[279] The cause of the execution of Junis Pasha by Selim I. Cf. Hammer, _Geschichte_, ii. 524. [280] Halil Ganem, i. 169. [281] Busbecq, _Life and Letters_, i. 322. [282] Cahun, _Introduction_, p. vii: “Les Turcs et les Mongols ... nées de la guerre et organisées pour la conquête.” [283] This was true even in D’Ohsson’s time (vii. 399). [284] Hammer, _Staatsverwaltung_, 181. [285] Curiously enough, the oldest sense in which the Turkish word _kul_ was used as a term denoting relation to a prince, was in reference to soldiers (Vambéry, _Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudalku Bilik_, 113, stanza 12b). At that time the word was applied to the foot-soldiers as distinguished from the cavalry, who were then volunteer knights. This usage survived in the Ottoman system to the extent that the regular infantry, including the Janissaries, artillerymen, and other lesser permanent corps, were regarded as in a particular and special sense the sultan’s _kullar_ (D’Ohsson, vii. 328; Djevad Bey, i. 15-18). [286] The _Bostanjis_, or gardeners, and other _Ajem-oghlans_ of the palace service were not left behind: D’Ohsson, vii. 326; Djevad Bey, i. 7. [287] Extended accounts of the Janissaries may be found in D’Ohsson, vii. 310 ff.; Hammer, _Staatsverwaltung_, 192 ff.; Zinkeisen, iii. 201 ff.; Djevad Bey, vol. i, book i. [288] For an example of the persistence of this idea, see Bérard (1909), 12-13: “La Turquie désormais subsiste par le janissaire et doit vivre pour le janissaire d’abord ... depuis la prise de Rhodes (1522) jusqu’à l’apparition de la flotte russe aux Dardanelles (1770), tant vaut le janissaire et tant vaut l’empire.” Professor A. C. Coolidge suggests that the hold which this remarkable organization had upon the imagination of fellow-countrymen as well as of foreigners was in part “due to the fact that in almost all Oriental history good infantrymen have been extremely rare, and the Janissaries were the only good infantrymen in the Ottoman Empire.” It is also true that the Janissaries were that group within the Moslem fold which came least under the taming and subordinating influence of the system; they were a frontier province of Islamic society. When in the seventeenth century they ceased to be drawn directly from the Christian population and became a variety of military aristocracy, not only did they remain in part a fighting infantry, but their original freedom of spirit and action was by no means abandoned. [289] D’Ohsson, vii. 359-360; Hammer, _Geschichte_, ii. 251, 361, iii. 45; Nicolay, 89. [290] Rhodes was pillaged after capitulation (1521), and so were Ofen (1529), and Wychegrad (1544): Hammer, _Geschichte_, iii. 28, 83, 263. [291] _Ibid._ ii. 252. Hence the death of a sultan was kept concealed until his successor had assumed power (_ibid._ 535; iii. 449).