8H r .LF: « Qi\Q i, BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS. m ,V^s',;;iHi |H ■ ■^^■^^HM^^^^^^^^^H^H THE MODERN TRAVELLER. A POPULAR DESCRIPTION, GEOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL, or THB VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF THE GLOBE. TURKEY. N o |Ug3 < Athens LONDON: TRINTED FOR JAMES DUNCAN; OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH; M. OGLE, GLASGOW; AND R. M. TIMS, DUBLIN. 1827. {■mi LONDON : Printed by William Clowes, Stamford Stieet. Warn CONTENTS. PAGE BOUNDARIES OF EUROPEAN TURKEY 1 ANCIENT AND MODERN DIVISIONS 2 POPULATION OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE 5 POLITICAL DIVISIONS 7 ORIGIN OF THE TURKS 10 HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 12 CAUSES OF THE GREATNESS AND DECLINE OF THE OTTOMAN POWER 83 DESCRIPTION OF CONSTANTINOPLE 95 POPULATION OF THE CAPITAL: THE ARMENIANS 157 THE FANARIOTES 172 THE OSMANLIES 203 THE JEWS 221 ENVIRONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE 227 THE BOSPHORUS 232 GALLIPOLI 219 THE HELLESPONT 252 FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ADRIANOPLE 259 ADRIANOPLE 262 FROM ADRIANOPLE TO RUDSHUK 267 HISTORY OF THE BULGARIANS 276 FROM BELGRADE TO ADRIANOPLE 284 iv CONTENTS. PAGE FROM CONSTANT! NOPLE TO SALONIKA 286 SALONIKA 302 MOUNT ATHOS 321 FROM SALONICA TO LARISSA 327 THE VALE OF TEMPE 335 LARISSA 339 METEORA 342 IOANNINA 350 CONCLUSION 356 DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES. View of Constantinople to face the Title. Plan of ditto page 96 Monastery of Meteora 342 IOANNINA 350 ■ Sit THE MODERN TRAVELLER, <$c Sfc. TURKEY. [A country of Europe, forming part of the Ottoman Empire; lying between lat. 40° and 48° 50' N„ and long. 17° and :)0° E. ; bounded, on the N., by the Russian and Austrian territories ; on the E. by the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Sea of Mar- mora ; on the S. by the Egean Sea and Greece ; on the W. by the Ionian and Adriatic Seas and Austria.] Turkey is a barbarous terra of equivocal import, which ought long ago to have been excluded from geo- graphy. Whether we understand it as denoting the country of the Turks or the dominions of the Grand Turk, (as the Sultan used to be denominated,) the appellation has little propriety. That portion of Europe which bears the Ottoman yoke cannot be considered as characteristically a Turkish country, since, in those pro- vinces, the Turks do not form a third of the population ; and they appear there, as it has been well remarked, less as a nation, than as an army encamped in the midst of vanquished nations. But, if the word Turkey be re- garded as synonymous with the Turkish empire, it ought to include not only Armenia and the region of the Euphrates, but Syria and even Egypt ; countries which form as much integral parts of the Ottoman dominions PART i, B mm 2 TURKEY. as the Dacian and Grecian provinces. Nevertheless, the word, though an improper one, has been so long sanctioned by usage, that, not being provided with a substitute, we have adopted it in the title to the pre- sent volume ; intending by it the whole of the Euro- pean dominions of the Grand Signior, with the excep- tion of the Morea and Ancient Greece south of Mount (Eta. According to this definition, Turkey will include a very irregular groupe of countries, lying between the Euxine and Egean seas and the Adriatic, extending westward as far as the river Unna, which divides Turkish from Austrian Croatia, in long. 17° E., and the continuation of the arbitrary line of the Austrian frontier ; northward, to the Dniester and the Russian territory ; and southward to Greece. These countries, which arc supposed to contain in superficial extent about 186,000 square miles, are distinguished by mo- dern geographers under the following denominations, to which we have annexed the ancient and Turkish names. Ancient Name. Turkish. Sq. Miles. * < Kara I flak, -v 20,(i3'J | Dacia. -< or Bogdan f. >• I Ak Iflak. J 1. Moldavia. 2. Wallachia. 23,000 * According to Make Brun ; but he includes, under Moldavia, Bessarabia and the Russian part of the province ; so that the pre- sent extent of Turkey is less than the total given on his authority. Pinkerton makes the total extent, including Greece and the Morea, only 1112, jGO square miles; its extreme length, from the northern boundary of Moldavia to Cape Matapan, 070 miles ; and its utmost breadth, (which in general is less than half its length,) from the Rives Unna to the Bosphorus in lat. 43°., 080 miles. In the Sup- plement to the Ency. Britan., Turkey in Europe is stated, on the authority of Ilasscl, to comprise only 100,07-1 square miles, being 20,0011 less than Malte Brim's estimate. In the Edinb. Gazetteer, it is given in round numbers at 200,000 square miles. | Iflak or Ivlak is stated by Thornton to be a corrupt pronun- 3. Bulgaria. 4. Servia. 6. Bosnia. 6. Croatia. 7. Dalmatia. 8. Romania Proper. 9. Albania. 10. Livadia and Thessaly. TURKEY. Ancient Name. Turkish. Pannonia. Dalmatia. l f Thrace. J i Macedonia. Illyrlcum I J Beylerbeylik of Bosnia. Sq. Miles. 174 1 27,: 3 31, f Beylerbeylik f of J • < Roum-Jli. 25,716 21,142 16,645 14,915 186,663 If to this we add the Morea, Eubcea, Crete, and the Grecian Isles, estimated at 15,646 The total extent of European Turkey will be 202,309 ciation of Wallachia. Bogdan signifies, in the Slavonic, the gift of ( rod, being synonymous with Theodosius ; and the name of the pro- vince is derived, according to D'Herbelot, from that of the Chris- tian princes of Mcesia. Colonel Leake asserts, that Kara Ivlak is Wallachia, not Moldavia ; and the latter province, he says, is written by the Greeks MaX§3 Ukax'*, not Mauja BA.a£/a, as stated by Mr. Hobhouse. It is remarkable, however, that both Maura Vlachia and Kara Iflak signify Black Vlachia, as Ak lflak is White Vlachia. The Black and White Vlachi may have been originally distinguished by the colour of their tents or of their flocks, like the Tatars of the black and white sheep ; but they are now known by their different costume. " The colour of their cap," says Dr. Neale, " distinguishes the Moldavians from the Walla- chians, whose head-dresses are black, while those of the Molda- vians are white." If this be correct, it certainly favours the state- ment of Colonel Leake, that Wallachia is Black Vlachia; and Thornton must have misapplied the names. Dr. A. Neale tells us, that Moldavia took its name from a moUah , or priest, named Xamol- xis, the Pythagoras or Boudh of the primeval Scythian inhabit- ants; and that the word is corrupted from Motlah-div-ia, the territory of the immortal moUah. He gives no authority, however, for this etymology. See Neale's Travels, 4to. pp. 165, 1/0. Wil- kinson states, that it takes its name from the river Moldau. The modern Wallachians, who call themselves Ritmunn (Romans), give to their country the name of Tsara llutnanesca, Roman,- land. 4 TURKEY. The European territories form but a fourth part of the Ottoman Empire, even in its present contracted state ; that is, if we take Egypt into the calculation, and exclude the Barbary States. The following esti- mate is that of M. Make Brum Square Miles. Asia Minor, as far as the Euphrates 200,196 Syria, exclusive of the Desert 51,778 Armenia, with Turkish Georgia, &c 64,002 Diarbekir, Mesopotamia, th of October, the judge of the camp cannot refuse him his cer- tificate, and he may return to his home without being subject to a TURKKY. The title of pasha, which is merely personal,* is sometimes given to the sanjak-beys ; and the larger sanjiakats are called pashaliks : others, under the go- vernment of a mutselim, are styled mutselimliks. The military governors of provinces) who are subordinate only to the Grand Vizir, are styled beylerbeys, and the district under their command, beylerbeyliks. Eu- ropean Turkey is divided into two beylerbeyliks ; that of Roum-ili or Komania, comprising their conquests from the Greek empire ; and that of Bosnia, under which are comprehended Servja, Croatia, and their other acquisitions to the westward. The principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia are not included in this division, being considered as tributary provinces. Con- stantinople is also a separate jurisdiction, as well as the Islands, which are under that of the Capitan Pasha or High-admiral. The Pasha of Kutaya has the title of Anadol Beylerley, or Captain- general of Anatolia, and as such, has the chief command of all the Anatolian troops, when they join the imperial standard. The pasha of Diarbekir is also a beylerbey. It is not easy to ascertain with any precision the number of these grand divisions, more especially as there are some in- dependent agaliks and mutselimliks not included in the jurisdiction of the beylerbeys. There are also other divisions, used purely for the civil and financial purposes of the government, -f- pain or penalty. This will account for the supposed desertions in large bodies which frequently take place at the approach of win- ter. — See Thoknton, vol. i. p. 225. * Pasha, according to Thornton, is formed of two Persian words, pasha, signifying literally viceroy. t Asiatic Turkey is divided into twenty-one governments: viz. I. The beylerbeylik of Anadol (or Anadhouly). 2. The pashalik of Konich, or Karamania. y. The pashalik of Adana or Iichili (Cilicia). 4. The mutselimlik of Kibris (Cyprus). 5. The pasha- TURKEY. The pashas consist, in fact, of three classes, who are distinguished by the number of horse-tails carried be- fore them as standards ; a custom supposed to have been derived from the Tatars, and indicating the bar- baric origin of the Turks. The governors of large dis- tricts, who are entitled to three tails, assume the name of vizir. * All these governments are nominally held for the term of one year only ; and at the ensuing tia'iram, the appointment must he renewed. There are some rare instances, however, in which they have been held and transmitted as hereditary fiefs. Mehemmed Bey was created by Selim I., beylerbey of Diarbekir, with the privilege of transmitting it to his male children. The lordship (agalik) of Magnesia in Anatolia was for a long time hereditary in the family of Kara-Osman- lik of Siwas (Sebaste), or Roum. (i. The pashalik of Merashe. 7. The pashalik of Tarabozan (Trebisond;. [See Mod. Trav., Syria, &c. vol. ii. p. 92.] 8. The pashalik of Akhirssa, or Tshalder Chaklca). !). The pashalik of Kars (in Armenia). 10. The pasha- lik of Erzeroum. 11. 'Ihe pashalik of Van. 12. The pashalik of Shersour 'in Kourdistan). 13. The pashalik of Bagdadt. 14. The pashalik of Bussora. 15. 'I he pashalik of Mosul. l(i. Ihe pashalik of Diarbekir. 17. The pashalik of Rakka (X'icephorium;. 18. The pashalik of Haleb (Aleppo). 1!). The pashalik of Tarabalous (Tri- poli). 20. The pashalik of Akka (Acre). 21. The pashalik of Sham (Damascus). * All, Vizir of Epirus, had thirteen horse-tails carried before him in all grand processions, representing the various dignities which he held. '* The insignia of a vizir, governor of a province, arc, the idem, a large broad standard, the staff' of which, instead of a spear-hcad, is surmounted with a silver plate in the form of a crescent ; the tahl or military music, consisting of nine drums, nine fifes, seven trumpets, and four cymbals ; thetogft, consisting of three horse-tails artificially plaited ; one sanjak, or standard of green silk, and of the same form and size with Mahommed's standard ; and two large standards called balrak. Other pashas, who are not honoured with the title of vizir, have two horse-tails with the other insignia. A bey has but one horse-tail, together with the standard. Agas, and others of an inferior order, are allowed only one sanjak and no horse-tails."— Thornton's Turkey, vol. i. p. 268. IHMQ 10 TURKEY". Ogloo; and that of the Ghavrinos possessed several agaliks in Macedonia, by virtue of similar concessions. The great pashaliks of the remoter Asiatic provinces may be considered as tributary principalities, as re- gards their virtual independence," but it is rarely that they have been allowed to descend to an heredi- tary successor. The name by which the Sultan is known to his subjects is that of Padishah (emperor), of which Grand Signior seems to be a sort of transla- tion: he has, however, various other titles, among which that of Vicar of the Prophet is the most valu- able, and that of Imperial Man-slayer the most cha- racteristic of a ruthless despotism. -f- It will not be expected that we shall attempt to give a history of the Turks, whose origin is involved in much obscurity. They are supposed to have been a branch of the great Sarmatian family, known to the Greek writers under the denomination of the Scythians * Of this description, more especially, are the pashaliks of Bag- dadt, Trebisond, and some others. t " By the constitution of Mohammedan government, not only the executive, but the legislative power essentially resides in the sovereign. His spiritual and temporal authority are indicated, in the language of the jurists, by the titles of imam and sultan. In virtue of his sacerdotal authority, he assumes the titles of padishah- islam (emperor ofislamism), imam-ul-mutliminn (pontiff of mus- sulmans), and .iidtan-dinn (protector of the faith). At court, when mention is made of the sultan, the appellation of alem-pmiah (re- fuge of the world) is usually added to his title of padithah. His loftiest title, and the most esteemed because given to him by the kings of Persia, is zil-ullali (shadow of God) ; and one of the most remote from our manners, though common among all ranks of his subjects, is hunkiar (the manslayer). This is given to him, be- cause the law has invested hiin alone with absolute power over the lives of his subjects. The Turkish casuists allow that he may kill fourteen persons every day, without asigning a cause, or with- out imputation of tyranny. Death by his hand, or by his order, if submitted to without resistance, confers martyrdom."— Thorn- 1 4^*- 1*3\ H H ?■ TURKEY. 11 beyond the Imaus.* Their original country appears to have been the Altaian mountains, whence they spread as far as the Lake Maeotis and the banks of the Oxus. It was towards the middle of the sixth century of the Christian era, according to Gibbon, that Europe felt the shock of that revolution which first revealed to the world the name and nation of the Turks. But the fact is, that their name, like that of the Huns, from whom the Bulgarians are supposed to derive their origin, is too vague and general to determine the identity of the people to whom it is applied. The word Turk is said to signify wanderer : by the Ottomans, it is regarded as a contumelious appellation, nearly equi- valent to boor. It appears to be used by Al Edrisi, the Nubian Geographer, as the generic designation of the various hordes inhabiting Eastern and Western Tartary ; and as he makes no mention of either Tatars or Moguls, it has been inferred, that the latter ought to be considered as two branches of the Turkish nation, instead of our classing the Turks as Tatars.-f- With regard to the Modern Turks, their exterior gives no countenance to the Mongol extraction which their national authors ascribe to them ; but their lan- guage, according to the unanimous opinion of philolo- gists, bears a closer affinity, in its radicals, to the Ta- ton, vol. i. pp. Ill — 3. The Greeks with strict propriety, then, designate their late master by the name of Sultan Kassapi (Butcher). * Pliny mentions the Turks, ranking them among the Sarma- tian tribes (Nat. Hist. lib. vi. c. /•) ; and Pomponius Mela speaks of the Thgssagata Tumrque, as inhabiting the region near Maeotis, —"vastan sylvas occupant aluntwque venando." t It is remarkable, that, in the hostile correspondence between Tamerlane and Uajazet, the Mogul Emperor distinguishes himself and his countrymen by the name of Turk, and stigmatizes the race and nation of the Ottomans, as Turkmum. 12 TURKEY. taric dialects, than to those of any other class.* It has received, however, so large an admixture of Ara- bic and Persian, as to be denominated on that account Midemma, the pied mare. Nor are the people them- selves of a race less mixed than their language. For ages, they have blended themselves with the nations they have conquered ; and the large admixture of Per- sian, Circassian, Greek, and perhaps Gothic and Sla- vonic blood may explain their differing so widely from other Tatar nations. They are, in general, a tall, robust, and well-formed race, of a rather harsh, yet often noble physiognomy, a tawny complexion, dark brown hair, and their natural gravity of mien is aided by long mustaches, which are reckoned an indispen- sable ornament. HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. Whatever be the origin of the Turks as a nation, the foundation of the Ottoman empire dates no far- ther back than the conquest of Prusa, the capital of Bithynia, by Othman, -f- the son of Ertogrul, or Ortho- grul, a Turcoman chieftain in the service of Aladin, Sultan of Iconium, who had established himself at Shughut on the banks of the Sangarius. + " Othman possessed," says Gibbon. " and perhaps surpassed, the ordinary virtues of a soldier ; and the circumstances of * The language of the Mongols, as well as the Calmuck, is slated to have a sufficient connexion with the " Caspian" dialects, to be arranged as belonging to the Turco- Tatar ian family. That of the Buchanans is little known, but that of the Nogay and Crimean Tatars is said to be much like the Turkish, but mixed with some Mongol. See Quart. R>:c. No. xix. art. Adelung's Mithridates. j Also written Thaman and Athman, and from Othman softened into Osman ; whence Osmanlee, the national appellation of the Turks, which we translate into Ottoman. $ See Mod. Trav., Syria, &c. vol. ii. p. 327. tuakey. 13 time and place were propitious to his independence and success. The Seljukian dynasty was no more; and the distance and decline of* the Mogul khans soon en- franchised him from the control of a superior. He was situate on the verge of the Greek empire : the Koran sanctified his gazi, or holy Avar against the infidels, and their political errors unlocked the passes of Mount Olympus, and invited him to descend into the plains of Bitkynia. It was on the 27th of July in the year 1299 of the Christian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia ; and the singular accuracy of the date seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster. " The annals of the twenty-seven years of his reign would exhibit a repetition of the same inroads ; and his hereditary troops were multiplied in each cam- paign by the accession of captives and volunteers. Instead of retreating to the hills, he maintained the most useful and defensible posts; fortified the towns and castles which he had first pillaged ; and renounced the pastoral life for the baths and palaces of his infant capital. But it was not till Othman was oppressed by age and infirmities, that he received the welcome news of the conquest of Prusa, which had been sur- rendered by famine or treachery to the arms of his son Orchan. The glory of Othman is chiefly founded on that of his descendants ; but the Turks have tran- scribed or composed a royal testament of his last coun- sels of justice and moderation.* From the conquest of Prusa, we may date the true era of the Ottoman * Osman enjoined his son to exercise a just friendship towards the Rumaean kingdoms, a charge which lias been variously un- derstood as relating either to the Seljukian emirs or the Christian powers. The moderation and pacific nature of this counsel depend wholly on the way in which it is interpreted. PAUT I, C W^W 14 TURKEY. empire. The lives and possessions of the Christian subjects were redeemed by a tribute or ransom of 30,000 crowns of gold ; and the city, by the labours of Orchan, assumed the aspect of a Mohammedan capital. Prusa was decorated with a mosch, a college, and a hospital of royal foundation ; • Lhe Seljukian coin was changed for the name and impression of the new dynasty ; and the most skilful professors of human and divine knowledge attracted the Persian and Arabian students from the ancient schools of Oriental learning. The office of vizir was instituted for Aladin, the brother of Orchan." Nice was taken by Orchan in 1330, •}- and Nicomedia fell nine years after. The Moslem conqueror " granted a safe-conduct to all who were desirous of departing with their families and effects ; but the widows of the slain were given in marriage to the conquerors ; and the sacrilegious plunder, the books, the vases, and the images, were sold or ransomed at Constantinople. The Emperor Andronicus the younger was vanquished and wounded by the son of Othman : he subdued the whole province or kingdom of Bithynia as far as the shores of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont ; and the Christians confessed the justice and clemency of a reign which claimed the voluntary attachment of the Turks of Asia. Yet, Orchan was content with the modest title of emir ; and in the list of his compeers, the princes of Roum or Anatolia, his military forces were surpassed by the emirs of Ghermian and Cara- * See, for a description of Broussa (Prusa), Mod. Trav., Synii, &c. vol. ii. p. 311). t Nice had previously been taken by the Sultan of Roum ; but was recovered by the Crusaders in 1097. It is now, under the name of Isnik, a wretched village. Isnikmid, the representative of Nicomedia, is governed by a pasha of two tails..— See Mod, Trav., Syria, &c. vol. ii. pp. 329—333. ■ HH TURKEY. 15 mania, each of whom could bring into the field an army of 40,000 men."* On the death of Amir, the Turkish prince of Aidin (Mysia), who had been the friend and ally of Cantacuzene, the Bithynian emir was applied to, to join his arms with those of the Greek emperor against the Latins. Orchan readily entered into this advantageous alliance, as the reward of which he obtained in marriage the daughter of Cantacuzene. H The Greek clergy," says the Historian, " connived at the marriage of a Christian princess with a sectary of Mohammed. Without the rites of the church, Theodora was delivered to her barbarous lord; but it had been stipulated, that she should preserve her religion in the harem of Boursa ; and her father cele- brates her charity and devotion in this ambiguous situation. But the friendship of Orchan was sub- servient to his religion and interest ; and in the Genoese war, he joined without a blush the enemies of Cantacuzene." In this account of the Bithynian Emir, we seem to have a counterpart to the artful and varying policy by which, in our own days, the Vizir of Ioannina * " The sovereignty of the emir of Caramania, which derives its name from the mountain Amanus, extended over Cilicia and part of the frontiers of Lycaonia, Pamphylia, C'aria, and the greater Phrygia. Ionia Maritima, as far as the city of Smyrna, obeyed the family of Sarukhan. The chief part of Lydia, with some part of Mysia, Troas, and Phrygia, formed the principality of t'.iraz or Kars. Aidin consisted of the greater part of Mysia, together with some part of Lydia. The principality of Mentes derived its name from a city in Caria, called Mendos or Myndus. The city of Boli was the seat of government of the sons of Omur (Amur), whose sway extended over Paphlagonia and Pontus, comprising the cities of Heraclea, Castamona, Sinope, and several others on the Euxine Sea. These were the chief divisions of the Seljukian territory." — Thornton's Turkey, vol. i. p. 2, But in this enumeration, Germian or Herman is omitted, C2 m 16 TURKEY. succeeded in rendering himself the master of Epirus iind the greater part of Greece.* Alternately the ally of the Latins and the Greeks, Orchan steadily pur- sued his own aggrandisement. In the civil wars of Romania, the Turkish cavalry, under the command of Soliman, his eldest son, performed some service for the Emperor, but perpetrated more mischief. The Cher- sonesus was insensibly filled with a Turkish colony, and Gailipoli, the key of the Hellespont, which had been partially destroyed by an earthquake, was rebuilt and peopled by the policy of Soliman. That prince having been killed by a fall from his horse, the aged Orchan was succeeded in his dominions by his son Murad, or Amurath I., who subdued, without resist- ance, the whole of Thrace from the Hellespont to Mount Hannus, and made Adrianople the seat of a heylerbeylik, or vice-royalty, about l.'KJf). The Em- peror, John Palaiologus, appears to have purchased his friendship or forbearance by the most abject sub- mission ; and Constantinople remained the capital of a shadowy empire. It was, perhaps, as his ally that Amurath extended his inroads as far as the Slavonian provinces between the Danube and the Adriatic, chastising those warlike tribes who had so often in- sulted the majesty of the eastern empire. The mili- tary bands called Yengi chert, new soldiers, (corrupted into Janizaries,) were composed originally of European captives taken in these Avars : they formed the first regular body of infantry ever maintained in constant exercise and pay by any European sovereign, and * Like Orchan, Ali had for his favourite wife, a Christian; his capital, the principal seat of modern Greek literature, might once have vied with that of Bithynia ; and his tolerant policy corre- sponded not less remarkably to that of Orchan, than his duplicity and perfidy. TURKEY. 17 soon became the chief strength and pride of the Otto- man armies. Amurath is said to have been of mild temper and unostentatious deportment, a lover of learning and virtue. He perished by the hand of a foreign assassin, after gaining the victory of Cossova over the confede- rated Slavonian tribes; and was succeeded, in 1389, by the renowned Bajazet, or Bayazid, surnamed Ilde- rim, the Thunderbolt, whose reign forms one of the most splendid epochs in the Turkish annals. Pur- suing the plans and policy of his father, he led his triumphant armies from Boursa to Adrianople, and from the Danube to the Euphrates. The Seljukian emirs of Asia Minor had taken advantage of the dis- tant expeditions of Amurath, to unite their arms for the purpose of recovering their independence. Among these, the most powerful were the princes of Cara- mania, who, by their influence over the minor chief- tains, and by their coalitions with the Greek empe- rors and the Christian princes beyond the Haemus and the Danube, stirred up war alternately on that frontier from which the Ottoman army was farthest removed. These revolts and disturbances, by embar- rasssing the progress of the conqueror, protracted the final overthrow of the Greek empire. A victory obtain- ed by Amurath over the Caramanians and their allies in the plain of Iconium, destroyed for the time this formidable confederacy; but Bajazet, not content with their equivocal submission, resolved to annex by force their territories to his empire. Openly renouncing the peaceable maxims of his predecessors, he stripped of their hereditary possessions his brother emirs of Gher- mian (or Kermian) and Karaman, of Aidin and Saru- khau. The northern regions of Anatolia, from An- gora to Amasia and Erzeroum, had already been c3 I! TURKEY. reduced to obedience ; and after the conquest of Ico- nium, the ancient kingdom of the Seljukians might be considered as revived in the Ottoman dynasty. Nor were the conquests of Bajazet in Europe less rapid or important. " No sooner had he imposed a regular form of servitude, on the Servians and Bul- garians, than he passed the Danube to seek new enemies and new subjects in the heart of Moldavia. Whatever yet adhered to the Greek empire in Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, acknowledged a Turkish master. An obsequious bishop led him through the gates of Thermopylae into Greece ; and we may ob- serve," adds Gibbon, whose words we are citing, " that the widow of a Spanish chief, who possessed the ancient seat of the oracle of Delphi, deserved his favour by the sacrifice of a beauteous daughter. The Turkish communication between Europe and Asia had been dangerous and doubtful, till he stationed at Gallipoli a fleet of galleys to command the Hellespont, and intercept the Latin succours of Constantinople. While the monarch indulged his passions in a bound- less range of injustice and cruelty, he imposed on his soldiers the most rigid laws of modesty and absti- nence; and the harvest was peaceably reaped and sold within the precincts of his camp." " The humble title of emir," continues the Histo- rian, " was no longer suitable to the Ottoman great- ness ; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the khalifs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes. The ambition of the Sultan was inflamed by the obligation of deserving this august title ; and he turned his arms against the kingdom of Hungary, the perpetual theatre of the Turkish victories and defeats. Sigismond, the Hun- garian king, was the son and brother of the emperors mmw nw TL T RKEY. 19 of the "West ; his cause was that of Europe and the Church ; and on the report of his danger, the bravest knights of France and Germany ware eager to march under his standard and that of the Cross. In the battle of Nicopolis, Bajazet defeated a confederate army of a hundred thousand Christians, who had proudly boasted that, if the sky should fall, they could uphold it on their lances. The far greater part were slain or driven into the Danube ; and Sigismond, escaping to Constantinople by the river and the Black Sea, re- turned, after a long circuit, to his exhausted kingdom. The battle of Nicopolis would not have been lost, if the French would have obeyed the prudence of the Hungarians ; but it might have been gloriously won had the Hungarians imitated the valour of the French. They dispersed the first line, consisting of the troops of Asia ; forced a rampart of stakes which had been planted against the cavalry ; broke, after a bloody conflict, the Janizaries themselves ; and were at length overwhelmed by the numerous squadrons that issued from the woods, and charged on all sides this handful of intrepid warriors.* In the speed and secresy of his march, in the order and evolutions of the battle, his enemies felt and admired the military talents of Bajazet. They accuse his cruelty in the use of vic- tory. After reserving the Count of Nevers and four- and-twenty lords whose birth and riches were attested by his Latin interpreters, the remainder of the French captives, who had survived the slaughter of the day, * The French army did not exceed in number a thousand knights and squires, among whom were the young Count of Nevers, son of the Duke of Burgundy and Flanders, and four princes his cousins, under the command of the famous Enquer- rand VII., .Sire de Courcy, one of the best and oldest captains in Christendom, PIHBS 20 TURKEY. were led before his throne ; and, as they refused to abjure their faith, were successively beheaded in his presence. The Sultan was exasperated by the loss of his bravest Janizaries ; and if it be true, that, on the eve of the engagement, the French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, they might impute to them- selves the consequences of a just retaliation After much delay, the effect of distance rather than of art, Bajazet agreed to accept a ransom of 200,000 ducats , for the Count of Nevers and the surviving princes and barons. The Marshal Boucicault (who afterwards defended Constantinople, governed Genoa, invaded the coast of Asia, and died in the held of Azinconr) was of the number of the fortunate ; but the admiral of France had been slain in the battle ; and the constable, with the Sire de Courcy, died in the prison of Boursa. ....Before their departure, they were indulged in the freedom and hospitality of the court of Boursa; and the French princes admired the magnificence of the Ottoman, whose hunting and hawking equipage was composed of 7000 huntsmen and 7000 falconers." But Bajazet had now reached the term of his great- ness. His conquests in Armenia and on the banks of the Euphrates had brought him in immediate con- tact with a Moslem conqueror of ambition equally restless and insatiable, united to superior genius and exhaustless resources. This was the famous Timour- beg (or bey), whose nick-name of Lenc, or Leng, the lame, joined to his proper appellation, has been cor- rupted into Tamerlane. * The Mogul conqueror was in his sixty-fourth year, when intelligence reached him on the banks of the Ganges, that the Sultan Bajazet, the Kaissar (Caesar) of Roum, after subju- * Demir, or Timour, is said to signify, in Turkish, Iron. Tl'UKEY. 21 gating the whole of Asia Minor, was meditating the conquest of Syria and Egypt. An occasion of quarrel was not long wanting. " Each of these ambitious monarchs might accuse his rival of violating his terri- tory, of threatening his vassals, and protecting his rebels ; and, by the name of rebels, each understood the fugitive princes whose kingdoms he had usurped, and whose life and liberty he implacably pursued. Jpie resemblance of character was still more dangerous than the opposition of interest ; and, in their vic- torious career, Timour was impatient of an equal, and Bajazet was ignorant of a superior." A hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces was carried on for two years before the final explosion. Satisfied, in his first expedition, with the siege and destruction of Sebaste, Timour postponed his invasion of Anatolia, to attempt the reduction of Syria and Egypt. Aleppo and Damascus were sacked and reduced to ashes by this ruthless sectary of Ali, who is stated to have erected a pyramid of 90,000 heads on the ruins of Bagdadt ; but the armies of Egypt barred his further progress in that direction. On his return, he collected all his force for the long-meditated expedition against his rival. At length, resolved to strike the blow in the heart of the Ottoman kingdom, he moved his army from the Araxes through Armenia and Pontus, and dexterously avoiding the camp of Bajazet, which had been established near Sebaste, traversed the salt desert and the river Halys, and invested Angora. The plains around that city were the scene of the memorable battle which led to the captivity of Ba- jazet, and placed his kingdom at the mercy and dis- posal of the Mogul conqueror. In that day, the greater part of the Ottoman troops, formed of Anatolian levies, loyal in their desertion, revolted from Bajazet 22 TURKEV. at the decisive moment, and revenged their ancient emirs. Timour planted his standard at Kutaya. Bonrsa, Nice, and Smyrna fell successively into his hands ; and the humbled and captive Ilderim escaped being led in triumph to Samarcand, by a death which is variously attributed to the severities he suffered, or to apoplexy.* The sons of Bajazet and the Seljukian emirs were re-instated in their hereditary dominions, and the Ottoman empire in Asia, under its ancient name of Roum, was numbered among the twenty- seven kingdoms which acknowledged the sovereignty of the mighty Tamerlane. Soliman, however, the eldest son of Bajazet, having escaped from the field of battle into Europe, was enabled to preserve the Otto- man name from the ignominy of total submission, while he soothed the pride of the conqueror by tri- butary gifts, and accepted the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which lie already held by the sword. The Greek Emperor, too, though he with- held the transports which Timour demanded under pretence of attacking his enemy,-)- submitted to pay the * The Persian historians represent, that Timour treated his captive with the utmost respect and kindness, and that he expired of apoplexy at Akshehr (Antioch of Pisidia), about nine months after his defeat. His harsh and ignominious confinement in an iron ot#p is considered by Gibbon as credibly attested by a chain of witnesses. t " From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour. The Christian kingdoms of the West already trem- bled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable, though narrow sea rolled between the two conti- nents of Europe and Asia ; and the lord of so many myriads of horse was not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great occasion, they forgot the difference of religion, to act with union and firmness in the common cause."— Gibbon. ^H t§I§W&>&£- TURKEY". 23 same tribute that lie had stipulated with the Turkish Sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance. On the throne of Samarcand, the King of the World gave audience to the ambassadors of Egypt, Arabia, India, Tatary, Russia, Spain, and France ; * and in his seventieth year, he was invading the empire of China, and had proceeded three hundred miles from his capital, when a fever arrested him in his career, and terminated his triumphs and his crimes. -j- The death of Tamerlane, the division of his empire among his sons, their discord, and the ambition of his great captains, relieved the Turkish provinces from the Mogul yoke. Eleven years, however, elapsed in the mutual endeavours of the sons of Bajazet to supplant each other, before Mohammed, who had been entrusted with the government of Amasia, effected his final triumph, and assumed the title of sultan. Soliman, after a reign of nearly eight years at Adrian- ople, having made himself odious by his vices, and especially by his scandalous habit of inebriation, was • Henry III. of Castile sent two embassies to the court of Samar- cand, of which a curious relation is to be found in Mariana ; and there appears to have been at least some correspondence between Charles VII. of France and Tamerlane. t '■' A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokli his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a cen- tury, Transoxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the North, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not (led before the Uzbek arms to the con- quest of Hindostan. His successors (the great Moguls) extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurung- zebe, their empire has been dissolved ; their treasures of Delhi have been rilled by a Persian robber ; and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote bland in the Northern Ocean."i— Gibbon, 24 TURKEY. assassinated by order of his brother Mousa. The fra- tricide, as •well as his brother Isa, who for some time reigned over a district in tin; neighbourhood of An- gora, fell a victim to the jealous policy of the sovereign of Amasia, who stood forward as the heir and avenger of the unfortunate Soliman. At his death in 1421, Mahommed I. bequeathed an undivided empire to his successor. Murad (or Amurath) II., at the com- mencement of his reign, was reduced to the greatest difficulties by the victorious progress of a competitor, supported by the Wallachiau princes and the Greek Emperor, who assumed the name and character of Mustafa, the eldest son of Bajazet. At Adrianople, he was recognised as the heir of the Ottoman empire ; but " his flight, his fetters, and an ignominious gib- bet, delivered the impostor to popular contempt."* The galleys of the Genoese transported the Ottoman Sultan from Asia to Europe, and Italian mercenaries assisted him in the conquest of Adrianople, by which Romania and Anatolia were again united under one sceptre. Servia, Macedonia, Thessaly, Albania, and the whole of Greece to the north of the Isthmus, were reduced to subjection during this reign; and the battle of Varna, in which Ladislaus, King of Hungary, lost his life, and 10,000 Christians were slain, defeated the last combined eiFort of the Christians to check the fatal progress of the Turkish power, -f * Whether this Perkin Warbeck of the Turkish history was the true Mustafa, or an impostor, is considered by Gibbon as, after all, doubtful. The death of the real prince was never ascertained. A similar character and claim were asserted by several rival pre- tenders; and no fewer than thirty persons arc said to have suffered under the name of Mustafa. t The most striking feature in the life and character of Amurath II. is his double abdication of the Ottoman throne. Voltaire pane- gyrises le philvs-ophe Tun; who at the age of forty could discern the I^^^^^^H $m .' M&* H^ft**'* ■ &(M?&&iD& 1 I TURKEY. 25 The " just," the " magnanimous " Amurath was succeeded in 1451 by the Conqueror of Constantinople, the accomplished and execrable Mohammed II. For the details of this memorable siege, we must refer to the pages of Gibbon. On the Cth of April, 1453, the impel rial standard of the besiegers was planted before the gate of St. Romanus ; and after a siege of fifty -t^ce days, " that Constantinople which had defied the power of Chosroes, the Chagan, and the khalifs, was irre- trievably subdued by the arms of Mohammed the Second. Her empire only had been subverted by the Ivatins : her religion was trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors." " From the first hour of the memorable 29th of May, disorder and rapine prevailed in Constantinople, vanity of human greatness. " Would he," asks Gibbon, " have bestowed the same praise on a Christian prince for retiring to a monastery ?" " Resigning the sceptre to his son, lie retired to Jhe pleasant residence of Magnesia; but he retired to the society of saints and hermits. The lord of nations submitted to fast, and pray, and turn round In endless rotation with the fanatics who mistook the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the spirit. But he was soon awakened from this dream of enthusiasm by the Hungarian invasion ; and his obedient son was the foremost to urge the public danger and the wishes of the people. Under the banner of their veteran leader, the Janizaries fought and con- quered; but he withdrew from the field of Varna, again to pray, to fast, and to turn round with his Magnesian brethren. These pious occupations were again interrupted by the danger of the state Age or disease, misfortune or caprice, have tempted several princes to descend from the throne; and they have had leisure to repent of their irretrievable step. But Amurath alone, in the full liberty of choice, after the trial of empire and solitude, has repeated his preference of a private life." The annals of the Spanish monarchy present the nearest parallel. Bamiro, the bro- ther of the warlike Alfonso I., was summoned from a monastery to succeed him on the throne; but when his daughter was two years of age, he abdicated the crown, and again buried himself in a monaster y. PART I. D 26 TURKEY. till the eighth hour of the same clay, when the Sultan himself passed in triumph through the gate of St. Romanus. He was attended by his vizirs, bashaws, and guards, each of whom (says a Byzantine historian) was robust as Hercules, dexterous as Apollo, and equal in battle to any ten of the race of ordinary mortals. The conqueror gazed with satisfaction and wonder on the strange though splendid appearance of the domes and palaces, so dissimilar from the style of Oriental architecture. In the hippodrome, or atmeidan, his eye was attracted by the twisted column of the three serpents ; and, as a trial of his strength, he shattered with his iron mace or battle-axe the under-jaw of one of these monsters, which, in the eyes of the Turks, were the idols or talismans of the city. At the prin- cipal door of St. Sop! >!;;, be alighted from his borse, and entered the dome ; and such was his jealous re- gard for that monument of his glory, that, on observ- ing a zealous Mussulman in the act of breaking the marble pavement, he admonished him with his scy- metar, that, if the spoil and captives were granted to the soldiers, the public and private buildings had been reserved for the prince. By his command, the metro- polis of the Eastern Church was transformed into a mosch : the rich and portable instruments of supersti- tion had been removed, the crosses were thrown down, and the walls, which were covered with images and mosaics, were washed and purified, and restored to a state of naked simplicity. On the same day, or on the ensuing Friday, the muezin, or crier, ascended the most lofty turret, and proclaimed the ezan, or public invitation, in the name of God and his prophet ; the iman preached ; and Mahomet the Second per- formed the uamaz of prayer and thanksgiving on the great altar, where the Christian mysteries had so Hi wM TURKEY. 27 lately been celebrated before the last of the Csesars. From St. Sophia, he proceeded to the august but desolate mansion of a hundred successors of the great Constantine, but which in a few hours had been stripped of the pomp of royalty. A melancholy re- flection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind, and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry : ' The spider has wove his web in the imperial palace; and the owl hath sung her watch- song on the towers of Afrasiab.' Yet, his mind was not satisiied, nor did the victory seem complete, till he was informed of the fate of Constantine, whether he had escaped, or been made prisoner, or had fallen in battle. Two Janizaries claimed the honour and reward of his death. The body, under a heap of slain, was discovered by the golden eagles embroidered on his shoes. The Greeks acknowledged with tears the head of their late emperor ; and, after exposing the bloody trophy, Mahomet bestowed on his rival the honours of a decent funeral." The (inal subversion of the Byzantine empire was immediately followed by the subjugation of the prin- cipalities of the Morea, and the resignation of the sovereignty of Trebisond by David Comnenes into the hands of the same haughty conqueror. Mohammed II. united under his sceptre all the provinces in Europe which had formerly belonged to the eastern division of the Roman Empire,* and the whole of Asia on this side of Mount Taurus. He expelled the Genoese colony from Kami, in the Crimea, and the Tatar Khan submitted to receive from the Ottoman Sultan * In his reign, the famous Scanderbeg, the Prince of Albania, who for twenty-three years resisted the power and defied the ven- geance of the Ottoman empire, was finally compelled to seek refuge in the Venetian territory, where he died a fugitive. D2 28 TURKEY. the investiture of his dominions in that peninsula. Not satisfied with these conquests, his generals had commenced the invasion of Italy by the siege and sack of Otranto, and Pope Sixtus was preparing to flee beyond the Alps, when, in 1481, the danger was dispelled by the death of the Sultan in the fifty-first year of his age. Bajazet II. succeeded his father ; but his preten- sions to the throne were disputed by his brother, who held the government of Magnesia, at the head of a powerful army. Bajazet, however, was supported by the Janizaries, who now began to exert that political influence which has subsequently proved so dangerous to the throne. His competitor was defeated by the grand-vizir Ahmed ; and after vainly seeking to engage the Sultan of Egypt in his cause, was ulti- mately compelled to seek refuge in the states of Christendom, where Bajazet found means to have him assassinated.* This monarch wrested from the Vene- * In Mr. Thornton's sketch of the Turkish history, the unfor- tunate son of Bajazet is stated to have been named Djem, and to have founded his title to the succession on the circumstance of his having been born the son of a sultan ; whereas the birlh of Bajazet had preceded the elevation of his father to the imperial dignity. After his defeat and flight, Djem is represented as having "resided at Rome in safe but honourable custody, until the French King Charles VIII., having seized upon the kingdom of Naples, and extended his schemes of conquest to Greece and European Turkey, claimed possession of his person, and removed him to Naples, where he was soon after murdered by an emissary of the Sultan. Such," it is added, " is the relation of the Turkish historians." The writer in the Ency. Britan., who appears to have followed Mignot, states, that Bajazet was the second son of Mohammed II., and that he was preferred by the Janizaries to his elder brother, Zizan, who fled for protection to Pope Alexander VI., by whom he is said to have been poisoned, at the instigation of Bajazet, and for the reward of 300,000 ducats." Such are the uncertainties and discre- pancies even in modern history ! IfP^M p!S^$| TURKEY. 29 tians some important maritime towns on the coasts of Albania and the Morea ; he restrained the piracies of the Moldavians on the Black Sea, by the capture of the strong fortresses of Kilia on the Danube and Akkierman on the Dniester ; and he annexed to the Ottoman empire, the Cilician pashaliks of Tarsus and Adana. After a reign of one-and-thirty years, having intimated his wish to abdicate in favour of his son Ahmed, he was compelled by the Janizaries to descend from the throne ; but they conferred the sovereignty on his youngest son, Selim, who had already given proof of bis turbulent ambition, by taking up arms against his father and sovereign. Selim I., surnamed Yavtiz, the Cruel, commenced his reign by the murder of all his brothers. His first military expedition was against Shah Ismail, the founder of the Sefi dynasty, who, having conquered the Usbeg tribes, had made himself Lord of Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, and the Greater Armenia. Selim forced a passage over the lofty range of Taurus, encountered the perils of the desert, and having obtained a decisive victory over the Persians in the plain of Chalderan, marched against Tauris, which immediately opened its gates to the conqueror. Dis- ease, however, had begun to thin the ranks of his troops ; and he led back his army to Amasia, loaded with booty, but much diminished in numbers. The Kourds and other mountaineers harassed their re- treat ; and Selim gratified at once his resentment and his policy by subjugating Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Komdistan, from the Lake of Van to the confines of Syria. The state of things in Europe having assumed a threatening aspect, he then rapidly marched from Mount Taurus to the Danube, and by his appearance frustrated the intended confederate invasion of the d3 WMVQ 30 TURKEY. Ottoman territories. He next led a numerous army to Aleppo, with a view to execute the long-cherished object of the Ottoman ambition, that of annexing Syria and Egypt to their empire. The governors both of Aleppo and Damascus readily transferred their allegiance from the Lord of Cairo to the Sove- reign of Constantinople ; and the power of the Mam. looks was dissolved by the decisive battle of Meritz Dabik, in which the Egyptian Sultan was slain, with the flower of his army. The submission of Syria and Palestine and the conquest of Egypt immediately fol- lowed this victory. The Fatimite Shereef of Mekka acknowledged Selim as his sovereign ; and the con- queror led back with him to his capital the last khalif of the house of Abbas, by whose resignation he ob- tained for the princes of the Ottoman dynasty, the envied title which confers ecclesiastical supremacy and ihe powers of sovereign pontiff, exalting the possessor above all the rival monarehs of Islam.* This was the most important acquisition of his reign. The government of the Egyptian provinces was confided by Selim to a divan, or council of regency, and twenty- four Mamlouk beys ; but Syria and Palestine were divided into pashaliks, and became incorporated with the Ottoman empire. The Sultan was projecting new conquests when he died, in the ninth year of his reign ; agreeably, it is said, to the prediction of a holy man of Damascus, who foretold at the same time his victory * See Mod. Trav., Arabia, p. flfi. Thornton states, that " Mecca sent her keys to the conqueror;" but Mecca is an open city without walls : the keys of the temple were transmitted to Selim ; and at Constantinople, Mahommed XII., the last of the Abassides, for- mally renounced the khalifate. The ecclesiastical supremacy of the Chinese emperor in like manner dates from the removal of the visible head of the Buddhic faith from the banks of the Ganges to China.— See Mod. Trav., Birrnah, p. 106. H TURKEY. 31 and the lengthened reign of his son. It is possible, that the effect of the prediction on the superstitious mind of Selim might contribute to its fulfilment. The reign of Soliman I., who ascended the throne of his father under these favourable auspices, is regarded as the most brilliant in the Ottoman annals. The first event of consequence which distinguished it, was the siege and capture of Belgrade, which had successfully repelled the attacks of Mahommed the Great and his father, Amurath II. This important place, the bulwark of Hungary, and then regarded as the chief barrier of Christendom against the Turks, at the end of a month's siege, was surrendered by treachery. The conquest of Rhodes, after a furious and protracted siege, was the next splendid achieve- ment of the Ottomans, in alliance with the Christian lords of the Adriatic. Rhodes, in the hands of the Knights of St. John, who had held it for two hundred and twenty years, was acknowledged to be the main defence of Italy against the fleets and armies of the Turks ; yet it received no assistance from the Chris- tian princes in its last struggle. The civil and reli- gious dissensions which distracted Christendom, pre- cluded, indeed, any effectual co-operation on the part of any other state than that republic which was in league with the enemy. The Ottoman had now as- sumed the novel attitude of a maritime power ; and when Soliman, at the head of 200,000 men, advanced into Hungary, he was supported by a strong fleet of observation in the Mediterranean, while a large con- voy of transports were appointed to ascend the Danube with supplies for his army. In the field of Mohatz (A.D. 152(>), in which the Hungarian mo- narch was induced to attack an army eight times more 32 TURKEY. numerous than his own, Lewis was killed, with 20,000 Hungarians ; and the capital, the chief for- tresses, and the open country, surrendered to the conqueror. At the approach of winter, however, ac- cording to the usual practice of the Ottoman armies, Soliman led back his army, loaded with booty and en- cumbered with captives, leaving the impoverished and depopulated country to be contended for by the rival pretenders to the vacant throne. Johd de Zapoli, Count of Zips and Vaivode of Transylvania, having convoked an assembly of the States at Tokay, obtained for himself tbe election to the throne of Hungary. But a diet, assembled at Presburg, under the auspices of a more powerful party, reversed this election in favour of a foreign candidate, Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, and brother of the Emperor Charles V. The Hungarian Count, unable to contend with the armies of bis rival, fled to his brother-in-law, Sigismond, in Poland, whence he despatched an emissary to Soliman, the invader and enemy of his country, offering to hold the kingdom as a fief of the Ottoman empire. With the pretended object of supporting his claims, Soliman again entered Hungary in 1529, and marched to Buda without meeting resistance. The German garrison capitulated, but a pretence was found for putting them to the sword; the principal fortresses along the Danube were captured with equal facility, and Vienna was invested by the Asiatic barbarians. But the loss of his heavy artillery, which had been intercepted and sunk in the Danube by the garrison of Presburg, and the approach of the rainy season, together with the scientific and vigorous resistance of the governor and garrison, finally compelled him to raise the siege and draw off TURKEY, 33 his army. To assuage liis disappointment or to expe- dite his retreat, the Sultan issued a general order for the massacre of all his prisoners. Three years after, Soliman again invaded Hungary at the head of an immense army ; but this expedition proved an inglorious one. Causes which are not clearly ascertained occasioned him to retire, after wasting the open country of Styria and Carinthia, and spend- ing eight and twenty days in the fruitless siege of the insignificant and badly-fortified town of Guntz. Many thousands of the country-people were, however, led into captivity. The civil contest between the rival claimants of the throne of Hungary, each of whom appealed to the Turkish Emperor as his lord para- mount for protection and support, invited Soliman, in 1541, once more to march into that unhappy coun- try.* He entered Buda in triumph, and converting its churches into mosques, treacherously annexed the disputed kingdom, as a beylerjbeylik, to the Ottoman empire. The people were consoled by the enjoyment of repose, and the nobles were reconciled to the loss of national independence by the preservation of their religion, their privileges, and their possessions. The Archduke was ultimately glad to secure his hereditary dominions by a truce of five years, on the humiliating condition of a yearly tribute of 30,000 ducats. The conquest of the kingdom of Hungary, although the most important feature in the annals of this bril- liant reign, did not exclusively occupy the attention of the ambitious Soliman. He conducted an army in * John de Zapoli was now dead, but had left an infant son, who was acknowledged by the greater part of the Hungarian nobility; and his widow, who was appointed co-regent with the Bishop of Waradin, possessed ambition and spirit to support the rights of the infant monarch. 34 TURKEY. person into Persia, and prosecuted the war through several destructive and disastrous campaigns. Bag- dadt surrendered to the Ottoman Sultan in 1534, but not till after two campaigns, which are stated to have cost the Turks 200,000 men, on account of the peculiar hardships of Persian warfare, the insalubrity of the climate, and the scarcity of water, provisions, and forage. Van was besieged and taken in 1540, and Erivan, then the capital of the Persian monarchy, was .sacked and destroyed in 1553. By his victories and his perseverance, Soliman eventually succeeded in obtaining a considerable augmentation of territory beyond the Araxes and the Tigris, and in forcing the Georgian princes to surrender their strongest castles, and to acknowledge tbe sovereignty of the Porte. He owed the submission of Moldavia to the mere terror of his name, and the homage of Algiers to the renown of his power. His admiral, the celebrated Barbarossa, supported, in several well-contested naval combats, the reputation of the Ottoman fleet. He retook Castelnuovo, in Dalmatia, notwithstanding the despe- rate defence of the garrison, consisting of 4000 Spaniards ; he reduced Napoli di Romania and Mai. vasia, in the Morea ; and, by the conquest of these important places and of several islands in the Archi- pelago, so terrified the Venetians, who had been induced to join the maritime confederacy against the Porte, that they purchased a separate peace by the cession of Syra, Patmos, Paros, Mginn, Naxos, and several other islands. The Ottoman navy was now brought to equal, in number and in strength, those of the Spaniards and Italians ; and Barbarossa was esteemed, in courage and in experience, the rival of the celebrated Doria, their greatest admiral. In fact, Soliman the Magnificent held a. distinguished rank |^P^f#^S¥ TURKEY. 35 among the contemporary princes of the sixteenth century;* and during his reign, the political and mili- tary administration of the empire attained the greatest perfection of which they were susceptible. Learning and the arts were encouraged by his munificence, and his enlightened policy invited a commerce with the remotest nations of the west. In the estimation of his people, the splendour of his military achievements was surpassed by the wisdom of his legislation, which has obtained for him the surname of Canuni, or the Institutor of Rules. He caused a compilation to be made of all the maxims and regulations of his prede- cessors, and in his Canon JVamcIi, strictly defined the duties, powers, and privileges of all governors, com- manders, and public functionaries. Having divided his dominions into districts, he appointed the number of soldiers which each should furnish ; regulated, with a minute accuracy, everything relative to their discipline, equipment, and service ; prescribed the mode of collecting as well as of applying the revenue, and introduced order and economy into the financial administration. But the latter years of his reign were beclouded by a domestic tragedy of deepest horror. A Russian captive, named Roxalana, who had obtained so unbounded an influence over the doting monarch as to induce him to make her his empress, succeeded in instilling into the mind of Soliman a jealous fear and hatred of his son, Mustafa. By her artifice, Soliman was led to suppose that his own safety * Soliman began his reign a few months only after Charles V. was placed on the imperial throne of Germany; and this brilliant epoch in the Ottoman annals belongs to that interesting portion of the History of Europe which has been illustrated by Dr. Robertson and his authorities, to which the reader may be referred for further details respecting the affairs of Hungary and the Algerine war. 36 TURKEY. could be secured by no other method than tbe fatal order which is said to bave been executed in his own presence. The only son of Mustafa fell a victim to the same horrid policy, and no rival was left to dis- pute the throne with the son of Roxalana. Soliman was preparing an expedition to complete the conquest of Hungary, and Szigeth had already fallen, when he died on the 4th of September, 156(5, after a reign of forty-seven years, and was succeeded by his son, Selim II.* On the accession of the new Sultan, the Emperor Maximilian sent an ambassador with overtures of peace ; and an armistice for eight years was concluded, on the condition that both parties should retain the territories of which they were in actual possession. The protection afforded by the Venetians to the pirates of Istria, and the admission of the galleys of the Maltese into the harbours of Cyprus, were, however, made the pretence of dissolving the league which Soliman had made with the Republic. Cyprus soon yielded to the Ottomans, who, in all the Greek islands possessed by the Franks, were welcomed by the op- pressed natives and a host of insurgents as deliverers from a worse than Turkish yoke ; and they gratified the religious animosities of the Greeks by an indiscri- minate massacre of the Latin nobility and clergy. * See Robertson's Charles V., book xi. Mr. Eton tells us, that Chihangar, another son of .Soliman, killed himself in despair, and that a third son, Bajazet, was strangled, with five of his children. The same writer makes Amurath II. die of grief at his ill success against Scanderbeg, and Mahomet II. die of poison, after having put to death 800,000 Christians of both sexes; Bajazet II. he poisons also; Selim I., he tells us, died of a cancer in his reins ; and Soliman II. of a disease not less dreadful. As he gives no au- thorities, it is diflicult to ascertain to what extent the Turkish history is indebted to his embellishment. &MJ3M& !$&& iff *+*■'> TURKEY. 37 After the reduction of Cyprus, the Ottoman fleet scoured the Gulf of Venice, blocked up the ports, and threw the city itself into the utmost consternation. The naval battle of Lepanto, which took place some time afterwards, was very fatal to the Ottomans. The allies captured, burned, or sunk two hundred of their vessels ; and all Christendom rejoiced on the occasion, of the first signal defeat which had been sustained by the common enemy.* Yet, in the interval of a single winter, the Ottomans built and equipped a new fleet, which effaced the recollection of this disgrace by new triumphs. Tunis was recovered from the Spaniards ; and an insurrection of the Moldavians was quelled by the vigour which still characterised the councils and proceedings of the Ottoman power. After a reign of eight years, Selim was frightened to death by a fire which broke out in the offices of the Seraglio. The reign and character of his son and successor, Murad III., are not distinguished by any features of remarkable interest; and from this period, the Otto- man power began to decline. Being at peace with Christendom, the Sultan was left at liberty to direct his whole attention to the affairs of the East. The war with Persia was protracted through twelve campaigns ; and though it was not rendered memorable by any great event or decisive battle, it was fatal to the Ottomans, on account of the mortality occasioned by famine, disease, the temerity of their generals, and the peculiar nature of the warfare. The Persians, adhering to their plan of defensive war, deferred their chief attacks till the winter, when the main party of the Ottoman army was disbanded ; the dispersed gar- * Purchas states, that *' our gracious sovereign King James lias written a poem of this battle." It must have been a juvenile essay PART I. E 38 TURKEY. risons then became an easy prey, and they re-occupied the country which had been lost during the summer campaign. Both parties were at length exhausted by the long duration of these destructive hostilities, and the Sultan was glad to accede to the proposals of the Shah, who resigned to his dominion, the cities of Erivan, Tauris, and Ganja, together with the con- quered territory in Armenia, Georgia, and Shirvan. Although the Ottoman and Austrian monarchies were ostensibly at peace, the military commanders on the Hungarian and Croatian frontier encouraged or permitted incursions into the neighbouring territories for the purpose of plunder. In these savage inroads, castles were surprised, and villages were destroyed ; the cultivated country was spoiled of its cattle and produce, and the peasantry were driven into slavery. It was for the avowed purpose of punishing the injuries which his subjects had received from the Uscocks, (a band of adventurers who had obtained a settlement in Styria,) that the Pasha of Bosnia was directed, without any previous declaration of war, to invade Croatia with an army of 50,000 men. The Austrians at first obtained some advantages, and were besieging Gran, when they were completely routed by the Grand Vizir, who, in his turn, made himself master of Raab, one of the strongest fortresses of Lower Hungary. The Sultan was preparing to take the field in person, when his life was terminated by a fever.* The Hungarian • Murad III. appears to have been a feeble-minded monarch, avaricious, and the slave of a gloomy superstition. It is said that he was so intimidated by the frequent seditions of the Janizaries, that, for two years, he durst not go out of the seraglio. The Turkish writers pass over his character in silence. On his accession, he caused five of his brethren to be strangled; and his nineteen sons, with ten of his wives, were put to death by his eldest son and successor, Mahommed IIL, who is said to have caused his own sou TURKEY. 39 war was prosecuted throughout the reign of his suc- cessor, Mahommed III., which extended from 1595 to 1G03; but almost every subsequent campaign tended to weaken the opinion which had been entertained, that the Ottoman armies were invincible. Both the belligerent parties were at length disposed, by the exhausted state of their finances and intestine troubles, to treat for peace. The Sultan died while the nego- tiation was pending, but it was eventually concluded with his successor, Ahmed I., whose inglorious reign of fourteen years is a blank in the Ottoman annals. In 1617, Mustafa I., the brother of Ahmed, was de- clared the rightful successor to the throne ; but, after a reign of four months, he was deposed by the army, having rendered himself at once contemptible and odious by his incapacity and cruelty. Osman, the s4:t; the charter was renewed at the Restoration, and again in 1753. Wortley Mon- tagu was appointed ambassador to the l'orte in 1710'. t Improperly written Sophy. Malunoud, the Afghan, usurped the regal power in 17^', and was succeeded by his son Ashroof, in 1726. Hi 40 TURKEY. succour from the Russians and the Turks. The French ambassador is stated to have had address enough to prevail upon the cabinets of Constantinople and St. Petersburgh to concur in a treaty for the partition of Persia, by which the house of Sen was to have been re-established in its sovereignty over a por- tion of the divided empire. But, as the Afghans were Sunnites or orthodox Moslems, like the Ottomans, the soldiery were averse to the war ; and Ahmed consented to make peace with Ashroof, the son of the usurper Mahmoud, on the condition that he would acknowledge the imameth or ecclesiastical supremacy of the Sultan. Persia was rescued from both the Afghans and the Ottomans by a Turkman shepherd, named Nadir, whose brilliant exploits procured for him the title of Kouli Khan, and who, in IT-!-, re- stored the Sen dynasty in the person of Shah Tamasp. On the refusal of the Porte to cede the conquered pro- vinces, Nadir began the war anew, by expelling the Ottoman forces from Tauris and the province of Azer- bijan. A revolt at home was the consequence, as in former instances, of this fresh disgrace of the armv ; and Ahmed was deposed in 1730, while collecting an army to oppose the progress of the Persians. His nephew, Sultan Mahmoud, made peace with Shah Tamasp ; but the Persian general disavowed the treaty, which abandoned Armenia and Georgia to the Porte. Having deposed his master, he prosecuted the war with so much vigour, that, of all the conquests made by the former sultans, he left their degenerate suc- cessor only the city and territory of Bagdadt.* A peace with Persia had become the more necessary in consequence of the menacing attitude of Russia. * Kouli Khan usurped the throne in 1736, and assumed the name of Nadir Shah. TURKEY. 