JAMES'S PAIIK JANIZARIES. 



209 



Britain is called the cabinet of Si James's. Behind 

 this palace is St James's park. 



JAMES'S PARK, ST, was a complete marsh till 

 the time of Henry VIII., who, having built St James's 

 palace, enclosed it, laid it out in walks, and, collect- 

 ing the waters, gave the new enclosed ground and 

 building the name of St James. It was afterwards 

 much improved by Charles II . He formed the canal, 

 which is 2800 feet long, and 100 broad. Succeeding 

 kings allowed the people the privilege of walking 

 here. 



JAMES RIVER ; a river, in Virginia, formed by 

 the union of Jackson's and Cowpasture rivers. At 

 the point where it begins to break through the Blue 

 ridge, it is joined by North river. It passes by the 

 flourishing towns of Lynchburg and Richmond, and 

 communicates, through Hampton road and the mouth 

 of the Chesapeake bay, with the Atlantic. Its gene- 

 ral course is south of east. A forty-gun ship may 

 go up to Jamestown, and, by lightening herself, to 

 Harrison's bar, where there are fifteen feet of water. 

 Vessels of 250 tons go up to Warwick, and those of 

 120 to Rockets, just below Richmond. The river is 

 navigable for batteaux 220 miles above Richmond. 

 It opens a navigation into a country abounding in 

 tobacco, wheat, corn, hemp, coal, &c. 



JAMESTOWN ; a town in James City county, in 

 Virginia, on an island in James river, thirty-two 

 miles above its mouth, eight S. W. Williamsburg, 

 sixty-five E. S. E. Richmond. This town was estab- 

 lished in IG08, and was the first town settled by the 

 English in the United States. The town is now in 

 ruins, and almost desolate. Two or three old houses, 

 the ruins of an old steeple, a churchyard, and faint 

 marks of the rude fortifications, are the only memo- 

 rials of its former importance. 



JAMI, or DJAMY (properly Abd Alrhaman ebn 

 Achmed), a celebrated Persian poet, born in 1414, 

 had his surname from his native place Jam, in the 

 province of Chorasan. He eclipsed the greatest 

 geniuses of his time. The sultan Abu Said invited 

 him to his court at Herat ; but Jami, who was a fol- 

 lower of the doctrine of the Sophi, preferred the 

 ecstasies of a mystic to the pleasures of the court. 

 He often sat in the hall of the great mosque at Herat, 

 where he conversed in a free and friendly manner 

 with the common people, instructed them in the 

 principles of virtue and religious faith, and won their 

 hearts by his gentle and persuasive eloquence. When 

 he died, in 1494, the whole city was in sorrow. The 

 sultan gave him a magnificent funeral, at the public 

 cost, and the earth, say the Persian poets, opened of 

 itself, like a shell, to receive this invaluable pearl. 

 He was one of the most fruitful 1 of the Persian authors, 

 leaving more than forty works, mostly of a mystical 

 character. Seven of the most interesting he joined 

 together, under the title of the Seven Stnrs of the 

 Bear. To this belongs Jussuf and Zuleika, one of 

 the most entertaining works in Persian, of which Law, 

 in the Asiatic Miscellanies, has published some frag- 

 ments ; also the charming fiction Mejnoun and Leila, 

 which has been translated into French by Chezy, 

 (Paris, 1805), and into German by Hartmann (Leipsic, 

 1807, 2 vols.) His Beharistan, a treatise on mora- 

 lity, in verse and prose, is compared to Sadi's Ghults- 

 tan. Extracts from it have been printed by Jenisch 

 (in the Anthologia Persica) and by Wilken (in the 

 Chrestomathia Persica, Leipsic, 1805). According 

 to Goethe, he combines all the excellencies of the 

 earlier Persian poets. 



JANEIRO, Rio DE. See Rio de Janeiro. 



JANICULUM (castellum), or MONS JANICU- 

 LUS ; one of the seven hills of Rome, on the right 

 bank of the river Tiber, also called mons Aureus, on 

 account of the yellow sand (corrupted into Montorio). 



According to tradition, it received the name of 

 Janiculum, because Janus first cultivated it. It 

 afforded the most beautiful view of the city. The 

 pons Sublicius connected it with the other part of 

 Rome, to which Ancus Martius added it. The hill 

 is now called Gianiculo. 



JANINA. See Joannina. 



JANIZARIES. "In the year 1389," says Gib- 

 bon, " the Turkish cimiter was wielded by Amurath 

 I., the son of Orchan and the brother of Soliman. 

 He subdued the whole province of Romania or Thrace, 

 from the Hellespont to mount Haemus and the verge 

 of the capital. He marched against the Sclavonian 

 nations between the Danube and the Adriatic the 

 Bulgarians, Servians, Bosnians, and Albanians and 

 their warlike tribes, who had so often insulted the 

 majesty of his empire, were repeatedly broken by 

 his destructive inroads. The natives of the soil have 

 been distinguished in every age by their hardiness of 

 mind and body, and they were converted by a pru- 

 dent institution, into the firmest and most faithful 

 supporters of Ottoman greatness. The vizier of 

 Amurath reminded his sovereign, that, according to 

 the Mohammedan law, he was entitled to a fifth part 

 of the spoil and the captives, and that the duty might 

 easily be levied if vigilant officers were stationed at 

 Gallipoli to watch the passage, and to select for his 

 use the stoutest and most beautiful of the Christian 

 youth. The advice was followed ; the edict was pro- 

 claimed ; many thousands of the European captives 

 were educated in the Mohammedan religion and arms, 

 and the new militia was consecrated and named by a 

 celebrated dervish. Standing in the front of their 

 ranks, he stretched the sleeve of his gown over the 

 head of the foremost soldier, and his blessing was 

 delivered in these words ' Let them be called Jani- 

 zaries (yingi cheri, or new soldiers) ; may their coun- 

 tenances be ever bright ; their hand victorious ; their 

 swords keen ; may their spear always hang over the 

 heads of their enemies; and, wheresoever they go, 

 may they return with a white face.' White and black 

 face are common and proverbial expressions of praise 

 and reproach in the Turkish language. Hie niger 

 est, hunc tu, Romane, caveto, was likewise a Latin 

 sentence. Such was the origin of these haughty 

 troops, the terror of the nations, and sometimes of 

 the sultans themselves." 



They were kept up by continual additions from the 

 sultan's share of the captives, and by recruits, raised 

 every five years, from the children of the Christian 

 subjects. Small parties of soldiers, each under a 

 leader, and each provided with a particular firman, 

 went from place to place. Wherever they came, the 

 protogeros assembled the inhabitants, with their sons. 

 Tlie leader of the soldiers had the right to take away 

 all the youth who were distinguished by beauty or 

 strength, activity or talent, above the age of seven. 

 He carried them to the court of the grand seignior, a 

 tithe, as it were, of the subjects. The captives taken 

 in war by the pachas, and presented by them to the 

 sultan, included Poles, Bohemians, Russians, Italians, 

 and Germans. These recruits were divided into two 

 classes. Those who composed the one, especially in 

 the earlier periods, were sent to Natolia, where they 

 were trained to agricultural labour, and instructed in 

 the Mussulman faith ; or they were retained about 

 the seraglio, where they carried wood and water, 

 and were employed in the gardens, in the boats, 

 or upon the public buildings, always under the direc- 

 tion of an overseer, who with a stick compelled them 

 to work. The others, in whom the traces of a higher 

 character were discernible, were placed in one of the 

 four seraglios of Adrianople or Galata, or the old or 

 new one at Constantinople. Here they were lightly 

 clad in linen or in cloth of Saloniki, with caps ot' 



