Camels, Wagons, and the Ottoman State in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

The history of Ottoman transportation as a whole still remains to be written. To date, scholars have concentrated mainly upon the institutional aspects of the problem. Thus Cengiz Orhonlu in his pioneering work has dealt with attempts on the part of the Ottoman administration to maintain street and road paving, establish ferryboat services, control river navigation, and ensure the safety of public roads. Boat traffic within Istanbul, which linked the different parts of the Ottoman capital and thus ensured their mutual integration, was also treated mainly from the Ottoman administration's point of view. 1 After Orhonlu's untimely death, research into the institutional framework supporting Ottoman communications was continued by other scholars. Particularly the arrangements intended to supply official couriers with post-horses have recently been made the object of several monographs. 2