[54] “Dragoman” is of course a clumsy transliteration of the Turkish, or rather Arabic, Targuman, interpreter. Seventeenth-century Englishmen gave to this word many forms, more or less fantastic and more or less remote from the original (drichman, truckman, etc.), but it most commonly figures as Druggerman (pl. Druggermen).
[55] See e.g. Harvey to Arlington, Dec. 4, 1670; April 30, July 19, 27, 1671, S.P. Turkey, 19. But the most eloquent testimonial to Dragoman information is furnished by Harvey’s Secretary: “Here seldome happens anything worthy remarke and when there does it is so uncertainly reported to us by our Druggermen who are our only Intelligencers, that experience makes us very incredulous; what wee heare one day is com̴only contradicted the next, and shou’d I give you a dayly account of things according to your desire, my busines wou’d bee almost every other Letter to disabuse you in what I had writt to you before.”—Geo. Etherege to Joseph Williamson; Endorsed: “R. 8 May, 1670,” ibid.
[56] Rycaut’s Present State, pp. 169-70. For examples of the terrorism exercised by the Turks towards European envoys and their Dragomans, see that work, pp. 155 foll., as well as the same author’s History of the Turkish Empire, and his Memoirs, passim.
[57] Finch to Coventry, Jan. 6-16, 1675-76, Coventry Papers.
[58] See Finch Report, p. 521.
[59] “A man of singular parts, an excellent gentleman’s companion, capable to undertake and go through with any business whatsoever.”—Lord Pagett to the Right Hon. James Vernon, July 23, 1698, S.P. Turkey, 21.
[60] Winchilsea to Sir Heneage Finch, Jan. 11, 1662 [-3], Finch Report, p. 233. How much the Ambassador owed to his Secretary is shown by a comparison between his despatches and Rycaut’s Memoirs.
[61] Pepys, after the Great Fire, which burnt most of the first edition, had to pay 55 shillings for a copy. It is true that this was one of the six copies printed with coloured pictures, “whereof the King and Duke of York and Duke of Monmouth, and Lord Arlington had four.”—Diary, March 20, April 8, 1667.
[62] Arlington to Winchilsea, Oct. 13, 1666, Finch Report, p. 442.
[63] “Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel,” in Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, Introd. p. xxix. This essay can be safely recommended only to experts capable of checking its innumerable ineptitudes.