49 The declaration of war by the Czarina was followed by the siege and capture of Azof, and the invasion of the Crimea by a powerful Russian army. The Porte in vain endeavoured to avert the war by soliciting the mediation of the cabinet of Vienna. After affecting to yield to its solicitations, the Emperor joined his troops to those of the Czarina. Owing, however, to the feebleness and corruption which now pervaded the councils and administration of the imperial govern- ment, this perfidious policy terminated only in dis- grace. The Ottomans, notwithstanding a defeat which they suffered at the commencement of the second campaign, took. Orsova, and drove the Imperialists before them beyond Belgrade, which they invested and besieged in form. The surrender of this fortress to the Ottomans formed one of the conditions pro- posed by the Austrians as the basis of a treaty of peace, which restored to the Porte the whole of Servia, as well as that part of Wallachia which borders on the bannat of Temeswar. The Czarina also was com- pelled to concur in the treaty of Belgrade, and con- sented to restore Oczakof, to abandon Azof, and to relinquish the navigation of the Black Sea. This treaty was concluded in the year 173!). The reign of Sultan Mahmoud extends over nearly the quarter of a century ; and, what must now be re- garded as an extraordinary circumstance in the Turk- ish annals, it appears to have been terminated, in 1754, by his natural decease. His brother, Osman III., was then elevated from his state prison to the throne ; but he survived his elevation only three years, and was succeeded, in 17&7, by Mustafa III. The encroachments of the Empress Catherine in Poland were the occasion of the war between Russia and the Porte, which broke out in 1709, and lasted FART 1. F 50 TURKEY. till 1774, when the successes of the Russians compelled the Sultan Abdulhamid, who had succeeded to his brother, to conclude a dishonourable peace by signing the treaty of Kainargik. By this treaty, the princi- palities of Wallachia and Moldavia were restored to the Ottomans, while the Crimea was declared inde- pendent; but its nominal independence was subse- quently annulled by a mere manifesto of the Empress, who annexed it to her own dominions. The plan for the conquest and seizure of the whole of the Ottoman dominions in Europe, is believed to have been arranged in the personal interviews of the Emperor Joseph and Catherine II., during their journey to the Crimea ; and the Porte only anticipated their hostile intentions by a precipitate declaration of war in August 17*37-"" During four campaigns, it was able to support the unequal contest with both empires ; but the efforts of the Ottomans seemed nearly exhausted, when the Emperor was compelled, by the intervention of Eng- land, Holland, and Prussia, to enter into an armistice, and eventually to conclude a separate treaty of peace on the basis of the status quo ante bellum.f The Empress persevered in hostilities, but at length, to secure the final partition of Poland, she concluded with the Porte a definitive treaty of peace at Yassy, by which she added to her dominions only the steppe between the Bogh and the Dniester. In the meantime, Selim III. had, in 1789, acceded to the throne as the eldest surviving male heir,t to • See Mod. Trav., Greece, vol. i. p. 71, at seq. + The treaty of llcichcnbach was concluded in Aug. 1700. % Mr. Thornton states, that the hereditary succession is not in a right line, from father to son, but devolves of right to the eldest surviving male of the imperial family ; " a law intended to guard against the inconveniences of a minor's reign ;" but the right of seniority has not always been respected. The empire «« never falls to the spindle." ■ ■ TURKEY. 51 the exclusion of his cousins, the sons of Abdulhamid. The leading events of his reign have already been detailed in the history of the Greek Revolution. Alternately at war with Great Britain and France, as either interest prevailed at Constantinople, the Porte acquired little or no advantage from the contest to which it was reluctantly made a party. It appears to have been the wish of the Ottoman Government, to keep aloof from the storm produced by the French Revolution ; and the invasion of Egypt by the French first compelled a departure from the system of neutrality which it was anxious to maintain. The capital trembled at the Syrian victories of Bona- parte ; and at the moment of indecision, when it was yet a question in the divan, whether war should be declared against France, the discontents of the people were expressed by repeated conflagrations, and Selim tottered on his throne. The passage of a Russian squadron from the Black Sea through the Straits, and the anchorage of a Christian fleet under the walls of the Seraglio, excited not less horror and consternation than the loss of Egypt ; and the Sultan was endan- gered alike by his allies and his enemies. The exploits of Nelson and Abercromby recovered the Ottomans from the despondency produced by the defeats of Gaza, Jaffa, and Akka, of Aboukir and Heliopolis ; but the triumphant return of their Christian allies from Corfu, and the second display of the Russian standard under the walls of the capital, renewed their jealousies and discords, which burst forth in fresh assassinations and disturbances. The popularity of the Sultan was still further dimin- ished by the public punishment of the delinquents. * * It is certain, Mr. Hobhouse states, that when the two Greeks supposed to have been concerned in shooting the Russian f3 52 TURKEY. The death of the Emperor Paul and the subsequent general peace, quieted the apprehensions which had been entertained of foreign enemies ; but the recom- mencement of hostilities renewed the distresses of the empire. The intrigues which had disturbed the civil- ised courts of the continent were now transferred to the palace of the Reis Effendi. Russia and England united their strength against France in the divan ; and " the Sultan," says Mr. Hobhouse, " was the sad spectator of a contest of which he was himself the un- willing umpire, the ostensible object, and the proposed prey. The victory of either party alike menaced him with ruin: he had to choose between the armies of France and the fleets of England. Never was sove- reign so situated between two negotiators, one armed with the power of the land, the other with that of the sea ; both, to all appearance, able to destroy, but neither capable of protecting him against his antagonist. The precipitate flight of the British ambassador had scarcely relieved him from the embarrassment of making a selection between the menacing parties, when his capital was alarmed, for the first time, by the presence of a hostile force, * and the last of cala- mities seemed reserved for the reign of Selim. The good fortune which interposed to save the seat of em- pire, was not extended to the sovereign ; and the evils which were inevitable from the triumph of either party, gathered fast around him from the day that saw officers at Galata, were hanged, their bodies were taken from the gallows, and followed to the grave by a large body of Mussulmans, and even some chianses attached to the arsenal; " an unheard of honour, when paid to the corpse of an infidel, a dog, a giaour." * For the particulars of the expedition to the Dardanelles, the reader may be referred to a very clear and satisfactory account in Mr. Ilobhouse's Letters on Albania, vol. ii. pp. 1111. et seq. TURKFA' 53 the citv of the Faithful delivered from the insults of a Christian flag." The war which broke out in 1811, between Russia and the Porte, was short but most disastrous. In December of that year, after losing several battles, the main body of the Ottoman army surrendered as prisoners of war, and the Russians continued to ad- vance, almost without opposition, along the western shores of the Black Sea. But, in 1812, the invasion of Russia by the French saved the Ottoman empire from the danger which threatened to overwhelm it, and peace was obtained by the sacrifice of Bessarabia and part of Moldavia. Since that period, the Greek insurrection has employed the chief attention, while it has disclosed the weakness of the Government, and its security has been chiefly owing to the policy and mutual rivalry of the Christian powers. Before these events occurred, two successive Sultans had ceased to reign. The year 1807 had witnessed another of those sanguinary insurrections which have repeatedly been excited by national disaster. The re- mote cause of this formidable revolt, was an attempt on the part of Sultan Selim, acting under French in- fluence, to introduce such reforms into the military and naval establishments, as should place them more on a par with the improved system of European tactics. For an account of the circumstances which attended, as well as those which led to this revolution, we shall avail ourselves of the interesting narrative furnished by Mr. Hobhouse, in the fifty-first letter of his " Jour- ney through Albania," &c. Sultan Selim had evinced, at an early period of his reign, a determination to attempt some changes in the organization of the military force, and in the internal administration of the government. The great council f3 54 TURKEY. of state was more frequently assembled than in former reigns, and thereby diminished the labours as well as importance of the Grand Vizir. Yussuf Aga, the in- tendant of the Valide, and Hussein, the Capitan Pa- sha, possessed the confidence and wielded the power of the Sultan; but the chief originator of the plans of reform was Mahmoud Rayf Effendi, who, after having passed through various subordinate offices, and visited the courts of Vienna, Paris, and London, was raised to the post of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and, as reis. effendi, was entrusted with the execution of those projects of which he had been the most strenuous adviser. The Sultan is stated to have received himself the suggestions of the French and other Frank residents, and bis ministers availed them- selves of their skill and personal advice. "■ The new regulations of the Ottoman empire bear the date of 1796. The levy of twelve thousand men, who were to be disciplined according to the principles of European tactics, and armed in every respect like the soldier of France or England, although inserted at the end of Mahmoud's treatise, was the chief arrangement. The new troops were to wear a uni- form, and they were to be taught the manual exercise, of which the regulations contain a minute detail, and a representation in one large plate. In order to detach them as much as possible from the Janissaries, it was resolved they should belong nominally to the corps of Bostandges, whose red bonnet they were to wear when at home, althoxigh they were to change it for a lighter cap of the same make and shape upon actual service. " For these Bostandge fusileers {Bostany Tufenk- tchissy), as they were called, were erected handsome barracks in the middle of a down three miles to the TURKEY. 55 north-east of Pera, capable of containing fifteen thou- sand soldiers. Levend Tchiftlik was supplied with an exercising-ground, shaded on every side with avenues of limes, a marble kiosk for the reception of the Sultan, a mosck with baths, fountains, and reservoirs, a spa- cious saloon or refectory, a powder-magazine, and rows of shops for armourers and sutlers. " For the same purpose, barracks were constructed also at Scutari for thirty thousand men, with a railed enclosure for the exercise of the soldiers, and all other conveniences similar to those of Levend Tchiftlik. Near these barracks, Selim built a mosck, and a range of wide, regular streets for the cotton and silk manu- facturers. " The inspector of the new troops was one of the principal men of the empire : their commander was a oapidye-bashe, assisted by an intendant, two commis- saries, and two clerks. Each regiment, commanded by a bin-bashe, consisted of one thousand and eighty privates, divided into twelve companies ; and to these were attached ninety-six topges (or cannoniers), sixty arabdyes (or carmen), twenty-four sakas (or water- carriers), and seventy-two attendants, called vara, collotitches, with their proper officers. Each company had a field-piece, and was commanded by a captain, two lieutenants, an ensign, a tchaouchi (or Serjeant) and ten corporals. " That the military bodies attached to the regular troops might be effective, a reform was introduced into all their departments. The topges were improved in every respect : their old barracks were demolished, and new ones were built on a regular and better plan. Large quarters were assigned to them for their daily exercise. The topge-bashe, or commander of the corps, was regularly^ paid, and received the honours 56 TURKEY. of the tail t a nazir (or intendant), and a kialib (or commissary), were added to their establishment. New regiments were raised, with proper officers and fusileers; and the uniforms of the officers and men were furnished by Government, and were differ- ent from each othen A commandant, an assistant, eight cannoniers, and ten fusileers, belonged to each cannon. In firing, the captain of the gun stood with four topges on the right, the lieutenant with four on the left, and five fusileers were placed on either side of the cannon. Every day, excepting Tuesdays and Wednesdays, they were exercised by five regiments at a time ; and the artillery was practised with shot in the Valley of Sweet Waters. The exercise with the unloaded cannon took place on each holiday in the barracks. Surgeons were added to the corps. The guns themselves, of every class, were improved and cast on a new model. They were allotted separately by distinguishing marks to their different regiments ; and the whole service was so contrived, that three days were sufficient to prepare any portion of the artillery for immediate activity. " The arabdges, or troops of the waggon-train, were also reformed. The bashe was allowed a regular salary, and the same distinction as the commander of the top- ges ; whilst new regiments of men and officers, paid and clothed by the Government, were enrolled in the former corps, and attached to the cannoniers, with whom they always exercised. To every gun-carriage were assigned one officer and five privates; and to every tumbril the same number. Barracks were built for them near those of the to])ge.i, with shops and Stables, the repairs of which were superintended by the principal officers in quarters. They had a body of carpenters, smiths, saddlers, and farriers, besides a ' K^ TURKEY. 57 mounted corps, with a commandant and subalterns, for dragging the cannons, which were under the same regulation as the arabdges, and were taught to act on foot with the cannoniers. The tumbril followed the gun, with five privates and an officer, who learned to halt at a word. On the march, provisions were regu- lated by a commissary. " An important officer of state was named (not by rotation as before, but for a permanency) inspector of the powder-magazines. Formerly, not half of the three thousand quintals of powder, which should have been furnished by the three manufactories of Constantinople, Gallipoli, and Salonica, were supplied by those esta- blishments ; and the quality had been daily deteriorating in such a proportion, that it was unfit for any pur- pose but saluting; so that, although Turkey produces saltpetre in abundance, the powder used for service was purchased from the Franks at sixty and seventy piasters the quintal. The price of this article was therefore doubled, and expert artisans were hired for the construction of mills, as well as for the service of the manufactories. The magazines of Constantinople were repaired and augmented, and a large similar construction was built at Kutchuk-Chemedge, near the capital. The salaries of the workmen were tri- pled, and foreigners were paid from five hundred to a thousand piasters a month ; and that the necessities of the state might not impoverish the subject, wood and all other articles were bought at the current price. Ten thousand quintals of powder, eight times stronger than that of the ancient manufacture, were soon fur- nished by the new mills ; and if this quantity had not been sufficient, the supply might have been increased to thirty or forty thousand quintals. " The bombadiers, anciently furnished from the 58 TURKEY. Ziameths and Timars, or military fiefs, underwent a total change by the new regulations. They were all to have a fixed pay. A noble barrack, containing a refectory, a mathematical school, a foundery, workshops, magazines, and a mosck, was built for them at the lower end of the harbour below the arsenal. An in- spector, taken from the great officers of state, and the reis-effendi, were charged with their superintendence ; and they were under the orders of a commandant, an intendant, and a commissary. Ten bombadiers, five ca- dets, and one lieutenant, were allotted to each mortar : five mortars made a company, and were under the command of a lieutenant-in-chief: fifteen mortars composed a brigade, and the brigades were known by separate marks. The lieutenants and cadets wore uni- forms different from those of the men, and the whole corps was to be distinguished from the miners by a red riband in the turban. They were ordered to exer- cise every day during summer at the barracks, and to study at the mathematical school ; and finally, the commissary of the body was obliged to read aloud all the regulations, botli old and new, at the barracks every month. "■ The miners, a corps much neglected, were in- creased, and attached by the new constitution to the bombadiers, in whose barracks they occupied two sets of quarters. They were divided into two classes ; one of which studied the art of mining, whilst the others ap- plied themselves toevery branch of military architecture, and might more properly have been called engineers. They were governed by a bashe and an intendant ; and were instructed by the professors and assistants of the mathematical school, who were directed to write instructive treatises. The miners furnished by the old system, that is, those who were possessed of TU1UCEY. 59 military fiefs, and the cadets raised by the new con- stitution, employed themselves daily (excepting on Tuesdays and Fridays) in drawing plans and designing odels in wood and plaster, the most ingenious and best constructed of which were presented to the Grand Vizir. In summer, they were exercised in exploding real mines, and in laying out entrenchments and camps. Once in every six weeks, they underwent a general examination, of which an exact report was presented to the Grand Vizir ; and each month, the secretary recited the regulations in presence of the students, subjoining an exhortation to strict duty and good conduct. " The marine was put under the superintendence of a ministry, formed on the plan of European admi- ralties ; and the official details, which had been for- merly entrusted to the capudan-pasha alone, were conducted by the Ters-hane emini and his assistant officers. The command of vessels had usually been set up to sale; but Hussein-Pasha undertook the ex- amination of the candidates. Retaining such only as were fit for the service, he placed the unemployed on a list, to be elected in rotation to the vacant ships, and to attend in the mean time to the fleet in harbour. The pay of the captains was increased, and the invalids were allowed a permanent provision. None of them were either degraded or punished without being found guilty of a capital crime. The officers of each ship were ordered to be in active employ during summer and winter, and their pay to be according to their rank, their rank according to their merit. A captain of the port was chosen from the active commanders ; and it was required of him that he should be thoroughly acquainted with the regulations of the admiralty, and know how to write and read. The same officer was, GO TURKEY. together with the captain, furnished with an account of the ammunition, stores, and the whole outfit of each man-of-war. He was assisted by an iiitendant in vic- tualling and refitting the fleet ; and all embezzlement was punished with adequate severity. For the same end, the sails, cables, and every article of each vessel, were distinguished by a particular mark. The stores were no longer bought at a fixed low price, but accord- ing to their current value, by the iiitendant, whose purchases and accounts were inspected by the captain of the port and the commissioners of the admiralty. Five hundred carpenters, one hundred and fifty borers, and forty apprentices, retained at the former salary of twelve paras a day, and paid monthly, were raised and attached to the fleet. ; and a certain portion of them were distributed into the ships during the sum- mer cruise, whilst the remainder were reviewed daily, and exercised at the arsenal. To these were added, two hundred Egyptian calkers, fed and clothed at the expense of the State, and lodged in barracks behind the admiralty. The ships were formed on a plan en tirely new, and so strongly as to keep the sea four years without material repair : they were coppered ; and the powder barrels were also changed for large copper canisters. Instead of the thirty or forty fires which were formerly seen in a ship of the line, one large furnace was provided for cooking the provisions of the crew, who were no longer served with six months' provisions individually, and allowed their Maltese slaves for attendants, but received a breakfast of olive salad, and a ration of pilaf on Fridays and Mondays, and of soups on other days, from the ship's store. " Dry docks, calking basins, a harbour for fifty new gun-boats, and all the necessary appurtenances of TURKEY. Gl a great arsenal, were built at the edge of the water at Ters-IIane ; and designs for similar contrivances were to be applied to the other principal harbours of the em- pire. A line-of-battle ship of three decks, a frigate, a corvette, and a brig, all copper-bottomed, were launch- ed in one day during the year 1797i from the docks of Ters-Hane. It was provided, that two ships should perform their manoeuvres once a year, in front of lieshik-Tash, or Ain-Alay-Kavak, in presence of the Sultan, who was to distribute rewards to the most expert of the officers and the crew ; and it was also enjoined that the grandees of the court engaged in commerce, should purchase foreign-built merchant- men capable of standing the sea at all seasons of the year, and accordingly of instructing the Turkish sailors in the more difficult branches of practical navigation. An academy was built at the arsenal for the education of cadets, who were furnished with competent pro- fessors, and were divided into two classes, the one be- ing instructed in naval architecture, and the other in navigation. This, and every other department of the marine, were confided to the superintendence of Messrs. Rhodes and Benoit. M In addition to these institutions for the formation of the new troops and their attached corps, and the improvement of the Ottoman navies, a general regu- lation provided, that the Janissaries, amounting, it was supposed, to 400,000 men, should be exercised in the use of the musket, with their sakas and other as- sistants, by four regiments at a time, twice in every week, from the 4th of May to the 6th of November, and as often in winter as the weather would permit. Once a year, they were to march either to the downs of Daout- Pasha, three miles from the capital, or to the Valley of Sweet Waters, to. be reviewed by the Sultan TAUT I. a ■■^■swww 62 TURKEY'. in person. The geleges, a sort of veteran battalion for the guard of the depots, being more in number than sufficient for that purpose, were to be exercised and reviewed with the Janissaries. Lastly, for victualling the armies, magazines were constructed on the Da- nube, and at other points near the scat of war ; and a sum of 12,500,000 piasters was appropriated for pur- chasing grain at the current price, and not at that fixed by the laws of the Miri, or Imperial Treasury, for the supply of the capital. The office of this de- partment was built of stone in the first court of _ the Seraglio, and the management of it was assigned to a minister adequately remunerated and supplied with assistants. " In order to provide for the increased disburse- ments of the public exchequer, it was found expedient to create a new revenue, as well as to appropriate a portion of the former income of the State exclusively to the purposes of the recent institution. To this end a treasury was formed, under the control of a great state-officer, chosen from amongst the chief men of the empire, with the title of Treasurer of the New Bank (Iradi Djedid Tefterdary), and Inspector of the New Troops (Ta-alimlu Asker Naziry). To increase his emoluments, the office of Second Minister of the Finances, which had always been held by a person of importance, and conferred the honours of a seat in the divan next to the Chief Treasurer, of a scarlet pelisse, and of a led horse, was incorporated with the new place in the person of this minister, to whom a sufficient number of secretaries and other official assistants, all of them enjoying honourable appointments, were assigned. " The revenues of the new treasury arose from a sale by auction of the tenths belonging to the Mnlu TURKEY. 63 kiane (or fiefs held possessively), under the annual value of fifteen thousand piasters, upon the death of the respective proprietors by whom they were farmed, and by an absolute appropriation of the tenths above that value, to be managed according to circumstances, for the benefit of the new bank. The duties on the merchandise of Constantinople, and on the tobaccoes throughout the empire, instead of being let out as formerly, flowed immediately into the treasury, and caused at once a considerable augmentation of revenue. The military fiefs (ziameths and timars) in the hands of unserviceable owners, were confiscated, an estima- tion being made according to the census of these pro- prietaries collected in 1790; and a rule was esta- blished for filling up all future vacancies with cadets capable of actual service in the cavalry of the Ottoman armies. The fiefs originally granted for the equip- ment of the ancient marine, were applied to the benefit of the new bank. The new taxes were, a duty of two paras an oke on wine, and four on spirits for sale, levied on all Christian subjects, and of one para a head on sheep and goats. The tax on cotton, which was formerly an asper on every oke, and was farmed, was raised to one para for the raw material, and two paras for the thread, and was paid into the treasury. Gall-nuts were also taxed at one para, and currants at two paras an oke ; and the revenues of the new bank amounted, in the year 1798, to 32,256,000 piasters. " Such is the general outline of the Nizam-Djedid. It would require a whole volume, says Mahmoud Rayf, to enter into the detail of all the statutes which have been enacted relative to the different branches of the public revenue ; but, although a few only have been cited, this sample will make known the wisdom of the august sovereign to whom we are indebted for a 2 S^WBWWBW 64 TURKEY. their institution ; just as a single drop of water is sufficient to indicate the existence of the river from which it flows." The grand object, the raising and disciplining of the Bostandje fusileers, proceeded with rapidity, al- though the number enrolled did not amount to more than 12,000 men, and was not sufficient to occupy one- fourth of the barracks designed for their reception. The topges evinced by their speedy improvement, the efficacy of their recent instruction. The introduc- tion of printing had always been violently opposed by the ulema and the copiers of manuscripts. Ahmet III. had attempted the establishment of a printing-press near the kiosk of Kiat Hane; but his Armenian printers were obliged to desist, and the buildings ap- propriated to the establishment were convened to other purposes. Selim erected a large edifice at Scu- tari, well adapted for the purpose, but containing only one press ; and competent persons were appointed to superintend the establishment and to execute the me- chanical labour. Only forty different works, however, were produced in twelve years at the imperial press. Amongst these was the account of the Nizam Djedid, drawn up by Mahmoud Rayf-Effendi, in French.* But there were six other presses at the school of design at Ters-Hane, from which were issued various publi- cations : the most important were, a Greek grammar and a dictionary of the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian languages. * The following is the full title of the treatise: '* Tableau dcs nouveaux Heglcmens de FKmpire Ottoman, compose par Mahmoud liayf-Effcndi, ci-devant Secretaire rie 1'Ambassude Imperials, prcs de la Oour d'Angleterre. Imprimd duns la nottvelle Imprimeric rie (•mie. sous la Direction d' Abdurrhemin EJfendi, l'rofesseur de Gcomctiie et d'Algebre, a. Constantinople, 17i>0." TURKEY. 65 These enlightened innovations were viewed by the bulk of the community with little satisfaction ; and the discontented artfully availed themselves of the Sultan's predilection for the arts and sciences of the Franks, his employment of the infidels, and above all, the marked kindness and confidence with which General Sebastiani was at all times received, to repre- sent the whole series of his measures as a systematic attack upon the religion and fundamental laws of the empire. In the formation of the new troops and all the regulations of the Nizam Djedid, the Janizaries foresaw the extinction of their influence ; and hav- ing determined upon revolt, they waited only for an occasion and a leader. The latter they found in the person of Mousa Pasha, the Caimacam. This man, by habitual dissimulation, had hitherto concealed his turbulent and ferocious character. Retaining his outward obedience and devotion to the Sultan, he privately fomented the discontents of the Janizaries, employing the apprehensions of the one and the me- naces of the other, to destroy such of his fellow- ministers as had long been the objects of his vindictive spleen and hate. The first symptom of the general disaffection was displayed among the garrisons in the castles and forts of the Bosphorus, which had been strengthened by new defences on each side of the canal. These gar- risons had always been composed of bostaiidjes, who resented, as an intolerable slavery and violation of their ancient privileges, the trifling addition to their military duties required by the new discipline. It was at length found more feasible to form a new body of men altogether upon the new system, than to engraft a part of the recent regulations upon any corps belonging to the ancient establishment. A g3 HmmM 66 TURKEY. suspicion prevailed, that these boslandjcs were to he united to the new troops ; and it was confirmed by the order for clothing them in the uniform of the fusileers. On the 25th of May, 1807, the garrisons burst into open mutiny, and the virtuous Ilayf-Effendi was the first victim of their fury. On the morning of that day, he repaired to the castles, bearing the com- mands of the Sultan. Finding the troops indisposed to obey, he retreated hastily towards Buyuk-dere, but was pursued, overtaken by a boat of armed men in the bay, and immediately massacred. Halili-Aga, nazir of Hyssar castle, on the Asiatic shore, was murdered on the same day. On the next morning, the insur- gents, to the number of three thousand, having assem- bled in the meadows of Buyuk-dere, chose for their general Katchaya Oglou, and marched directly to the capital. A message from the Seraglio, proposing a negotiation, was treated with as little attention as had been the previous orders of the Sultan. On the 27th, the Janizaries rose, and, as the signal of revolt, carried their kettles to the Etmeiuan, or Place of Feasting ; an open square, near the aqueduct of Valens, which is allotted to the distribution of provisions to the soldiery, and which has been, from time immemorial, the camp of the insurgents. While the melancholy clanking of their kettles still sounded in the streets of Constan- tinople as they passed to the place of rendezvous, the Mufti, in seeming concert with the Janizaries, issued an edict, entreating the inhabitants to take no part in the disturbance, to furnish the daily supply of provi- sions for the markets, and to consider the contest as one in which they had no concern. The Franks of Pera were also exhorted to remain tranquil, and to feel assured that their lives and properties would be secure under any event. **$^&'f. r ?^5 r * : t*'t* : /t2 i: K>-c TURKEY. 67 " The Sultan," continues Mr. Hobhouse, " was now awakened to a sense of his danger : he assem- bled his ministers at the Seraglio, and the 28th of the month was passed in negotiation with the insurgents in the Etmeidan. During that day, the fate of Selim was on the balance : he transmitted to the Etmeidan an offer to abolish the new institutions ; to which the Janissaries returned no other answer than a demand for the immediate execution of all the ministers who had advised and presided over the Nizam-Djedid. Then it was that the Caimacam insidiously assured him, that the sacrifice was necessary, and would ap- pease the rebels. All was not yet lost. If, at that moment, the gates of the Seraglio had been shut, a cannon had been fired, and the head of Mousa Pasha himself had been struck off and thrown over the walls, Selim would have triumphed, and retained the throne of his ancestors. But the instant peril and the pre- sence of his enemies bewildered the faculties, and so absorbed the resolution of the Sultan, that he seems to have despaired of resistance, and to have placed all hopes of safety in submission alone. It was not sug- gested to his mind, that, with the new troops of Scutari and Tchiftlik, and other soldiers in the vici- nity of the capital, he might speedily assemble thirty thousand men, not less devoted to himself than inimical to the Janissaries, and that, until their arrival, he could maintain the Seraglio against the rebels, by arraying the forces of his numerous body-guard. Yet, the testimony of all the reports prevalent at this day in Constantinople, concurs in the persuasion that such an opposition, with the instant death of the Caimacam, would have dismayed the insurgents and crushed the rebellion. But the traitor prevailed, and with a cruel ingenuity contrived to include in the proscription the 68 TURKEY. names of two old and innocent men, the Kehayah-Bey and the Iieis-Effendi, who were called to a conference with Mousa, and on leaving the room, unsuspicious of their danger, were carried away to the second gate, and strangled. The numher of heads presented to the Janissaries early on the morning of the 29th, was seven ; but the ruffians, rising in their insolence, were not satisfied with the blood}' offering; and, on recognising the aged victims of the resentment of Mousa, declared that they had required another sacrifice. ' The heads were not those of the enemies whose punishment they had demanded.' The Sultan, hearing this last intel- ligence, sent for the Mufti ; and on learning that he withheld his advice, found that he had ceased to reign. " The Janissaries, headed by the traitor Mousa, had already found their way into the Seraglio, when the Sultan retired to the mosck of the palace, and wrapping himself in the robe of Mahomet, took his seat in the corner of the sanctuary. Here he was found by the Mufti, who intreated him to submit to the wishes of the people, and to resign his crown. Another report says, that, previously to this moment, he had told his attendants that he would reign no more, and ordered them to bring his successor before him. The circumstances of his actual deposition were not exactly known ; but on the evening of the same day (the 29th), it was understood in all the quarters of the capital, that Selim, the most injured, if not the best of the Ottomans, had stepped from a throne to a prison, and that the reigning monarch was his cousin, Mustafa the Fourth, eldest son of Sultan Abdulhamid. " This prince, when he was drawn from the luxu- rious obscurity of his harem to gird on the sword of Mahomet, was thirty years old ; but, not being pos- TURKEY. 69 sessed of a capacity sufficient to supply the defects of liis education, the maturity of his age did not qualify him for the throne which he had been compelled so unexpectedly to usurp. From his advancement to the empire, he appeared the servant, rather than the master of the armed multitude to whom he was indebted for his elevation ; and the period of his short reign is not marked by any act of the sovereign, but only by the successes and defeats of the various individuals and parties of his subjects, in their rim ti- nned struggle for predominance. The beginning and the close are the only transactions of his reign in which he himself may be said to have played any part. The Janissaries were in possession of the sceptre, and their enemies fell by the sword or the bow-string. The new institutions were abolished ; and the new troops, after the execution of their principal officers, dispersed. Their triumph was but of short duration ; and the lawless exercise of their usurped authority filled the capital with complaints, and spread from the centre to the furthest provinces of the empire. It was in vain to hope for a suppression of their insolence from the feeble and intimidated Sultan ; but the ambition of a daring subject effected that which should have been accomplished by the virtue of the sovereign. " Mustafa, Pasha of Rudshuk, retained, in the surname of Bairactar (the ensign), a memorial of the humble rank which he had originally held in the Turkish armies, and carried about him, affixed, as it were, to his person, a visible instance of that exaltation of merit of which the Turkish history can furnish so many and such extraordinary examples. He was rude and illiterate, but of a vigorous genius, which supplied the expedients as well as the suggestions of ambition, and rising with every exigency, proved H^PflBiWHBH' 70 TURKEY. equal to the accomplishment, not less than the creation of the most daring projects. His rise was as rapid as his endeavours were unremitting ; and after repeatedly distinguishing himself in the armies of the empire, he attracted the notice of Selim, and was honoured with a pashalik. It was the boast of Bairactar, that he owed his advance to the personal regard of the Sultan, and his subsequent conduct evinced that he respected Selim as his patron and his friend ; but he was averse to the innovations of his master, and, either from a suspected attachment to the Janissaries, or a confi- dence in his military prowess, was dismissed to the command of a body of forces on the frontier, and to the distant government of Rudshuk. From the mo- ment he was informed of the deposition of Selim, it appears that he contemplated the bold design of seiz- ing upon the government ; and convinced of the per- nicious measures of the Janissaries, or seeing no other ■way of raising himself than by depressing that lawless body, determined upon opposing the hardy troops of the provinces to the enervated militia of Constan- tinople *. " So early as the October of the same year in which Selim had been dethroned, Bairactar despatched to the Sultan a formal notice, that he should advance to the capital to reform the abuses of the state, and to assist him in the administration of public affairs. Accord- ingly, he collected a force of nearly forty thousand men, composed chiefly of Albanians from the garrisons of • This measure had frequently been attempted. Nassuf- Pasha, vizir to Ahmed I., employed the spahit and provincial troops for their subjection, but was finally sacrificed. Delavir-Pasha, vizir to Osman II., proposed, in 102(1, to raise a new militia from among the Kourds. He was cut to nieces., and Osmau himself lost his throne and his life. H TURKEY. ri Roumelia ; and marching to Constantinople about the end of the year, he encamped on the plains of Daout- Pasha, four miles from the walls of the city. His arrival was the signal of submission. He convoked the chief men of the empire, and depositing- the ban- ner of Mahomet, which he had unfurled to give a sanction and support to his enterprise, made them swear to the gradual abolition of the Janissaries, and a restoration of the good order and tranquillity of the state. The Sultan was an unnoticed spectator of the arrangement. Even the semblance of power was trans- ferred from the Seraglio to the camp at Daout-Pasha ; for the ministers of the Porte, and the missions of Pera, directed their visits of ceremony to the tent of the triumphant general, who, without any acknow- ledged title or specific office, was thus for several months in full possession of the Imperial power. But the Pasha, aware that the Mussulmans, accustomed to revere the representative of their prophet, might experience a renewal of favour for their degraded sovereign, resolved upon the elevation of a sultan who, in return for the crown, might render his authority legitimate, and give a sanction to his ambition. " The 28th of July, of the year 1808, was fixed upon by Mustafa for a hunting expedition to the forests of Belgrade ; and it was determined by Bairac- tar to enter the Seraglio on the same day, during the absence of the Grand Signior, and preventing his return to the palace, finally to exclude him from the throne. Selim was yet alive in those apartments of the Seraglio which the crimes and misfortunes of the Ottomans have set apart for the confinement of their dethroned princes ; and it was the preservation of the Sultan whom he resolved to restore, that prompted 72 TURKEY. him to attempt by stratagem that which he might have accomplished by force. Unfortunately, the secret of his intention was not confined to his own breast, but was intrusted to several of the ministers of the divan ; and the Grand Vizir, though a friend, was suspected to have betrayed him to the Sultan ; for, on the appointed day, when Bairactar marched into the city, he found the gates of the Seraglio closed, the pages and body-guard Tinder arms, and every prepara- tion for a determined resistance. " The victorious rebel, disappointed but not inti- midated, gave orders for an immediate assault. The contest lasted only a short time, but the interval was fatal to Selim. On the sound of the first shot, the emissaries of the Sultan were despatched to his apart- ments, where they found, as is reported, the dethroned monarch at his devotions, and attempted to surprise him whilst in the attitude of prayer. He discerned their purpose, and before the bow-string could lie fitted to his neck, wounded one of the mutes with his hangiar, but being thrown upon his back, was over- powered, and instantly strangled. " From the murder of Selim, the executioners pro- ceeded to the apartments of Mahmoud, the youngest son of Abdulhamid, and the only remaining prince of the blood royal. There was still some hope for th Sultan in the eventual death of his brother. Selin was no more ; the rebels, the audacious Bairactar himself, would respect the last of the Ottoman race. The mutes rushed into the chamber of the confined prince ; but Mahmoud was no where to be found : the fond fidelity of a slave had concealed him in the fur. nace of a bath. The feeble contest continued under the walls, and the assailants thundered at the gates, j whilst the search for the prince was prosecuted witbj p&2j# TUBKEY. 73 redoubled eagerness and anxiety. The place of his concealment had alone escaped the scrutiny, and the fate of the monarchy depended upon whether or not the gates should be forced before the royal prisoner was discovered. What must have been the feelings of Mahmoud, what the sensations of his faithful slave, when the shouts of the Albanians proclaimed that Bairactar had burst his way into the seraglio ? The insurgents rushed to the interior of the palace, headed by their leader, and by the intrepid Seid Ali, the Capudan-Pasha. Advancing to the third gate, they called aloud for the instant appearance of Selim ; and the eunuchs of Mustafa, casting the body of the murdered monarch before them, exclaimed, ' Behold the sultan whom ye seek!' Bairactar, overpowered at the sight, threw himself on the corpse of his mur- dered benefactor, and wept bitterly ; but being roused by the exhortation of Seid Ali, who told him that this was not the time for grief, but for revenge, pro- ceeded hastily to the presence-chamber. Mustafa never shewed himself worthy of his crown, until the moment when he was compelled to resign it. He did not despair of awing the rebels into submission by the Ottoman majesty ; at least, he was determined to fall with dignity ; and, on the entrance of Bairactar, was found seated upon his throne in his usual state, and surrounded by the officers of the imperial household. The indignant chief was not moved hy the august spectacle, but, advancing towards the Sultan, drew him from his seat, saying to him in a bold and angry tone, ' What dost thou there ? Yield that place to a worthier !' " The account of the conduct of the Sultan is variously related in the different reports of this last transaction of his reign ; but, whatever was the mea-. FAItT I. H HmMMBBP 74 TURKEY. sure of his resistance, it proved ineffectual ; for on the same night, the cannon of the Seraglio announced to the people the dethronement of Mustafa the Fourth, and the elevation of Mahmoud the Second. " The first act of the new reign was the instalment of Bairactar in the post to which he had aspired, and which, at the hands of Mahmoud at least, he well deserved. No sooner was the seal of the empire com- mitted to his charge, than the Vizier commenced his projected reform with the punishment of those who had been concerned in the first revolution and the deposition of Selim. The traitor Mousa Pasha lost his head. The officers of the castles on the Bosphorus, who had led the insurgents at Buyuk-dere, the most seditious of the Janissaries, and all those of the house- hold who had opposed the deposition of Mustafa, were arrested and strangled. The last Vizier Azem was dismissed to the government of Ismael, to which place many others of the ministers, suspected rather than guilty of disinclination to the late transaction, were also banished. The savage order which destroyed the females of the harem near the shores of Prince's Islands, was then issued and executed ; and other acts of a complexion less inhuman, but equally decisive, convinced the inhabitants of the capital, that the new minister was not to be deterred from the adoption of Buch measures as appeared to him calculated to restore the ancient vigour of the Turkish power. " The Vizier openly avowed his resolution of abo- lishing the Janissaries, or at least of reforming their system, and retrenching upon their privileges. He refused the disbursement of pay to any of the corps, except such as were in service and performing either the duty of the internal police, or of an actual cam- paign against the enemy. The disorder and pre- ■ ■ TURKEY. 75 sumption whicli had so frequently disturbed the tran- quillity of the capital were entirely suppressed. Constantinople and its suburbs were protected by the presence of the provincial troops ; and the peace and good order preserved by the Albanians of Bairactar are still remembered with admiration and regret by the citizens of every denomination. Mahmoud was unable to oppose, and it may be thought that he approved the measures of his minister. It was natural that the Janissaries should be the objects of his terror and his hate, and that he should be no unwilling instrument in the hands of the Vizier, in promulgating the repeated acts by which their cha- racter was degraded and their influence undermined. " To restore the new troops of Sultan Selim was thought too hardy and perilous an adventure ; and by one of those errors which generally attend every temporising and middle system, it was judged more expedient to revive the military body of the Seimens, who might supply the place, and be regulated accord- ing to the discipline of the former fusileers. The name, however, of the re-established corps was more odious to the Janissaries, than even that of Selim's soldiery, as belonging to an institution more ancient than their own ; and they were only the more resolved to ruin the author of the innovation. Their actual subjection, and their fear of the provincial forces, not less than the complete dissimulation which it is a part of Turkish capacity at any time to command, contributed to favour their projects of revenge, and to deceive the confident Bairactar, who fell into the usual error of prosperity, and began to despise the enemy whom he had irreconcileably in- jured. He even seems to have felt some compunction for the depression and disgrace of the ancient soldiery H 2 76 TURKEY. of the empire, to whom it owed all its former glory, and amongst whom he himself had commenced his military career. " Being persuaded that they had submitted and were reconciled to his administration, he relaxed the severity of his proceedings against them ; and between the hope of making use of them as friends, and the contempt of their resistance as enemies, came at last to the fatal resolution of breaking up the camp at Daout-Pasha, and dismissing the greater part of the provincial forces. " The number of soldiers attached to the Vizier, who still remained in the capital, amounted only to 4000 ; but Cadi Pasha, the friend and associate of Bairactar, with 8000 Asiatics, was encamped on the heights and in the barracks of Scutari. On the 14th of November, after the passevend had commenced their nightly rounds, a large body of the Janissaries issued from their quarters, and surrounding the palace of the Porte, at that time the habitation of the Vizier and the ministers, immediately set fire to the building. Bairactar and his friends, on the discovery of the assault, contrived to escape and shelter themselves in Barut-Hane, a small powder-magazine of stone ; but those who were unable to flee, were either destroyed by the assailants, or consumed in the conflagration. The Janissaries rushed to the other dwellings in which their enemies were lodged, and laid the vicinity of the Porte in ashes. Barut-Hane they attacked in vain ; but in the middle of the night, a tremendous explosion shook all the quarters of the capital, and it was found that the magazine, with the Grand Vizier and his companions, had been blown into the air. Whether this event occurred by accident or by design, is at this day unknown, but it decided the issue, although it ■ ■ ■ TURKEY. 77 was far from proving the conclusion of the contest. The Seimens, the armed populace, and the Albanians, who would have rallied under Bairactar, and perhaps have overpowered their antagonists, were dispirited by the fatal event ; hut seeing that they were destined for slaughter, prepared for a determined resistance. The streets of the city during the whole of the 15th, were the scene of a continued action, in which the Janissaries were worsted ; hut the Seimens suffered severely in the loss of the nephew of their late master, a youth of distinguished bravery, whom they had placed at their head. The Janissar-Aga on the same day imprudently made his appearance in the Etmeidan, in the turban of the new regulation, and was mas. sacred by his own soldiers, who chose for their general the next in command. The Galiondges of the arsenal, although Seid Ali, the Capudan Pasha, had declared against the Janissaries, and the Topyes, remained under arms, but took no part in the struggle. " On the 16'th, Cadi-Pasha passed over from Scu- tari at the head of his 8000 troops, and marching through the court of St. Sophia, proceeded to the bar- racks of the Geleyes, in the vicinity of the mosck, where 500 of the Janissaries had taken their stand. Cadi, surrounding the square, did not attempt to force an entrance, but setting fire to the building, retained his regiments at their stations until the quarters were consumed, and the whole of the 500 were burnt alive. The Asiatics, leaving the ruins in flames, made no efforts to extinguish the spreading conflagration, but departed in search of their enemies, and filled the streets with carnage. The town was in a blaze from the walls of the Seraglio to the aque- duct of Valens ; and a man-of-war, by the order of Seid Ah", continued at the same time to play upon the H3 78 TURKEY. Janissaries' barracks. The event was doubtful on the night of the 16th, during which the shrieks of the women, the shouts of the soldiers, and the repeated discharges of fire-arms, declared to the terrified inha- bitants of Pera that the sanguinary struggle had not ceased in any quarter of the city. The fire had raged for four-and-twenty hours, and the artillery of the ship was still beating upon the barracks of the 2.7- ■meidan, when, on the ensuing morning, the forces of the arsenal and of Tophana announced that they had united themselves to the Janissaries, and thus gave the victory to the least deserving of the antagonists. " Until that moment, Sultan Mahmoud, having closed the palace gates, awaited within the walls of the Seraglio the event of the contest ; but the decision of the seamen and the cannoniers rendered it neces- sary for him to consult his own safety by an exertion of the imperial authority in behalf of the triumphant party. His counsellors, for it is not known that Mahmoud gave the order, thought fit to secure him from the victors by the death of the imprisoned Mus- tafa, who was strangled, and that so secretly, that the circumstances of his execution have never tran- spired. Having therefore nothing to dread from the former partiality of the Janissaries for his immediate predecessor, and seeing that their cause had been espoused by the most powerful and entire of the re- maining military bodies, he despatched his mandate to the ship to cease the cannonade, and transmitted at the same time to the Janissaries an assurance that the cause of their complaints did no longer exist — the Seimens were abolished for ever. No sooner was the resolve of the Sultan made known, than the firing ceased in every part of the city, except where the suc- cessful soldiery still vented their rage upon the unre- $8$ TURKEY. 79 sisting populace. Seid AH and Cadi Pasha, on seeing their adherents disperse, left the Seraglio Point in two wherries, and rowing hastily up the Bosphorus, fled with such speed, that, although a corvette weighed anchor and proceeded in pursuit of them in less than three hours after their departure, they effected their escape. The head of Cadi was subsequently sent to the Seraglio. " The Janissaries were not suddenly appeased by the conciliation of the Sultan, and the submission of their opponents: they employed the 18th of the month in destroying every vestige of the invidious institution. A large body passed over to Scutari, and burnt the magnificent barracks of Sultan Selim on the heights above that suburb ; whilst another division marched to Levend Tchiftlik, and commenced an attack on 500 Seimens, who with equal valour and success maintained themselves against a multitude of assailants, until their quarters were fired, and they perished in the flames. This was their last great massacre, and from this period, although some individual victims were afterwards sacrificed to their resentment, their fury appears to have been gradually allayed. " On the 19th, Mahmoud having issued a proclama- tion exhorting his subjects to keep the Bairam, which commenced on that day, in peace, they attended tran- quilly and in good order the funeral of Mustafa, who was conveyed with much pomp from the Seraglio to the tomb of the Sultan Abdulhamid, his father. The same day, the streets were cleansed and cleared of the dead, 3000 of whom were either buried or thrown into the sea. After a long search, the body of their great enemy, of the Vizier himself, was found under the ruins of Barut-Hane. " In an open space near one end of the hippodrome, HHHH 80 TURKEY. there are two trees standing by themselves, and at a little distance apart. Between these, by the feet, and with the head downwards, they suspended the dis- figured corpse of Bairactar. " Such was the close of the most sanguinary of three revolutions which occurred within the short period of eighteen months, and which, after dethron- ing two monarchy, and spilling the best blood of the empire, terminated in so entire a re-establishment of every former prejudice, that, for the Turks, the last twenty years have passed in vain. Of the late mili- tary institutions, not a vestige remains; for, although the topges retain a portion of that discipline which they learned from De Tott, they have dropped the new regulations ; and their services in the last revo- lution having produced the union of the two corps, every jealousy has been mutually laid aside. Tho schools of the arsenal and the barracks of the bom- bardiers are not less deserted than the exercise-grounds of Scutari and Levend Tchiftlik ; nor can the pious alarms of the Uletna be now raised by the unhallowed encouragement of Christian refinements. The presses of Ters-Hane are without employ ; the French lan- guage has ceased to be taught in the Seraglio ; and the palace of Beshik-Tash is no longer enlivened by the ballets and operas which amused the leisure of the unfortunate Selim." The work from which we have drawn the above narrative, was published in 1813, since which period the Janizaries appear to have remained virtually the sovereigns of the capital. In 1822, however, the fre- quent murders and frightful disorders of which they were guilty, instigated by fanaticism and revenge, together with the discovery of a plot on the 11th of June, for a general massacre of the Christians, led to ■Hi ■ TURKEY. 81 the issuing of a hatti-shereef against the Janizaries, in which the Sultan threatened, unless an immediate stop was put to such atrocious proceedings, to abandon the capital, taking with him his two sons, and to leave Constantinople to be ruled by ruffians whose enormities made it a disgrace to continue on the throne. By this energetic proclamation, the city was restored from a state of anarchy to its usual lethargic repose, and Franks, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, as well as Moslems, resumed their occu- pations.* The present year (1826) has witnessed the com- mencement of another conflict between the Sultan and this ungovernable class of his subjects, who have so long defied the efforts of successive monarchs to restrain their audacity, and to subordinate them to the throne. While the issue yet remains in un- certainty, it would be premature to give any account of the late transactions, by which the power of the Janizaries seems to be extinguished in the capital. The preceding sketch will sufficiently explain the ori- gin and nature of the contest, and will shew that the extermination of the order afforded the only chance of preserving the shrunk and faded remains of the once powerful Ottoman monarchy. As long ago as the reign of Soliman, it was pre- dicted by Nicolas Daulphinois, who accompanied the French embassy, that the Janizaries would one day become formidable to their masters, and act the same part at Constantinople that the Praetorian bands did at Rome.-f- It is true, that the two military bodies were instituted for very different objects, and that they dif- fered not less in the nature of their services. The * Waddington's Greece, p. 21. t Robertson's Charles V., note 45. 82 TURKEY. government of the Roman empire was constitutionally elective, and the power of the monarch was founded only on force. The Praetorian hands were permanently established for the purpose of protecting the person of the emperor, and of overawing the senate and the peo- ple. The prerogative of the Sultans is founded on the Mussulman religion ; it is tied up to a legitimate suc- cession ; and it is interwoven with the very existence of the Ottoman community. The order of Janizaries was instituted, not for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the sovereign over his natural subjects, but of extending his dominion over foreign nations ; and in point of fact, as Thornton remarks, whenever the authority of the Sultan has been in jeopardy, re- course has been had to a declaration of war against some foreign power, in order to have a pretence for removing the armed force from the seat of govern- ment, and for restoring the authority of the laws. The Janizaries have never been able, like the Prae- torian guards, to trample with impunity upon the constitution, to usurp its sovereign prerogatives, and to put the empire up to sale. In the midst of their ex- cesses, they have evinced a regard for the frame-work of the constitution, and an anxiety to preserve from extinction the sacred dynasty of Othmau ; * and their revolts have been in resistance to innovations and in- fringements upon their supposed rights, not for the purposes of revolutionary enterprise. Still, though * "A weak or a vicious sultan maybe deposed or strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an ideot; nor has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful sovereign. While the transient dynasties of Asia have been con- tinually subverted by a crafty vizir in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation,"— Gibbon. TURKEY. 83 their order cannot he regarded as a necessary part of the system of Ottoman despotism, but has rather been a check upon the imperial prerogative, it has fre- quently proved, in its consequences to the individual sovereign, not less fatal than that of the Praetorian guard. * On a review of this brief sketch of the Ottoman history, it will be seen, that the Turkish monarchy was indebted for its rise and its greatness to three leading causes ; the debased and fallen state of the Eastern empire, the mutual animosities of the Greeks and Latins, and the decided superiority of the con- querors over the degenerate nations of Christendom, j The chief engine of their success was their military system, which, in point both of discipline and skill, was decidedly in advance of the tactics of Christian * Thornton remarks, that the Janizaries might be compared with greater propriety to the legions of Rome, except that the latter were encamped on the frontiers of the empire. The power and functions of the Prsetorian prefect are very correctly compared by Montesquieu to those of the Grand Vizir, not of the Janizar- aga ; and the governors of the Roman provinces were the pashas of ihe republic. t The state of Christendom in the fifteenth century, is thus strikingly described by ./Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II. " It is a body without a head, a republic without laws or magistrates. The pope and the emperor may shine as lofty titles, as splendid images; but they are unable to command, and none are willing to obey. Every state has a separate prince, and every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard ? Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of general ? What order could be maintained ? — what military discipline ? Who could undertake to feed such an enormous multitude ? Who would understand their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners ? What mortal could reconcile the English with the French, Genoa with Aragon, the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia ? If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the infidels : if many, by their own weight and confusion."— Gibbon, c. 08. 84 TURKEY. Europe. " At an earlier period," remarks Mr. Thornton, " the military science of the Greeks, and the numerous armies of Persia, had been forced to yield to the compact pressure of the Macedonian pha- lanx ; and the phalanx, in its turn, was vanquished by the legion, the last and chief improvement of the an- cient warfare." On the abolition of the legion, a barbarous system succeeded, of heroic but desultory warfare, to which the Turks opposed a standing force in regular pay and training, animated with a spirit of enthusiasm, wielded by the vigorous arm of a mili- tary despotism. To the close array of these hardy and well-disciplined bands, the Byzantine emperors opposed foreign mercenaries or disaffected subjects ; " strangers without faith, veterans without pay or arms, and recruits without experience or discipline." * The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire and the adjacent kingdoms would have been, as Gibbon remarks, some powerful weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that should have given them a decided superiority over their Turkish foes. The invention of gunpowder would have presented such a weapon, had it been found possible to circumscribe the secret within the pale of the church ; but " it was disclosed to the Turks by the treachery of apostates, and the selfish policy of rivals ; and the sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the talents of a Christian engineer. The Genoese, who transported Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his preceptors ; and it was probably by their hands, that his cannon was cast and directed at the siege of Constantinople." -|- The very extraordinary succession of able rulers * Gibbon. t lb. c. CO. The siege of Constantinople was distinguished by a union of the ancient and modern artillery. The Historian 6tates TURKEY. 35 must also be taken into account as a main cause of the establishment of the Ottoman empire. " Except in a single instance," remarks Gibbon, " a period of nine reigns and two hundred and sixty-five years is occu- pied, from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience and their enemies with terror." Nor can we refuse to admit that, at that dark period, the Mohammedan sultans were not the least enlightened, the least accom- plished, or the least tolerant of European sovereigns. Such was the disordered state of Europe, the oppres- sion under which the people were held, and the cala- mities to which they were exposed from intestine wars and ecclesiastical tyranny, that the dominions of the Sultan formed, perhaps, at one period, those in which the greatest portion of civil liberty and personal security could be enjoyed, and through which social happiness was most widely diffused. The early sultans were distinguished by their erudition and their love of learning. A college and a library were considered as indispensable appendages to a mosque of the first order ; and the philosophy of Aristotle and the works of Plato were translated into Turkish.* In compa- rison with the Goths, the Turks do not deserve to be called illiterate ; nor were they in this respect inferior to the Crusaders. At the period of the conquest of Constantinople, elementary knowledge had not revived in Western Europe ; and as to the Greeks of the lower (c. 08), that " a founder of cannon, a Dane or Hungarian, who had been almost starved in the Greek service, deserted to the Moslems, and was liberally entertained by the Turkish sultan." * It is a saying attributed to Mohammed, " that the ink of the learned and the blood of the martyrs are of equal value in heaven." Be the support of the faith and protector of the sciences," were among the last words of Osman to his son Orkhan. TART I. I 86 TURKEY. empire, it maybe questioned whether their conquerors did not adopt all that they were able to teach them. In navigation, agriculture, and the mechanical arts, the Ottomans became the ready pupils of the Christian nations, and their proficiency up to a certain point, was strikingly rapid. The maritime superiority which they so speedily attained, and which enabled them to threaten at one time the capital of Christendom, is a highly remarkable circumstance, not to be overlooked in the enumeration of the causes of the Ottoman greatness. The decline of that greatness may be attributed, in a word, to the arrest laid upon the intellectual ad- vancement of the Turkish nation, by its religion and institutions, while, in every other state of Europe, the march of knowledge has been more or less progressive. It is not in the nature of things, that either the mind of man or the state of a community should be sta- tionary : when it ceases to advance, it must retro- grade. But various circumstances have contributed to throw the Turks far behind the other nations of Europe, so that even the barbarous Muscovite has got the start of the polished Ottoman. The revival of letters, the invention of printing, the subversion of feudalism, the new direction and impulse given commerce, the advancement of science and the arts, the improvements more especially in ship-building and nautical science, and above all, the extension of civil and religious liberty, have changed the whole face of Europe, leaving the Ottoman empire like a crumbling relic of barbarous architecture in the midst of the stately edifices of modern art. Among the causes which have produced the dficlin of the Turkish monarchy, the discovery of the navi gation to India by the Cape of Good Hope, has no been one of the least influential. Previously to thai ' TURKEY. 87 discovery, the Venetians had formed establishments in the ports of Syria and Egypt, and had obtained the grant of various commercial privileges from the Mam- lonks, which were confirmed by Selim I. To these ports the valuable commodities of China and India would have continued to be brought, or would have found their way overland to those of the Black Sea, and thence by a short navigation to Constantinople, had not a new channel been opened for that commerce which in every age has been the richest source of mercantile wealth and greatness. About the year 1620, the voyages to the East Indies by the new route, are stated to have lowered so considerably the prices of Indian merchandise, that, the trade between India and Tur- key by the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea having much decayed, the Grand Signior's customs were greatly lcsspued.* On ceasing to be mistress of the commerce of that age, the national strength of Turkey began to be impaired, and her importance in the political system of Europe was greatly diminished. The decrease of internal commerce, arising from the insecurity of the roads, the slow transportation of goods, and intestine commotions, must also be re- garded as a main cause of the decline of the empire. Every article of export has fallen off, and agriculture, manufacturing industry, and population have under- gone a frightful diminution. The extent to which the public revenue must have suffered in consequence, is incalculable ; and the poverty of the Porte, which has crippled its military force, must assuredly be ranked among the causes of its declining power. " Five hundred villages," Mr. Walpole says, " are not now found in the district of Merdin (in Mesopo- * Anderson's Hist, of Commerce, xi. 3, 12 88 TURKEY. tamia), which once possessed sixteen hundred. Cyprus, before the Turkish conquest, contained 14,000 villages. In two insurrections, great numbers of the inhabitants were slain ; a dreadful mortality was occasioned by the plague in 1G24 ; and in less than fifty years from that time, seven hundred villages only could be found. Three hundred were once comprehended in a part of the pashalik of Aleppo, now containing less than one third of the number. Many towns are mentioned in the history of the khalifs, which no longer exist : the gite of others may be traced on the route from Bagdad to Mosul The reservoirs and canals by which the fertility of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Babylonia, under the Saracens and Mamlouks, was augmented and improved, have been neglected .... A melancholy illustration of the depopulated state of large tracts of country, is afforded by the view of those extensive cemeteries so frequently passed by the traveller in his route. Scarcely any vestiges of the villages which once nourished near them are now seen. The incur- sions of robbers, the calamities of war and pestilence, have compelled the inhabitants to remove to other districts. The countries between the Tigris and the Euphrates, once distinguished for their populousness, are consigned to ruin and neglect ; and the inhabit- ants retire to villages on the banks of rivers, where they are less harassed by the predatory attacks of the Arabs."