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Table of Contents
Cover
Preface
How a Mistake Made Me a Better Investor
About the Author
Part I: Decision Analysis
Chapter 1: Marginal Improvement, Significant Impact
Decision‐Making as a Skill
Spectators in Our Own Decisions
Marginal Improvement and Its Outcomes
Marginally Speaking
The Power of Avoiding Mistakes
Chapter 2: Blinded by Bias
Mistakes and Markets
Blind to Our Blindness
Minimizing Effort
Chapter 3: Rational Decisions
The Science of Decision‐Making
Swing Analysis for Portfolio Managers
Asking the Right Questions
Mistakes in Common
Descriptive versus Prescriptive Decision Theory
Chapter 4: Decision Analysis
We Are All Students of the Same Game
Decision Analysis
The Biggest Mistake in Decision‐Making
Chapter 5: How to Solve Any Problem
Close Enough
 We See What We Are Shown
Stay Home, See the World
ABQs of Research (Always Be Questioning)
Working Smarter, Not Harder
How Information Can Lead Us Astray
Postscript
Chapter 6: Cerebral Junk Food
10 Reasons Listicles Are Bad for Your Health
You've Been Framed
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Biased Words
How We Manufacture Uncertainty and Volatility
What Dieting Taught Me About Consuming
Information
Chapter 7: The Input Paradox
Bowflex Behavior Modifier 2000
Dieter's Paradox
Negative Calorie Foods
Diversifier's Paradox
Illusory Invulnerability
Chapter 8: Auditing Mental Accounting
Example 1: Wasteful Education
Example 2: Drunken Economics
Example 3: Bet the House
Example 4: Half Off
How to Stop Turning Winners into Losers
Part II: Decisions in the Financial Context
Chapter 9: Mistakes at the Heart of Investment
Management
A Common Risk Management Mistake
Why Risk Takers Stopped Taking Risk
Chapter 10: Manager Selection
 Designing a Manager Selection Algorithm
Flipping the Frame
Stroke of Genius
The Definition of Actionable Intelligence
What Allocators Can Learn From Paper Traders
Chapter 11: Prophecy of Value
From Scalping to Trading
How Regret Makes Us Do Things We'll Regret
What Would You Do?
P&L Driven P&L
Chapter 12: Mind over Matter
Painfully Aware
Fooled by Stability
The 20/80 Rule
Why Size Matters
Lessons from Nick Saban and the Octagon
Doubling Down on Luck
Capitalizing on Change
Chapter 13: Coaching
Why Coaching Is a Waste of Time and Money
Why Even the Best Seek Coaching
The Power of Confronting Fear
Chapter 14: Trading Decisions
What Makes Trading So Difficult
The Freedom of a Straightjacket
The Natural Beauty of (Decision) Trees
Chapter 15: How to Stop Losing Money
How to Stop Losing Money on the Right View
I Knew It!
Stop‐Loss Trade Entry
 Easy Money
Positive Expectancy
Three Key Reasons Investors Should Use Options but
Rarely Do
Chapter 16: The Danger of Shortcuts
Blinded by Myopia
Odometer Readings and Negative Interest Rates
Anchored to Missed Opportunities
Chapter 17: The Power of the Unexpected
Unconscious Influence
Ready, Fire, Aim
The Real Reason Commodities Collapsed
Slower Is Faster
Index
End User License Agreement

List of Tables
Chapter 1
Table 1.1 Novak Djokovic's overall performance, 2004–2016
Table 1.2 Novak Djokovic's performance, 2004–2016,
including points won
Chapter 9
Table 9.1 Jim's performance by month and year.
Table 9.2 Jim's performance with updated allocation.
Table 9.3 The initial $400 million investment, as a separate
series from the add...
Table 9.4 NFL 2014 season: points scored and games won.
Chapter 12
 Table 12.1 Investment performance with and without
systematic adjustments
Chapter 14
Table 14.1 Prior to court ruling
Table 14.2 Decision matrix
Table 14.3 Seven scenarios: probability
Table 14.4 After court ruling
Chapter 16
Table 16.1 Actual versus predicted percentages of DAX
winning streak

List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 The Power of Avoiding Mistakes
Figure 1.2 Possessing a Competitive Edge
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Guilt threshold influence on verdict.
Figure 2.2 Rubik's Cube.
Figure 2.3 The brown and orange squares.
Figure 2.4 Hexadecimal code of the two squares.
Figure 2.5 What the brain sees.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Lots of data from a small sample.
Figure 3.2 Age as related to fatal auto accidents.
Figure 3.3 Mistakes exist between how a decision is made
and how it should be ma...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 A portion of Brad Pitt's eyeball at 30x zoom.
 Figure 5.2 Close‐up of Chuck Close painting.
Figure 5.3 Twelve black dots on a dark‐gray grid.
Figure 5.4 Twelve black dots on a light‐gray grid
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Rental prices for top‐floor NYC apartments based
on the label ($0–$1...
Figure 6.2 How to make smoking seem healthy.
Figure 6.3 CIPA camera production, 1947–2014.
Figure 6.4 Sven Skafisk's presentation of CIPA camera
production, 1947–2014.
Figure 6.5 Counties with the lowest 10% age‐standardized
death rates for cancer ...
Figure 6.6 Probability of o‐ring failure
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 USD/JPY spot
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Masters golf tournament.
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 Scenario analysis: portfolio manager allocations
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 A bullish investor
Figure 14.2 Expected trading range
Figure 14.3 Price action
Figure 14.4 Price moves down
Figure 14.5 Peak confidence
Figure 14.6 Spot trading probability
Figure 14.7 The effect of changing a stop‐loss
Figure 14.8 Factors in a decision
 Figure 14.9 Initial decision tree (left) compared with
probability‐guided decisi...
Figure 14.10 Post‐announcement decision tree
Figure 14.11 Post‐ruling decision tree
Figure 14.12 Scenario 1 decision tree
Figure 14.13 Scenario 2 decision tree
Figure 14.14 Scenario 3 decision tree
Figure 14.15 Scenario 4 decision tree
Figure 14.16 Scenario 6 decision tree
Figure 14.17 Scenario 7 decision tree
Figure 14.18 Decision tree for Scenarios 1–7
Figure 14.19 Relevant variables only
Figure 14.20 Expectations for each branch segment
Figure 14.21 Private equity deal
Figure 14.22 Bad year 1
Figure 14.23 Bad year 2
Figure 14.24 Full expected returns in year 1
Figure 14.25 Shifting stop‐loss higher (left) compared with
proper stop‐loss pla...
Chapter 15
Figure 15.1 Commodity currency charts
Figure 15.2 USD/JPY spot
Figure 15.3 Probability distribution
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1 Auto odometer and value
Figure 16.2 Data mapped as a function of value
Figure 16.3 Velocity of money
Chapter 17
Figure 17.1 Long‐term commodity charts
Figure 17.2 China's urbanization project
Figure 17.3 Durable consumer goods penetration in China
Figure 17.4 Annual disposable income per capita in China
Figure 17.5 China's urban population
Figure 17.6 Price and population in Victorian England
Figure 17.7 Peak oil
Figure 17.8 Production‐weighted average miles per gallon
AlphaBrain

