| Transcript |
Xxii HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
pleasure than any of his predecessors. To encourage it, his vizir, Cara Mustapha,
collected, in every pashalik of the empire, whatever was rare and curious in the vegetable
world; the seeds, bulbs, and roots of which were conveyed to Constantinople. Hence,
as some erroneously say, originated* that love of flowers which at this day distinguishes
the Turks; and Europe is supplied with its most beautiful specimens of floriculture by a
rude people, whose coarse and brutal indulgences in other respects, seem incompatible
with so elegant an enjoyment. He shortly after caused his favourite vizir to be strangled,
on the suspicion of intending to master Vienna, in order to establish a dynasty for himself
in Europe. His own death soon followed, by the hands of the discontented Janissaries,
after a reign of thirty-nine years.
Achmet II. was more distinguished by the talents of his grand vizir, Kiuprili, than
by any act of his own. The father of this man was an instance of the singular and
unexpected fortune for which some are remarkable in Turkey. He was a Frenchman,
born in a village called Kuperly, in Champaigne, from whence he took his name. He
committed a murder, and was obliged to fly, but the boat in which he escaped was taken
by Algerine pirates. Under this circumstance, whoever assumes the turban is no longer
a slave. He did not hesitate to abjure his faith, and enrolled himself among the
Janissaires at Constantinople, where he obtained paramount influence in that turbulent
corps. His son was raised to the rank of grand vizir—governed the great Turkish
empire—and set up and deposed sovereigns at his pleasure. His destruction was resolved
on by the Kisler Aga, who feigned a plot in which he was concerned against the sultan,
—while in the act of revealing it, a mute raised the curtain of the tent. Accustomed
to listen rather by sight than sound, he at once learned the subject of the conversation
by the motion of the lips, and revealed it to Kiuprili. The Kislar Aga was strangled,
his secretary hanged in his robes of office with his silver pen-case suspended from his
girdle, and Kiuprili remained in the ascendant. As if to mark his hatred of the religion
for which his father had apostatized, he caused two patriarchs of the Greek church to be
strangled in prison. He was killed in battle in Servia—the Turks were everywhere
defeated—and his master soon after died of grief in 1695.
The reign of Mustapha II. was marked by calamities which have never since ceased
to afflict the Turkish empire. Besides the ordinary inflictions of war, every other seems
to have been laid, by the hand of Providence, on this ruthless nation: Constantinople
and Pera were utterly destroyed by fire—a bolt of thunder fell on the imperial mosque,
and left it in ruins—the caravan of pilgrims proceeding to Mecca was attacked by Arabs,
and 25,000 of them put to the sword—the turbulent Janissaries, availing themselves
of every pretext for discontent, were again in a state of insurrection, and compelled the
sultan to fly for his life to Adrianople, along with the mufti. Here he was obliged to
surrender the unfortunate head of the church, who was treated with every indignity,
* The fondness of the Turks for flowers was remarked by Busbequius, in his embassy to Soliman
the Magnificent, a century before— Turca fores valde excolunt. Busb. p. 47. He notices the tulip as
a flower new to him, and peculiar to the Turks. |