* Between Angora and Constantinople, there is a constant communication by caravans ; and Eton affirms, that there were old people living in his time, who could remember between forty and fifty villages in the road, of which no vestiges now remain. The whole coast of Syria, which, a few years before, was * Walpole's Memoirs relating to Turkey, p. 9. See also Eton's Survey, p, 270. ■ ..^•-'■v.>. , ; ' .%J*. * ■ *iSr * j ; > -\i!^«,"" ? 4. * Njyvt'j^ ; v^.y l 4|'. jj>_5 »■*&■' t** P**v* jHPs TUIIKEY. 89 tolerably populous, had been reduced to almost a desert. Aleppo, Tripoli, Latikia, Mosul, Diarbekir, Merdin, Bagdadt, and Bassora, have all fallen off, some of them to an incredible degree.* The Syrian coast has indeed been desolated chiefly by earthquakes. The inhabitants of Tripoli and Akka are subject to dis- orders arising from mephitic exhalations. In some parts of Greece, the rivers, obstructed in their channels, have spread into morasses. " In the memory of the inhabitants of the present day," we are told, " new marshes have been observed in the valleys of Arca- dia. "+■ Leprous affections are also becoming more frequent. " It is a consequence of the depopulated and neglected state of Greece, Asia, and Syria," remarks Mr. Hawkins, " that there is no considerable district which is not exposed in some degree to the effects of a corrupted atmosphere .... The spots in Greece where the malaria is most noxious, are salt- works and rice-grounds ; and we meet with a striking example of the former at Milo, where, since tbe begin- ning of tbe last century, when the island was visited by Tournefort, four-fifths of the population have been lost in consequence of the establishment of a small salt-work. Patras, a place celebrated in the time of Cicero for the salubrity of the air, has become un- healthy, because the plain around it is subject to irrigation. In Attica, a country once distinguished • Eton's statements are always suspicious, from his tendency to exaggerate, and his silence as to his authorities. He affirms, that the population of Aleppo had sunk, since 1770, from 230,000 to 40 or 60,000; but Seetzen estimated it at 150,000, which is still a great reduction. Diarbekir, Eton says, contained, in 175H, 400,000 inha- bitants, of whom three-fourths were carried off by an epidemic in 1757. The plague of 1773 is said to have swept away two-thirds of the population of Bagdadt. t Walpole, p. 13. I 3 90 TURKEY. for the purity of its air and climate, the effects of the disorder are felt at Marathon ; and the streams of the Cephissus, which are wholly consumed in irrigation, diffuse it through the plain of Athens."* The general improvement of the empire has been unquestionably retarded by the barbarous policy of confining within the walls of the Seraglio the here- ditary princes of the Ottoman blood, and thus depriv- ing them of all means of acquiring that general and practical knowledge which should qualify them to fill the throne. The Grand Vizir Kioprili Mustafa Pasha is reported to have said, that all the sultans after Soliman had been either tyrants or fools. How should it have been otherwise, condemned as they are from their birth to a monastic seclusion, the bow-string continually suspended over their necks, eunuchs their tutors, and slaves their companions, without incentives to exertion, and excluded from every sphere of social virtue or honourable ambition ? -f- A Turkish sultan * Walpole, p. 13. t " The presumptive heirs to the empire live in honourable confinement in the palace called Eski Serai, and are placed by the law under the more especial protection of the Janizar-aga, whose duty it is to guard them from the cruelty or jealousy of the Sultan : hence he is honoured by them with the name of lata, tutor or foster-father. The custom of imprisoning the minor princes, is repugnant to the spirit of Mussulman legislation, and is a law of the Seraglio, dictated by fear and cruelty, the ruling passions of an effeminate tyrant. These victims of corrupt political institu- tion are sequestered from general society, except when they mo- mentarily quit their prison during the festival of the bairam in order to present their homage to the Sultan. Sensual gratifica- tions constitute their only enjoyments ; and even these are em- bittered by the reflection, (if men so educated are capable of reflec- tion,) that the offspring of their luxury is condemned to be torn from the first embraces of its parents by the hands of the assas- sin. * La sage-femme qui le rccoit, est tenve, au risque de ta vie, de ne pas le lamer vivre.' "—Thornton, vol. i. p. 119. .' ; i'i-'ei;:ii-. j%i;v:;' i-^tvtTJ-Yt.i- v$z±\:. TURKEY. 91 at the head of his troops, was the object of a loyal enthusiasm, which rendered him absolute, not merely by the terror of his power, but by the force of opinion ; and the most distant provinces were kept in awe by means of the promptness and decision which pervaded the whole administration, when the monarch was the centre and heart of the system. But the sultan in the seraglio, trembling at the power of his own Janizaries, unable to execute even the reforms he is anxious to introduce into any branch of administration, is not only himself reduced to a mere pageant, but, by his own weakness, paralyses every part of the political system. The deterioration of discipline and order in the Jani- zaries themselves, which is said to have been connived at by Mahommed IV., from a mistaken policy,* may be dated from the reign of Murad III., who permitted them to enrol their children in their order, and thus gave them an individual interest as citizens, as well as an independence of their sovereign, totally foreign to the nature and design of their original institution.-)* When, instead of being " children of the tribute" and of the sultan, they acknowledged another father than their emperor, they began to be equally dangerous to the government and to the enemies of the Porte. " Those of the present day," says Mr. Hobhouse, " are most of them artisans who have been enrolled either as children of these soldiers by their fathers, or have entered into the corps for protection and an increase of individual importance. The number of those who receive their pay (amounting to about 3d. daily for * To this cause, and to their having quitted the laborious exer- cise of arms to follow mechanical or other lucrative occupations, Count Marsigli ascribes the discredit into which they had in his time already fallen. See Thornton, vol. i. p. 240. i See an account of their original discipline and character in Gibbon, c. Go. p 92 TURKEY. each man *) at the Seraglio, is, according to Thornton, 40,000 ; but in the year 1798 5 all the Janizaries enrolled in the capital and the provinces amounted to more than 400,000. -f- Their prowess in battle is now comparatively despised even by the Turks themselves, and has been proved by recent events to be inferior to that of the provincial soldiery. Tbe vast dominion still possessed by the Ottoman sultans is upheld by neither the real nor the reputed vigour of the Jani- zaries, which is felt most, and may be almost said to be formidable only at Constantinople." Finally, the constitution of the empire, which adapted it to become great by conquest, has been the true cause that, so soon as the impulse of military ardour ceased to operate, the whole fabric relapsed into feebleness and disorder. " One of the evils," remarks their Apologist, " and by no means the least of those neces- sarily accompanying despotism, is, that it represses the spring of improvement which there is in society. Whatever talents may have been called forth during the struggle which despotism was making to establish its dominion, become stationary at best, or more pro- bably retrograde, when once it has perfected its plan, and stretched itself out to repose on the summit of its * The allowance was equal, at the institution of the corps, to about a shilling sterling per day, but is now reduced, by the de- basement of the coin, to about a fourth of its original value.— Thornton, vol. i. p. 233. t Those Janizaries who do not join their standard, are called yamaks, and receive no pay. *' Though enrolled, they are not embodied into dial (companies), but are dispersed throughout the empire, living as burghers, mixed with the people, and following different trades and professions, or idle vagabonds, or at best but labouring peasants." — Thornton, i. 231. Baron De Tott estimates thein at 400,000; Eton at 113,400; but the latter does not include the i/amaks. Mr. Hobhouse's statement is taken from the work of Mahmoud Itayf-Effendi, TURKEY. 93 power. We behold with wonder, in the history of the world, the empire of China, which has been arrested many centuries ago in its career of improvement, still resting upon its plan of imagined perfection, occupied only in supporting the sameness of its existence, and surveying with indifference the superior elevation of foreign knowledge. In every country where despotism is established, every art and every useful institution date from a period antecedent to its introduction. To the inherent quality of despotism itself, and not to any natural incapacity, we are to attribute all that is incoherent and grotesque in Turkish knowledge. The Roman empire groaned under the same evils, and sank to the same debility. Enlightened and virtuous des- potism may procure a transient felicity : but, at the same time that the Roman historians were celebrating the blessings of Trajan's government, ' the splendour of the cities, the beautiful face of the country, culti- vated and adorned like an immense garden,' — the latent cause of decay and cerruption, the uniform government of the Romans, was gradually reducing the minds of men to the same level, extinguishing the fire of genius, and causing even the military spirit to evaporate. In Turkey, even the most worthy members of society perform their duty coldly and officially. AH tremble at the public censure, and dare not aspire to innovation or reform, lest they should expose them- selves to the shafts of envy and calumny. Under despotism, talents must remain insulated : the very nature of the government militates against the idea of an aggregation of knowledge, or a national fund of acquirements." * This is not all. A despotism is more noxious in * Thornton's Turkey, vol. i. pp. 99—101, p 94 TURKEY its decrepitude, than when invested with the vigour and terrors of youth ; for the vice of avarice then takes the place of the lust of power, and a system of venality and corruption, more debasing to the morals, and ultimately more ruinous to the community, than the most absolute favouritism and arbitrary power, is substituted for the simplicity of despotism. The Turkish pasha, like the Roman proconsul, is obliged to satisfy the rapacity of the officers in the capital ; and he can maintain his station, and provide against the contingencies of removal and disgrace, only by plundering his district. In Turkey, the greatest of crimes in a subject is wealth : in a pasha or governor, the only inexpiable offence is that of not testifying his loyalty to his sovereign, and his devotion to the divan, by payments sufficiently large and douceurs equally liberal. Thus, to rob those below him, that he may bribe those above him, is the constant aim and sole object of each petty tyrant through all the grada- tions of this baleful despotism.* Such is the history of the power, and such the * The causes to which the feebleness and decline of this once mighty empire are attributable, are thus correctly summed up by Mr. Walpole, in a preliminary discourse prefixed to his " Memoirs relating to Turkey": — " The existence of a military government in the capital; the want of salutary regulations in the administra- tion of its revenues; the interruption of the peaceful habits of industry by the numerous tribes and hordes of robbers ; the diffi- culty of attending to all parts of this overgrown monarchy ; the national and religious prejudices which continue to operate on the great body of the people ; the weakness displayed by the Porte towards the different pashas who defy its power ; the indolence, ease, and effeminacy which, according to the Turks themselves, have been exchanged by their countrymen for the hardiei and more manly qualities of their ancestors ; and lastly, the indifference to science and art, and the little intercourse maintained by them with the civilized states of Europe^" W?$i •TURKEY. 95 nature of the political system, founded on the ruins of the Roman empire, which have converted the finest and most favoured countries in the world into savage •wastes and uninhabitable deserts, — which have inflicted depopulation and sterility on lands once smiling with plenty and industry, and beneath which the last remains of the Greek people are struggling for exist- ence in the sight of Christian Europe. But the crisis of its own fate cannot be much longer delayed ; and Constantinople is probably destined, at no very distant period, to be the grave of a second empire, in which the ashes of the last Othman shall mingle with those of the last Constantine. Without further introduction, we shall commence our topographical account of the country, by a descrip- tion of its picturesque and singularly situated me. tropolis. CONSTANTINOPLE. Almost every modern traveller who has visited Constantinople begins by referring to the more copious descriptions given of the city by his predecessors.* * " Without speaking of Bellonius, Gillius, Petro Dellavalle, Mons. Tavernier," says Wheler, " we have enough of our own countrymen, whose pains to this place and the whole Turkish em- pire, merit thanks of all impartial and ingenious men; as Mr. Sandys, many years since, Mr. Rycaut, and lastly, Mr. Smith, B.D. and Fellow of Magdalen College, in Oxford, whom, especially as to the topographical account of this city, 1 look upon to be the most exact of any." '* A comparison of Kauffer'smap with Bandu- ri's chart of Constantinople divided into regions, as it existed at the time of the Greek emperors, with every remarkable object distinctly noticed, renders it," says Mr. Hobhousc, " superfluous for any traveller at this day to dwell upon the comparative topography of the ancient and modern city. By far the greater part of the antiquities which were seen by Gyllius, have disappeared; but the 96 TURKEY. No foreigner is now allowed to reside in the city itself, not even the minister of a friendly nation ; and the " water of the Golden Horn," winch flows between the city and the suburbs, is a line of separation seldom transgressed by the Frank resi- dents. The following is Sir George Wheler's descrip- tion of its situation and appearance, who visited Turkey in 1675 : " Constantinople (now vulgarly called Stamboul by the Turks, but by the Greeks more often Istampoli *) is situate on a Chersonesus which hath the Propontis south, theBosphorus east, the harbour called by Strabo Kigci; Bugavnuv (now Perami) north, and is joined to the continent of Thrace westwards. It is distant from the Asian shore about a league over the Bos- phorus, and from Galata on the northern side of the harbour, about a mile. It is of a triangular figure, two of whose sides (to wit, towards the Bosphorus and the harbour) are as two segments of a circle, bending much inwards to each other. The first, beginning from the promontory now called San regular division of the ground-plan of the city enables us to dis- cover their respective sites ; and it is most probable that an atten- tive scrutiny would discover many ancient monuments enclosed within the palaces and gardens of the incurious Turks. The me- chanical labours of the engineer above-mentioned deserve a better and more copious illustration than the work of M. Le Chevalier, which, though incomparably the best on the subject, might easily be surpassed by any person able to consult the requisite authorities on the spot; an advantage possessed by no passing traveller."—. Letters, vol. ii, p. 941- * Stamboul is supposed to be corrupted, either from the proper name of the city, shortened into Stanpoli, or from the words n; T-/jv rroXiv (to the city), pronounced Stinpoli. "I think theirs a groundless fancy," says Wheler, " who fetch it from the Turkish word Litamboal, which signifies a city full of, or abounding in the true faith." ■$;l(ril ;iiicis v ' *#JV# KKI I'.KKNCE (■A Kwi /«/iyr// TURKEY- 97 Demetrio, whereon Byzantium was anciently built, but now the Grand Signior's seraglio, and running thence south-eastwards to the Seven Towers, is counted about five or six miles. That towards the harbour is about three miles, and the other, joining to the continent, about four miles. So that it is about thirteen miles in circumference, although they com- monly count it fifteen.* The walls on the two sides towards the Bosphorus and the harbour, are built so small a distance from the water that, in many places, there is not room to pass between the square towers that jet out of it at equal distances and the sea. They are high, but look very ruinous, and in all likelihood have been very little if at all repaired since the time of the Greek emperors ; of whom we found several inscriptions set on high on the towers and many places in the walls. They are built of rough stone, and here and there patched up with brick, being single towards the sea, but some part towards the land, double. There are about five-and-twenty gates ; seven • " M. Thevenot," says Tournefort, " will have Constantinople to be not so big as Paris, and but ten or twelve miles about ; M. Spon allows it fifteen. For my part, I believe its compass to be twenty-three miles; to which if you add twelve for the suburbs of Galata, Cassun-pasha, Pera, Topana, Fundukli, the circumference of this vast city will be thirty-four or thirty-five miles. I cannot hold with them who reckon Scutari among the suburbs of Constan- tinople, because it is parted only by the breadth of the canal ; nei- ther, on the other hand, can I come into their sentiment who cut off from Constantinople all the suburbs beyond the port, since even under the first Christian emperors, Galata was the thirteenth region of the city. The fig-tree quarter, which is the same as Galata, makes part of the city according to the Emperor Anastasius ; and Justinian placed it in the new circumference. By little and little, they have joined to Galata the neighbouring towns, as, at Paris, the Fauxbourg St. Germain, the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, and others." TAUT I. K 98 TURKEY. towards the Propontis, seven towards the land, and eleven towards the haven. " Every way towards the sea side, the land riseth higher, until it is swelled into an indifferent high hill, which runneth in a ridge westwards, and hath seven points higher and more perspicuous than the rest crowned with very high and beautiful mosques, which give a most delightful prospect to the beholders at a distance ; so that strangers are commonly swelled with extraordinary high conceits of it. But, perhaps, no place in the world deceives their expectation more than this ; for the streets are narrow, dark, and steep, composed of small, low, and ill-built houses, consist- ing of wood, earth, or, at the best, hut rough or un- hewn stone. The private houses are but mean and beggarly ; it is only the Grand Signior's palace, the mosques, bagnios, bazars, and khans, that make so splendid a show at a distance." It is not difficult, Pococke says, to discern the seven hills on which the city is built. " The first takes up the whole breadth of the promontory on which the Grand Signior's seraglio is built. Five more are over the port, divided by valleys that descend from the height, which joins some of the hills, and goes nearly the whole length of the city, the Adrianople street running all along on the top of it. On the second hill is the Burnt Pillar ; on the third hill is the magnificent mosque Solimanea. The valley between this and the fourth hill is broad : the aqueduct of Valentinian crowned it, of which there remain about forty arches. The east end of it is destroyed, and the water is now conveyed by channels on the ground. The mosque of Sultan Mahomet is on the fourth hill, and that of Sultan Selim on the fifth, the western walls of thq TURKEY. 99 city running along the top of the sixth hill. These hills rise so one above another from the port, that they all appear from the mouth of the harbour ; and most of the houses having a court or garden, in which they plant trees for the shade and the refreshing verdure, great beauty is added to the prospect. The seventh hill is divided by a vale from the height that joins the last three hills, which are to the north of it. This hill alone is computed to be a third part of the city, and is to the south of the fourth, fifth, and sixth hills ; the others having the bay to the south of them ; and this bay has to the south of it, the north-east point of the seventh hill, and the other three hills to the north. The pillar of Arcadius was on the seventh hill."* A very full and lively description of the city ia furnished by M. Tournefort, who travelled in the years 1700-2, by order of the King of France, and who has been pronounced by a competent critic-)- to be " the most useful, the most amusing, and the most accurate traveller" that ever visited the Levant. " Constantinople, with its suburbs, is, beyond dispute, the largest city of Europe. Its situation, by * " For my own part," says Mr. Hobhouse, " I could not, upon repeated trials, distinguish the seven eminences, although assisted by a plan which divided the town into seven quarters, with a rela- tion to the same number of hills. Gyllius, however, in his topo- graphical description, not only distinguished the seven hills, but averred that six of them were discernible to those sailing through the port, rising, like brothers and in regular succession, from the back of the same promontory." Yet, Gibbon pronounces Pococke's plan of the seven hills clear and accurate, and unusually satisfac- tory. Mr. llobhouse took his survey of the city from the summit of the tower of Galata; but he ought at least to have discerned the hills from the harbour. t The Hon. F. S. N. Douglas. K2 100 TURKEY. consent of all travellers, and even the ancient histo- rians, is the most agreeable and the most advan- tageous of the whole universe. It seems as if the Canal of the Dardanelles, and that of the Black Sea, were made on purpose to bring it the riches of the four quarters of the world : those of the Mogul, the Indies, the remotest North, China, and Japan, come hy the way of the Black Sea ; and by the Canal of the White Sea come the merchandises of Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the coast of Africa, the West Indies, and whatever Europe produces. These two canals are as the doors of Constantinople ; the North and South, which are the ordinary winds there, are, as it were, the two leaves of the door : when the north wind Mows, the south door is shut, that is, nothing can come in fiom the southern coast ; this dooi opens when the south wind reigns. If you will not allow these winds to be called the doors of Constantinople, you must agree them to be its keys at least. " The walls of Constantinople are very good : those of the land side have a double range twenty feet from each other, and defended by a flat-bottomed ditch some twenty-five feet broad. The outer wall, which is about two toises high, is defended by 250 low towers : the inner wall is ahove twenty feet high, and its towers, which answer to those of the outer, are well-proportioned. The battlements, the courtines, the port-holes are well contrived, but we saw no artil- lery : freestone is what it mostly consists of. I think we counted five gates on this side. It might be easily fortified, for the situation is naturally sloping, very far from commanding the city." " There are seven gates from the Point of the Seraglio to the seven towers ; five land-ward, and eleven on the port : but whichever gate you go ia at, ?$&*$ ^f*F TURKEY. 101 you mount an ascent. Constantine, who designed to make Constantinople like Rome, could not have found a better spot for eminences. It is a very tire- some city for foot-travellers : persons of note go on horseback. Before we enter the town, we must once more admire the outside. Nothing upon earth can be more delightful, than with one glance of the eye to discover all the houses of the biggest city in Europe, whose roofings, terraces, balconies, and gardens form a variety of amphitheatres, set off with lezestains (places like our changes, for selling wares), caravan- serais (house of hospitality), seraglios, and especially mosques or churches, which far outshow ours in France. These mosques, though hideous for their bulk, yet in appearance have nothing about them but what is beautiful, the defects and oddness of the Turkish architecture not being discernible so far off. On the contrary, their principal domes, accompanied with other little domes, both covered with lead or gilding ; their steeples, if I may use that word for towers very slender and extremely high, with the crescent at top ; altogether yield a charming spectacle to one that stands at the entrance of the canal of the Black Sea. Nay, this canal itself strikes you with admiration; for Fa- nari-kiosk, Chalcedon, Scutari, and the adjoining country, have an agreeable effect upon the eye, when, no longer able to bear the lustre of Constantinople, you turn your face to the right. " I must however confess, that the objects we had seen from our ship, appeared quite different, on com- paring them with those which presented themselves to us when we went ashore. I know not whether it was the onions they sell at the corner of every street, that awakened in us the idea of those famous temples in Eyypt, whose outside dazzled the beholder's eye j but K3 102 TURKEY. I could not help comparing Constantinople with those stately edifices, wherein were nothing but crocodiles, rats, leeks, onions, which those idolaters regarded as so many deities. The houses of Galata, where we landed, are low, built mostly of wood and mud, so that a fire consumes thousands of them in u day ; a disaster which frequently befals them, either from the Turks smoking in bed, or else done on purpose by the soldiers for tbe sake of pilfering. It would be no great damage if nothing but the house was destroyed, for they cost but a trifle to build again, and there is wood enough on the coasts of the Black Sea, to rebuild Con- stantinople once a year, if occasion were ; but a world of families are utterly undone by the burning of their merchandises. It is a small matter when they speak but of 2000 or 3000 houses burnt. A man has often the mortification to see his house pulled down and pillaged, though the fire be 200 paces off. Especially when the north-east, which the Turks call the black wind, is in its fury, they have found no other remedy to pre- vent the whole town from being devoured, but only to blow up a great many houses, otherwise the confla- gration would become general. The foreign mer- chants have of late years wisely bethought themselves to build at Galata very substantial warehouses of freestone, standing single, and having no more win- dows than are barely necessary ; the shutters where- of, as well as the doors, are covered with iron plates. " The streets of Constantinople are very ill paved, some not at all : the only street that is practicable, is that which goes from the Seraglio to the gate of Adri- anople ; the rest are close, dark, deep, and look like so many cut-throat lanes. And yet, you frequently meet with good buildings, bagnios, bazars, and some houses of great men, built with lime and sand, and angled ■■■ ■ Ml M W TURKEY. 103 witli freestone, the apartments running very cleverly into one another. " The first walk a stranger usually takes in Con* stantinople is to the royal mosques, of which there are seven so called. These edifices, which are very handsome in their kind, are completely finished, and kept in perfect good condition ; whereas in France, we have scarcely such a thing as a finished church : if the nave is admired for its largeness and the beauty of its arch-work, the choir is imperfect ; if these two parts are complete, the frontispiece is not begun. Most of our churches, especially in Paris, are hedged in with profane buildings and tradesmen's shops ; to make ad- vantage of every the least spot of ground, the church is often so choked up with houses, there is no avenue, no vacancy left ; whereas the mosques of Constanti- nople stand single, within a spacious inclosure, planted with fine trees, adorned with delicate fountains. They suffer not a dog to enter ; no one presumes to hold discourse there, or do the least irreverent action : they are well endowed, and far exceed ours in riches. Though their architecture is inferior to ours, yet they fail not to make an impression on the beholder by their largeness and solidity. In all parts of the Le- vant, the domes are well executed: those of the mosques are of an exact proportion, and accompanied with other smaller domes, which make them appear full and comely to the eye It is not so with their minarets, which are spires as high as any of our belfries, and as small about as a nine-pin, in a manner. These mi- narets are a great ornament to the mosques, and to the whole town : however, though Ave have no work of that boldness among us, our eyes are formed to our belfries, and our ears to the sound of our bells, which are more harmonious than the singings of the Muezins ; 104 TURKEY. so they term those who call the people to prayers, in a singing tone, from the top of the minarets. " St. Sophia is the most perfect of all these mosques. Its situation is advantageous, for it stands in one of the bests and finest parts of Constantinople, at the top of the ancient Byzantium, and of an eminence that descends gradually down to the sea by the Point of the Seraglio. This church, which is certainly the finest structure in the world next to St. Peters at Rome, looks to be very unwieldy without. The plan is almost square, and the dome, which is the only thing worth remarking, rests outwardly on four prodigious large towers, which have been added of late years to sup- port this vast building, and make it immoveable, in a country where whole cities are often overthrown by earthquakes. " The frontispiece has nothing grand, nor answer- able to the idea men have of St. Sophia. You first enter in at a portico about six toises (fathom) broad, which in the time of the Greek emperors served for a vestibulum. This portico communicates with the church by nine marble folding-doors, the leaves where- of, which are brass adorned with basso-relievos, are extremely magnificent : on the middlemost of them you see some figures of mosaic work, nay, some paint- ings too. The vestibulum is joined to another, which is parallel to it, but has no more than five brazen doors without bas-reliefs ; the leaves were charged with crosses, but the Turks have only left the up- right post of these crosses, and have taken away the cross-beam of them. You do not enter front-wise into these two vestibulums, but only at doors opened on the sides ; and according to the rules of the Greek church, these vestibulums were necessary for the placing of those that were distinguished either for TURKEY. 105 being about to receive the sacraments, or undergo public penance. Parallel to these vestibulums, the Turks have built a great cloister, for lodging the of- ficers of the mosque. " A dome of an admirable structure holds the place of a nave : at the foot of this dome runs a colonnade, which bears a gallery five toises broad, the arch-work whereof is exquisite. In the interspaces of the co- lumns, the parapet is adorned with crosses in bas- relief: these the Turks have used very ill. By some it is called Constantine's gallery ; it was formerly set apart for the women. At the roof, and on the cornice of the dome, runs a small gallery, or rather a balus- trade, no broader than just for one person to pass at a time ; and above this there is also another. These balustrades make a marvellous figure in time of their romezan, when they are all adorned with lamps. The columns of this dome have scarcely any swelling, and their chapiters looked to be of a singular order. The dome is eighteen toises from wall to wall, and rests upon four huge pillars, about eight toises thick : the arch seems a perfect demi-sphere, illu- minated with twenty-four windows, disposed in a circumference. " From the east part of this dome, you pass straight on to the demi-dome, which terminates the edifice. This dome, or shell, was the sanctuary of the Chris- tians, and the great altar was placed there. Mahomet II., having conquered this city, went and sat here with his legs crossed under him after the manner of the Turks : after saying his prayers, he caused himself to be shaved, and then fastened to one of the pillars, where was the patriarch's throne, a fine piece of em- broidered stuff, with Arabic characters on it, which had served as a screen in the mosque of Mecca;; Such 10G TURKEY. was the consecration of St. Sophia ! There is at pre* sent in this sanctuary, nothing but the niche where they keep the Alcoran : it looks towards Mecca, and the mussulmans always turn that way when they say their prayers. The mufti's chair is hard by: it is raised on several steps, and on the side of it is a kind of pulpit, for the officers to repeat certain prayers. " This mosque, built like a Greek cross, is in the clear 42 toises long, 38 broad ; the dome takes up almost all this square. They assured me, there were no fewer then 107 columns of different marble, of por- phyry, or Egyptian granite ; we had not time to count them ourselves. The whole dome is lined or paved with varieties of marble : the incrustations of the gallery are mosaic, mostly done with cubes or dice of glass, which arc loosened every day from their ce- ment, but their colour is unalterable. These glass dice are real doublets, for the variegated leaf is covered with a piece of glass very thin, and glued on, so that nothing but hot boiling water can make it scale off. If ever mosaics should come again in fashion among us, we could easily do the like. Though the applica- tion of these two pieces of glass, containing the co- loured plate, be trifling, yet it proves the invention of doublets not to be new. The Turks have destroyed the nose and eyes of some figures, as well as the faces of four cherubims placed in the angles of the dome. " * " There are in it," says Pococke, in his clumsy style, " eight porphyry pillars, and as many of verd-anttque, which, I believe, for their size, are not to be exceeded in the world. The dome being supported by four large piers, between them are four ve>-d-a>itit/ne pillars on each side; and a semicircle being formed as at each corner by these and four more piers, there are two porph yry pillars in each of them, and it appears plainly that there was a third; for there is an arch filled up next to each pier, which was doubtless done in order to atrengthen those piers, the building having visibly TURKEY- 107 " This church is not the first that In Constantinople bore the name of St. Sophia. Constantine the Great was the first that consecrated a chapel there to the Wisdom of the Uncreated Word ; but whether that given way at the south-west corner, where the pillars of the gallery hang over very much. Two of the porphyry pillars in the portico of Solimanea might be taken from this mosque ; and probably the other two might be found, if all the mosques and the seraglios were examined. These pillars are about two feet and a half in diameter, and of a proportionable height : there are pillars of verd-antique in the galleries over them. Eight large porphyry pillars in St. Sophia are mentioned as taken out of a temple of the Sun built by Valerian, and sent by Marsia, a Roman widow, to the Emperor Justinian ; so that if the others were of porphyry, they must have been taken from some other place. There are two porticoes to the church : the inner one is lined with fine marbles. The mosque strikes the eye at the first entrance, the dome being very large; but a great beauty is lost, as the mosaic is all destroyed, excepting a very little at the east end ; so that all the top is whited over ; but the sides are wainscoted with porphyry, verd-antique, and other rare oriental marbles. It is hung with a great number of glass lamps, and the pavement is spread with the richest carpets, where the sophtis are always studying and repeating the Koran ; and the doctors are preaching and explaining it, in particular parts of the mosque, to their separate auditories. The top is covered with lead, and there is a gallery round on the outside of the cupola. This mosque makes a much meaner and heavier appearance on the outside, than the mosques that are built in imitation of it. On the south side of it, the Grand Signior has erected a very small but neat library, which seemed to be about twenty feet wide and thirty long ; there are presses round it, and two in the middle for the manuscripts. The windows open to a court, round which the mausoleums of three sultans are finely built of marble ; and in one of the windows of the library, there is a sofa for the Grand Signior, when he is pleased to come and hear the law read in this place." Mr. Hobhouse thus speaks of this far-famed edifice :— " 1 know of no monument of antiquity which has excited so much curiosity, both amongst the learned and the unlearned, as St. Sophia. For its dimen- sions and integrity, it may be thought incomparably more curious than any other relic of former ages; but, in every other respect, it must disappoint any sanguine expectation. I ts external appearance is that of a vast building, whose ill-assorted construction requires a 103 TURKEY. building was too small, or whether it was some time after destroyed by an earthquake, Constantius his son caused a larger church to be built instead of the former. The sanctuary and the greatest part of this proportionate heaviness of mass to preserve it standing and entire. The weighty buttresses, and the attached compartments of the temple, falling in a succession of pent-houses, from the spring of the arch to within a few feet of the ground, nearly conceal, and totally ruin any effect which might otherwise be produced by the height and expanse of its far-famed dome. The interior, to which you descend by five steps, seems at first sight magnificently spacious, and not broken with the aisles and choirs, nor deformed by the railings and tombs of modern churches ; but your ad m i r a t ion diminishes as you proceed with your inspection. The beauty of the variegated marble floor is concealed by a covering of mats ; and the dome, as well as the tody of the building, is spoiled by a thou- sand little cords depending from the summit within four feet of the pavement, and having at the end of them lamps of coloured glass, large ostrich-eggs, artificial horse-tails, vases and globes of crystal, and other mean ornaments. The columns appear too large for the arches which they support, and the carving of their capitals tan scarcely be more painful to the eyes of an architect, than to those of a common observer. Grelot knew not to what order they be- longed, or by what name to describe their style, unless he called it a sort of Gothicised Greek. From a change in the arrangement of the sanctuary, the line of the nave does not seem at right angles with the large circular recess, called in former times Cycttim, in which the Christian altar was placed ; for the marble pulpit of the Imaum, with its attached flight of steps, projects from the left side of it, and the mats, together with a descent of two steps, being so arranged as to give another direction to the cord of the arc, the whole of one wing, and the grand diameter of the base, have an appearance of distortion. The alteration has been caused by the desire of the Mahometans to point the centre of the sanc- tuaryjdirectly towards Mecca, which being formerly due east, is, by the above contrivance, drawn a little to the southward of that quar- ter. At this new centre is a niche, with a large chandelier on each side, called the Mirabe or Maharabe, which is the repository of the Koran. The upper part of the walls is defaced by miserable little squares of red, white, and blue paint. The great eight-winged seraphims are fading fast away. The tesselated mosaic with which the concave above the windows and the dome are encrusted, and specimens of which, taken from the cieling of an adjoining oratory H W& ^f^fes^fi TURKEY. 109 church were ruined in the reign of Arcadius, when a tumult was stirred up against St. John Chrysostom, patriarch of Constantinople ; nay, his party is said to have set it on fire. It was again burnt under Hono- rius, and re-established by young Theodosius ; but in the fifth year of Justinian, St. Sophia escaped not the general burning, in that insurrection wherein IJypa- tius was made emperor in his own despite. Justinian, having quelled the sedition, and punished those that raised it, caused the same year to be built the stately edifice still existing. M. du Cange proves, that it was finished in five years, and not in seventeen, as some are sold to strangers, is not visible to those standing in the body of the mosck. It is composed of very minute squares, formed of some vitreous substance gilded and tinged with paint. The upper part of the walls is heavy and dark, and the heaven-suspended vault scarcely rises into an arch, but shews, indeed, an inward depression from the summit towards the centre of the cupola. With a dia- meter of one hundred and fifteen feet, (fifteen feet more than that of St. Paul's church,) it is only eighteen in depth, and not more than one hundred and eighty from the pavement. The closing of the arcades of the upper Gynaikonition, or female gallery, where there is now only a railed ledge large enough to enable the servants of the mosck to walk round and light the lamps, has contributed to the heavy darkness of the dome. My 'general impression was, that the skill of the one hundred architects, and the labour of the ten thousand workmen, the wealth of an empire, and the ingenuity of presiding angels, had raised a stupendous monument of the heavy mediocrity which distinguished the productions of the sixth century from the perfect specimens of a happier age. The general style of its ornaments shewed that it was calculated for nocturnal illumina- tions. All was gilt and gaudy colouring; and the Emperor would have inlaid the pavement with solid gold, if his astrologers had not warned him that the building would be dilapidated by his needy successors. It must indeed have a brilliant appearance, when lighted by its myriads of lamps, and its vaults may glitter like tha firmament , but this is the excellence of a theatre, rather than of a temple, and may be found where the skill of the architect and .sculptor U required in vain." I'AJtT I. L 110 TURKEY. Greek authors have written. The Emperor was so highly pleased, he burst into an exclamation, ' I have outdone thee, O Solomon !' But in the 32nd year of Justinian, an earthquake threw down the demi-dome, and the altar was crushed in its fall : it was re-edified, and the church consecrated a-new. Zonaras observes, that Justinian did great injury to polite literature, in applying to this building the stipends that were usually given the professors in every town all over tin- empire. Rather than not gratify his itch for build- ing, he melted down the silver statue of Theodosius, which Arcadius had erected, and which weighed 7400 pounds. To cover the dome of St. Sophia, Justinian employed the leaden pipes, which served to carry most of the water for the use of the city. The chief architects that were concerned in this famous church, were Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidorus of Miletus. The first was esteemed the greatest mechanist of his time : he was, some think, no stranger to the art of making gunpowder; for Agathias avers, that he would exactly mimic thunder, lightning, and earth- quakes. The Emperor Basil the Macedonian caused the western demi-dome to be strengthened. Lastly, this church was so damaged by another earthquake under the empress Anne and John Paleologus her son, that it required much expense of time and trea- sure to repair ; for which reason, the marriage of the Emperor with Helen, daughter of Cantacuzenus, was solemnized in the church of Blaquernes, dedicated to the Holy Virgin. Mahomet II. was so pleased with St. Sophia, that he caused it to be repaired, and the Turks have ever since kept it with the utmost care. " After visiting St. Sophia, we were carried thirty or forty paces off, to be shewn the mausoleums of .'V-- (■-*:' ifirfy rtfv^ ^Sfc^i'i^ 'ywhBs TURKEY. Ill certain Ottoman princes : they are four small low building-s, with domes covered over with lead, sup- ported by columns hexagonally placed. The balus- trades are of wood, and the coffins are covered with plain cloth. The emperors are distinguished from their wives only by their turbant, which is on a pillar at the head of the coffin, and this coffin is somewhat bigger, as well as the torches that burn at each end. There is no torch to that of Sultan Mourat's brother, though there are to every one of the Grand Siguier's wives. They pointed us to some handkerchiefs like cravats round the necks of certain figures, iu number 120, being representations of that Emperor's children, which were all strangled in a day by his successor's order. They have not been sparing of marble in these mausoleums, which are constantly illuminated night and day, not only with the torches about the coffins, but many others : they have also chained thereto several copies of the alcoran, to be perused by such as resort thither to pray. Besides those who come out of devotion, there are here, as also in the other mauso- leums, a company of poor alms-people, who have a foundation hard by : these wear wooden chaplets, the beads whereof are about the size of a musket-ball. I have forgotten the names of the other Sultans who are in these mausoleums : I think they mentioned to us Sultan Selim and Sultan Mustafa. " Hard by is seen an old tower, said to have served as a church to the Christians ; they keep in it several wild beasts; such as lions, leopards, tigers, lynxes, jackals : these last are between a fox and a wolf, and in the night make a crying like children. " The other Royal Mosques of Constantinople may be reckoned so many copies of St. Sophia, more or less l2 112 TURKEY. resembling this original. They are domes of a goodly appearance, accompanied with many other smaller domes. The building always stands by itself in an in- closure planted with trees, adorned with fountains, oratories to pray in, and all other conveniences neces- sary to the exercise of the Mahometan religion. As for the minarets, that is, those slender spires before- mentioned, there is no royal mosque without two at least some have four, nay, six of them. " At the ancient Hippodrome, (or running.place for horses,) now called Atmeidan, is a mosque, each minaret of which has three stone galleries. Before you enter this mosque, you go through a peristyle, winch is a sort of cloister arched over, and covered with little domes, and supported by columns. The pavement is of a very beautiful marble, as also an hexagonal fountain which is in the middle, covered likewise with a dome formed by grates of gilded iron. This mosque, and the other royal mausoleums which the Mussulmen have built, are lighted with a great many more lamps than St. Sophia ; and among the lamps of the new mosque are placed crystal balls, branched candlesticks, ostrich eggs, and such like pieces, to please the eye. They shewed us a globe of glass, wherein was repre- sented in bas-relief, with wonderful patience, the plan of the mosque. The turbe, or mausoleum of Sultan Achmet, is behind this mosque, northward. " Of all the mosques in Constantinople, there is none comes near to St. Sophia in the beauty of its dome, but the Solymania, founded by Solyman II. the most magnificent of all the Sultans. Nay, its out- side outdoes St. Sophia : its windows are larger and better disposed, its galleries more regular and stately. The whole is built of the finest stones that could be TURKEY. 113 found among the ruins of Chalcedon. * The in- dispensable necessity the Musslumen are under of making their ablutions, obliges them to build large clois- ters near the royal mosques : the fountain is always placed in the middle, and the washing-places round about. " The mausoleum of its founder, and that of the Sultana his wife, are behind the mosque under very rich domes. Solyman's coffin is covered with a fine piece of embroidery, representing the town of Mecca, from whence it was brought. At the head of that Prince's coffin are two heron's feathers beset with precious stones. Here are constantly burning seven huge tapers, and a great many lamps ; copies of the Alcoran are chained up and down in divers places, and persons are in pay to read them. The Turks think the dead are relieved by prayers. " The Validea, so called from Valide its foundress, wife of Ibrahim, and mother of Mahomet IV., is an- other fine edifice placed on the port near the Seraglio. The inside is lined with fine Dutch ware, but its co- lonnade is of marble, with chapiters after the Turkish way : most of the columns were fetched from the ruins * " That of Sultan Solyman is an exact square, with four fine towers in the angles ; in the midst is a noble cupola, supported with beautiful marble pillars, and two lesser at the ends, supported in the same manner ; the pavement and gallery round the mosque, of marble. Under the great cupola is a fountain, adorned with such fine coloured pillars, that I can hardly think them natural marble. On one side is the pulpit, of white marble, and on the other, the little gallery for the Grand Signior: a tine staircase leads to it, and it is built up with gilded lattices. The pavement is spread with fine carpets, and the mosque is illuminated with a vast number of lamps. The court leading to it is very spacious, with galleries of marble of green columns, covered with twenty-eight leaded cupolas, on two sides, and a line fountain in the midst."— Lady M. W, Montagu's tetters. X3 114 TURKEY. of Troy. Its lamps, branched candlesticks, ivory balls, crystal globes are very ornamental. The whole work seems to be more delicate than the other mosques, and has nothing Gothic, though much in the Turkish taste. The arches over the doors and windows are well designed ; its two minarets have each three hand- some galleries. It is surprising that the Turks, who do not often raise such fabrics, should find architects skilful enough to build them. " The situation of this mosque, which is full in sight of the Seraglio, and in the most frequented part of the town, makes it to be preferred before all others on public rejoicing-days. They do not content them- selves with crowding with lamps the galleries of its minarets, but throw several cords at different heights between one spire and another : these cords not only support the name and cipher of the Grand Siguier, represented by small burning lamps, but likewise the representation of towns, and the principal victories that give occasion to the festival. " In these illuminations everything glitters ; the very crescents are in a blaze. Were the ancient By- zantines to return to life, they would doubtless be astonished at the prodigious dimensions of their city, which at this day extends to the furthermost part of the haven, whereas in their time it took up only the southern entrance ; but they would not be surprised to see the crescent, it being the symbol of Byzan- tium. We are told the reason of it by Stephens the Geographer, a native of this city. Philip of Mace- don, father of Alexander the Great, meeting with mighty difficulties in carrying on the siege of Byzan- tium, took the opportunity of a very dark night to set workmen to undermine the walls, so as to make a breach for his troops to enter the place, without being TURKEY. 115 perceived by the enemy ; but, luckily for the besieged, the moon appearing, gave them light into the design, and made it miscarry. The inhabitants in acknow- ledgement, erected a statue to Hecate on the port ; and this place, which before was called Bosphorus, on ac- count of an ox's swimming it over to Asia on a cer- tain time, went afterwards by the name of Phospho- rus, on occasion of Diana the light-bringer. It is likely, that the church of St. Photina of Topana was built upon the foundation of some temple of the same Diana. Tristanus has published the type of a beauti- ful medal of Trajan, on the reverse whereof is a cre- scent surmounted by a star ; and in the legend it is notified, that the town was saved by favour of that cre- scent, or by the help of Diana, whose symbol it was. There are several medals of the same type in the King's Cabinet, in the name of the Byzantines, with the heads of Diana, Trajan, Julia Domna, wife of Severus. The Turks have only adopted the crescent, which they met with up and down among the ancient buildings of the city. " The other royal mosques are not so considerable as those already mentioned ; they are called by their founders' names, Sultan Bajazet, Sultan Selim, Sultan Mahomet. The mosque of Ejoup is not counted a royal building, though built by Mahomet II., who caused the whole city to be repaired, and founded many colleges. This mosque consists of but one dome, famous for nothing but the ceremony of crowning the new Sultan. The ceremony is not long : they have nothing to do with crowns or other royal orna- ments. The Emperor ascends a kind of rostrum of marble, and the mufti girds a sabre to bis side, as an emblem of his being Lord of the whole Earth ; for, at this court, all the other kings are called Sultanons, 116 TURKEY. except the King of France, to whom they give the name of Padishah, that is, Emperor. The mosque of Ejoup is at the efflux of the fresh waters ; this same Ejoup is esteemed hy the Turks as a great prophet, as well as captain. They do not, however, deny that he was worsted before Constantinople, and that he was killed there at the head of an army of Saracens, whom he commanded. His sepulchre is not less resorted to than those of the Sultans : there is a continual gray- ing at it, which sort of praying is what a great many people in Turkey get a handsome livelihood hy. " From Ejoup's mosque, we went to see an old ruined edifice, called the palace of Constantine ; but it has nothing considerable : it is a ruinous decayed thing, about 400 paces from the walls of the city. There are left two columns, that bore up a balcony over the gate ; the whole looks like some gallery, to which they ascended by a marble staircase, some of the steps yet remaining. It is perhaps the residue of some house built by Constantine Porphyrogenetus, * for the palace of Constantine the Great was in the first region of the town, where now the Seraglio stands. Zozimus as- sures us, that there was no finer in all Rome; Codinus calls it the palace of the Hippodrome. " We afterwards crossed the quarter of Balat, to go down to the port, which is one of the wonders of the city. The Greek Emperors used heretofore to take the diversion of hunting at Balat, which is therefore called in vulgar Greek, the Park or the Hunter. Here is nothing but the patriarchal church, * " What they call the Palace of Constantine, close to which the walls are built on the si*th hill, seems to have been only one room, with the roof supported by pillars; though now it is divided, and made into stories ; it does not seem to be of great antiquity, and is probably a Genoese building, as there are coats of arms over the windows."— Pocockk. ■I TURKEY. 117 that can engage a stranger's attention, and that more for its name than beauty ; it is about 200 paces from the port. The Greeks must not dare to bestow any cost on this church, even though they were ever so rich ; for the Turks would not fail to lay hands on whatever money should be offered to be applied that way. " The port of Constantinople can never be too much admired. We went round it in a boat, in very serene weather. These boats are small gondolas, exceedingly light, and marvellously neat and pretty ; they are in such numbers, they cover the whole haven, especially the passage to Galata. The ancients never put a better thing into the oracle's mouth, than when they made him give this answer to some who consulted him about building a town hereabouts : ' Let it bej said the oracle, ' over against the country of blind men.' For the port of Chalcedon, which is on the opposite shore, is so odd a place, that they may well be called blind, that first pitched on it. The haven of Con- stantinople is a basin seven or eight miles in circuit towards the city, and as much on the suburb side: its entrance, about GOO paces broad, begins at the point of the Seraglio, or the cape of St. Demetrius, situated in the south : it is the Cape of Bosphorus, where stood the ancient town of Byzantium. Thence to the west, the port extends like a crooked horn, which may more justly be compared to that of an ox than a stag, as Strabo has it, for the coast has no in and out turnings like divisions : it is true, M. Gilles observes, there have been many alterations that have destroyed its ancient form. This port opens to the east, and faces Scutari ; Galata and Cassun-pasha are to the north ; lastly, it terminates to the N.N.W., where the river Lycus empties itself. This river is 118 TURKEY- made up of two streams : the biggest, on which is the paper-mill, comes from Belgrade ; the other flows from the N.W. The Lycus is not everywhere navigable, and therefore there are stakes to point out the surest places. The stream that comes from the N.W., is not practicable for boats further than the village of Hali-bey-cui. The other is deep enough for about four miles. To go from Pera to Adrianople, you cross tbese two streams over bridges. Apollonius Thyanaeus performed a world of magic ceremonies on these waters. They are of wondrous use to cleanse the haven ; for, descending from the N.W., they wash the coast of Cassun-pasha and Galata, while part of the waters of the Canal of the Black Sea, which descend from the N. like a torrent, as Dion Cassius observes, dash violently against the cape of the Bosphorus, and recoil to the right towards the west : by this motion they sweep away the mud that might gather about Constantinople, and by piece of natural mechanism shove it on by degrees as far as the fresh waters. These fresh waters help to preserve the shipping ; for experience shews, that they are less subject to be worm-eaten in such ports where there is fresh water, than where there is salt : the fish too take greater delight in such waters, and are better tasted. The port of Constantinople abounds with tnnny-fish, called Pelamides by the ancients : we see them frequently represented on the medals of By- zantium, with the heads of the Emperors Caligula, Claudius, Caracalla, Geta, Gordianus, Pins, Gallienns, and the Empresses Sabina, Lucillia, Crispina, Julia Moesa, and Julia Mamoea. Pliny says, that under the water towards Chalcedon, there were white rocks that scared the tunnies, and forced them into the port of Byzantium. Dolphins too sometimes appear TURKEY. 119 there in such numbers, tlie port swarms with them : they are often fished for ; their teeth are like a saw. But Pliny was mistaken in the story of the white rock above-mentioned, for the tunny-fish go as far as Clmlcedon, where there are caught great numbers of them. " The Seraglio, (the workmanship of Mahomet IT.) is nearly three miles about : it is a kind of triangle, whose side next the city is the biggest ; that next the liosphorus is at the east ; and the other, that forms the entrance of the port, is in the north. The apart- ments are on the top of the hill, and the gardens be- low, stretching to the sea. The walls of the city, Hanked with their towers, joining themselves to the Point of St. Demetrius, make the circumference of this palace towards the sea. As great as the com- pass of it is, the outside of the palace has nothing curious to boast of; and if one may judge of the beauty of its gardens by the cypress-trees which are discern- ible in them, they do not much exceed those of private men. That the inhabitants of Galata and other places in that neighbourhood, may not see the Sultanas walking in these gardens, they are planted with trees that are always green. "Though I saw only the outside of the Seraglio,* I am persuaded that its inside can shew nothing of what we call stately and noble ; because the Turks have hardly any notion of magnificence, and follow no one rule of good architecture. If they have made fine mosques, it is because they had a fine model before their eyes, * The most minute description of the Seraglio is given by Taver- nier. See " A New Relation of the Inner Part of the Grand Seignor's Seraglio, containing several remarkable Particulars never before exposed to View. By J. B. Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne." Folio. London, 1077. The relation occupies above ninety folio pages, and is tediously diffuse, and not unexceptionable in point of delicacy, 120 TURKEY. the church of St. Sophia ; a model which indeed is not to be followed in the erection of palaces. By the Turkish pavilions (a larger sort of building) a man may easily perceive he is moving from Italy, and ap- proaching towards Persia, nay China itself. " The apartments of the Seraglio have been made at different times, and according to the capriciousness of the Princes and Sultanas ; thus is this famed palace aheap of houses clustering together without any man- ner of order. No doubt they are spacious, commo- dious, richly furnished. Their best ornaments are not pictures, nor statues, but paintings after the Turkish manner, inlaid with gold and azure, diver- sified with flowers, landscapes, tail-pieces (such as the printers adorn the end of a book or chapter with,) and compartments like labels, containing Arabic sen- tences, the same as in the private houses of Constanti- nople. Marble basins, bagnios, spouting fountains, are the delight of the orientals, who place them over the first floor, without fear of over-pressing the ceil- ing. This too was the taste of the Saracens and Moors, as appears by their ancient palaces, especially that of Alhambra, at Granada in Spain, where they still shew, as a prodigy of architecture, the pavement of the lions' quarter, made of blocks of marble bigger than the tombstones in our churches. " If there is any thing curious in the Seraglio, it is what the ambassadors of foreign princes have brought thither ; such .is French and Venice glass, Persian carpets, oriental vases. It is said, most of the pavilions are supported by arches, under which are lodged the officers that serve the Sultanas. These ladies dwell over-head, in apartments commonly ter- minated by a dome covered with lead, or by spire.-, with gilded crescents : the balconies, the galleries, the cabinets, the belvederes, are the most agreeable places TURKEY. 121 of these apartments. In short, notwithstanding what has been said, take it altogether, it is answerahle to the greatness of its master ; but, to make a fine edifice of it, it must be pulled down, and the materials em. ployed to build another on a new model. " The principal entrance of the Seraglio is a huge pavilion, with eight openings over the gate, or porte. This Porte, from which the Ottoman empire took its name, is very high, simple, semicircular in its arch, with an Arabic inscription beneath the bend of the arch, and two niches, one on each side, in the wall. It looks rather like a guard-house than the entrance to a palace of one of the greatest princes of the world ; and yet it was Mahomet II. built it. Fifty capigis, or porters, keep this gate ; but they have generally no weapon but a wand or white rod. At first you enter into a large court-yard, not near so broad as long ; on the right are infirmaries for the sick, on the left, lodges for the azancoglans, that is, persons employed in the most sordid offices of the Seraglio : here the wood is kept that serves for fuel to the palace. There is every year consumed 40,000 cart-loads, each load as much as two buffaloes can well draw. "Anybody may enter the first court of the Seraglio. Here the domestics and slaves of the bashaws and agas wait for their masters' returning, and look after their horses ; but every thing is so still, the motion of a fly might be heard in a manner ; and if any one should presume to raise his voice ever so little, or shew the least want of respect to the mansion-place of their Emperor, he would instantly have the bastinado by the officers that go the rounds : nay, the very horses seem to know where they are, and no doubt they are taught to tread softer here than in the streets. PART I. M 122 TURKEY. " The infirmaries are for the sick that belong to the house ; they are carried thither in little close carts drawn by two men. When the court is at Constan- tinople, the chief physician and surgeon visit this place every day, and it is asserted they take great care of the sick. It is even said, that many who are in this place are well enough, only they get hither to refresh themselves, and drink their skin-full of wine. The use of this liquor, though severely forbidden elsewhere, i3 tolerated in the infirmaries, provided the eunuch at the door does not catch those that bring it, in which case the wine is spilt on the ground, and the bearers are sentenced to receive 2 or .300 bastinadoes. " From the first court you go on to the second, the entrance whereof is also kept by fifty capigis. This court is square, altont 300 paces in diameter, but much handsomer than the first : the pathways are paved, and the alleys well kept ; the rest consists of very pretty turf, whose verdure is only interrupted by foun- tains, which help to preserve its freshness. The Grand Signior's treasury and the little stable are on the left : here they shew a fountain, where formerly they used to cut off the heads of bashaws condemned to die. The offices and kitchens are on the right, embellished with domes, but without chimneys: they kindle a fire in the middle, and the smoke goes out through the holes made in the domes. The first of these kitchens is for the Grand Signior, the second for the chief sultanas, the third for the other sultanas, the fourth for the capi-aga, or commandant of the gates ; in the fifth, they dress the meat for the minis- ters of the divan ; the sixth belongs to the Grand Sig- nior's pages, called the ichoglans ; the seventh to the officers of the Seraglio ; the eighth is for the women and maid-servants ; the ninth for all such as are obliged TURKEY. 123 to attend the court of the divan on days of session. They do not provide much wild-fowl, but, besides 40,000 beeves spent yearly there, tbe purveyors are to furnish daily 200 sheep, 100 lambs or goats, according to the season, 10 calves, 200 hens, 200 pair of pullets, 100 pair of pigeons, and 50 green geese. " All round the court runs a low gallery covered with lead, and supported by columns of marble. No one but the Grand Signior himself enters this court on horseback, and therefore the little stable is in this place, but there is not room for above thirty horses : over-head they keep the harness, than which nothing can be richer in jewels and embroidery. The great stable, wherein there are about a thousand horses for the officers of the Grand Signior, is towards the sea, upon the Bosphorus. Such days as the foreign am- bassadors are admitted to audience, the Janizaries in very handsome apparel range themselves on the right beneath the gallery. The hall where the divan is held, that is the justice-hall, is on the left, at the further end of this court : on the right is a door, which lets into the inside of the Seraglio : none pass through but such as are sent for. The hall of the divan is large, but low, covered with lead, wainscotted and gilt after the Moorish manner, plain enough. On the estrade is spread but one carpet for the officers to sit on. Here the Grand Vizier, assisted by his counsellors, deter- mines all causes, civil and criminal, without appeal ; the caimacan, officiates for him in his absence; and the ambassadors are here entertained the day of their audience. Thus far may strangers go in the Seraglio ; a man's curiosity might cost him dear, should he pro- ceed further. " The outside of this palace towards the port has nothing worth notice, but the kiosk or pavilion right M2 mm 124 TURKEY. against Galata, which is supported by a dozen pillars of marble ; it is wainscotted, richly furnished, and painted after the Persian manner. The Grand Sig- nior comes thither sometimes to divert himself with viewing what passes in the port, or to take the plea- sure of the water when he has a mind to it. The pavilion which is toward the Bosphorus is higher than that of the port, and is built on arches, which sup- port three saloons terminated by gilded domes. The Prince comes thither to sport with his women and mutes. All these quays are covered with artillery without carriages ; most of the cannon are planted level with the water : the largest piece is that which, they say, forced Babylon to surrender to Sultan Mourat, and by way of distinction it has an apartment to itself. This artillery is what the Mahometans re- joice to hear, for, when they are fired, it is to notify that Lent (Ramezan or Ramazan) is at an end : they are likewise fired on public rejoicing days. " When the Grand Signior is at Constantinople, he sometimes amuses himself with observing from this kiosk, the ridiculous ceremonies of the Greeks on" the Transfiguration-day, at a fountain hard by.