THE SULT.A:^ SOLIMAN. 183 



attentive and skilful in their duty, and guard the hawk 

 from perishing by any ailment except old age. 



Bajazet, the conqueror of Constantinople, was with 

 his captives at Brusa in the year 1397, when the money 

 for their ransom arrived. Before he dismissed them he 

 gave them an opportunity of witnessing both his bar- 

 baric magnificence and his barl)aric justice. Froissart 

 thus relates the two scenes, and the haughty leave taking 

 which the Sultan awarded to the Christian lords. " The 

 Sultan had at this time seven thousand falconers and 

 as many huntsmen : you may suppose from this the 

 grandeur of his establishments. One day, in the pre- 

 sence of _ the Count de Nevers, he flew a falcon at 

 some eagles ; the flight did not please him, and he was 

 so wi'oth that for this fault he was on the point of 

 beheading two thousand of his falconers, scolding them, 

 exceedingly for want of diligence in the care of his 

 hawks, when the one he was fond of behaved so ill." 



The falconry establishment of the Sultan Soliman 

 the Magnificent consisted of a train of six thousand 

 falconers. Each falconer is able to take care of three 

 hawks, and these require three spaniels to spring the 

 game, and six lads to beat the covers ; multiply these 

 numbers by the number of falconers, and you will see 

 that the august protector of Mahomet's religion has in 

 his pay forty-two thousand men ; in his mews eighteen 

 thousand hawks, and in his kennels the same number 

 of spaniels. The subsistence of one falcon, six lads, 

 three hawks, and as many spaniels is cheap at nine 

 shillings a day. The product of this moderate sum, 

 multij^lied by the number of falconers, amounts to two 

 thousand seven hundred pounds sterling a daj^ Mid- 

 tij)ly this daily expense by the days of the year, and 



