While ladies interpose and slaves debate.’
[163] The great Council of State was named the Divan; and in the absence of the Sultan the Grand Vizier was its president. The other Viziers and the Kadiaskers, or chief judges, took their stations on his right; the Defterdars, or treasurers, and the Nis-chandyis, or secretaries, on his left. The Teskeredyis, or officers charged to present reports on the condition of each department of the State, stood in front of the Grand Vizier. The Divan was also attended by the Reis-Effendi, a general secretary, whose power afterwards became more important than that of the Nis-chandyis, by the Grand Chamberlain, and the Grand Marshal, and a train of other officials of the Court. (Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chap. vi.)
[164] ‘The Sultan (Bajazet I.) had at this time 7,000 falconers, and as many huntsmen. You may suppose from this the grandeur of his establishments. One day in the presence of the Count de Nevers, he flew a falcon at some eagles; the flight did not please him, and he was so wroth, that, for this fault, he was on the point of beheading 2,000 of his falconers, scolding them exceedingly for want of diligence in their care of his hawks, when the one he was fond of behaved so ill.’—Froissart, iv. 58.
[165] The reference is to the Digest or Pandects of Justinian, liber xxxix. titulus 4, De Publicanis et Vectigalibus et Commissis, where ‘Babylonicæ pelles’ are mentioned in a catalogue of taxable articles.
[166] See Homer’s Iliad, iii. 2-6, and compare Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 575:
‘That small infantry
Warred on by cranes.’
[167] These stories of the lynx and crane are quoted by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy.
[168] Gibbon’s reference to this passage is not fair. He says (chap. lxviii. note), ‘Busbequius expatiates with pleasure and applause on the rights of war, and the use of slavery among the ancients and the Turks.’ In the first place Busbecq merely throws out a suggestion, which he would be sorry for his friend to take in sober earnest. Secondly, we must remember the evils existing in Busbecq’s days, which slavery would have remedied; (i.) it was the common practice to put to death all prisoners of war, who could not pay ransom; e.g. see Busbecq’s letter of November 13, 1589, to Rodolph. Slavery in this case would be a mitigation of their fate, (ii.) At that time death or mutilation were the punishments for almost every offence. Busbecq’s project is an anticipation of the more merciful system of modern times which has introduced penal servitude, which is really ‘a just and mild form of slavery.’
[169] Shooting with the crossbow has been a custom at Bousbecque from very early times. The village had a guild of crossbowmen in the times of Charles V., which was reconstituted in 1715. A society of the kind still exists there. See Histoire de Bousbecque, p. 170.