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early eighteenth century, that he valued human life less than a good tulip bulb. He devoted himself to importing new varieties from Europe and the Orient and, from Venice, glass vases to put them in. At tulip time every spring official business came to a standstill, while Sultan Ahmed put on all-night tulip fetes in the Seraglio gardens. Guests dressed up in tulip colors, caged birds sang in the tree branches, and here and there among the tulip beds tortoises with candles strapped to their backs provided ambulatory illumination. One particular night of the fete was reserved for the ladies of the harem, who organized a bazaar at which the Sultan was the only customer. They all looked for candy, hidden Easter-egg style among the flowers, and received prizes handed out by the Chief White Eunuch.

White eunuchs came from among the kidnapped slave children, and, it appears, chose of their own free will to be castrated in order to obtain certain powerful positions in the palace. Eunuchs were believed to be less corruptible than other people (says Ottaviano Bon: “though not of great courage, yet of the greatest judgment, and fidelity; their minds being set on business, rather than on pleasure”) and were thus entrusted with the treasure, the mail, and the secret documents. The governing of the harem was carried on by black eunuchs, most of whom came from the Sudan where they had been captured and castrated as small boys of six or seven. The uglier their faces and persons the more highly they were valued.

Those kidnapped children who showed an aptitude for ferocity were not sent to the Palace School but put into the Janissary Corps. The janissaries were a sort of private army of the Sultan who took the field only when he did and acted as his personal bodyguard. They were first organized in 1330, when the Turks were still living on the plains of Anatolia, and were called yeni chéri, meaning “new soldiers.” A legend says that a holy man passed his wide sleeve over their heads, blessing them, and for this reason they wore a cap that hung down behind like a sleeve. They were Spartan in their habits, celibate, and forbidden to quarrel with one another. Native Turks and children of former janissaries were not allowed to join the Corps. They were a brave and valuable lot until the great period of Turkish conquests was over and the Sultans became more interested in dallying at home in the Seraglio than in leading troops. Their number swelled from twelve thousand under Süleiman the Magnificent to forty-nine thousand a hundred years later, as more and more captured children entered their ranks and no great wars killed them off. From admirably disciplined assault troops they turned into a rowdy and dangerous mob of hoodlums, always discontented, looting, starting fires, and prone to start revolutions. By 1826, when Mahmud II succeeded in abolishing them, there were 135,000 of them, including many native Turks and sons of janissaries. Six Sultans in two and a half centuries had been dethroned or murdered, or both, by the Corps that was supposed to guard them. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, on her visit to Constantinople in 1717, observed that the Grand Seigneur “trembles at a janissary’s frown. [The Turks have] none of our harmless calling names! But when a minister here displeases … in three hours time he is dragged even from his master’s arms. They cut off his hands, head, and feet, and throw them before the palace gate, with all the respect in the world; while that Sultan (to whome they all profess an unlimited adoration) sits trembling in his apartment, and dare neither defend nor revenge his favourite. This is the blessed condition of the most absolute monarch upon earth, who owns no law but his will.” Mahmud II plotted for sixteen years to undermine the power of the janissaries, then provoked them into rebellion and used the regular army to destroy them. Twenty-five thousand janissaries died in three days in Constantinople, and that was the end of the Corps.

Janissaries wore long mustachios but no beards. Their rank was shown by the color