hunting for converts 183another week in the environs of Yenişehir while traveling to Crete in 1668
(278a). Military campaigns were opportunities for more hunting. Mehmed IV
made sure to hunt in 1 672 in the vicinity of Kamaniça immediately after the
citadel was conquered and during his return to Edirne (342a). In 1 673, while
on the second Polish campaign wintering in Hacıoğlu Pazarı, he spent thirty-
three days on the chase in the vicinity of Ester, and then two weeks in Kavarin
at the beginning of spring (368a). Again in 1 674 at the end of year following the
second Polish campaign he hunted at Kurt kayası (Wolf Rock; 384b). The sultan
spent forty-fi ve days hunting while in Silistre after sending the grand vizier to
conquer Çehrin in 1 678. En route to Istanbul after the citadel was taken, he
engaged in a massive eighteen-day hunting expedition, including the drive, in
the environs of Burgos (4 1 2a–b).^14 If hunting had been something shameful,or an activity Mehmed IV wanted to hide from posterity, Abdi Pasha and other
chroniclers favorably inclined toward their subject would not have devoted so
much space to recording the dates, locations, length, and prizes of so many
chases.
In Eurasian societies, great leaders engaged in extraordinarily large hunt-ing parties. Mehmed IV sometimes enjoyed armchair or sedan hunting, or had
his falconers release prized Circassian falcons or hawks to hunt birds, and once
even tried bringing an elephant and its Indian trainer along for the sport, but
fearing the yelping hounds the elephant ran away ( 1 57a–b). But his preferred
method, in which the hunting party formed a great ring and drove the game be-
fore it like a fl ock of sheep, then contracted the ring and sent hunters into it to
kill the game, was the same method practiced by the great Mongol leader Geng-
his Khan.^15 This is signifi cant, because one element in the Ottoman dynasty’s
legitimizing propaganda concerned its connection with the great dynasties of
central Asia. This is why the sultan was titled “khan.” Mehmed IV’s Chinese
contemporary, Emperor K’ang-hsi, also peripatetic, frequently engaged in the
hunt, which he linked to war and defense of the empire, and ruled during a pe-
riod of territorial expansion, becoming the conqueror of the island of Taiwan,
perhaps for the Chinese the equivalent of Crete. He was more articulate than
the Ottoman sultan and left thousands of pages of autobiographical writing.
The following poem, entitled “Hunting in the Ordos, the Hares Were Many,”
expresses his love of hunting:Open country, fl at sand
Sky beyond the river. Over a thousand hares daily
Trapped in the hunter’s ring. Checking the borders
I’m going to stretch my limbs; And keep on shooting the carved bow
Now with my left hand, now my right.^16