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The Sultan's Organ
Faithfully translated into prose more easily digested by the modern reader, unembellished and unedited, this illuminating historical source is presented as if its Elizabethan author were alive today.
In 1598 merchants of the City of London paid for a Present to be given by Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mehmet III of Turkey. In return the merchants hoped to secure trading concessions, and the Virgin Queen to turn the Sultan's military might on her Spanish enemies. The Present was a carved, painted and gilded cabinet about sixteen feet high, six feet wide and five feet deep. It contained a chiming clock with jewel-encrusted moving figures combined with an automatic organ, which could play tunes on its own for six hours - or by hand to the point of exhaustion.
The Present was dismantled and dispatched 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 just twenty four years old.
On their odyssey they encountered storms, volcanoes, exotic animals, foreign food, good wine, pirates, brigands, Moors, Turks, Greeks, Jews, beautiful women, barbarous men, kings and pashas, armies on the march, janissaries, eunuchs, slaves, dwarves and finally the most powerful man in the known world, the Great Turk himself
In 1598 merchants of the City of London paid for a Present to be given by Queen Elizabeth to Sultan Mehmet III of Turkey. In return the merchants hoped to secure trading concessions, and the Virgin Queen to turn the Sultan's military might on her Spanish enemies. The Present was a carved, painted and gilded cabinet about sixteen feet high, six feet wide and five feet deep. It contained a chiming clock with jewel-encrusted moving figures combined with an automatic organ, which could play tunes on its own for six hours - or by hand to the point of exhaustion.
The Present was dismantled and dispatched 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 just twenty four years old.
On their odyssey they encountered storms, volcanoes, exotic animals, foreign food, good wine, pirates, brigands, Moors, Turks, Greeks, Jews, beautiful women, barbarous men, kings and pashas, armies on the march, janissaries, eunuchs, slaves, dwarves and finally the most powerful man in the known world, the Great Turk himself
- GenresNonfiction
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2011
3 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
John Mole
12 books8 followersAfter graduating from Oxford University with a degree in French and German and with an MBA from the INSEAD business school in France, John Mole spent fifteen years criss-crossing Europe and the Middle East for an American bank. He was based in the USA, London and Greece. He restored an old stone house on the island of Evia, which the family goes back to every year.
His fortieth birthday present to himself was to quit salaried employment. The main reason was to write full time. He reviewed the modern French novel and science fiction for the TLS. Published works include three comic novels - Sail or Return, The Monogamist, Thanks, Eddie! - and the best-selling guide to European cultures Mind Your Manners, currently available in twenty languages. Management Mole was about going back as a temp in the back offices of the kind of organisation he used to manage.
Meanwhile he tried his hand at various entrepreneurial ventures. An attempt to establish a franchised chain of baked potato restaurants in Moscow came to an end when the Russian Mafia became interested. He had more success with INBIO Ltd, which imported Russian biotechnology for environmental protection and with a project to control the spread of water weed on Tanzania's Lake Victoria. These ventures resulted in books such as It's All Greek To Me! and I was a Potato Oligarch.
He loves to travel, especially around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Journeys have inspired The Sultan's Organ and The Hero of Negropont.
When not at the laptop he sings and plays the baglama, a miniature bouzouki, with a Greek band in London.
His fortieth birthday present to himself was to quit salaried employment. The main reason was to write full time. He reviewed the modern French novel and science fiction for the TLS. Published works include three comic novels - Sail or Return, The Monogamist, Thanks, Eddie! - and the best-selling guide to European cultures Mind Your Manners, currently available in twenty languages. Management Mole was about going back as a temp in the back offices of the kind of organisation he used to manage.
Meanwhile he tried his hand at various entrepreneurial ventures. An attempt to establish a franchised chain of baked potato restaurants in Moscow came to an end when the Russian Mafia became interested. He had more success with INBIO Ltd, which imported Russian biotechnology for environmental protection and with a project to control the spread of water weed on Tanzania's Lake Victoria. These ventures resulted in books such as It's All Greek To Me! and I was a Potato Oligarch.
He loves to travel, especially around the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Journeys have inspired The Sultan's Organ and The Hero of Negropont.
When not at the laptop he sings and plays the baglama, a miniature bouzouki, with a Greek band in London.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 27, 2019
Witnesses of their times..
It’s amazing to read a diary like that written on a time when a world empire was starting do descend whereas another was ascending. I advise this book to be read by people who are interested in history and manuscripts written by witnesses of their times.
It’s amazing to read a diary like that written on a time when a world empire was starting do descend whereas another was ascending. I advise this book to be read by people who are interested in history and manuscripts written by witnesses of their times.
July 26, 2025
Unusual but fabulous read
This is the real quirky diary of the man who delivered an organ to the sultan of Contlstantinople. A fabulous, real adventure. Helpfully written in modern English.
This is the real quirky diary of the man who delivered an organ to the sultan of Contlstantinople. A fabulous, real adventure. Helpfully written in modern English.
November 18, 2014
I loved this little snapshot into life in 1599. It's a translation into modern English of the actual diary of an organ builder who travelled by ship to Constantinople to accompany an extraordinary 'Present' from the Queen of England to the Sultan of Turkey. The gift was a sixteen-foot-high jewel-encrusted self-playing organ. What a fascinating story it makes, and made all the more intriguing by the gaps in the diary where Dallam says he saw wonderful things but doesn't have time to describe them!
It takes the ship weeks just to leave the shores of England because of pirate attacks, the fact that they were at war with Spain, and bad weather. There's the first account of a foreigner's overland crossing of mainland Greece, with amusing encounters of folks they meet along the way. When they reach the Sultan's palace, guarded by the Janissaries ('trained in fighting and gardening' - I love the image this conjures!), the details become even more fascinating. They unpack the organ to find it's practically been destroyed by the conditions on the ship and has to be rebuilt. Dallam being the only man who knows how to work it, he has to prepare it to play at just the right moment and gets closer to the Sultan than most would ever have dared, and it's touch and go whether he'll be executed or forced to stay forever.
It's been put into this easy to read format by John Mole, well known as author of It's All Greek to Me. Mole adds further context at the end with notes on what happened to the various characters involved after this journey. But at no point does it ever feel academic or dry. Well worth a read.
It takes the ship weeks just to leave the shores of England because of pirate attacks, the fact that they were at war with Spain, and bad weather. There's the first account of a foreigner's overland crossing of mainland Greece, with amusing encounters of folks they meet along the way. When they reach the Sultan's palace, guarded by the Janissaries ('trained in fighting and gardening' - I love the image this conjures!), the details become even more fascinating. They unpack the organ to find it's practically been destroyed by the conditions on the ship and has to be rebuilt. Dallam being the only man who knows how to work it, he has to prepare it to play at just the right moment and gets closer to the Sultan than most would ever have dared, and it's touch and go whether he'll be executed or forced to stay forever.
It's been put into this easy to read format by John Mole, well known as author of It's All Greek to Me. Mole adds further context at the end with notes on what happened to the various characters involved after this journey. But at no point does it ever feel academic or dry. Well worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews