X. Their abhorrence for, nor their ignorance of the sciences in Turkey, is not so great as is generally imagined; for they have professors both in Constantinople and Grand Cairo, who teach astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, poetry, and the Arabic and Persian languages. But they have not so great an esteem for those faculties, as they have for politics; in their knowledge of which, there is scarce any nation who is equal to them, nor are there any subtilties appertaining to political arts, which they are ignorant of. The great English traveller, Mr. Chardin, in the relation of his voyage to India by land, tells us, that when he passed through Constantinople, he had much conversation with Senor Quirini the Venetian ambassador at the Porte; who assured him, that he had never treated with a man of equal penetration to the vizir of that time; and declared, that if he had a son whom he wished to breed a negociator, he would send him to the school of the Ottoman court preferable to any other. The Turks excel in all things that require dexterity of hand, and in all bodily exercises they take a fancy to. They are the best pen men in the world, and this is the reason, why they never would permit the art of printing to be introduced among them; and they are also the most active and dextrous rope-dancers in Europe. Cardanus relates wonders of two of them he saw in Italy, one of whom became a Christian, and lived an exemplary life, but always continued his old exercise; although his becoming a convert to Christianity, removed the suspicion that the vulgar entertained of his dealing with the devil. The dexterity of the Turks as archers, is so eminent, that the force and exactness with which they can shoot arrows is almost incredible. John Barclay, in the fourth book of his Satyricon, testifies to have seen a Turk penetrate with an arrow, a plate of steel, that was above an inch thick; and that he had seen another, who with the shaft of an arrow without any iron to it, split the body of a small tree. In the art of confectioning poisons, they are also very expert; for they will make them not only very active, but contrive them so, as that they may be administered without creating suspicion; a thin vapour with which a piece of fine linen is impregnated, if it is afterwards made up in any form, and sent as a present to the person to be dispatched, is made the instrument to take away his life. This is a most horrid and execrable art; but although it proves the perverse and wicked disposition of those people, is an argument of their great talents, for acquiring a profound knowledge of all they apply themselves to understand.