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  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 was some
time since recommended to the notice of the Oriental Translation
Committee, by the venerable nobleman to whom this performance is
inscribed, as being calculated to throw considerable light on the naval
history of the Turkish nation.

It is entitled تحفة الكبار في اسفار البحار _A gift to the Great
concerning Naval Expeditions_. The author, Haji Khalifeh,[1] is known
to all Oriental scholars as a deliberate and impartial historian, and
a man of extensive learning. In the present work, however, he has
confined himself to a simple narration of events as they occurred,
leaving to his readers the task of philosophising on their influence on
the political affairs 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 was taught to read and write. In his twenty-fifth year
he entered as student into the office of the chief historiographer;
and while in this capacity, was present in the Persian campaigns of
Hamadan and Baghdad. On his return to Constantinople, he attended the
lectures of Kazi-Zadeh. Whilst the army was wintering at Aleppo he
made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, whence his title of Haji,
or Pilgrim. He was also at the siege of Erivan. He now commenced
“the greater holy warfare,”—that against ignorance, by indefatigable
study. He attended the principal professors of the capital, and after
ten years application to the study of languages, the law, logic, and
rhetoric, and the interpretation of the Koran and the traditions, he
applied himself to the mathematics and geography, to which latter
science the Cretan war particularly attracted 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 up whole nights reading some
favourite author; and when he first commenced his literary labours, he
expended the whole of his little patrimony in the purchase of books;
but some time afterwards a rich relation died, leaving him a legacy,
which enabled him to enjoy more of the comforts of life, and to make
some additions to his library.

The fruits of his thirty years study are the following excellent
works:—a translation of the “Minor Atlas”, under the title of “Rays
of Light,” which he translated from the Latin by the assistance of
Shaikh Mohammed, a renegade Frenchman; “The View of the World,”
which contains the geography of Asia; and a “Description of European
Turkey.” These are the three best geographical productions of the
Ottomans. They were succeeded by five historical works: two bearing
the title “Fezliké;” the one in Arabic being an universal history
from the creation of the world, till within three years of his death;
the other, a similar history, in Turkish, from the year 1000 of the
Hejirah (about which time he must have been born), also continued till
three years before his death, being a period of sixty-five years; the
“History of the Maritime Wars;” a “History of Constantinople;” and the
well-known “Chronological Tables.” Then, his great Bibliographical and
Encyclopædical Dictionary, which forms the groundwork of D’Herbelot’s
“Bibliotheque Orientale.” Besides these, he wrote several smaller
treatises, one of which, his last work, he entitled “True Scales
for the Detection of Truth.” This contains some curious essays on
smoking, dancing, singing, &c., and concludes with a short account of