Khosroo, (the conqueror of Abaza,) flushed with the recent successful invasion of Persia and sack of Hamadan, and amply provided with all the munitions of war. But a current tradition, which declared that Bagdad could never be taken by any army not commanded by a monarch in person, was destined to be again verified: though the fortifications were breached and ruined by the fire of the Ottomans, the gallantry of the defenders repulsed all their efforts to carry the shattered walls by storm or escalade; and after a final assault (Nov. 9,) in which four pashas were slain in the fruitless attempt to plant their horsetails on the rampart, Khosroo was compelled by the approach of winter to abandon the enterprise, and retreat upon Moosul, where he vented his rage and disappointment in the decapitation of all his Persian prisoners, and of numerous officers whom he accused of misconduct during the siege.

*

But if Bagdad was fated, in accordance with the popular belief above referred to, to fall only in the presence of a sovereign, the final catastrophe was not long deferred. Until the accession of Selim II. it had been held as a fundamental rule of the empire, that the sultan was bound, at least once in every three years, to assume in person the command of his armies, and wage war against the enemies of the true faith, whether Christians or schismatic Moslems; but from that time this martial ordinance had been suffered to fall into desuetude, and in only two instances since the death of the great Soliman, had his successors been seen at the head of their troops. But Mourad IV., who had been removed at an early age from the torpidity of the harem to the throne, and whose naturally fierce and martial temperament had already made itself felt in the coercion of the refractory janissaries, and the destruction of all the turbulent spirits whose frequent outbreaks had disturbed the first years of his reign, was little disposed to pass his life in the same inglorious ease as his predecessors, and declared his intention of marching sword in hand to expel the Sheahs

from the fortresses which they still held within the ancient limits of the empire. His first essay in arms was made in the campaign of 1635, when Eriwan was surrendered, or rather betrayed, by the Persian governor, Emir Gounah Khan: but his rigorous investigation of the conduct of the provincial governors made his presence not less dreaded in his own dominions than in the country of the enemy, and death was the punishment which he awarded to the most venial as well as the gravest dereliction of duty. But while his cruelties spread terror along the line of his march, he shrunk not from sharing the privations of the meanest soldier in his army: "for several months," (says Rycaut) " he made use of no other pillow for his head than his saddle, no other blanket or quilt than the covering or foot-cloth of his horse;" and the janissaries saw with admiration and respect the martial virtue of their sovereign. The recovery of Bagdad was postponed for three years; but at the commencement of 1638 an imperial expedition was again announced. A Persian ambassador, who was accredited to Constantinople as the bearer of magnificent presents and propositions of peace, was not only refused an audience, but detained in custody in order to accompany the march of the Ottomans, and become by compulsion the witness of their triumph; and Mourad, summoning his ministers to a solemn divan at the seraglio, imparted to them his determination to efface the last vestige of the disasters which had marked the commencement of his reign, by re-annexing to his sway the ancient seat of the caliphate.

On the 9th of March 1638, the imperial standard of seven horsetails was accordingly pitched in front of the pavilion of the sultan on the heights of Scutari, where the provincial troops of Europe and Asia were already encamped under the orders of the valessis or viceroys of Roumili and Anadoli; but an interval of a week elapsed before Mourad himself quitted Constantinople-a delay which was speedily explained to the inhabitants

of the capital by the tidings of a third fratricide; * the Prince Kasim, whose talents and accomplishments had awakened the dark jealousy of his brother, had been bowstrung in the seraglio by his order and in his presence; and Ibrahim, the youngest son of Sultan Ahmed I., remained the only surviving male, except the reigning monarch, of the line of Othman. The imbecile and sensual temperament of this prince, (who afterwards mounted the throne,) probably saved him from sharing the fate of his murdered brothers; but he was confided to the custody of a trusty mute, who received strict orders to dispatch him if any popular commotion should render his existence dangerous; and, after providing by these barbarous precautions for the stability of his power during his absence, the sultan crossed the Bosphorus at the head of the janissaries, accompanied by the mufti and great officers of the law, whose presence was commanded (as it had been in the campaign of Eriwan) in order to impart an additional character of sanctity to the holy war against the Sheah heretics of Persia. Mourad was now in the twenty-sixth year of his age; and the promise of his youth had been matured (if we may credit the concurrent testimony of every contemporary writer) into a frame in which gigantic strength was combined with bodily agility in a degree not equalled by the most robust soldier of his army. Though scarce ly above the middle stature, his muscular force was such that he could raise a bulky man by the girdle, and hold him for some time suspended at arm's length in the air. On the march upon Eriwan, he had cut asunder with a single stroke of his scimitar a wild goat which darted from the cliffs be

