The Clean-Fighting Turk Yesterday, To-Day and To-Morrow (Classic Reprint) Paperback - 2015

From the publisher

Excerpt from The Clean-Fighting Turk Yesterday, to-Day and to-Morrow There is but one mode of rescuing from destruction those literary treasures of antiquity, and that is, by money; a Turk will do anything for money, and the Grand Signior is the most needy of the Turks. It was generally thought that no Frank could view the interior of Saint Sophia without a firman, until Dr. Clarke discovered that it might be seen at any time for six piastres; and Grelot (thanks to his liberal bribes) was allowed to measure the sacred edifice, and to finish accurate drawings of its internal decorations. There is an additional circumstance respect ing the libraries of Constantinople, to which we would call the attention of our readers; only three of all those collee tions existed prior to the last century, the rest having been formed within that period by the Sultans or grandees who imitated their zeal; the literature and language of the Turks, nevertheless, seem to have derived no benefit from those aids, but to have gone on gradually declining. The importance of this observation will be manifest, when we come to consider the various attempts which have been made to reanimate the nation, and the uniform failure of them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.