iron circles or hoops containing a vast number of chrystal lamps used to be lighted at their night prayers so that with the reflexion from the arches and pillars the Church seems to be of a light fire Within the enclosure of the outward wall are the sepulchral monuments of the several Founders and their children for no one lies buried in their Churches no not the Emperors themselves They are built of white marble with a cuppola The marble coffins which are very large and above the proportion of their bodies lying in a space encompassed with iron-grates two great tapers being placed at the end are covered for the most part with a silk Pall of a deep green having a good fringe their turbants which they renew every year being placed over their heads Their women lye neer them but their coffins are not so large nor raised so high from the ground covered with purple or violet cloth The coffins of their children are bigger or less according to the age at which they dyed Such as have been strangled by their Brothers who usually since the reign of Bayazid the second lay the foundation and beginning of their Empire in fratricide have a handkerchief tied about their necks as a sign of their unnatural death These little Chappels are frequented by several Priests and other pensioners who are obliged to come and say prayers for the souls of the deceased Several Emperors who have not been Founders of Moschs have their monuments neer Sancta Sophia as Selim the son of Suleiman with his thirty seven children Morat the third who had a more numerous issue for I told about five and forty Mahomet the third Mustapha the great Unkle and Ibrahim the Father of this present Emperor both by a strange fate preferred to the Empire and both deprived of it alike in their lives and deaths both foolish and frantick and equally unfit to sustain the weight of the government and both strangled Hard by Achmet's Mosch lye buried his two sons Osman and Morat both warlike Emperors who endeavoured to reduce the souldiery which through sloth and luxury had much degenerated to their ancient discipline The first made away with by the Janizaries whose ill behaviour in his expedition against Poland and other insolencies he could no longer support and therefore designed to have destroyed the whole order and to have instituted a new militia which they perceiving they grew tumultuous and mutinous and soon after had him bow-string'd the other died with a debauch Being at the Mosch of Mahomet the great I had a curiosity to see the tomb of his Mother who was no way shaken by the artifices and enticements of her Husband and son from her fixt resolutions of continuing in her religion but lived and died a Christian being the daughter of Lazarus Despot of Servia Several Turks who were there present in the area perceiving I bade my Janizary enquire which was her Turbeh or Chappel immediately before they were ask'd pointed to it with their finger which I entred and found very plain and unadorned The Turks care not to come into it but several poor Christians frequent it at set hours and have a small alms allowed them for the prayers they make there This honour is indulged to some of the Bassas who have by their valour and council highly merited of the Empire to be buried in the City and to have their sepulchral monuments in peculiar places they had purchased for this end such as were the illustrious Bassa Ibrahim to whom the Emperor Suleiman married one of his daughters in whose praises the Turkish Historians are so foolishly lavish and extravagant who lies buried neer Suleimania and Mahomet Kupriuli who setled the government during the minority of the present Emperor when it was almost torn asunder by the factions of the great men and the mutinies of the souldiery buried neer the Mosch he built in Taouk-bazar In the suburbs to the West very neer the haven there are several of these Chappels and among others the tomb of Sultan Ejub a person of great fame among them as being as they pretend Standard-bearer to Mahomet a Prophet and Martyr of whose zeal and industry in propagating and defending the Musulman religion they tell a company of idle foppish and ridiculous stories In the adjoyning area adorned with a portico the new Emperor is inaugurated the Mufti girting his sword about him this being the only ceremony used at his investiture and is instead of a coronation This place I suppose is chosen out of respect to the memory of their great Saint as if there were something of good omen in it and to put the Emperor in mind of what he must do if there be occasion for the advancement of religion The Janizaries by vertue of an old establishment even in times of peace that they might the sooner form themselves into a body and prevent any sedition or tumult of the Citizens were to live together for which purpose there are two great Odas or buildings at a little distance one from the other at Constantinople to receive those who are quartered there But by the connivence of the officers bribed with money and presents several are permitted to be absent and the married men of the order turn shop-keepers and artizans to make better provision for their wives and children Between these two chambers is their Mosch where upon any emergence of state that either may have an influence upon the Empire or their body they have their meetings and