Janizaries -- Fiction; Turkey -- History -- Mahmud I, 1730-1754 -- Fiction
"Ye worthless vagabonds, ye filthy sneak-thieves, mud-larking
crab-catchers, pitchy-fingered slipper-botchers, huddling opium-eaters,
swindling knacker-sellers, petty hucksters, ye ragged, filthy,
whey-faced tipplers!--I, Abdi, the Kapudan Pasha, say it to you, and I
only regret that I have not the tongue of a Giaour of the Hungarian race
that I might be able to heap upon you all the curses and reproaches
that your conduct deserves, ye dogs! What do you want then? Have you not
enough to eat? Do you want war because you are tired of peace? War,
indeed, though you would take good care to keep out of it. To remain at
home here and wage war against women and girls is much more to your
liking; booths not fortresses are what you like to storm. Be off to your
homes from whence you have come, I say, for whomsoever I find in the
streets an hour hence his head shall dangle in front of the Pavilion of
Justice. Mark my words!"
With these words Abdi gave his horse the spur and galloped through the
thickest part of the mob, which dispersed in terror before him, and with
proud self-satisfaction the Kapudan Pasha saw how the people hid away
from him in their houses and vanished, as if by magic, from the streets
and house-tops.
He galloped into the town without opposition. At every street corner he
blew a long blast in the captured horn, and addressed some well-chosen
remarks to the people assembled there, which scattered them in every
direction.
At last he reached the Bezesztan, where every shop was closed.
"Open your shops, ye dogs!" thundered Abdi to the assembled merchants
and tradesmen. "I suppose your heels are itching?--or perhaps you are
tired of having ears and noses? Open all your shop-doors this instant, I
say! for whoever keeps them closed after this command shall be hanged up
in front of his own shop-door!"
The shopkeepers, full of terror, began to take down their shutters
forthwith.
From thence he galloped off towards the Etmeidan.
The great fishmarket, which he passed on his way, was filled with people
from end to end. Not a word could be heard for the fearful din, which
completely drowned the voices of a few stump-orators who here and there
had climbed up the pillars near the drinking-fountains to address the
mob.
Nevertheless the resonant, penetrating voice of the horn blown by the
Kapudan Pasha dominated the tumult, and turned every face in his
direction.
Rising in his stirrups, Abdi addressed them with a terrible voice:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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