Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal SocietyRoyal Society (Great Britain)
History
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society
Royal Society (Great Britain)
Natural history; Science -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
The _Turks_ are as to their Temper serious, or rather inclining to
morosity, seldom Laughing, which is accounted an argument of great
Vanity and Lightness. They perform the Exercises, which they use in
the way of Diversion, as Shooting and Hunting, with a great deal of
gravity, as if they designed them more for Health than for Pleasure;
and this too but seldom. The better and richer sort, who have nothing
to do, sitting all Day at Home, lolling upon a Sofa or rais'd Place
in their Rooms, and taking Tobacco, which their Slaves fill and
light for them: And if they retire in the Summer or Autumn, for a
Week or Fort-night to some convenient Fountain in a Wood with their
Women, it is chiefly to enjoy the Refreshments of the cool Air. In
the times of Triumph indeed for some great Success obtained against
the _Christians_, when the Shops are open for three Nights together,
and hung with Lights, as well as the Spires of the Moschs in curious
Figures, they are guilty of extravagant Mirth, running up and down the
Streets in Companies, and sometimes Singing and Dancing after their
rude way; but this fit being over, they soon return to their former
Melancholy. In the Coffee-Houses where they use to resort to Tipple,
there is usually one hired by the Owners to read either an idle Book of
Tales, which they admire as Wit, or filthy obscene Stories, with which
they seem wonderfully affected and pleased, few of them being able to
Read. These are the Schools, which they frequent for their Information,
tho' in times of War, when things went ill with them, their Discourses
would be of the ill Government; and the Grand Signior himself and his
chief Ministers could not escape their Censures, which manifestly
tending to Sedition, and to the heightning of their Discontents by
their mutual Complaints, and by this free venting of their Grievances
during the War at _Candia_, the Wise Vizir seeing the evil Consequences
that would follow, if such Meetings and Discourses were any longer
tolerated, Commanded, that all the publick Coffee-houses should be shut
up in _Constantinople_ and several other great Cities of the Empire,
where the Malcontents used to rendezvouz themselves, and find fault
upon every ill Success and Miscarriage with the administration of
Affairs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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