FOOTNOTES
[1] A title of the Sultan.
[2] Bashaw; an old name for pasha.
[3] Arnaout; Turkish for Albanian, a corruption of the old Byzantine word Arvanitæ.
[4] Koran, Chap. II.
[5] Iscander-Beg; or The Lord Alexander.
[6] Giaours; a term of reproach by which the Turks designate the unbelievers in Mahomet, especially Christians.
[7] 800 of the Hegira; 1422 of the Christian era.
[8] Sanjak; a military and administrative authority giving the possessor command of 5,000 horse.
[9] The Moslems are allowed four wives. Beyond this number their women can be only concubines.
[10] The Moslems call Christians dogs.
[11] These are still Servian customs.
[12] Vide Apochryphal Gospels.
[13] Divan; the Turkish Council of State.
[14] A lake in Albania.
[15] Voivode; a Servian and Albanian term for general.
[16] Gunpowder was at this time coming into general use.
[17] The old chronicles admit, as one weakness of Scanderbeg, a fondness for personal decoration.
[18] The author adds these lines to the meagre details of this battle as known, for the purpose of accounting for its immediate issue, and for the subsequent events.
[19] Some historians represent Scanderbeg as having had Albanian accomplices in this murder.
[20] Spahi: master of cavalry.
[21] Bismallah; "Please God," a Turkish common exclamation.
[22] Lake Scutari.
[23] The Inexpert, or lower grade of Janizaries.
[24] An incident narrated in Turkish history.
[25] Timour-lenk or Timourlane; Timour the Lame.
[26] See old annals.
[27] Vide, the Greek Empress Irene and her son Constantine.
[28] The bridge over hell mentioned above.
[29] Afterward Sultan Mahomet II.
[30] Literally, Man of Blood, a title of the Sultan.
[31] The custom also in other Oriental nations than the Turkish.
[32] Aga; commander.
[33] Kara Khalil Tschendereli, the founder of the Janizaries in the time of Sultan Orchan.
[34] According to a Moslem tradition the beautiful birds of paradise hold in their crops the souls of holy martyrs until the resurrection.
[35] Kaiks or caiques; light row-boats.
[36] Whence the word Ottoman. Also written Osman, whence the Osmanlis.
[37] Yeni Tscheri; new troop; corrupted in Janizary.
[38] Vide Koran.
[39] About 1280 A. D.
[40] About the end of the tenth century.
[41] Between 997 and 1030 A. D.
[42] Tribes of Turkius were mentioned by Pliny.
[43] This perversion of the Christian dogma of the Trinity was taught by heretical sects in the time of the Prophet Mahomet, and is embodied in the Koran.
[44] A. D., 1444.
[45] Fiefs or portions of conquered lands given to soldiers.
[46] Sir William Temple.
[47] Still a Servian and Albanian superstition.
[48] Moslems do not remove the hat in making salutation.
[49] Two horse-tails; the symbol of a Beyler Bey, a chief bey of Europe or Asia.
[50] A title of Janizaries given them by the dervish who blessed the order at its institution in the days of Orchan.
[51] According to the Moslems, hell is divided into seven stories or cellars, the lowest being reserved for hypocrites.
[52] Bride of Othman.
[53] Ivo, the Black, or Tsernoi, from whom the mountain country to the north of Albania was called Tsernogorki, or, in its Latinized form, Montenegro.
[54] Lake Scadar or Scutari.
[55] The Tsernoyevitcha, the great river of Montenegro which empties into Lake Scutari.
[56] Still noted by travellers on this river.
[57] An Albanian title of Elijah.
[58] The Albanians regard Mary as the sender of lightning.
[59] Tsigani; a word by which Slavic people designate the gypsies, who are supposed by them to have come from India in the time of Tamerlane.
[60] Help me, Mary!
[61] The death angel.
[62] In Albanian speech the sun is feminine.
[63] Marinus Barletius, a Latin monk of the time, has given us in his chronicles, the most extended account of Scanderbeg.
