Other Events of This Year
On the 2d of Rabia I., when the commanding-general removed from Scutari and had arrived at Mai dipa, he received intelligence of the death of his highness, Ahmed Gheráí, khán of the Crimea, and by his kind interference Jánbeg Gheráí was raised to the khánship. On the 15th of Rabia II. the ornamenting, repairing, and beautifying of the Kaaba and its dependencies were finished, which cost in all 18,141 miscals.22 The work was commenced last year and finished in this.
The lord high admiral, Khalíl Páshá, having again put to sea with the royal fleet, he appointed Mímí Beg, beg of Rhodes, chief over a number of other begs, and dispatched him off in one of the vessels which had been destined for conveying provisions from Alexandria. Mímí Beg accomplished the task assigned to him, and afterwards fell in with an enemy’s ship of war at a place called Funka, which he soon disabled and sunk. Khalíl Páshá himself, whilst continuing his cruizing voyage after vessels belonging to the infidels, pursued his course along Negropont, Modon, and Navarin. At one or other of these places he received intelligence from Mímí Beg, that five large vessels belonging to Tuscany were somewhere at sea near Cyprus. The admiral immediately steered away from the shores of the Morea towards Cyprus, which place he reached about the commencement of Rajab after a sail of eight days, and discovered the above vessels before Oghuz Búrni, near Báf, watching the arrival of the Egyptian fleet. The admiral, Khalíl Páshá, now prepared for battle; but in consequence of a heavy gale of wind which suddenly arose, he found it impossible, notwithstanding his utmost efforts, to come into actual contact with them. Night came on; the wind became more fierce and boisterous, and by daylight on the following morning no traces of the enemy’s vessels could be discovered; nor was it known whither they had steered. The Turkish admiral now directed his course towards the island of Rhodes, and during the voyage picked up a straggling adventurer and one or two of the enemy’s ships. Soleimán Páshá, also, whom he had ordered away with ten vessels in search of the Tuscany ships, returned with two corsairs and two other vessels which he had taken in the roads of Messina and Malta, and joined the Turkish fleet, which directed its course to the port of Constantinople, having about eight prizes and a hundred captives to grace its entrance into that port; and when the admiral presented himself before the exalted diván, orders were given to confer on him a robe of honour for the services which he had rendered.
During the winter of this year messengers from the sháh arrived with letters containing humble proposals of peace, offering, at the same time, as one of the conditions, to pay an annual tax of two hundred yúks (loads) of silk for those provinces which had been wrested out of his hands, though they formerly formed part of the Persian dominions. He also requested that the government of Turkey, if it pleased, might have a beglerbeg over those provinces. The sagacious Murád Páshá wrote a report of these offers, and sent it along with the sháh’s messengers to the court of Constantinople. The purpose of his sending these ambassadors to the court of Istámbol was to excite the sháh’s hopes, and thus give him a hare’s sleep, while, in fact, he was meditating the devastation of the country on the return of spring.