* They not only fancy this water will cure a fever, but all other distempers present and to come. And there- fore they do not content themselves with carrying thither their sick to drink of the water, but they bury them in the sand up to the chin, and then take them out again the moment after : such as are well, wash in it, and drink of it till it comes out as clear as it went in. All Greece is full of such fountains, but they are not mineral ; their whole reputation is owing to the people's credulity. There is a large window near the Ayjair^a, the holy fountain. TURKEY". 125 source, out of winch are thrown in the night such as have been strangled in the Seraglio ; and for every person so served, there is a cannon discharged. The Grand Signior's barge-houses are near these kiosks, and are under the care of the bostaiigi-bashi : these barges or galleys are made use of when the Grand Signior goes to the Seraglio from Scutari, and are steered by the boslangi-bashi when the Grand Signior is on board. They are very light and very neat : their oars are painted and gilded. Fauari-kiosk is a pavilion that Solyman II. built at the foot of the light-house on the Cape of Chalcedon: it is said that this pavilion is exceeding fine, and that its gardens are better con- trived than those of the Seraglio. " After viewing the Greek's fountain, we entered the port, and made towards the Seraglio of Looking- glasses : it is of no large compass. Behind its walls is the place where the Turks exercise themselves in shooting with the bow. Near it is a kind of gallery, where the Turks go in procession to pray for good success in an approaching battle, and sometimes to deprecate the plague when it is very raging, that is, when it carries off 1000 or 1,200 in a day. While we were ranging about the port, we were shewn some stakes or posts standing in the water to notify how far the great ships might find anchorage. From hence we proceeded to the coast of Cassun-pasha, where is the arsenal called Ters-hana, from the Persian word ters, ships, and hana, a place to build in. Here are built the Grand Signior's ships. " From the suburb called Cassan- Pasha, you cross some burying-places to go to Galata,* which is the haud- * The name of this suhurb, according to Tzetzes, is derived from the Galates or Gauls, who crossed the port about this place ; ac- cording to Codinus, from a Gaul who settled iu this suburb. The M 3 126 TURKEY. somcst suburb of the whole city. It is built over against the Seraglio in the Fig-tree quarter, and is defended by pretty good walls, flanked with old towers ; but these walls have been beaten down and built again at different times. Galata is divided into three quarters, from Cassun-pasha as far as to Topana : the walls and towers that separate these quarters are still in being. The quarter of Hasapcapi begins about Cassun-pasha, and ends at the mosque of the Arabs, where termi- nates the partition-wall that runs from the tower of Galata towards the south-west ; thence as far as the custom-house is that quarter called Galata of the Customs, and the partition-wall reaches to the great tower of Galata. Cara-cui is the third quarter, and ends at Topana. The Mosque of the Arabs was a church of the Dominicans, as ancient as the time of St. Hyacinth, who procured it to be built, as likewise another church at Constantinople. The Mosque of the Arabs was taken from the Dominicans about a hun- dred years ago, as a forfeiture, and applied to the use of the Mahometan Granadins. There is no alteration made in it : the Gothic windows and inscriptions con- tinue on the gates, and the belfry, which is a square tower, serves for a minaret. The Dominicans have also a church at Galata dedicated to St. Peter, of which they have been in possession for above 300 years. The French Capuchins have had there for above a hundred years, a church called St. George : it belongs to the Genoese. The Greeks have three churches in the quarter of Cara-cui, and the Armenians one by the name of St. Gregory. The Latins possess Creek writers call it Galatou (T«u Vttkavov ttoXi^viov — 'bgot/pttni Tits Vaktzrou), and some suppose it to be derived from yreXcc, milk, and to be so named because the milk-ivomen lived there ! ■ ■ TURKEY. 127 that of St. Benedict, which, in the time of the Genoese, belonged to the Benedictines ; but it was given to the Jesuits by the community of Pera. " One tastes in Galata a snatch of liberty not to be found elsewhere throughout the Ottoman empire. Galata is, as it were, Christendom in Turkey : taverns are tolerated, and the Turks themselves refrain not from them, but freely resort thither to take a cheerful glass. The fish-market is worth seeing, and sur- passes that on the other side the port going to St. Sophia : this of Galata is a long street, furnished on both sides with the finest fish in the world. You go up from Galata to Pera, which is, as it were, its suburb, and was formerly confounded under the same name. Pera is a Greek word, signifying beyond ; anil the Greeks of Constantinople, when they are minded to go beyond the port, still use this word, which has been taken by strangers for the whole quarter. This quarter, including Galata and Pera, is called Perea by Nicetas, by Gregoras, and by Pachy- merus, and plain Pera by other authors ; but at present, Pera is distinguished from Galata, and is precisely nothing but the suburb situated beyond the gate of that town. The Greeks in like manner call passage-boats peramidia, and the Franks, by corrup- tion, permes. The situation of Pera is perfectly charming : from it you have a view of the whole coast of Asia, and of the Grand Signior's Seraglio. The ambassadors of France, England, Venice, and Holland have their palaces in Pera; the ambassador of the King of Hungary (for under that title, and no other, the Emperor sends him), those of Poland and of Ra- gusa, are lodged in Constantinople. Attached to the palace of France, is a chapel served by Capuchin friars, who are likewise the teachers of certain young lads the 128 TURKEY". Kiag sends thither to learn the Turkish, Arahian, and Greek languages, that they may afterwards serve for interpreters to the French consuls in the ports of the Levant. The foreign merchants have their houses and warehouses in Pera, as well as in Galata, pro- miscuously with the Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. There is a seraglio in Pera, where are brought up the children of the tribute, i. c. such as have been chosen out by the Grand Signior's officers from among the Greeks in Europe, to serve about the person of his Highness after they are made Mussulmen, and are instructed in the necessary exercises. This custom being discontinued, the seraglio runs to decay. " From Pera, you go down to Topana, another suburb, just as you enter the canal of the Black Sea : here, such as have a mind to divert themselves on the water usually take boat. Nothing is so agreeable ms the amphitheatre formed by the houses of Galata, Pera, and Topana, running from the tops of hills as far as the sea. Topana is somewhat less than either of the others. Mezomorto, who was captain-bashaw in 1701, built a handsome seraglio here. A hundred paces from the sea stands the arsenal or foundery for cannon, called topa?ia in Turkish : it is a house covered with low domes, and has given its name to the whole quarter. u There are but two obelisks and some few columns at Constantinople, besides some bas-reliefs at the Seven Towers. The obelisks are in a place called Atmeidan, mentioned before to have been the ancient Hippodrome, or running-place for horses : the Turks have done little more than translate the name of it, for At in Turkish signifies a horse, and Meidan, a place. It is about 400 paces long, and 100 wide. Every Friday, for the most part, when service is over TURKEY. 120 at the mosques, the young Turks that pretend to feats of activity, get together at this place, well dressed and handsomely mounted, where they divide them- selves into two companies, at each end one. On giving a signal, a horseman starts from each side, and runs full speed with a long kind of dart in his hand : the ex- cellency of their performance consists in throwing this dart and hitting their adversary, or in avoiding the blow. Their motion is inconceivably swift, and their dexterity and address on horseback miraculous. " The obelisk of granite or Thebaic stone, is still in the Atmeidan: it is a four-cornered pyramid, of one single piece, about fifty feet high, terminating in a point, charged with hieroglyphics, now unintelligible ; a proof, however, of its being very ancient, and wrought in Egypt. By the Greek and Latin inscrip- tions at the base, we learn that the Emperor Theo- dosius caused it to be set up again, after it had lain on the ground a considerable time. The machines which were made use of in rearing it, are represented in bas-relief. Nicetas, in the Life of St. Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, observes, that this obelisk had at its top a brazen pine-apple, which was thrown down by an earthquake. " Hard by are seen the remains of another obelisk with four faces, built with different pieces of marble ; the tip of it is fallen, and the rest cannot long con- tinue. This obelisk was covered over with brazen plates, as is apparent from the holes made to receive the pegs that fastened them to the marble. These plates were certainly set off with bas-reliefs and other ornaments, for the inscription at the bottom speaks of it as a work altogether marvellous. Bondelmont, in his description of Constantinople, makes the other obelisk to be 24 cubits high, and this 58 : perhaps it P P EPJWKP 130 TURKEY. supported the brazen column of the three serpents. This column is about fifteen feet high, formed by three serpents, turned spirally like a roll of tobacco : their contours diminish insensibly from the base as far as the necks of the serpents, and their heads spreading on the sides like a tripod, compose a kind of chapiter. Sultan Mourat is said to have broken away the head of one of them ; the pillar was thrown down, and both the other heads taken away in 1700, after the peace of C'arlowitz. What is become of them, nobody can tell ; but the rest has been set up again, and is among the obelisks, at like distance from each other. This column of brass is of the very earliest, supposing it brought from Delphi, where it served to bear up that famous golden tripod which the Greeks, after the battle of Plativa, found in the camp of Mardonius. " In the street called Adrianople, they shewed us the Burnt Column ; and well may it be called so, for it is so black and smoke-dried by the frequent fires that have happened to the houses thereabouts, it is no easy matter to find out what it is made of. But, upon a narrow inspection, it appeared to be porphyry stones, the junctures hid with copper rings. It is thought Constantine's figure stood on it. By the inscription we learned, ' that that admirable piece of workmanship was restored by the most pious Emperor Manuel Comnenes.' Glycas reports, that, towards the close of the reign of Nicephorus Botoniates, who was shaven and put into a cloister, Constantine's column was struck with thunder, and that this column supported the figure of Apollo, then called by that emperor's name. The column called Historical,* is not of so * Lady M. W. Montagu, speaking of this column, writes:—. " The historical pillar is no more : it dropped down about two years before I came to this part of the world," On which Dr. Dal* H W$ TURKEY. 131 Valuable stuff, it being only plain marble ; but it is remarkable for its height, wbicli is 147 feet, and for its bas-reliefs, which are well designed for those times : it ispity the lire has so disfigured them. They represent the victories of the Emperor Arcadius. The conquered towns appear under the shape of women, whose heads are crowned with towers : the horses are finely done ; but the emperor is sitting in a kind of elbow-chair, in a fur-gown, not unlike a judge. The labarum, or imperial standard, is over his head, held by two angels, with the device of the Christian emperors, ' Jesus Christ is conqueror.' As for Marcian's column, though it be of granite, it is not much inquired after ; it does more honour to Messieurs Spon and Wheler, who first discovered it, than to Tatianus, Avho erected it : it may have been the urn wherein that emperor's (Marcianus) heart was put. It is somewhat strange that his column escaped the curiosity of M. Gilles, in his exact description of Constantinople : it stands in a private court-yard, close by the street called Adrianople, near the baths of Ibrahim Bashaw. " After well observing this street, the longest and broadest of any in the city, the next walk usually is to the bazars or bezesteins, places like our changes for selling tine wares of all sorts. The old and new bazar stand pretty near each other ; they are large square buildings, covered with domes, supported by arches and pilasters. In the old one, there is but little fine laway, the Editor of her Letters, has the following note:—*' The Arcadian column, built in 404, after the model of those of Trajan and Antoninus, at Home. The shaft of it was entirely taken down in 169Si having become ruinous by earthquakes and fire." Mr. Hob- house says: — " Aurat Bazar being burned down in the last rebellion, we had not a view of the base of the Arcadian column, which was about fourteen feet high, when seen by Dr. Dallaway, but muti- lated and entirely defaced." 132 TURKEY. merchandise; it was built in 1461. Here they sell all sorts of weapons, especially sabres ; and likewise horse-harness, some of which are enriched with gold, silver, and precious stones. The new bazar is reple. nished with all manner of merchandise ; and though there are none but goldsmith's shops, yet, they sell furs, vests, carpets, stuffs of gold and silver, silk, goats'-hair ; nor is it without jewels and china-ware. They are now repairing it ; it will be much more lightsome than before ; there will be apartments for officers that have the guard of it, and go their rounds day and night. The goods are well secured in these places, the gates being shut betimes. The Turks retire to their own homes in the city, but the Christian and Jewish merchants cross the water, and return the next morning. " The market for slaves of both sexes is not far oft*. Here the poor wretches sit in a melancholy posture. Before they cheapen them, they turn them about from this side to that, survey them from top to bottom, put them to exercise whatever they have learned, and this several times a day, without ever coming to any agree- ment. Such of them, both men and women, to whom Dame Nature has been niggardly of her charms, are set apart for the vilest services ; but such girls as have youth and beauty, pass their time well enough ; only they often force them to turn Mahometans. The retailers of this human ware are the Jews, who take good care of their slaves' education, that they may sell the better : their choicest they keep at home, and there you must go, if you would have better than ordinary ; for it is here, as it is in markets for horses, the handsomest do not always appear, but are kept within doors. These Jews teach their beautiful female slaves to dance, sing, play on instruments, and every- TURKF.V. 133 thing else that may inspire love. Sometimes they marry very advantageously, and feel nothing of slavery ; they have the same liberty in their houses as the Turkish women themselves. " The great square near the mosque of Sultan Bajazet, is the place where the mountebanks and jugglers, with their cups and balls, play their tricks. We had not time to see them, nor a thousand other things besides. We endeavoured, but to no purpose, to see the castle of the Seven Towers, situated at the further end of the town, towards the main land and the Sea of Marmora. Every body knows, this castle took its name from those same towers covered with lead. It is a kind of bastile or prison for persons of distinction ; but it is asserted, they admit no strangers to see it, since the Chevalier de Beaujeu, who was there confined, found means to escape. He had made such considerable captures on the Turks, that the Grand Signior revenged himself on the governor, by causing his head to be struck off. The gilded gate, which was the most considerable of Constan- tinople under the Greek emperors, is within this prison-wall. In the time of the Greek emperors, there was at this gate, a kind of castle called the Round Castle." Wheler, who was permitted to go round it, ob- served nothing but " an ancient gate, looking to- wards the Propontis, adorned with basso-relievos on oblong tables of white marble. On one is the fall of Phaeton ; on another, Hercules fighting with a bull ; on another, Hercules in combat with Cerberus; and on another, Venus coming to visit Adonis sleeping ; with some others which," he adds, " we knew not what they Mgnified. This gate is now quite stopped up. TART I. N 134 TURKEY. The place looks not strong enough for a castle, hut is sufficiently so for a prison." * Only four of the seven towers have remained entire (for the fifth is rent in half) since the earthquake of 17G8 ; but the fortress still retains the names of Efta Koulades in the Greek, and Vedi Kouleler in the Turkish, both of them sig- nifying the former number of its conspicuous bul- warks. -J- Among those who have recently visited Constanti- nople, the traveller who has furnished the best account of the capital is Mr. Hobhouse ; and his interesting interesting sketch will supply some further particulars with regard to the appearance of the city, a century after it was visited by Tournefort. " We had not been many days at Pera, before we crossed the water to visit the capital. A party of us went in a boat from the Salsette, and in one of the peramidias, or small wherries which ply upon the canal. J The resemblance of the kirlangishes or swal- lows, as they are called, to the shape of the ancient boats, has been often observed, and is so exact, that * Tournefort's Voyage in the Levant (translated by Ozell). Lon- don, 1741, vol. ii. pp. 151—200. Our readers will not be displeased at the quaint and racy phraseology, which we have not ventured to modernize. t " The defences of this imperial castle do not entitle it to any respect as a fortress ; and if the Ottoman armies lost, as it is said, 12,000 men in forcing this portion of the Byzantine ramparts, (the ancient Cyclobion,) they must have met with a much more serious resistance than the Aga Abdulhamid and his garrison of sixty live men prepared against the crews of two Lazic vessels, who stormed the place in 1795, and carried oil' a captive fellow-countryman."— Hobhouse, Letter xlviii. | The number of fishing-boats at the time of the Latin invasion, was 1,000. In 1777, including the private pleasure-boats, they amounted to 5,700. ■ ■^^H ^H &£& TUltKEY. 135 they might be thought the originals of those which are often seen on the Etruscan vases, conveying the shades of the departed across the Styx. We landed, after rowing up the harbour, near the spot where the ■walls begin to cross the peninsula at Askaine fnkelessi, close to the gate of St. Demetrius. We walked through Ballat, the quarter of the Jews, which seems to have derived its name from Palation, as a large building known to the Turks by the name of Tekkuri Serai is recognised for the Hebdomon, a palace of the Ca?sars standing in this region of the metropolis. We then arrived at a range of sheds where there were many gilded urabats for hire, and some attached stables, from which we procured horses, and rode under the walls across the peninsula, as far as the Seven Towers. The appearance of these walls (the work of the second Theodosius) is more venerable than that of any other Byzantine antiquity: their triple ranges,* rising one above the other, in most places nearly entire, and still retaining their antient battlements and towers, are shaded with large trees, which spring from the fosse and through the rents of repeated earthquakes. The intervals between the triple walls, which are eighteen feet wide, are in many places choked up with earth and masses of the fallen ramparts ; and the fosse, of twenty-five feet in breadth, is cultivated and con- verted into herb-gardens and cherry-orchards, with here and there a solitary cottage. Such is the height of the walls, that, to those following the road under them on the outside, none of the moscks or other buildings of the capital, except the towers of Tekkuri- Serai, are visible ; and as there are no suburbs, this line of majestic ramparts, defenceless and trembling * Every recent author, except Dr. Dallaway, appears to have overlooked the third range. K 2 136 TURKEY- with age, might impress upon the mind the notion, that the Ottomans had not deigned to inhabit the conquered city, but, carrying away its people into dis- tant captivity, had left it an unresisting prey to the desolations of time. " In crossing the five highways which issue from their respective gates, we met hardly a single pas- senger; and even two or three little huts, where a glass of water, pipes, and cherries, might be procured, seemed less frequented than the coffee-houses on the roads of Asia Minor. We passed first by Egri- Kapoussi (the oblique gate), where the triple wall commences, and next by Edrene-Kapoussi (the gate of Adrianople), Top-Kapoussi (the Cannon-gate, where the victorious Mahomet made his public entry into Constantinople), and afterwards by Meviane Vent- Kapoussi. We then crossed over the road leading from Selivri-Kapoussi (the gate of Selivria), and riding through a large Armenian burying-ground, arrived at Baloucli, which is the site of the church of the Virgin, built by Justinian. " Not finding our boats, as we expected, at the water's edge, we rode onwards for some way near the walls, and through several narrow, mean streets, in which there were but few people stirring, until we came to a large manufactory of printed cottons. This we visited, and saw that the whole labour is performed by the hand. On our route, we passed^ Imrhor Djia- missi, a mosck,* once the church of St. John Studius,T * This is Mr. Hobhouse's orthography : Gibbon writei it mosch ; and the word appears in all sorts of shapes in the works of foreign travellers. We have usually adhered to the French orthography, mosque, not as the most correct, but as established by usage. t " The finest mosque next after St. Sophia which has been a church," says Pococke, " is on the seventh hill, and near the Seven Towers. It is called by the Greeks Constantino's Church, but is TURKEY. 137 where there are still some pictures preserved ; and skirting the outlet of the gate Psammatia, near which are two decent Greek churches, and of Vlanga Boston (the gate of Theodosius), come to Yeni Kapoussi (the new gate), near the new quarter of the Armenians, who have a handsome church, built in the reign of the last Selim Passing through this gate, we came to a long range of coffee-houses by the sea. side. These were of the better sort, open on one quarter, with a fountain playing in the middle of a range of marble seats, and recesses furnished with pillows, stuffed carpets, and mats, which, in some of them, were spread also upon marble slabs on die outside of the houses. In one, several well-dressed Turks were sit- ting with their pipes, listening to the pretty airs of a guitar and violin, while the recesses were occupied by others asleep. Some of these, with their turbans off, and tbeir heads wrapped in a sash, were rolled in the carpets, and sunk on the cushions, in the apparatus and oblivion of a night slumber ; and neither these, nor such as were stretched upon the slabs on the out- side, who would have had a thousand practical waggeries played off upon them in any other city, were disturbed or even noticed by the company. None of the guests, indeed, seemed entirely awake, but, inhaling the odours of their perfumed herbs, silent, sedate, and lost in the delicious bliss of total inactivity and listlessness, were the church of a monastery called Studios, from a citizen of Con- stantinople of that name, who built it. There is a very handsome portico to it, with four pillars of white marble, which support a very rich entablature, there being another of the same kind within. The nave is divided from the aisle by seven verd-antique pillars, of the composite order, six feet two inches in circumference. Over these, there arc as many more pillars of the Ionic order, probably of the same materials, but, according to the Turkish taste, whited over. There is a cistern under a court to the south, in which are four rows of Corinthian pillars." Jf3 ■I 138 TURKFA'. lulled into the soft approaches of repose hy the tinkling music, the unceasing fall of the fountain, and the regular ripplings of the water on the sandy shore. The meddahs, or reciters of stories, who frequent these coffee-houses, as well as some others near Tekkuri- Serai, can scarcely extort from their indolent audience the labour of a smile, and, by fixing the attention upon one monotonous narration, rather augment than interrupt the universal torpor." " Among the frequenters of these coffee-houses may be seen some of those leriakis, or opium-eaters, who are always noticed among the curiosities of the Turkish capital. Pale, emaciated, and ricketty,' sunk into a profound stupor, or agitated by the grimaces of deli- rium, their persons are, after the first view, easily to be recognised, and make, indeed, an impression too deep to be erased. Their chief resort is a row of coffee-houses in a shady court, near the rnosck of Sultan Solyman. The increasing attachment to wine has diminished the consumption of opium ; but there are still to be found teriakis, who will swallow in a glass of water three or four lozenges, amounting to 100 grains. They are mixed with spices, and stamped with the words Mash Allah (the work of God.)* " From the coffee-houses, we walked on to a tabagic near Koum-Kapoussi, the next gate, where we dined upon kebab. This dish, which any palate would reckon a delicacy, consists of mutton chopped in small bits, either with or without herbs, larded with milk and * Mustafa Shatoor, the Smyrna opium-eater, was in the practice of swallowing three drams daily. The *' English Opium-cater" confesses to 8000 drops (210J grains) as his utmost excess. Garcias, in his History of Drugs and Spices, speaks of a person who took ten drams every day ; and Zeviani mentions another individual, who ate half a pound daily with equal impunity. ■ ! msi TURKEY. 139 butter, and fried upon a wooden skewer over a small brazier. The room is fitted up with small boxes, in our own fashion ; and there is generally one chamber to which a small party may retire. The kebabjees (cooks), who are in the highest repute, live near E.ski Serai ; and as all of them are Turks, only sherbets are served up with their meats ; but, in our tavern, there was no want of wine. At a table near us, covered with a dessert of fruit and cakes, sat a knot of young Turks, the bucks of the quarter, pushing about the bottle with a noisy emulation which did not confine itself to their own party, but brought them staggering to our side of the room, with tumblers of wine, pledging re- peatedly our healths, and looking at us for our appro- bation, as acknowledged masters of the art. Their debauch ended in loud fits of screaming and shouting, and other resemblances of the senseless merriment of an English hunting-club. " We found our boat near Koum-Kapoussi, and embarking, rowed under the walls. We passed Ahour- Kapoussi, the gate near the Grand Signior's stables, where the walls of the Seraglio commence, and Balik- Hane (the fisher's house), a small green kiosk pro- jecting from the walls of the Seraglio, to which it has been usual to send the deposed viziers through a garden gate close behind, to await their sentence. The execution is performed in a little chamber run- ning out by itself, and forming, as it were, an upper wing of the kiosk. A removal to Balik-Hane has generally been the forerunner of death ; but a more fortunate minister has sometimes been led, not to the fatal chamber, but down to the shore, where a boat lias been waiting to convey him to the place of banish- ment. Balik-Hane is not the only spot chosen for the punishment of the Sultan's enemies. A dark 140 TURKEY. chamber at the gate of the second court of the Seraglio, called Mabein, where the vizier's heads are always exposed, is allotted to the same purpose, and is the permanent station of the royal executioners.* " After Balik-IIane, we passed by Indogouli Kiosch (the pearl pavilion), Mermer Kiosch (the marble pavilion), and Yuli Kiosch (the kiosch of the land- ing-place). From near the second, there is a view of the summit of the Corinthian pillar of white mar- hie, fifty feet high, in the gardens of the Seraglio, with the inscription: Foutunve reotjci ob devictos Gothos. It is surmounted by a handsome capital of verd-antique. This has been erroneously supposed to be the column of Theodora. The Yah Kiosch is covered on the outside with a screen of green canvas or cloth, and contains a long chair or sofa of silver, on which the Grand Signior seats himself to take pub- lic leave of the Vizier Azem, or the Capudan Pasha, previously to any warlike expedition, and also on cer- tain occasions of rejoicing, when tents are pitched for the grandees of his court, and for the foreign minis- * " Reckoning on an average deduced from 115 grand-viziers, who successively governed the Ottoman empire to the time of the siege of Vienna, the place of the prime-minister of the Porte may be esteemed worth three years and a half i/iachase. The instability of every powerful individual in Turkey, may be judged of by the events of fifteen months from the year 1022, during which time there were three emperors, seven grand-viziers, two capudan-pa- shas, five Janizar-agas, three tefterdars (high treasurers), and six pashas of Cairo. The power of the vizier-azem continued unri- valled till the reign of Mahommed V., when it was decreased by the influence of the kislar-aga, or chief of the black eunuchs, and has since that period been occasionally shared with the Janizar- aga, the capudan-pasha, and other great officers of state. Vizier is from a Turkish word signifying a porter; asbailo, the title of a Venetian ambassador, and ttaillif, a municipal officer, are derived from bajultts," TURKEY. 141 ters, and games and fireworks arc exhibited in the open space between the pavilion and the sea. Between the kiosks we landed, and walking along the shore, passed a range of monstrous cannon, laid up under a line of sheds. Over the gate of the Seraglio, near this spot, are some large fish-bones suspended by chains, which, the Turks say, are those of a giant. Close to Vali Kiosk, we saw the boat-houses containing the barges of the Seraglio and that of the Grand Signior, burnished in every part with gold, and provided with a covered recess of lattice-work at the stern, for the retirement of the Emperor. The barge is rowed with six-and-twenty oars, and the helm is held by the bos- tanjc-Lashe. From this place, we passed over to Tophana, having, in boats, on horseback, and t by walking, made the circuit of Constantinople ; an ex- pedition which, including stoppages, employed us from nine in the morning to half after four in the after- noon." In subsequent walks to Constantinople, Mr. Hob- house visited the antiquities of the Atmeidan, the cis- terns, and the aqueducts. It would be very difficult, he says, to recognise in the present Atmeidan, the an- cient Hippodrome. " It is no longer a circus, but an oblong, open space, 250 paces long and 150 wide,* flanked on one side by the magnificent mosck of Sul- tan Achmet, and, on the other, by the dead wall of a hospital, under which there is a line of low buildings and sheds, or stands for arabats. The gra- nite obelisk of Theodosius, the broken pyramid of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, stripped of its bronze * Wheler makes it 5. r >0 paces by 120. He writes it Achmet-dam' Lady M. \V. Montagu calls the place At-lerdan, or place of horses* <' at siguifying a horse in Turkish.' 142 TURKEY. plates, * and the base of the Delphic pillar, were all that remained, even in the time of Sandys, f of the many noble monuments with which this spot was formerly adorned ; and were it not for these antiqui- ties, which are yet to be seen, it is probable that the site of the Hippodrome would be covered with houses, and become in a short time the subject of controversy. The d/ereed-playing is less frequent there now than formerly. The surface of the ground is uneven, and of a hard gravelly soil." By far the most interesting relic of antiquity is the serpentine column which once supported the golden tripod in the temple of Delphi. With regard to its identity, there seems no reason to entertain a sus- picion ; :£ but there is a singular discrepancy in the accounts respecting its subsequent history. We have cited, in the historical sketch, the statement of Gib- bon, (on the authority of Thevenot,) that the under- jaw of one of the serpent's heads was struck off by Mahommed II. with a stroke of his battle-axe. " That * Called by the old topographers Colossus Structilis. According to Dr. Dallaway, it is 94 feet high. t " In this place there standeth a stately hieroglyphical obelisk of Theban marble. A little removed, there standeth a column of wreathed brass, with three infolded serpents at the top, extended in a triangle, looking several ways. And beyond both these, an- other high obelisk, termed by some a colossus, built of sundry stones, now greatly ruined, covered heretofore with plates uf gilded brass. And in Auratbamr (that is, the market of women), there is an historical column, to be ascended within, far surpassing both Trajan's and that of Antonine, the workman having so pro- portioned the figures, that the highest and lowest appear of one bigness."— Sandys, p. 27. % " Gyllius," says Mr. Hobhouse, " has established beyond all doubt its identity with the column supporting the Platsaa tripod at Delphi. See also authorities in Gibbon, c. xvii. Pococke says: " At the Grand Signioi's seraglio of Saudabat, there is one made in imitation of it, but not so large." 'ttiiB Wm TUIUCF.Y. 143 such a story should ever have prevailed," Mr. Hob- house remarks, " is extraordinary, since every tra- veller, from Gyllius to Wheler, who has given a pic- ture of it, describes the column as entire. Tournefort, we have seen, represents it as mutilated." Yet, Lady M. W. Montagu speaks of the three serpents as having " their mouths gaping." Pococke again says : " Part of the serpentine pillar is broken off;" and Chishull avers, that the serpents' heads " which lately termi- nated tbe pillar," were taken off privately by the ser- vants of the late Polish ambassador. * " It is now generally believed," adds Mr. Hobhouse, " that it has been removed, as Tournefort relates, from its for- mer site ; and it is not agreed whether the bottom or the top of the pillar is now inserted in the ground. The upper part does not diminish so much as, from the representation of its ancient shape, it might be supposed to do near the summit, where the serpents' heads began to branch off. The column, as much of it as is seen above ground, is now about seven feet in height and of a proportionate thickness. It is hollow, and the cavity has been filled up with stones by the Turks. The brazen column at St. Ambrogio, which is believed to be the serpent of Moses, was brought, if we may credit the Milanese historians, from Constan- tinople, and may have been confounded with the ser- pentine pillar." Mr. Hobhouse entered a house to see the base of the " Burnt Column," which is near the Atmeidan ; but found that the Turks have built a stone facing round the bottom of the monument, since the fire of 1779- The shaft is black from repeated conflagrations ; and " this circumstance, together with the iron hoops" (Wheler says, hoops of brass) " encircling the pillar, * Tournefort evidently refers to the same report. See p. 130, 144 TUItKKY. conceals the joints of the blocks,* and gives the column the appearance of a single mass. It is now an unsightly structure, 90 feet high and 33 in circumference." When entire, this must have been one of the noblest columns in the world. On its summit, above 120 feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of Apollo. " It was of bronze, had been transported either from Athens or from a town in Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was after- wards interpreted, the Emperor Constantine himself, with a sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a crown of rays glittering on his head."-|- Near the bath of Ibrahim Pasha, about mid-way between the Hippodrome and the Adrianople Gate, there is still standing in the court of a private house, * Sec p. 130. " It is called the Burnt Pillar, because the pedestal and pillar have been much damaged by fire. It is erected on a marble pedestal 20 feet high, which is much ruined; and probably there ■were steps round it. The shaft seems to have consisted of ten pieces of porphyry, 33 French feet in circumference, each stone being !) feet 4 inches long, excepting a wreath of laurel half a foot deep at the top of every one, which had the effect to conceal the joining of the stones. Seven 'of these stones now remain, though an exact describer of Constantinople says there were eight. Three of the stones, together with the statue, were thrown down by lightning, in the time of Alexius Comnenus. It was said to have been of the Doric order. There are now twelve tiers of stone above the seven of porphyry : eleven of them seem to be about a foot deep, and the uppermost, which is something like a Tuscan capital, is about two feet deep. There is a Greek inscription on the fourth tier, which I had not the opportunity of copying; but it is said to import, that the Emperor Manuel Comnenus repaired it. Alius is said to have died near this pillar." — Pococke. The inscription is given by Wheler. t Gibbon. Pococke, without naming his authority, represents the pillar itself as having been brought from Rome by Constantine the (ireat, who '• placed on it that exquisite bronze statue of Trojan Apollo, which was a representation of himself." tUEKEY. 145 another ancient monument, now called Kislach. An inscription on the base, given by Wheler, states it to have been erected by Tatianus to the Emperor Mar- tian.* Both the pillar and the pedestal are of granite, but the Corinthian capital is of white marble. It is sur- mounted with an urn of the same material, " carved at the corners with eagles," which, Wheler supposes, may have contained the emperor's heart. The inscription intimates, that the statue of Martian was placed on this monument ; probably on the urn. This column , that near Yeni-Kapoussi, the one in the Seraglio gar- dens, and the Historical Column, are the only ancient monuments of this description now remaining in Con- stantinople. At a little distance from the Burnt Column, in a quarter of the town anciently called Lausus, is the Imperial Cistern of Constantine, now called Binclerik, or the Thousand and One Pillars, and Yerebatan. Serai, the Subterranean Palace. It has now the ap- pearance of a suite of gloomy dungeons, and was occu- pied, when Mr. Hobhouse visited it, by " a number of half-naked pallid wretches, employed in twisting silk through all the long corridors by the glare of torches. The roof of this reservoir, apparently that of Philoxenus, was supported by a double tier, consisting altogether of 424 pillars, of which only the upper half * *' This Tatianus," says Wheler, " was undoubtedly the same that assured him he should be emperor, when as yet he was but a private soldier; having with his brother Julio, seen an eagle sit over him, and shadowing him from the sun with his wings, when he was fallen asleep in the field, being wearied with hunting. For which, so soon as the event verified the good omen, he made Tatianus governor of the city, and Julio he made governor of Illyria." PART II. O ■ 148 TURKEY. are now cleared from the earth. * The cistern Asparis," continues Mr. Hobhouse, " constructed by Aspares and Ardaburius in the reign of Leo, who destroyed the founders of it in the reservoir itself, may be that of eighty columns near the mosck of Laleli, on the third hill. Tchukour-Bostan, now a herb-garden within a high-walled inclosure, between Tekkuri-Serai and Ederne-Kapoussi, is supposed by Le Chevalier to be the cistern called from a nei£ bouring church Mocisia ; but it corresponds more pre- cisely to that which was constructed by Bonus, a patrician, in the time of the Emperor Heraclius, at the back of the Hebdomon {Tekkuri-Serai), and which had lost its columns and chambers, and was a garden when seen by Gyllius. The same person mentions another cistern, containing cultivated ground, near the mosck of Sultan Selim, on the back of the tilth hill. A subterranean corridor of twenty-four columns near the Seven Towers, and some ancient remains between the public bath Tchukour-Hamam, and the mosck called Seirek-Dyiamissi, belong also to three other cisterns. k- Bosdjohan-Kemeri, the aqueduct of Valens he- fore noticed, is in a thinly-inhabited part of the town, near At-Bazar (the horse-market), connecting what are called the third and fourth hills. The double row of forty Gothic arches seems to have been rebuilt by Solyman out of the old materials of intermixed stone and tile, and probably in the ancient form. Although still used to convey water, it is half in ruins, and has the decay without the grace of antiquity ; but these mighty arches, these atrial chambers, the admiration • Dr. Dallaway, not recognising the double set of columns, makes the number only 212. ■ TURKEY. 147 of the Byzantines, have, as an architectural monu- ment, nothing either grand or agreeable. " The style of the numerous fountains at Constan- tinople is extravagant and fantastic ; but the profusion of gilding, the variety of glaring colours, and even the taste of the whole structure, are consonant with the gay dresses of the people, and the gaudy air which spreads itself over every object of the Turkish capital. In the court of St. Sophia is a fountain erected by a Persian architect, after the fashion of his own country. The public baths, of which there are no fewer than 130 within the walls, do not add to the external beauty of the city. Their low, flat domes have a poor effect, but they are mostly built of marble, and the interior of them is handsome and spacious, and affords, in a de- gree superior to the baths of the provincial towns, every accommodation requisite for the perfect enjoyment of the first of oriental luxuries. The best in the city is near the church of the Armenian patriarch, and not far from the Atmeidan. " The 180 haiift of Constantinople are so many immense stone barracks or closed squares, which have, like the baths, every recommendation except archi- tectural elegance. The court of Valide-Han, which we visited, and which is reckoned one of the best in Constantinople, is ornamented with a thin grove of trees, with two handsome fountains; and the building, besides warehouses and stables on the ground-floor, has three stories or galleries, one above the other, with ranges of small chambers, each of which is kept neat and clean by the servants of the han, and fitted up for the time with the carpets and slender wardrobe of the several occupiers. The generality of the hans are for travelling merchants ; but the chambers of the one we visited, were let out as counting-houses to 02 148 TURKEY- some natives whose dwellings were in Galata, Pera, or some distant quarter of the city. These useful edifices are the work of the Ottoman sultans, and of other munificent individuals ; so that strangers, except a small present to the servant at departing is taken into account, are gratuitously lodged, and are, during their residence in the city, masters of their rooms, of which they keep the keys. They are for all men, of whatever quality, condition, country, or religion so- ever : and there the poorest have room to lodge in, and the richest have no more. The construction of them has contributed to attract the merchants and the merchandise of the furthest boundaries of Africa and Asia to the capital of Turkey.* During fires or • " The commercial intercourse of distant nationsseems congenial to the spirit of the Mahometan religion, and it has been promoted not only by the chief injunction of that system, the pilgrimage to Mecca, but by various other regulations of useful piety, which facilitate the progress and contribute to the comfort of travellers. Hospitality in the East is still a duty, and the Mussulman esteems the construction of a fountain or a caravanserai in the wilderness, as an act of devotion not less sincere than serviceable. Thus also he cherishes the camel, not only as the favourite of his Prophet, but as the ship of the desert. The oriental travelling merchant, a cha- racter with which we become acquainted in the very outset of his- tory (Genesis xxxvii. 25), is the favourite and the friend of Islam- ism. For the few days of the annual pilgrimage, the fair of Mecca, until the late disturbances of Arabia, was the greatest perhaps on the face of the earth. (Robertson's Historical Disquisition concerning India, sect. iii. p. 160, edit, quart.) From that centre, a constant and abundant supply of a thousand useful and luxurious commo- dities diverged in a variety and abundance sufficient for the real or fancied wants of every region of the eastern hemisphere. The communication of the commodities of distant regions by laiul-car- riagc, has, notwithstanding the progress of navigation, increased, instead of diminished in modern times ; a curious fact, illustrated and explained by the eloquent and learned author to whom I have just referred. The same person will carry sulphur from Persia to China ; from China to Greece, porcelain ; from Greece to India, gold stuffs ; from India to Aleppo, steel ; from Aleppo to Yemen, TURKEY. 149 insurrections, their iron gates are closed, and they afford complete security to the persons as well as the goods of the merchants. " The covered Bazars of Constantinople have more the appearance of a row of booths in a fair, than a street of shops. Yet, the arrangement and exposure of their various and gaudy articles would astonish a per- son acquainted even with the splendour of London : one alley glitters on each side of you for a hundred yards with yellow morocco ; you turn into another fringed with Indian shawls, or cast your eye down a long vista lined with muslin draperies or robes of er- mines and fur. The crowd in the Bazars, consisting chiefly of ladies, renders it difficult to pass through them, especially as more ceremony is required than amongst the well-dressed mob of an opera-house ; and such are the extent and intricacy of these covered ways, that it would be a tiresome task to roam through the half of them in one morning. " Not only these Bazars, but those which more re- semble open streets, are severally allotted to particular trades and merchandise, after the manner of Athens, of Rome, and of this city when under the dominion of the Greeks. The shops of jewellers and engravers of precious stones, occupy one quarter ; those of the gold- smiths, another. The curriers and leather-workers, as well as horse-dealers, all live at At-Bazar. Misir- Tscharchi is a long line of drug-repositories. All the Mocha coffee is ground by hand in Tahmis-Bazar. glass; and from Yemen to Persia, painted calicoes. It is by the aid of the caravan, that the shawls of Cachemire, the muslins of Bengal, and the diamonds of Colconda, as well as the gold and ivory of Southern Africa, are to be met with in the bezesteing of Constantinople." o 3 150 TURKEY. The ancient Charto-Pratia of the eastern capital may be recognised in Tusuk-Bazar, which is tenanted by the sellers of paper, and the copiers of manuscripts. The artists are all Turks ; we saw them at their labours. Some were copying, others illuminating hooks ; and many of them were employed in giving the gloss which is found on all their writing-paper, and which they effect by placing the sheets in box frames, and perseveringly rubbing the surface with a Chalce- donic amethyst, or piece of jasper, let into the end of a short stick ; — a contrivance which is applied by our own artisans in polishing other substances. Those acquainted with oriental literature, would naturally resort to the shops of Tusuk-Bazar ; and, as I under- stand, would meet with most of the books in any repute in the East." The grand metropolitan mosque of St. Sophia ha3 already been described. The royal mosques (Djia- missi Selatyn) are fourteen in number. * That of Sultan Ahmet has a magnificent exterior. " The court which ranges along one side of the Hippodrome, is shaded with trees, and provided with handsome fountains for the ablutions of the Mussulmans. The six minarets (a number with which no other mosck is furnished) are too tall for the building, but their distant appearance is imposing and agreeable. Ascend- ing by a flight of thirteen marble steps into a fine ves. tibule or ambulatory, paved also with marble, and surrounded with an arched cloister of granite colon- nades, you anticipate something more striking than * According to Mr. Hobhouse. Pococke says, six only are royal mosques, viz. those of Sultans Achmed, Soliman, Mahommed, Selim, Bajazet, and the Validea. See p. 115. The total number of mosques in Constantinople, Mr. Hobhouse says, does not exceed 220, besides 300 nicsjidi or public chapels. tft '$$& W$i TURKEY. 151 the interior of the building, where a dome much smaller than that of St. Sophia is supported by four gigantic ill-proportioned piers, spoiled also by tawdry fresco paintings, and by the cords of the lamps and con- secrated vases. The windows of stained glass are a rich and suitable ornament to the building. In this mosck is the curtain or cloth door of the Kibleh (Kaaba*), which is renewed annually, the new one being sent with great pomp from the Grand Signior, and the old one brought from Mecca, and suspended in the temple of Sultan Achmet for a year."-|- Little St. Sophia, (Kutchuk Agia Sophia) is a small mosque, which deserves notice from its having been a Christian church dedicated to St. Bacchus and St. Sergius, and built in the reign of Justinian. It stands near Thatladi-Kapoussi, a gate on the shore of the Sea of Marmora, not far from the mosque of Sultan Achmet. " It is a small round temple, covered with a dome standing on eight pillars of a mean appearance, and, in the interior, is remarkable only for two rows of eighteen and sixteen Ionic co- lumns, fourteen of which are of verd-antique, and twenty of white marble suffused with red spots. The capitals of the pillars are ornamented with vine-leaves ; for the former of these illustrious saints has retained the attributes of his namesake in the heathen mytho- logy. The same holy person seems also to have pre- served his divinity, not only in Greece, but in Italy and Spain, where it is common at this day to swear by Bacchus. A Greek inscription, in letters a foot long, runs round the whole of the building. It con- * See Mod. Trav. Arabia, p. 240. t In the court of this mosque, a number of cats are fed twice every week, according to the bequest of one of the Sultans. This animal was a favourite with Mohammed. 152 TURKEY". tains a mention of the Imperial founder. Procopius assures us, that the brilliancy of this temple exceeded the splendour of the sun, and that it was loaded with gold and ornaments. He launches out into other expres- sions of admiration, which confirm the opinion be- fore expressed of the architectural beauties which were in most repute during the reign of Justinian. " The Osma?iie, called also Nourri-Osmaniz, the light of the Ottomans, is well worthy of attention," continues Mr. Hobhouse, " as a decisive proof that the taste of the Turks is at least equal to that of the Greeks in the latter periods of their empire. The plan of the Osmanic, whatever may be its real merit, is, in my eyes, far preferable to that of St. Sophia." A noble dome crowns the whole temple, not spreading its heavy arch in the centre of many diminutive cupolas, but swelling into a light and lofty vault immediately from the walis of the edifice. The whole pavement of the mosck is of white marble ; the windows are of painted glass ; and where there is any gilt or gaudy colour- ing, it is disposed with appropriate elegance and splen- dour. A range of columns of Thebaic granite, twenty- two feet in height, add to the ornament, while they contribute to the support of the edifice ; and the general appearance of the Osmanie. is that of a magnificent saloon, the graces of which the eye at one glance can comprehend, without the labour of a divided and mi- nute inspection." To the north of the court surrounding this mosque, there is a sarcophagus of porphyry, nine feet in length, * This plan is stated to have been selected out of many others by Sultan Mahinoud, the superintendence of the work beini* entrusted to Greek architects. That Sultan did not live to see it finished : it was completed in the reign of his brother and succes- sor, Osman III. in the year 1756. m B$M TURKEY. 153 seven in width, and five in depth, which now serves as a cistern for rain-water. This is one of two sarco- phagi which are shewn as the tomb of Constantine ; but, as Mr. Hobhouse has proved, it has no preten- sions to this distinction. That which the citizens of Constantinople, at least three centuries ago, regarded as the tomb of that Emperor, is close to the mosque of Seirek or Klisse Djiamissi (the mosque of the churches); and is ten feet long, six feet wide, and eight in depth. According to Gyllius, the site of the church of the Apostles, in which the Em- peror's remains were deposited, was at or near the At-bazar ; and in his time, the mass of hollow por- phyry without a lid, the supposed tomb, was near the same spot, " close to the highway leading from St. Sophia to the Adrianople gate." Gyllius was scep- tical with regard to the identity of this monument, but the story prevailed at the taking of the city ; at which time the operculum of the sarcophagus seems to have been entire, and to have contained a mys- terious inscription, interpreted by the Patriarch Gen- nadius into a prophecy relative to the eventual down- fal of the Ottoman empire.* " The most magnificent of all the Imperial mosques," Mr. Hobhouse says, " is the Suleymanie, built out of the ruins of the church of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon in 155C. It is not so large as St. Sophia, but much lighter and better coloured. The dome is less elliptical than that of the other mosck, and the four columns of Thebaic granite, sixty feet high, and each of a single stone, which contribute to its support, * See Hobhouse, p. 976. " On the faith of this imposture," says this Traveller, "not only the Greeks have persuaded them- :«lves of the approaching downfal of the Ottoman empire, but the Turks themselves have looked towards that fatal event," ■i 154 TURKEY. are preferable to the ill-assorted masses collected by the architects of Justinian. The four piers on which the dome is raised, are indeed of an enormous hulk, but they are all of the same size, and correspond to the scale of the same structure. It is nearly a square, the length being two hundred and sixteen, and the breadth two hundred and ten feet. The pavement is of white marble, and on one of the sides of the mosck, is a range of latticed bronzed doors or casements, in- closing a collection of books attached to the college of the Suleymanie. The ambulatory, or court of ap- proach, which is paved with marble, is inclosed by a grand cloister of twenty-four columns, each cut from a single mass. The gate of entrance is in a singular taste, of fret-work, like the top of an episcopal cathe- dral chair. The ascent to it is by a flight of at least twenty marble steps. At the back of the mosck is an inclosed court, shaded with trees, which contains the mausoleum of Solyman. This was the most regular and best made of the sepulchral monuments seen by Grelot at Constantinople, and has not been surpassed or equalled by any subsequent structure of the same kind. ' It is an octagon, surrounded without by a gallery, the pent of which is supported by fifteen small Columns of marble : within, it has a little octangular corridor, each of whose corners contains a serpentine column with the base and capital of white marble ; so that in the interior of this sepulchre there are eight arcades, for the support of the dome. In the middle of the mausoleum is the tomb of the Sultan ; also that of his son, at the foot of which is a large wax candle, and several wooden reading-desks, where the books are placed when the softas put up their prayers for the deceased.' Beyond the mausoleum of Solyman is that of Roxalana his wife. A sum is set apart to TURKEY. 155 maintain a certain number of readers, who, at stated times, pray for the soul of the Sultan ; and this, as well as the other royal Turbes, is visited occasionally by the Grand Siguior, who offers up his addresses at the foot of the tomb. The mausoleums are built open at the top, that the rain may fall upon the flowers and herbs which are planted round the grave ; but tbey are guarded from the birds by a net of brass or gilded wire. In some instances, the bier is above ground, and the sepulchre is inclosed only by an iron railing ; such is the Turbe of Sultans Mustapha and Seliin. A large coloured turban, covered with ornaments, is fixed at the head of each bier. The Suleymanie is placed in a spacious rectangular court, inclosed by low walls, pierced with a row of open casements, which are latticed with iron-work." The foundation of a royal mosque comprises also that of a college, a hospital, and an alms-house ; and of the thirteen public libraries, nine or ten are attached to the Djiamissi Selatyn. Tournefort states, that these noble establishments consume a third of the land revenue.* The number of students in the medresses or colleges, has been declining, but still amounts, according to Mr. Hobhouse, to between four and five hundred in each. Besides these medresses, there are meklebs or free-schools for the poor of the quarter, the expense of whose education, as well as the board and lodging of some of them, is defrayed out of the revenues of the mosque. In 1782, there were more • " It is affirmed," he says, " that the revenue of St. Sophia la 800,000 livres. The villages whose revenues belong to the royal mosques, have large privileges ; their inhabitants are exempt from quartering soldiers, and from being oppressed by the bashaws, who, when they travel that way, turn aside." 156 TURKEY. than 500 schools registered in the books of the Stam- boul-Effendi, or Mayor. " When it is recollected," remarks Mr. Hobhouse, "that each of the edifices here noticed is adorned with, and chiefly composed of rich marldes, and that the domes are covered with lead ; and when it is also considered, that there are more than two hundred similar structures, built with mate- rials more or less rich, and all protected by the same costly covering, the Turks will not be accused of neglecting the splendour of their capital. Their ad- miration of the dome displays itself in all their edifices. Not only the moscks and the mesdjidis or chapels, but the bans, the bezesteins, and the baths are crowned with cupolas ; and as they are known by this distinc- tion from the dwelling-houses, Constantinople appears to the distant spectator to contain as many public as private buildings. I consider the present city to be infinitely superior to the metropolis of the Greek empire in the reigns of the latter emperors. The streets are, it is true, narrow, and either ill-paved or not at all ; but, except in Ballat, the Fanal, and the Armenian quarter, they are much cleaner than those of Pera, and, unless compared with the neatness and regularity of an English town, are far from deserving those epi- thets of disgust and contempt which are usually bestowed upon them by travellers. Constantinople, however, is distinguished from every other capital in Europe, by having no names to its streets, no lamps, and no post-office. Of the last two, the Turks do not feel any want : they are all within doors after sun-set ; and their epistolary correspondence is not too frequent to be conveniently carried on by the assistance of tra- velling friends, or other casual conveyances." TURK FA'. POPULATION OF THE CITY. isr The number of houses in Constantinople, Pera, and Galata, in 179G, was 88,185; according to which esti- mate, the population cannot he taken at less than half a million.* Of these, the Turks, or Osmanlees, and other Moslems, are supposed to constitute about three- fourths. Next to them, the Greeks have been sup- posed to be the most numerous ; then, the Arme- nians ; after whom come the Jews ; and last of all, in point of numbers, the Franks. " I live in a place," writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, " that very well represents the Tower of Babel. In Pera, they speak Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Slavonian, Walachian, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian, * " Among the calculations I collected during my residence," says Mr. Turner, " that which appeared to me most probable, gave a million of souls to the capital and to the villages on the Bospho- rus up to the entrance of the Black Sea. Of these, between 6 and 700,1)00 inhabit the city, including its suburbs of Pera, Galata, and Scutari. It is from the desolation of the provinces, and the securer shelter from oppression enjoyed by a large community, that the tilies of this declining empire are well peopled. When I passed Gallipoli on my way to Constantinople in 1812, that city contained 12,0(1(1 houses. When I again landed there in 1815, it consisted of 10,000, the additional 4000 houses being inhabited by the natives of the north of Greece, who, during that interval, had fled from their homes, to avoid the ravages of the robbers and the equally dreaded violence of the soldiery. An unthinking observer would form a high opinion of the prosperity of Turkey, from the rapidity with which the numbers who perished in the plague of 1812, were sup- plied at Constantinople and its neighbourhood ; but the traveller would find villages and whole tracts of country emptied to furnish them. The capital is peopled at the expense of the exhausted country ; and it is the same ruinous want of system in the govern- ment, which depopulates the provinces of the empire, and gathers multitudes on the banks of the Bospliorus."— Turner's Tour in the Levant, vol. i. p. 91. PAET II. V 158 TURKEY. Hungarian ; and what is worse, there are ten of these languages spoken in my own family. My grooms are Arabs ; my footmen, French, English, and Germans ; my nurse, an Armenian ; my housemaids, Russians ; half a dozen other servants, Greeks ; my steward, an Italian ; my Janizaries, Turks : so that 1 live in the perpetual hearing of this medley of sounds, which produces a very extraordinary effect upon the people that are born here ; for they learn all these languages at the same time, and without knowing any of them well enough to write or read in it. There are very few men, women, or even children here, that have not the same compass of words in five or six of them. I know myself several infants of three or four years old, that speak Italian, French, Greek, Turkish, and Russian ; which last they learn of their nurses, who are generally of that country." THE ARMENIANS. " The Armenians," says Mr. Hobhouse, " are the most respectable of the Christian inhabitants of the Levant. The depopulation of a whole country has often been effected by those monsters to whom the Author of all events has, at different times, delivered the universe ; but no great and violent work of tyranny was ever attended with less excess, or has produced more beneficial consequences, than the laying waste of Armenia by Sha-Abbas the Great, and the partial deportation of its inhabitants from the frontiers to the interior provinces of Persia. By this decisive measure, the monarch prevented the encampment of the Turkish armies on the borders of his dominions; and, by giving a new spirit and employment to the transplanted nation, increased the wealth of his empire, at the same '■'■ip--Z'$-'&'~, -ttfkcv PI W'ls^^ii - •&*&&&>*&&& $8iKla TURKEY- 159 time that he bettered the condition, and added to the importance of a large portion of his subjects. The Armenians, who, from being the most warlike of the Asiatics, had, after their subjection by the Persians, be- come the patient cultivators of the soil, from the period of this forced emigration substituted commerce for agri- culture, and gave a striking, and perhaps a solitary example, of the competence of a powerful individual to change the habits and character of a whole people. Some of this nation were to be found in Constanti- nople in the latter periods of the Greek empire ; but the Armenian merchant, now so well known in every quarter of the globe, was created by that prince, when he established the great colony of Julfa, in the suburbs of Ispahan ; and to the same act, the Euro- pean world is indebted for an increased and perpetual supply of the most precious and costly of all oriental commodities. The growth of silk increased in every province of Persia ; and the new settlers, applying the same prudence and industry to the concerns of com- merce, as they had before employed upon the labours of agriculture, not only enriched themselves and added to the revenues of the state, but, by an intercourse with more civilised nations in their long and painful jour- neys, and an interchange of their merchandise for the manufactures of Europe, improved the taste, and much increased the comforts, of all their fellow-subjects. " Of mild but persevering tempers, sober and pa- tient in all their pursuits, honest although skilful in their dealings, accommodating in their habits and manners without losing their individual character, they did not fail to acquire a reputation in every country to which they were directed by the enter- prise of traffic ; and the preference shewn for those of their nation in all commercial transactions, scon p 2 160 TURKEY. made them settlers in many of the flourishing cities of Asia and Europe. They had not to make any sacrifice of patriotic feelings, for they had no country ; and they are now, not less than the Jews, a dispersed people, living in strange lands ; and in Turkey, not- withstanding their numbers, they may be considered rather as a sect than a nation. " The above eulogy of the Armenians must be confined to their mercantile character. Living under despotic masters, being of a more saturnine and phleg- matic disposition than the Greeks, and not having, like their fellow. subjects, any interest in the soil, or desire of emancipation, they have the temperament of contented slaves ; and their minds display no other activity than what is sufficient to assist them in the pursuit of one only object — the attainment of wealth. Their boasted literal language, which is comparatively a late invention, although understood by only a few of their Vertabiets, or Doctors, has not contributed to the ad. " ,r >cement of science or any branch of learning. Like the Greeks, they are debased by their subjection not only to the Turks, but to their priests, and by the tyranny of a mean and absurd superstition. " Some of the customs of the Armenians are not less striking to a Frank stranger, than those of the Turks. Their women are equally enveloped when abroad, and are to be distinguished from the Mahomedan females only by the colour of the square capes of the feredjis which hang behind their backs. Their marriage ceremonies are as tedious and fantastical as those of any of the Orientals. These lasting alliances, which are settled between the parents during the infancy, and sometimes before the birth of ihe parties, are con- cluded and consummated before the bridegroom has a view of the face of his spouse ; and the disguise is in |JP|%; TURKEY. 161 some instances continued after the marriage ; but un- less the honest visiters at Pera are much deceived, the extreme delicacy of the females is reserved only for their husbands. Their constant use of the bath, and ether personal habits, together with the little peril of an amour with a Christian, compared with a iUaho- medan intrigue, render them the unsuspected and ready substitutes for the Turkish ladies, in the hands of a class of people which may always be met with in any large city." The following account of an Armenian marriage is given by the Rev. Dr. Walsh, late chaplain to the British Embassy. " I was invited to the wedding of a youngf lady of one of the first Armenian families of Pera, whose match was made in this way, and who, I was assured, had never seen the man she was going to marry. We went about eight o'clock in the even- ing, and found the house lighted up and full of the lady's friends, among whom were the priest and his wife, very plain, simple-looking persons. We passed through several ante-rooms, in which were groupes of people, and were finally ushered into an inside cham- ber, round which was a divan, or long sofa, against the wall. On the divan were a number of Armenian ladies, sitting cross-legged, two or three deep and close together ; and at the far corner, sat a still, mo- tionless form, like a bust in a niche, covered over with a rich veil, glittering with gold, which hung down on all sides so as entirely to conceal the figure beneath it. This bust was the bride. Across the middle of the room was a line of men, standing two or three deep, gazing in silence on the bride. Out of complaisance to our Frank customs, chairs were brought for our accommodation, and placed inside the line of men : on these we now sat down, and continued P3 162 TURKEY. for a long time to gaze in silence also. The bride now, for the first time, permitted her veil to be raised, but it was immediately again let fall. The short glimpse, however, shewed us a slight figure and a pale face, with an expression exceedingly joyless and pensive. She formed a strong contrast to the ladies on the divan, who, though silent or speaking in whispers, were in high spirits. They were all distinguished by glittering coronets of gold and diamonds, placed on the crown of the head, whence their hair hung down in the most beautiful and extraordinary pro- fusion, sweeping the divan on which they were sitting. Their faces in general were lovely, their manners very modest but very affable, and no one was veiled or reserved but the bride. Refreshments were handed to us by two of the young ladies, who stepped from the divan for that purpose. They consisted of little glasses of red rosoglio, followed by spoonfuls of a sweet, white, consistent syrup, like flour and honey, and washed down by goblets of water, not very clear. The refreshment was accompanied by music : a groupe of musicians sat in a corner of the room, and played and sang appropriate songs. An open space was now cleared opposite the bride, and two embroidered mats were laid on it. On these were placed two enormous silver candlesticks, containing wax tapers of a propor- tionate size, and between them, a third enormous candle, without a candlestick, and singularly decorated. It was bound on the top of a white pole, and orna- mented with festoons of ribands and gold tinsel. As it could not stand by itself, it was bound to the back of a chair, and placed directly before the bride. This candle was called the ' nuptial taper:' it represented the maiden state of the girl, and was to burn till that state expired, and she became a wife ; it is then ex- TURKEY. 163 tinguished and preserved in her family, while the snuff of the wick is taken by the priest, who affirms that it is endued with many virtues. I did not expect to see the torch of Hymen thus lighted at a Christian wedding. " The priest was now called forward to perform another important ceremony. A low table was placed near the nuptial taper ; this was covered with a white cloth, or napkin, and the priest sat down at one end, attended by another Armenian, who was not a priest, to say responses. He took out of his bosom a small crucifix, and waving it several times in the air over the table, he uttered a benediction : he then began a prayer, and concluded with a psalm, accompanied by his assistant, in a very dissonant and nasal tone. When the psalm was over, we were curious to see what was under the cloth. It was lifted slowly up, and a large rich shawl appeared on the table, which was immediately taken, and ceremoniously wrapped round the bride. This was considered as one of the most important parts of the ceremony, and is called, ' blessing the nuptial shawl.' We now took our leave, and were invited to come again on the morrow, when the bride was to be conveyed to the bridegroom, who was all this time at Galata, a distant part of the town, being never suffered to approach the house. " The next day, about three o'clock, the lady was led down in the same dress she wore the day before, and in addition to her ample veil, the consecrated shawl was wrapped round her, in such a way as abso- lutely to envelop her. An aruba, or Turkish coach, drawn by buffaloes, was waiting at the door: this con- sisted of a long platform of boards laid upon four wheels, and surmounted with a gaudy canopy of wood, carved and gilded. Into this the bride was lifted, wrap- ped up like a child in swaddling clothes going to be 164 TURKEY. christened/ Her female friends, including the priest's wife, to the number of ten or twelve, sat round her 80 as effectually to conceal her person. The nuptial candle was borne on the shoulder of a boy, who walked before ; and in this way the procession slowly moved to Oalata, to the house of her husband, when, for the first time, he was permitted to see her face. The final marriage-ceremony did not take place till three days after, at which no strangers were admitted. Not- withstanding their very unpromising mode of court- ship, marriage is generally a happy, or, at least, a tranquil state among the Armenians, and instances of conjugal infidelity are utterly unknown. As a reli- gious people, they consider it as a most solemn cngage- ment ; and the disposition of the females, as M'ell from nature as education, is so gentle, docile, and domestic, that the inclinations of the wife never stray beyond her house, her husband, and her children." * " The chief Armenians of Constantinople are, as well as the Jews, money-brokers (sarraffs), and they receive a small premium for examining the coin in the many bargains which go through their hands. They also buy the specie when cried down and at a low price, and re-issne it in the loans with which thev accommodate the Turks, at the exorbitant interest of between twenty and thirty per cent. This is the chief source of their wealth. Many of their corn- merchants are in good circumstances, and also their goldsmiths, as only a few of any other nation exercise that trade. There are Armenian surgeons, physicians, and apothecaries. The greater number of bakers are of their nation. They are the chief house-builders, * " Account of the Armenian Christians of Constantinople, by the Rev. Robert Walsh, LL.D., late Chaplain to the British Em- bassy," in the Amulet for 1827. I M yf-i- i-i'i- ^tfiy^wi ^^^H TURKEY. 165 masons, joiners, turners, braziers, and lock-smiths ; and as porters, they shew themselves the most labo- rious, and perhaps, the strongest people in the world. Sixteen of them, eight before and eight behind, with their arms extended across on each other's shoulders, will carry a barrel of wine slung on four poles, throw- ing three hundred weight upon each man. They march in a quick lock-step, accompanying each pace with the groan of a pavior, and apparently in the last agony of exertion. The Armenians are also water- carriers, sherbet-sellers, boatmen, fishermen, silk- twisters, ribbon-weavers, and tent-makers, and are accounted the best farriers and horse-breakers in the country. As chintz-printers and muslin-painters, they surpass most European artists, but the blocks and patterns are French. Previously to figuring their linens or cottons, they polish them with a paste of fine flour, and, as has been noticed by a contem- porary traveller, they wash their printed calicoes in sea-water, to cleanse them from the gum used in preparing the colours. On the whole, the Armenians are the most industrious and useful subjects in the Ottoman empire." According to Dr. Walsh, there are computed to be at present, in Constantinople and the adjacent villages, 200,000 Armenian Christians, of whom about 4,000 acknowledge the supremacy of the Romish See : * the remainder are nominally subject to the patriarch of • The total number of this once powerful nation is estimated by Dr. Walsh at only 1,351,000; viz. in Armenia, 1,000,000; in Con- stantinople and the vicinity, 200,000; in Persia, 100,000; in India, 40,000; in Hungary and other parts of Europe, 10,000; in Africa and America, 1,000. This estimate, however, is probably too low. In a recent report of the German Missionary Society, it is stated that, according to the latest and most exact returns, the Armenian Church numbers, in the Russian provinces, 42,000 individuals; in 166 TURKEif. Constantinople ; but his jurisdiction, as well as that of the Armenian patriarch of Jerusalem, is merely titu- lar. The Armenian Church recognises the authority, in matters of doctrine and discipline, of only the four original patriarchs of Etchmeazin, Sis, Canshahar, and Achtamar. The other two patriarchates origin- ated in the policy of the Turks, who, availing them- selves of the religious prejudices of the people they subdue, nominate to these offices creatures of their own choice. On every new appointment, the Porte receives a large fine ; and the patriarch then becomes the responsible agent in enforcing the firmauns, and in collecting the haratch, or capitation-tax. The poor patriarchs of Constantinople, therefore, whether Greek or Armenian, are not held in much respect by their people, as they are frequently removed for the sake of the money which every new appointment yields, and are known to be the mere tools of their Turkish masters. The Armenians of Constantinople are distinguished by a patriarchal simplicity in their domestic manners ; " nor does the attachment of families," says the Rev. Dr. Walsh, " cease with this life. Long after death, they endeavour to hold a visionary communication with their parents and children." The practice al- luded to forms one of the most singular customs that prevail among this singular people. In the vicinity of Constantinople, each nation has its own cemetery. That of the Armenians occupies several hundred acres on a hill that overlooks the Bosphorus. The Turks, Turkey, 1,500,000; in Persia, 70,000; thus comprehending a total of 1,012,1km) souls. But to this estimate must be added those in India and other parts, amounting to A0,000, besides the Armenian Catho- lics, who are not very numerous, The total may therefore be set down at 1,700,000. ■ X^-Ar ■■■■■■■■■ TURKEY. 16? on the death of a friend, plant a young cypress over his grave ; but, although they have adopted this custom from the Greeks, no rayah is allowed to plant this tree. The Armenians, therefore, generally plant on these occasions, a terebinth or turpentine-tree,* the resin of which yields a strong aromatic odour, which serves to correct or to conceal the exhalations from the graves. These trees grow to a large size, forming very picturesque objects in the landscape, so that the Armenian cemetery, which is thickly planted with them, has a beautiful appearance ; and from its elevated situation, and the view it commands, it is altogether a most interesting spot. " Here," says Dr. Walsh, " whole Armenian families, of two or three genera- tions together, are constantly seen sitting round the tombs, and holding visionary communications with their departed friends. According to their belief, the souls of the dead pass into a place called Gayank, which is not a purgatory, for they suffer neither pain nor pleasure, but retain a perfect consciousness of the past. From this state they may be delivered by the alms and prayers of the living, which the pious Arme- nians give liberally for their friends. Easter Monday is the great day on which they assemble for this pur- pose ; but every Sunday, and frequently week days, are devoted to this object. The priest who accompanies them, first proceeds to the tombs, and reads the prayers for the dead, in which he is joined by the family. They then separate into groupes, or singly sitting down by favourite graves, call its inhabitants about them, and, by the help of a strong imagination, really seem to converse with them. This pious and pensive * Pistachio Terebinthus, supposed to be the ail or ailon of the Hebrews See Gen. xii. ; xviii. 1 ; xxxv. 4 j where this tree is de- signated by the word improperly rendered plain. 168 TURKEY. duty being performed with their dead friends, they retire to some pleasant spot near the place, where pro- visions had been previously brought, and cheerfully enjoy the society of the living. These family visits to the mansions of the departed are a favourite enjoy- ment of this people. I have frequently joined their groupes without being considered as an intruder; and, I confess, I have always returned pleased, and even edified, by the pious though mistaken practice. " The island of Marmora lies almost within sight of this place, and ahounds in marble ; this stone is very cheap and abundant, and no other is used in erecting tombs. Some of these family mausolea are rich and well sculptured ; others of them are very re- markahly distinguished. The first thing that strikes a stranger, is a multitude of little cavities cut at the angles of the stone; these are monuments of Armenian charity. The trees abound with birds, who frequently perish for want of water in that hot and arid soil. These cups are intended to be so many reservoirs to retain water for their use, as they are rilled by every shower of rain. The Armenians are fond of comme- morating the profession of the dead ; they therefore engrave on his tomb the implements of his trade, so that every one may know how he had gained his living. But the most extraordinary circumstance is, that they are also fond of displaying how he came by his death : you therefore see on their tombs the effigies of men, sometimes hanging, sometimes strangled, and some- times beheaded, with their heads in their hands. To account for this extraordinary fondness for displaying the infamous death of their friends, they say that no Armenian is ever executed for a real crime; but when a man has acquired a sufficient fortune to become an object of cupidity to the Turks, he is then, on some ^M ^H ^^M fXbni :^f**i"« ^^1 TURKEY. 169 pretext, put to death, that his property may be confis- cated ; an executed man, therefore, implies only a man of wealth and consequence. This display is a bitter but just satire on Turkish justice, though the Turks are so stupid as not to comprehend it. I brought with me a worthy Armenian priest one day, who, with fear and trembling, translated for me the inscriptions on some of these tombs. I annex one as a sample : You see my place of burial here in this verdant field. I give my Goods to the Robbers, My Soul to the Regions of Death, The World I leave to God, And my Blood I shed in the Holy Spirit. You who meet my tomb, Say for me, * Lord, I have sinned.' 1197- Notwithstanding this treatment, the Armenians are in higher favour with the Turks, than any other tri- butary people. They designate the Greeks, whom they detest, yesheer, or slaves, and consider them so ; the Jews, musaphir, or strangers, because they came from Spain ; but the Armenians, rayas, or subjects, because their country is now a province of Turkey, and they consider them as Asiatics, and a part of themselves. This favour is greatly enhanced by the wealth which the industry and enterprise of the Armenians bring to the impoverished and lazy Turks. They are, there- fore, appointed to all those situations which the Turks themselves are incapable of filling. They are the masters of the mint, and conduct the whole process of coining money ; they are the saraffs, or bankers, who supply Government and individuals with cash in all their embarrassments ; they are the conductors of the very few manufactures which exist in the empire ; and they are the merchants who carry on the whole in. PABT II. ft 170 TURKEY. ternal trade of Asia. They enjoy, however, a pe- rilous protection : the very favour they are shewn is a snare for their destruction ; for every man that ac- quires wealth hy its means, knows that he holds his life only as long as the circumstance is unknown. " It is singular, that the Armenians have never shewn the slightest sympathy or common feeling with their Christian brethren the Greeks. No Armenian has ever yet been found to join their cause, or to assist it in any way, either by money or influence. Resembling Quakers, however, in many of their habits, they are, like them, a quiet, passive, sober people, and greatly averse to war. Besides this, there unfortunately exist some religious differences between them and the Greeks, which embitter their mutual feelings. The Greeks despise them for their timidity ; and arrogating to themselves exclusively the name of k Christians,' they seem to exclude the Armenians from the Christian community. " The Armenians, though fond of religious books, have little taste for or acquaintance with general lite- rature. They purchase with great avidity all the Bibles furnished by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Their patriarch sanctioned and encouraged a new edition of the New Testament, which the Rev. Mr. Leeves, the agent of the Bible Society, has had printed at an Armenian press at Constantinople ; and I was encouraged to have a translation made into their language, of some of the Homilies of our Church, on account of the Homily Society in London, which I left in progress. They had early a printing-office attached to the Patriarchate, and another more recently established by a private company at Korou Chesme, in the neighbourhood of Constantinople. They have also a third, which was set up at the convent of TURKF.T. in St. Lazaro, in Venice, whence has issued a number of books in their language. Their publications are, however, almost exclusively confined to books on religious subjects.* I obtained a list of" all the books printed at the patriarchal press, from the year 1697, the year of its establishment, to the end of the year 1823. It conveys a better idea of the literary taste and progress of the Armenians, than any other docu- ment could do. In a space of a hundred and twenty- five years, only fifty-two books were printed, but, of each of these, several editions. Forty-seven of them were commentaries on the Bible, sermons, books of prayer, lives of saints, hymns, and psalters, and a panegyric upon the angels. The five not on sacred subjects were, ' An Armenian Grammar,' a ' History of Etchmeazin,' a ' Treatise on Good Behaviour,' a ' Tract on Precious Stones,' and a ' Romance of the City of Brass.' " The use of the Armenian language at the present day is very limited, being exclusively confined to the people themselves ; so that all Armenians are compelled to learn Turkish and French, or Italian, as a medium of communication ; and they often understand these languages better than their own. Many Armenians can read and write both Turkish and French, who are un- able to translate their own books. The Armenian Almanack, which is published annually, is distin- guished by several peculiarities ; in particular by the accuracy with which it points out the temperature of the air at certain seasons. They call the 8th of Fe- bruary, Gemr'ei evel behava ; i. e. the day on which the heat of the sun descends into the air ; and the 25lh • Mouradjea D'Ohsson, the celebrated author of a French work on the Ottoman empire, was an Armenian by birth ; he was drofrueman to the Swedish mission. a2 172 TURKEY. of the same month, Gemr'ci solis Jilloorab, the day on which it descends into the earth. The interval be- tween the 8th and the 17th of March, is styled Ber- douil adjus, the cold of the old women ; and Dr. Walsh states, that hoth before and after that period, the weather is usually very mild ; but he remarked, every year during his residence at Constantinople, that at that precise period, a N. E. wind sets in from the Black Sea, generally attended by a drift of snow, and the thermometer sometimes falls to the freezing point. THE FANARIOTES. The Greek population of Constantinople amounted in 1818, according to a census taken by the clergy, to 4900 resident families, comprising 24,500 individuals, besides 2350 strangers : total 26,850.* The name of • See Essay on the Fanariotes, by M. P. Zallony, late physician to the Grand Vizier, in Swan's " Journal of a Voyage up the Me- diterranean," (Uvo. 1826) vol. il. According to this calculation, the Greeks are far less numerous than the Armenians. " Of all the people who inhabit Constantinople," it is remarked, " the Greeks are the most scattered ; which proceeds from this, that almost all the quarters hereafter-named, enclose orthodox churches built by the ancestors of the present Greeks; viz., the Petri-Capi. Fanar, Balata, Edirne, Capissi, Alty-Mermer, Psomathia, Wlanja, Yeni- Capi, Cuni-Capi, Princes' Island, Cadi-Kioy, Scutari, Cousconzuk, Yeni-Mahale, Bouyuk-bere, Tharapia, Yeni-Kioy, Balta-Liman, Yssari, Bebeki, Arnaout-Kioy, Couru-Chesme, Orta-Kioy, Beshik- tashe, Galata, Pera, Tataria, Has-Kioy, Avas-Kioy, and Agios Stephanos." In consequence of one of the demands included in the Russian ultimatum in 1021, much inquiry was made into the num- ber and condition of the Greek churches in the capital and its vici- nity. It then appeared, that, in the city itself, there are twenty-four Greek churches and chapels ; in the environs, as far as Phanaraki on the one side, and Agios Stephanos on the other, about thirty- eight : in Princes' Island, eleven : total, seventy-three or seventy- four. Of these, about sixty remained uninjured by the popular tumults.— Waddington's Greece, p. 11, IHH p&& ■ Wm TURKEY. 173 Fanariotes has been given to the principal families, on account of their occupying the quarter called the Fanar,* situated on the sea-side fronting the arsenal, where the European ambassadors used to reside, be- fore they were excluded from the city by the jealous policy of the court. This part of Constantinople was originally appropriated by the Ottoman conqueror, as a residence for some of the family of Constantino. Here is still the palace of the Greek patriarch ; and among the Moldavian courtiers, a faint image may yet be seen of the magnificence of the Byzantine emperors. -|- " It is in the Fanar," says the Hon. Mr. Douglas, " that we discover the purest remains of the ancient literature; and the patronage of its inhabitants has * More properly Plianar, (by the French and Italians written Fmifil and Fanale,) from ipava«/, a light-house. The gate lead- ing to this quarter, near the head of the port, is called Fener Capoussi, the light-house gate. The present light-house, however, is on the side of the Sea of Marmora, between the two quarters called Tlmtladi and Ahour Capoussi. t " We were made to step ashore on a mean-looking quay, and tG turn into a narrow dirty lane ; and I attained the acme of my dismay, when, arrived opposite a house of a dark and dingy hue, apparently crumbling to pieces with age and neglect, I was told that there lived the Lord Mavroyeni. ... A new surprise awaited me within. That mean fir-wood case of such forbidding exterior, contained rooms furnished in all the splendour of eastern magni- ficence. Persian carpets covered the floors, Genoa velvets clothed the walls, and gilt trellis-work overcast the lofty ceilings. Clouds of rich perfumes rose on all sides from silver censers; and soon I found that this dismal outside appearance was a homage paid by the cunning of the Greek gentry to the fanaticism of the Turkish mob, impatient of whatever may, in Christians, savour of luxury and ostentation. The persons of the Fanariote grandees were of a piece with their habitations. Within doors, sinking under the weight of rich furs, costly shawls, jewels and trinkets, they went forth into the streets, wrapped in coarse, and dingy, and often thread-bare clothing." — Anastasius, vol. i. p. 70. a 3 174 TURKEY. supported the few men of genius who have of late appeared among the Greeks." Yet here, most tra- vellers agree in stating, the Greek character exhibits the lowest degree of degeneracy ; and the term Fana- riote has been used as synonymous with sycophant and traitor. Their influence has been represented as fatal to the cause of the Greeks, although the aged patriarch was one of its first victims ; and two of its most illus- trious and disinterested champions, Demetrius Ipsi- lanti and Mavrocordato, are of Fanariote families. It is extremely difficult to obtain any thing approach- ing to an impartial account of the character of the Con- stantinopolitan Greeks. Among this class, (speaking from private information of the highest respectability,) may be found examples of every social virtue that can adorn human nature, — probity, hospitality, strict honour, purity of morals, and decidedly the most finished politeness and the highest tone of manners that are to be met with in any capital. Neither the Castilian nor the Parisian presents a finer specimen of the true gentleman, than the Constantinopolitan Greek. It is no wonder if with this should be mingled a love of pompous appellations and a scrupulous etiquette in distinguishing them, which are, in fact, very general throughout Greece. The title of archon, which is equivalent to noble, is universally applied to persons of family and distinction ; * and the same kind of vanity has led to the substitution, among the Fanari- * " Avjjj BxffiXixog (a princely man) is the polite phrase for a man of fashion. Each of the patriarchs is addressed hy a pecu- liar epithet, while the absurd superlatives Eutn[ii cordato owed the elevation of his son to the dignity of voivode. 178 TURKEY. the Divan. In 1714, two days after Bessarabba's de- position, Stephen Cantacuzene, of Greek origin and calling himself a descendant of the Imperial family of that name, was, by the Sultan's order, elected to the voivodate. He remained in office only two years, and was the last Wallachian hospodar or voivode, whose nomination was attended by the formality of an elec- tion.* No prince of Wallachian or Moldavian birth or origin was ever afterwards appointed to the government of either province. To the representations and intrigues of the State Interpreter (Divan-drogueman), Alex- ander Mavrocordato, who was anxious to obtain one of the roivodates for his son, is ascribed the adoption of the policy which, instead of placing them under Turkish pashas, gave them Christian princes selected from the rayahs of the Fanar. It appears to have been thought, that the long established habit of obedience and servile degradation, would ensure their fidelity, and render them suitable tools for the new system. Being instructed to adhere to the plan of administra- tion pursued by the native hospodars, they were suf- fered to hold a court, to confer dignities and titles of nobility, and to keep up a show of sovereign splendour ; circumstances highly flattering to the vanity of the Greeks.-]- They were strictly forbidden, however, to * Wilkinson's Wallachia, p. 31. Zallony states, that Constantino Mavrocordato, who succeeded his father Nicholas in 1740, was the last hospodar of Wallachia elected by the boyars. Thornton, on the authority of Cantemir, represents Cantacuzene as a person of obscure family, born in Wallachia, who assumed that illustrious name. A descendant of Bessarabba was still living a few years ago, and his possession of the landed property inherited from his ances- tor, yielded upwards of 200,000 piasters annually. He was looked upon, Mr. Wilkinson says, as the first and richest boyar of Walla- chia, and was acknowledged by the Court of Vienna as Prince of the Roman empire. | The hospodar departed from Constantinople with all the 0000$ TURKEY. 179 maintain or to collect troops upon any pretence what- soever. Four places only were reserved for Moham- medans, viz. those of divan-effendi, or lord of the coun- cil in the hospodar's divan; besheli-aga, or high-sheriff in all affairs relating to Moslems; rnechler-bashe, master of the music, in attendance on the person of the hospodar ; and bairactar, or standard-hearer. The offices of grand treasurer or receiver-general, grand judge, and some others, were still left for the native hoyars ; but the greater part were given to the Fana- riotes in the train of the hospodar, who, from the time of their nomination, took the rank and title of boyar. The same title is entailed by marriage with the daugh- ter of a native boyar, upon the husband, together with all the privileges annexed to that rank. Cantacuzene was recalled in 1716, to make room for Nicolas Mavrocordato, who was removed from the government of Moldavia to that of "Wallachia.* This person was the son of the above-mentioned Alex- ander Mavrocordato, the successor of Panoyotaki in his office of State Interpreter. -f On the death of Nicolas in September 1730, his son Constantine was honours of a pasha, attended to the gates by a numerous suite of janizaries. His dress does not differ from that of the Grand Signior, except in the substitution of a bonnet of cylindrical shape, such as was worn by the khan of the Crimea, instead of the turban. It is of yellow cloth trimmed with sable. • Nicolas Mavrocordato was named hospodar of Moldavia in 1709. He was recalled the following year, to make room for Demetrius (,'antemir (or Kondemir), the historian of the Ottoman empire. On Cantemir's defection, he was re-appointed to the voivodate of that principality, from which he was removed to that of Wallachia. t Alexander Mavrocordato is stated to have been the grandson of Scarlatos or Scarloti, who, in the reign of Murad IV., was purveyor of beef and mutton to the court. Mr. Wilkinson, describes him as originally a petty mercliaut of Scio. 180 TURKEY. nominated to the principality, and he was the first Fanariote who set out from the shores of the Bos- phorus, to take possession of the sovereignty of Wal- laehia. Scarcely was he installed, when he became involved in the consequences of the revolution which, in October of the same year, ended in the deposition of Ahmed III. He was arrested with his family, and his property was sequestered ; but, in the following year, Sultan Mahmoud gave him his liberty, and re- invested him in his possessions and his principality. The character of this prince is very variously repre- sented. " Some wise institutions," says Mr. Wilkin- son, " attest the liberality of his views and a generosity of character not to be traced in any of his successors. But he was twice recalled, because he refused to com- ply with demands of the Ottoman Government, which appeared to him incompatible with the duties he owed to the Wallachians." M. Zallony, unwilling to allow any public virtue in a Fanariote, confirms this state- ment, at the same time that he disparages the merit of the prince. " The reign of Constantine Mavro. cordato," he says, " has made an era in Wallachia, in consequence of the famous reform of 1730, to which they have affixed his name, and which perfected the slavery and ruin of this province. He established new tribunals, replaced some of them by military judges, deprived the boyars of the guards with which they were wont to be attended, completed the sup- pression of the national militia, and reserved onlv a small number for the civil service and for posts. Equally a bad financier and an unskilful politician, in place of fixing the principal weight of taxes on the productions and consumption of the country, he aug- mented the capitation, and farmed all the other con- tributions. Although the changes effected by Con- TURKEY. 181 stantine had for their object purely to increase his revenues, his reform embraced all parts of the admi- nistration, civil and military : every thing was sub- jected to the fiscal system. At first, it appeared that this prince had laudable intentions. He made public some good regulations ; he abrogated certain imposts, and diminished others ; he reduced and fixed the quota of labour which a vassal should render to his lord ; he even abolished the slavery of the peasants. And yet, their number, which he found to consist of 147,000 families in the first census which he directed, was only 70,000 in the second, in 1745. Towards the sequel, it was reduced to 35,000, whether from the emigration of malcontents, or that many families obtained by the aid of money, the non-inscription of their names on the civil register. But when Mavrocordato beheld himself at different times despoiled of his principality by the cabals of his rivals, he no longer discovered much delicacy as to the means of maintaining himself in it; and his greatest fault was, his having augmented the tribute which Wallachia paid to the Porte on the occasion of the new hospodar, to 1,500,000 francs. This measure not only raised the misfortunes of the country to their height, but it was also the source of disgrace to its author. The Turks, interested in ob- taining this sum as often as possible, have continually changed the hospodars. The people have only been the more crushed with taxes ; and the princes, dis- graced, are nothing more than the farmers of the Porte, immoveable at will. None of them have done more injury to Wallachia than Constantine Mavro- cordato. Deposed in 1741, re-established in 1744, dispossessed anew in 1748, restored in 1756, recalled in 1759, and named for the last time hospodar in 1761, PART II. R 182 TURKEY. lie was finally disgraced in 1763, and died a few years afterwards at a very advanced age."" The intervals in the administration of Constantine Mavrocordato were filled up by no fewer than seven different hospodars ; three of the family of Rrieovitza, and four of that of Ghika. Speaking generally of Constantine's successors, Mr. Wilkinson says : " The other princes, less scrupul- 's and more careful of their own interests, marked their administration by the most violent acts of extortion and an invariable system of spoliation. l'"ew of them died a natural death ; and the Turkish scimitar was perhaps frequently em. ployed with justice among them."-)- Intrigue and bribery, however, appear to have had more to do in effecting these changes, than any considerations relat- ing to public justice ; and to prevent this scandalous abuse, Russia stipulated in the treaty of 1792, that the hospodars should remain in office at least seven years. This agreement was formally recognised by the Ottoman plenipotentiaries at Yassy ; but, not being observed by the Porte, the frequent infractions of it became the subject of continual remonstrance on • Mr. Wilkinson states that, within the ninety years extending from the appointment of the first Greek hospodar in 1710 to the end of the century, Wallachia passed through the hands of forty different princes, independently of the intervals (from 1770 to 1774, and from 1789 to 17!)2) during which it was occupied by the Rus- sians or Austrians. This appears, however, to be a mistake, arising from the successive re-appointments of the same individual. Nicolas Mavrocordato and Cantemir occupied the station for the first twenty years of that period. Constantine Mavrocordato and seven other princes fill up the next three-and-thirty (twenty of which are comprised in the successive reigns of the said prince). For seven years of the period, the country was In foreign occu- pation, which leaves only thirty years unaccounted for. t Wilkinson's Walkuhia, p. 44. TURKEY. 183 the part of the court of Russia. In 1802, Prince Ipsilanti was appointed to the government of Wal- lachia, and Prince Alexander Moronsi to tliat of Moldavia, on the express condition, obtained by the ltussian minister, that neither of them should be removed previously to the expiration of that term, unless chargeable with any crime that the Russian minister should allow to justify their deposition. In 1805, however, the intrigues of the French ambassador procured the sudden recall of both the hospodars, without the concurrence of Russia; Morousi being replaced by Charles Callimaki, and Ipsilanti by Alex. ander Sutzo, a man who had always been opposed to the Russian interests. From 180G to 1812, the prin- cipalities were in the occupation of the Russian armies. The treaty of Bucharest, which was conducted on the part of the Porte chiefly by Demetrius Morousi as state-interpreter, restored them to Turkey, with the exception of the country between the Dneister and the Pruth ;* when Callimaki was re-appointed hospodar of Moldavia, and Yanco Caradja, of Wallachia. The latter having, after a reign of six years, acquired im- mense wealth, became an object of suspicion to the Divan ; and in October 1818, information brought by a messenger from Constantinople, induced him sud- denly to leave Bucharest with all his family, for Kron- m nil , in the Austrian dominions. After his departure, the boyars petitioned that no more Greek voivodes might be sent them, but that the administration might remain in the hands of the divan. The Porte did not, at that time, however, think proper to listen to * For consenting to this cession of territory, Demetrius Morousi was represented as a traitor in the pay of the Russians by the French party ; and Ins head, as well as that of his brother Panayotti, was exacted as the penalty of a disgraceful negotiation, n 2 184 TURKEY. the proposal ; and Alexander Sutzo was re-appointed to the government. In the mean time, Greeks continued to flow into the principalities from all parts ; and they are repre- sented as having gradually engrossed almost all the posts and privileged stations, and made themselves masters of the resources of the country, when the ill- planned revolt of the Hetarists, in 1821, drew down ui)on its authors and the innocent inhabitants the vengeance of the Ottoman Government.* The fourth part of the inhabitants, including almost all the boyars, aie stated to have emigrated into Transylvania, Buchovina, and Bessarabia. Order being at length restored, two deputations of native boyars from their respective provinces, waited upon the Divan, to peti- tion, in conjunction with the emigrants and clergy, for the re-establishment of their ancient privileges and national government. The result had been pre- deter- mined upon ; and in pursuance of the new system adopted by the Porte, the boyar Jouan Sauddoul Stourdza, descended from the most noble family in Moldavia, was invested with the government of that principality, while the boyar Ghika was appointed to that of Wallachia. This popular measure is stated to have been followed by a return of vast numbers of the refugees, and the provinces have been restored to perfect tranquillity, and to some degree of prosperity.t * Mod.Trav., Greece, vol. i. p. 123. t A writer in a French journal gives the following account of the statcof the provinces in 102;!. " Although the nomination of these princes, their installation, the return of the French and Austrian consuls, anil the declaration of the Congress of Verona, were certain marks of the restoration of order and the maintenance of peace, nevertheless, the enemies of the country continued to spread over these principalities absurd reports. Quitting Bessarabia towards the end of February, I trayersed Moldavia, The most perfect TUKKEY. 185 The Fanariote system has thus heen finally sub- verted, and the power of the Constantinopolitan Greeks is at an end.* In this, there is nothing to regret. But, in considering how far they are liable to the heavy charges of selfishness, treachery, and venality, which have been brought against them as a body, by Zallony and other partisans, it may be worth while to inquire, what portion of the community were implicated in the intrigues of the Panar. The resi- dent Greek population of Constantinople, we have seen, amounted, in 1818, to nearly 5000 families. Of these, a very few have attained to the envied distinc- tion in question. " Ft is very true," says this writer, " that both the hospodariate and the droguemanate have been perpetuated in the families of Mavrocor- tranquillity reigned there. There were no other Turks there than those who compose the guard, and whom they hope soon to replace by a national militia. The prince Jouan Stourdza enjoys the general affection and esteem. He is very popular. Without having solicited his dignity, he places his ambition in fulfilling the duties which it imposes. He know the wounds and the necessities of his country ; and he labours without intermission for the re-establish- ment of public prosperity, encouraging agriculture, economy, and commerce, which begin to resume their activity. Confidence in his acknowledged justice has led to the return of all the emigrants, even of the Greeks, who, having given security for their conduct, enjoy liberty and all civil advantages. It is false, that they have been imprisoned or delivered to the Turkish authorities. I myself witnessed the return of the Primate of Moldavia : he was received with all the honours and respect due to his character and virtues. The majority of the boyars have already returned ; the remainder are also preparing to do so, to range round a national prince so long coveted." — Journal des Debuts, May , r >, 1823. * Zallony represents the Fanariotes as having lost three-fourths of their influence since 1821, but predicts, that the party will regain its power, because it has " ties of relationship with the policy of certain Kuropean powers," and its mediation is indispensable, so long as European ambassadors must confer with the Vizier by any other mouth than their own. R 3 186 TUUKEY. dato ; Mavroyeni, who came originally from the island of Mycone ; Ghika, of Albanian origin ; Itacovvitza and Voda, of Anatolia ; Ipsilanti and Morousi, of Trebizond ; Callimaki, a Moldavian ; Sutzo, a Bul- garian ; Caratza (or Caradja), a Ragusian ; Canzerli, of Constantinople, &c. It is on tbese families that the destiny of Greece has rested. In esteem with the Divan, they represented, in some measure, the whole nation. They might have drawn upon it the favour of the Sublime Porte, and have softened the weight of slavery. As soon as the Ottoman Government had weakened itself by admitting a rayah into its bosom, a new fate presented itself to the Greek nation. From that period, this unhappy people has failed to find, among the members of these families, a well-inten- tioned man of talent. The Fanariotes have seen all Greece 'within the compass of the Fanar : out of it, they have said,, they bad no country. If it bad been otherwise, would not the majority of the Fanariote princes, who have been, in their quality of drogueman to the Divan, called to conferences which introduced peace, have obtained, by little and little, stipulations favourable to their fellow-citizens? The choice which the Sublime Porte made of a Greek prince to govern Moldavia and Wallachia, demonstrates that it is not so intolerant as we might imagine, and tbat it was possible to obtain concessions in favour of the rayahs, and to bring back that moderation which sig- nalised the first years of Greek dependence. But the princes of the Fanar have preferred sacrificing to Plutus, rather than to Minerva ; and while tbe major part of the Greek nation groaned under the contempt of the sultans, they swelled into sultans themselves." In these remarks, our readers will have a key to the complaints and invectives incessantly cast upon TURKEY. 187 the Fanariotes by the Greek patriots, and echoed by some of their partisans in this country. Yet, it is not a little singular, that, of the eleven families above enumerated as having engrossed the whole patronage of the Fanar, four appear not to lie of Greek origin ; * while to some individuals of these very families, the cause of independence has been indebted for its earliest and most illustrious champions. At the head of these, we must place Alexander Mavrocordato, a brief ac- count of whose character and origin we have reserved for this place. This accomplished man is descended in a direct line from his illustrious namesake, who, in the conferences at Carlovitz, rendered such important services, by his diplomatic talents, to the Porte ; and he is conse- quently a member of the family which so long reigned in Wallachia. He was latterly employed under Prince Caratza when hospodar of that principality, and is generally admitted to have given proof of considerable talent in the administration of affairs as poslelnicos, or secretary-of-state. When Caratza, to avoid dis- grace or the bow-string, took refuge in Transylvania, Mavrocordato accompanied him to Kronstadt, and thence to Geneva and Pisa. His birth, education, and character would not permit him to remain an inactive spectator of the struggle of his countrymen in the Morea. He arrived at Marseilles in June 1821, and, after making a short stay in that city, sailed for the Peninsula, conducting thither a number of Greeks who had come from Germany, together with a con- siderable quantity of ammunition and arms. " Since that period," says M. Zallony, " Mavrocordato has never ceased to give unmeasured proofs of devotion to * This appears to be the rase with the Albanian boyai Ghika ; as well as the families of Suzzo, Callimaki, and Caratza. 188 TUltKKY. the cause of independence. He has not belied in a single instance the opinion I had formed of him. When I saw him at Marseilles, I thought I discovered a happy union of enthusiasm and reflection, Mended with the most perfect courage and coolness. He per- mitted no sentiment of personal amhition, and still less of pride, to escape him. Thus, I do not believe that he himself assumed the title of prince, which modern historians have given him.* He has not adopted it in any of his puhlic acts. It is wrong, therefore, in his enemies, to exclaim against the name of prince, which, under existing circumstances, seems granted to him hy the gratitude of his fellow. citizens. "-{• • If birth conferred this title, Mavrocordato's claim to it would seem to be as good as that of any of the Fanariote princes: but it is acquired only by having filled the high office of fir^t drogueman, or that of voivode. Mavrocordato appears never to have risen, under the Ottoman Government, to a higher station than that of pottdnie, or secrctary-of-state to a hospodar. t For further details relating to the distinguished part taken by Mavrocordato in the Greek Revolution, see Mod. Trav., Greece, vol. i. pp. 149, et passim. His personal appearance is thus described by Count Pecchio. " His countenance appeared to me much handsomer and more animated than the pictures of him in Lon- don. He dresses A la Fianpiise. He speaks French with facility and elegance. His conversation is lively, agreeable, and full of wit, and he is very ready in his answers. He has all the talents requi- site in a secretary of state, and understands and expedites business with readiness. His enemies, unable to deny his ability on this point, say that he handles the pen better than the sword." Mr. Emerson represents his appearance as any thing but dignified and prepossessing, his figure being small, and his manners, though easy, too polite ; he even describes his countenance, so much of it as is visible through his bushy hair and eyebrows and curling mus- tachios, as having a childish expression; yet speaks of " the deep glance of his penetrating eye." Mr. Swan says: " His face is rather striking : he has a falling brow, cheeks full and ornamented with huge whiskers and mustachios of an intense black ; his nose is large and curved, and generally surmounted with spectacles; but his looks do not indicate much ability. His voice is harsh and squeak- TURKEY. 189 A second exception is made by this writer in favour of Alexander Ipsilanti, whose military exploits had already distinguished him in the armies of the Czar, when he engaged in the ill-concerted enterprise of the Hetarists. He had lost his right hand at the battle of Culm, but he was desirous of employing the single arm that remained to him, in the deliverance of his country. " Ipsilanti," says this writer, " descends from the princes of that name ; but he has never figured among the boyars of Constantinople, nor been tainted with their vices. His ancestors have even merited, in the bosom of corruption, the titles of just and generous. Many monuments, erected both in Greece and in the provinces, attest the benefit of their administration, their taste for the fine arts and for useful institutions." The character of Deme- trius Ipsilanti is universally admitted to be distin- guished by probity, honour, and disinterestedness.* The unfortunate Constantine Morousi, who fell a victim to the vengeance of the Porte in 1821, was a patron of learning, and a man of the most estimable and unblemished character. -f In fact, the writer himself cautions his readers against drawing too gene- ing." Col. Stanhope says: " I found him good-natured, clever, accommodating, and disposed to do good. He has an ingenious, rather than a profound mind. He seems at all times disposed to concede and to advance every good measure Count Capo d'Istria considers him as a man of great probity and finesse; qualities rarely found together, but very essential in his situation." " Of t lie organisation and consolidation of Greece," says Mr. Wadding- Ion, " it is, I fear, but too true, that our hopes mainly repose on him."*— -See Picture of Greece, vol. i. p. 158; voL ii. p. 61. Swan's Journal, vol. ii. p. 29. Stanhope's Letters, pp. 15, 41. Wadding- ton's Greece, p. 113; and Blaqcikre's Second Nairative, pp. 154, (!. * See Mod. Trav., Greece, vol. i. p. 133, note, t Ibid. p. 130, note. 190 TURKEY. ral inferences, admitting that some among" tlie hos- podars, who pursue the Fanariote policy, have not the less been men of merit at the bottom, and endowed with considerable knowledge. " The family of Mavro- cordato," it is added, " has produced some virtuous princes, habituated to the management of affairs. The last of the Ipsilantis have been remarkable for their probity, information, and generosity. Mavroyeni was a person of much courage, and of a greatness of soul which almost approached to stoicism. The Morousis have been excellent diplomatists and skilful ministers. Doubtless it would have been more honourable for these men to renounce honours and riches, when they were to be acquired at the expense of justice and virtue. But sacrifices of this nature, when they could not affect the destiny of the people, would have no profitable result ; and it was better for them that despotism should have been exercised by such moderate men, than by those who, for ever in extremes, are guided by no generous sentiment, and whom ignorance and cupidity invariably direct. They have at least discovered some liberality to their subjects ; and their administration, more paternal and more enlightened, has spread over the provinces, benefits which they would never probably have ob- tained from those who might have reigned in their place." This testimony to the merits of the most distin- guished Fanariotes, will probably be thought to amount very nearly to a refutation of the charges previously brought against them. With regard to their administra- tion as hospodars, it may be questioned whether the yoke of the native princes pressed less heavily upon the peasantry of those unfortunate provinces. At all events, the perpetual and arbitrary changes of the TURKEY. 191 governors by the Porte, must be regarded as the chief source of the calamities entailed upon the people. To the Greek princes, it is admitted that the Wallachians were indebted for some wise and equitable reforms in. the administration ; and the difficulties of their situa- tion ought to be considered in appreciating their con- duct and the character of their government.* As to their supposed want of patriotism, the charge of not These are admirably described in the language which the Author of Aiiastasius puis into the mouth of Prince Mavroyeni. " Now how am I to fortify my province against invasion without money ? and without money, how am I to keep myself in my province? Without the sums necessary to raise soldiers and batteries, the Austrians march into Bucharest next month; and without the sums requisite to fee the Capitan-Pasha, the Vizier, and the Sultan, I am turned out of my principality next year. Let, then, my avarice light on the heads of my employers! With them, my generosity would be only my crime. Again ; — as to cruelty ; for what purpose, do you think, has the Porte made, in my favour, the hitherto unexampled exception to its rules, of joining the rank of a Turkish sc-raskier to the prerogatives of a Greek hospodar? For what pur- pose has the Porte allowed me to command in the field several thousands of Moslem soldiers, but for that of enabling me to avert the extraordinary perils that hang over this province, by extraordi- nary vigour ! If I then find that, from all the various peculiarities in my situation, as a native of the Isles, as a stranger to the leaders of the Fanar, and as the Christian subject of a Mohammedan mas- ter, I have every body against me, as well within the very heart of my principality as beyond its boundaries; if I see the Greek who hales me as an intruder, the Valachian who prays for the success of the Austrians, and the Mussulman who looks down upon me as a paoor and a rayah, all unite in wishing for my subversion; if I have to defend myself against the jealousy of the first, the treachery of the second, and the fanaticism of the last; if 1 know that the least lenity, considered as a weakness, will only encourage the audacity of my enemies, and hasten my ruin ; and if I also know that with me must perish my trust ; — is it not my duty to my sovereign and my province, to steady, by an extraordinary pressure, the jarriiis; elements ready to fall asunder '! And must 1 not, ne- glecting the petty forms of the law to do the speedier justice, wherever 1 can, pinion the suspected, paralyse the traitor, and cut off the criminal."— Anastatius, vol, ii. p. 290. 192 TURKEY. having attempted to obtain any concessions in favour of their countrymen, can apply only to the indivi- duals who successively filled the high office of state- interpreter ; and it is evident that their power was as limited as their situation was precarious. Some of these are admitted to have been honourable and patriotic men. Upon what grounds, then, are the Fanariotes held up to suspicion and obloquy as un- worthy of the name of Greeks ? Chiefly, perhaps, because all classes of Greeks, in modern as in ancient times, suspect and depreciate each other. Thus, the Roumeliots despise the Moreotes, the Moreotes the Hydriotes, and all three detest the Fanariotes ; just as the Spartan mountaineers despised the Athenian merchants and the islanders. All that is still respect- able in the Greek cbaracter, however, must be sought for, if any where, among the polished and well- educated families of the Fanar. To fix and define the traits of national character is at all times difficult ; but, perhaps, the Greek has seldom been more accu- rately and happily portrayed, than by the Author of Anastasius, in a speech which he puts into the month of Prince Mavroyeni. " You mistake, Anastasius, in thinking the Greek of Constantinople different from the Greek of Chios.* Our nation is every where the same ; the same at Petersburg as at Cairo ; the same now, that it was twenty centuries ago The complexion of the modern Greek may receive a different cast from dif- * Mr. Waddington thus describes the Greeks of Ipsara. " The Psarians are genuine Greeks, with no admixture of blood, Turkish or Albanian. They have nothing in appearance or character which is not truly national. Ingenious, loquacious, lively to excess, active, enterprising, vapouring, and disputatious, they form a mar- vellous contrast with the solemn Mussulman.".— Visit to Gi-vece, p. 31 . ■hi mm ■ i ■■■ ■■ > ■■■ h TURKEY. 103 ferent surrounding objects : the core is still the same as in the days of Pericles. Credulity, versatility, and thirst of distinctions, from the earliest periods formed, still form, and ever will form, the basis of the Greek character. And the dissimilarity in the external ap- pearance of the nation arises, not from any radical change in its temper and disposition, but only from the incidental variation in the means through which the propensities are to be gratified. The ancient Greeks worshipped a hundred gods ; the modern Greeks adore as many saints. The ancient Greeks believed in ora- cles and prodigies, incantations, and spells; the mo- dern Greeks have faith in relics and miracles, in amulets and divinations. The ancient Greeks brought rich offerings and gifts to the shrines of their deities, for the purpose of obtaining success in war, and pre- eminence in peace : the modern Greeks hang up dirty rags round the sanctuaries of their saints, to shake off an ague, or to propitiate a mistress. The former were staunch patriots at home, and subtle courtiers in Per- sia: the latter defy the Turks in Maina, and fawn upon them in Fanar. Besides, was not every com- monwealth of ancient Greece as much a prey to cabals and factions, as every community of modern Greece ? Does not every modern Greek preserve the same desire for supremacy, the same readiness to undermine by every means, fair or foul, his competitors, which was dis- played by his ancestors ? Do not the Turks of the present day resemble the Romans of past ages, in their respect for the ingenuity, and, at the same time, in their contempt for the character of their Greek sub- jects ? And does the Greek of the Fanar shew the least inferiority to the Greek of the Piraeus, in quick- ness of perception, in fluency of tongue, and in fondness for quibbles, for disputation, and for sophistry ? Believe TART II. S ■ 194 TURREV. me,the very difference between the Greeks of time past and of the present day, arises only from their thorough resemblance ; from that equal pliability of temper and of faculties in both, which has ever made them receive, with equal readiness, the impression of every mould, and the impulse of every agent. When pa- triotism, public spirit, and pre-eminence in arts, science, literature, and warfare, were the road to dis- tinction, the Greeks shone the first of patriots, of heroes, of painters, of poets, and of philosophers. Now that craft and subtlety, adulation and intrigue, are the only paths to greatness, these same Greeks are . — what you see them !" " " There is a national likeness observable," Mr. Hobhouse remarks, " in all the Greeks, although, on the whole, the islanders are darker and of a stronger make than those on the main land. Their faces are just such as served for models to the ancient sculptors; and their young men, in particular, are of that perfect beauty which we should, perhaps, consider as too soft and effeminate in those of that age in our more north- ern climate. Their eyes are large and dark, from which circumstance, Mavromati (Black -eyes) is a very common surname ; their eye-brows are arched ; their complexions are rather brown, but quite clear ; and their cheeks and lips are tinged with a bright vermilion. The oval of their faces is regular, and all their fea- tures are in perfect proportion, except that their ears are rather larger than ordinary. Their hair is dark and long, but sometimes quite bushy, and, as they shave off all the hair on the fore part of the crown and the side of the face, not at all becoming. Some of the better sort cut off all their hair, except a few locks twisted into a knot on the top of the head. On the upper lip, they * Anastasius, vol, i. pp. 78—80. PHHHH TURKEY. 195 wear a thin, long mustachio, which they are at some pains to keep black. Beards are worn only by the clergy, the archons, codja-bashees, and other men of authority. Their necks are long, but broad and firmly set ; their chests wide and expanded ; their shoulders strong ; but round the waist they are rather slender. Their legs are perhaps larger than those of people accustomed to tighter garments, but are strong and well made. Their stature is above the middle size, and their make muscular, but not brawny, round and well-filled out, but not inclined to corpulency. * Both the face and form of the women are very inferior to those of the men. Though they have the same kind of features, their eyes are too languid, and their com. plexions too pale ; and even from the age of twelve, they have a flaccidity of person which is far from agreeable. They are generally below the height which we are accustomed to think becoming in a female, and when a little advanced in age, between twenty-five and thirty years, are commonly rather fat and unwieldy." This Traveller goes so far as to assert, that he " did not see any very pretty Greek woman during his tour. If the present women, particularly of Athens," he adds, " are at all to be considered as the representa- tives of those of former times, their appearance will not make any one entertain an exalted notion of the beauty * " The Roumellots and the Suliots," says Count Pecchio, " are the finest and most robust race of men I have hitherto beheld. Their skin, always exposed to the sun, is literally the colour of bronze. Their breast is ample as a cuirass. Nature, besides, has gifted them with a rich head of hair, which they leave thick and flowing, and which would be much more beautiful, if they had not adopted the practice of shaving it off at the temples." — Picture of Greece, vol. ii. p. 44. The long-haired Greeks (Ka.gri>t,op.t)a>vrtf A^ktioi) is one of Homer's epithets. s2 196 TURKEY- of the Greek ladies of antiquity.* Such of the women as I have seen from the islands of the Archipelago, with the exception of the Sciotes, are more plain than those on the main-land." Mr. Emerson confesses that he was disappointed in the heauty of the Grecian fe- males. " They have beautiful black hair, sparkling eyes, and ivory teeth ; but they seem to have lost the graceful cast of countenance which we denominate Grecian, and their figures are peculiarly clumsy, owing to their sedentary habits and slight attention to dress. A delicate and even sickly air, and an inanimate expression, seem their most striking characteristics. These, however, differ in various districts. The Mo- reote ladies are far inferior in personal attractions to the Roumeliotes, who again yield the palm to the Ilydriotes and Spezziotes: f these are in turn excelled by the Sciotes ; and the Smymiotes, by their more * Mr. Hobhouse is even inclined to admit the absurd hypothesis of De Pauw, that the celebrity and ascendancy of the Greek cour- tezans, arose from the rareness of female beauty. The superior cultivation bestowed upon their minds, and their general accom- plishments, taken in connexion with the neglect and degradation of their sex, may better serve to account for their retaining, even to what in Grecian women is old age, their extraordinary influence. In countries where female beauty is no phenomenon, individuals have attracted scarcely less general admiration. No where, proba- bly, is the Greek blood less pure than at Athens ; and there is no part of Greece, Mr. Dodwell says, in which the females are so plain. " Their features are fine, but their complexions are pale, and their general appearance is characterized by langotir and debility. Pre- mature corpulence, proceeding from a sedentary and inactive life, is particularly conspicuous in the Athenian ladies. This corpu- lence, however, is an object of desire, rather than of aversion, as the symmetrical contour of a delicate shape is not much in unison with the taste either of the Greeks or the Turks." — Dodweli.'s Greece, vol. ii. p. 24. t The Hydriotes are an Albanian colony, but the women ate probably Greek. Mr. Emerson elsewhere speaks of them as the most interesting, if not the most beaulful females he had seen jn the Levant.— Sec Mod. Tkav. Greece , vol. ii. p. 107. x >w(?>&&&' [V&fi&t TURKEY. 197 civilised manners and graceful dress, are much more beautiful than all the others."* The Hon. Mr. Douglas, however, draws a very dif- ferent portrait of the Grecian female. " Though the delicacy of her form," he remarks, " is not long able to sustain the heat of the climate and the immoderate use of the warm bath, I can scarcely trust myself to describe the beauty of a young Greek when arriving at the age which the ancients have so gracefully personified a-s the Xav(rrt$tzvi>s "H?». Were we to form our ideas of Grecian women from the wives of Albanian pea- sants, we should be strangely deceived ; but the islands of Andro, Tino, and above all, that of Crete, contain forms upon which the chisel of Praxiteles would not have been misemployed.'* -j- The fact appears to be, that, in early youth, the Grecian Hebes are not less beautiful than the modern * Picture of Greece, vol. i. p. 332.— See Mod. Tbav., Syria, &c. vol ii. p. YB9, f The Rev. C. Swan, who, in his Voyage up the Mediterranean, visited several of the Greek islands, speaks of the women of Syra as presenting " models for the statuary." The wife of the vice- consul of Mycone had a face " nearly perfect," and, but for her " unboddiced person," would have passed the severest test of beauty. A great variety of costume obtains in the islands. The women of Mycone ** would not be disagreeable," says Tournefort, " were their habits a little less ridiculous: a dress lasts them their lifetime." Their short, stiffly-plaited petticoats, lichly-ornamented corslets, embroidered aprons, and red or blue stockings, give them altogether a very grotesque appearance. The women of Milo bind the hair tightly with a white cotton handkerchief, and wear some- thing like the Venetian boddice, of dark velvet, with a very short white petticoat. The costume of Crete is very different and more becoming, though Tournefort complains, that the deep plaits of their long, full robe of reddish cloth, conceals their shape, " which is the best tiling about them." Those of Scio, however, are pro- verbially beautiful; and Count Pecchio speaks in high terms of the beauty of the Ipsariote women. s 3 198 TURKEY. Ganymedes, and that the inferiority of face and form subsequently observable, is to be attributed to their mode of life, their luxurious and sedentary habits, and the different standard of beauty among Orientals. With the Turk, if not with the Greek, corpulency is the perfection of form in a female ; and those very attributes which disgust the Western European, form the attractions of an Oriental fair. The universal use of all sorts of cosmetics, added to the relaxing effect of the warm hath, and their loose garments, (for the low zone is a useless ornament, neither confining nor sup. porting any part of the dress,) will sufficiently account for the early loss of their natural beauty. The Greek women can seldom read or write, but are all of them able to embroider very tastefully, and can generally play on the Greek lute or rebeck. Most of them, Mr. Hobhouse says, are acquainted with a great number of songs, or recitatives, accompanied with tales, which are combined something in the man- ner of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia, and appear to have no end, being taken up by different individuals of the party for hours together. Whenever they hate the opportunity of acquiring any unusual attainments, they evince great quickness of understanding. " At Constantinople and at Smyrna, where there are great numbers of them in the families of the dragomans and others connected with the consuls, ambassadors, and foreign missions, they speedily acquire the modern languages, and sometimes a partial knowledge of the literature and accomplishments which distinguish the females of civilized Europe. With respect to their moral character, it is what may be called amiable, and would appear very strikingly so to those of our sex who admire a woman for her weaknesses, and love her the more in proportion as she seems to call upon them HP TURKEY. 199 for support and protection. They are assiduous house- wives and tender mothers, Buckling their infants themselves ; and, notwithstanding the boastings of travellers, 1 must believe them generally chaste. They have no other scope for the good qualities of either head or heart, than the circle of their family, and, whatever secret power they may possess, are never heard of as influencing any public transaction. A man may travel through Greece, and, unless at his particular desire, never see a Greek lady. Like their sex in all parts of the world, they carry their devotion to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and more readily, if possible, than the men, believe all the absurd fables and dogmas of their church. Some of their supersti- tious observances savour strongly of paganism. The ceremonies at child-birth, where the attendant is always a woman, are very mystical. The lamp burns before the picture of the Virgin during the labour ; and the cradle is adorned with embroidered handker- chiefs, jewels, and coins, as presents to the four fairies who preside over the infant. When the child is born, he is immediately laid in the cradle, and loaded with amulets." In their dread of the evil eye,* as well as ia many other superstitious customs, there is a close conformity between the Greeks and the Ottomans ; nor is it easy to decide, in all cases, with which nation they have originated, -f- The manners of the Greeks, Mr. Hobhouse says, would be very engaging, were it not for an obse- * See a curious account of this classical superstition in Dodwell's Greece, vol. ii. pp. 30— 37. t Whether the Turks have been infected by the Greeks with their superstitions, or brought their fables with them into Europe, they also have belief in these fairies, whom they denominate gins. See, for further details relating to the manners and customs of the 200 TURKEY. quiousness which, to the eye of an Englishman, has the appearance of insincerity. They are assiduously attentive, and perform the rites of hospitality with equal good humour and politeness. There is, more- over, an air of great kindness, and even of ceremonious attention, in their treatment of servants and depend- ents, which ought to rescue their politeness to supe- riors from the imputation of servility. If they are not without reason charged with the love of gain, they live in a country where riches afford the only means of advancement. " There is nothing," says Mr. Hob- house, " which is not venal with the Turks." The Greeks, in fact, are a nation of traders, even the princes of the Fanar being engaged in merchandise ; and the cultivation of the earth is left chiefly to Alba- nian colonists. But, if avaricious, they are not mi- serly, being not only fond of show, but profuse and generous. As merchants, their character is said not to bear a comparison with that of the Armenian, or even the Turk, in point of commercial probity and fair dealing ; and Gracia mendax is said to be not less applicable to the country now, than in ancient times. Their political circumstances drive them to have re- course to perpetual artifice and fraud ; and their reli- gion, it is to be feared, is ill adapted to act as a moral restraint. Yet if, in this respect, the Levantine Greek is too nearly on a par with the Jew, it is among the lower classes chiefly that this want of honourable principle manifests itself. * How can a sense of modern Greeks, and their resemblance to those of the ancients, Mod. Trav., Greece, vol. ii. p. 104; also, Douglas on the Modern Greeks, ch. iv. ; Hobhouse's Albania, lett. 31 and 3d; and Tourne- fort's Voyage, vol. i. lett. 3. * The English arc the last persons who ought to decry the mer- cantile character of the Greeks, if Mr. Hobhouse's statement be TURKEY. 