fore his horse; and the flight of his arrow† in a trial of skill, as marked by pillars in the Ok-meidan of Constantinople, remained unrivalled in extent by the most expert archers of the empire till the days of Sultanţ Mahmood II. His features, as described by an Italian traveller, were regular and handsome, and his aquiline nose and waving black beard gave dignity to his presence; but the expression of his brilliant dark eyes was marred by an habitual contraction of the brows, which covered his forehead with deep wrinkles, and imparted to his countenance an air of settled ferocity well according with his character. Such was Sultan Mourad-Ghazi, as he entered the camp of Scutari in all the pomp and pride of martial array, himself and his charger armed at all points in complete steel, and the long ends of the scarlet turban which he wore above his headpiece floating over his shoulders in the fashion which he had adopted from his fallen favourite, the unfortunate Abaza; while the troops, in whose eyes the warlike bearing of their sovereign atoned both for the savage cruelty he had often displayed, and for the recent tragical fate of his brother, received with loud acclamations a prince who, after a succession of effeminate rulers, seemed resolved to revive in his own person the severe and hardy manners of the early sultans, who lived in the field at the head of their armies, and shared equally with their soldiers both the perils and glories of war.

The route from Scutari to Bagdad had been divided by a proclamation, immediately before the advance of the army, into a hundred and ten stages or days' marches, with a fixed number of halts: and such was the

awe with which the terrible severity of Mourad, and the condign punishment which instantly followed the smallest infraction of his orders, had inspired the troops, who, a few years previously, had threatened his throne and life, that neither mutiny nor murmurs were heard as the vast host pressed steadily onward to the frontier where the work of death was appointed to commence. But the presence of Mourad through this march, (the last personal visit paid by any of the Ottoman monarchs to the interior Asiatic provinces of their empire,) was as the progress of the Angel of Death to the Anatolian pashas and governors, whose malversations and oppressions were scrutinized and chastised with an unrelenting rigour which even exceeded that exhibited three years earlier in the march to Eriwan. As the delinquents approached to kiss the stirrup of the sultan, their heads rolled in the dust before his horse's feet the ancient partisans of Abaza were especially marked out for destruction: and the pasha of Karamania, who had hoped to find favour in consequence of the high state of discipline and equipment in which he presented his contingent, was consigned to the headsman, by an ingenious refinement of tyranny, for that very reason! His government had recently been the scene of some disorders; and Mourad, exclaiming that only indolence or disaffection could have prevented a leader who commanded such troops from more speedily quelling these tumults, gave the signal of death!* But these interludes of bloodshed were not suffered to retard the route of the army: the Euphrates and the Tigris were successively crossed in the upper part of their course: and on the 15th of November, the heads of the Ottoman columns appeared before the walls of Bagdad, and immediately proceeded to draw round the devoted city the last leaguer which its ramparts have been hitherto destined to sustain.

The tidings of the storm which impended over his frontier, had for a moment appeared to rouse from his drunken lethargy the weak and effe minate successor of Abbas the Great, and he declared his intention of marching in person to the relief of the most

