1606.

I had to return to the city and to my horse stable. But fully a month later, my Bassa came to die.

Becomes a slave of the Turkish Emperor.

Great right of the Turkish Emperor to the estate of a Bassa.

It is very remarkable that the Turkish Emperors, when a Bassa dies, are the sole heirs of all his property, be it cash, other goods, or even the slaves; this right they claim for themselves, and there is no one who may speak a single word against it.

Thus I also landed among the Emperor’s prisoners and into the hardest slavery in the world, as will be seen from the descriptions of the voyages that I attended as a slave of the Sultan.

FIRST VOYAGE.

The Turks equip a fleet against the Knights of Malta and the Spaniards.

In the year 1606, the Turkish Emperor equipped a fleet at sea against the Knights of Malta and the Spaniards, who for some time had been disturbing the sea trade of the Turks and had taken several ships from them, as well as to collect the tribute that the Egyptians are required to pay annually. A certain Bassa, who was a commander over 50,000 men and 300 Turkish galleys, had the management of this fleet. I was therefore, along with the other slaves, brought onto the ship, stripped mother-naked, except for a linen ship-breeches and a red cap, which were given to me, and thereafter forged to the rowing bench.

Many Russians made into slaves.

While the fleet was ready to sail, an order came from the court that we should first sail to Caffa, a place situated on the Black Sea, to take two hundred slaves onto the fleet, for which we were not well enough provided. These slaves had been taken from the borders of Russia and gifted to the Sultan.

The city of Caffa described.

The city of Caffa, surrounded by a strong wall, is situated on a peninsula in Little Tartary on the Black Sea; the land around it is not only very fertile, but the trade by sea makes