Jerusalem: The Biography

* During one of the battles in Transylvania against the Habsburgs, he slipped away from the fray to evacuate his bowels only to be ambushed by an Austrian soldier, ‘so I plopped right into my own filth.’ As they fought, they rolled ‘topsy-turvy’ in our hero’s excrement until ‘I almost became the shitty martyr.’ Evliya finally killed the infidel, and managed to pull up his pantaloons ‘but I was soaked in blood as well as shit and I had to laugh, seeing that I’d become the shitty Ghazi (Islamic warrior).’ Afterwards he presented the Austrian’s head to his Pasha, who said, ‘My Evliya, you smell strangely of shit!’ The officers ‘laughed uproariously’ and the Pasha gave him fifty gold pieces and a silver turban-crest.