glorious trophy of the Persian arms: but Shah-Soofi, though endowed with a full share of the cold-blooded cruelty which sullied the great qualities of his grandfather, was utterly destitute of the courage and capacity which had distinguished that mightiest of the Seffavean line: and he speedily found in the incursions of the Uzbeks into Khorassan, and the danger of an attack from the Mogul emperor, Shahjehan, (who had possessed himself of Candahar,) an excuse for remaining immersed in his harem at Isfahan, under the pretext that he should thus be equidistant from whichever point might first require his presence. Bagdad was left to its own resources; but the fortifications were strong and entire: the stores and munitions were ample: and the valiant governor, Bektash-Khan, who had under his orders three other khans, seventeen sultans, (a title which in Persia implies a secondary military rank,) and a garrison of nearly 30,000 troops, including 12,000 tuffenkdjis or regular musketeers, resolved to bid defiance to the enemy. The city was soon completely invested by the Ottomans, and the sultan in person assigned to the different commanders the posts against which their attack was severally to be directed: the tents of the Grand-Vizir, the Aga of the janissaries, and the Roumili-Valessi, were pitched opposite the Ak-Kapi or White Gate, the bastions adjoining which were selected as the most vulnerable point, being, according to the report of the Persian prisoners, the only part of the defences which had not been strengthened since the last siege by Khosroo-pasha: while the long circuit of the walls, to the Karanlik-Kapi or Gate of Darkness, at the south-western extremity of the city, were watched by the divisions under the Capitan-pasha, the AnadoliValessi, and the Kehaya or lieutenantgeneral of the janissaries. The serpurdahs, or screens of the imperial tents, were erected on an eminence above the Tigris, near the tomb of the Imam Abu Hanifah ; but Mourad, declaring that, while Bagdad remained in the hands of the heretics, he felt unworthy to enter the mausoleum of the Sooni saint, took up his quarters among the soldiers, whom he encouraged by

:

largesses and promises in the work of opening the trenches and placing the cannon in position. Fired by the presence and example of their sovereign, the janissaries and topjis laboured with unremitting zeal and on the eighth morning a tremendous shout of Allah Akbar! resounding along the whole extent of the Turkish lines, and followed by a general discharge of all their artillery against the ramparts, warned the besieged that the work of destruction was about to commence in earnest. Thirty-six battering guns cast expressly for this purpose, and each carrying a ball of seventy pounds weight, with two hundred pieces of inferior calibre, incessantly poured their shot against the Persian defences, and bulwark and battlement rapidly crumbled away before this iron shower and while 12,000 horse, under the orders of Shaheen-pasha, hovered about the environs to intercept the convoys which might arrive from Isfahan, the Emir of the desert Arabs, Abu-Rish, poured ample supplies of provisions into the Ottoman camp. The frequent sallies of the garrison were encountered and repulsed by the superior numbers of their opponents: and in one of these casual onslaughts, a Persian champion of colossal stature and redoubted prowess, was confronted hand to hand by the sultan in person, and cloven down after a desperate conflict by the sabre of the monarch. The Kooshler-Kalaasi, or Castle of the Birds, a fortification which commanded the course of the Tigris, was carried by a coup-de-main: while, after thirty days of constant cannonade, the walls and towers were reduced to a heap of ruins. The tower of Cicala, so called from its having been erected by that famous general when pasha of Bagdad, was the first which fell three others shared its fate and for the space of 800 yards, the defences were so completely levelled, that, in the words of a Turkish writer," a blind man might have galloped over them with loose bridle, without his horse stumbling." The fosse, which is described as having been "deep as the height of three men," was filled with innumerable fascines and sacks of earth; and, December 22, the signal was given for the general assault.

The 25th oda of janissaries volunteered for the forlorn hope; and at the roll of the drums, the Ottomans sprung from the trenches, and rushed with furious cries towards the breach: but the assailants were met by the Persians amid the uncertain footing of the fascines, and the fragments of the ruined works, with gallantry equal to their own, and the conflict, waged with unflinching bravery on both sides with scimitar, pike, and dagger, closed at the end of the short winter's day without advantage on either side. The combat of the following day had a similar result. The sultan, advancing to the brink of the ditch, in vain excited the attacking columns by voice and gesture, and supplied the vacancies in their ranks by continual reinforcements: all the efforts of the Ottomans failed to overbear the indomitable valour of the Persians; and Mourad, after retiring to his tent, overwhelmed with bitter reproaches the grand-vizir, Tayyar- Mohammed- Pasha, to whose inertness he attributed the want of success. "Would to Allah," replied the vizir, "that it were as easy for me to ensure the conquest of Bagdad to my Padishah, as it will be to die in the breach in his service;" and accordingly on the following day, (Christmas-eve, 1638,) he headed in person the final assault. Unrivalled as an archer except by the sultan himself, he plunged into the thickest of the melée, dealing death around him with his bow, while his attendants emulated the prowess of their master, till a body of tuffenkdjis posted in an adjacent building, recognizing the person of the Turkish hero, poured a deadly volley into the midst of the group. The vizir fell, pierced by a ball in the throat, "and the bird of his soul" (in the words of Naima) "fled from its earthly cage to the rosebushes of paradise; while many around him quaffed the sherbet of martyrdom." The loss of their leader discouraged the Ottomans, and their zeal was beginning to waver, when a spahilar-aga, extricating himself from the press, informed the sultan of the fate of Tayyar-Mohammed. "At this news," (says a contemporary Turkish writer,*) a blessed tear bedewed the cheek of the Emperor:" but this evidence of human feeling, probably the first and last in.

