a Catalonian by birth, offered the hospitality of his house pending the arrival of the indispensable safe-conduct and escort from the Sultan.  In the Legatio Babylonica, Peter Martyr describes, with lamentations, the squalor of the once splendid city of Alexandria, famous for its beautiful gardens, superb palaces, and rich libraries.  The ancient capital of the Ptolemies was reduced to a mere remnant of its former size, and of its former glories not a vestige was perceptible.[2] Cansu Alguri[3] reigned in Cairo.  A man personally inclined to toleration, his liberty of action was fettered by the fanaticism of his courtiers and the Mussulman clergy.  The moment was not a propitious one for an embassy soliciting favours for Christians.  The Portuguese had but recently sunk an Egyptian vessel off Calicut, commercial rivalries were bitter, and the harsh treatment of the conquered Moors in Spain had aroused religious antagonism to fever pitch and bred feelings of universal exasperation against the foes of Islam.

[Note 2:  Writing to Pedro Fajardo he thus expressed himself:  Alexandriam sepe perambulavi:  lacrymosum est ejus ruinas intueri; centum millium atque eo amplius domorum uti per ejus vestigere licet colligere meo judicio quondam fuit Alexandria; nunc quatuor vix millibus contenta est focis; turturibus nunc et columbis pro habitationibus nidos prestat, etc.]

[Note 3:  Also spelled Quansou Ghoury and Cansa Gouri; Peter Martyr writes Campsoo Gauro.]

From Rosetta Peter Martyr started on January 26th on his journey to the Egyptian Babylon,[4] as he was pleased to style Cairo, travelling by boat on the Nile and landing at Boulaq in the night.  The next morning a Christian renegade, Tangriberdy by name, who held the important office of Grand Dragoman to the Sultan, presented himself to arrange the ceremonial to be observed at the audience with his master.  This singular man, a Spanish sailor from Valencia, had been years before wrecked on the Egyptian coast and taken captive.  By forsaking his faith he saved his life, and had gradually risen from a state of servitude to his post of confidence near the Sultan’s person.  Tangriberdy availed himself of the opportunity afforded by his duties, to relate to the ambassador the story of his life and his forcible conversion, declaring that, in his heart, he clung to the Christian faith and longed to return to his native Spain.  Whether his sentiments were sincere or feigned, his presence in an influential capacity at the Sultan’s court was a fortuitous circumstance of which the ambassador gladly took advantage.  The audience was fixed for the following morning at daybreak, and that night Tangriberdy lodged the embassy in his own palace.

[Note 4:  Cairo was thus called in the Middle Ages, the name belonging especially to one of the city’s suburbs.  See Quatremere Memoires geographiques te historiques sur l’Egypt.  Paris, 1811.]