THE CAPEDJI BACHI. 



IT was a day of festivity at Galata-Serai, for the Sultan conde- 

 scended to visit the Itch Oglans who were there educating for his 

 own private service. Unhappy the children whom the chief of the 

 white eunuchs has chosen for the purpose of making itch oglans. No 

 cloister, no monastery, had ever so severe discipline for their novices. 

 During fourteen long years they are taught to preserve the most so- 

 lemn silence, to keep their eyes bent on the earth, their arms crossed 

 upon their breasts, to pray five times a day, to read the Koran, to 

 trace its sacred characters ; to ride on horseback, to hurl the djerid, 

 to wield the lance. In addition to these martial exercises they are 

 taught music, to sing Persian ghazels, to sew, embroider, shave the 

 head, trim the nails, arrange, gracefully, the folds of the turban ; to 

 serve in the bath, to break-in dogs and hawks, and all this under the 

 cruel surveillance of eunuchs. But when they have gone through 

 this probation, if they are handsome, modest, and taciturn, then they 

 commence their service near the person of the Sultan. 



A splendid djerid had been prepared to receive his highness. The 

 Arabian horses, their young and skilful grooms, the varied and pic- 

 turesque costume, rendered it a magnificent spectacle. A number of 

 single combats, and tumultous melees had already offered to the spec- 

 tators a faithful image of war, when the gaze of all present was 

 arrested with a fixed intensity upon the horsemen whom chance had 

 not yet opposed to each other. One was named Mustapha, the other 

 Ahmed. Mustapha was the son of a vizier who had been strangled 

 through the intrigues of an ancient barber-bachi, the father of Ah- 

 med. The hatred these two youths bore each was known to all. The 

 most lively interest was, therefore, excited in the bosoms of the 

 spectators, when they beheld them spurring their chargers to attack 

 each other. For a length of time they fought with equal advantage, 

 and were on the point of separating without either being declared 

 the conqueror, when Ahmed, profiting by a plunge of his adversary's 

 courser, hurled his djerid, with such skill and force, that he unhorsed 

 him. Cries of admiration resounded on all sides, and the Grand 

 Signior himself even condescended to inquire the name of the 

 victor. 



After this defeat the hatred of Mustapha assumed that character of 

 intensity of which alone the soul of a Turk is capable. In order to 

 satisfy it, an Osmanli will wait, if necessary, the half of his life, during 

 which time not a word or gesture ever betrays the sentence he has 

 pronounced, but, once sworn, vengeance becomes the object of his 

 existence. Under ordinary circumstances, he may live in apparent 

 peace with his enemy, but all his actions have but one motive prin- 

 ciple the accomplishment of the ruling passion of his soul, cost 

 what it may. Some months afterwards, both Mustapha and Ahmed 

 were admitted into the service of the Sultan. The place in which 

 they had been educated was a prison, surrounded by high walls, like 

 a fortress ; and from their infancy they had been watched with the 

 same jealous care as the women of the Harem. But a career of am- 



