foot in Europe.

Amurath availed himself of all the benefits of his brother’s adventurous enterprise. He appointed a singular custom at Gallipoli. The marauding Turks, now established on the European side of the Bosphorus, made slaves of all the Christians they could seize on, and sent them over to Asia by this passage. Amurath claimed for his share a certain portion as toll. Of the young males so obtained, he formed that tremendous militia that were afterwards to terrify and control their own country. He caused them to undergo the rite, and be instructed in the doctrines and discipline, of his own prophet. A Dervish named Hadgee Bectash, of great sanctity and influence, was then called in, to give this corps his benediction. Laying his hand on the head of the foremost, the sleeve of his coat fell over his back, and he blessed them by the name of yeni cheri, or “new soldiers.” Both circumstances afterwards distinguished them−the sleeve of the dervish was adopted as part of their uniform, and the name of janissary, corrupted from yeni cheri, was the terror of Europe for more than five centuries. With these young and vigorous apostates to Islamism, he subdued all the country to the base of the Balkan mountains, and having obtained possession of Roumeli, the “country of the Romans,” as the territory of the modern Greeks was called, he finally established himself at Adrianople, which now became the Turkish capital of Europe.

This prince was succeeded by Bajazet, called, from his impetuosity, and the awful destructiveness of his career, Ilderim, or “the thunderbolt.” He extended his conquests into the heart of Europe, penetrated into the centre of Hungary, and threatened to proceed from thence to Rome, to feed his horses with oats on the altar of St. Peter; but first he resolved to possess himself of the Christian capital of the East. To this end he advanced against Constantinople, and for ten years pressed it with a close siege. Its fate, however, was yet delayed by the sudden appearance of another extraordinary power, which, having subdued the remote parts of the East, and left nothing there unconquered, in the restlessness of ambition turned itself to the west in search of new enemies. This was the power of the Tartars, led on by Demur beg, or “the Iron Prince.”2 To oppose this new enemy, the siege of Constantinople was raised, and its fate suspended while the legions of barbarians encountered one another, and the Thunderbolt was to resist the Man of Iron. The battle was fought on the plain of Angora, where Pompey had defeated Mithridates. After a conflict of two days, the Turks were totally routed. Bajazet fell into the hands of the conqueror, and the treatment he experienced was such as one execrable tyrant might expect, or a still more execrable might inflict. He whose custom it was to celebrate his massacres by pyramids of human heads, erected at the gates of every city he conquered, would not hesitate to treat the rival whom he hated, and had subdued, without pity or remorse. He enclosed his captive in a cage, like a wild beast exposed to public view, and, as he was lame, made him and his cage a footstool to mount his horse. The end of Bajazet corresponded with his life; impatient of control, and stung with desperation, he beat out his brains against the bars of his prison. Tamerlane possessed one redeeming quality, which distinguished him, in some measure, from his fellow-barbarians. He entertained no hostility to Christianity: on the contrary, he allowed a temple, dedicated to its worship, to be erected in Samarcand, his capital. He did not follow up his conquest by renewing the siege of Constantinople; so that this Christian capital, by his interference, was spared for half a century longer.