Aftermath among the Turks
At the end of the "Extracts" attributed to "Ferneza" Purchas adds that "the
Historie at large will shew" further details. With or without the "Historie,"
however, the subsequent events narrated in the Pilgrimes fit into the general
historical picture. Prisoners who were not held for ransom were often sold
into slavery, and both of these considerations apparently entered into John
Smith's case. As put by Smith, when "the Pillagers [found that] hee was able
to live, and perceiving by his armor and habit, his ransome might be better
to them, than his death, they led him prisoner with many others."
His
wounds were cured, and he was taken to "Axiopolis" on the Danube. This
town appears on many old maps near the site of modern Cernavoda,
Rumania. A more likely place for a slave market, however, would have been
Silistra (Bulgaria), 80 km. (50 mi.) upstream and mentioned by Cavriolo as
the rumored provisional goal of the Tatars. A good road led from there to
Istanbul by way of Adrianople (Edirne). Smith, whose complexion made
him look younger than his twenty-two years, was bought by "Bashaw
Bogall" as a gift to his ladylove in Istanbul, "Charatza Trabigzanda."
"Bogall" was not a pasha but probably called a
bashi (head of something,
captain), and he may have been a
bakkal (shopkeeper, grocer, etc.); "Charatza
Trabigzanda" evidently was a distortion of a Greek phrase meaning,
"girl whose family came from Trebizond."