How a Group of Iconoclasts Are

Using Cognitive Science to Advance
the Business of Alpha Generation

Stephen Duneier
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Copyright © 2019 by Stephen Duneier. All rights reserved.
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To my wife, Barbara, my daughter, Masie, and my son, Jackson,
who will never stop helping me find my swing.
Preface
I began my career in finance in 1987 as a stockbroker at Drexel
Burnham, back in the days of Michael Milken. I then traded exotic
derivatives at Credit Suisse before there were standard pricing
models. I ran currency option trading globally for Bank of America
and emerging markets for AIG International. I spent 12 years as a
global macro hedge fund portfolio manager, directly overseeing as
much as $916 million in assets under management, and I founded
and ran two hedge funds.
At about the same time I entered the industry, I began studying the
cognitive sciences, particularly behavioral psychology and decision
theory. So, as I was developing my own style, my own unique
approach to investment and business management, I would apply
everything I was learning about how the brain works, how we
approach problems and make decisions to solve them.
As it turns out, when you do that, you wind up doing things very
differently than most. But it wasn't just the approach that made me
unique; it was the results it delivered that truly set me apart. For
instance, in the first 12 months after I took over at Bank of America,
we increased revenues by 70% without increasing costs at all. We did
so on the back of a marginal adjustment to the way we made
decisions as a group. In my first year running emerging markets for
AIG International, we went from being the worst performing unit in
the business to the best, as a result of a marginal adjustment to the
way we approached problems. Over a 12‐year career as a global
macro hedge fund manager, I generated 20.3% average annualized
returns spanning quiet markets, high‐volatility periods, and chaotic
moments, with a Sortino ratio that was twice my Sharpe.
When I took the helm at one hedge fund, we were on the brink of
failure. We had let go all nonessential personnel, cut salaries to the
bone, and hadn't raised a penny in assets since launch nor made a
penny for our investors. Over the next 13 months, we increased
assets under management 12‐fold, from $100 million to $1.25 billion,
beat our benchmark index by 2500 basis points net of fees, and every
single portfolio manager had his career best year – all because of a
few marginal adjustments to our decision‐making process.
As happy as I have been with the results, anyone who has studied
decision‐making knows that what I've just listed are outcomes. We
don't control outcomes. What we do control are all the tiny little
decisions that we make along the way. Decisions that must be made
rationally in order to improve the odds of achieving the outcomes we
desire.
The majority of books on the subject of cognitive science focus on
presenting evidence of our flaws. I don't want to discount the value
of that evidence. It is essential material, for unless we accept that we
are all susceptible to bias and other shortcomings that unconsciously
lead to systematic errors in judgment, it is nearly impossible to
overcome it. If you can't overcome it, you are as good as you will ever
be.
AlphaBrain differs from the other books in that it applies these
abstract, seemingly academic concepts to the industry of institutional
investment management, but takes it one step further. Rather than
simply make readers aware of our flaws, we will explore actual
solutions to real world problems. Instead of reading yet another book
on cognitive bias, then setting it down and going about your business
in exactly the same way as you had been, you should expect to set the
book down numerous times in order to contemplate your own
actions as an institutional investor, and begin implementing real
change. In order for that to happen, for you to experience a leap
forward in the evolution of your decision‐making, I must first
convince you that you are as vulnerable to those mistakes as every
other human being. The fact that you are likely very intelligent, well
educated, experienced, and perhaps successful already, it makes my
job that much more difficult.
I know from experience how difficult it is to read the works of
Kahneman, Ariely, and Tversky, and see yourself as their flawed
subjects, but until you do, the odds of you actually learning from it
and experiencing that leap forward are drastically reduced. Let me
share with you how I made the leap.
How a Mistake Made Me a Better Investor
Daniel Kahneman, one of the leading experts in cognitive psychology
and author of some of the most widely read books on the subject,
discusses the futility of teaching his findings in a section of Thinking,
Fast and Slow, titled “Can Psychology Be Taught?” You'll have to
read the book to learn why he came to “the uncomfortable conclusion
that teaching psychology is mostly a waste of time,” but I will share
with you how I arrived at that same conclusion, as well as the
mistake I made more than 20 years ago that enabled me to break
through the barrier, shifting from a spectator to a practitioner.
One of the fundamental tenets of cognitive psychology is that we
essentially have two systems at work in our brain. Kahneman calls
them “System 1 and System 2,” although Richard Thaler and Cass
Sunstein refer to them as “Planner and Doer.” What you call them
isn't nearly as important as recognizing that there is a part of your
cognition that is automated, intuitive, and quick to draw conclusions,
whereas the other part is more deliberate, methodical, and
intellectually demanding. When you read about these abstract
characters, you may or may not agree that they relate to you, but you
undoubtedly recognize their existence in others. Even if you do see
these two distinct systems playing a role in your decision‐making, it's
unlikely you could do so in real time. Of course, with the benefit of
hindsight, your task is made much simpler.
If your decision resulted in an unfavorable outcome, you are likely to
attribute the decision to System 1 thinking, a temporary lapse in
judgment, bad luck, or perhaps another person. If the result is
positive, of course, we rarely seek an external source to apportion
credit, least of all, luck.
In the moment, though, when we are gathering information,
interpreting it, processing it, drawing conclusions from it or making
decisions based upon it, it is almost impossible for us to recognize
whether we are employing mental shortcuts that are likely to result
in a systematic error in judgment or if we are objectively analyzing
the situation, drawing upon our wealth of knowledge and experience
to reach a thoughtful conclusion. I mean, how do you define an
action as dogmatic versus disciplined, before the outcome is known?
How do you differentiate between an impulsive decision and one
based on educated intuition until after the result is experienced? The
truth is, although the difference may appear glaringly obvious with
the benefit of hindsight, it can only truly be objectively judged at the
moment of inception. Those who have difficulty coming to terms
with that subtle, yet significant difference likely have a great distance
to cover before becoming practitioners of cognitive science
themselves.
So, how was I able to make the leap from someone who had spent
years simply studying the cognitive sciences to becoming a
practitioner? I owe it all to my mother‐in‐law and a simple mistake I
made on March 24, 1994. I know the exact date because it occurred
in the hospital, one day after my first child was born. My mother‐in‐
law asked if I'd like something for lunch and I gave her my order.
Forty‐five minutes later, she returned, handing me a sandwich and
saying, “Here's your veal parmigiana hero.” My hand automatically
jerked away. “I didn't order a veal parmigiana hero,” I stated
emphatically. She insisted I had and we went back and forth before I
finally introduced reason to the rhetoric.
I explained that while the veal parmigiana hero had been one of my
favorite foods as a kid, after seeing a video years earlier which
showed how calves are treated in order to make veal, I had made a
conscious decision never to eat veal again – which is how I knew
beyond the shadow of a doubt that I hadn't ordered a veal
parmigiana hero this time. She apologized, I skipped lunch, and life
went on.
A few months later my wife and I looked through pictures from the
birth, as well as video we had taken around that time. That's when
my life changed forever. It turns out that someone had been taking
video in the room when I gave my lunch order. On the screen, I saw a
person who looked just like me, and who sounded just like me say to
my mother‐in‐law, “I'll have a veal parmigiana hero, please.” It was
like an out‐of‐body experience. I get chills to this day when I think
about it. Immediately, my mind attempted to make sense of it all.
Someone dubbed over my voice. Someone doctored the tape.
Someone went to a lot of trouble to make me look foolish. The truth,
of course, was a whole lot simpler, and there was no getting around
it. In that moment when I had ordered the sandwich, my mind was
engaged elsewhere, and that left System 1 or the “Doer” alone to hear
the question, interpret it, process it, and answer it, all without me
even being aware. You see, veal occupied a much greater portion of
my memory than did eggplant. Avoiding veal was a conscious
decision, but on that day my choice had been made unconsciously,
even though I was wide awake and conversing. The result was a
mistake, a poor decision, yet I had no idea I had made it and without
the video evidence I would forever believe I was in the right and my
mother‐in‐law had been at fault.
That was the last time I have ever felt 100% sure about anything that
relied on my memory. It's also the moment when I truly understood
what Kahneman, Thaler, Sunstein, and others meant in all those
books, and rather than treating mistakes like these as remote
possibilities, I came to see them as facts of life. If I was going to avoid
them, I would have to make my vulnerability a fundamental part of
my assumptions, and make the appropriate adjustments to my
decision‐making process.
Acknowledgments
My first debt in life goes to my loving parents, Fred and Shelly
Duneier. The book's dedication records my boundless love for my
wife, son, and daughter. I will forever be grateful to my sister,
Michelle Duneier Donner, and her husband, Craig Donner; my sister,
Allison Duneier Cohen, and her husband, Todd Cohen.
I am also filled with appreciation for my sister and brother‐in‐law,
Jackie Ripps Fodiman and Robert Fodiman; my brother‐in‐law,
Richie Ripps; my late mother‐in‐law, Ginny Ripps; and my father‐in‐
law, Marvin Ripps, and his wife, Gloria Ripps. My nieces and
nephews deserve special thanks: Matt, Caitlin, and Garrett Donner;
Kendall and Devon Cohen; Sydney, Ray, and Morgan Fodiman.
In each stage of my life I was fortunate to have acquired a true
friend: Eric Wesch, Matt Haudenschield, Anders Faergemann, Lynda
Kestenbaum, and Warren & Melissa Matthews.
For his expertise, thank you to my cousin Mitchell Duneier. In
bringing this book to life against all odds, I thank my esteemed
colleague, Jake Vincent. The book could not have been completed
without his brilliance. Christina Verigan of John Wiley & Sons
encouraged me to pursue this project. Her extraordinary support,
wise advice, and editorial touch were indispensable. She was the
greatest editor I could ever hope for.
Finally, I wish to thank my fiber arts community, my Bija Advisors
clients and subscribers, my faculty colleagues at UCSB, and my
students over many years for taking the red pill with me.
About the Author
For nearly 30 years, Stephen Duneier has applied cognitive science
to investment and business management. The result has been the
turnaround of numerous institutional trading businesses, career best
returns for experienced portfolio managers who have adopted his
methods, the development of a $1.25 billion hedge fund, and 20.3%
average annualized returns as a global macro portfolio manager. A
visiting professor of decision analysis and behavioral investing in the
College of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
Duneier holds an MBA from New York University's Stern School of
Business.
Through Bija Advisors' coaching, workshops, and publications, he
helps the world's most successful and experienced institutional
investors improve performance by applying proven, proprietary
decision‐making methods to their own processes.
Duneier was formerly global head of currency option trading at Bank
of America, managing director in charge of emerging markets at AIG
International, and founding partner of award winning hedge funds.
Duneier's artwork has been featured in international publications
and on television programs around the world. It is represented by
the renowned gallery, Sullivan Goss, and has earned him more than
60,000 followers across social media, as well as a Guinness world
record. As Commissioner of the League of Professional Educators,
Duneier is using cognitive science to alter the landscape of American
K–12 education.
As a speaker, he has delivered informative and inspirational talks to
audiences around the world for more than 20 years on topics
including how cognitive science can improve performance and the
keys to living a more deliberate life.
Duneier is originally from Long Island, New York, and has lived with
his wife, Barbara, and their two children in London and Santa
Barbara.
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A study of one hundred incorrect diagnoses found that
inadequate medical knowledge was the reason for error in only
four instances. The doctors didn't stumble because of their
ignorance of clinical facts; rather, they missed diagnoses
because they fell into cognitive traps. Such errors produce a
distressingly high rate of misdiagnosis.
—Jerome Groopman, MD, author of How Doctors Think
Yep. Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic
swing. Somethin' we was born with. Somethin' that's ours and
ours alone. Somethin' that can't be taught to ya or learned.
Somethin' that's got to be remembered. Over time the world
can rob us of that swing. It gets buried inside us.
—The Legend of Bagger Vance
Part I
Decision Analysis
Chapter 1
Marginal Improvement, Significant
Impact
Decision‐Making as a Skill
What we do as human beings is make decisions. Whether we are
investment managers, athletes, parents, or students, the one true
commonality we share is the decision itself. Regardless of the
implications, who is making the decision or the field in which it is
being made, the decision‐making process always has the same basic
components and should always follow the same path.
Decision‐making is a skill. In fact, I would argue it is the skill that we
humans possess. However, it is rarely understood to be the
underlying source of all other more readily identifiable skills.
Instead, we look at a tennis player and think, he is skilled at swinging
a racquet or chasing down balls. We look at a politician and think,
she is particularly adept at negotiating or salesmanship. We think of
successful fund managers and attribute their success to their ability
to identify patterns or steel their nerves under pressure. In reality,
steeling your nerves is a decision, a skill that can be taught and
learned. Swinging a racquet properly and influencing others are
decisions as well. They can be taught and learned. They can be
practiced and improved via the decision‐making process. When you
truly grasp this concept, and are able to properly frame everything by
the decision, to view the world through the lens of the decision‐
making process, you come to realize that in order to truly excel at
anything in life, both personally and professionally, you must focus
on the decision as a problem to be solved.
A professional athlete cannot simply turn off the decision‐making
process when they aren't on the playing field. To make optimal
decisions at the baseline, they must make the right nutritional
decisions, practice decisions, footwork decisions, rest decisions,
investment decisions, coaching decisions, and so on, even when they
are nowhere near the court. To be world‐class tennis stars, they must
analyze their decisions, refine them, gather data on them, and
approach them deliberately. It is a 24/7 job to reach and maintain
their positions as among the greatest players of all time. Same goes
for surgeons, actors, and yes, investors.
Becoming a world‐class decision maker isn't a 9‐to‐5 job, it is a
lifestyle. It requires not just practice, but repeated, deliberate
practice. The kind that requires the employment of cognitive strain, a
concept we will return to over and over again throughout this book.
It is challenging. It requires sacrifice and a significant investment of
time and effort. AlphaBrain is fundamentally a book about how to
improve your decision‐making as it applies to institutional investing,
but the concepts and the science behind it are applicable to any one
of the millions of decisions made on a daily basis by every single one
of us in every aspect of our lives.

