In the year 1,300 he made Neapolis the capital of his dominions, and from thence is dated the foundation of the present Ottoman empire.
Osman was so distinguished by his conquests, and became so endeared to his subjects, that ever since his time, the appellation of Osmanlis has been adopted by them; and the word Türk, or Turk, so indiscriminately applied to them by the Europeans, is not only inappropriate, but of a disagreeable signification, for it is only used among themselves as an epithet of opprobrium.
In the twenty-sixth year of his reign, Osman took the city of Broossa, in Asia Minor, which his son Orkhan, who succeeded him, made the capital of his dominions. The desire, however, to possess the city of Stamboul, was transferred with increasing ardor from sultan to sultan; but the glory of its conquest was reserved for Mohammed II.
The effeminate condition of the Greeks favored his design; for out of a population of 200,000 men, there were scarcely 8,000 ready to defend their capital; and on the 29th of May, 1453, Constantinople fell into the hands of the Osmanlis, or descendants of Osman, who have held it in possession until the present day.
It is evident that the Osmanlis are the descendants of the Scythians, or one of the Tartar tribes; but who those Scythians originally were, may be questioned.
A very curious, but plausible theory is advanced by some persons, that the Tartars are of the Jewish race. Tarat-har or Tartar, in the Syrian language, signifies the remnant of a people.
Now, in the second book of Kings, it is recorded that the King of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan in the cities of the Medes. This was about 720 years before Christ.
Medea is situated near the Caspian Sea; possessed entirely by these Tartars.
The names which are given to their principal cities, are the same as were common among the Jews. For instance, the capital of Tartary is called Semerkand; which is a corruption of Samaryan, very similar to Samaria. There are, moreover, many relics of antiquity in this city, which bear undeniable evidences of having been Jewish monuments. They have also another town called Jericho, a Mount Sion and a Mount Tabor, with a river Yordon or Jordan.
They are divided into ten tribes, bearing names similar to the ancient patriarchs of Israel.