I keep at home, where I hold converse with my old friends, my books. They are at once my companions and my solace. For the sake of my health I have built a tennis-court, where I play before dinner. After dinner I practise the Turkish bow, in the use of which weapon people here are marvellously expert. From the eighth, or even the seventh, year of their age they begin to shoot at a mark, and practise archery ten or twelve years. This constant exercise strengthens the muscles of their arms, and gives them such skill that they can hit the smallest marks with their arrows. The bows they use are much stronger than ours, and being shorter, are also much more handy; they are made not of a single piece of wood, but of the sinews and horns of oxen fastened together with a quantity of glue and tow. A Turk in good practice can easily draw the string of the very stiffest of them to his ear. Without training, however, the strongest man could do nothing with a Turkish bow. Indeed, if a coin be set between the string and the bow close to the notch, none but an adept could pull the string so far as would suffice to liberate the coin. So sure is their aim, that in battle they can hit a man in the eye or in any other exposed part they choose. At the range where they are taught, you may see them shooting with so sure an aim that they surround the white on the target, which is generally smaller than a thaler, with five or six arrows, so that every arrow touches the margin of the white, but does not break it. They seldom use a range of more than thirty feet. On the thumb of the right hand they wear bone rings, on which the bowstring lies when they draw it, and the arrow is kept in its place by holding the left thumb in an upright position and joining it to the forefinger; so that their way of shooting is quite different from ours. The butt they use as a target is raised four feet more or less from the ground, and consists of a wooden frame filled with sand. Pashas and men with large households exercise their servants in this sort of practice at home, the more skilful being told off to act as teachers. Some of them at the feast of Easter[194]—for the Turks have an Easter (the feast of Bairam) like ourselves—assemble in the great plain beyond Pera, where, squatting on the ground in a line, with their legs crossed in the Turkish manner like tailors, they try who can shoot the furthest. I must mention that the contest, after the usual Turkish fashion, is prefaced by prayer. Great order and silence prevail throughout, however large the number of spectators. On these occasions they use special bows and arrows; the former are very short and stiff, and cannot be bent except by a man who has had a great deal of practice. An embroidered handkerchief, such as we use for wiping our faces, is the winner’s prize. The chief reward, however, is the reputation which the successful archer acquires. The range they attain with their arrows is almost incredible. The point reached by the arrow of the longest shot in the year is marked by a stone. Many such stones set up in former days are still standing, several paces beyond those which are now erected. These they firmly believe are the marks of their ancestors’ shots, to whose strength and skill, by their own admission, they cannot aspire. Moreover, in various streets and piazzas of Constantinople there are ranges of this sort, at which there assemble not merely boys and young men, but also those of more advanced age. A target-keeper is appointed, who has the charge of keeping it in order and watering the butt every day, which otherwise would get so dry that the blunt arrows which they use in practice would not stick in it. It is also the keeper’s business to stand by the target and draw out the arrows, and throw them back to the shooters after cleaning them. In return everyone gives him a fixed fee, which forms his salary. The front of the target is like a small door, from which, perhaps, originated a proverb the Greeks have; when a man has wholly missed the mark, they say ‘he is shooting against a door.’ For I think the Greeks formerly used this sort of target, and the Turks adopted it from them. I am well aware, of course, that the use of the bow is very ancient among the Turks; but that does not seem to me any reason why they should not have gone on using the sort of target and butt which they found in the Greek cities when they took them. For no nation in the world has shown greater readiness than the Turks to avail themselves of the useful inventions of foreigners, as is proved by their employment of cannons and mortars, and many other things invented by Christians.