Spectators in Our Own Decisions

Far more often than any of us would like to believe, we are mere
spectators in the decisions we make, even in decisions of great
consequence. If we are spectators in the decisions we make, it means
we are bystanders, as opposed to the active participants we perceive
ourselves to be, in the investments we make, the businesses we run,
and even the lives we lead.
I know what you are thinking. You're smart, highly educated,
experienced, and very successful. What I am saying doesn't apply to
you. As it happens, not only don't those qualities keep us from being
spectators or grant us immunity from the problems it can cause, but
they often make us even more vulnerable. I understand it may be a
difficult pill to swallow, so let's consider a study that might help
prove the point.
Professors Brian Wansink and Junyong Kim conducted an
experiment among north Philadelphia's moviegoers. To half the
participants, they provided a free large bucket of popcorn while the
other half received a very large bucket. Half of each group were
provided fresh delicious‐tasting popcorn. The other half received 14‐
day‐old stale popcorn which participants later rated a 2 out of 10.
If we are rational decision‐makers there are only two primary
reasons for us to consume food: we eat to be satiaed and/or because
it tastes good. Therefore, if we are active participants in the decisions
we make, the size of the portion should not affect how much we eat
but the perceived taste should. As it happens, those who received the
fresh, delicious tasting popcorn in a very large bucket ate just over
40% more than those who received it in the smaller container. On
the other hand, those who were provided with popcorn that they
themselves described as “terrible” and “disgusting” in a very large
bucket, consumed just under 40% more than those who ate it from
the smaller one.
Dr. Wansink has conducted numerous experiments of a similar
nature, the most famous one involving bottomless bowls of soup,
always delivering similar results. Regardless of the fact that we are
awake and aware when faced with choices, very often we don't
actively participate in the decisions we make.
Perhaps you are thinking that the poor snacking habits of
moviegoers falls short of proving that we are spectators in decisions
of great consequence. After all, we go to the movies to escape the real
world, so perhaps it's only natural that we would leave our rational
decision‐maker hat at home for those couple of hours. Before you
summarily dismiss studies regarding eating habits of any kind
though, consider this. Excess weight and obesity play a role in
roughly 80% of all American deaths and disabilities.
In any event, let's turn our attention to a rather well‐known study
involving the entire adult populations of some of the most advanced
and highly educated countries in the world as it relates to a decision
most would perceive to be of great consequence. Johnson gathered
data regarding countrywide organ‐donor participation rates across a
number of major Western European countries. In Denmark he found
that just 4% of the country's adult population had elected to donate
their organs upon death. Meanwhile, right across the bay in Sweden,
the participation rate was 86%. Fourteen percent of the citizens of
the United Kingdom had volunteered their body parts while just
across the English Channel nearly 100% of the French had done so.
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rocks. Their crest was a demi sea-horse salient; their supporters two
sea-horses; and their motto, “Deo Respublicæ et amicis.”
In 1612, Mr. Paul Pindar, another of Thomas Dallam’s companions on
board the ship Hector, succeeded Sir Thomas Glover as ambassador for
the Company to the Porte.
In 1623, Sir T. Roe was ambassador. He got a salary of £1,800 per
ann. from the Company, besides a portion of the consulage and other
advantages, but at the same time he was forbidden to carry on a trade
of any kind. During this period the Levant Company continued to make
satisfactory progress, and the only thing to remark is the controversies
which, during the reigns of James I and Charles I, raged between the
regulated Companies, namely, the Levant Company and Merchant
Adventurers, against the East India Company, which, as then
constituted, they considered as the monopoly of a few which told
against the monopoly of larger corporate bodies.
In 1643 further privileges were granted to the Levant Company. In an
ordinance of both Houses, upholding the Levant Merchants, dated 9th of
March 1643, the following points occur:—

“That for the better supportation and encouragement

of the Fellowship of merchants of England, trading to the
Levant Seas, which, besides the building and maintaining
of divers great ships, both for defence and burthen, the
venting of kerseys, sages, perpetuanas, and several other
commodities hath been found very serviceable and
profitable to the State, by advancing navigation, and
transporting into foreigne parts for severall years together
above 20,000 broadclothes per annum, besides other
commodities whereby the poor people are sett at worke,
and the whole kingdome receive benefit. The Lords and
Commons do ordaine:—
“That the Fellowship of Merchants trading to the Levant
Seas shall continue a corporation; that they shall have
free choice and removal of all ministers by them
maintained at home and abroad, whether they be
 dignified and called by the name of Ambassadors,
Governours, Deputies, Consulls, or otherwise.
“That they shall have power to levie monies on the
members of their corporation, or on strangers; on goods
shipped in English bottoms, or on English goods in
strange bottoms, which shall goe into or come from the
Levant Seas, for and towards necessary charge,
maintenance, and supply of their ministers, officers, and
government.
“That no person shall send ships into these parts
limited by their corporation, but such as are free brothers,
or otherwise licensed, each person to pay, if a mere
merchant, £50, if above twenty-one years of age, or £25
if under that age; and they shall have power to fine
persons disobeying their orders in a sum not exceeding
£20, or imprisoning their persons till the said sum be
paid.”

About this time the Levant Company suffered somewhat from the
conflicting state of parties in England. Sir S. Crowe was appointed in
1642 as ambassador of the Levant Company; he was a staunch loyalist,
and, during his tenure of office abroad, his goods in England were
confiscated by the Parliamentarians. On hearing this, Sir S. Crowe
imprisoned many of the English factors in Constantinople, and
appropriated their goods. The Parliamentarians forthwith obliged the
Company to send out another representative, Sir J. Bendish, who, after
some difficulty, succeeded in establishing himself as the ambassador of
England, and Sir S. Crowe was sent home. On arriving in London, he
was impeached at the suit of the Company, condemned, and kept in
prison till 1653.
The regulations of the Company with regard to their employés were
very strict in those days; none of the consuls under their authority might
marry without the consent of the directors, and the factors or merchants
at Constantinople and elsewhere in the Levant frequently received
admonitions from the governing body at home against “sensuality,
gambling, Sabbath-breaking, neglect of public worship”, and other
irregularities of life in which the merchants, far from the influence of
their strait-laced relatives at home, were prone to indulge.
In 1661 the Earl of Winchilsea went out on The Plymouth as
ambassador for the Company. Captain Hayward was in command of the
vessel, with whom Pepys (p. 50) made merry at the Rhenish Wine
House. Lord Winchilsea is described as “a jovial Lord, extremely
favoured by Vizier Kiuprili”. Two Kiuprilis, father and son, were practically
the rulers of Turkey from 1658 to the death of the latter in 1676. Both
the Kiuprilis were men of exceedingly good powers of organisation, and
raised Turkey to comparative power, despite the weakness of her
princes. The Sultan Mahomed IV, about whom Dr. Covel in his MS. tells
us so much, was a man of weak character, devoted only to the chase,
and left the organisation of the empire to his Vizier. From him Lord
Winchilsea obtained further capitulations, an account of which is given
us by his secretary, Paul Ricaut, in a pamphlet entitled The Capitulations
and Articles published by Paul Ricaut, Esquire, Secretary to his
Excellencie the Lord Ambassador, in 1663, and addressed to the
Governors of the Levant Company. In this pamphlet he says: “The first
capitulations took place 80 years before, in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, and
have been enlarged in the time of allmost every ambassador, with such
alterations as the state of affaires, and the abuses, and the iniquities of
the times suggested.” The principal grievance which this set of
capitulations rectified was “that English ships should be exempt from
search for foreign goods”. Mahomed IV, in his address to Charles II, on
the occasion of the granting of these capitulations, speaks in high-flown
language of “the Queen of the aforesaid Kingdom” who commenced the
Levant trade.
A curious and ludicrous instance of the fanaticism of the times
occurred in 1661. An individual called “John the Quaker” arrived at
Constantinople, and began to preach at the street corners repentance to
the Turks in his own native tongue. Naturally enough, the
Mohammedans looked upon him as a lunatic, and consigned him to a
mad-house, where he languished for eight months, until his nationality
was discovered, and he was taken before Lord Winchilsea. On entering
the ambassador’s presence, true to the regulations of his creed, John
refused to remove his hat, whereupon he was bastinadoed; and, on his
clothes being examined, a letter was discovered in his pocket addressed
to the Sultan, politely telling that monarch that he was the scourge
employed by God to punish wicked Christians.
There was a distinct revival at this juncture in the condition of the
power of the Ottoman Turks at Constantinople; under the severe rule of
the elder Kiuprili, and the firm but temperate jurisdiction of his son
Ahmed, both internal and external affairs prospered favourably. Ahmed
Kiuprili conducted the wars with Austria with a fair amount of success.
He won Crete for the Turks, in 1669, from the Venetian general
Morosini; the wars with Sobieski, under his guidance, were, with certain
fluctuations, favourable to the Turks. He, in 1675, instituted the levy of
3,000 boys from the Christian population to fill the ranks of the
Janissaries; and three days after the peace of Zuranna, by which the
Turks regained much of their lost military prestige, he died, very shortly
after the events related in such minute detail by Dr. Covel in our second
manuscript, and very shortly after the ratification of further capitulations
with the Levant Company at Adrianople; the incidents concerning the
obtaining of which Dr. Covel relates so graphically.