consultations The Acropolis or seven Towers in the furthest angle of the City to the South upon the Propontis serves rather for a prison than a garrison for though there be a few souldiers in it yet I could observe no great guns or any other warlike furniture In the garden belonging to the governour of the Castle is the tomb of Husain sirnamed Delli or the mad and furious who had been Janizary-Aga or General of the Janizaries in Candia where he was strangled by the command of the Vizir for several pretended miscarriages but the true cause of his death was believed to be his great merit which the other envied and could not brook with any patience and accordingly contrived his ruine But out of respect to his valour his body was sent hither to be interred and to be honoured with a monument I sought in vain for the several Palaces Theaters Baths Conduits Churches and the other proud buildings with which this Imperial City was formerly adorned in the times of the Greecian Emperors as I find them mentioned in ancient Histories and Surveys and indeed it would be just matter of wonder that no more of the monuments which the Emperour Constantine fetcht from Rome and the other places of Italy to adorn this City which was to be called after his own name and his successors emulous of the same glory afterward raised almost in every street should
Church dedicated to the V. Mary turned into a Mosch and so at Strigonium two years after in 1543 As Selim his Father did at Jerusalem for good success in his expedition into Egypt Every man is his own Priest and may slay his Sheep at his own House They distribute the several parts of it among the poor reserving nothing in the least to their own uses which will take off from the merit of the Sacrifice which also ceases and is rendred ineffectual if these Victims be purchased with money got dishonestly either by fraud or violence I have been assured of a Turk who was so scrupulous this way that instead of satisfying for the injustice he had been guilty of and restoring what he was wrongfully possessed of only desired an English Merchant to change such a number of Dollars for others of the same species fancying those that were got honestly in the way of industry and Merchandise would thrive better with him than those he parted with as if the money only were in fault and drew a curse after it which he fancied thus easily avoided by an exchange The Sheep thus sacrificed they fancy enter into Paradise and there graze all along the flow'ry Meadows upon the Banks of Rivers flowing with Milk and Honey Seventy days after is the Feast of little Bairam which is not observed with half the pomp and noise as the former In the intervening space the Pilgrims prepare from the farthest quarters of the Empire for their journey to wards Mecca that they may enter that City in procession the first day of this Feast In this pilgrimage all perswasins of Mahometans agree the obligation lying upon all indifferently to perform it once at least in their lives The concourse of Pilgrims is extraordinary great and for the greater pomp and shew and for better security and conveniency of travel there are places assigned confining upon the respective Countries whence they usually come where they meet first either alone or in dispersed companies such is Damascus for those of Europe and the lesser Asia Cairo for the Inhabitants of Africa Zibet a City in Arabia Felix for the people of Arabia and the Islands of the Indian Ocean and Bagdat for the Persians Vsbeck Tartars and the Subjects of the Mogul But this obligation and command is dispensable in several cases If they are employed in the necessary service of the Emperor either about his person or in the Wars or in the Government of any Province If they be sickly and so their health like to be endangered by long travel if they are poor and have not wherewithall to maintain their Families in their absence or cannot furnish themselves with necessaries for the Voyage and the like so that it is in a manner wholly left to their liberty and choice and is to be measured and directed by their convenience and interest Yet notwithstanding there is so much of merit in it and such reputation gained every one thinking himself as the more holy so the more fortunate as if they had gone to take possession and secure themselves of a particular place in Paradise that several thousands flock there continually every year and in their numbers at least out-do the Christians who live among them whose zeal and devotion carry them to visit the holy Sepulchre of Jesus in Jerusalem at the time of Easter The ceremonies are too many and too idle to be put down here minutely and in detail the chiefest and most remarkable are these which follow as they were communicated to me by a curious and learned Renegado They all afterward meet on the Mountain Arephat not far from Mecca and are there at the farthest by the ninth day of the month Dulhaggi where they sacrifice and put on their holy Covering or Blanket of which presently The Haggiler or Pilgrims put on a white woollen Coat and hang about their necks a white Stole all their other Clothes being cast off pairing their Nails cutting their Mustachios and Beards and shaving their Pubes Head and Body or washing their Body at least their Head Feet and Hands and after perfume themselves and say their prayers