THE
HISTORY
OF THE
MARITIME WARS OF THE TURKS,
TRANSLATED FROM
THE TURKISH OF HAJI KHALIFEH
BY JAMES MITCHELL.
CHAPTERS I. TO IV.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE ORIENTAL TRANSLATION FUND.
BY A. J. VALPY, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
SOLD BY J. MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET; AND MESSRS. PARBURY, ALLEN, AND CO.,
LEADENHALL STREET; MESSRS. THACKER AND CO., CALCUTTA; MESSRS. TREUTTEL
AND WÜRTZ, PARIS; AND MR. ERNEST FLEISCHER, LEIPSIG.
1831.
TO
THE RIGHT HONORABLE
GEORGE JOHN EARL SPENCER, K.G. F.R.S. M.R.A.S.
&c. &c. &c.
THIS TRANSLATION
OF THE
HISTORY OF THE MARITIME WARS OF THE TURKS
IS, WITH HIS LORDSHIP’S PERMISSION,
MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY
HIS LORDSHIP’S GRATEFUL AND OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THE TRANSLATOR.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
The work of which the following pages contain a translation wassome time since recommended to the notice of the Oriental TranslationCommittee, by the venerable nobleman to whom this performance isinscribed, as being calculated to throw considerable light on the navalhistory of the Turkish nation.
It is entitled تحفة الكبار في اسفار البحار A gift to the Great concerningNaval Expeditions. The author, Haji Khalifeh,1 is known to allOriental scholars as a deliberate and impartial historian, and a man ofextensive learning. In the present work, however, he has confinedhimself to a simple narration of events as they occurred, leaving to hisreaders the task of philosophising on their influence on the politicalaffairs of the empire in general. Of his youthful days nothing is known,except that he was the son of a Sipahi, and that at an early age he wastaught to read and write. In his twenty-fifth year he entered as studentinto the office of the chief historiographer; and while in this capacity,viwas present in the Persian campaigns of Hamadan and Baghdad. Onhis return to Constantinople, he attended the lectures of Kazi-Zadeh.Whilst the army was wintering at Aleppo he made the pilgrimage toMecca and Medina, whence his title of Haji, or Pilgrim. He was alsoat the siege of Erivan. He now commenced “the greater holy warfare,”—thatagainst ignorance, by indefatigable study. He attended theprincipal professors of the capital, and after ten years application to thestudy of languages, the law, logic, and rhetoric, and the interpretationof the Koran and the traditions, he applied himself to the mathematicsand geography, to which latter science the Cretan war particularlyattracted his attention. At length, beginning to suffer from ill health,he devoted himself to the study of medicine and the mysteries of religion.So ardent was he in the pursuit of knowledge, that he frequently sat upwhole nights reading some favourite author; and when he first commencedhis literary labours, he expended the whole of his little patrimonyin the purchase of books; but some time afterwards a rich relationdied, leaving him a legacy, which enabled him to enjoy more of the comfortsof life, and to make some additions to his library.
The fruits of his thirty years study are the following excellent works:—atranslation of the “Minor Atlas”, under the title o