§ 4.—Of Dr. John Covel.

The writer of the second MS. we have before us is mentioned by
Evelyn in his Diary (ii, 338) as “Covel, the great Oriental traveller”.
Evidently he intended either to publish a work himself, or that his diary
should be published shortly after his death, for he divided part of his
MS. into chapters, put in illustrations, and collected together everything
connected with himself, every scrap of letter and paper that would be of
use, even down to his testamur when he took his B.A. in 1657; but this
mass of MS. has remained hidden in the British Museum, and has never
yet seen the light of day. It is easy to see why any publisher would
recoil from bringing out so prolix a work, for the Doctor is wearisome in
the extreme. Before we leave Deal, in his first chapter, at the outset of
his travels, we are treated to at least thirty closely-written pages on the
wonders of the deep, which he picked up there; soon follows a long
dissertation on sea-sickness, and its supposed causes; and whenever he
came near any place of archæological interest, such as Carthage,
Ephesus, Constantinople, etc., he gives us enough information to fill a
good-sized volume on each spot. Consequently, it has been found
necessary to eliminate much in Dr. Covel’s exceedingly bulky diaries.
His narrative is, however, extremely interesting on many points:
during the six-and-a-half years he resided at Constantinople, from 1670
to 1677, he noticed everything; his sketches of life, costumes, and
manners are minute and life-like. Sir George Wheeler says, in his volume
of travels: “Dr. Covel, then chaplain to his Majesty’s ambassador there,
amongst many curiosities shewed us some Turkish songs set to musick;
which he told us were, both for sense and music, very good: but past
our understanding.” Being, as he was, intimately connected with the
embassy, he had ample opportunity for studying the politics of the time.
Dr. Covel was present at the granting of the capitulations of 1676, which
gained for the Levant Company privileges which established it, for the
ensuing century and a half of its existence, on an unapproachable
foundation.
John Covel was born at Horningsheath, in Suffolk, in 1638, and
educated at Bury St. Edmunds and Christ’s College, Cambridge, in the
hall of which his portrait, by Valentine Ritz, is still to be seen. He studied
medicine in early life with a view to being a physician, which will
account for his intimate knowledge of botany and drugs; but eventually,
being elected to a Fellowship at his College, he changed his line in life
and took Holy Orders.
Covel was distinguished for his erudition, and was a scholar of no
mean repute, as his MS. shows; and on the Restoration, in 1661, he was
deputed to make a Latin oration in the hall of Christ’s College, to
celebrate the return of the Stuart family to the throne of England. He
composed a long poem also to celebrate this event, a few stanzas of
which I give here:
 “The Horrible winter’s gone,
And we enjoy a cheerful spring;
The kind approach of the Sun
Gives a new birth to every thing.

“The trees with blossoms are crowned now,

Which then did penance in snow;
And there with busy noise the Bee
Practise mysterious chemistry.

“Just so, great Prince, when you arrived,

Each drooping heart revived;
Your glorious rays and divine influence
Gave us new life and sense.

“Too rigid Fate

Had blasted Church and State;
And, with a boisterous storm,
Put all things out of form.

“Oh, may your glories ever shine!

Always rising still more bright.
What never stops at any height
Can never decline.”

In 1669 Covel was appointed as chaplain to the ambassador at

Constantinople, Sir Daniel Harvey, by the Levant Company, and Charles
II gave him a dispensation to go to Constantinople and hold his
Fellowship at the same time: it runs as follows:

“Given at our Court at Dover, 19th day of May, in the

22nd year of our reign. Our will and pleasure is that you
dispense with the absence of the said John Covel, so that
he receive and enjoy (by Himself or his assignees) all and
singular the profits, dividends, stipends, emoluments, and
dues belonging to his fellowship in as full and ample
 manner to all intents and purposes as if he were actually
resident in the College.”

During his residence at Constantinople he witnessed many important

sights, notably the great fêtes at Adrianople in honour of the
circumcision of Prince Mustapha, and the marriage of the Sultan’s
daughter, which were the most noted fêtes of the century in Turkey,[3]
and also the granting of the capitulations during the time of the plague.
The next nine years of Covel’s life were spent in travel. In 1679 he
returned to England, and immediately afterwards took his D.D., and was
chosen as Margaret preacher of Divinity at Cambridge. In 1681 he got
one of his college livings of Kegworth, and was soon afterwards
appointed as chaplain to the Princess of Orange, and resided at the
Hague. In October 1685 the Prince of Orange intercepted a letter
written by Dr. Covel to Skelton, the English ambassador, giving an
account of Prince William’s tyrannical behaviour to his wife. Dr. Covel
was forthwith dispatched home again in great disgrace; he never spoke
of what had transpired, and it was long a mystery. There is, however, a
letter to Princess Mary amongst his papers, in which he speaks of the
scurrilous reports which alleged that he tried to make mischief between
the King and the Prince, and between the Prince and your Royal
Highness, and concludes, “in the words of the Royal Martyr, your most
glorious grandfather, that as He hath given us afflictions to try our
patience, so He would give us Patience to bear our afflictions.”
Dr. Covel was twice Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge,
the first time in 1689, when King William visited the University, and his
letters show a considerable degree of anxiety as to how the King, whom
he had maligned as Prince, would receive him. In reply to these
anxieties, King William sent a curt answer, stating “that he could
distinguish between Dr. Covel and the Vice-Chancellor of the University”.
Dr. Covel was not fortunate with his voluminous writings; he got into
another scrape with the Court in a book entitled The Interpreter of
Words and Terms; it was ordered to be destroyed, being, as it was
supposed, “in some points very derogatory to the supreme power of this
Crown”. He also wrote on gardening and fruit-trees; but his magnum
opus was a work on the Greek Church, which he published shortly
before his death, which remained for long the standard work on the
subject. It is entitled: Some Account of the present Greek Church, with
Reflections on their present Doctrine and Discipline, particularly on the
Eucharist and the rest of their seven Pretended Sacraments. In his
Preface he apologises for the long delay, owing to his “itinerant life”, and
having been “chained to a perpetual college bursar’s place”. It is evident
from his diary that, when at Constantinople, Dr. Covel gave himself up
to this study very closely, in fact, he was deputed to do so, for the
controversy was then at its height which was started by M. Arnold,
Doctor of the Sorbonne, as to whether the Greeks held the doctrine of
transubstantiation or not, and a union between the Eastern and Western
Churches was much feared by the Protestants. The eccentric Marquis de
Nointel, who was the French ambassador to the Porte at that time, was
most eager to bring this about, and as he was on very friendly terms
with Sir John Finch, it was suspected that he used his influence to win
over the English ambassador; hence Dr. Covel had an important task to
perform, and no wonder he writes so bitterly on the ignorance and
corruption of the Greek clergy. To show his zeal, the Marquis de Nointel
celebrated Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, 1673, in the cave of
Antiparos, with a broken-off stalactite as his communion-table, on which
may still be read the words he carved:—
“Hic ipse Christus adfuit
Ejus natali die mediâ nocte celebrato
mdclxxiii.”

