must not say a single word. And, when they get drunk, every Christian or Jew whom they meet gets as far out of their way as he can, otherwise, if you have not a janissary with you, you meet immediately with a box on the ear, or a stab. Such persons, when they commit any misdemeanour, are immediately put into prison, and thrashed with a stick for the crime of drinking wine. But I will now return again to our house.
My lord the ambassador, wishing to have access to, and an audience of, Ferhat, the chief pasha, who was of Albanian extraction, a tall, black, long-toothed, and disagreeable man, was obliged to present him beforehand with the gifts sent by his Imperial Majesty; nor till this was done did my lords the new and old ambassadors, and we with them, ride to Ferhat, in the same fashion as at Buda and Sophia. When we had kissed[1] his hand, and the hands of all the other pashas present, our ambassador delivered to him the imperial letter, which he received reverently, but the presents much more reverently, viz. 3,000 broad dollars, two silver-gilt jugs, with basins, two large gilt beakers, two others, like large gilt bunches of grapes, two large silver-gilt pails, or cans, two large silver-gilt bottles, a large clock in the form of a gilt horse, on which sat a Turk with an arrow drawn to the head, a square striking-clock, on which two men stood and moved, and, when it struck, opened their mouths, a hexagonal ball, like a buzygan, or Turk-
- ↑ It is not necessary to suppose that the ambassador himself did this, if it was done literally by any of his suite. “Polibuju varnostiruku,”—“I kiss your hand,” is a common form of politeness in Bohemia from an inferior to a superior. It might probably be translated simply, “saluted.”
