Atque illum ad celebrem Byzanti destinat urbem,
Præstanti eloquio et placido sermone Tyranni
In melius si forte queat convertere mentem.
After this humiliating confession of the power of the Turk, Favolius tells us how they sailed across the Gulf of Venice and landed at Ragusa. After a short rest the party travelled over the mountains to Sophia, and thence to Constantinople. In returning Veltwick made the journey to Vienna by land, taking, no doubt, the same route as was afterwards traversed by Busbecq, while Hugo Favolius and some of the younger members of the party obtained leave to go back to Venice by sea.
It seems strange that in a piece of this kind the writer should so frankly admit the superiority of the Turkish power; it would appear to be but an ill compliment to the sovereigns from whom Favolius must have looked for advancement. In order, however, to gauge the real amount of terror which the Turks inspired it is necessary to take the account of P. Rubigal, the Hungarian, who was attached to an embassy sent shortly after the death of John Zapolya[296] by the leading nobles of his party to convey their tribute to Solyman. Rubigal’s itinerary may be considered to furnish us with an idea of the position of a Hungarian in the middle of the sixteenth century. His description is ludicrous, no doubt, but it is no less horrible.
He begins thus:—
Tempore concedens quo rex in fata Joannes
Liquerat Hungaricæ regia sceptra domus,
Inque patris titulos natus successerat infans
Et dubia imperii forma recentis erat,