By this they become Muharrem or devoted and are obliged to abstain from all obscenity of language and strife even from hunting and looking after game do not dare so much as to kill a Louse or put on their other Clothes Turbants or Caps Yet they may go to a Bagno or House for shade or into a Bed Upon their entring Mecca they go strait to the first Mosch and then to the Black Stone which they foolishly imagine the Patriarch Abraham used to step upon to mount his Camel and say their prayers there and kiss it and rub their Chaplets of Beades upon it The whose remaining Ceremony consists in sacrificing Sheep in processions about the wall of the Sepulchre of Mahomet and to the neighbouring Mountain and to the Rock in which as they pretend with the like certainty are still to be seen the footsteps of that Patriarch Several in their return to make their pilgrimage compleat and more meritorious visit Jerusalem for which they preserve a great veneration the ordinary name whereby it is known and called in their discourse being Kuds or the Sanctuary or the holy City to which they add the additional titles of Sherif and Mubarek or the noble and blessed holy City Here they come to worship and say their prayers in the Mosch which is built upon the top of Mount Zion in the very place where Solomons Temple stood once the Mountain of Gods holiness and the joy of the whole Earth and still beautiful for its situation This like the Chappel at Mecca they esteem so holy that it is only lawful for a Musulman to enter into it If a Christian or Jew should but lift up the Antiport and set one step into it he profaned it and indeed the penalty of such a curiosity would be as they give out no less than death or at least they would force them upon a necessity of redeeming their life with the loss and change of their Religion Yet some Greeks have been so curious who have spoke Turkish admirably well and known all the Rites and Customs used in their Worship as to put on a Turbant and dissemble their Religion and enter boldly therein who report upon the best survey and observation they could make they could see nothing extraordinary or differing from what was in their other Churches So that it seems nothing but the holiness of the ground in which it stands derives upon it this great lustre and veneration and makes the Turks so cautious and superstitious how they admit strangers All upon their return are mighty zealous in the observations of the least punctilio's of the institutions of Mahomet and particularly abhor the very thought of Wine or any other prohibited liquor and would not drink a drop of this if it were to save their lives Some put
to rise to a command that there is a certain reward due to valour and that the Bassas and all the other great Officers owe all to their Scymitars Thus solicitous of fame and honour they value not their lives in fighting knowing that if they come off they are sure to be preferred But the most effectual and efficatious machin to skrew up their courage to the highest degree and pitch of desperation is an opinion which by the artifices and insinuations of the Churchmen passes for infallible among the Souldiers that whoever dyes in the wars is in the account of God and Mahomet a Martyr his death expiates and atones all his sins of what nature soever that ipso facto he merits the joys and pleasures of Paradise and his Soul shall not be kept to attend upon the body in the grave to undergo the examination of the two Angels which they are so terribly afraid of A Mufti being consulted in what order the followers of Mahomet shnuld enter into Paradise determined it in favour of the Souldiers slain in the wars that they were to have the precedence then the honest plowmen afterward the Lawyers and Priests and the rest promiscuously without any order at all as they can pass and get in in the croud Animated with these hopes they are almost unwilling to live no danger terrifies death does not mate their courage the pleasant and wanton thoughts they entertain of their Fools Paradise do so run in their minds They shew the same if not a greater courage in keeping a fortification where they have fixt their Half-Moon Standard much more a Town or City where they have built a Mosch when besieged by Christians chusing rather to undergo all the hardships of a Siege or the most dismal consequences of an assault then any way think of a surrender This is a mighty piece of Religion among them that Mahometanism may loose no ground rather than so they will perish not only without complaint and murmur but willingly and with joy too Such a fatal obstinacy are they wrought up to by their superstition The great wasts which are made by plague and war are supplied by the Slaves which are continually brought into the Empire and by the multitude of women allowed by the Law of Mahomet It is enough to rend any heart that gives way to the least impressions of pity to consider the sad condition of poor Christian Captives in Turkey They are chiefly brought in yearly by the Tartars who make excursions into Poland and Russia for several days journeys and upon their return sweep and carry all before them several Ships laden with them in the Ports of the Black Sea the old name of Euxine being wholly lost and forgot in the months of June and July arriving at Constantinople This is the great Mart for