Dallam's Travels with an Organ to the Grand Signieur, 1599-1600
Channel: Age of Enlightenment
Date: 2015-11-26

Thomas Dallam 1575-1620 was an organ grinder who put organs together for the Levant company. This is his diary. 

Queen Elizabeth the First of England, the Grand Turk at Constantinople, and an organ builder named Thomas Dallam—quite a trio. 

The two manuscript diaries which are published in this volume give us the experiences of men who resided in Constantinople during the earlier days of the Levant Company. When Master Thomas Dallam went with the present of a marvelous organ from Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan Mahomed III in 1599, our Company of Turkey Merchants had scarcely organized themselves. 

In the development of our system of commerce the Company of Turkey Merchants played a most important part, second perhaps only to the great East India Company, and its history is the history of one of those pillars on which British prosperity has been constructed. It was a marked feature of the sixteenth century, when all those Companies — the African Company, the Muscovy Company, the East India Company — all had their rise, and by them was laid the foundation of our subsequent mercantile successes.

The Levant Company lived an active life of 244 years.

This book was published by The Hakluyt Society which was founded in 1846.

Here is the text and free audio from Librivox volunteer Sue Anderson

https://librivox.org/dallams-travels-with-an-organ-to-the-grand-signieur-1599-1600-by-thomas-dallam/