apital
of the Ottoman empire, and the rival of Constantinople. Bajazet
succeeded Amurath, and his conquests extended from the Euphrates to
the Danube. In 1396, he defeated, at Nicopolis, a confederate army of
one hundred thousand Christians; and, in the intoxication of victory,
declared that he would feed his horse with a bushel of oats on the
altar of St. Peter, at Rome. Had it not been for the victories of
Tamerlane, Constantinople, which contained within its walls the feeble
fragments of a great empire, would also have fallen into his hands. He
was unsuccessful in his war with the great conqueror of Asia, and was
defeated at the battle of Angora, (1402,) and taken captive, and
carried to Samarcand, by Tamerlane, in an iron cage.

The great Bajazet died in captivity, and Mohammed I. succeeded to his
throne. He restored, on a firmer basis, the fabric of the Ottoman
monarchy, and devoted himself to the arts of peace. His successor,
Amurath II., continued hostilities with the Greeks, and laid siege to
Constantinople. But this magnificent city, the last monument of Roman
greatness, resisted the Turkish arms only for a while. In 1453, it
fell before an irresistible force of three hundred thousand men,
supported by a fleet of three hundred sail. The Emperor Constantine
succeeded in maintaining a siege of fifty-three days; and the religion
and empire of the Christians were trodden to the dust by the Moslem
conquerors. The city was sacked, the people were enslaved, and the
Church of St. Sophia was despoiled of the oblations of ages, and
converted into a Mohammedan mosque. One hundred and twenty thousand
manuscripts perished in the sack of Constantinople, and the palaces
and treasure of the Greeks were transferred to semi-barbarians.

[Sidenote: Progress of the Turks.]

From that time, the Byzantine capital became the seat of the Ottoman
empire; and, for more than two centuries, Turkish armies excited the
fears and disturbed the peace of the world. They gradually subdued and
annexed Macedonia, the Peloponnesus, Epirus, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia,
Armenia, Cyprus, Syria, Egypt, India, Tunis, Algiers, Media,
Mesopotamia, and a part of Hungary, to the dominions of the sultan. In
the sixteenth century, the Ottoman empire was the most powerful in the
world. Nor should we be surprised, in view of the great success of the
Turks, when we remember their singular bravery, their absorbing
ambition, their almost incredible obedience to t