The ambassador was accompanied by five hundred people—his

domestics, merchants, Greeks, and Turks—and he was so impressed by
it, that he repeated the experiment on two subsequent occasions. The
proposed union of the Churches, however, never came to anything, and
by the time Dr. Covel’s book came out the controversy was at an end
and forgotten.
Dr. Covel was appointed Master of Christ’s College in 1688, and
retained this position until his death in 1722, at the ripe age of eighty-
four.
The good work that Sir John Finch did for the Company in getting the
capitulation of 1676, as Dr. Covel relates, in the teeth of the plague at
Adrianople, did much for the security of trading and property in the
Levant. Attached to these capitulations is the following clause: “That
two ships’ loads of figs and currants should be allowed to be annually
exported from Smyrna for the use of the King’s kitchen.” Sir John Finch
was the son of the Speaker of the House of Commons, and was brought
up as a physician, together with his bosom companion Thomas Baines;
they studied together in England, and in Padua, and when Sir John was
appointed as Minister to Tuscany, he got Charles II to attach his friend
as physician to the legation, and also to bestow on him the honour of
knighthood. When Sir John Finch was moved to Constantinople Sir
Thomas Baines accompanied him in the same capacity; they were
together with Covel during the trying time of the plague at Adrianople,
and frequent allusion is made to them both in the diary. They were
known in Constantinople as the ambassador and the chevalier, the two
inseparable friends, whose attachment to one another was as romantic
as that of Damon and Pythias. Sir Thomas Baines died in Constantinople
in 1680, and, in great grief, his friend had his body embalmed and sent
home to be buried in Christ’s College. Two years later, immediately on
his return to England, Sir John Finch himself died, and, by special
request, was buried in the same tomb as his friend, with the same
marble slab over them, on which Henry More wrote a touching epitaph.
Jointly, they endowed two scholarships and two fellowships for Christ’s
College, and are still jointly thanked as benefactors of that very College
over which their friend and companion in adversity, Dr. Covel, ruled for
forty years after their deaths.

§ 5.—Of the subsequent History of the Levant

Company.
From the life of Dudley North, afterwards Sir Dudley, son of Lord
North, and ambassador for the Company to the Porte, which life was
written by his son, we get an interesting insight into the life and times
of those Merchant Adventurers in the seventeenth century, who were
undoubtedly the founders of our national fortunes and national pre-
eminence.
Dudley North was born in 1641, and went out to Smyrna as
supercargo, and was apprenticed to a Turkey merchant when eighteen
years of age, with a capital of £400. For many years he lived a most
frugal life, making himself master of the Turkish language, and keeping
himself aloof from the extravagant and luxurious lives which the English
merchants in the Smyrniote factories lived in those days. When they
“procured a pack of hounds, and hunted in the country, after the English
way”, young North resisted the temptation to buy a horse, and went out
hunting on an ass. He was a young man sure of eventual success. On
his subsequent removal to Constantinople, and employment in the
factory of Messrs. Hedges and Palmer, he lived in the building itself, and
looked after the bookkeeping, and gained his first credit by getting in
the outstanding debts of the firm. He made himself master of the “rules
of Turkish justice”, and at once set about to institute five hundred claims
in the law courts. These claims he conducted himself in the Turkish
Courts in the Turkish language, and won a great many of those which
his employers had hitherto looked upon as hopeless.
He soon set up business on his own account, and as it rapidly
increased, he sent for his brother Montagu, from Aleppo, and together
the brothers built up for themselves the fabric of a colossal fortune.
The brothers North appear to have dealt largely in jewels, with which
they tempted the women of the Seraglio, and to have lent money at
from 20 to 30 per cent. to impecunious Pashas. Dudley North became
treasurer of the Levant Company in Constantinople, did excellent work
in the survey of the city, and eventually concluded his successful career
by being appointed ambassador for the Company to the Porte. He was a
man of strong business capacity, and “his first care”, says his son, “on
setting up for himself, was to get a fire-tight room to secure his goods
from fire, and a sofa-room in which to entertain the Turks.”
About this time we hear ever more and more, in the Levant
Company’s dealings with the Turks, of the avanias, or unauthorised
demands made by the Turks on foreign merchants. Sir Dudley North at
once took up this question, and wrote himself an interesting account of
these encroachments on the capitulations granted to the Turkey
merchants. The avanias had their origin in small matters of etiquette;
gradually they spread to commerce and merchandise, and in 1685 came
the great edict, which obliged every foreigner who had married a
Turkish subject, himself to become a subject of the Porte, and these
men were forbidden to leave the country without the Sultan’s consent.
This edict has given rise to the still numerous Levantine families to be
found in the Turkish Empire, families bearing English, French, and Italian
names, and tracing their origin to those nations, but practically absorbed
in the Ottoman Empire. It was a great blow to many artisans and
merchants who had married and settled in the Levant. No less than forty
French watchmakers, who had married Greek wives and settled in
Galata, were obliged to become Turkish subjects in spite of the
remonstrances of the French ambassador, and the case of Mr. Pentloe
settled the question with regard to the English. He had married a Greek
lady, and on his death left a will appointing two English merchants as his
executors, obliging them to realise his property, and send his widow and
her two children to England. Accordingly, the executors proceeded to
carry out his wishes, but the Turkish Government seized Mrs. Pentloe
and her children on embarkation, and threw the two executors into
prison, from which they did not emerge for some considerable period;
all Mr. Pentloe’s money was confiscated, and our ambassador could get
no redress. This iniquitous avania was not repealed for a hundred years
afterwards, and may be taken as the origin of most of the so-called
Levantine families, great numbers of which are to be found in
Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonika, and other trade centres in the Turkish
Empire.
The progress of the Levant Company was steady, and prosperity
attended their commerce. Notwithstanding, in 1681 we find the Turkey
merchants petitioning Parliament against the East India Company, and
begging for permission to have “exercise of trade in the Red Sea, and all
other dominions of the Grand Signior, and to forbid the East India
Company to import raw or wrought silks”; and further stating that as
their freights were “raw silks, gaules, grograms, yarn, cotton, etc., and
as they, not being a joint-stock Company, did not export much gold”,
that the East India Company ought to be restricted from importing such
things as they considered they only had the monopoly of. To this
petition the East India Company drew up an exhaustive reply, and
Parliament set the petition on one side.
 For the first three decades of the last century the prosperity of the
Levant Company may be said to have been at its height. In the years
1716 and 1717 they exported to Turkey “43,000 cloths, and a very great
quantity of lead, tin, sugar, etc.” In 1718, for the greater protection of
merchants, “general ships”, which sailed together in large squadrons,
were appointed, and the manufacturers had nothing to do but to convey
their goods to the wharves, consign them to the shipowners, and pay
the freight. These general ships, as they were called, used to leave
England about July 1st, so as to have good weather in the open seas,
and reach Turkey about the right time for the winter markets; then they
returned home with raw silks, mohair, and other products of the East.
For some cause or another, in 1753 the condition of the Levant
Company was not so satisfactory. In this year they sent a petition to
Parliament for the remodelling of their charter on more favourable
conditions. In this petition they stated that a quarrel between Sir
Kenelm Digby and the Venetian admiral in the Bay of Scanderoon had
cost the Company £20,000; that the indiscretion of a young man at
Aleppo had imperilled the lives of all Europeans, and incurred enormous
losses on the Company; that they had to pay an indemnity of £12,000
for prisoners taken in war, and other similar misfortunes had fallen upon
them. Consequently, Parliament thought fit to grant them their petition:
they were to have unmolested choice of the ministers maintained by
them at home and abroad, ambassadors, governors, deputies, consuls,
etc.; nobody except free brothers of the corporation could send ships
into those parts, and very stringent rules were made on this point, full
powers being given to the Company to fine, imprison, and send home in
custody any individuals who infringed this rule; they were allowed to
make their own laws and by-laws, though these had to receive the
sanction of the Board of Trade; and, with various little assistances from
Government in minor points, the Company of Levant Merchants again
became exceedingly flourishing, and continued to be so until the end of
its days.
At the end of the last century it would appear that the Company
consisted of eight hundred members, each and all calling themselves
“Turkey Merchants”. The wages of their officials, that is to say, the
ambassador, secretaries, chaplains, consuls, and physicians at
Constantinople, Smyrna, Aleppo, Alexandria, Algiers, Patras, etc., came
to £15,000 per annum. Many of our consulates in the East, as they now
stand, were built by them, and the fine embassy at Constantinople cost
the Company £10,000. The Porte gave the ground for this building out
of gratitude to England for driving the French out of Egypt, and the
opening of it was hallowed by the liberation of many Christian slaves,
mostly Maltese, who came in a body to the ambassador to tender their
heartfelt thanks.[4]
In 1803 it was that the British Government first assumed the
appointment and payment of the ambassador and his secretaries; this
was the first step towards the disestablishment of the Company. The
Eastern Question was then beginning to make itself felt, the Balkan
States were in arms against Turkey, and, the interests of trade being
naturally subordinate to foreign policy, the Levant Company had to give
way.
In 1825, when the disintegration of the Turkish Empire appeared
imminent, the Levant Company came to an end. Mr. Canning’s
communication to them ran as follows: “It results solely from
considerations of public expediency, and in no degree from any
disrespect, or disposition to impute any blame to their past
administration.” The fact was obvious: the new order of things had to
supersede the old; the political atmosphere was full of ideas of free
trade; and the aristocratic, exclusive Company of Turkey Merchants had
to give way, and they did so gracefully. The deed of surrender was
drawn up in 1825, “of all the several grants, privileges, liberties, powers,
jurisdictions, and immunities granted and conferred by their charters”;
and in solemn conclave the Company of merchants dissolved
themselves, after honourably providing pensions for their officials, and
handing over a substantial balance to the treasury.
During its life of 244 years the Levant Company had had a most
exemplary and noble career, beneficial not only to its members, but to
the English nation, building up for her her commerce, and making her
name respected in the East. It would take a volume to enumerate the
deeds of their great men, and how they have not only contributed to
our commercial success, but have embellished our literature with
admirable studies both of the past and of the present. Sir Paul Ricaut
and Sir James Porter wrote admirable works on the policy and
government of the Turkish people. Montague, Covel, and Pococke gave
some of the earliest accounts of the people of the East in our tongue.
Under the influence of the Company, considerable attention was paid
to archæology: Spon and Wheeler, Chishull, Shaw, and last, but not
least, Lord Elgin, who rescued the marbles of the Parthenon from being
damaged in the bombardment of 1827. The Company’s doctors used to
make a special study of the plague. Russell on the Plague was quite the
standard work of its time, and Dr. Maclean also made a special study of
that dread disease; and to the efforts of these men we may almost say
that we owe the gradual diminution and eventual eradication of the
malady.
The rescuing of slaves from corsairs, the liberation of oppressed
Christians, whether they happened to be English, Greeks, or Armenians,
will be for ever one of the noblest and proudest of our actions. Without
the influence of the Levant Company, Greece would probably have never
succeeded in establishing her independence, and the Mussulmans would
have effectually eradicated the Christian populations of the East; and it
is a question for grave thought, as to whether our free and enlightened
Government, during the half-century that it has had control over our
actions in the East, has been as active and as influential as the
Company of Turkey Merchants, who could draw the sword as well as the
purse-strings, and were not hampered by the parsimonious feelings of
those who have to draw up an economical budget to present to the
people whose goodwill they wish to retain.
LIST OF ENGLISH AMBASSADORS TO
THE PORTE
IN THE 16th AND 17th CENTURIES.
Mr. William Harborne 1588.
Mr. Edward Barton 1588-1597.
Mr. Henry Lello 1597-1607.
Sir Thomas Glover 1607-1611.
Mr. Paul Pindar 1611-1619.
Sir John Eyre[5] 1619-1621.
Sir Thomas Roe[6] 1622-1628.
Sir Peter Wych 1628-1639.
Sir Sackville Crowe[7] 1639-1647.
Sir Thomas Bendysh[8] 1647-1661.
The Earl of Winchilsea 1661-1668.
Sir Daniel Harvey 1668-1672.
Sir John Finch[9] 1672-1681.
Lord Chandos 1681-1687.
Sir William Trumbull 1687-1691.
Sir William Hussey 1691 (June-Sept.)
Lord William Paget 1693-1702.
 ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA.
P. xxiii, for “Sir J. Bendish” read “Sir T. Bendysh”.
Pp. xxxiii-v, Sir Dudley North was not Ambassador, but Treasurer, of the
Levant Company.
Pp. xxxix-xl, Mr. Albert Gray adds: “An Act of Parliament (6 Geo. IV, c.
33, Royal assent 10 June 1825) was passed which, after reciting the
Letters Patent of James I, and the subsequent Acts relating to the
Levant trade, recites that it would be beneficial that the exclusive
rights and privileges of the Company should cease and determine,
and that ‘the said Governor and Company are willing and desirous
to surrender up the said Letters Patent into His Majesty’s hands’. In
pursuance of this Act a deed was forthwith executed surrendering
the Letters Patent to the Crown. One section of the Act is now of
some historical importance. It provided that ‘all such rights and
duties of jurisdiction and authority over His Majesty’s subjects
resorting to the ports of the Levant for the purposes of trade or
otherwise, as were lawfully exercised and performed’ by the
Company’s consuls, should thenceforth be exercised or performed
‘by any consuls or other officers respectively as His Majesty may be
pleased to appoint for the protection of the trade of His Majesty’s
subjects in the ports and places, etc.’ This was the first statutory
assignment to Royal consuls of jurisdiction in places outside the
dominions of the Crown. From this Act sprang in due time the
Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1843 (now replaced by that of 1890),
under which British subjects and British protected persons enjoy the
protection of British courts of law in almost every independent
Oriental country from Morocco to Corea, and by means of which the
foundations of law and order are being laid in the great
protectorates of Africa.”
P. 11, “North Cape” is Cape Finisterre, known of old to the seamen of
the Mediterranean as the North Cape.
P. 16, “Morottome” is probably Marabout, on the coast of Africa, near a
“fort in ruins”. See Admiralty Chart, sect. vii, 252.
P. 63 note, for “Paul Pinder” read “Paul Pindar”.
P. 84, “Chorlaye in Lancashier”, is the town of Chorley, on a hill on the
Chor, nine miles south-south-east of Preston.
Pp. 95, 96, “Grande Malligam” is Malaga. “Alama” may be identified with
Almeria, a large seaport of Spain, not with Alhama, as stated in the
note.
P. 96, “Mount Chegos” is probably Serra de Monchique, north of Cape
St. Vincent, not Los Guigos, behind Algeciras, as stated in the note.
P. 102, “Virginia men” alludes to ships bound for America;
“Streightsmen” to those bound for the Mediterranean.
P. 106, “Les Scenes” refers to the cluster of islands known as the
Chaussée de Sein, off the coast of Brittany (cf. Sailing Directions,
Glossary, p. 34, ed. for the Hakl. Soc.).
P. 133, “Romania” was the name originally given to the whole of the
western Roman Empire. This term, together with Roumelia, has
now become much circumscribed.
P. 133, Maniotes were the inhabitants of Mani, the southern portion of
the Peleponnesus. This term has probably the same origin as
Romani.
P. 140, line 15, for “work” read “word”.
P. 141, Agnus castus is the oleander.
P. 143, “Magla” should be Nagara, exactly on site of ancient Abydos.
P. 153, “Kalenderis” are, as stated by Dr. Covel, a sect of dervishes.
P. 153, “Jamurluck” is a tunic.
P. 154, “Bellonius.” This is Pierre Belon, a well-known French
archæologist, who wrote Thesaurus Græcarum antiquitatum,
Antwerp, 1589.
P. 196, “Mr. Cook.” This must be the Mr. Coke who was present at the
solemnities, and wrote the following:—“A True Narrative of the
Great Solemnity of the Circumcision of Mustapha, Prince of Turkey,
eldest son of Sultan Mahomed, present Emperor of the Turks.
Together with an account of the Marriage of his Daughter to his
great Favourite Mussaip at Adrianople. As it was sent in a letter to a
Person of Honour.
“By Mr. Coke, Secretary of the Turkey Company; Being in
Company with his Excellency the Lord Embassador, Sir John Finch.
London, 1676.” Reprinted in Harleian Miscellany.
 PART I.
MASTER THOMAS DALLAM’S DIARY.

