In 1598 merchants of the City of London paid for a Present to be given by Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mehmet III of Turkey. The merchants wanted trading concessions. The Queen wanted the Sultan's fleet to attack Spain. The Present was a chiming clock with jewel-encrusted moving figures combined with an automatic organ, which could play tunes on its own for six hours. It could also be played by hand. It was in a carved and painted and gilded cabinet about sixteen feet high, six feet wide and five feet deep.
The Present was dismantled and shipped on a merchant ship early in 1599. It took six months to get from London to Constantinople. With it went four craftsmen. They were Thomas Dallam the organ builder, John Harvey the engineer, Michael Watson the carpenter and Rowland Buckett the painter. Dallam was about twenty four years old.
They encountered storms, pirates, exotic animals, foreign food, good wine. volcanoes, Moors, Turks, Greeks, Jews, beautiful women, barbarous men, kings and pashas, armies on the march, brigands, janissaries, eunuchs, slaves, dwarves and finally the most powerful man in the world, the Great Turk himself.
Thomas Dallam kept a diary.
The Present was dismantled and shipped on a merchant ship early in 1599. It took six months to get from London to Constantinople. With it went four craftsmen. They were Thomas Dallam the organ builder, John Harvey the engineer, Michael Watson the carpenter and Rowland Buckett the painter. Dallam was about twenty four years old.
They encountered storms, pirates, exotic animals, foreign food, good wine. volcanoes, Moors, Turks, Greeks, Jews, beautiful women, barbarous men, kings and pashas, armies on the march, brigands, janissaries, eunuchs, slaves, dwarves and finally the most powerful man in the world, the Great Turk himself.
Thomas Dallam kept a diary.
