Page:Travels and adventures of Wm. Lithgow (2).pdf/17

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

17

straits at mid-night, with little hurt, though the cannon thundered incessantly for two hours; and at last arrived in the road to Zante. Another galley attempting the same the year following : the poor slaves, in passing, were so wounded and galled with the great shot and the galley ready to sink that they were forced to run on shore: where, being apprehended, they were miserably put to death. Leaving the Frenchman with a Greek baroner Lithgow embarked in a Turkish frigate for Constantinople, “ a little world, which he describes as yielding at a distance such an outward splendour to the amazed beholder, of goodly churches, stately towers, gallant steeples &c. that the world cannot equal it.” At his landing however, he “ had a hard welcome tor on leaving the boat the master saying Adio Christiano, four French rengenadoes standing on the quay and hearing these words fell desperately upon him, blaspheming the name of Jesus, and throwing him down, beat him cruely, so that had not his friendly Turks leaped out of their boat and relieived him, they would doubtless have murdered him. The other infidels standing by, said to him. “ Behold what a Saviour thou bast, when those that were Christians, now turned Mahometans, cannot abide nor regard the name of thy