Neither are there nearly so many casual references to visitors as one chances on with regard to other countries. Two exceptions which suggest the likelihood of others are, however, to be found mentioned in the correspondence between the English Privy Council and the Deputy at Dublin.[72] In 1572 the latter announces the arrival of three German earls with one Mr. Rogers, their guide, adding, to Lord Burghley, "according to your directions, they shall travel as little way into the country as I can manage." This is explained by the second reference, seven years later, when three more Germans come across with letters of introduction from the Privy Council, who half suspect them, young though they are, of being spies. But after the close of this period, in 1666, we find a Frenchman[73] noting that the Provost of Trinity College "seemed astonished that out of mere curiosity I should come to see Ireland, which is a country so retired and almost unknown to foreign travellers." CHAPTER V MOHAMMEDAN EUROPE PART I THE GRAND SIGNOR "He who would behold these Times in their greatest glory, could not find a better scene than Turkey." Sir Henry Blount, 1635. From an historical point of view, a continent consists not only of land but also of the seas from which attacks on the land can be made at short notice. For this reason Mohammedan Europe used to be far wider in extent than the Turkish territory, although the latter, indeed, bordered the Adriatic and stopped but a few miles short of Vienna. The Mediterranean was under Mohammedan, rather than Christian, control. Independent, too, in varying degrees, as were the rulers of North Africa, a bond of union existed among them owing to the peoples of the opposite coasts professing a creed different from theirs; a bond which was not interfered with by jealousies, inasmuch as the Sultan, or as he was usually termed then, the "Grand Signor" (or the "Grand Turk"), was so infinitely superior that there was never any question as to who should take the lead. His fleet, in fact, resembled that of Queen Elizabeth, being made up of crews who pursued the same course of life in peace and in war—that of attacking wherever attacks seem likely to pay—with no more difference than this, that their behaviour was official in the second case and unofficial in the first. These corsairs, then, were all part of Mohammedan Europe, carrying out the foreign policy of the "Grand Signor" whether they had been previously adopted or were subsequently to be disowned.