Slaves where they are sure to meet with a quick and a good Market for no commodity is more vendible or merchantable Or else they are brought along with the Caravans from the farthest parts of the Empire in Asia out of Georgia and Mengrelia wholly intent upon their private gain in the sale The Tartars while they enrich themselves with this kind of spoil advance the publick interest of the Turks that part of Christendom which they ravage being much weakned by the loss of thousands thus barbarously carried into captivity and their own Empire enlarged and strengthened by such great accessions For few ever return to their native Country and fewer have the courage and constancy of retaining the Christian Faith in which they were educated their education being but mean and their knowledg but slight in the principles and grounds of it whereof some are frighted into Turcism by their impatience and too deep resentments of the hardships of the servitude others are enticed by the blandishments and flatteries of pleasure the Mahometan Law allows and the allurements they have of making their condition better and more easie by a change of their Religion having no hopes left of being redeemed they renounce their Saviour and their Christianity and soon forget their original Country and are no longer lookt upon as strangers but pass for natives Every Wednesday morning they are exposed publickly to sale like so many Horses or Sheep in a Fair in a peculiar place of Constantinople which has the name of Jazir Basar or the Slave-Market where is an establisht Officer to register the sales The Area of which is about fifty paces square on the sides of it are Chambers where usually they put the women Here I have seen not without horror and confusion of mind for pity was too mean a passion and soon swallowed up with so dismal and frightful a spectacle above five hundred at the same time as so many victims ready to be offered to Moloch The poor Children scarce yet sensible of their misfortune modest and silent and the women who had any skill in Embroidery at work with their Needle by which artifice the Patrons think to put them off at better rates feeding them well before hand that they may look plump and fat and seem to be in good case and putting them on handsom clothes the better to attract a Chapman There is scarce a Turk if he be of any fashion but has one Slave at least and some of them twenty according to the greatness of their estates and the occasions they have of them They are their proper goods and let them out to hire sometime whatever they get is their Masters who have an absolute power and command over them in all things except in the case of life and death otherwise be their usage never so cruel and barbarous the poor wretch has no remedy left but patience and submission It is interest more than good nature and humanity which makes them use them well and puts them upon providing clothes victuals and whatever is necessary to sustain life that they may yeild them the better service and for fear they should sicken and dye which would prove their loss the care of them being only the same with that they bestow upon their Cattel The Bassas and other great men enjoy themselves unto the height out of foresight that in an Empire where all things are so uncertain and where happen daily such sudden changes and traverses of fortune they may be soon stript of all they will not lose one jot of their grandeur but mightily pride themselves in it In their Houses indeed they do not consult pomp and beauty so much as largeness and convenience their riches is more to be seen in their Stables than in the furniture of their Rooms No Porticos no Courts laid out in exact proportions no Galleries adorned with costly pieces of art nothing either for state or pleasure accommodation being chiefly lookt after their diet too is course and mean and far from luxurious and little differing from that which ordinary persons content themselves with Their magnificence appears in the number
the water and with much a-do got to us We put him into Christian habit like one of the Seamen but for his and our greater security the Turkish Customers being within a day or two to search the Vessel lest they should give us or the Merchants any trouble if they found him with us our Captain desired the Commander of a Dutch Man of War that lay in the Bay to receive him till we set sail within four days when we were out of all danger we received him again and brought him for England The condition of the Slaves is more or less tolerable according to the temper and humour of their Patrons But of all a Gally-slave leads the most sad and miserable life when they are abroad at Sea perpetually labouring at the Oar and chained to their seats there they are fixed in all weathers their only hope being this that violent storms are not very lasting They must make a virtue of necessity and are forced to be patient A love of life and hope one day of being freedmake them submit their backs to the cruel whip otherwise death would be a real advantage to them and some indeed out of a weariness and loathing of life have been so desperate as to get loose and leap into the Sea They who are taken in the wars are the Grand Signiors Slaves and seldom or never get their liberty unless when a Christian Ambassador intercedes powerfully in their behalf or