to which Mourad was ever betrayed, speedily vanished; and instantly sending the seals to the Capitan-pasha Mustapha, he ordered the attack to be pressed with redoubled energy. "The combat," says the writer, quoted by Du Loir," was now renewed with such fury, that neither Roostam, Kaherman, nor any other of the heroes of antiquity, ever saw such an engage ment: the neighing of horses, the whistling of arrows, the clashing of swords, and the never-ceasing roar of artillery and musketry on both sides, rent the hearts of the warriors in twain, and filled both earth and air with a noise more terrible than that of thunder;" but the stubborn perseverance of the Turks, inflamed to desperation by the fall of the vizir, and the obstinacy of the resistance, prevailed at length over all the efforts of the garrison. The Persians were driven from post to post; and ere the sun set upon the scene of carnage, the hand surmounted* green ensigns of the Fatimites (which Shah-Soofi had recently adopted to commemorate his descent from Ali) were torn down in all quarters, and the crimson and crescent-spangled banner of the Osmanli caliphs was hoisted in triumph on the shattered ramparts, whence it has continued to float till the present day.

"The city's taken, but not rendered;" the Ottomans were in possession of the outer defences, but 25,000 Persians were still in arms in the interior of the town; and on the morning of Christmas-day the victors were preparing to complete their conquest, when "those accursed swine of Sheahs cried from the battlements of the fortified houses to the glorious sultan• Amān, Amān, (mercy,) Lord of the Koran and Caliph of the world! for the love of God, and for the souls of your ancestors, grant us quarter!"" A suspension of arms was accordingly proclaimed, and the remainder of that day granted for the vanquished to evacuate the city. The governor Bektash-Khan repaired to the Ottoman

camp, and was ushered through a double rank of spahis and janissaries, "each of whose unsheathed swords was terrible as a seven-headed dragon, to the tent of Mourad, who at first received him with sternness, but speedily relenting, complimented him on his gallant defence, and invested him with a pelisse of honour and a plume of heron's feathers; after which the Persian retired to the quarters of the new grand-vizir, and sent a written mandate to Meer-Futteh, the second in command, and Khalaf-Khan, the general of the tuffenkdjis, desiring them to evacuate the place with their troops before noon of that day.

But in the interim the work of blood had recommenced within the city; a rumour spread through the Persian ranks that the governor had betrayed them, in order to provide for his own safety. The Ottomans were already pillaging the houses in defiance of the capitulation; the garrison again stood to their arms, and partial conflicts took place in the streets and among the ruins. The officers sent into the town by the sultan to enforce the terms of the surrender, in vain strove to reestablish order; and while a number of Roumiliot troops, crowding into the presence of Mourad, remonstrated with loud cries and furious gestures against the extension of mercy to the heretics, beneath whose weapons so many of their comrades had fallen, a party of Persians, conceiving their fate to be inevitable, took refuge in a tower which had remained uninjured, and re-opened a heavy fire on the Turks who thronged the streets. Their first discharge killed the Reis- Effendi ; and Mourad, exasperated to fury by the announcement of his minister's fall, instantly ordered Ali-Pasha Arslan-Zadah to enter the town at the head of the janissaries, and slaughter without mercy every one who resisted. All the gates were now thrown open, and myriads of Turks, thirsting for plunder and revenge, poured into the doomed city. Khalaf-Khan and some