portions of the Koran are sometimes cited on this subject to explain away the aggressive spirit of others; but the whole tone of the Mahometan Sacred Book is eminently warlike, and must in the palmy days of Islam have stirred the bold blood of the Turk, like the sound of a trumpet, to wrest fresh cities and provinces for Allah from the Giaour. The Turkish military code breathes the full inspiration of the words of the Prophet, “In the shade of the crossing scymetars, there is Paradise." Every Mahometan is required to be a soldier.* Every soldier killed in battle, for the defence of the faith, is styled Schedid, or Martyr.+ And the Moslem who deserts his post, or flies before the foe, is held to sin against both God and man: his punishment is death in this world, and hell-fire in the next. No quarter is to be given to an enemy with arms in his hands; and war is held to make all modes of destruction lawful. Captives, women, and children, and all that can do Mahometans no harm, are ordered to be spared; but those among the enemy, who from their abilities, station, or other causes, may hereafter become dangerous to the true believers, may be slain, though they have ceased to resist. All cruelty and mutilation are forbidden, and all breach of faith. Capitulations must be observed, and promises to an enemy kept by whomsoever they were given. If the sovereign disapprove of the terms, he must punish his Mahometan officer who made them. The Turk is never to make a

D'Ohsson, 202.

+ D'Ohsson, 208. By a somewhat strange limitation the crown of martyrdom is denied to those who die off the field of battle by the effects of their wounds received on it.

disadvantageous treaty unless when every mode of warfare has been tried, and under pressure of the direst necessity. But such a treaty, if once made, is to be kept strictly.*

In watching the vicissitudes of Turkish history, we shall find too frequent violations of the better portions of their laws of war. But their general character is honourable to the people among whom they were framed, and of whose military greatness they were at once a cause and a sign.

In the general view which we have been taking of the Turkish institutions, we have lost sight of the individual Mahomet the Conqueror. But our attention is forcibly recalled to him, when we cite one of the canons of the Turkish system of government, without notice of which our survey would be incomplete. It is the legalisation of imperial fratricide. Mahomet II. ordained it by the following part of his Institutes: "The majority of my jurists have pronounced, that those of my illustrious descendants who ascend the throne, may put their brothers to death, in order to secure the repose of the world. It will be their duty to act accordingly." +

* D'Ohsson, vol. ii. p. 49, et seq. D'Ohsson collected the Turkish military (and other) laws from the great Ottoman Code, that was compiled and published by the celebrated Turkish jurist Ibrahim Halebey, who died in 1549. See D'Ohsson's Introduction, p. 23.

+ Von Hammer, book xviii.

CHAPTER VII.

BAJAZET II.- PRINCE DJEM-CIVIL WAR-ADVENTURES AND DEATH OF DJEM IN CHRISTENDOM - FIRST WAR WITH EGYPT-BAJAZET DETHRONED BY HIS SON, SELIM.*

On the death of Sultan Mahomet II., a struggle for the sovereignty ensued between his two sons, Prince Bajazet and Prince Djem, in which success rested with the eldest, but not the bravest or ablest of the brothers. Both the princes were absent from Constantinople at the time of their father's decease. Prince Bajazet, then aged thirty-five, was at Amassia, the capital of the province which he ruled; and Prince Djem, who was twenty-two years old, was in Caramania, of which his father had made him governor. Bajazet was of a contemplative melancholy disposition, simple in his habits, austere in his devotions, fond of poetry and speculative philosophy; whence came the surname of Sofi (the Mystic), which is given to him by many of the Ottoman historians. Djem had the energy, the ambition, the love of pomp and voluptuousness, which had marked his father the Conqueror; and, without sharing his brother's fondness for metaphysics and abstruse learning, Djem was more eminent even than the other

* Von Hammer, books xix., xx., xxi.

members of his highly-gifted family for his love of poetry; and his own poems are ranked among the most beautiful in Turkish literature. On the death of Sultan Mahomet being known in the camp and capital, the Janissaries rose in open anarchy, plundered the houses of the rich Jews and other wealthy inhabitants, and put to death the Grand Vizier, who had vainly endeavoured to disguise from them the fact of the Sultan's death. As this minister was known to be a supporter of the interests of Prince Djem, the Janissaries were easily led by the adherents of the elder brother to pronounce in favour of Prince Bajazet ; and the rest of the army followed their example. Messengers had been despatched to each prince by their respective partisans in the capital; but the bearer of the important tidings to Prince Djem was waylaid and slain on the road; and Bajazet obtained the inestimable advantage over his competitor of first learning that the throne was vacant, and first reaching Constantinople to claim it. The Janissaries appeared before him on his arrival at the capital, and asked forgiveness for their late acts of violence; but these formidable suppliants asked it in battle array, and accompanied their petition by a demand for an increase of pay, and for a donative on their new sovereign's accession. Bajazet obeyed all their requests; and thenceforth the distribution of large sums of money at the commencement of each reign among these Mahometan Prætorians became a regular custom in Turkey, alike burdensome to the treasury and disgraceful to the Sultan, until it was abolished by the Sultan Abdul-Hamid, during the war with Russia,

three hundred years after the time of the second Bajazet.

Djem was not of a disposition to resign the sovereignty to his brother without a struggle; and, remembering the bloody law by which their father had made Imperial fratricide a state maxim, the young Ottoman prince may be said to have armed as much for life as for empire. A civil war followed, in which the abilities of the veteran Ahmed-Kedük, the conqueror of Kaffa and Otranto, and the treachery of some of Djem's principal followers gave the victory to Bajazet. A proposition had been made before the battle by Djem to his brother to divide the empire, Bajazet taking the European and Djem the Asiatic provinces. Bajazet refused to listen to such a scheme; and when the aged Sultana, Seldjoukatoun, who was the daughter of Mahomet I., and the great aunt of the two rivals, came to his camp and endeavoured to move his fraternal feelings in Djem's favour, Bajazet answered with stern brevity, by citing the Arab proverb, "There is no relationship among princes." Nevertheless, the Mystic Sultan, though resolute to maintain his rights, and to suffer no dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, showed no remorseless eagerness for his brother's death, till after Djem had proved that, so long as life was in him, he would strive for a kingly crown at Bajazet's expense. After his first defeat (20th June, 1481), and the dispersion of his army, Djem fled to the dominions of the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, where he was favourably received and sheltered for a year, during which time he visited the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. He