Excerpt from The Countries of the World: Being a Popular Description of the Various Continents, Islands, Rivers, Seas, and Peoples of the Globe

The names Ottomans, Othomans, Osmanli, or Osmanlu, by which the Turks are known, are derived from Othoman, or Osman I., the actual founder of the empire. Up to the thirteenth century the term Toork was applied to a great series of tribes. Stretching over the greater part of Asia, but which had never yet got welded into one power. Othman was the son of the chief of one of these tribes - the nizes who inhabited the Steppes east of the Caspian. The lad was seemingly not born under a fortunate star, for at a few years earlier the Mongol invasion which was setting in from the north-east had swept the Ogfizes before it, and scattered them among the mountains of Armenia and Mesopotamia. But a handful of them having aided the Seljuk Sultan of Konieh against his Khaurezmian and Mongol enemies, they received a grant of land in Phrygia. Othoman, by taking advantage of every chance, and being utterly nu scrupulous as to friend or foe, died after having advanced the little lordship which he had inherited to the great kingdom of Phrygia, Bithynia and the neighbouring dis tricts - to, indeed, the greater part of Asia Minor - and thus laid the foundations of the Turkish Empire. His successors followed up his advantages, and soon gained a foot-ing in Europe by the capture of Gallipoli, Koiridicastron, and other fortresses on that coast. The tottering Greek Empire thus early (1326 - 1359) was beginning to feel the blows which were soon to tumble it over. But the polished and effeminate race, whose capital was Cou stantinople, affected to despise the barbarians. Gallipoli, they pretended not to consider of any account. It was only a hogsty, and a pottle'of wine - the allusion being to the magazines and cellars built here by Justinian. However, as the historian Knolles very shrewdly remarks, by taking such hogssties and pottles of wine the Turks had gone so far into Thracia that Amurath a few years later had placed his royal seat at Adrianople. The next step was to train the Janizaries, Spathis, and Zanis, warlike legionaries, who in time became more terrible to their nominal mast-er than to his enemies, and compelled those strong measures which history records. But meantime they aided the Turkish Sultans in subduing the various tributary kingdoms, until their camps extended so far as to confine the Byzantine Empire to the limits of Constantinople, and some of the near-lying districts of Thrace and Bulgaria. With varying successes - but ever dc cidedly onward - the Turks continued their wars in Europe, until in 1453 Mohammed II. Stormed Constantinople and destroyed the last trace of the Byzantine Empire, which from that day to this has continued the capital of the Turks. Bajazet II. Extended the Turkish Empire to its furtherest limits in Europe and Asia, and also for a time brought under the rule of his sceptre districts which have long since passed away from his successors.

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