201 national honour be expected to survive centuries of politics] degradation ? Debarred the hope of rising in the state, (with the exception of the few posts open to the princes of the Fanar,) excluded even from the profession of a soldier, the law wholly in the hands of the Moslems, his church in a state of degradation, what wonder, it has been remarked, that the only passion which has a chance of being gratified, should predominate in the mind of a Greek ; when, in coun- tries where other paths to distinction are open, this is, with so many, the sole principle of action ? What wonder that the riches of the individual should be the scale by which his merits are estimated ? that to have !roA.Xa, noWa. arv^a, (or, as we should say, to be worth thousands,) is the criterion of an agreeable man ; and that poverty and folly should be regarded as convertible terms ? This is, perhaps, not the place, even if our limits would admit, to enter into details relating to the state of modern Greek literature. Constantinople has (or had) two very large academies; but it is by no means the place where the purest form of Romaic is spoken. correct, that, previously to the dissolution of the Levant Company, every British agent in the Levant but one, (except the mission at Constantinople,) whether minister, consul, or vice-consul, was a Greek or a Jew. " The salaries of these agents, who are all petty traders, are not such as to enable them to support themselves with any respectability as representatives of the British nation. The English vice-consul at Scio has about 12/. sterling a year ; the French vice-consul at the same place, between 5 and GOO/. The conduct of some of these vice-consuls is exceedingly disgraceful. The French seldom employ any but French agents, and these are settled with adequate salaries in every sea-port town, and in many inland places." To these miserable specimens of the Greek nation, to whom the British interests in the Levant were ignominiously confided, much of the opprobrium cast upon the Greeks is, we believe, attributable. 202 TURKEY- Nothing, Mr. Hobhouse says, can be more mixed and barbarous than the common dialect spoken by the wives and daughters of those principal Greeks with whom strangers consort, which is solicitously interlarded with French and Italian phrases: the priests, and the grandees of the Fanar, affect a greater accuracy. The modern Greeks delight in poetry, and very many among them evince a great facility in versification. Some amatory and bacchanalian songs are common to all parts of Greece, while others are local and fugitive. " A young man of any spirit," says Mr. Hobhouse, " who has been ill-treated by his mistress, anathema- tised by his priest, or beaten by a Turk, seldom fails to revenge himself by a lampoon." * The Greek music is plaintive but monotonous. A first part of some airs borrowed from Italian sailors, the first part of Mai- brook, and even of " God save the King," are well- known tunes. It is said, that they cannot arrive at a second part. The men and women all sing, and all sing through the nose. The violin and three-stringed guitar are the usual instruments. All ranks are at- tached to singing and playing, not less than to dancing, and at some seasons appear to do nothing else." -f- The * See, for specimens of Romaic literature, Sheridan's Songs of Greece, 12mo. 1M25. Hobhouse's Albania, Appendix. Childe Ha- rold's Pilgrimage, notes to canto II.; and Leake's Researches in Greece, 4to. 1814. ■} This apparent fondness for music, combined with a deficiency of musical ear, is very remarkable. The Wallachian music, Mr. Wilkinson says, has some resemblance to that of the modern Greeks, but is more regular in time, and altogether more har- monious; its style, however, has hardly any variety, and it is uni- formly In the minor key. The church music of the Armenians is represented by Dr. Walsh as " much more tolerable" than that of the Greeks. The best musicians in Turkey aie the tMngaftefiM, Bohemians, or gipsies, who, without knowing a written note, per- form the German music with admirable correctness and precision. TURKEY. 203 arts are in a deplorable state. " It would be difficult," says this Traveller, " to find an architect, a sculptor, or a painter, equal to the common workmen in Chris- tendom. At sculpture they make no attempt, and their paintings are chiefly gilded saints." Yet, the mosque of Sultan Ahmed was built by Greek archi- tects ; and in the useful arts, they cannot rank below the Portuguese. We have dwelt, perhaps, too long, on the charac- teristics of this interesting class of the inhabitants of Constantinople, and must now proceed to the execu- tion of a still more delicate and difficult task ; that of portraying with impartiality the distinguishing fea- tures of their Turkish lords. THE OTTOMANS. Iw no instance which could be cited, would it be more unfair to judge of a people by the acts and con. stitution of its government, than in the case of the Osmanlies, or, as they are generally denominated, the Turks. It is, indeed, difficult, to explain, how, living under such a government, venal, corrupt, despotic, treacherous, remorseless throughout its whole system of administration, the people should retain so many social virtues as, by the concurring testimony of all our travellers, they are admitted to possess. " How do we trade among the Turks, and trust the Mahom- medans ?" inquires a writer at the beginning of the last century.* " They have obtained it by a just, punctual, and honourable practice in trade, and you credit them without scruple, nay, rather than some Christians." " Ingratitude," says Mr. Hobhouse, " is * ilarley's Essay on Public Credit, 1710, (reprinted J797>) p. 17' 204 TURKEY. a vice unknown to the Turks, whose naked character, where it can be discovered through the incrustations of a defective system, displays a disposition which 1; longs only to those whom nature has formed of better clay, and cast in her happiest mould." The testimony of Lady M. W. Montagu on this point, who avowed that she would " rather be a rich effendi with all his ignorance; than Sir Isaac Newton with all his know, ledge," will not carry much weight : the very volup tuousness and sensuality of the Turks, are the subject of her Ladyship's panegyric* Nor is her account at all times very consistent. " It is very rare," she says, " that any Turk will assert a solemn falsehood ;" yet, she immediately adds : " I do not speak of the lowest sort, for, as there is a great deal of ignorance, so thei is very little virtue among them ; and false witnesses are much cheaper than in Christendom, those wretches' not being punished, even when they are publicly de- tected, with the rigour they ought to he." -f- M. du Loir, who was at Constantinople about the year Ki40, and understood the language, thus speaks * " 'Tis true, their magnificence is of a very different taste from ours, and perhaps of a better. I am almost of opinion, they have a right notion of life. They consume it in music, gardens, comb, and delicate eating, while we are tormenting our brains," &•". " 1 he Turkish ladies are, perhaps, more free than any iadies in the un verse, and are the only women in the world that lead a life of unin- terrupted pleasure exempt from cares, their whole time being spent in visiting, bathing, or the agreeable amusement of spending money and inventing new fashions." — Works, vol. iii. pp. 4, 22. t Ibid. vol. iii. p. 11. For the best description of the harem and the Turkish women, however, we must still refer to the lively, but warmly-coloured and exceptionable description given in her Lady- ship's Letters. '* However highly it may be coloured," remarks Thornton, " it is the only one certainly drawn from life." Russell (a much higher authority than Thornton) concurs in admitting its general accuracy, notwithstanding the suspicious recitals and occa- sional mistakes which the work contains. TUItKEY. 205 of the national character : " The Turks are naturally a good people, which is not to be ascribed to the cli- mate, for the Greeks born in the same climate have very different dispositions, and retain only the bad qualities of their ancestors, viz. roguery, treachery, and vanity. The Turks, on the contrary, priding themselves on their integrity and modesty, are distin- guished universally by an open, ingenuous simplicity of manners ; courtiers excepted, who, in Turkey, as every where else, are the slaves of ambition and avarice." D'Arvieux describes them in very similar terms: " The native Turks and Moors are a good sort of people of themselves, and will not injure their neigh- bours, unless provoked ; but their resentment is easily excited. They love strangers, especially the Franks. In commerce, they are shrewd but honest. In out- ward appearance, they are zealous observers of the law, but in reality licentious and dissolute." Sandys, in l(il0, sums up their character very bluntly : " A lazy people that work by fits, and more esteem of their ease than of their profit ; yet are they excessively covetous. And although they have not the wit to deceive, (for they be gross-headed,) yet have they the will, breaking all compacts with the Christians that they find discommodious." * The only virtues he allows them are, great reverence for their parents and the aged, and alms-giving. Another English traveller, Henry Blount, who ap- pears to have had better opportunities of personal ob- servation than his learned countryman, thus charac- * It is remarkable, that Sandys speaks of bribery as till lately" in the judicial administration of the divan. PABT II. T not known 206 TURKEY. terises this people.* " If ever any race of men were born with spirits able to bear down the world before them, I think it to be the Turk. He is in his beha- viour (howsoever otherwise) the right son of Ishmael: every man's hand is against him, and his against every man Now, as the subtle use to be malicious, false, and superstitious, the timid incline to breach of promise, to base ways of revenge, and the like, (so) the magnanimous are apt to be corrupted with a haughty insolency, though in some sort generous. This is the Turkish way, remorseless to those who bear up, and therefore mistaken for beastly ; but such it is not, for it constantly receives humiliation with sweetness. This, to their honour and my satisfaction, I ever found The only beastly piece of injustice I found among these Turks, was their confidence to catch up or buy for a slave any Cbristian they find in the country ; nor can he escape, unless where he be a settled known merchant, or go with some protector.... This excepted, the Turkish disposition is generous, loving, and honest. So far from falsifying his pro- mise, as if he do but lay his hand on his breast, beard, or head, as they use, or chiefly break bread with me, if I had a hundred lives, I durst venture them upon his word, especially if he be a natural Turk, no Moor, Aral), or Egyptian." After apologising for the " vio- lent nature of the government," he adds : " To the better parts of their justice, I must attach the main disorder which defames it, that is, their insatiable covetousness." He refers also, repeatedly, to the " outrageous drunkenness " of the Turks. Maundrell, who resided for some time at Aleppo, as » He travelled in 1634. lection, vol. x. p. 222. See Harl. Coll. i. 513. Pinkerton's Col- ■ TURKEY. 207 chaplain to the British Factory, and whose remarks are in general characterised by equal fairness and acuteness, has sketched the character of the Turks, in a letter to a friend, subjoined to his Journal. " I think," he says, " they are very far from agreeing with that character which is given of them in Chris- tendom ; especially for their exact justice, veracity, and other moral virtues ; upon account of which I have sometimes heard them mentioned with very ex- travagant commendations, as though they far exceeded Christian nations. But I must profess myself of another opinion ; for the Christian religion, how much soever we live below the true spirit and excel- lency of it, must still he allowed to discover so much power upon the minds of its professors, as to raise them far above the level of a Turkish virtue. It is a maxim I have often heard from our merchants, that a Turk will always cheat when he can find an oppor- tunity. Friendship, generosity, and wit, (in the English notion,) and delightful converse, and all the qualities of a refined and ingenuous spirit, are perfect strangers to their minds, though in traffic and worldly negotiations they are acute enough. " Their religion is framed to keep up a great out- ward gravity and solemnity, without infusing the least good tincture of wisdom or virtue into the mind. You shall have them at their hours of prayer, (which are four a day always,) addressing themselves to their de- votions, with the most solemn and critical washings, always in the most public places, where most people are passing, with most lowly and most reverend pro- strations, and a hollow tone, which are amongst them great excellencies of prayer. I have seen them, in an affected charity, give money to bird-catchers (who make a trade of it) to restore the poor captives to X 2 208 TURKEY- their natural liberty, and at the same time hold their own slaves in the heaviest bondnge. At other times, they will buy flesh to relieve indigent dogs, and yet curse you with famine and pestilence, and all the most hideous imprecations, in which way the Eastern na- tions have certainly the most exquisite rhetoric of any people upon earth. They are incredibly conceited of their own religion, and contemptuous of that of others, which I take to be the great artifice of the Devil in order to keep them his own. They are a per- fect visible comment upon our Blessed Lord's descrip- tions of the Jewish Pharisees. In a word, lust, arro- gance, covetousness, and the most exquisite hypocrisy, complete their character. The only thing I could ever observe to commend in them, is the outward decency of their carriage, the profound respect they pay to religion, and to every thing relating to it, and their great temperance and frugality." Again, Sir James Porter, the British ambassador at the Porte in 1746, gives the following outline of the national character. " The Turks are, in general, a sagacious people : in the pursuit of their own interest or fortune, their attention is fixed on one object, and they persevere with great steadiness, until they attain their purpose. They appear, in the common intercourse of life, to be courteous and humane, and by no means void of sentiments of gratitude : perhaps some, or all these virtues, when extended towards Christians, are practised with a view to their own emolument. Inte- rest regulates their conduct throughout. Where that becomes an object of competition, all attachment and friendship, all ties of consanguinity are dissolved : they become desperate ; no barrier can stop their pursuit, or abate their rancour towards their competitors. In their tempers, they are rather hypochondriac, grave, sedate, IBPP*I TURKEY. 209 and passive ; but, when agitated by passion, furious, raging-, ungovernable; deep dissemblers ; jealous, sus- picious, and vindictive beyond conception ; perpetuating revenge tbrougb successive generations. In matters of religion, they are tenacious, supercilious, and mo- rose." Lastly, Dr. Russell, physician to the British Factory at Aleppo, from 1740 to 1785, thus sums up bis obser- vations on the Turkish inhabitants. " The Osmanli, though rather solemn in their ordinary deportment, may justly be reckoned courteous and polite. In con- versation with inferiors, even with Christians and Jews, they can assume an easy, affable manuer ; but, when irritated by contradiction, they are impetuous in their gesture, they elevate their voice, and inde- cently descend to the most scurrilous language. In the presence of superiors, they are attentive, silent, and submissive ; no provocation almost whatever, can make them forget the respect they owe, or disconcert the seem- ing steadiness of their temper : they feel, but conceal their emotion. It is an habitual power of controlling the passions, to be accquired only by practice, and consequently is possessed in different degrees, propor- tionate to the occasions which individuals, in the pro- gress of life, may have had for exercising it. The Osmanli of middle age, who have risen slowly from obscurity to eminent stations, possess this talent in a high degree. " The moral virtues of the Turks have, perhaps, been extolled with not less partiality by some, than injuriously depreciated by others. . . . The simpler virtues are, in no climate, reckoned the natural growth either of great cities or of maritime towns. Yet, the Turks, who are scarcely known to the Euro- t 3 210 TURKEY, peans in any other situation, * have been branded with vices and crimes, as if such were the genuine offspring of their religious constitution, though, under similar circumstances, those are uniformly found in every part of the globe. Whether political character differs essen- tially in different countries, is best known to those who have been practised in courts, and are versed in negotiations'; but the commercial character of dif- ferent nations probably admits of less variety. The Turks, in their commercial dealings, are seldom charged with dishonesty, but are often taxed, by the Europeans, with conducting all their transactions on the narrow principles of self-interest. . . . An eager thirst for gain, consummate art, a readiness to seize every legal advantage, together with a large share of dissimulation, are among the qualities liberally ascribed to the Turks. . . .It may be added, that, in politics, the Turks are assiduous, venal, and vindictive ; in private life, indolent; not averse, but indifferent to literature ; temperate in diet, but addicted to voluptuousness ; and habitually, if not naturally grave, or, at least, little given to intemperate mirth." -{- With regard to the imputation of barbarism cast upon the Turks, on the ground of their tasteless de- struction of the ancient monuments, Mr. Dodwell at- tempts to extenuate their conduct by remarking, that they are not singular in this respect. " The same system has been pursued by a people who have made no small parade of their taste for the fine arts, which, * " In the Turkish villages, where there is no mixture of Greeks, innocence of life and simplicity of manners are conspicuous, and roguery and deceit are unknown." — Thornton, vol. ii. p. !!)(>'. t Russell's History of Aleppo, vol. i. pp. 223—8. In the notes will be found the citations from Du Loir, D'Arvieux, Maundrell, and Porter. HI TURKEY. 211 as they imagine, flourish more luxuriantly in their soil, than in other countries. I allude (he says) to Italy in general, and to Rome in particular. This boasted cradle of the line arts, has produced so many glaring instances of stupid barbarism, which cannot be exceeded by Turkish insensibility, that their enumeration would occupy too great a space in this volume. There is great similarity in the devastations committed in the two countries : the Turks have nothing in com- mon with ancient Greece, nor have the inhabitants of modern Rome any kindred affinities with the ancient glory of that city." * From these concurrent testimonies, we may safely deduce the general conclusion, that the Turk is dis- tinguished from other races, by nothing so much as by his phlegmatic temperament, which generally disposes him to quiescence and indolence, and admits of many of the passive virtues, but which, under the influence of any powerful excitement, passes from insensibility into the most unrestrained violence and excess. This habitual sedateness and inertness, in combination with a latent energy, may serve to explain some of the in- consistencies in the national character and history. The Turk is habitually temperate : he never tastes the forbidden juice, however, but he gets drunk. He is mild and grave, but when provoked, he is infu- riated. He has little fanaticism, but when his reli- gious fervour is kindled, it becomes a brutal frenzy. -j- He is not habitually cruel ; he is sometimes ge- nerous and humane ; but he is of all men the most * Dodwell's Greece, vol. i. 327- The Turks, in fact, only com- pleted the destruction which the Goths and the Crusaders had begun. t See the account of the Mendicant and Howling Dervishes in Hobhouse, yip. 925—34. 212 TURKEY. remorseless in his cruelty. He will not luxuriate in the agonies of an enemy, and trample upon his victim ; he has little taste for the more exquisite refinements of revenge : in this respect, notwithstanding some doubt- ful anecdotes, he displays less of the demon in his worst excesses, than either Frank or Greek. But then he butchers with less compunction, and with a more entire contempt for human life : his eye never pities, and his heart never bleeds. Age or sex excites no commiseration in him, who, on slight provocation or from policy, dooms the wife of his bosom to the death of a cat, and his children to the bowstring.* The same insensibility displays itself in the smooth- faced perfidy with which he can inveigle, in order to destroy, his unsuspecting victim — perhaps his old asso- ciate or guest. In fact, alike in his pleasures and in his cruelties, the Turk is a cold-blooded animal, coldly voluptuous, and coldly cruel ; deliberate alike in good and in evil ; less to be dreaded when choleric, than when concealing his emotions ; not intolerant, — far less so, as a Moslem, than either Greek or Papist ; not ungrateful, not inhospitable ; not unkind to his de- pendents ; not incapable of generosity and amiableness ; hut naturally arrogant, sensual, and implacable ; know- ing no medium between the despot and the slave ; * The transactions of courts are not always fair specimens of national character, but there is no reason to suppose that the policy of the Seraglio is at variance with public feeling. "More severe," says Sandys, "are these tyrants to their own, who lop all these branches from the bole, the unnatural brother solemnizing his father's funeral with the slaughter of his brothers : so fearful are they of rivalry, and so damnably politic, making all things law- ful that may secure the perpetuity of their empire." Private mur- ders, however, are committed with as little ceremouy or compunc- tion, and excite no legal inquiry. •* Murder is never pursued by the king's officers, as with us," says Lady M.W. Montagu, (vol. iii. 7.) m ■r TURKEY. 213 too generally a hypocrite in all tiling. 1 !, — so much so as to please the Frank whom he despises ; in a word, ex- hibiting, more or less, the deadening and debasing effects of a despotic government, oriental prejudices, and a pharisaical and sensual creed. * One redeeming feature in the Turkish character demands, however, to be adverted to. " No one," remarks Mr. Hobhouse, " has written on the charac- ter of this nation, without noticing the reciprocal affec- tion of the mother and the children in a Turkish family ; and this feeling, tender in the one, respect- ful in the other, and constant and indissoluble in both, must of itself secure for the women, a happiness which the artificial regulations of European society have, perhaps, a tendency to interrupt and to annihi- late. The Valide, or Sultan-mother, possesses a ma- ternal power, and has sometimes exercised an unpro- pitious influence over the Grand Signior himself. The law which forbids the Mussulman to weep for the dead, still allows the mother to weep three days over the tomb of her son. The woman has an absolute control in her own household, and enjoys a domestic power which, among ourselves, it is often the fruitless aim and labour of a whole life to attain. Though the ben- den dosol, or two words of divorce, can dissolve a mar- » Thornton, in his attempt to describe with impartiality the character of the Turks, absurdly represents it as a composition of rontradictory qualities. " We find them brave and pusillanimous, gentle and ferocious, resolute and inconstant, active and indolent; passing from the rigour of morality to the grossness of sense ; at once delicate and coarse, fastidiously abstemious and indiscrimi- nately indulgent. The great are alternately haughty and humble, arrogant and cringing, liberal and sordid; and in general, it must be confessed, that the qualities which least deserve our approba- tion predominate." Vol. i. p. 4. So far as there is truth in this p aradoxical statement, it will serve to confirm our representation. 214 TURKEY. riage, they cannot deprive the wife of her portion, which remains at all times, and under every circum- stance, inviolable."— Without stopping to inquire which are the more " artificial regulations," those of European or those of Asiatic, society, or whether the reciprocal affection of the mother and her children is less strong in England than in Turkey, — the fact, that maternal and filial affection are found to prevail among this people, must be allowed to have its weight in estimating their national character. What that cha- racter might become under the genial influence of a just government, wise and equal laws, science and literature, and above all, the light of Christian know- ledge, remains to be ascertained. With regard to their treatment of the female sex, the Osmanlees only adhere to the usages and institutions of most of the ancient and oriental nations. The ladies of Athens, Mr. Hobhouse remarks, were con- fined as rigorously as those of a Turkish harem. The Theban ladies, when in public, shewed no part of their faces but the eyes. And in the time of the Greek empire, the females were so secluded, that the higher classes never went abroad except in covered litters. * The beard, -f- the loose robe, the recumbent posture, and the use of the bath, distinguished the old inhabitants of Italy and Greece, not less than those of Asia. " The * See authorities in Hobhouse, Letter xliv. t " This distinction of manhood was universally worn by the first Greeks and Romans, as it was in early periods by all the Turks. It did not begin to be left off at Athens, until the time of Demos- thenes ; and no man was seen without one at Home, before the year of the city 454. The beard was again introduced by Hadrian ; and although Julian was ridiculed on that account at Antioch, It was worn by all the generals of Justinian, and by every person of any rank among the Greeks to the latest period of the empire."— Hojihousk, p. 041, note. " Among the Moslems, slaves are not TURKEY. 215 Byzantine ceremonies were, some of tliem, borrowed from those of the court of Persia ; and the Frank who witnesses the audience of an ambassador at the Seraglio, may fancy himself another Luitprand at the Court of Nicephorus l'hocas, astonished by the obscure splen. dour and mysterious magnificence of the Imperial Greek."" suffered to let their beards grow : this appendage, therefore, is a sign of freedom, and generally marks olricial dignity. When once it has been suffered to grow, it is thought indecorous and almost pro- fane again to shave it." — See A.nastasius, vol. ii. p. 54, and note. Among some of the German nations, on the contrary, Tacitus states, that no one was allowed to cut off his beard until he had killed an enemy. The Lombards (Longobardi) received their name from the singularity of wearing this appendage. Mr. Hobhouse supposes that the Prankish nations who adopted it, borrowed it from the Asiatics. The professors of the University of Paris wore beards till forbidden by edict, in 1534: in England, the habit pre- vailed much later. The Greek and Roman Churches have long been at issue on this important article. The latter have made some ex- press constitutions de radendis barbis, while the Greeks espouse very zealously the cause of long beards, and are extremely scandalized at the beardless images of saints in the Romish churches. * In Turner's Tour in the Levant, (vol. i. p. 53,) an account is given of the British ambassador's audience of the Sultan ; but the narrative does not impress the reader with any very lively idea of Ottoman magnificence. From the garden, after being arrayed in pelisses, the ambassador and his suite were led through an outer hall and a room splendidly furnished with a carpet richly worked with gold, in which were drawn up about two hundred white eu- nuchs in lines three deep. The throne room (of which D'Ohsson has given an accurate drawing) is very small : all the rooms appear to be far from large. The Sultan was sitting at one end of it, on a throne formed like a four-post bed, and superbly decorated. The seat, of black velvet, was covered with strings of fine pearls ; and from the top were suspended many ostrich eggs, gilt, and scattered with diamonds. The Sultan wore a turban surmounted with a splendid diamond aigrette and feather ; his pelisse was of the finest silk, lined with the most valuable sable, and his girdle was one mass of diamonds. The deadly paleness of his face was strongly contrasted with the deep blackness of his ample beard. The am- bassador recitcxl his speech hi French, wliich the stale-dragoman. 2J0 TURKEY. Among the minor customs and usages in which a Striking contrariety is observable to those of Western Europe, may be enumerated the following. The ab- horrence of the hat is well known; but the uncovering of the head, which with us is the expression of respect, is by them considered as disrespectful and indecent. A Quaker would give no offence by keeping on his hat in a mosque, if he left his shoes at the threshold. The Turks turn in their toes ; they mount on the right side of the horse ; they follow their guests into a room, and precede them on leaving it ; the left hand is the place of honour ; they do the honours of the table by serving themselves the first ; they take the wall and walk hastily in sign of respect ; they beckon by throwing back the hand, instead of drawing it to- w aids them ; they cut the hair from the head, and remove it from the body, but leave it on the chin; they sleep in their clothes; they look upon beheading as a more disgraceful punishment than strangling ; they deem our close and short dresses indecent, our shaven chins a mark of effeminacy or servitude ; they resent an inquiry after their wives as an insult; they eschew pork as an abomination; they regard dancing as a theatrical performance, only to be looked at, ex- cept by slaves ; lastly, their mourning habit is white; their sacred colour is green, and their holy day is Friday. Many of these usages are not peculiarly Turkish, any more than their costume, or their writing from left to right. The Turks are great smokers and coffee- translated; and the reply, delivered by the iKalmakam, was ren- dered into French by the same interpreter. The Sultan scarcely moved, and only turned his head twice, hut his eyes were very busy. All the attendants stood immoveable, their hands before them, ami their eyes fixed on the ground. mm TURKEY. 217 drinkers'; yet, neither of these practices can be ranked among their national characteristics. Coffee was not introduced into Arabia earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century, and it did not reach Constantinople till a century later. The lawfulness of using it was for a long time a question among the Moslems. To- bacco found its way to France from the New World about the year 1560 ; into England in 158G ; into Turkey, not till the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury.* " The Turks," says Dr. Russell, " probably received the custom of smoking through water from Persia ; that of smoking in the ordinary way, they certainly had from Europe; and it is a curious circum- stance in the history of human luxury, that a practice so disagreeable at first, and accompanied with so little positive sensual pleasure, should afterwards have spread M'ith such rapidity among a people not much disposed to adopt foreign customs." It is now the delight of both sexes. Their funereal customs have already been adverted to. Interment almost immediately follows upon the decease of the person ; a practice common to all classes * See Russell's Aleppo, vol. i. pp. 119—126, and notes 28 and 20; where will be found much curious information and a reference to authorities. The first English traveller who notices the practice of smoking tobacco in Turkey, is Sandys. After remarking that they are incredible takers of opium, " which, they say, expelleth all fear," he adds : " They also delight in tobacco, which they take through reeds that have joined unto them great heads of wood to contain it ; I doubt not but lately taught them, as brought them by the English. And were it not sometimes looked into, (for Mo- rat Bassa not long since commanded a pipe to be thrust through the nose of a Turk, and so to be led in derision through the city,) no question but it would prove a principal commodity. Neverthe- less, they will take it in corners, and are so ignorant therein, that that which in England is not saleable, doth pass here among them for most excellent." PAIIT II. V 218 TURKEY. at Constantinople. The corpse is carried to the grave on a bier by the friends of the deceased : this is consi- dered aR a religions duty, it being declared in the Koran, that he who carries a dead body the space of forty paces, procures for himself the expiation of a great sin.* The graves are shallow, and thin boards only, laid over the corpse, protect it from the imme- diate pressure of the earth, which is set with flowers, according to the custom of the Pythagoreans, -f and a cypress-tree is planted near every new grave. As a grave is never opened a second time, a vast tract of country is occupied with these burial-fields, which add by no means to the salubrity of the vicinity. Much is gained, unquestionably, as regards the health of the inhabitants, by burying without the cities ; but the shallowness of the graves contributes to render these vast accumulations of animal dust, at certain seasons more especially, a source of pestilential miasmata. The cemeteries near Scutari are immense, owing to the predilection which the Turks of Europe preserve for being buried in Asia, — that quarter of the world * Mr. Hobhouse has pointed out some remarkable points of similarity between the funereal customs of the Greeks and those of the Irish ; in particular, the howling lament, the interrogating the corpse, " Why did you die?" and the wake and feast. " but a more singular resemblance," he adds, " is that which is to be re- marked between a Mahommedan and an Irish opinion relative to the same ceremony. When a dead Mussulman is carried on his plank towards the cemetery, the devout Turk runs from his house as the procession passes his door, for a short distance relieves one of the bearers of the body, and then gives up his place to another, who hastens to perform the same charitable and holy office. No one who has been in Ireland, but must have seen the peasants leave their cottages or their work, to give a temporary assistance to those employed in bearing the dead to the grave ; an exertion by which they approach so many steps nearer to Paradise." — Letter xxii. f " Dii niajorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terrain Spiruntetoue crows, et in urna perpetuwn ver," TaRSICS, ■■ ■i TURKEY. 219 In which are situated the holy cities, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The vivid description which the Author of Anastasius gives of this extraor- dinary spot, must close our account of the manners and customs of the Osmanlees.* " A dense and motionless cloud of stagnant vapours ever shrouds these dreary realms. From afar, a chil- ling sensation informs the traveller that he approaches their dark and dismal precincts ; and as he enters them, an icy blast, rising from their inmost bosom, rushes forth to meet his breath, suddenly strikes his chest, and seems to oppose his progress. His very horse snuffs up the deadly effluvia with signs of mani- fest terror, and, exhaling a cold and clammy sweat, advances reluctantly over a hollow ground, which shakes as he treads it, and loudly re-echoes his slow and fearful step. So long and so busily has time been at work to fill this chosen spot, — so repeatedly has Constantinople poured into this ultimate receptacle almost its whole contents, — that the capital of the living, spite of its immense population, scarcely counts a single breathing inhabitant for every ten silent in- * For further details relating to the religion and some of the customs of the Turks, see Mod. Trav., Arabia, pp. 84 — 6. Ibid. Palestine, p. 1 l(j. Ibid. Syria, vol. i. pp. 287—290 ; vol. ii. pp. 44 — 59, 115, &c. Also, Thornton's Turkey, vol. ii. ch. 7 and 8. Russell's Aleppo, vol. i. b. 2. Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters, vols. ii. and iii. Tournefort, vol. ii. letter 7- Turner's Tour in the Levant. Dallaway's " Constantinople, Ancient and Modern." Sir Paul Ricaut's " Present State of the Turkish Empire." De Tott's Me- moirs; and D'Ohsson's Tableau CMral, &c. The works of Bus- bequius and Roland need not be recommended to the learned reader. Thornton has exposed many of the mis-statements and exaggera- tions of De Tott, whose object appears to have been, to blacken as much as possible the Turkish character, in which he has been imi- tated by Eton. D'Ohsson is their equally partial apologist and, panegyrist. u2 220 TURKEY. mates of this city of the dead. Already do its fields of blooming sepulchres stretch far away on every side, across the brow of the hills and the bend of the val. leys ; already are the avenues which cross each other at every step in this domain of death, so lengthened, that the weary stranger, from whatever point he comes, still finds before him many a dreary mile of road between marshalled tombs and mournful cy- presses, ere he reaches his journey's seemingly receding end ; and yet, every year does this common patrimony of all the heirs to decay, still exhibit a rapidly increas- ing size, a fresh and wider line of boundary, and a new belt of young plantations, growing up between new flower-beds of graves. " There, said I to myself, lie, scarcely one foot be- neath the surface of a swelling soil, ready to burst at every point with its festering contents, more than half the generations whom death has continued to mow down for nearly four centuries in the vast capital of Islamism. There lie, side by side, on the same level, in cells the size of their bodies, and only distinguished by a marble turban somewhat longer or deeper somewhat rounder or squarer, — personages, in life, far as heaven and earth asunder, in birth, in station, in gifts of nature, and in long laboured acquirements. There lie, sunk alike in their last sleep, — alike food for the worm that lives on death, — the conqueror who filled the universe with his name, and the peasant scarcely known in his own bamlet; Sultan Mahmoud, and Sultan Mahmoud's perhaps more deserving horse ;* elders bending under the weight of years, and infants of a single hour; men with intellects of angels, and * " Sultan Mahmoud's horse was actually interred in the ceme- tery of Scutari, under a dome supported by eight pillars," TURKEY. 221 men with understandings inferior to those of brutes ; the beauty of Georgia and the black of Sennaar ; visiers, beggars, heroes, and women." It only remains briefly to notice a fourth class of the inhabitants of Constantinople, — that ubiquitous and every where oppressed and despised people, THE JEWS. " The Jews of Constantinople," Mr. Hobhouse says, " have all the usual characteristics of their na- tion : the more considerable among them are brokers and money-changers, jewellers, physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries ; the lower classes are sherbet-sellers, silk-twisters, druggists, boatmen, fishermen, confec- tioners, perfumers, tobacco-sellers, and mountebanks. The bankers of many of the Turkish grandees are Jews, and some of them have been involved in the fall of their employers ; but this circumstance, and the address shewn by them in the management of all pe- cuniary concerns, give their principal people a consi- deration in the eyes of the Turks equal to that of any other subjects ; although the common Turks, and more especially the Christians, affect to treat and talk of them with every mark of contempt and disgust. They are distinguished by a high square cap of black felt, without any rim or border. The lower classes are dirty, both in their persons and dwellings. Ballata, the Jew quarter, is the most filthy of any in the ca- pital, and not less nauseous than in the days of Chris- tian Constantinople, when the tanners used to empty their pans before the doors of the houses inhabited by this persecuted people. The wise tolerance of the Turks has produced a great increase of this part of the population since the last conquest of the city. In u3 222 TURKEY- the twelfth century, when the Jew of Tudela tra- velled, he found only a thousand of his countrymen in the place ; and in the reign of Andronicus the Elder, the Patriarch Athanasius represented, in a formal pe- tition to the Emperor, that the whole nation ought to he banished from the metropolis. In the middle of the seventeenth century, a traveller was persuaded that there were between 20 and 30,000 of that accursed and contemptible people in the city ; and the smallest computation would rate them now at fifteen." The taxes levied on the Jews are not greater than those paid by the other rayahs, and they feel the burden of them the less, by being allowed a tefterdar, or trea- surer of their own, who collects the whole sum, and settles with the ministers of the Porte. " Custom and precedent," Mr. Thornton says, " which in Tur- key soon acquire the force of laws, have established the Jews in their offices of collecting the customs, and of purchasing whatever is required for the use of the Seraglio, while they have conferred on the Armenians the direction of the mint : these, however, are the highest civil employments to which either of them can attain," * We shall conclude our sketch of this extraordinary city and its motley population, with the following spirited picture of the scene, as it first strikes upon the European stranger. " It would be difficult," says Dr. A. Neale, who visited Constantinople in 1806, * Lady M. W. Montagu represents the Jews as in possession of the whole trade of the empire, and of many privileges above the natural Turks themselves. " Every pasha has his Jew, who is his Itomnie ifiiffaires ; he is let into all his secrets, and does all his business. They are the physicians, the stewards, and the inter, preters of all the great men."— Works, vol. ii. p. 1/8. ■1 ^m TURKEY. 223 u for any imagination, even the most romantic or dis- tempered, to associate in close array all the incon- gruous and discordant objects which may be contem- plated, even within a few hours' perambulation, in and around the Turkish capital. The barbarous ex- tremes of magnificence and wretchedness, — the majesty of nature, crowned with all the grandeur of art, in contrast with the atrocious effects of unrestrained sen- suality, fill up the varied picture. The howlings of ten thousand dogs, re-echoing through the deserted streets all the live-long night, chase you betimes from your pillow. Approaching your window, you are greeted by the rays of the rising sun, gilding the snowy sum- mits of Mount Olympus and the beautiful shores of the Sea of Marmora, the point of Chalcedon, and the town of Scutari : mid-way, your eye ranges with delight over the marble domes of St. Sophia, the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio glittering amid groves of perpetual verdure, the long arcades of ancient aque- ducts, and the spiry minarets of a thousand mosques . . The hoarse guttural sounds of a Turk selling kaimac at your door, recall your attention towards the mise- rable lanes of Pera, wet, splashy, dark, and disgusting : the mouldering wooden tenements beetling over these alleys, are the abode of pestilence and misery. You may mount your horse, and betake yourself to the fields, rich with the purple fragrance of heath and lavender, and swarming with myriads of honied in- sects : in the midst of your progress, your horse recoils from his path, at the loathsome object occupying the centre of the highway ; — an expiring horse, from which a horde of famished dogs are already tearing the reek- ing entrails. Would you behold his unfeeling master, look beneath the acacia, at the hoary Turk performing his pious ablutions at the sacred fountain. Retracing 224 TURKEY. your steps, you are met by a party passing, at a quick pace, towards that cemetery on the right, the field of the dead : they are carrying on a bier the dead body of a Greek, the pallid beauty of whose countenance is contrasted with the freshness of the roses which com- pose the chaplet on his head. A few hours only he lias ceased to breathe ; but see ! the grave has already received its obscure and nameless tenant. Having returned to the city, you are appalled by a crowd of revellers pressing around the doors of a wine-house : the sounds of minstrelsy and riot are within. You have scarcely passed, when you behold two or three gazers round the doors of a baker's shop : the kaim. akan has been his rounds, the weights have been found deficient, and the unfortunate man, who swings in a halter at the door, has paid the penalty of his petty villany. The populace around murmur at the price of bread ; but the muezzins from the adjoining minarets are proclaiming the hour of prayer, and the Moslems are pouring in to count their beads. In an opposite coffee-house, a groupe of Turkish soldiers, drowsy with tobacco, are dreaming over the chequers of a chess-board, or listening to the licentious fairy-tales of a dervish. The passing crowd seem to have no common sympathies, jostling each other in silence on the narrow foot-path ; women veiled in long caftans, emirs with green turbans, boslanjis, Jews, and Arme- nians, encounter Greeks, Albanians, F ranks, and Ta- tars. Fatigued with the pageant, you observe the shades of evening descend, and again sigh for repose ; but the passawend, with their iron-bound staves striking the pavement, excite your attention to the cries of yangen var from the top of an adjoining tower ; and you are told the flames are in the next street. There you may behold the devouring element over- TURKEY. 225 whelming in a common ruin the property of infidels and true believers, till the shouts of the multitude an- nounce the approach of the Arch-despot, and the power of a golden shower of sequins is exemplified in awakening the callous feelings of even a Turkish mul- titude to the sufferings of their fellow. creatures. The fire is extinguished, and darkness of a deeper hue has succeeded to the glare of the flames. The retiring crowds, guided by their paper lantherns, flit by thou- sands, like ignes fatui, amidst the cypresses of the " Field of the Dead ;" and you are left to encounter the gloom and solitude of your own apartment." * * Neale's Travels, 4to, (1818) p. 226. " Amid the novelties that strike the European on his arrival, nothing surprises him more than the silence that pervades so large a capital. He hears no noise of carts or carriages rattling through the streets; for there are no wheeled vehicles in the city, except a very few painted carts, called arabahs, drawn by buffaloes, in which women occasionally take the air in the suburbs, and which go only a foot pace. The only sounds he hears by day, are the cries of bread, fruits, sweetmeats, or sher- bet, carried in a large wooden tray on the head of an itinerant vender, and at intervals, the barking of dogs disturbed by the foot of the passenger, — lazy, ugly curs, of a reddish brown colour, with muzzles like that of a fox, short ears, and famished looks, who lie in the middle of the streets, and rise only when roused with blows. The contrast between Constantinople and a European city is still more strongly marked at night. By ten o'clock every human voice is hushed, and not a creature is seen in the streets, except a few patroles and the innumerable dogs, who at intervals send forth such repeated howlings, that it requires practice to be able to sleep in spite of their noise. This silence is frequently disturbed by a fire, which is announced by the patrole striking on the pavement with their iron-shod staves, and calling loudly yangen-var (there is a fire) ; on which the firemen assemble, and all the inhabitants in the neighbourhood are immediately on the alert. If it be not quickly subdued, all the ministers of state are obliged to attend; and if it threaten extensive ravages, the Sultan himself must appear, to encourage the efforts of the firemen." — Tdrnkr's Tour in the Ltioant, vol. i. pp. 81 — 3. Mr. Hobhouse says, that a fire that has continued ail hourj and has been thrice proclaimed, " forces the ■ 226 TURKEY. In the month of Hamazan (the Mohammedan Lent), the scene, however, is entirely changed. The day is passed, by the rich at least, in sleep, or in total idle- ness. Every Moslem, with the exception of travellers, children, and invalids, is forbidden to taste food or drink, to smoke or take snuff, from sunrise to sunset ; and very wretched do they look, squatting on their divan or at their door, without their favourite pipe in their mouths, and having no other occupation than counting their beads. As the Turkish month is lunar, the Ramazan runs through every season in the course of thirty-three years ; and when it occurs in summer, the labouring classes suffer extremely from exhaus- tion and thirst. " I have seen the boatmen," says Mr. Turner, " lean on their oars almost fainting ; but I never saw — never met with any one who professed to have seen — an instance in which they yielded to the temptation of violating the fast." The moment of sunset is of course eagerly looked for : it is announced by the firing of cannon. It might be imagined, that the first act of the hungry and thirsty would be to eat and to drink ; but numbers of Turks may he seen, their pipes ready filled, and the fire to light it in their hands, awaiting the welcome signal, every other gra- tification being postponed for that of inhaling the fragrant weed. The night is passed in devotional forms and revelry. All the mosques are open, and all the coffee-houses : the latter are crowded with Turks smoking, drinking coffee, and listening to singers and story-tellers. The minarets are illuminated, and the streets are crowded with the faithful. The Bairam, which succeeds the Hamazan, presents three days of Grand Signior himself to the spot." This singular custom has often been the cause of fires, as the people take this method of making their discontents known to the Sultan in person. TURKEY. 227 unmixed festivity. Every Turk who can afford it appears in a new dress ; visits are exchanged, and par- ties are made up to the favourite spots in the vicinity.* Seventy days after is the festival of the Courban Bairam, (feast of sacrifice), which lasts four days, during which sheep and oxen are sacrificed to Allah and " the Prophet," and the same festivities are ob- served as on the Bairam. These seven days are a universal holiday, the shops being shut, and business everywhere abandoned for pleasure, -f- ENVIRONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. Strangers at Pera are usually taken to a number of spots in the vicinity : the principal of these are, the Valley of Sweet Waters, the villages of Belgrade and Buyuk-dere, the mouth of the Bosphorus, the Giant's Tomb, the Mountain of Bourgaloue above Scutari, and the gardens of Fanar Baktchessi. For a descrip- tion of these, we shall borrow from Mr. Hobhouse. • Mr. Turner states, that he has heard many Europeans long resident in the Levant, observe, that the decline of Turkey is in nothing more remarkably apparent, than in the festivities of the Bairam. Formerly at that season, every Turk procured himself an entire new suit ; but, owing to the depreciation of their money, and the decline of their national wealth, all but the richer sort now content themselves with a new beneesh, or with simply patch- ing their old clothes. The Grand Signior on this day appears more magnificently dressed than usual, and entertains the grandees in the hall of the Divan. Tournefort says, " The women, who are shut up all the year, have the liberty of being abroad the three days this feast continues." t Turner's Tour, vol. i. pp. 04— G. Tournefort, vol. ii. p. 298. et seq. The latter Traveller states, that the "smaller liairam" lasts only one day, the loth of the twelfth month, (Ramadan being the ninth in the Turkish year,) but that they also keep as a festival the night of Mohammed's birth, that of the 11th of the third month, as well as the 26th of the fourth month, on which he is fabled to have made his celestial excursion upon Atborac. 228 TURKEY. " At the head of the port is a large flat of low land, having very much the appearance of the meadows near the harbour at Portsmouth, which seems to have been created by the perpetual alluvions of the river Lycus, formed by the united streams of the ancient Cydaris and Barbysses. There are some paper-mills near the head of the port, which have given the spot the name of Kiat-Hana, or in Greek, Kartaricos. A mile and a half beyond the mills, the ground rises on each side, and encloses a flat valley adorned with the pleasure-grounds and kiosk of Sultan Achmet the Third, which were constructed by a Frenchman on the plan of the gardens at Versailles and Fontaine- bleau. The river is there converted into a straight canal, running between avenues of tall trees. At the kiosk, the stream runs over two fligbts of marble steps. Near the cascade is a grove of tall trees, which is the re- sort of parties from Pera and Constantinople. Strings of females promenading between the avenues, sets of dancing Greeks, horses superbly caparisoned, add to the beauty and singularity of the spectacle which is to be seen on any fine day in the Valley of Sweet Waters. At the kiosk of Kiat-Hana, there is a line of field- pieces pointed up the valley, not intended for defence, but for the practice of the Topges. The kiosk was the favourite summer palace of Sultan Selim : it is a gaudy building, not very large, of lath and plaster ; and not having been inhabited by the court for some time, is now neglected and in decay.* * Mr. Turner obtained permission to enter this palace. The rooms are generally about 45 feet by 25; the walls stuccoed, and painted blue, pale lilac, or buff, with round or oval compartments, containing landscapes, evidently the work of a European artist. The apartments of the harem were plentifully adorned with Vene- tian looking-glasses. The divans were most elegant, of red or dark satin, richly embroidered with gold or silver. TURKEY. 229 " A mile and a half above Kiat-Hana, there is a small village, which is at the mouth of the Valley of Sweet Waters, and separates it from another long plain, en- closed on each side by a chain of hills. It may be about six miles in extent : the Barbysses runs through its whole length. The plain is the pasturage of the Sultan's horses, which are turned out on the 23d of April. " The country beyond the valley, as well as on each side, is an expanse of open downs, which, generally speaking, is the character of all the immediate vicinity of Constantinople towards the interior of Thrace. The forests of Belgrade commence about ten miles from Pera, extending in length from the village of Bourgas towards the shores of the Black Sea, not less than twelve miles, and ranging along the coast at in- tervals for at least a hundred miles. A rich vein of coal, wbich has not yet been worked, has been dis- covered in the woods near the sea-shore. " At Bourgas, is a portion of the aqueduct built originally by Theodosius, or by Valens and Valentinian ; destroyed by the Avars in the reign of Heraclius ; repaired by Constantine Iconomachus ; and totally reconstructed by Solyman the Magnificent. Pococke has given a very minute account of this structure. The most ancient part of it, as to its appearance and materials, which are alternate layers of brick and stone, is that within the walls ; the largest, that at Bourgas, which is a stupendous structure four hundred and forty feet long, and one hundred and seven feet high, The aqueduct at Pontcysyllty may very safely be com- pared to either of these works Bourgas is between four and five miles from Belgrade. The road passes through a forest on a gravel -walk, by a stream dammed up by high massive walls, and, near Belgrade, PART II. X 230 TURt?FA f . skirts two large reservoirs. The largest of these Is railed off, and, as the wood grows down to the water's edge, and is intersected by many paths and green rides, looks like a lake in a cultivated park, and has indeed much the appearance of the piece of water at Bowood Park, in the county of Wilts. The village of Belgrade itself is embosomed in the depth of the forest, a little above a streamlet (the ancient Hydraulis) which falls into the reservoirs, and supplies the whole capital with water. On a green knoll is the country-house of Mr. Pisani, the chief dragoman, which was built by Sir Robert Ainslie, on the site, as some assert, of the mansion which the residence of Lady M. W. Mon- tagu has rendered an object of curiosity to every tra- veller. Another site is also pointed out, but the first place has the advantage of being more beautifully situated than any other in the village ; and it alone commands a view of the first lake through a vista of the neighbouring grove*, which so conceal the termi- nation of the reservoir, as to give the water the ap- pearance of a broad river winding through the woods. " Some of the foreign ambassadors retire to this vil- lage during spring and autumn. The repose of Bel- grade is completely interrupted by the loud merriment of the Greeks, who often retire thither, and celebrate their marriages and church-festivals with discordant music and songs. Night after night is kept awake by the pipes, tabors, and fiddles of their moonlight dances; and the fountains resorted to by the nymphs which charmed Lady M. W. Montagu, do not adulterate the beverage of the youths who assist at these continued Saturnalia." * " The heats of Constantinople, (June 17) have drhen me to this place (Belgrade), which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian Fields. 1 am in the middle of a wood, consisting TURKEY. 231 " The route from Belgrade to Buyuk-dere is through the woods ; but, after an hour's ride, you burst sud- denly upon the view of the Bosphorus and the Mountains of Asia. At this spot, an aqueduct, built in the beginning of the last century for the supply of Pera, Galata, and the villages on the Thracian side of the canal, crosses a narrow dell; and the road passes under one of the stupendous arches, into a valley be- tween sloping woods, which expands at last into a green plain, stretching down to the shore of a deep bay of the Bosphorus, still preserving its ancient name BxSvkoX-tto; in the Turkish appellation of Buyuk-dere." The village of this name, which is fourteen miles from Constantinople, contains the country-houses of most of the foreign ministers, who now reside here during the summer, instead of at Belgrade.* The facades of those mansions are, for the most part, in the European style, and range along an extensive strand, a mile and a half long, which is the evening promenade. Behind are large gardens and groves of plane, lime, and walnut-trees, overshadowing parterres of flowers and valuable plants. On every side, the meadow, or plain, is embanked with waving acclivities chiefly of fruit-trees, watered by a vast number of fountains famous for the excellency of their water, and divided into many shady walks, upon short grass, . . . within view of the Black Sea, from whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The village is only inhabited by the richest among the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters." — Works, vol. ii. p. 109. Belgrade is five miles inland on the European shore : it is stated to be unwholesome in the midst of summer. * Buyuk-dere was not built when Lady M. W. Montagu wrote her letters. x2 232 TU11KEY. covered with verdure ; and, on the west and north, it is enclosed with the woods of Belgrade, " running like a park plantation along the verge of the hills." This village (as well as Belgrade) is crowded with rich Armenian families, who enjoy more liberty here than they can in the capital ; and, when Mr. Hobhouse travelled, a hotel was kept here by an Englishman, where a stranger might find " comfortable lodgings and good fare." The higher classes of Greeks resort to the neighbouring village of Terapia. THE BOSPHORUS. It was numbered among the ancient glories of the Bosphorus, that its banks were adorned with a con- tinued line of edifices ; and the same peculiarity, Mr. Hobhouse says, is still observable on the Thraciau border.* From Tophaiia, a street of wooden houses skirts the water's edge, the intervals being occupied with royal palaces and their surrounding domains. -f- The banks are everywhere high, and the declivities are clothed with woods interspersed with vineyards and hanging gardens. Near the point called Effcndi- lornou, above Arnaout-heui, the stream runs with so strong a current that the boatmen are obliged to tow * To the artillery-barrack succeeds the village of Fondoukle; beyond are the gardens and pier of Uolma-baktche ; then, the village of Beshik-tash, a favourite retreat of the present Sultan ; next suc- ceed the villages of Orta-keui, Kourou Tchcsme (where the rich Fanariotes and many Armenians and Jews have summer-houses), and Amaoot-keui (Albanian village); between the points of Effendi- bornau and Kinlar-tivnwit, is a large imperial palace and domain; beyond the latter point is an inlet of shoal-water, called Bultuliman, supposed to be the Gulf of Phidalia; then, the bay of Stenia, the village of Yeni-kcni, and further on, Terapia. t According to Mr. Turner, there are no fewer than ten imperial summer-palaces along the Bosphorus and in the neighbourhood, - : >A^fc*^ife"*"?*&S !*C<3#fc TURKEY. 233 the wherries for nearly a quarter of a mile. The depth of water close to shore is so considerable as to allow the Turkish line-of-battle ships sometimes to touch the wooden wharfs. The succeeding point, Kislar-bornou, is rendered conspicuous by an old castle called Eski-hissar, built by Mahommed II. on the site of some fortresses of the Greek emperors, which, together with the fortress of Bogaz-hissar, on the opposite shore, points out the exact part of the channel where the Persians, Goths, Latins, and Otto- mans, successively passed the Bosphorus. There are no houses near the fortress, which is in the midst of a thick grove clothing the high and steep declivities of the impending hill. " At this spot, the Bosphorus appears like a majestic river, winding between banks as high and woody as those of the Wye, and not less lively and cultivated than those of the Thames." The towers of the castles have a mean appearance, being covered with conical roofs. Nearly opposite to Mahom- med's Tower, is a seat of the Sultan's, inhabited by the Bostange-bashe, who is charged with the police of the Strait. The castle of Anadoli (Bogaz-hissar) stands on a flat under the hills, projecting into the strait, the breadth of which in this place is about half a mile. This spot, " perhaps seven miles up the Bosphorus," is usually considered as midway ; but Mr. Hobhouse, on the authority of the boatmen, makes it " as far from Tophana as from Buyuk-dere, which gives the whole canal, from the mouth at Fanaraki to the point of Scutari, a length of twenty or twenty-one miles." Tournefort makes it only sixteen miles and a half. Sandys, about twenty.* » Herodotus, Polybius, Strabo, and other ancient authorities make it 120 -vtadia in length, or nearly fifteen miles, reckoning from the Temple of Jupiter to Byzantium. " The ancients," re- x 3 234 TURKEY. A short distance beyond Terapia, in crossing the deep bay of Buyuk-dere, is obtained the first view of the opening into the Enxine. Higher up, on the banks of the small river Chrysorrhoas, is Koumeli- kavak, the castle of Roumelia, where there is a bat- tery ; and above are ruins of a castle built by the Genoese on the site of the Temple of Serapis. On the hill above the river, which commands a view of the Euxine and the Propontis, of the Bosphorus and of Constantinople, was placed the ancient light-house. The modern one, Roumcli-fener, is higher up, at Fanaraki, two hours from Buyuk-dere. As the traveller advances, the hills on each side become more high and rugged, terminating, on the Thracian side, in dark, rocky precipices. The hills of Fanaraki (the ancient Panium) rise in five pointed crags ; and here, upon the top of a rock environed with the sea, is the pedestal of a column dedicated to Augustus, which was stand- ing as late as 1730, and which is described by Sandys : marks the Abbe Barthelemy, " differ among themselves, and still more the moderns, respecting these measures, as well as respecting those of the Euxine, the l'ropontis, and the Hellespont." — Trav. of Anacharsis, vol. ii. p. 31, note. Those of our readers who wish to enter further into the question relating to the topography of the Bosphorus, may consult Hobhouse, letter 45 ; Tournefort, vol. ii. letter 8; and Le Chevalier's " Voyage tie la Propnntide," vol. ii. pp. 50 — (i-1. The whole coast has been described with " inimitable accuracy" by Gyllius. With regard to the origin of the name, Sandys tells us it was called Bosphorus (Bsa-^-^os), " for that oxen accustomed to swim from one side to the other, or, as the poets will have it, from the passage of the metamorphosed lo." A recent Traveller (Dr. Neale) supposes the oxen to have been the buves lucos turrito corpore tetros of Lucretius ; in other words, that the strait derived its name from the passage of the Persian ele- phants, which the Greeks and Thracians, having no other appella- tion for them, called bos lencos, white bulls. The passage from Chalcedon to Scutari was anciently called the Ox-passage, whence it is plain, Tournefort says, that that place must be considered as the beginning of the Bosphorus. ^i}yrt^y^!r- TURKEY". 235 it is a fragment of white marble, rather more than five feet high, and nine feet and a half in circumfer- ence. A festoon of laurel-leaves with the head of a rani (or of a heifer), is still discernible, but the inscrip- tion is defaced by the names of travellers.* The land recedes much more suddenly on the European, than on the Asiatic side, so that, to those beating along the Thracian shore, Mr. Hobhouse says, the entrance to the Strait is abrupt, and has a fantastic appearance, like the mouth of some enormous sea-monster, the white castles on the dark-coloured hills having the resemblance of teeth. The rugged rocks on each side of the Strait look as if fresh from the irruption of the waters which tore a passage into the lake of the Gra- nicus and Rhyndacus,, and, creating new channels, gave another surface to a vast portion of the western hemisphere." The catastrophe here alluded to, notwithstanding the ancient authorities which vouch for the tradition, must still be regarded, however, as an hypothesis, — at least so far as regards the exteut as well as the causes of the phenomenon. The whole problem relat- ing to the Euxine is one of the most interesting in geography. Its character is that of an immense fresh- water lake, rather than a sea. The freshness of the waters was remarked by the ancients ; and Mr. Hob- house says, " it was not to establish any theory, but merely from a persuasion of the fact, that we all pro- nounced them to be scarcely brackish." -f- Some geo- * The vulgar name is Pompey's Pillar ; but the inscription, as given by .Sandys and Wheler, proves it to have been dedicated to the emperor. The pedestal is supposed to have been originally an altar, of antiquity prior to the pillar, which was Corinthian. t Toumefort, while he remarks that the water of the Euxine is less briny than that of other seas, states, that the land all round is full of fossil salt, which is continually melting into it. 236 TURKEY- logists have supposed, that the immense plains hetween the Baltic and the Caspian were once an expanse of water. Between the Baltic and the Black Sea, the ground is at present scarcely fifty fathoms above the level of the ocean ; while " the plain of La Mancha, in the western peninsula, if placed between the sources of the Niemen and the Borysthenes, would figure as a groupe of mountains of considerable height." Many appearances favour the opinion, that the waters of the Euxine once rose far above their present level. The borders of the Danube, even as high as Buda, are said to exhibit evident indications that the plains of Hungary were once the bottom of a marsh ; and the inland parts of the Haemus and the Carpathian moun- tains have been supposed to present a strong resem- blance to head-lands and bays. Tournefort supposes, that the waters of the lake first wore for themselves a channel between the two rocks where the new Castles of Roumelia and Anatolia now stand, and formed the gulfs of Saraia and Therapia; that, continuing to wash away the earth, they then gradually formed the second elbow of the Strait, and at length extended the canal to the Point of the Seraglio, the bottom of which is a living rock, not by any means to be shaken. " This large heap of waters," he adds, M did probably throw down at once the dike of earth that remained between Constantinople and Cape Scutari, and so dis- charged itself into the Sea of Marmora. At this time, if we may judge by appearances, happened ihe great inundation spoken of by Diodorus Siculus, one of the most faithful historians of antiquity. That author informs us, that the inhabitants of Samothrace. a considerable island situated to the left of the entrance of the Dardanelles, perceived the irruption made by the waters of the Pontus Euxinus into the Propontis ■ TURKEY'. 237 through the aperture of the Cyaneau Islands ; that the inundation drowned part of the cities on the coast of Asia, which undoubtedly was lower than that of Europe ; but, notwithstanding this, the waters mounted to the tops of the highest mountains of Samothraee, and changed the face of the whole coun- try. The islanders had still the tradition of it among them in the time of that historian This must convince us, that the great passage of the Propontis into the Mediterranean, was made long before by the same mechanism.