Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/124

 challenge each other immoderately in drinking and gormandizing, and make each other eat more than is proper, and if any one gets drunk and falls downstairs, we are delighted at having put him in this condition, and laugh at him. Moreover, if one refuses to fill his glass along with the rest, we immediately begin quarrelling, using compulsion, bullying, and other disorderly proceedings against the law of the Lord God, whence, afterwards, arise law-suits and disturbances. But enough now of this; may the Lord God himself amend us!

We were also admitted, in company with the janissary, into the stables of the Turkish emperor, and gazed with pleasure upon his exceedingly beautiful horses. These stables are of several kinds; in some are the principal horses for the Sultan himself, in others, trotting and ambling horses, mules for carriages, dromedaries, as well as entire colts, &c, which are brought every year from Barbary and Arabia for the Emperor. These have a mane and tail devoid of hair, and are then like stags. At the proper time they are put into open yards to be fed up, and are anointed with a certain salve to encourage their growth, after which they grow a very beautiful and slender tail. The Turks do not use their horses for riding before four years old, and they can stand so much the more work, because they do not exhaust and knock them up so much in their youth as we do in Bohemia. We went, afterwards, into the Emperor’s pleasure or summer house, and also into his garden, but that could only be done at certain hours, lest anybody should be there. Here we saw most delightful spots, many kinds of flowers, most pleasant parterres and lawns, delightful vales, flowing streams, and