Note 83 — Chapter VI · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS IN EUROPE UNDER THE TURKS.

Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, edited by J. Theodore Bent, p. 210. (London, 1893.) Similarly, Michel Baudier concludes his description of the festivities in Constantinople on the occasion of the circumcision of Muḥammad III in the latter part of the sixteenth century, with an account of the conversion of a large number of Christians. “During the spectacles of this solemnity, the wretched Grecians ran by troupes in this place to make themselves Mahometans; Some abandoned Christianitie to avoid the oppression of the Turkes, others for the hope of private profit.… The number of these cast-awayes was found to be above foure thousand soules.” (The History of the Serrail, and of the Court of the Grand Seigneur Emperour of the Turkes, pp. 93–4. (London, 1635.) Histoire generale du Serrail, et de la Cour du Grand Seigneur, Empereur des Turcs, pp. 89–90. (Paris, 1631.)) ↑