Sure who e'er shall the just extraction bring Of this gigantic power from the spring; Must there confess a higher Ordinance Did it for terror to the earth advance. For mark how 'mongst a lawless straggling crew, Made up of Arab, Saracen, and Jew, The world's disturber, faithless Mahomet Did by impostures an opinion get: 60 O'er whom he first usurps as Prince, and than As prophet does obtrude his Alcoran. Next, how fierce Ottoman his claim made good From that unblest religion, by blood; Whilst he the Eastern kingdoms did deface, To make their ruin his proud Empire's base. Then like a comet blazing in the skies, How death-portending Amurath did rise, When he his horned crescents did display Upon the fatal plains of Servia; 70 And farther still his sanguine tresses spread, Till Croya life and conquests limited. Lastly, how Mahomet thence styl'd the Great, Made Constantine's his own Imperial seat; After that he in one victorious bond Two Empires grasp'd, of Greece and Trebizond. This, and much more than this, I gladly read, Where my relators it had storyed; Besides that people's manners and their rites, Their warlike discipline and order'd fights; 80 Their desp'rate valour, hard'ned by the sense Of unavoided Fate and Providence: Their habit, and their houses, who confer Less cost on them than on their sepulchre: Their frequent washings, and the several bath Each Meschit to itself annexed hath: What honour they unto the Mufty give, What to the Sovereign under whom they live: What quarter Christians have; how just and free To inoffensive travellers they be: 90 Though I confess, like stomachs fed with news, I took them in for wonder, not for use, Till your experienc'd and authentic pen Taught me to know the places and the men; And made all those suspected truths become Undoubted now, and clear as axiom.