* It is very probable, that the waters of the Propontis, which anciently might be nothing but a lake formed by the Granicus and the Rhyndacus, finding it more easy to work, themselves a canal by the Dardanelles than by any other way, spread them- selves into the Mediterranean. . . . The Mediterranean discharges itself into the ocean at the Straits of Gibral- tar, where, by good fortune, it was easier for the water to scoop itself a canal, than to overspread the lands of Africa. The All-wise God had left this open- ing between Mount Atlas and Calpe : the plug, as we may say, only wanted to be pulled out." ■f * The formation of the channel of the Bosphorus, Tournefort remarks, must have been long before the voyage of the Argonauts, which is supposed to have been B.C. 1203. I The learned Frenchman suggests, that possibly this terrible irruption either sank or carried away ' * that famous isle of Ata- lantis, which Plato describes beyond the coast of Spain, and Diodo- rus Siculus beyond that of Africa." Strabo and some other ancient writers believed, that the Mediterranean, swelled by the waters of the Euxine, the Palux Maaitix, the Caspian, and the Lake Aral, had broken the pillars of Hercules : others, with Pomponius Mela, sup- posed that the irruption was made by the waters of the ocean. The latter hypothesis is at variance with probability on many grounds. The whole subject, however, has hitherto received an imperfect in- vestigation. See Humboldt's Per. Nar. vol. i. p. 20., and the au- thorities referred to in note. Tournefort, vol. ii. let. 8. Thorn- ton's Turkey, vol. ii. p. 400. et seq. 238 TURKEY. The water discharged by the Euxine through the narrow channel of the Thracian Bosphorus, by no means accounts for its receiving so prodigious a quan- tity from the influx of the Danube, the Dniester, and various other streams, without becoming larger. The Black Sea, Tournefort says, besides the Palus Mceolis, or Sea of Azof, receives more rivers than the Mediter- ranean. The loss which the latter sustains by evapo. ration, according to the experiments of Dr. Halley, is supposed, however, to be more than equal to all the freshes, including the Dardanelles, which flow into it. In the case both of the Euxine and the Caspian, the theory of a subterranean canal has been proposed as a solution of the problem ; but the hypothesis, as re- gards the Caspian, is disproved by the fact, that its level is lower than that of the ocean; and probably, as regards the Euxine, it is not better founded. Between Fanaraki and Kara Bornon (Black Cape), the land on the coast of the Euxine gradually ascends from the margin of the sea, excepting in some places, where the shore, Dr. Neale says, " seems to have been precipitated into the sea by earthquakes." In those places, the perpendicular faces of the cliffs disclose horizontal beds of limestone, alternating with rich veins of coal, so advantageously situated, that shafts might be opened almost at the water's edge. " These beds of coal stretch for many miles beneath the forest of Belgrade, cropping out (as the miners term it) in various places, and pursuing a direction from S.W- to N.E." This Traveller suggests, that the spontaneous decomposition of the pyrites usually accompanying this formation, may give rise to the violent earth- quakes with which Constantinople has been repeatedly visited. The shores of the Euxine are stated by an- other traveller (Olivier) to exhibit volcanic appear* TURKEY. 239 ances ; and some writers have been disposed to ascribe the opening of the Bosphorus to such agency. The Bosphorus was remarkable in ancient times for its tunny-fishery, and it is still a source of consider- able profit to the inhabitants. This fish, which is the same as the Spanish mackarel, (the scomber thynnus of Linnaeus,*) regularly migrates in autumn to more southern latitudes, returning in the spring ; and the shoals which find their way, by the narrow outlet of the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, from the Euxine into the Mediterranean, are so numerous, that suffi- cient might easily be taken, Gyllius says, to supply all Greece. " Neither is any particular skill requisite to succeed in this fishery, for women and children," he adds, K may sit at their windows, and bring up the pelamydes in basket-fulls from the current, or with hooks even without any bait, so very torpid are the fish." Dr. Neale witnessed this remarkable pheno- menon. A few days after his arrival at Terapia, in the autumn of 1 805, two smart shocks of earthquake were succeeded by a strong hurricane from the north, and a fall of snow. The wind continued in this quarter for some days, and at length he observed " a singular rippling appearance in the waters of the Bosphorus, forming a dark serpentine line about a mile and a half * The arcynus limosa and pelamys of other writers. TlnXaftvi was the name given to the young tunny (4(llbs. avoirdupois. When cut in nieces, the flesh has the appear- ance of raw beef, but becomes paler on being boiled, and has some- what the flavour of salmon. The abdumhia tlanuii was a Roman delicacy. The salted pelamydes and the roe of the tunny and stur- geon (caviar* and pontargue), form the principal food of the lower classes of Greeks during Lent. 240 TURKEY long. Over and all around this rippling were assem- bled a prodigious concourse of aquatic fowls, — swans, cormorants, pelicans, penguins, solan geese, ducks, quails, divers, &c, which shrieked in hoarse concert as they dived upon the myriads of pelamydes which floated in mid-channel." While he was looking on, the boats from Constantinople began to arrive. By mid-day, there were hundreds, " navigated by Turks, Albanians, and Greeks, all pulling against the rapid current, bawling, shouting, and wrangling for the prize, which they were even forced to contest witli the wild fowl, who intrepidly descended to seize the fish when struggling amid the meshes of the net." This scene lasted " day and night," till the fourth morning, when the last of the shoal passed Terapia. In returning in the spring, Dr. Neale adds, the tunnies carefully avoid the rapid currents, as they are closely followed by the .viphias. or sword-fish, which constantly pursue them in their passage to and from the Mediterranean. Rapid as the Bosphorus is, it is sometimes frozen over, and in the year 401, the Euxine itself is said to have been frozen for twenty days.* " It may be said," remarks Mr. Turner, " that there are two climates at Constantinople, that of the north and that of the south wind. The former, bring- ing with it the cold which it has gathered in blowing over the Black Sea, -j- gives coolness to the days of * Tournefort, vol. ii. p. 3;">9. " When the weather broke, such mountains of ice passed by Constantinople as frighted the inhabit- ants. Zonaras writes, that in the reign of Constantine Coprony- mus, there happened so severe a winter, that people walked upon the ice from Constantinople to .Scutari ; nay, that it bore carts too." Cantemir states, that the same circumstance occurred in the year 1621. t " Like to the Pontic Sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course iti iM'»ti*«i^v4»A'f-* **'«'ftf! y»*Mi TURKEY 241 summer, and frost and snow to those of winter. The latter, coming from the southern provinces across the Archipelago, often renders a December day uncom- fortably hot, and is most oppressively heating iti sum- mer. The north wind is the prevailing one, blowing with little intermission from May to September, and being frequent in the other months. It is not un- common to see a north wind blowing in the Bosphorus, and a south one in the Sea of Marmora. Both of them blow at times with extreme fury. It must be owned, however, that the climate of Constantinople is, in general, mild and moderate, though it is not suffi- ciently hot for the growth of olive-trees, and orange and lemon-trees will not thrive in the open air, but require a slight shelter. It is very seldom that the sun is obscured by clouds, and rain is not frequent or lasting." * This prevalence of the north or north-east Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont." Othello, act iii. sc. 3. It is remarkable, that this simile is not in the first edition of the play, and Thornton calls in question the propriety of the epithet; but seemingly without reason. (Vol. ii. p. 398). * Turner's Tour, &c, vol. i. p. 90. The greatest heat, in the Writer's recollection, is stated to have been 94° of Fahr. in August, with a siroc wind ; and the greatest cold, 33° 30' in February. The lowest temperature during Dr. Clarke's residence, from Jan. 13 to March 31, was 30° ; the highest, 06"°; the mean average of Jan. and Feb., between 47° and 48°. " Constantinople," says Dr Clarke, " is by no means a healthy place of residence for persons who have not lived long enough there to become inured to the . icissitudes of climate. The sudden changes of temperature render iuch persons liable to the most fatal effects of obstructed perspira- tion." After giving several cases of the kind, he adds : '* Such are the blessings of what is often described as a delightful and luxu- rious climate. There can scarcely be found a spot upon earth more detestable than Pera, particularly in the most crowded parts of it. We might be said to live in cemeteries ; the only water used for drinking passing through sepulchres to the feverish lips of the iu- l'AHT II. Y 242 TURKEY. wind is very injurious to the commerce of Constan- tinople, since, blowing in the direction of the currents, it frequently renders Constantinople inaccessible to ships coming from the Mediterranean or the Archi- pelago. To complete our description of this remarkable Strait, we must now rejoin Mr. Hobhouse, and ac- company him in his return along the Asiatic coast. From the two Fanars, the Strait contracts ; and at Porias-liman, a mile and a half lower down, is a fort erected by De Tott in 1773. A mile below this is another headland, called Fil-bornou, the ancient Cape Coracium (Cape of the Crows), where the width of the passage is only a mile and a quarter. This forms, according to Tournefort, the beginning of the narrows. The Bosphorus then retreats in a deep bay, nearly three miles across, the ancient Gulf of Pantichium, now called Ketcheli-liman. Upon the southern lu-ad- land, one of the three points of the ancient Cape of Bithynia, stands Kavak Anadoli, the castle of Asit nearly opposite to that of Roumelia. Here, where the strait is not more than a mile across, the first modern defences of the canal were erected by Mahommed IV. to stop the incursions of the Cossacks, Poles, and Rus- sians ; but a modern battery has now given the name of the New Castle to the site of the most ancient for- tress. " This spot," says Mr. Hobhouse, " being con- sidered as the entrance to the Bosphorus, was chosen by the Byzantines for the site of a strong-hold ; and habitants, filled with all sorts of revolting impurities. The owner of the hotel where wc resided, wishing to make some repairs in his dwelling, dug near the foundation, and found that his house stood upon graves yet containing the mouldering relics of the dead. This may perhaps account for the swarm of rats," &o— Travels, $fc Part U. 8vo. vol. viii. p. 137; and Append, 4. *.'£-*^£*£i£:i* ■I E£H1 TURKEY. 243 on the slope of the hill above the new battery, there are considerable remains of a castle and wall, which appear to be what the topographers of the Bosphoms describe as the fortress and circular walls ruined by the Gauls, rebuilt by the Greek emperors, and (as is gene- rally supposed) put into a state of defence by the Ge- noese. A village near the battery, called Ioro ( Yoro) has been mentioned by every traveller, as pointing out the site of the port and temple of Hieron, and as con- sequently deciding the spot on or near which Darius took his survey of the Euxine. The best view of the embouchure of the Bosphorus and of the expanding sea, is to be procured, not on the hill commonly called the Giant's Mountain, but on the barren summit above the Genoese castle. The temple of Jupiter Urius was under this castle." * The next head-land, Magiar-bornou, the ancient Ar- gyronium, is a mile and a half below Kavak Anadoli, and under the towering Giant's Mountain. It is for- tified by the battery called Youcha. From this point, the strait recedes opposite the Gulf of Buyuk-dere, forming a bay, overlooked by abrupt precipices, and terminated by a promontory two miles lower down, in face of Terapia. The canal bends inwards to the south, and the Sultan's Bay (or the Round Gulf), which is a mile in width, is closed at the other horn by Cape Stridia, or the Cape of Oysters, called by the Turks, Selvi-bornou. In this bay there is a landing, place leading to the magnificent kiosk of Sultan Soli- man, now in ruins, but the gardens of which still re- main at Sultanie Baktchessi, near the village of Beicos * Tournefort says, " the temple must have been at the village of luro, which is close to the new castle of Asia." y2 244 TURKEY. or Becoussi (the "Walnut-tree village.) * Mr. Hob- house landed here, for the purpose of ascending the mountain. He procured horses at a coffee-house, where several are kept ready saddled for visiters, and soon afterwards passed by a large paper-manufactory at the head of an extensive meadow, shaded by rows of tall oaks, and watered by two clear rivulets. Here, the ladies of the Imperial harem often take boat in the summer, and proceed up the beautiful valleys in their arabats, to some artificial lakes or reservoirs, where they amuse themselves with fishing. In wind- ing up the hills towards Anadoli-kavak, peeps were obtained of several woody dells divided by little rivu- lets. According to Gyllius, the Bosphorus receives thirty rivers, and its banks are adorned with more than fifty valleys. In less than an hour, the party gained the summit above Magiar-bornou, and repaired to the Tekeh or Dervish's chapel. In the adjoining garden, is shewn a flower-bed more than fifty feet long, rimmed round with stone, with a sepulchral turban at each end, which perpetuates a superstition attached to the spot long before the time of the Turks or of the Byzantine Christians : after having been called the Tomb of Amycus* and the Bed of Hercules, it is now known as the Giant's Grave. The ride on the hills from this place to the summit above the Genoese Castle, afforded a view of an extensive tract of dark forest country on the right, which is set apart for the Grand Signior's hunting. It is intersected by deep delis, or * The village above Beicos is called Tom, that is, the Village ofl Cherries. " All this coast," says Toumefort, " is so fruitful, that | every village bears the name of some fruit." t Amycus, king of the Bithynians, and son of Neptune, who was slain by Pollux, the son of Jupiter and Leda, in a wrestluig match. HWPfPfl -KVij-ffc-ir* ■ TURKEY. 245 green ravines, and in contrast with the luxurious banks of the Bosphorus, rolling beneath between a line of painted villages and gardens, appeared like a dreary wilderness. Next to the Sultan's Bay, is the Gulf of Cartacion or Catangium, terminating at Kadlinge-bornou, which derives its name from a considerable village. Anadoli- hissar, opposite to Mahommed's Tower, together with village, is a mile and a half lower down, at the western extremity of the Gulf of Manoli. The Yok- su (Green Water), the largest of the streams running into the Bosphorus, and which is navigable by boats for a mile, discharges itself to the south of the fortress. The palace and domains assigned to the Bostanje- lashe, occupy the plain and the sides of the hills between this river and the Kutchuk-su (Little River), which falls into the strait a little above Candile Bak- tchessi, the supposed site of the Bithynian Nicopolis. A mile and a half below that village is Coule Bak- tchessi, on the point anciently called Cecrium, opposite to Kourou-tchesme. From this place, the towns of Tchenzel-keui, Stavros, and Cossourge, occupy with little intermission the whole shore as far as Scutari. The first of these is on the site of Chrysokeramus, which received its name from a church with gilded tiles. Stanrosis, which has preserved its ancient name in Stavros, was so called from the golden cross which surmounted a church constructed there by Constan- tine the Great : it is now remarkable for a magnificent mosque built by Sultan Abdulhamid. Between these two places, is a large monastery of the Akoiemeti, or night-watching monks. As the villages on the Bosphorus are not, like the capital, enclosed in walls, the passage from Buyuk- dere after night-fall, Mr. Hobhouse says, is inde- y 3 246 TURKEY. scribably agreeable. " As far as tbe castles only, the Thracian border is lighted ; but, below that point, a thousand twinkling lires gleam upon the margin of the canal ; and near the mouth of the Strait, the sloping hills on each side of the water glow with the brilliancy of a vast illuminated amphitheatre." The hills on the side of Scutari, (or, as the Turks call it, Iskiudar,) are, for some height, one cemetery or forest of cypresses. Not quite an hour's ride from Scutari, is the hill of Bourgalou, famous for its com- manding view of the capital and the windings of the Bosphorus. Near the top is a fountain of clear water, which is much esteemed, and is sold in Constantinople at five paras the half-gallon. The declivity is covered with gardens, melon-grounds, and vineyards, supply- ing the capital with fruit. Northwards also, the ground is well cultivated, and is divided by hedge-rows nnd frequent avenues and clumps of trees. The grove of Fanar Baktchessi, on the point anciently called He- re correct, it must have widened considerably since. Add to this, that Strabo evidently places Abydus at the northern extremity of the Strait, when he makes it to be its boundary towards the Propontis, which by no means answers to the point fixed upon by Sir George Wheler and Mr. Hobhouse. Le Chevalier supposes Cape Berbieri to be Dardanus, affirming it to be precisely seventy stadia from Nagara-bornnu ; but Wheler's opinion is far more likely to be cor- rect, that Chanalc-kahssi is the site of Dardanus, which was probably the name of the river mentioned by Mr. Hobhouse, and which has been corrupted into Dardanelle. It is impossible that the ancients should nave neglected such a spot, and it corresponds to the situa- tion of no other city. * Hobhouse, pp. 005, 6. ■m i^i^H ^^H ^^^ TURKEY. 257 Lord Byron and his companion, Mr. Ekenhead, suc- beeded, " with little difficulty," on a second attempt, in swimming across from a point of land nearly a mile .■•ml a half above Chelit-batori, to the castle of Natolia. They were an hour and ten minutes in the water. But his Lordship did not attempt the other half of Leander's exploit, to swim hack again. This, Mr. Turner affirms, he would have found impracticable, as he would then have had the current against him. " For the tide does not here run straight down, parallel with the hanks, hut, having been dashed vio- lently into the bay of Maito, is, by the reaction, thrown to the opposite shore lower down ; and thus, in the narrowest part of the gulf, flows transversely from the European to the Asiatic coast, whence it is again thrown off with vehemence into the Archipelago. Whatever, therefore, is thrown into the stream on this part of the European bank, must arrive at the Asiatic shore. I attempted (he adds) to swim across from Asia to Europe, starting from the northerly side of the castle ; but the current was so completely in my teeth, that, with the most unremitted and violent exertion, I did not, in twenty-five minutes, advance more than one hundred yards, and was then obliged to give it up from utter exhaustion. Having been accustomed to swimming from my childhood, I have no hesitation in asserting, that no man could have strength to swim a mile and a half (the breadth of the strait in the narrowest part, a little northerly of the castles) against such a current ; and higher up or lower down, the strait widens so considerably, that he would save little labour by changing his place of start- ing. I therefore treat the tale of Leander's swimming across hoth ways, as one of those fables to which the Greeks were so ready to give the name of history. z3 258 TURKEY. Quidquid Gratia mendax audet in Jiistoria." * There remains, however, one way of rescuing the legend from this imputation, and of saving the credit of Leander. As this is not the narrowest part of the Strait, and Chanak-kalem is not Ahydos, Leander may have achieved his exploit at some other point, where he would not have had this transverse current to contend against, and where the distance across is a third less ; moreover, " when the wind is southerly," the stream is far less strong, and the Grecian lover may have availed himself of the more favourable j season. The mouth of the Strait, according to Tournefort, is five miles and a half over : it is defended by the new castles built byMahommed IV. in 1C59, to secure his fleet from the insults of the Venetians, who used to come and attack it in sight of the old castles. " The waters that pass through this canal," he adds, " are as rapid as if they flowed beneath a bridge : when the north wind blows, no ship can enter ; but when it is south, you hardly perceive any current at all." The strait at Cape Berbieri has the appearance of being narrower than at the Dardanelles. \ * Turner's Tour, vol. i. pp. 44, 5. In a note, it is added : *' Dr. Clarke says, that the servant of the Imperial Consul swam over both from Asia to Europe and from Europe to Asia. As, however, his authorities were probably the Jews of the town, who, in relat- ing it lo me, only mentioned his having swam from Europe to Asia, it may be permitted to doubt their statement." t A small farm-house near the village on the Cape, was pointed out to Mr. Hobhouse as the place where the preliminaries to the treaty of peace between Great Britain and Turkey, were signed by Mr. Adair and the Minister of the Porte. About eight miles below the Dardanelles on the Thracian side, an English gentleman (Mr. Rob. Willis) had, some years before, " created on the shores of the Hellespont, a country-seat not to be rivalled by any villa on the shores of the Thames." But the Turks would not permit him to remain there. i':^4 v ^..ivi,t ^H ivksi TURKEY. 259 PROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO ADRIANOPLE. In proceeding to describe the route from the capital to the provinces, we shall avail ourselves chiefly of the narrative of Dr. E. D. Clarke, who, in the winter of lJiOl-2, travelled from Thessalonica to Constantinople, and returned by way of Bucharest and Vienna. Three hours from the capital, proceeding westward along the coast of the Sea of Marmora, is the village of Kutchuk Tchekmadji, or Ponte Piccolo (Little Bridge), " remarkable only for its unwholesome situa- tion, amid marshes and pools, and the dangerous malaria during summer." Lady M. W. Montagu, however, mentions her " very pleasant lodging" here, in a monastery of dervishes, having before it a large court with marble cloisters, a good fountain, and gardens, and commanding a very pleasing prospect of the sea.* Another three hours brings the traveller to liuyuk Tchekmadji (Great Bridge), a town of about 200 houses, with a fine harbour : it derives its name from a series of four stone bridges. To the north of the town, a lake extends to a considerable distance in- land. The road continues to lie along the shore, passing through Pivatis (Bevados), where there is a bridge of thirty arches with a square tower, to Silivria, * Her Ladyship tells a curious story of the aerial bed-chamber of the fwgia, or schoolmaster, then stationed in the monastery. *' I asked him," she says, " to shew me his own apartment, and was surprised to see him point to a tall cypress-tree in the garden, on the top of which was a place for a bed for himself, and a little lower, one for liis wife and two children, who slept there every night. I was so much diverted by the fancy, I resolved to examine his nest nearer ; hut, after going up fifty steps, I found I had still fifty to go up, and must then climb from branch to branch with some hazard of my neck. I thought it, therefore, the best way to come down again."— Vol. U. p. 192. 260 TURKEY. the ancient Selymbria, distant from Constantinople thirty-two miles. Here there is another " bridge of thirty arches over a nameless river." * The town contains about 2000 houses, and •' a famous Greek church :" it is the see of a Greek bishop. The sur- rounding vineyards furnish an excellent wine. Thus far, the route to Salonika is the same as the Adrianople road ; but, two hours beyond Selivria, the latter turns off in a north-westerly direction to Tchorlu, where the Grand Signior has a conak or little seraglio, built for his use when travelling this road.-f Dr. Clarke took this road in his journey from Con- stantinople to Bucharest. In the whole distance from Selivria to Tchorlu, a journey of eight hours or twenty-four miles, he mentions only one village, called Kunneklea. The country is open and level, consist- ing chiefly of a sandy loam, J m parts very rich, and abounds with tumuii.§ Tchorlu (the Turullus of the * Lady M. W. Montagu says : " It is now a good sea-port, and neatly built enough, and has a bridge of thirty-two arches." This evidently gives name to the town. Dr. Clarke is mistaken in sup- posing that the termination bria, " so common in this country," answers to the Greek vroXis and the Celtic dunum. It is the Celtic word for bridge, briga or brig, softened into bria ; as Conimbriga into Coimbra, &c. f Lady Montagu's Letters, vol. ii. p. 189. Dr. Clarke says: " If the Grand Signior should choose to travel through his dominions, he would not find an inhabitant in any of the towns to receive him. No sooner does the news arrive of the coming of Turks of distinc- tion, than the people betake themselves to flight, and the stillness of death prevails in the streets." t " The coast near Selivria consists of beds of sand-stone, clay, and green-stone : beyond, towards the East, the rocks are amyg- daloid and sandstone." — Macm/chakl's Journey from Moscow to Constantinople, 4to. p. 165. § Dr. Macmichael says, that he traced these artificial mounds from the neighbourhood of the Valdai mountains, north of Mos- cow, across the steppe between the Bogh and the Dnieper, through TURKEY. 261 ancients, and the Tzorolus of the Byzantine historians) consists of 900 houses, the greater part inhabited by- Turks ; and contains " rains of Turkish baths, and a neat mosque with a minaret. The town is paved with black marble." Its trade consists in wheat, barley, and wine. Proceeding over " wide and barren plains, as before," Dr. Clarke, at six hours from Tchorlu, turned a little out of the road, to halt at the village of Caristrania, near which the country is well cultivated ; and in four hours more, reached Burghaz (or Borgase), a town of 2000 houses, carrying on a considerable trade in wine, flax, and pottery. " The internal appear- ance of Burghaz," he says, " is better than that of Turkish towns in general. It is famous for a manu- facture of the small terra-cotta bowls for Turkish pipes, and for salted shrimps, which are caught in the Black Sea." From this place, the learned Traveller proceeded northward to Kirk Iklisie (Forty Churches). The Adrianople road turns off westward through Eski Babi, a small town with a handsome mosque and a very neat bridge, to Hafsa (or Apsa), where are ruins of a very fine caravanserai. About fifteen hours from Burghaz, the traveller reaches the first European capital of the Ottoman empire. Bulgaria, and in Romania. They are found in every country of Kurope, in many parts of Asia and Africa, and even in America. The barrows of Cornwall and Wiltshire, the cairns of Ireland and .Scotland, and the tumuli of Greece and Asia Minor, are all sepul- chral monuments of the same description. See an account of the opening of the tumulus of Achilles on the Sigsean promontory, in Chevalier's Voyage de la Troade, vol. ii. p. 320; and of the opening of some Siberian tumuli near Tomskoi, in Archxologia, vol. ii. p. 223. 262 TURKEY. ADRIANOPLE. Dr. Macmtchael, who, in the winter of 1817-18, journeyed from Moscow to Constantinople by way of Bucharest and Rudshuk, thus describes the appear- ance of the city as approached from the north. " Be- fore we reached Adrianople, every vestige of winter had disappeared : not a particle of snow was observable on the surface of the country, which was well culti- vated, and planted chiefly with mulberry-trees. About a mile from the city, we passed some low sand-hills to the left ; the minarets of the famous mosque of Selim began to appear ; and, instead of the coarse tomb-stones of the Turkish burying-grounds, which we had been hitherto accustomed to see, white marble monuments, with well-sculptured turbans, and ornamented with inscriptions in gilt characters, were crowded together by the road-side. " Near the confluence of the Tundsha and the Arda with the Hebrus, and on the eastern bank of the former river, stands the first European capital of ] the Turkish empire, on a spot celebrated alike in th earliest traditions of antiquity, and in the records of more authenticated and modern history. It was at the junction of these three rivers, that the infuriated Orestes purified himself from the contamination of the murder of his mother ; and a town erected in comme- moration of that event, bore his name, and is fr< quently mentioned by the Byzantine authors. Here, also, where the Hebrus first changes its course from the eastward, to descend to the south, the Emperor Adrian afterwards built the city that, at a later period, enjoyed the dignity of a metropolis, in the province of Hcemi-montus, and still retains the ap- jSjjrw^^^^^B ■ ifc££&t&t' which also enjoys a considerable commerce, presents, in its name, a curious specimen of the varieties of orthography, being written by different travellers Georgiova, Giurdzgio, Giurdcsov, Giurgevo, and pronounced (Dr. Clarke says) Yergiov. Rudshuk is also written Rustschuk, Ruscek, and Ruszig. t Supposed by D'Anville to be the ancient Thynnias. Dr. Neale, ■who writes it Eneada, contends for the probability of its being the town founded by .(Eneas, which Pomponius Mela places near the mouth of the Hebrus. — (See Virg. jEn. iii. 18.) The harbour of Ineada affords the only safe anchorage between the Danube and the Bosphorus. ■ TURKEY. 273 ! flows in a westerly direction, and joins the Maritzaor Hebrus. On leaving Kirk-Iklisie, the road lies through a hilly country to a village called Uericler, distant four hours ; and four hours further, Dr. Clarke halted for the night, at a ruined village called Kaimara. The next day, at the end of four hours, he reached the miserable village of Fachi ; and in five hours more, that of Beymilico, the inhabitants of which, with the exception of a single Turk, were all Bulgarians of the Greek Church. " Notwithstanding their extreme poverty, their houses were clean, and the beauty of the women was remarkable." The whole district was at this time beset by desperate banditti, who had burned several villages, and others were found deserted by their inhabitants. In every village, storks were seen building their nests (April) : the strange noise they make, resembles, Dr. Clarke says, a cherry-clack. Several pelicans were seen lying dead on the road ; a circumstance he was unable to account for. The woods which were passed, consisted of small and stunted trees. The next day, after a ride of five hours, chiefly over plains covered with underwood, in which persons were frequently observed coursing with greyhounds, the Author reached Carnabat ; a town of 700 houses, (about a third Greeks,) agreeably situated in a plain at the northern foot of a ridge of hills. The country near it is well cultivated, and the town afforded ' v plenty of good wine, limpid and colourless as water, tasting like cider." The storks, from the prodigious numbers in which they appeared, seem to have made this place their metropolis. A second ridge of hills, over which the next day's route lay, divides the plain 274 TURKEY. of Carnabat from another level tract ; and at the end of four hours, the road begins to ascend the hilly pass ] over the Balkan, called the Boccaze. " Hitherto," says Dr. Clarke, " we had been somewhat surprised that nothing like Alpine scenery characterised tho approach to Blount Haemus. Nor is this range of mountains any where remarkable for grandeur of scenery, or for great elevation. The defile here, how- ever, might be considered as possessing somewhat of that character, but in no eminent degree : it was a hilly pass, full of woods of oaks. In the midst of it, we crossed a rapid river called Kamlchi-sn, and saw, at a distance, a mountain entirely covered with snow; but there was nothing to remind us of the great Al- pine barriers. The appearance of Mount Hremus may rather be likened to Welsh scenery, where every swelling mountainel is insular ; and nothing is seen of that towering of broken cliffs and heights, one above j another, which distinguishes the cloud-capped, con- gregated summits of the Alps and the Pyrenees, of Caucasus and Lebanon." In about eight hours from Carnabat, they reached a scattered village of 200 1 houses, lying between two mountains called Cftaligh* kavak : half the inhabitants were Turks, and half Bulgarians. The next day. the scenery improved in grandeur, and several fine views were afforded by the opening of a narrow defile of the Balkan, as they be- gan to descend to the Bulgarian village of Dragoelw " As far as the eye extends, but at a great depth be- low the traveller, rich plains are seen, spreading before the view all the wealth of husbandry. The mountains are cultivated even to their summits, and covered with vineyards, and the plains with plantations of fruit- trees growing amid the corn : being now in blossom, ■P a H^BH i ■■■■■I '■ HHHHHI TURKEY. 275 their gaudy flowers, above the deep verdure of the I corn-fields, exhibited the most cheerful aspect imagin- I able." The whole way from Dragoelu to Shumla, a distance of four hours, the land is described to be cul- tivated like a garden. An hour before reaching that | town, the Kamtchi-su is again crossed. Shumla, which Dr. Clarke supposed to be Marcianopolis,* is a place of some trade, chiefly in wine and in ready-made Turkish clothes for the capital : " a great number of tailors are kept constantly at work here, their getting the German cloth at a lower rate than the merchants of Constantinople, enabling them to undersell, at a great profit, the makers of Turkish apparel in that city." Dr. Clarke describes it as a considerable town, well fortified with ramparts and a double fosse : it is placed between two mountains, in a fertile but un- wholesome plain, being particularly subject to malaria. The same level country, in high cultivation, continues as far as the Turkish village of Tatchekeiii, distant three hours ; it then becomes rather more hilly. Six hours further is the town of Lazgarat (llasgrad ?), consisting of 3000 houses, of which one-third belong to Creeks, and containing several good shops. In this day's route, several villages were seen at a short dis- tance from the road, and every where the land was neatly kept and cultivated. Two hours from Lazgarat, are two immense tumuli, surmounted with large trees, and similar sepulchres appear all round the town. The next day, a ride of five hours brought the travellers to Torlach, a considerable village ; two hours further, * D'Anville places Marcianopolis, which was the capital of Massia Inferior, near the confluence of two small rivers flowing towards the Euxine, and says, that the Bulgarians call it Prebislav, the Illustrious City. It was twenty-four miles from Odessus (Van:a.) 276 TURKEY. f they passed through Pisanitza, and in five hours more, reached the Danube at Rudshuk.* That part of the ancient Miesia which, among mo- dern geographers, hears the name of Bulgaria, lying between Mount Hsmus and the Danube, is styled by the learned Traveller " the most fertile plain, per- haps, of the whole earth." The native Christian inhabitants of this and the adjoining province, are collectively called Serbian* (Servians), all being in fact of the same Slavonic race, and speaking dialects of the Illyrian or Slavonian language. The original Bul- garians are supposed to have been a Tatar tribe who, in the fifth century, emigrated from the banks of the Volga, (whence their name,) but soon adopted the * Lasgarat is written Rasgrad and Hrasgrad in the maps, and this orthography is adopted by Dr. Clarke himself in the map of his route; according to which it might be Rasci-grad, the town of the Rascians, a Slavonic tribe. Dr. Neale, however, says, that " Ras-grade, or Laz-garad, is a corruption of Lazi-gorod, the city of the Lazi (slingers), one of the vagabond tribes from the valleys of the Caucasus." He estimates the population at 10,000 souls; one-third Greeks, the remainder Jews and Turks. It contain* two small mosques, and is surrounded with mud walls in a ruinous state. At Torlach, which he writes Torlaqui, distant five leagues, the population is principally Turkish. " A sect of dervishes take their origin here, who live by roaming over Turkey, subsisting on the superstitious terrors which they infuse into the minds of the peasants. They carry with them in these peregrinations an old man, whom, like the Xamolxis of the ancient Geta:, or the Lama of the Tatars, they impose upon the credulous as a living incar- nation of the Divinity. They have an establishment for him in the greatest state at the best house in the village. Ever and anon, the old Lama prognosticates some impending public calamity, such as earthquake, pestilence, or famine; which is only to be averted by sending him rich gifts. The terrified peasantry hasten to propitiate the Divine wrath by laying at the feet of the holy man all their little wealth."— N kale's Travels, p. 2(H). The Author calU the next place where he slept Pizanza, describing it as a poor village of straggling huts, covering in a picturesque maimer the side of a steep slate rock. ■■■ TURKEY. 277 dialect of the Slavonic inhabitants, retaining a few ivords only of their former language. The most southern districts in which the Bulgarian is spoken, according to Colonel Leake, are, on the western side of Macedonia, some villages in the vicinity of Koritza, and, on the eastern side, the hills bordering the great plains of Thessalonica, Pella, and Edessa. From this latter district, as their southern boundary, the Chris- tians who speak the Bulgarian dialect extend, with scarcely any interruption, through all the northern part of Macedonia Proper, the interior of Thrace, and the whole of Mcesia to the Danube. In some parts of Macedonia, it is not uncommon to meet with persons among the lower classes speaking three languages, Turkish, Bulgarian, and Romaic. The Bulgarian dialect appears to bear a close affinity to the Malo- Russian.* * See a Comparative Vocabulary of the Malo-Russian and Bul- garian Dialects, Clarke's Travels, 8vo. vol. viii. p. 2.')lt. Col. Leake, in his Re-searches in Greece, has given a " I'entagluss " vocabulary iii the Romaic, Albanian, Wallachian, and Bulgarian dialects, shewing that they have scarcely any thing in common, either in their conslruction or vocabulary. The instances of resemblance in the Wallachian, to the Latin and Italian languages, are too nume- rous to be otherwise accounted for, than by the fact, that Dacia was colonized by the Romans. " That the original Slavonic possessed a considerable affinity with the Sanscrit, may be gathered from the numerous traces of this ancient Indian language still to be recog- nised in the ecclesiastical dialect of Russia, notwithstanding the changes which entered into its formation in the ninth century. Rut of this common and primeval Slavonic dialect, no monument has reached our times. Long before this translation of the Bible was made, that people had separated into a number of distinct tribes, and spread themselves over an immense extent of country, by which means a number of idiomatical modifications were formed, many of which maintain their distinctive character in the present day. These dialects have been divided into two classes : I. The Oriental Division, comprising the Russian, Serbian, Croa- tian, Bulgarian, and the dialect spoken with certain minor diversi- l'ART II. B 2 278 TURKEY". The history of the Bulgarians is obscure, and, ex- cept as incidentally connected with that of the Roman empire, not very interesting. Gibbon, who, on the authority of the Greek writers, derives them from the Huns, (an appellation which he admits to be vague and uncertain,) distinguishes them from the Slavo- nians ; yet, in the faint outline of their early annals, the boundaries of the two tribes are, he says, not to be defined.* They had crossed the Danube before the reign of Justinian ; but their first formidable irrup- tions, and their permanent settlements in the Moesian provinces, date from his reign. From the middle of the sixth century to the fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth, they were alternately the allies, tbe tribu- taries, and the victorious antagonists of the Greek emperors ; at one time, exacting an annual tribute as ties in Carniola, Sliria, and Carinthia. II. The Western Chess, which comprehends the Slovakian, Bohemian, Polish, and the two Sorabian or Wendish dialects spoken in Upper and Lower Lusatia. But many of these contain a number of subdivisions; as, for in- stance, under the general name of Serbian, is comprehended the Slavone, Dalmatian, Bosnian, Ragusian, and Siebenburgian dia- lects. Numerous, however, as these dialectical branches are, and widely as some of the tribes by which they are spoken are separated from each other, the general affinity is still abundantly predomi- nant, and is, indeed, so great, that the inhabitants of the different countries have little dilliculty in making themselves understood to each other."— Hkndkkson's Biblical Researches, p. 04. The dia- lect into which the Scriptures are translated, is the Serbian. • Ch. 42. In a subsequent chapter, (ch. 55,) he admits, that " the unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of the (modern) Bulgarians from the original stock of the .Slavonian race; and the kindred bands of Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Wallachians, &c, followed either the standard or the example of the leading tribe Chalcocondyles," (it is added,) " a competent judge, affirms the identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians, Poles, and Bohe- mians. The same author has marked the separate idiom of the Hungarians." ■ ■■ TURKEY. 2T9 the price of their friendship ; at another, defeated and brought into nominal subjection ; but always occupying a large portion of European Turkey, and extending their ravages over Greece. Their treaty of peace and alliance with Michael III. in the year 8G0, when their prince and all his followers were baptized, and received a gift of the desolate country about Mount Rhodope, appears to have laid the foundation of their power in Northern Greece. Lychnidus (afterwards named Achris or Achrida) became the capital of a Bulgarian kingdom,* which attained its zenith about the middle of the tenth century, when Simeon, under the walls of Constantinople, accepted the submission of the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus ; and his son Peter, soon afterwards, received the emperor's grand-daughter in marriage, with the title of Basileus. It declined from the beginning of the eleventh century, when Samuel (or Mocrus), who had made conquests even in the Morea, was defeated, and his capital taken and rifled by the Emperor Basil II. Although Roman garrisons remained in possession of Achrida, the Bul- garians appear to have been still masters of the greater part of the surrounding country. About the year 1040, soon after their king Peter Deleanus had taken Dyrrachium, the whole of the Nicopolitan province, which included Epirus and Acarnania, surrendered, with the exception of Nau- pactus (Lepanto,) to the Bulgarian conqueror. In the • " The new conquerors successively acquired, by war or by treaty, the Roman provinces of Daidania, Thessaly, and the two Epirus; (they were assigned to the Bulgarian kingdom in the dis- pute of ecclesiastical jurisdiction between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople, A.D. 06'!);) the ecclesiastical supremacy was translated from the native city of Justinian ; and, in their prosper- ous age, the obscure town of Lychnidus, or Achrida, was honoured with the throne of a king and a patriarch."— Gibbon, c. 55. 2b 2 280 TURKEY. year 1186, a rebellion of the united Bulgarians and Wallachians, led to the foundation of a second Bulga- rian kingdom, of which Ternovo (Terniva) * became the capital. In those times, Dardania and those parts of Macedonia which had been included in the first Bulgarian kingdom, were occupied by the Ser- vians (2«£a«j), -f- with whose monarch Cantacuzene was for a long time at war, and was at length com- pelled to make a disadvantageous peace, ceding to him all the country to the north of the great plain of Bot- tisea, and a part even of Upper Macedonia. The capital of the Servian kingdom was Scopia upon the Axius. Servia, a strong town on the borders of Thes- saly, took its name from a colony of that people. " Thus," remarks Col. Leake, after giving the brief outline of which we have availed ourselves, " a suc- cession of people of Slavonian race and language may be traced, as occupying the north of Greece, from the * The Bulgarian patriarchate, according to Gibbon, was suc- cessively transferred from Justinianea prima to Lychnidus, and from Lychnidus to Ternovo. t The word slave [esclave) is supposed to be derived from Scla- vonian or Slavonian, and to have been introduced, in the eighth century, into oriental France, "where the princes and bishops were rich in Slavonian captives. From thence the word was extended to general use, to the modern languages, and even to the style of the last Byzantines. The confusion of the 2<£x«< or Servians with the latin Servi, was still more fortunate and familiar." — Gibbon. This throws little light on the etymology of the words. The word Slava, in the language of the people whose national appellation it supplied, is equivalent to 2«6aj, long, glory or renown. The Sla- vonians are first mentioned under this name (written by the Greeks y.x.\apuvoi) by Jordanus, A.D. 3/<>. They are supposed to be the same as the K^«?u^5( (Krivitzi) of Herodotus and other ancient historians, a branch of the Sauromatce, or Sarmatian family, rtolemy mentions the Seibi as one of the most celebrated tribes : hence, probably, the word Servian, — See Henderson's Biblical Researches, p. 61. ^^m mi TURKEY. 281 sixth, or at least the ninth, to the fifteenth century. Their long residence in these countries seems demon- strated with not less certainty by the numerous names of places of Slavonian derivation, still to be found in every part of Greece ; although with greater fre- quency, as might naturally be expected, in the north- ern, than in the southern districts. In many in- stances, the ancient name has received a Slavonian termination in ista, itza, itzi, avo, or ovo : in others, the name is entirely Slavonian, and often the same as that of places in the most distant parts of Russia or other countries where dialects of the Illyric are spoken." * From the Euxine to the Adriatic, in the state of captives or subjects, or of allies or enemies of the Greek empire, they overspread the land ;-|- and Slavonian pirates were the terror of the Italian traders, till, towards the close of the tenth century, the free- dom and sovereignty of the Gulf were effectually vin- dicated by the Venetian Republic. From the latter end of the fourteenth century, the history of the Slavo- nian nations south of the Danube, belongs to the annate of the Ottoman empire. The other chief towns in Bulgaria are, Silistria, Nicopoli, and Widin, all on the Danube, Sophia, on the Isca, and Varna, on the coast of the Euxine. Silistria, or Dristra, situated at the mouth of the small river Missovo, 155 miles N. N. E. of Adria- nople, is a well fortified town, with a population * Leake's Researches in Greece, pp. 376—80. Gibbon, c. 65. t " Among these (Slavonian) colonies, the Chrobatians, or Croats, who now attend the motions of an Austrian army, are the descendants ef a mighty people, the conquerors and sovereigns of Dalmatia- ■ • -The ancestors of these Dalmatian kings, dwelt in the White Croatia, in the inland regions of Silesia and Little Poland, thirty days' journey, according to the Greek computation, from the Sea of Darkness."— Gibbon, c. 55. 2b3 282 TURKEY- of about 20,000 souls. Nicopoli, situated 164 miles N. W. of Adrianople, was founded by tbe emperor Trajan ; but the victories of the Roman are forgot- ten in the disastrous battle fought between the Hungarian king Sigismond and Sultan Bajazet, near this city, in 1390.* The modern city, the see of a Greek archbishop, and the residence of a sanjak- bev, contains an ancient castle and several handsome mosques and baths, with a population loosely stated at 10,000 souls. It stands on a hill overlooking the Danube. Widin (Widden, Vidin) is a consider- able city, well fortified and better built than most Turkish towns. It is the seat of a pasha of three tails and of a Greek archbishop, and carries on a consider- able trade in rock-salt, corn, and wine. The popula- tion is supposed to amount to 20,000 souls. It is 104 miles E.S.E. of Belgrade. Varna, the ancient Odessus, is a walled town, situated at the mouth of a river of the same name, which falls into a bay of the Black Sea ; it carries on a trade in corn, wine, butter, and cheese. The population is estimated at 16,000. It is the see of a Greek bishop, and contains two Greek churches and twelve mosques. Dr. Neale, who landed at this place in going from Constantinople to Jassy, thus describes its appearance. " The high ruins of some quadrangular towers announced at some dis- tance the importance of the ancient city of Odessus, celebrated in history as the earliest sea-port of the Milesians on the Euxine, and, in modern times, for the defeat and death of Ladislaus, king of Hungary, whose army was totally destroyed in the adjoining valley by Amurath I. There is now a ruinous wooden pier projecting into the bay; but so shallow is the water, that our boats grounded before we reached it ; and we * See page 19, JljftM^MU^" • TURKEY. 283 landed by stepping from the deck on a bullock's wain, which was driven into the water to receive our luggage and the crew of the kaique." * Sophia is the fourth city in importance in European Turkey, ranking next to Adrianople and Salonika in respect to population : its inhabitants are stated to amount to between 40 and 50,000 souls. It may pro- perly be considered, therefore, as the capital of Bul- garia ; and it is the see of a Romish bishop, as well as of a Greek metropolitan. It was founded by the Em- peror Justinian on the ruins of the ancient Sardica.-J- Its hot baths are still frequented, and being in the high road from Constantinople to Belgrade, it is a place of considerable trade. This route, however, is seldom taken by modern travellers ; and we must con- tent ourselves with extracting the very imperfect de- scription of it contained in Lady M. W. Montagu's Letters, as serving to give a general idea of the cha- racter of the country. The Emperor's ambassadors and the few English that travel hither, she says, always descend the Danube to Nicopolis ; but that * Neale's Travels, p. 264. The Author does not give any opinion, as to whether the shallowness of the water arises from the forma- tion of sand-banks, or from the retiring of the waters ; but, the fact is important, as sanctioning the representation, that the waters both of the Euxine and of the Sea of Azof, annually diminish. — (See Mod. Trav. Rusxia, pp. 212, 241.) At the end of a days' journey from this place, " ascending, by deep roads, slate hills covered with hazel copses," Dr. Neale reached a Bulgarian hamlet called Dafne, built on a steep, commandng a distant view of the Black Sea. His next stage was Yeni-bazar, a modern town of about 300 families, of whom about 50 are Bulgarians, the rest being chiefly emigrants from Wallachia and Moldavia. From this place, his route lay through an open, fertile, but thinly-peopled tract to Kioui, Ras- grad, Torlaijui, Pizanza, and Ruschuk. He describes the Bulga- rians as generally a humane, kind-hearted, hospitable people. t Justinian wbs born at Tauresium near Sardica.— See Gibbo.v, c. xl, 284 TURKEY. river being still frozen, in the month of March (1717), Mr. Wortley and his lady resolved to take the direct route from Belgrade to the capital ; and she represents herself as having accomplished a journey which had not been undertaken by any Christian, since the time of the Greek emperors. FROM BELGRADE TO CONSTANTINOPLE. " We crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite overgrown with wood, through a country naturally fertile. The inhabitants are industrious ; but the oppression of the peasants is so great, they are forced to abandon their houses, and neglect their tillage ; all they have being a prey to the janizaries, whenever they please to seize upon it. We had a guard of 500 of them, and I was almost in tears every day, to see their insolences in the poor villages through which we passed.* After seven days' travelling through thick woods, we came to Nissa, once the capital of Servia, situated on a fine plain on the river Nissava, in a very good air, and so fruitful a soil, that the great plenty is hardly credible. . . The happiness of this plenty is scarcely perceived by the oppressed people. After four days' journey from this place over the mountains, we came to Sophia, situated in a large, beautiful plain on the river Isca, and surrounded with distant inoun- * In another letter, her Ladyship writes : '* The desert woods of Servia, are the common refuge of thieves, who rob fifty in a company, so that we had need of all our guards to secure us ; and the villages are so poor, that only force could extort from them necessary provisions. Indeed, the janizaries had no mercy on their poverty, killing all the poultry and sheep they could find, without asking to whom they belonged . . . When the pashas tra- vel, it is yet worse .... such is the natural corruption of a military government !" Vol. ii. p. 99. ^1 ■ TURKEY. 285 tains. It is hardly possible to see a more agreeable landscape. The city itself is very large and extremely populous. Here are hot baths, very famous for their medicinal virtues.* Four days' journey from hence, jve arrived at Philippopolis, after having passed the ridges between the mountains of Haemus and Rho- dope, which are always covered with snow. This town is situated on a rising ground near the river Hebrus, and is almost wholly inhabited by Greeks. Here are still some ancient Christian churches, -f- They have a bishop, and several of the richest Greeks live here ; hut they are forced to conceal their wealth with great care, the appearance of poverty being all their se- curity against feeling it in earnest. The country from hence to Adrianople, is the finest in the world. Vines grow wild on all the hills ; and the perpetual spring they enjoy makes every thing gay and flourish- ing." x In another Letter, her Ladyship states, that she observed few remains of antiquity. " We passed near the piece of an arch which is commonly called Trajan's Gate, from a supposition that he made it to shut up the passage over the mountains between Sophia and Philippopolis. But I rather believe it the remains of * In a subsequent letter, Sophia is described as " one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire." The ruins of Justinian's church are stated to be little more than a heap of stones. t " I found at Philippopolis, a sect of Christians that call them- selves Paulines. They shew an old church, where, they say, St. Paul preached ; and he is their favourite saint, after the manner that St. Peter is at Rome." — Vol. ii. p. 105. ■$. Works, vol. ii. pp. 87—00. Philippopoli, which is in Rou- melia, before the earthquake of 181 !i, which almost destroyed it, •ontained a population estimated at 30,000 souls. It is situated on i small island formed by the Maritza, which here becomes navi- gable ; distance from Adrianople, 05 miles, VV'.N.W, 286 TURKEY. a triumphal arch, though I could not see any Inscrip. j tion ; for, if that passage had been shut up, there are many others that would serve for the march of an ' army ; and notwithstanding the story of Baldwin, earl j of Flanders, being overthrown in these straits, after j he won Constantinople, I do not fancy the Germans would find themselves stopped by them at this day. It is true, the road is now made, with great industry, as commodious as possible for the march of the Turkish army. There is not one ditch or puddle between this place and Belgrade, that has not a large, strong bridge of planks built over it. But the precipices are not so I terrible as I had heard them represented. At these mountains, we lay at the little village Kiskoi, wholly in- habited by Christians, as all the peasants of Bulgaria are. Their houses are nothing but little huts raised of dirt baked in the sun ; and they leave them, and fly into the mountains, some months before the march of the Turkish army, who would else entirely ruin them by driving away their whole flocks. This pre- caution secures them in a sort of plenty ; for, such vast tracts of land lying in common, they have the privilege of sowing what they please, and are gene- rally very industrious husbandmen. I drank here several sorts of delicious wine."* We must now hasten to complete our description ancient Thrace, by taking up the route, already traced as far as Selivria, which leads FltOM CONSTANTINOPLE TO SALONIKA. Three hours from Selivria, following the old Roman military road, which is still entire in many parts of the route, and has been paved with black * Works, vol. ii. pp. 107—8. ■■P TURKEY. 287 piarble, the traveller arrives at Eski Eregli (old Heraclea). In spite of its imposing name, the village contains scarcely any vestiges of antiquity, but only a tew fragments of small columns. The episcopal city oi Heraclea, more anciently called Perinthus, and now distinguished as Buyuk Eregli (i. e. Heraclea Major) y Is two hours distant, on the coast of the Sea of Mar- mora, and was visited by Dr. Spon and Sir George Wheler in their voyage to Constantinople. " This town," says Wheler, " hath a good harbour, whose mouth lieth cast of it, turning about so, that it maketh a peninsula. It bends round in the form of an amphitheatre, and may have about four or five miles in circumference. The town lieth in the strait, having the sea on the one side, and the port on the other. We made haste ashore, soon discovering it to be a place of great antiquity by the foundations of the old walls, especially on the west side and towards the haven ; where, strewed up and down, we saw abun- dance of fragments of marble statues, cornices, bulls* heads, wreaths, and broken pillars ; and of such are compiled the present buildings of the town We copied several good inscriptions ; especially one where we found the name Perinthus, which this city bore in the time of the first Roman emperors ; it being more anciently called Heraclea, which it regained in the time of the latter emperors, and yet retains the same This inscription is on the pedestal of a statue erected to the honour of the Emperor Severus, whom they had reason to honour as their benefactor, because he subjected Byzantium to them, at which he was dFended, because that town had espoused the party of Pescennius Niger against him.* We found here * Wheler mentions a medal of this town in the possession of JDr. Spon, with the head of Septimius Severus on one side, and, on the 288 TURKEY. another inscription of the Emperor Hadrian in the cathedral church, hesides one more in the town, being only a sepulchral stone of a Roman. As poor place as it now is, it is an archbishop's >eat, whose church is one of the best now standing in Turkey. And in the times of the Christian emperors, this metropolitan was one of the three who. with the patriarch, had the privilege of crowning the emperor at his inauguration. In the cathedral church, in a little chapel at the right hand, is the tomb of one! of our countrymen, who died here while he was embassador from his majesty of Great Uritain; Sir I Edward Guitts, — written in Greek characters thus I roriTs."* From Eski Eregli y it is reckoned a journey of nine hours and a half to Rhodosto, the ancient lificedestua or Bisanthe, and called by the Turks Tek'ivdayh. The road lies over a bleak, inhospitable country: tumidi\ are in view the whole way. Wheler describe! " Rodeste" as " a town at least as big as Gallipoli | and more populous, situated upon the brow of a h at the bottom of a bay, and maketh a goodly showl towards the sea. We could number ten or twelve mosques by the minarets ; the Greeks have also, they reverse, a gailey with its sails hoisted, and the legend Tlioi\il)ia» ~8ia»ciiguv, which he professes himself unable to explain. Neoku>-o» signifies a sacristan or temple-keeper, and, when assumed as an epithet by the inhabitants of a whole city or province, implied that they were the temple-keepers or devoted servants of the deity. Thus, the city of the Ephesians was vtuxo^o; t/i; ft'.yccXxs ha; Ajts- fttbo;, a worshipper of the great Goddess Diana.— Acts xix. 35. The adulation of those times frequently ascribed divine honours to the emperors, and in this medal it seems to be intimated, that the Perinthians honoured SevenM as their patron deity. * No such name as this occurs in a list of ambassadors to Con* stantinople extending from 1581 to 1804. Sir Peter Wyche comes nearest to it, who was ambassador from Charles I. ^M TURKEY. 289 ay, many churches there." Dr. Clarke says : " Rho- Posto contains 10,000 houses. It has more Greeks than Turks for its inhabitants, besides Armenians and Jews. The whole commerce of the place consists in the exportation of corn, wine, fish, and wool to Constantinople. It has little of the appearance of a very ancient town : it is without walls, and we found no antiquities upon the spot. Benjamin of Tudela describes Rodosto as a Jewish university, distant two days' journey from Pera." The road now leaves the shore, which bends to the southward. In four hours, the traveller reaches the village of Yenijik, and in three more, Develi. The roads are deep and slippery, and the country undulat- ing, waste, and dreary. A succession of bleak and solitary plains, separated by ridges of hills, occupies the next day's journey of nine hours, to Kishan. This part of Thrace reminded Dr. Clarke of the steppes in the South of Russia ; and a more dreary prospect, he says, can hardly be conceived, than that which is afforded by a lofty mound erected upon the brow of a ridge of hills, looking down on Develi. Within an hour of Kishan is a village called Bulgar- kieu (Bulgarian town). Kishan is a large town, situated at the eastern extremity of the plain of the Ilelirus. upon the side of a mountain towards the termination of the range of Rhodope, distant eight hours from Fairy, twelve from Eno, and twelve from Gallipoli.* It contains 1500 houses, 400 of which belonged to Greeks. Its trade consists in supplying the inland districts, by means of caravans, with cotton, Distances in Ihis part of Thrace are reckoned by the time in which waggons are drawn by buffaloes; not three miles an hours, rhe I iilar couriers perform the distance in half, and sometimes less ban half the computed time. l'ART II. 2 C 290 •turkey. corn, and tobacco. It is described as being " in a better condition than the other towns in Thrace." The route now lies in a south-westerly direction over a wretched country, to the Greek village of Achooreia, and thence, still over the dreary and, in some parts, swampy plain of the Hebrus, to the ferry over that river. Dr. Clarke found it to be " much ■wain, broad, and muddy ;" but, although at this season (Jan.), the mouths of the Danube are some- times frozen, there was neither the appearance of ice, nor any thing in the temperature of the water corre- sponding to the descriptions of the Hebrus given by the Romans as the " freezing Hebrus bound in snowy chains."* The banks of the Maritza are covered with taina- risks. " Nothing, however," says Mr. Walpole, " can be more uninteresting than the wide, open plain through which this river runs. The general appear- ance of the country is not relieved by many marks of civilisation or of culture. The eye, as it wanders over the bleak, inhospitable Thracian plains, is arrested only by some of those artificial mounds of earth, mark- ing either the site of some battle, or the spot where the bodies of the slain were heaped and entombed to- gether ; or, in later times, the place where the standards of the Mussulman invaders of Greece were fixed, when the army was encamped. When or whence the Hebrus took the name of Maritza, it is not easy to determine ; t but I find it in the history of Georgius Acropolita, who lived in the year 1222." According to Plutarch, it once bore the name of Rhombus, and he speaks of a herb resembling origanum as growing upon its banks. * " Hebrusque nlvali compede vinctus."— Horace, Ep.adVlorum^ See also (Jarm. lib. i. od. 25, i •>. k v- l, " r ;iv(**, TUKKEY- 29t |Pliny mentions it as one of five auriferous rivers ; * Wild a French traveller (Belon) in the sixteenth cen- tury, states, that the inhabitants annually collected and washed the sands for the gold they contained, though he represents them as not finding enough to pay them for their trouble. The traveller now enters upon the ancient territory of the Cicones, and in three-quarters of an hour from the ferry, arrives at the town of Fairy,+ distant eight hours from Kishan. This place exhibited, at the time, one wide heap of smoking ruins, having been recently sacked and burned by banditti. It is situated upon the eastern side of the mountain Serrium, a branch of Rhodope. The inhabitants had fled to the neighbour- ing town of Morogna (the ancient Ismarus or Ma- ronea), distant eight hours, on the coast, which occurs in the ordinary route to Salonika. Dr. Clarke saved three hours by taking the more direct route over the mountain, following the old Roman military way. A derveni, five hours from Fairy, marks the boundary between that district and the territory of Gymmergino (Commerchini).% Four hours further, is a village called Kalliage-derai, " situated exactly mid-way be- tween Thessalonica and Constantinople." The road * The others are, the Tagus, the Po, the Pactolus, and tho Ganges. t What Dr. Clarke's fancy was in writing the name of this town Fairy, and lhatof Morogna, Mary, it is hard to say. In the maps, it is written Feret. Higher up the river stood the city of Trajano- polis, and above this, at the mouth of the Zerna, is the town of Zernitz. At the mouth of the Maritza, on the western side, is the site of theThracian /Enos (Ygnos, Inos), or Apsynthus, the large silver medals of which are described by Dr. Clarke as the boldest specimens of the very ancient coinage of Greece. Marogna or Ma- rolia is the next port to the west. X Written Cum«lza, Cumulza, Gumalza, Gumalzina, Commer- cine, Comerchiui, Gymmergine. 2 c2 494 TUltKEY. then descends to the village of Tchafts-tcheyr, situated fit the eastern extremity of the great plain of Tchoua- yilarkir ; and at the end of live hours more, over a dreary maritime tract, crossing several ancient bridges, leads to Gymmergine. This is a town of 1,000 houses, carrying on an inland commerce in corn, cotton, to- fcacco, and wool. About 400 of the houses belonged 'to Greeks, 60 to Jews, 15 to Armenians, and the rest to Turks. The high and bare mountains which border this plain, extending east and west, evidently form a part of the great chain of Rhodope : they now bear the name of Karowlcm. Many towns and villages lie out of the road upon the southern side of the long Khodopean chain. The most accurate description of this part of Thrace, Dr. Clarke says, is still to be found in the pages of Herodotus. On leaving Gymmergine, the road, in about an hour and a quarter, passes a river called Ak-su (white water), and in another quarter of an hour, a ruined town called Mycenu-kalis ; the walls, which are very thick, have been constructed of large pebbles imbedded in mortar. In another hour, the traveller crosses the Kuru-tchi, a torrent which is considerable only during heavy floods. A number of cemeteries, situated in desert places over which the road passes, containing, severally, between three and four hundred graves., form the melancholy memorials of towns or villages of which no other trace remains. Beyond this last- mentioned river, the sea forms a wide salt-water lake, the ancient Pains Bistonis, now called the lake of iiouron. * At its northern extremity, the road passes * The fishery of this lake is stated by Belon to be a source of considerable profit to the inhabitants. It abounds with a small fish called by the Greeks of Bouron, lilirtga, and at Constantinople licorini. ■ ■ TURKEY. 293 [near a spacious and picturesque ruin, apparently of ! a castle or monastery, now called Boar-kalis, which the learned Traveller supposes may occupy the site of the ancient Bistonia, an episcopal see within the province of Trajanopolis. " A paved causeway led through the fen to and from this building. Almost the whole of the walls, and many of the mural towers, were yet standing. It had once been fortified. Within this structure we found the remains of a church and of a chapel, evidently formed out of a more ancient edifice; the interior exhibiting arches that had been walled up, and walls plastered over and painted by some of the early Christians. We found fragments of Grecian sculpture ; among others, the bust of a female statue covered with drapery, and finely exe- cuted in white marble. The remains of portals were visible, with three gates in each place of entrance. Upon the western side, we observed among the founda- tions, large blocks of marble plated securely together without any cement. In the walls of the church were some large slabs of Thasian marble finely grooved." The lake was covered with various kinds of water- fowls and the whole plain is flat and swampy. In two hours from its border, is the Turkish village of Veniga, containing about 200 houses. Beyond this, the road crosses, at a ferry, the rapid torrent of the Kara-su (black-water), the ancient Nessus, at the mouth of which, on the eastern side, stood the ancient Abdera, the birth-place of Democritus, " the fair colony of the Teii, and the mo3t powerful city of all Thrace." Two hours and a half further, a Turkish tchiflik, called Charpantu, is seen upon the side of a hill, and above it is a ruined fortress. The road now leaves the dreary plain, and ascends, by a paved road, to a pass which has once been closed by a gateway. After 2 c 3 294 TURKEY. skirting a bay of which this hill forms the eastern point, it then leads over a part of Mount Pangseus, still called Pangea, commanding a fine view of the bay of Neapolis. The summit is covered with ruined walls, and an ancient aqueduct crosses the road, composed of two tiers of arches, which having been repaired by a certain Ibrahim Pasha in the sixteenth century, still conducts water to the city below. Two precipices of this mountain approach so near the sea, as to leave only narrow defiles on the beach, which have once been closed by walls. Opposite to the most easterly of these points (called the Castagnas) lies the isle of Thasus, famous for its quarries of white marble, re- sembling the Parian. Cavallo, the ancient Neapolis, contains 500 houses, belonging chiefly to Turks. The greater part of the town is within the walls of the citadel. The promon- tory upon which it is built, stretches into the sea so as to form a port on each side of it ; hence the advan- tageous situation of the city as an emporium. The western port is reported to be safe even for large vessels. The commerce of the place is confined to the exportation of tobacco and cotton. Neapolis was the port at which St. Paul landed in his first voyage from Asia Minor to Macedonia.