Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

£8
TRAVELS IN ASIATIC TURKEY,
wholly without effect, to place it en a more respectable footing.
Being divested of the prejudices by which the Turks in general are
so powerfully actuated, he has, in concert with the Grand Seignor,
introduced every
innovation which could lead to improvement, and
profited by every
information he could collect relative to the more
advanced state of naval science in the
great maritime states of Eu-
rope.
It is somewhat singular that, notwithstanding the Grand Seignor
possesses more ports and havens than anv other European power,
and is master of the Black: Sea, the coasts of which supply him with
materials for the construction of his ships of war, and although his
capital is established on one of the finest harbours in the universe,
still his navy has for a series of years made but a very insignificant
figure in the history of maritime nations. There was a time, in-
deed, when it vied with the navies of Spain, of Ttnice, and of se-
veral other powers, then deemed of considerable importance by sea;
. but it has not kept pace with the progressive improvements other
countries have made. Under the present Capitan Pacha it is now
assummg a much more promising aspect.
In addition to the more
advantageous system of naval tactics he is gradually introducing,
several experienced ship-builders from England, France, and Swe-
den, have been invited to the Turkish dock-yards, where they have
rece;;:ly built several fine ships of the line, together with frigates
and smaller vessels. Thus, was there not a probability that other
causes may operate to the decline of the empire, there would be a
prospect that the Ottoman navy might be raised to that respectability
to which it seems naturally entitled; for it should be recollected
that the Grand Seicmor is the sovereign of those nations, by whom
the first rudiments of maritime knowledge were taught, namely,
the Phenicians, the Rhodians, the Greeks inhabiting the coasts
of the Archipelago, the Cretans, &c. nations from their local si-
tuation destined, it should seem, to the science and practice
vigation.
of na-
Levant/' is the term which the Turks apply
to the seamen of their
in their ma-
own nation, as well as to all the foreigners employed
rine. It would appear that it is a corruption of the Italian lan-
guage, being applied by the Italians themselves to the inhabitants
of the coasts of Greece, and of the Archipelago, whence the
greater part of these seamen are procured. They are in general a
very unprincipled and turbulent set of men, as was more particularly