that this condition be inserted in the Articles of a Treaty renewed after a rupture by war a point the Signoria of Venice in the late accord upon the surrendry of Candia pursued with great zeal and by the prudent conduct of their Bailo so happily effected to the great honour of St. Mark They judg it an indecorum that the Exchequer should be one Asper the richer for ransoms No their Prisoners must linger out their time and grow old either in their Gallies or Prisons unless they are met with and over-powered in fight by the Knights of Malta who are obliged their by their Order to be in perpetual enmity with the Turks and are a great thorn in their side and so have their liberty given them by the Conquerer or else when their Gallies are halled ashore into their Voltas by some unexspected chance get away At such time they are shut up in a spacious Area by the Arsenal on the North-side of the Haven at Constantinople enclosed with very high walls and strict guard kept at the entrance and for the greater security they shackle them in couples Here I had occasion to go often to visit and relieve four or five poor English men some of which had served Captain Georgio a famous Greek Pyrate who was a plague to the Infidels but at last by a surprize he fell into their hands though after a most brave resistance himself being killed in the encounter to the great joy of all the inhabitants of the Sea-coasts whose often visits were so terrible to them his head was sent as a present to the Emperor for which the Messenger was considerably rewarded and the service of the Captain Bassa who with his whole Fleet of Gallies assisted by some Ships of Tripoly set upon his two Ships in a Port of Mitylene highly magnified and Songs made upon the victory my business being to confirm them by my advice in their profession of the Faith of Christ that no hardship might work upon their troubled minds to make them turn Turks and to relieve them as I saw their necessities required with the money that was put into my hand for such Christian uses The Turks allow them only black bread and water but for other necessaries of life they are beholding to their Fellow Christians though some of the more handy and ingenious by some kind of work or other do scrape together a few Aspers to lay in a little provision against the time of their going to Sea The Christian Commanders and Officers are imprisoned in the Seven Towers scituated upon the Propontis in the South-East corner of Constantinople These Gentlemen are the great trophies of their victories with these and their perpetual servitude they seem satisfied in the loss of many thousands killed in the war They have a daily allowance of fifteen Aspers made by the Emperor and this is esteemed a mighty piece of bounty which they cannot safely reject though the Governour usually gets a third part of it but being most of noble Families they are well maintained not only by their Relations but by the respective Governments and States under which they served considerable sums being yearly sent toward their relief which is distributed in due proportion according to their quality and character only I could wish the Hungarian and German Gentlemen who are Protestants had a little more justice done them in the distribution and did not suffer upon the account of their Religion Here I went three or four times a year to give them the Holy Sacrament and found easie admission into the Castle as did the Religious of the Roman Church to say Mass to those of their Communion who were far more numerous visits were continually made them by their friends they had the free use of the Castle so as they kept within their due limits and free liberty of keeping one another company and thus they deceived the tediousness of their imprisonment by mutual kindnesses and civilities of conversation the Governour of the Castle letting out a Garden to a noble Venetian who had been taken in Corso which favour he admitted his fellow-prisoners to Nothing seemed to be wanting but their liberty to make their life pleasant many of them were allowed to keep their Servants and lay in what provision they pleased the Governour being a mild man and extraordinary indulgent besides the usual custom of Turks who think that the right of war will justify the most horrid act of barbarity and brutishness toward their Prisoners who are to look upon it as a great favour and mercy that their throats are not cut But after that a French Gentleman a Knight of Malta made his escape in the latter end of the year 1670. in the French-Men of War which brought their new Ambassador the Turks mad at their remissness were resolved to revenge themselves upon the remaining Prisoners treating them with all imaginable despight and cruelty thrusting them having first put iron-bolts upon their legs into loathsome Cellars and Dungeons without the least regard to their quality and suffering no Christian to come nigh them and indeed the cruelty and insolence were so great that without the divine assistance it had been altogether insupportable The other Slaves who are in private mens hands are redeemable at a good price but then there must be artifice used in the buying of them The more forward the Western Christians are to redeem their Countrey-men the greater price their covetous Masters set upon their heads a seeming indifference whether