nd moreover, fearing their
strength, designed to employ them in his wars against the Hindoos, and
to shut them up in the centre of his dominions. The Turkmans rebelled,
withdrew into a mountainous part of the country, became robbers, and
devastated the adjacent countries. The band of robbers gradually
swelled into a powerful army, gained a great victory over the troops
of the Sultan Mohammed, and placed their chieftain upon the Persian
throne, (1038.) According to Gibbon, the new monarch was chosen by
lot, and Seljuk had the fortune to win the prize of conquest, and
became the founder of the dynasty of the Shepherd kings. During the
reign of his grandson Togrul, the ancient Persian princes were
expelled, and the Turks embraced the religion of the conquered. In
1055, the Turkish sultan delivered the Caliph of Bagdad from the arms
of the Caliph of Egypt, who disputed with him the title of _Commander
of the Faithful_. For this service he was magnificently rewarded by
the grateful successor of the Prophet, who, at that time, banqueted in
his palace at Bagdad--a venerable phantom of power. The victorious
sultan was publicly commissioned as lieutenant of the caliph, and he
was virtually seated on the throne of the Abbassides. Shortly after,
the Turkish conqueror invaded the falling empire of the Greeks, and
its Asiatic provinces were irretrievably lost. In the latter part of
the eleventh century, the Turkish power was established in Asia Minor,
and Jerusalem itself had fallen into the hands of the sultan. He
exacted two pieces of gold from the Christian pilgrim, and treated
him, moreover, with greater cruelty than the Saracens had ever
exercised. The extortion and oppression of the Turkish masters of the
Sacred City led to the Crusades and the final possession of Western
Asia by the followers of the Prophet. The Turkish power constantly
increased with the decline of the Saracenic and Greek empires, but the
Seljukian dynasty, like that of Abbassides at Bagdad, at last run out,
and Othman, a soldier of fortune, became sultan of the Turks. He is
regarded as the founder of the Ottoman empire, and under his reign,
from 1299 to 1326, the Moslems made rapid strides in the progress of
aggrandizement.

[Sidenote: Turkish Conquerors.]

Orkham, his son, instituted the force of the Janizaries, completed the
conquest of Bithynia, and laid the foundation of Turkish power in
Europe. Under his successor, Amurath I., Adrianople became the c