Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/55

 male children of eight, nine, or ten years old. Surgeons are on the spot, who judge of the mental capacity of each individual child from his personal appearance, and determine for what future occupation he is likely to be fit. The most promising are selected for the service of the Turkish emperor, the next class for that of the pashas and other Turkish officials; the remainder, who appear of less intellectual promise, are sold into Anatolia or Asia, to any one who chooses to purchase them, for a ducat each. There they are kept till the appointed time, i. e, till they are eighteen, or, at latest, twenty years old; are brought up in want, poverty, cold, and heat, and are altogether treated little better than dogs: only whoever takes such a boy is obliged to bring him back again to the Sultan’s court at the expiration of the above period, should the kidnapped youth still be living; should he die, his master must report the fact to the cadi or judge of the district, who keeps a register of such boys, in order that he may be struck out of the list. When about twenty years old, all embrowned with sun and heat, and accustomed to all kinds of labour, they are brought to Constantinople from the different countries in which they have thus been dispersed. There the most active are enrolled as acziam oglany, or young janissaries, and assigned to veteran janissaries to learn, under their instruction, to shoot, to use the sabre, to fling darts, to leap over trenches, and to scale walls. They are bound to obey every order given by the elder janissaries, to prepare their food, cleave wood, and perform every necessary service as long as peace lasts. When they march with the elder soldiers to war, although enrolled in their number, they