1599.
In this Book is the Account of an Organ
Carryed to the Grand Seignor and Other
Curious Matter.
Nessecaries for my voyege into Turkie, the which I bought upon a
verrie short warninge, havinge no frend to advise me in any thinge.

Imprimis for one sute of sackcloth to weare at sea 1 2 0

Item for another sute of Carsaye[10] 1 18 0
Item for tow wastcotes of flanell 0 8 0
Item for one hatt 0 7 6
Item for an arminge sorde 0 6 0
Item for a chiste 0 9 8
Item for 3 shirtes 0 18 6
Item for one doson of bandes 0 12 8
Item for half a doson of bandes 0 10 0
Item for one bande 0 2 6
Item for sixe shirtes more 1 14 0
Item for one doson of hand chirthers (handkerchiefs) 0 10 0
Item for one pare of garters 0 4 0
Item for one doson of poyntes[11] 0 1 0
Item for another doson 0 2 0
Item for 2 pare of stockins 0 12 0
Item for one pare of lininge britchis 0 1 4
Item for one pare of pumpes and pantables[12] 0 3 6
Item for 3 pare of showes 0 7 0
Item for a girdle and hangers[13] 0 2 8
Item for a gowne 1 10 0
Item for a pare of virginals 1 15 0
Item for a pare of fustion britchis 0 2 6
Item for a hatbande 0 4 2
Item for another hatbande 0 1 0
For a seller and glassis 0 11 6
Item for Rosa solis[14] and a compostie[15] 0 6 0
Item for oyle and vineger 0 2 0
Item for prunes 0 1 3
Item for Resons of the son (sun-dried raisins) 0 1 4
Item for cloves, mace, and peper 0 1 6
Item 2 pounde of suger 0 3 0
Item for nutmuges 0 1 0
Item for gloves 0 3 0
Item for knives 0 5 0
Item for 30ˡⁱ of tin in bars 0 18 0
Item for a grose of Spownes (spoons) 0 9 0
Item for otemeale 0 0 10
Item for carreing my chiste to Blacke wale 0 1 6
Item for my passige to Graves end 0 0 6
Item my staying there 4 dayes—it coste me 0 12 0
Item at Deale Castell 0 1 0
Item at Dartmouthe 0 4 0
At Plimmouthe, stayinge thare seven Dayes it coste 0 15 0
me
At Argeare[16] in Barbarie 0 4 0
At Zante in Gretia
At Scandaroune in A[17]

From the Landes end of England to the straites mouthe is 4

hundrethe leagues.
Betwixte the straites mouthe and Argeare in Barbarria is one
hundrethe and fiftie leages.
From Argeare to Cisillia is 2 hundrethe leages.
From Cesillia to Zante is 90 leages.
From Zante to Scandaroune is 2 hundrethe and fiftie Leages.

