Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/150

 often laughed with the janissary over the recollection of it.

Meanwhile, my lord our ambassador bought six extremely beautiful Turkish horses, one of which, a grey, was particularly handsome, and cost 100 ducats. He also ordered two sets of horse-furniture to be made, which cost him full 2,000 ducats; and when he rode anywhere on that horse he had spectators and enviers enough, who said so loudly that it was a great shame for a giaour to ride on such a horse that it eventually reached my lord’s ears. This horse was specially entrusted to me, to see that the grooms attended to it diligently. I rode it every week when we went out riding with the janissary, and used to race with the Turks on the open space of the hippodrome, or almeydan. On it I often raced, and won a supper from the Turks, which they caused to be prepared not far from our house, and we invited them to us in return, and entertained them well. Thus we spent this year in joy and merriment, so that we did not even wish for a better mode of life.

Immediately the year was out it began to go otherwise with us, for the tribute, which ought to have been paid annually, was not sent, because Hassan Pasha had made an incursion into Croatia, taken the castle of Wyhysht in Croatia, and brought, with great rejoicing, 300 Christian prisoners to Constantinople, each of whom was compelled to carry five or six stuffed heads of slaughtered Christians. The Turks, on their return from Croatia with their booty and captives, rode past our house, wearing on their turbans Brunswick hats, having by their sides large silver-sheathed daggers, scymitars ornamented with silver, and carrying spears and battle