[64] Filioque; "and the Son." The Latin Church holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Greeks deny the latter part of the proposition.
[65] A modern Greek talent weighs 125 English pounds.
[66] The present art of "slow approach" was an invention of the Turks.
[67] A face of Christ was wrought in mosaic in the wall above the chancel of St. Sophia. The Turks still have a traditional saying that the Christian shall not again possess Constantinople until the face of Jesus appears visibly in St. Sophia. At the time of its capture by the Moslems this picture of Christ was painted over. It is now again dimly discerned through the fading and scaling paint.
[68] The "Azymites" were those who used unleavened bread in the sacrament, and at the time of which we are writing the word was used among the Greeks as a term of reproach to the Latinizers, that is, those who favored union with the Latin Church.
[69] A suburb of Constantinople, occupied by the Genoese.
[70] Brothers of the infidels.
[71] One of the sultanas of Amurath II. and daughter of George Brankovitch, Despot of Servia.
[72] The type of a beautiful complexion according to the Koran, Chap. XXXVII.
[73] Koran, Chap. XXXIV.
[74] Koran, Chap. IV.
[75] Shadow of God, one of the titles of the Sultan.
[76] The niche in mosques, on the side toward Mecca, in the direction of which the Moslems turn their faces to pray.
[77] The Panurgia, a name given to the Holy Virgin, who at a former siege of Constantinople, in 1422, was imagined to have appeared upon the wall for its defense.
[78] The Ottomans regard the appellation of "King of the Turks" as an insult, since the Turks are comparatively few of the many subjects of the Sultan in Europe. Some of the most distinguished servants of the empire are of Christian parentage, and either have been conquered or have voluntarily submitted to the domination of the Moslem.
[79] The Moslem superstition led them to believe that witches, by tying knots in a cord and blowing on them, brought evil to the person they had in mind.
[80] Easter.
[81] The Coptic Mary with whom the Prophet was said to have been enamored.
[82] In 1437 the Venetians carried many large ships across the country from the river Adige to the lake of Garda.
[83] At Actium.
[84] Odalisk; the title of a childless inmate of the harem.
[85] Mother of the Sultan.
[86] Hamamjina; bath attendant.
[87] Hanoum; a title given to matrons.
[88] Muderris; professors in the high schools.
[89] Chain of Ulemas; a renowned system of colleges.
[90] Gibbon; Chapter LXVIII.
[91] Porphyry column; now the famous Burnt Column.
[92] Staff of Moses; one of the relics held sacred by the Greeks at the time.
[93] Gibbon's statement of Mahomet II's. opinion.
[94] Punishment of those in hell, according to Koran.
[95] See effigy in the museum of the Elbicei-Atika at Constantinople.
[96] A similar remark was made afterward by Mahomet II. to a chief officer who asked him his plans for a certain campaign.
[97] Koran, Chapter IV. "When you are saluted with a salutation, salute the person with a better salutation, or at least return the same."
[98] According to the Koran the houris perspire musk.
[99] About an English pound sterling.
[100] Kaikji; a common boatman.
[101] Koran, Chap. II.
[102] The mabeyn lies between the selamlik (general reception room for men) and the haremlik; and is the living apartment for men.
[103] The sluice which was supposed to have been used for this purpose is still seen at Old Seraglio Point.
[104] According to Knowles, this was a part of Scanderbeg's reply to Amurath II.
[105] The firman of Sultan Mahomet was never revoked, and from his time until the extinction of the order of Janizaries by Sultan Mahmoud, in 1834, the Padishah always appointed the Chief Aga.
[106] The word Drakul signifies in Servian "the Devil."
[107] Vide Knowles, History of the Turks, and Albanian Chronicles.
[108] Modern Alessio.
[109] Koran, Chapter VI.
[110] The price of blood, generally 1000 piastres among the poorer classes, which was paid by the culprit to the village where the crime was committed, and by it paid to the general government.
[111] Castriot married late in life.