400 L.
150
200
090
250
1090 Leages.

DALLAM’S TRAVELS
WITH AN
ORGAN TO THE GRAND SIGNIEUR.
 A brefe Relation of my Travell[18] from The Royall Cittie of
London towardes The Straites of Mariemediteranum, and
what hapened by the waye.

he shipp whearin I was to make my voyege to

Constantinople, Lyinge at Graves ende, I
Departed from Londone in a pare of ores, with
my chiste and suche provition as I had provided
for that purpose, the nynthe of Februarie 1598
(1599), being Frydaye.
Comminge to Graves ende, I wente aborde
our shipp, Called the Heckter, and thare placed
my chiste, my bedinge, and a pare of virginals,[19] which the
martchantes did alow me to carrie, for my exersize by the waye. Other
comoditis I carriede none, savinge one grose of tin spounes, the which
coste me nyne shillinges; and thirtie pounde of tin in bares, which coste
me 18s. The shipe beinge verrie unreddie, and no cabbins appoynted for
passingeres, I was constrainede to go into the towne for my Lodginge
and Diette, till the thirtenthe Daye in the After nowne, at which time
anker was wayed and we under sayle, untill we came to Deale Castell.
Cominge to Deale Castell, thare we came to an anker, for the wynde
sarved not to pass by Dover. Thar our ship stayed fouer dayes for a
wynde. In the meane time we wente a shore into the towne of Deale,
and also to Sandwiche, to make our selves merrie. When the wynde
came fayer, it was in the nyghte, and diverse of us that weare
passingers, and also som saylers, weare in the towne of Deale, wheare
som of our company had dranke verrie moche, espetialy one of our five
Trumpeters, who, beinge in Drinke, had Lockid his Chamber dore; and
when he that came from the ship to call us went under his chamber
wyndoe and caled him, he Came to the wyndoe and insulted him; whear
upon we wente all a waye a borde our ship, and lefte that Dronkerde be
hinde. Thar the wynde sarvinge well, we sayled merraly by Dover, and
so a longe the Sleve.[20]
But beinge aboute 30 leages at sea, sodonly thare cam a contrarie
wynde, the which did prove a marvalus greate storme for the space of
eyghte and fortie houres. In the nyghte we did not only louse our pinis
caled the Lanerett,[21] who was to goo with us to the gulfe of Venis, but
we also loste our selves, not knowinge whear we weare by Reason the
fogge was so greate that we could se no son. When it began anythinge
to cleare, we founde our selves to be harde upon the ponie stones[22]
betwyxt Ingland and Ierlande, a verrie dangerus place. Than our
mariners did Labur to gitte into the mayn otion againe, but the storme
not altogether seacinge, but the foge more Increasinge, we wear the
next Daye at a non plus againe, not knowinge wheare we weare, but
beinge under sayle, and the foge verrie thicke. Upon a sodon we saw
the seae breake a gainste the shore, the which was verrie greate
Rockes, and we weare so neare the shore that it was not possible to
caste aboute in time to save ourselves from shipwracke, but it pleased
almyghtie God so to defend us from harme that we weare juste befor
the harbur at Dartmouthe, a verrie straite entrie betwyxte greate Rockes
that ar on bothe sides of that entrie. Than weare we all verrie joyfull,
and entred in thare verrie willingly. Thare we stayed four dayes. In the
meane time the Mr.[23] and Martchantes sent postes aboute to all the
haven townes upon that coste to inquier of our pinis, the Lanerett. In
the End word was brought that presently, after the storme, 3 or 4 sayle
of Dunkerkes[24] had her in chace, and in the storme her topmaste was
broken, so that, to save her selfe from beinge taken, she Ron a shore at
Falmouthe. Havinge thar goten a new topmaste, she sente word by the
mesinger that she would meet us in Plimmouthe sounde. This worde
beinge broughte, Anker was wayed, and we under sayell; when we cam
Ryghte before Plimmouthe a peece was discharged to call our pinis; but
even at that time the wynd came contrarie, so that we moste needes
also goo in thare, and cam to an anker in Catt water, wheare we founde
our pinis. Thare we stayed sevene dayes for a wynde.
The 16th day of Marche, beinge verrie could wether, the wynde came
fayer, and as we weare under sayle in Plimmouthe-sounde, thare came
in a litle carvell[25] with salte, who no sonner was come to the shore,
and hearinge the name of our shipe, but they caused a parlie to be
sounded be a trumpett, whearupon sayle was storouk, and tow sailers
of that carvell came aborde our shipe, advisinge our Mr. not to goo to
seae with oute good store of companye; for they wente to seae in a
man of ware from Plimmouthe, caled the Plow, and theye weare taken
by seven sayell of Dunkerkes, who Did straitly examon them if they
could tell weare the Heckter was, or whether she weare gone her
voyage or no, but they protested that they never hard of suche a shipp.
Som of these men thei put to death, to feare otheres. Whate they did
with the Reste of theire men they knew not. They touke theire ship from
them, and gave sixe of them that litle carvell to bringe them home.
When our Mr. and captaine had harde these men speake, he toulde
them that he would not staye one hour for any more companye than
God alreddie had sente him, the which was only our pinis and tow
shipes that weare goinge for New found Land, and for there owne saftie
mad haste after us. Saylinge forthe before a faire wynde, our ship
sayled so well that we could spare the pinis our mayne saile, and yeate
the nexte morninge our pinnis was verrie far behind. Aboute 8 of the
clocke, one in our maine tope discried 3 sayle, the which did ly close by
our fore porte a little after; he saw four more, which lay the same
cource, and these weare the seven sayell which we weare tould of. Than
we began to Louke aboute us, our goneres made Reddie there
ordinance, our faightes[26] oute, and everie man his bandaleare[27] and
muskett. We hade the wynde of them, and needed not to have spoken
with them, but our Captaine thoughte it not fitt to show our selves
fearfull or cowardly; Leaste the wynde should sodonly turne, or scante
upon us, and our flyinge would incurridge our enemyes to com the more
bouldly upon us. Than he caled the botson and bid him beare towardes
them, the which he willingly wente aboute; so we bore Towardes them,
and when we came so neare them that we myghte well disarne the
hulke of there amberall and of their vizamberall, and they cam bouldly
upon us, our Mr. bide the botswayne stow them a brood side; for our
mayne sayle was so brode, that they could not se the stoutnes of our
ship; for may hape, cothe he (mayhap, quoth he), they may take our
ship to be one of the Quen’s, and yf we doo hapen to heale them, or
theye us, they which make answer maye say our ship is caled the Seven
stars, for the quene as yeate hathe none of that name; but assowne as
they sawe the brode side of our ship, thinking us in dede to be one of
the Quene’s ships, they presently turned them aboute to flye away.
Than we gave chace to them, havinge almoste loste sighte of our pinis,
and all other shipes savinge those which we gave chace unto. They
made all the sayle they coulde, and yeat with in halfe an hour we weare
come with in shott of them. Than our captain bid the Mr. goner give
them a chace peece[28] shout at the amberall, but hitt him not, so the
Mr. goner gave him a shott cloce by his fore bowe[29]; yeat would they
nether strike sayle, nor show any flagge, but made away with all the
sayle they had, drablings[30] and topgalands, but all would not serve
their turne, for we came nearer and nearer unto them. Than our Mr. bid
the goner shoute throughe the amberall his maynsayle, and so he did
verrie near her drablinge. Than the Amberall, vise amberall, Rear
amberall, and one more shoute the mayn topp; but at that time they
hade the wyndie side of us, though we weare com unto them, yeat no
man would once show himselfe. Than the booteson of our ship stod
upon our spar decke,[31] with his sorde drawne in his hande,
commandinge them to come under our Lee side. The which verrie
unwillingly they dide, yeate no man would show himselfe. Now we
beinge verrie neare the coste of Spayne (or France) he tackte about
againe to goo his Ryghte cource, and all this seven sayell did follow us;
than our Mr. caled unto the amberall him selfe, comanding them to
caste oute the bote and com abord us (or eles he would sinke them);
after so callinge twyse unto them, one that semed by his spetche to be
a Ducheman, answered, we woll, we woll, but Longe it was before the
boote came forthe, yeat at laste there bote came forthe, and the
captaine of that shipe, with 4 saylers to Row the bote, wente a borde
the wise amberall, and there stayed halfe an houre. Than those thre
captaines came a borde our shipe; now all this whyle we weare saylinge
our courc, and all these seven shipes durst do no other but follow us.
When these thre captaines came aborde us, one of our company saw
one of them have under his arme a good long mony bage full of
somthinge, and so they wente with the Mr. of our ship into his cabin,
and talked a good whyle. In the meane time the sayleres which
broughte these captaynes a borde, standinge on our hatchis, and our
saylers Loukinge upon them, one of our men sayde, surly I should know
this fellow, for he is an Inglishman. That man presently answered,
swearinge a greate othe, and sayde that he was no Inglishman, nether
could speak one worde of Inglishe; and yeat he spoke as good Inglishe
as any of us. Than one of our maysteres mates, our pursser and
boteson touke theyr boote, and foure of our owne sayleres, and wente a
borde thre or foure of those shipps; and in that meane time, our Mr. and
the 3 captaines havinge well talked of the mater, our Mr. cam forthe of
his cabbin and strode upon the sparr decke, causing all our company to
be caled before him, did Reed a letter which semed to be but newly
wrytten; the efeckte of that letter was as yf it had bene made as a pass
from the kinge of France, with sartayne wynes which the captaynes
sayde weare a borde ther shipes. But whyle he was a Reeding that
Letter, our mysteres mate, purser, and bootson came frome the shipps
and sayd they weare men of warre, Laden with nothinge but men,
soulders, musketes, Raperes and dagers, sheldes and buckeleres, and
ment nothinge so moche as to have taken us; but our maister havinge
alreddie taken the prise in his cabbin, seemed to be verrie angrie with
his mate and the purser for sayinge so, he havinge a letter to show the
contrarie; so he discharged the captayn and let the shipes go, the which
greved the sayeleres and the Reste of our company verrie moche. Yf he
had done, as he myghte verrie well have done, broughte these seven
sayle as a prise into Inglande, it would have bene the braveste sarvis
that ever any Inglishe marchante shipe did, and tharby have Reaped
greate cridit as any ever did.
[32][At our cominge home out of Turkie it was well knowne that those
seven saile, after they escaped from us, and before our coming home,
they had taken and Robed upon the seae, betwyxt London and New
Castell, thre score sayle of Inglishe and other contrie ships.]

Marche 1599.

The 20th Day, the wynde sarvinge well, we paste the Northe Cape,
and entered the bay of Portingale. The 23 we Recovered the Soothe
Cape. Than we weare becalmed for a time. The 24 thare came an
Infinite company of porposis aboute our ship, the which did leape and
Rone (run) marvalusly. The 25 we saw 2 or 3 greate monstrus fishis or
whales, the which did spoute water up into the eayere, lyke as smoke
dothe assend out of a chimnay. Sometime we myghte se a great parte
of there bodye above the water. The calme did yeat continue. The 27,
havinge a verrie fayer wynde, the which did blow a good gale aboute 12
or one of the clocke, we entered the straytes of Marie-medeteranum in
Dispite of our enymyes. At the entrie it is butt 3 Leages at the moste
from shore to shore. In my thinkinge it seemed not to be above 3
myles, but the Reason of yt is because the Lande is verrie hie on bothe
sides, Spayne on our Lefte hand, and Barberie of the Ryghte. On
Spayne side we did se a verrie fayer towne or cittie, caled Tarrefe,[33]
the which stood verrie pleasantlye close to the seae. On Barbarie side
Thar is a myghtie mountayn of Rockes, the which theye do call Ape hill.
[34] 7 Leages further, on Spayne side, thar is a verrie strone (strong)

towne Caled Jebbatore.[35] This towne Lay verrie fayer to our vew. It is
verrie well fortified, and of greate strengthe. Thare dothe also Ly a
greate number of the king of Spayens gallies and men of warr, to keepe
the straites. On the easte side of the towne tharis a greate mountayne,
wheare on a great parte of the towne dothe stande. This mountayne is
verrie upryghte on bothe sides, but on the easte sid it is so uprighte that
no man can go to the top of it. It standes cross wyse to the seae. On
the fore end tharis a stronge bullworke, by which means the towne is
more secure.
We sett oute from Plimmouthe the 16th of Marche, havinge than
verrie could wether, and no sine of any grene thinge on trees or hedgis;
and the 27, at the entringe of the straites, the wether was exsedinge
hoote, and we myghte se the feeldes on bothe sides verrie grene, and
the tres full blowne, the which unto me was a verrie greate wonder to
finde suche an alteration in a 11 dayes. Ryghte over againste Jeblatore,
on Barbarie side, thar is a towne verrie fayer to our vew, caled Shutte.
[36] This towne is waled aboute, and the feldes about it verrie
pleasante, and of good soyle.
Thoughe on bothe sides of seae tharis hudge mountains and Raged
Rockes, on the Easte end of this towne a litle tharis a Large and stronge
bullworke (or forte), and the Lyke is on the weste side. The kinge of
Spayne Dothe also houlde that toune, beinge in Barberie.
A litle further on the Coste of Spayne thar is a Towne caled Marvels,
[37] but I could not well disarne it for the fogge which at that time Laye

upon the seae. The nexte towne is caled grand Malligan,[38] and than
Sallabrin,[39] which towne is fortie Leages easte of Jeblatore.
 The 28 of Marche we sayled still a longe by the shore of Spayne,
wheare we myghte se upon hudg mountaynes great store snowe that
Dothe ly thare contenually, and yeate in the vallies below it is verrie
hote.
The 29th daye we sayled by the shore of Africa.
The 30th daye we entered into a harber in Barberia, Caled Argeare.
[40]

When we weare upon the sea before the towne it made a verrie fayer
show. It Lyethe cloce to the seae, upon a verrie upryghte hill. The
towne in proportion is Lyke a top sayle. It is verrie strongly waled about
with tow wales and a dich.
The housis be bulte of Lyme and stone. The greateste parte of the
towne, or housis in the towne, have flatt Roufes, covered artifitialy with
playster of paris. A man beinge on the topp of one house may goo over
the greateste parte of the towne. Diverse of the streetes ar verrie
narrow and uneasie goinge in them, for the towne standes upon
Rockes. Above the towne, upon the top of the hill, thar is a castell, the
which may comande the Roode, or a parte of the seae before the
towne. Almoste a myle from that castell into the contriewardes thare is
an other castell, the which is gardede or kepte by a sartaine number of
souldieres; but, as farr as I could Learne, it is but only to keepe the
heade of there springes of water, which com to there fountaines in the
town, for the Turkes Drinke nothinge but water; and they saye that hors
and man maye goo under, or in the earthe, from that castell to the
towne. I and 3 or 4 more wente yeat a myle further into the contrie,
wheare we saw another castell, the which, as we did thinke, was made
for the same use. We went so farr into the contrie at the Requeste of
Mr. Chancie, who was our fysition and surgin for the seae. He wente to
gather som harbs and Routes. This dai being the Laste Day of Marche, it
was a wonder to us to se how forwarde the springe was: trees and
hedgis wear full blowne, corne, wheate, and barly shott, yong oringis
and apples upon the trees; and cominge againe into the towne, we mett
Mores and other people drivinge assis laden with grene beanes, to be
sould in the markett. As they went a Longe the streete, they often
would cale to the people, and say, balocke, balocke, that is to saye,
bewarr, or take heede. We saw diverse Moores com in riding, all naked,
savinge a litle clothe before them like a childe’s apron. Som of them did
carrie a darte, otheres a bowe and arros.
There be also a greate number of Jewes, but the greateste nomber be
Turkes.
The toune or cittie is verrie full of people, for it is a place of great trad
and marchandise. They have tow markett dayes in the weeke, unto the
which do com a great number of people out of the mountaines and
other partes of the contrie, bringinge in great store of corne and frute of
all sortes, and fowle, bothe wylde and tame. Thar be great store of
partridgis and quales, the which be sould verrie cheape, a partridge for
less than one pennye, and 3 quales at the same price. Thar be also
great store of henes and chickins, for they be hatchte by artificiall
meanes, in stoves or hote housis, without the helpe of a hen. The
maner of it I cannot at this time playnly discribe, but heareafter I may,
yf God permitte.
They have also greate store of Camels, assis, asnegoes,[41] oxon,
horsis, and som dromedaries. Thar be a greate number of Turks that be
but Renied[42] cristians of all nations. Som, but moste are Spanyardes,
Italians, and other Ilands adjoyninge, who, when they be taken, ar
compelled so to doo, or els to live in moche more slaverie and myserie.
But, in prosis of time, these Renied cristians do become most berberus
and villanus, taking pleasur in all sinfull actions; but that which is worste
of all they take moste delite in, and that is, Theye proule aboute the
costes of other contries, with all the skill and pollacie thei can, to
betraye cristians, which they sell unto the Moors and other marchantes
of Barbarie for slaves.
Thare ar in this toune great store of hote houses, or bathes, the
which they call bangowes,[43] and also cooke’s housis, that dress meate
verrie well.
The next day after we came into the Roode, the kinge sent worde to
our captaine that he should come unto him and bringe with hime the
presente which he had to carrie unto the Grand Sinyor; so our captaine
wente unto him and tould the kinge That the presente which he carried
to the grand sinyor was not only a thinge of greate substance and
charge, but allso it was Defficulte curios, and would aske a longe time to
put it together, and make it fitt to be sene. When the kinge understode
whate our captaine had saide, he would give no cridite unto his wordes,
but kepte him as a prisner, and caused me and my mate to be sente for.
When we came before him, and wear examened, he found us to be in
the same tale that our captaine had toulde; and than was our captane
Released and we discharged, and the kinge sente our captaine for a
presente a borde our shipe tow buls and thre sheepe, the which weare
verrie leane, for they do thinke the worste thinges they have is tow
good for cristians. They ar all in generall verrie covitus, and use all the
pollacie they can to gitt from the cristians, lawfully or unlawfully, as
moche as they maye.
The Turkishe and Morishe weomen do goo all wayes in the streetes
with there facis covered, and the common reporte goethe thare that
they beleve, or thinke that the weomen have no souls. And I do thinke
that it weare well for them if they had none, for they never goo to
churche, or other prayers, as the men dothe. The men ar verrie relidgus
in there kinde, and they have verrie faire churchis, which they do call
mosques.

Of the Further Procession of our Navigation.

We departed from the Cittie of Argier the fourthe of Aprill, saylinge

still near the Coste or shore of Africa. 20 leages from Argere Thare is a
faire towne caled Teddell,[44] but we sailed afar of from it. We also
passed by a litle towne calede Budgge,[45] under a hudge mountaine,
risinge hie, and picked lyke a suger lofe. Som of our navigateres saide
that at this place St. Augustine did sometime keepe a scoule or exersise.
It is 30th leagues from Argere towardes the easte on the same side.
The seventhe of Aprill beinge Easter eve, we saw verrie strainge
lyghtninge in the skie, or in the eire. It was verrie wonderfull and
strainge, for we myghte se the eayre open and a fier lyke a verrie hote
iron taken out of a smythe’s forge, somtimes in liknes of a roninge
worme, another time lyke a horsshow, and agine lyke a lege and a
foute. Also the Thunder clapes weare also exseding greate. The
seventhe daye we passed by a place caled Morrottome. The 18th, by a