* The ruins of the ancient Philippi are only ten miles distant, situated upon the side of a hill. Dr. Clarke was unable to visit this most interesting site, — interesting both to the classic scholar, as the adjacent plains were the scene of the memorable battle between Brutus and Cassius and Mark Anthony, and still more so as the first European * " Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis; and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia and a (Roman) colony." — Acts xvi. 11, 12. TURKEY. 295 city in which the Gospel was preached and a Christian church planted (about A.D. 53), the scene of St. Paul's memorable imprisonment with his companion Silas, and for the inhabitants of which he appears to have entertained a peculiar regard.* An imperfect descrip- tion of the place is furnished by INI. Belon, who spent two days in examining its ruins, in the sixteenth century. He found there the remains of a magnifi- cent amphitheatre, and a number of soroi, of the marble of the place, of such magnitude that nothing could be compared to them. He mentions also four enormous columns, the remains of the temple of Claudius, an infinite number of statues and large marble columns of the Doric and Ionic orders, beauti- fully sculptured, and numerous inscriptions. In short, the ruins of no other city, in his opinion, were adapted to excite so much admiration. -|- If this description may be at all depended upon, few ancient sites would seem to be more deserving of investigation. The modern representative of Philippi appears to be the town of Drama, described by Ville Hardouin as being situated in the valley of Philippi. J This is a town of sufficient importance to be the seat of a pasha of two tails, and has manufactories of calico and to- bacco. It is about fifteen miles N.E. of Emboli (Amphipoli.). Near it are ruins of an ancient town, supposed by Col. Leake to be those of Drabescus ; but * See Actsxvi. and xvii. Philippians i. 3 ; ii. 12; iv. 15. t See Clarke's Travels, vol. viii. p. 44. The learned Author also refers to a more recent and curious description of ihe ruins in the Lettres Edifiantea, tome ii. p. 377- A fair is said to be still annually held among the ruins. Prom the number of its fountains, it was anciently culled Crcnides. ± Pococke speaks of an ex-archbishop of Philippi and Drama, whom he met with. 296 TURKEY. that city is placed by Dr. Clarke at Pravista,* distant three hours S.W. of Cavallo, and six hours and a half N.E. of Orphano.-j- This is a town of 800 houses, containing a mixed population, chielly Greek ; ex* tremely dirty and wretched. It is situated in a defile leading into the great plain of Serres (or Seres), which is seen from an eminence over which the road passes. Dr. Clarke describes it as " a noble plain, flat as the surface of a lake," and in its geological character Strikingly resembling the plains of the great limestone formation of Greece. Its proverbial fertility is owing chiefly to the annual inundations of the Strymon.:}: Except towards the South, where this river has its outlet to fall into the head of the Gulf of Contessa, the plain of Seres is surrounded by lofty mountains, having the highest ridges of Pangaeus towards the east, Mount Scomius towards the north, and Mount Cercina towards the west. It is said to contain " nearly 300 villages, so closely placed together that, * Pravista, written TlgaSitrrx, " may be nothing more," he remarks, " than a corruption of the ancient Drabiscus of Strabo, to whose situation it remarkably corresponds." 1 In an extract from Mr. Walpole's Journal, given by Dr. Clarke in a note, Pravasta is stated to be only five hours from the mouth of the Strymon. " This place," it is added, " is situated between two plains, and is distant from the sea three hours. There are here many iron works ; and the fortresses at the Dardanelles are supplied from this place with balls for the cannon. The mountains contain- ing the iron ore, run in a direction from Orfano near the S trymon, to Pravasta. At three hours' distance is Cavalla, situated on a piece of land projecting into the sea, opposite to Thassus, and united by a low isthmus to the continent of Macedonia." — Clarke's Travels, vol. viii. p. 7. This Traveller, following Belon, supposes Cavalla to be a corruption of Bucephata; but Dr. Clarke doubts the exist- ence of a city of that name on this part of the coast. i The Strymon (Strumona or Yemboli river) has its rise at the foot of Mount Scomius, and, after a course of twenty leagues, falls into the Gulf of Aniphipolis (or Contessa). — Beaiijour. ^WffZM TURKEY 297 when viewed from the summit of Mount Cercina, they seem t<> join, and present the imposing appear- ance of an immense city. These villages are distri- huted by groupes of thirty or forty into agaliks, the most considerable of which are those of Drama, of Zigna, and of Seres. The aga of Seres maintains in his service 5000 men, and is reckoned the most power- ful bey in Macedonia." * The whole of this valley is laid out in cotton plantations,, which, as being the most profitable species of cultivation, have greatly increased of late years in Macedonia, and occupy the best lands in the district. -|- The annual produce of the valley of Seres is estimated by Beaujour at 70,000 bales. Seres (Sirrf which, Dr. Clarke says, has something of the fine lharacter of that of Switzerland. Of these lakes, the nost easterlv, now called Lake Beshek, is between ;welve and fifteen miles in length, by five or six in >readth ; the other appeared to be about twelve miles n circumference. Many kinds of fish are caught in hem, in sufficient abundance to supply Salonika and ill the neighbouring villages. Dr. Clarke supposes ;hat of Beshek to be the Bolbaean Lake, described by the ancient geographers as lying between Arethusa and Apollonia ;* but this conjecture is not supported by ■my clear evidence, and D'Anville places it much nearer the Sinus Slrymonicus, or Bay of Emboli. The village of Micra Beshek (Little Beshek) stands upon i promontory stretching into the lake. Trana Beshek ^Great Beshek) is about a mile and a half further, and within two miles of Clissele (or Klissala). The moun- tains here are of granite, containing masses of diallage porphyry, the bianco-e-nero of Italian lapidaries. They are covered to their summits with olive-trees, ' the river Strymon bounds Macedonia on the north ;" but he ulds : " To the north-east of the Strymon was the country called paotionia Adjeeta, inhabited by the Edones: it extended to the Nestus, and was a part of Thrace conquered by King Philip, and Ided to Macedonia." It was of this district that Philippi was the :apital ; and the sacred historian evidently alludes to the distinction, when he describes Philippi as *• the chief city of that part of Macedonia;" that is between the Strymon and the Nestus or Kara-su. In the valley of Arethusa, near Bromiscus, in Macedonia, at the confluence of two streams, (one of which was poisonous and the jther salutary,) stood the tomb of Euripides. This site is well ieserving of investigation. TART II. 2 D 302 TURKEY. and the Vallonla oak and plane-tree add to the beauty of the scene. Near Clissele, some remarkable por« phyritic rocks rise perpendicularly out of the plain, having, at a distance, the appearance of a castellated building or a cromlech.* Clissele is a poor village, distant seven hours from Salonica, situated on some hills which divide the plain of Scraivashtchi or Gul- vashtchi from those of Baleftchino and Lagadno. These are fertile and well -cultivated tracts, but marshy, and the air is very bad. The lake of St. Basil is seen on the left of the road, which runs N.W., and after passing over the plains, enters a defile leading out inta the plain of Salonica. SALONICA (THESSALONICA). For. the fullest and most recent description of tin* city, we are indebted to Dr. Holland, who visited if In the year 1812. He arrived by sea; and, as ap* proached from the gulf, its appearance is very imposing, being seen from a great distance, placed on the ac* clivity of a steep hill, environed with lofty stone walls, -f* which ascend in a triangular form from the sea, ancl surmounted by a fortress with seven towers. Th^ domes and minarets of numerous mosques rise from among the other buildings, and surrounded with cy- presses, give a general air of splendour to the place, which, as usual, is in striking contrast to the aspect of the interior. The port, crowded with shipping, « hica * *' Mount Athos is known to be composed of primitive rocksjd marble, a compound of hornblende and felspar, dec. The hill oq which Salonica is built, appears to be entirely composed of mica« slate." — Holland's Trurnlx, vol. ii. p. 52. t Dr. Clarke says they are *• white- washed, and, what is still more extraordinary, they are also painted." ■ TURKEY. 303 ^fTords proof of its flourishing commerce, adds not a ttle to the beauty of the spectacle. " The most ancient name of this celebrated city was Pherma, derived, in common with that of the Gulf, from the hot springs which still exist in several places pon the coast. The Macedonian Cassander, who en- larged and embellished the city, so as to merit the i tie of its founder, gave it the name of Thessalonica, in compliment to his wife, the daughter of Philip of JWacedon. Cicero resided here some time during his banishment from Rome ; and many of his letters to Atticus, who was then at his estate in Epirus, are dated from Thessalonica. At the period when the Apostle Paul visited the place, it appears to have been large, populous, and wealthy ; and the Byzantine historians speak much of its splendour and importance.* The massacre of 15,000 of its inhabitants, from the sudden fury of Theodosius, is well known to history ; as well as the severe expiation required of that monarch by the intrepid Ambrose. In the decline of the Greek empire, the city was taken by William of Sicily, and at a still later period, was made over by one of the Palaeo- log] to the Venetians. The latter, however, enjoyed their possession but a few years, Thessalonica falling into the power of the Turks in 1431, to whose empire it has ever since been subject. " In its present state, Salonica is exceeded in popu- lation only by Constantinople, and possibly by Adrian- ople, among the cities of European Turkey ; and in the extent of its commerce, is probably second to the * " See the- description of Thessalonica by Ioannes Cameniates, in his narrative of the capture of the city by theBaibarians (during the time of hen?). Also the exclamatory eulogy of Demetrius ( ydoniiu in 'lescribing the same event. Tzetzes, in his Chiliads, speaks of Thessalonica as nobis bap,TgoTarn. 2d2 SO 4 TURKEY. capital alone. The circumference of the city, as de- termined by the walls, probably exceeds five miles. This included area has the form of an irregular tri- angle ; the sea-wall being the base, and the apex of the triangle being formed by the castle, which sur- mounts and commands the town. Nearly the whole of this area is occupied by buildings, only a small in- terval of rocky ground being left between the city and Liu; fortress. The interior of Salonica presents the same irregularity, and many of the same deformities, which are common in Turkish towns. The rapid ascent of the hill diminishes this evil in the upper part of the town ; and on the whole, as respects cleanliness and internal comfort, Salonica may contrast favourably with most other places in Turkey of large size and population. It certainly gains greatly in the com-1 parison, if activity of business be admitted as a crite- rion of superiority. Except in those quarters where the principal Turks reside, there is a general appear- ance of life and movement, which forms a striking con- trast to the monotony of a Turkish town. The quays are covered with goods ; numerous groupes of people are occupied about the ships or the warehouses ; and the bazars are well stocked and perpetually crowded with buyers and sellers. They are in fact chiefly Greeks or Jews who are thus occupied ; people ever ready to seize any opening which may be offered to commercial industry, and ever ingenious in meeting and frustrating the political oppressions under which they labour. At the time when we visited Salonica, the great and sudden influx of trade to that port had afforded an opening of the most favourable kind ; and the character of Yusuf Bey's government was such as not in any material degree to check the progress of industry. TURKEY. 305 " The style of building in Salonica is entirely Turkish ; and as in Ioannina, the houses of the prin. ■pal inhabitants, Greeks as well as Turks, have small ^reas connected with them, generally occupied by a ew trees. The foliage intermixed with the buildings, iowever, forms a much less striking object here tban n Ioannina ; and the general appearance of the city is hat of greater compactness and uniformity. The [)azars, which are situated in the lower part of the town, are very extensive, forming several long but narrow streets. As is common in this country, they ire shaded either by trellises with vines, or by pro- jecting wooden sheds, with branches of trees thrown across. The dealers, as I have already stated, are principally Greeks and Jews, with a large proportion of the latter nation. The shops are well filled with manufactured goods and colonial produce ; but, in jewellery, shawls, and the richer articles of Oriental dress, they appear to be somewhat inferior to those of Ioannina. ' Some of the mosques are worthy of notice from their size and antiquity : we visited the two most considerable, formerly the Greek churches of Santa Sophia and St. Demetrius, but now converted to the purposes of the Mohammedan worship. The Santa Sophia was erected by the command of Justinian : the model of the edifice, though on a much larger scale, being the celebrated church of that name at Constan- tinople, and Arthemias the architect of both. There is something venerable and imposing in the approach to this building. It stands in the midst of an area shaded by cypresses and other ancient trees ; a large marble fountain is opposite to the great door of the church ; and detached portions of the original edifice, now partly in a ruinous state, are seen at intervals 2 d3 S06 TURKEY. through the trees. The interior, in its preser.t state, exhibits hut few of those decorations which gave splen- dour to the edifice in its original character of i. Greek church. A sort of stone rostrum, however, is shewn here, reputed by the Christians of the city to be that from which St. Paul preached to the Thessalon ans. I am not aware on what this tradition is foundei. " The mosque, once the Greek church of St. De- metrius, is of large size, and remarkable for the num- ber and beauty of the ancient columns which support and adorn it. The loftiness of the building has ad- mitted two heights of gallery ; each, as well as the roof, supported by a tier of columns passing round the church. The total numher is said to be three hundred and sixty. Some of these columns are of marble, some of verde-antique, others of sienite and porphyry. We visited the stone sepulchre of St. Demetrius in a cell adjoining the church, where a lamp is kept always burning ; chiefly, as it seems, to enable the Turk who shews the place, to require a few coins from the visiter of the tomb. St. Demetrius was the patron saint of the city; famed for his mar- tyrdom, and for various miracles which are recorded in the Byzantine history. A subterranean church is connected with the mosque ; erected, it is said, on the site of the Jewish synagogue, where St. Paul preached to the people of Thessalonica." Another remarkable edifice, called the Rotunda, which, after having successively served as a heathen temple * and a Christian church, has been con- verted into a mosque, is described in his own clumsy * Beaujour asserts, that he was able to " prove by medals, that this temple is that of the Cabin, and that it was constructed in the time of Trajan. It is evident from its form, that it was built on the model of the Pantheon at Rome." ■ &%'.*■ TURKEY. 307 maimer by Pococke. " The walls are very thick, and built of jrood brick : the chapels round it are arched over with double arches of brick, excepting the two entrances to the west and south. In them are oblong square niches which appear like windows, and are now iilled up : above these, the wall is not, I suppose, so thick by twelve feet ; and over every one of these apartments there is an arched niche. The cupola is adorned with mosaic work appearing like eight frontis- pieces of very grand buildings, the perspective of which seemed to be very good. The apartment opposite the entrance is lengthened out to twenty-seven paces, and ends in a semicircle, which, if it was a temple, must have been added by the Christians for the altars." In the beautiful dome, there is a circular aperture, as in that of the Pantheon, designed, Beaujour contends, to let the smoke of the victims escape, which were con- sumed on the altar immediately beneath ; and under the place where it stood, may yet be seen, he says, the vast stone reservoirs which received the blood. In front of the building, Dr. Clarke " saw a. magnificent marble bema or pulpit ornamented in bas-relief ;" * and, at a fountain, " part of an inscription, mentioning the name either of Cassander or of some citizen of Cassandria upon the Isthmus of Pallene." There is a fourth mosque, Pococke says, " which was the church of St. Pantaleemon." Beaujour men- * Pococke seems to refer to this same rostrum or pulpit as placed before the '* fourth mosque," which '* was the church of St. Pantaleemon." He describes it as " a sort of pulpit, with winding steps up to it, all of one block of white marble : on the sides of it are cut thtee arches, supported by Corinthian pillars, under which are mezzo-rdievos of the Virgin Mary and other saints. T saw such another (he adds) at one of the mosques. These seem to have been made in the very earliest times of Christianity, before the art of sculpture was entirely lost." 308 TURKEY. tions a fourth, called by the Turks Eski Djumma (Old Friday), which was once a temple dedicated to the Thennean Venus, to whom Friday (Dies Veneris) was sacred. " The Greeks," he adds, " spoiled it by attempting to make it cruciform. It was originally a perfect parallelogram, "tQ feet by 35, supported by twelve columns of the Ionic order of the most elegant form. The six columns of the Pronaos still remain, although concealed by the wails of the mosque. If the country were in the possession of a civilized people, it would be easy to strip the temple of Venus of the Gothic masonry which disguises it ; and this edifice would then, next to the Theseum at Athens, be of all the chaste monuments of antiquity, the one in the most perfect preservation. Now, it can only be seen through its plaster covering; and I passed three years at Salonica without suspecting its real cha- racter." There are few remains here, belonging to a more remote antiquity. " A triumphal gate," says Dr. Holland, " erected after the battle of Philippi, in honour of Augustus, has lost its former splendour by being made a part of the modern walls of the citv. A work of greater magnificence is a triumphal arch of Roman brick, cased with marble, which traverses one of the principal streets. This is said to have been erected in honour of the first Constantine. Originally, there was a small arch on each side ; but thes-e are now blocked up ; and in other respects, the work is much defaced by time. Some fine bas-relief groupes still, however, remain on the piers of the arch ; one representing a triumphal procession ; a lower com- partment describing the events of a battle, the ssculp- ture not without a good deal of spirit." The Augustan gate, which is at the western TURKEY. 309 extremity off the city, is now called the Vardar gate, ns leading to that river. Dr. Clarke says, that, al- though less noticed than the other, it is a work far superior in point of taste. Its present height is 18 feet, the lower part being buried to the depth of 27 feet more. The span of the arch is 12 feet. The masonry consists of square blocks of white marble six feet thick ; and upon one side is an inscription con- taining the names of all the magistrates then in office. A bas-relief on each side represents the two conquerors, Octavius and Mark Anthony, each standing before a horse led by a boy. The arch of Constantine is on the western side of the town, and originally termi- nated a street that ran from the Vardar Gate through the whole city. It yet remains entire, except that its marble covering has been in great measure removed. Its original height was GO feet, but not much more than 40 feet are now above the soil. The span of the main arch is about 30 feet. It consisted originally of three arches built of brick, and cased with marble, and there were niches in front between the arches, which of course were filled with statues. The piers all round were adorned with three compartments of basso relievos one above another, each relief being four feet two inches deep, divided by others that were twelve inches deep, covered with foliage and flowers. Pococke believed the arch to be of the age of the An- tonines, and he represents it as rivalling any similar structure in the perfection of the sculpture and the costliness of the work. Beaujour depreciates the exe- cution, describing the figures with which the bas-relief is overloaded, as without expression, and the orna- ments as in bad taste. Dr. Clarke was convinced that the work is not older than the time of Constantine, the sculpture being " evidently that of a period when 310 TURKEY. the arts were in their decline, and, in some parts of it, inferior to what we often see in our country churches." " In the middle of the city," continues Dr. Hoi. land, " a singular ruined structure is seen, forming, in its present state, the entrance to the area of a Greek house ; — a Corinthian colonnade, of which four columns now remain, supporting an entablature, on which are corresponding pilasters, six feet in height. On each side of this upper colonnade are four figures in full length, now so far defaced by time, that it is not easy to make out all their characters. It seems pro- bable, however, that three of those on one side repre- sent Victory, Bacchus, and Ganymede ; while on the other are the figures of Leda and Ariadne, a male figure, and that, of a female in profile. This edifice is supposed to have been the entrance of the ancient circus of Thessalonica ; and if so, the scene of the dreadful massacre directed by Theodosius. It is stated, though I know not on what authority, to have been built in the time of Nero. It does not appear that the columns ever exceeded five in number." This building is called by the Spanish Jews of Sa- lonica, the Incantadas, or Enchanted Figures, and by the Turks, Sureth-maleh. The figures are as large as life, and parts of the sculpture are very fine; but M. Beaujour, Dr. Holland says, " is far too luxu- riant" in his description of them.* The whole is executed in Pentelican marble, and, Dr. Clarke sup- poses, was probably brought from Athens. The walls of the castle are lofty and well-built, -j* • See an accurate representation of this supposed propyltzum in Stuart's Athens, vol. iii. c. 9. t *• The walls, flanked with turrets, and raised upon hewn stones of enormous size, are of brick-work and of Greek construe- ■■i TURKEY. 311 The castle forms a large distinct area, separated from the city by a transverse wall, the greater part of which enclosure is either vacant or occupied with irregular buildings. At its highest point stands the fortress, surmounted by seven towers, like that of Constantin- ople, and called by the Turks in like manner Yedi- koule, and by the Greeks 'E'Tratu^yiot. It is the site of the old acropolis, but its towers are said to have been built by the Venetians. Towards the west, op- posite to a small monastery of dervishes, is a tower called Namasia-koule, from a colossal torso of a female statue, supposed to be that of Thessalonica, in honour of whom the city received its name. At the feet of the figure is represented the stern of a ship. The hill on which the citadel is built, is joined, on the north- east, by lower ground, to Mount Kourtiach ; and the castle, being commanded by all the heights on the north, has become useless, since the invention of artil- lery, for the defence of the place. The view from the castle, Dr. Holland describes as extensive and magni- ficent. " The city and its numerous minarets are immediately below the eye ; beyond these, the expanse of the gulf, and the vast barrier of the Olympus chain towards the west; and in a northerly direc- tion, the widely spreading plains of Macedonia, and the rivers which pursue a tortuous course through them towards the sea. Pella, the ancient capital of the Macedonian kings, stood upon these plains ; and its situation, even from this distance, is marked with some certainty, as well by the course of the rivers, as lion, and they present in every part, fragments of columns con- fusedly mixed with ancient fragments." — Beaujour. Dr. Clarke speaks of " old Cyclopean masonry" in the lower part, ascribing the upper structure to the time of the Greek emperors. 312 TURKEY. by the eminence on which stood the'fortress of the city, described by Livy to be like an island rising out of the surrounding marshes. Towards the north of this tract of level country, a lofty range of mountains occupies part of the horizon ; the modern name of which is said to be Xeroiivado. In the same direction from Salonica is the large and populous city of Seres, the residence of Ishmael Bey, and the seat of his local government. " The view from the castle of Salonica, towards the peninsula of the ancient Pallene, is limited by the mountain called Chortehadje,a few miles to the south- east of the city ; on the sides of which hill, ice is pre- served in wells during the whole year for the use of the inhabitants of Salonica. This mountain is pro- bably the ancient Eirrnium, at the foot of which stood the city of Berrrea. Edessa was situated beyond Pella in the same district." The population of the city has been estimated as high as 90,000 souls, but Dr. Holland considers this as an exaggerated estimate, although he thinks it exceeds 70,000. lt It is certain, however," he adds, " that the number of inhabitants has been much increased within the last tew years, owing in part to the ex- tended commerce of the place, partly to the settlement of numerous emigrants who have fled hither to shun the power or the vengeance of Ali Pasha of loannina. The Turks probably form somewhat less than half the population." Beaujour states, that Salonica could furnish 7000 Janissaries, which would give a popula- tion of from 28 to ^0,000 Turks. Though thus intermixed with other communities, they preserve, we are told, all their peculiar natural habits, with " a greater facility of exercising them than is pos- ■ ■ TURKEY'. 313 sessed by tlieir conntrymen of Ioannina." In walk- ing through their quarter of the city, Dr. Holland was repeatedly insulted by the Turkish boys.* " The number of Greek families is said to be about 2000. The greater part of this population is engaged in commerce ; and many of the Greek mer- chants resident here, have acquired considerable pro- perty from this source. The trade they carry on, is in some measure subordinate to that of the Frank merchants of Salonica ; but they have likewise ex- tensive independent connexions with Germany, Con- stantinople, Smyrna, Malta, and various parts of Greece. They do not possess so much reputation in literature as their countrymen of Ioannina, owing, perhaps, to the difference which their situation pro- duces in the nature of their commercial concerns. I have visited, however, the houses of some of the Sa- lonica merchants, in which there were large collections of books, including as well the Romaic literature as that of other parts of Europe. Salonica is one of the Greek metropolitan sees, to which eight suffragan bishoprics are annexed. The Greeks have a number of churches in the city, the principal of which is called the Rotundo, rendered remarkable by the domes which rise from its roof, giving an air of splendour to its external appearance. * When Dr. Clarke was at Salonica in 1801, Mr. Charoaud, the English consul, estimated the population at only . r >3,000, of whom 15,000 were supposed to be Jews, 8000 Greeks, and the rest Turks. Beaujour states it at 00,000, including about 10,000 Greeks, 12,000 Jews, 30,i^fep»*»! TURKEY. 331 but adds, tli at it appeared to be of calcareous forma- tion, was well cultivated, and produces much grain : " the general surface is plane, intersected, however, by many small valleys, descending towards the sea, which is no where distant more than five miles from the road." From this plain, the ancient Pieria, the termination of Olympus is seen towards the W.S.W., and beyond it, in the same direction, rises another lofty mountain, continuing the great mountain bar- rier between Macedonia and Thessaly : these two, with Ossa, Dr. Clarke describes as having the appearance of a vast wall, reaching to the clouds. The moun- tains extending west and north of Olympus are sup- posed to be the Cambunian, over which a narrow defile conducted from Pieria into Perrhsebia and Thessaly. Between two and three miles south of Katarina, proceeding towards Larissa, a large and rapid river, descending from the mountains to the N. W. of Olympus, is crossed at a ford. This is supposed to be the Haliacmon of the ancients, which, according to Strabo, bounded Pieria on the south, as the Axius did on the north ; and Dr. Clarke supposes Katarina to be Dium ; but the topography of the whole of this part is involved in great obscurity. * Two miles beyond this river, an extensive marsh is formed by another stream, which " may be the Buphyris of Livy;" and near its mouth is a little scala or port, Avhere small vessels take in the wool produced by the * About half way between Platamonos and Katarina, where the plain bears the name of Kallidia or Kallithia, Dr. Clarke crossed by a bridge, the Malathria river, flowing from Olympus ; and just before he reached Katarina, he torded the Mauro-nero and the Pellica, which unite before they fall into the Gulf, and form, the learned Traveller thinks, the Baphyrus. 332 TURKEY. flocks of Olympus and the northern part of Thessaly. At twelve miles from Katarina, is the wretched town of Litochori, consisting of houses scattered over a nigged and uneven surface, at the very foot of Olympus, and almost overhung hy the precipices of the mountain. Nearly opposite the town, a vast ravine penetrates into the interior of the mountain, through the opening of which may he seen what Dr. Holland supposes to be the summit, — " an obtuse cone, with a somewhat concave ascending line on each side ; the sides exhibiting mural precipices of extraordinary height." The thick fog which over- spread the country, prevented him from making any very accurate observations ; but the transient view he obtained from this point, exhibited a line of precipices of vast height, forming the eastern front of the mountain towards the sea, broken at intervals by deep ravines richly clothed with forest trees. The base and skirts of the mountain are covered with oak, chestnut, beech, and plane, while towards the summit of the first ridge, dark forests of pine spread along the acclivities, giving that character to the face of the mountain which is so often alluded to by the poets.* Behind this first ridge, others rise up and recede towards the loftier central heights of Olympus, then covered with the snows of winter. Few of the Grecian mountains rise to the height of Olympus, which is never entirely free from snow. Its elevation has never been barometrically ascer- tained. Plutarch states, that the philosopher Xenago- ras ascertained it to be rather more than ten stadia, and M. Bernouilli gives the height at 1017 toises • Seneca calls it pinifer Olympus; Virgil speaks of the frondosum ' Olympum ; and Horace has opaco Olympo. Hesiod applies to it the epithet vi^ou;. ™ ■ TURKEY- (0500 feet). The summit is inaccessible in winter, but tlie ascent is perfectly practicable in the summer season ; and once a year, on the 20th of June,* the priests of a village called Scamnia, (situated to the right of the road from Katarina to Platamonos,) re- pair to a small Greek chapel near the highest point, to perform mass. This is one of the many curious instances of the adoption, by the Christian natives, of the ancient ceremonies of the pagan worship. Pos- sibly, the old altar may yet remain, on which sacrifices were offered to the Olympian deity. The highest habitation on the mountain is the monastery of St. Dionysius, on its eastern side, and in the route which conducts to the summit. A narrow strip of open country, descending from the base of Olympus to the sea, and intersected by several valleys which bring down the waters from the eastern side, extends from Litochori to Platomana, the ancient Heraclea. This is the grand passage from Thessaly into Macedonia. The most consider- able of these valleys, which opens out from a deep rocky ravine, is probably that of the Enipeus, in which Perseus had strongly entrenched himself when he was compelled to retire, on being taken in rear by a detachment sent round over the mountain. Plato- mana is still the seat of a Greek bishopric, extending to Ampelachia, Rapshani, and the neighbouring Greek towns. There is a khan here, containing several Doric pillars with their capitals inverted ; and Dr. Clarke mentions an ancient aqueduct sup- » Probably a mistake for the 24th, St. John's day. From Scamnia, which is five hours and a half from Platamonos, the ascent takes between four and five hours; but the best and easiest ascent, Dr. Clarke was told, is from the village of Careah, distant six hours from Platamonos. 334 TURKEY. plying a marble reservoir. The modern castle, a large and irregular groupe of buildings surrounded with a lofty wall, is built on a rocky promontory overhanging the sea, commanding the narrow pass between it and the hills. On the south side of this promontory, a stream, flowing in a deep channel, falls into the sea. A Turkish cemetery is below the fortress, close to the village. The road now runs along the coast for some time, and then turns up into the plains through which the Peneus, after winding through the defile of Tempe, finds its way, in a N.E. direction to the sea. " The appearance of this plain," Dr. Holland says, " is rich and luxuriant in the extreme ; and ■what is uncommon in Greece, it is divided in part by small enclosures. It is richly wooded over its whole extent, the trees being chiefly the plane and mul- berry, and many of the former are remarkable for their large and venerable growth. A great part of the plain is occupied in the culture of maize and wheat, which are principally conveyed to Salonica for exportation." * On the north-eastern declivity of Mount Ossa, the southern boundary of Tempe, are several towns and villages, some of considerable size, almost entirely peopled at that time by Greeks. Dr. Holland crossed the Peneus (now called the Salymbria,) at a horse-ferry, " an unworthy substi- * How are we to account for the singularly different description given by Dr. Clarke ? " As soon as the gorge (of Tempe) opens, and a view of the Pierian (Penean) plain is exhibited, the traveller beholds a disagreeable, swampy flat, covered with dwarf trees, reeds, and thorns." Again: '• In journeying along the western side of the Thermaan Gulf, the whole district, from the mouth of the Peneus to that of the Axius, is one swampy plain, bounded on the west by the chain of Olympus. There are no hills to form sub- divisions; so that, whether called Bottieea, Pieria, or Perrha;bia, it is all one and the same plain."— vol. viii. pp. 384, 396. TURKEY. 335 tute for a bridge, half a mile below, which, two winters before, had been broken by a winter's flood." On gaining the southern bank, the traveller is in Thes- saly. For the best description of the celebrated defile, so well known under the name of the Vale of Tempe, * we shall have recourse to the pages of Dr. Clarke. " The Peneus occupies the whole of the valley from side to side, with the exception only of the nar. row pass afforded by the old paved causeway of the military way, which extends along the right bank of the river. Fragments of the Atracian marble appeared in different parts of this pavement : to afford space for it, even the solid rocks were cut away from the side of the Peneus. Here the scenery possesses the utmost grandeur. The precipices consist of naked perpendicular rocks, rising to a prodigious height, so that the spectator can scarcely behold them from below without giddiness. Livy's description, there- fore, in addition to its intrinsic grandeur, has all the majesty of truth. The various colours which adorn the surfaces of these rocks, can only be expressed by painting ; and how beautiful would the effect be, if these masses were faithfully delineated in all their distinct or blended hues, of ashen grey, and green, and white, and ochreous red and brown, and black, and yellow ! Such description by the pen, suggests * According to Suidas, the word Ti/ATri was applicable to all wooded glens, although pre-eminently to that between Ossa and Olympus. It is at present called T^a^Nras, an apparent corrup- tion of the ancient name; but the modern Greeks would pronounce this Zamba, which bears no resemblance to the original. 336 TURKEY. no distinct image to the mind. Upon their utmost peaks, both to the right and left, we saw the ruins of an ancient fortress, once the bulwark of the defile, whose walls were made to traverse the precipices in a surprising manner, quite down to the road. The cliffs are so perpendicular, and the gorge is so nar- row, that it would be absolutely impossible for an army to pass while the strait was guarded by these fortifications." The learned Traveller describes the defile as bearing some resemblance to the pass of Killicrankie in Scot- land, and to Dovedale in Derbyshire, but upon a much grander scale. Owing to some tremendous convulsion of nature, it is supposed that Olympus and Ossa have been separated from each other by the formation of this vast cleft, at the bottom of which the Peneus obtains its outlet. " If ever the waters of the Black Sea should be so far drained as to leave only a river flowing through the canal of Constantinople, then the Thracian Bosphorus will become what Tempe is now. That a sea like the Euxine, once covering the whole of Thessaly, was drained by the opening of this chasm, is not only evident from the position of the strata on either side, but the fact has always been traditionally transmitted, so as to become a theme of poetical allu- sion, if not a portion of history." * Dr. Holland says, that St. Vincent's Bocks near Bristol, convey a cor- rect idea of the scenery of Tempe, taking into account the difference of the scale. The Peneus, as it flows through the defile, is not much wider than the Avon, and the channel between the cliffs is of equally con- * Neptune is fabled to have opened this outlet for the river, by striking the mountains with his trident; a Greek periphrase for an earthquake. This event is conjectured to have happened about B.C. 1885. TURKEY. 337 tracted dimensions ; but the cliffs of the Thessalian mountains are very much loftier and more precipitous, towering-, in some places on the northern side, to six or eight hundred feet above the river, and projecting their vast masses with more extraordinary abruptness over the hollow beneath. " Where the surface renders it possible, the sum. mits and ledges of the rocks are for the most part covered with small wood, chieny oak, with the arbutus and other shrubs. On the banks of the river, when- ever there is a small interval between the water and the cliffs, it is covered with the rich and widely-spread- ing foliage of the plane, the oak, and other forest trees, which in these situations have attained a re- markable size, and in various places extend their shade far over the channel of the stream. The ivy winding round many of them, may bring to the mind of the traveller, the beautiful and accurate descrip- tion of yElian, who has done more justice to the scenery of Tempe than any other writer of antiquity." The length of the defile, taken in its whole extent from the Pierian to the Pelasgic plain, is reckoned an hour's distance " to a horse walking moderately fast ;" which corresponds to Pliny's statement of five Roman miles. At the western extremity stands the Turkish village of Baba, on the southern bank of the river, from which an irregular cork-screw road, in some places cut in the rock, * in others, carried along the channel of mountain torrents, conducts the traveller to the Greek * The road is paved, and is full, Dr. Clarke says, of a green chlorite schistus, containing veins of white marble and white quartz. " Quarries of verdc antico (MartnorAtracium) might now be wrought in Mount Ossa." The rocks on each side the defile are described by Dr. Holland, as a coarse bluish-grey marble with veins of a finer quality. PART II. 2 O 338 TURKEY. town of Ambelachia, supposed to be the ancient Atra- kia. This remarkable place, consisting of about 400 houses, is described as literally hanging upon the sides of Mount Ossa. " Nothing," says Dr. Holland, " can be more picturesque than the various groupes of build- ings which compose it. Rising out of the thick foliage of woods, overhanging the deep ravines of the moun- tain, their open galleries and projecting roofs render the eifect of situation still more singular and imposing to the eye. The oak, olive, and cypress spread over the broken surface on which the town stands, and inter- mix with the foliage of vineyards; while the loftier ridges of the mountain, receding towards the south, are covered with long rows of pines. A few of the houses are built and furnished in the European manner. " Ampelachia is interesting in its inhabitants, as well as in the scenery which surrounds it. These afe almost exclusively Greeks ; and what may seem singu- lar in a place thus situated, have been noted, for some years past, for the extent of their commercial under- takings, and for a character of active intelligence and enterprise, which has procured them a high repute among the communities of modern Greece. Most of the merchants of Ampelachia have visited or resided in the great commercial cities of the continent, and established connexions there, the extent and success of which are testified in the wealth many of them have acquired. These connexions are chiefly with Ger- many ; but also with Constantinople, Smyrna, and other places of trade in the Levant. The commerce of the place has its basis in manufacture ; and the population of the town, like that of Tornavo and other places in the surrounding country, is actively engaged in the various processes of making and dyeing p H TURKEY. 339 cotton thread, the staple commodity of the country. A great part of the cotton grown on the plains of Tlicssaly, is brought to this district for the use of its manufacturers. It is estimated that the town of Am. pt'lachia furnishes annually about 3000 bales of dyed cotton thread, each bale being calculated at 250 lbs. Of this quantity nearly the whole is transmitted by land carriage to Germany; a traffic which is -well regu- lated, and carried on with much activity by the Am- pelachian merchants. " It may be added regarding the inhabitants of this town, that while thus reputed in their commercial cha- racter, they have acquired much respect from their general cultivation of mind, and from the aids they have afforded to the literature of their country. There is a considerable Greek school here, which is said to be in a flourishing state." LAKISSA. Twenty miles from Ampelachia, ascending the Salympria through the Pelasgic plain, isLarissa (called by the Turks, Yeniseri), a town containing between 20 and 30,000 Moslems, with a few Greeks and Jews, twenty-six mosques, and one Greek church, the catho- licon or cathedral. * This place is still, as formerly, the capital ofThessaly: a hundred villages are com- prised within its jurisdiction. It seems remarkable, however, for nothing so much as the savage bigotry of the inhabitants, who bore a bad character so far back a3 when Pococke travelled, in the middle of the * Dr. Holland states the number of houses at 4000; Dr. Clarke at 7000; Pococke at 16,000 Turkish, 1500 Greek, and 300 Jewish families. The Greek archbishop was residing here by a sort of sufferance. 2g2 340 TURKEY. last century. The town is between three and four miles in circuit ; the market is well supplied, and the surrounding territory is very productive, particularly in corn and cotton ; but the air is reckoned insalubrious. Many of the Turks of Larissa are very powerful and opulent. There are no mosques in Greece, Mr. Dod- well says, so grand as those in this city, and they pro- bably contain rich marbles and ancient inscribed frag- ments; but he was not permitted to enter any of them.* Dr. Holland was surprised at observing the large number of negroes in the population, which was much greater than he had remarked in any of the Turkish towns. About six miles to the N.W. of Larissa, is the large town of Ternavo, the principal seat of a large manu- factory <>f cotton stuffs, which are exported to various parts of the Levant, and even to Malta. Many of the Greek inhabitants of this place, are stated to have acquired considerable wealth from this branch of com- merce. Twelve hours W.S.W. of Larissa, is the city of Trikala, the Trikka of the ancients, situated on the eastern side of a low ridge, at a short distance from the banks of the Salympria. This city is of consider- able extent, containing more than 2000 houses, and be- tween 10 and 12,000 inhabitants, chiefly Turks ; the number of Greek families not exceeding o' or 700. It is the residence of a Greek bishop, whose diocese ex- tends over the other part of the plains of Thessaly, and * A large mosque, which stands upon the eminence commanding the bridge over the Peneus, (the site, probably, of the ancient cita- del,) has a portico supported by ancient columns reversed. In ano- ther part of the city, Dr. Holland observed the remains of a marble statue fixed as a corner-stone to the pavement, with other stones exhibiting illegible inscriptions. H TURKEY. 341 who is subject to the metropolitan of Larissa. Like many other towns in Turkey, it seems to stand in a wood, and the lofty minarets of seven mosques, rising up among the trees, have a very picturesque effect ; there are also ten Greek churches, and two synagogues. On a hill above the city, and near the extremity of the ridge on which it is built, are the ruins of a castle, apparently of the age of the Greek emperors, com- manding a fine view of the opening of the Thessalian plains. The vale of the Salympria, which, opposite the city, is about ten miles wide, expands further down to little less than twenty ; while, in a longitudinal di- rection, towards the S.E., the eye ranges over, pro- bably, fifty miles of pasture land, or richly cultivated plain. In this vast landscape, little wood is seen, and there are scarcely any inclosures, the lands being di- vided chiefly by ditches ; but at intervals, towns or villages are descried, with their houses scattered amid groupes of trees. The manufacture of blankets and coarse woollens, from the wool supplied by the large flocks which pasture on these plains during winter, occupies a considerable number of the inhabitants of Trikala. The Salympria is formed by the confluence of two streams flowing from Pindus, which unite at the Khan of Malakossi, near the site of the ancient iEginium. The most northerly of these is supposed to be the Ion cf Strabo. The valley of the Peneus, throughout its whole course, is extremely picturesque and interesting ; but the most extraordinary scenery which it presents, is in the vicinity of Kalabaka or Stagi (the Stagos of the Byzantine writers), a small town of 200 houses, twelve miles above Trikkala, in a N. W. direction. Of this singular spot, Dr. Holland gives the following description :— . 2 g3 312 TURKEY. METEORA (ITHOME). " Long before we reached the town of Kalabaka," (approaching it from the N.W.), " our attention was engaged by tlie distant view of the extraordinary rocks of Meteora, which give to the vicinity of this place, a character perfectly unique to the eye, and not less remarkable in the reality of the scene. These rocks are seen from a great distance in descending the valley of the Salympria ; but it was not until we had forded over to the left bank of the river, a short distance above Kalabaka, that we became aware of all the sin- gularity of their situation and character. On this side of the Salympria, and about a mile distant from the river, they rise from the comparatively flat surface of the valley, — a groupe of insulated masses, cones, and pillars of rock, of great height, and for the most part so perpendicular in their ascent, that each one of their numerous fronts seems to the eye as a vast wall, formed rather by the art of man than by the more varied and irregular workings of nature. In the deep and winding recesses which form the intervals be- tween these lofty pinnacles, the thick foliage of trees gives a shade and colouring, which, while it enhances the contrast, does not diminish the effect of the great masses of naked rock impending above. When we approached this spot, the evening was already far ad- vanced, but the setting sun still threw a gleam of light on the summits of these rocky pyramids, and shewed us the outline of several Greek monasteries in this extraordinary situation, as if entirely separated from the reach of the world below. For the moment, the delusion might have been extended to the moral character of these institutions, and the fancy migiit [ONASTBM OF MKTIOUt «"""' ■ 7.V'»itrno»ttfRo«Dic.l IK** ■^m t^^^m TURKEY. 343 have framed to itself a purer form of religion amidst tliis iruulated magnificence of nature, than when con- taminated by worldly intercourse and admixture. How completely this is delusion, it requires hut a hasty re- ference to the present and past history of monastic worship, sufficiently to prove. It is the splendour of nature alone, which, is seen in the rocks of IWeteora ; and the light of the sun lingering on their heights, shews only those monuments of mingled vanity and superstition, which have arisen from the devices of selfish policy, or of mistaken religion. " The most striking part of the scenery of Meteora is that to the north-west of this elevated point, and within the area of the supposed triangle. Following, for more than a mile, a narrow path, which conducted us below its precipitous front, and amidst other insu- lated masses of less considerable height, we entered one of the deep valleys or recesses, which lead to the interior of the groupe, and continued our progress along it, by a gradual ascent through the forest of wood which occupies this intervening space. On each side of us were lofty pinnacles of rock of the most extraordinary kind ; some of them entirely conical, others single pillars of great height, and very small diameter ; other masses very nearly rhomboidal in form, and actually inclining over their base ; others, again, perfect squares or oblongs, with perpendicular sides and level summits. Nor by the term masses, are mere fragments of rock to be understood. It is the original mountain which is cleft and divided in this wonderful manner ; by what agency it might be diffi- cult to determine, but perhaps by the conjoint ope- ration of earthquakes, and of that progressive detritus and decay which proceed perpetually over the face of the globe. The height of these insulated rocks is 344 TURKEY. various. The greater number rise more than 100 feet from the level of the valley of the Salympria ; several reach the height of 2 and 300 feet ; and that of which I have already spoken, above Kalabaka, appears to be about 500 feet in height. " The Greek monasteries of Meteora are variously situated, either on the summits of these pinnacles, or in caverns, which nature and art have united to form in parts of the rock that seem inapproachable by the foot of man. Their situation, indeed, is more extra, ordinary than can be understood from description alone. Four of the monasteries actually occupy the whole summit of the insulated rocks on which they stand; a perpendicular precipice descending from every side of the buildings into the deep wooded hollows which intervene between the heights. The only access to these aerial prisons is by ropes and nets, or by lad- ders fixed firmly to the rock, in those places where its surface affords any points of suspension ; and these ladders, in some instances, connected with artificial tunnels, which give a passage of easier ascent to the buildings above. The monastery called by distinction the Meteora, which is the largest of the number, stands in the remarkable situation just described, and is accessible only in this method. Still more extraor- dinary is the position of another of these buildings, on the left hand of the approach to the former. It is situated on a narrow rectangular pillar of rock, appa- rently about 120 feet in height, the summit of which is so limited in extent, that the walls of the monastery seem on every side to have the same plane of elevation as the perpendicular faces of the rock. " The number of monasteries at Meteora is said to have been formerly twenty-four ; but at present, owing partly to the wearing away of the rocks oa ■ ^t**' : . ■ ytkkMiMieMmi mt TURKEY. 345 which they stood, and partly to the decay of the build- ings themselves, only ten of tbese remain, of which the following are inhabited: Meteora or JYIeteoron, Aios Stephanos, Barkam, Aia Triada, Aios Nicholas, llo- saria, and Aia Mone. " Aios Stephanos, which we visited, is among the most extraordinary of the number : its height is up- wards of 180 feet. To arrive at the foot of the pinnacle on which it stands, we proceeded up the recess among the rocks by a steep and rugged path, winding underneath the foliage of the ancient trees which spread their roots among the vast masses detached from the rocks above. The path conducts you through a defile, not more than twenty or thirty yards in width, between two rocks, each probably more than ;$()0 feet in height, the intervening space filled up by trees and vast detached fragments. On the summit of one of these rocks stands the monastery to which it was our intention to ascend. " Passing through the ravine just mentioned, we wound round the base of the rock, gradually ascending till we came to the foot of a perpendicular line of cliff, and looking up, saw the buildings of the monastery immediately above our heads. A small wooden shed projected beyond the plane of the cliff, from which a rope, passing over a pulley at the top, descended to the foot of the rock. A man was seen looking down from above, to whom our Tartar shouted loudly, ordering him to receive us into the monastery ; but at this time the monks were engaged in their chapel, and it was ten minutes before we could receive an answer to his order and our request. At length, we saw a thicker rope coming down from the pul- ley, and attached to the end |»f it a small rope net, which, we found, was intended for our conveyance 346 TURKEY. to this aerial habitation. The net reached the ground ; our Tartar, and a peasant whom we had with us from Kalabaka, spread it open, covered the lower part with an Albanese capote, and my friend and I seated ourselves upon this slender vehicle. As we began to ascend, our weight drew close the upper aperture of the net, and we lay crouching together, scarcely able, and little willing, to stir either band or foot. We rose with considerable rapidity ; and the projection of the shed and pulley beyond the line of the clilf, was sufficient to secure us against injury from striking upon the rock. Yet the ascent had something in it that was formidable, and the impres- sion it made, was very different from that of the descent into a mine, where the depth is not seen, and the sides of the shaft give a sort of seeming security against danger. Here we were absolutely suspended in the air ; our only support was the thin cordage of a net, and we were even ignorant of the machinery, whether secure or not, which was thus drawing us rapidly upwards. We finished the ascent, however, which is 156 feet, in safety, and in less than three minutes.* When opposite the door of the wooden shed, several monks and other people appeared, who dragged the net into the apartment, and released us from our cramped and uncomfortable situation. Wo found, on looking round us, that these men had been employed in working the windlass which raised us from the ground ; and in observing some of their feeble and decayed figures, it was impossible to sup- pose that the danger of our ascent had been one of appearance alone. Our servant Demetrius, meanwhile, * The passage through the air, at the monastery of Barlaam, is nearly 200 feet. TURKEY. 347 had been making a still more difficult progress up- wards, l>y ladders fixed to the ledges of the rock, con- ducting to a subterranean passage which opens out in the middle of the monastery. " The monks received us with civility, and we re. mained with them more than an hour in their extra- ordinary habitation. The buildings are spread irregu- larly over the whole summit of the rock, enclosing two or three small areas : they have no splendour, either external or internal, and exhibit only the appearances of wretchedness and decay. There were only five monks, with a few attendants, resident in the monastery when we visited it ; all of them miserable in their exterior, and with conceptions as narrow and confined as the rocks on which they live. Even their insulated and almost inaccessible situation has not secured these poor people from plunder and outrage. The property belong- ing to the several monasteries is in the valleys below, and the inhabitants of a small village underneath their rocks, supply food to these atrial habitations. The Albanian soldiers have frequently plundered this vil- lage ; and depending either on the mandate of their superiors, or on other less licensed means, occasionally compel an entrance into the monasteries themselves, the miserable proprietors of which have little security against such acts of outrage." These remarkable rocks appear to have been known to the ancients, under the name of Ithome ; and they probably exhibited, even at the remotest period, some- thing of their present extraordinary character ; but within a comparatively recent period, they have un- dergone a considerable change in their size and form. They are composed entirely of conglomerate, com- prising fragments of granite, gneiss, mica slate, chlo- rite slate, sienite, green stone, and cpiartz pebbles. 348 TURKEY. most of these stones having the appearance of being water-worn.* From their very nature, they are ex- tremely liable to dilapidation and decay ; yet it is diffi- cult, Dr. Holland remarks, to conceive how they should have assumed their present abrupt and preci- pitous forms, otherwise than from the agency of earth- quakes, or some other convulsion of nature- Tbey must, he thinks, have been somewhat less abrupt than they now are, at the time the monasteries were built, to admit of their being constructed. That of Meteora was founded in 1371, by Jobn Palieologus, of the imperial family ; tbat of Barlaam, by Nectarius of Ioannina, in 153G; that of Agia Triada in 1476.-J- It is certain, at all events, that the work of decomposi- tion is going on. " Many of the religious edifices on their summits bave disappeared ; others are rapidly sinking into decay ; and some centuries hence, tbe monasteries of Meteora may exist but as a name and tradition of past times." % Our contracting limits admonish us, that we must here terminate our topographical description of the * As a geological phenomenon, the rocks of Montscrrat in Cata- lonia, which in like manner are entirely conglomerate, come the nearest to those of Meteora ; their composition and form, however, are different. — See Mod. Trav., Spain, vol. i, p. 101. Dr. Holland enters into some further geological details, for which we must refer the scientific reader to his interesting volumes. t " One of the monasteries, in its original establishment by Maria, the sister of John Pala?ologus, was intended for the recep- tion of women alone ; but this female population gradually declined, and was replaced by the other sex, till the institution became one entirely of monks. In this convent, however, as well as in that of Aios Stephanos, some women are still retained as a part of the household; but the entrance of any female is rigidly forbidden by the regulations of Meteora, Barlaam, and others of these establish- ments." % Holland's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 332—52. TUKKKY. 349 ancient Thessaly. Since the travellers whose steps we have been pursuing, visited these regions, convulsions, not of nature, but of a political kind, have desolated the fertile plains, swept away the villages and towns, and changed the whole state of things as regards the population. We could not, therefore, with the accu- racy that is desirable, at present complete our survey. Our readers will, we hope, be better satisfied to have a complete and correct account of the countries we have been describing, than a meagre sketch of a larger tract. In devoting this volume chiefly to the topo- graphy of Thrace, Macedonia, and Bulgaria, we have aimed to connect with a general view of the Turkish empire, a description of the capital and of those pro- vinces which formed the original seat and limit of the Ottoman power in Europe. The volumes on Syria and Asia Minor contain an account of the Asiatic pro- vinces, the native dominions and earliest conquests of its founders. Greece, though still a word of doubt- ful import in geography, has received the separate attention which it demands, in the volumes descriptive of the Morea and Livadia. There yet remains a large tract of territory nominally Turkish, on the coast of the Ionian Sea and Adriatic Gulf, which, together with the islands of both seas and of the Mediterranean, would furnish a volume of equal interest, and of a very dis- tinct character from either the Grecian, Thracian, or Anatolian provinces of this vast empire *. The greater part of this territory might once have been termed Venetian ; it is rapidly becoming British. As the capital of Ali Pasha's dominions has, however, been so frequently referred to, and Roumelia was for so long a * Egypt and Arabia also belong to the series requisite to complete a description of the Turkish empire. TAKT II. 2 II 350 TURKEY time subject to the Vizier of Epirtis, we shall close our account of European Turkey with a description of Ioannina as it appeared at the time of Dr. Holland's journey in 1812. IOANNINA. This traveller entered Epirus by the Gulf of Arta. When within ten miles of the city, he entered on a tract of extended plain, gradually widening as he advanced northwards, but bounded on each side by mountain barriers so lofty and precipitous as to diminish mud of its apparent breadth. On the eastern side the great chain of Pindus(orMetzovo) towered in all its majesty behind an intermediate range, while, on the western side, the more graceful and picturesque range of Olitzka, the Cassiopean mountains of ancient times, limited the view. The intense clearness of the sky increased the effect, and heightened the enjoyment of the stupendous landscape. There is, however, a naked- ness in the plain, arising from the great deficiency wood. The low eminences by which it is traversed, conceal the city in this direction till the traveller is little more than two miles distant, when a magnificent scene suddenly bursts upon him. " A large lake spreads its waters along the base of a lofty and precipitous mountain, which forms the first ridge of Pindus on this side, and which, as I had afterwards reason to believe, attains an elevation of more than 2,500 feet above the level of the plain. Opposed to the highest summit of this mountain, and to a small island which lies at its base, a peninsula stretches forwards into the lake from its western shore, terminated by a perpendicular face of rock. This peninsula forms the fortress of Ioannina ; a lofty wall is its barrier on the land side ; the waters which lie 352 TURKEY. basin, environed by mountains, the city itself stretch- ing along the western shores of a_ lake, which, on its opposite side, washes the foot of one of these mountain boundaries. The length of this lake may be about six miles; its breadth nowhere exceeds two miles; and near the central part of the city, its channel is much narrowed by the projecting peninsula which forms the fortress of Ioannina, and by the small island which is opposed to it on the other shore : these two features add greatly to the beauty of the scenery from every point of view. The peninsula of the fortress, widening as it advances into the lake, is terminated by two distinct promontories of rock ; on one of which stands a large Turkish mosque, its lofty minaret and extensive piazzas shaded by the cypresses surrounding it ; on the other promontory, the old Seraglio of the Pashas of Ioannina, a large building, with all that irregular and indefinable magnificence which belongs to Turkish architecture ; the minaret and cypresses of a second mosque rising above its projecting roofs and painted walls. The area of the fortress, which forms a small town in itself, is insulated from the rest of the city, by a lofty stone wall and a broad moat which admits the waters of the lake. " The island opposite the city is picturesque in its outline, and embellished by a small palace of the Vi- zier's, which is seen upon its shore. A village on its northern side is almost hidden by the luxuriant fo- liage of the chestnut and plane trees growing amongst its habitations. The traveller will do well to ascend the highest point of the isle, whence there is a most imposing view of the city and the buildings on the cliffs of the fortress. " The banks of the lake present many other objects to engage the eye ; — the great Seraglio, which, from TURKEY. 353 some points of view, seems to rise from its shore; a painted Kiosck, projecting over the waters, below the rocks of the old Seraglio ; a convent of dervishes, shaded by trees, further to the north ; but above all, the mountain ridge of Metzoukel, which, with a height probably between 2,500 and 3,000 feet above the lake, forms, almost as far as the view extends, a continuous and unbroken boundary to the valley ; rising from the water's edge, opposite to Ioannina, with an abruptness and majesty of outline, the effect of which is highly magnificent. Its precipitous front is intersected by the ravines of mountain torrents; which, expanding as they approach the lake, are covered with wood, and form the shelter to many small villages. It is said that formerly there were more extensive forests on this mountain ascent ; but that they were destroyed, as being the resort of bands of robbers who infested the tranquillity of the city. Considering the general absence of wood from the landscape, the scenery of Ioannina is, perhaps, less perfect than had these forests been still preserved : still, it is such as may be considered to have few equals in variety and magnificence. " The extent of the city, as it stretches backwards and laterally from the fortress, is greater than the same population would occupy in the towns of other parts of Europe. Besides the vacant spaces of the mosques and Turkish burying-grounds, all the better houses, both of Turks and Greeks, have areas attached to them, in which there generally grow a few trees, giving to the general view of the place that singular intermixture of buildings and wood which has already been noticed. The central part of the city, occupied in great part by the streets forming the bazars, is the only one where much continuity is preserved ; and 354 TURKEY". here the houses are, in general, much lower and smaller than elsewhere. The breadth of the town, which nowhere exceeds a mile and a half, is denned by a range of low eminences, running parallel to the shore of the lake, and affording, from their summit, one of the most striking views of the city, the lake, and the distant heights of the Pindus chain. " The interior aspect of loannina, except where there is some opening to the landscape that surrounds it, is gloomy and without splendour. Few of the streets preserve an uniform line ; a circumstance which makes the topography of the place very difficult to the stranger. Those inhabited by the lowest classes con- sist, in great part, of wretched, mud-built cottages, and are chiefly in the outskirts of the city : the middle ranks dwell in a better description of buildings, the upper part of which is constructed of wood, with a small open gallery under the projecting roof: the higher classes, both of Greeks and Turks, have, in general, very large houses, often forming two or three sides of the areas attached to them, and with wide galleries which go along the whole front of the build- ing, taken as it were from the first floor, and sheltered under the roofs. In this style of building, which is common throughout the Turkish towns, there is some- thing picturesque in the distant effect, which is lost in the nearer approach. In the best streets of loannina, there is an air of heaviness : and the most respectable houses have the aspect of prisons ; presenting exter- nally, little more than lofty walls, with massive, double gates, and the windows, if seen at all, at the top of the building. M The bazars form the most interesting part of the city. They consist of ten or twelve streets, intersect- ing each other at irregular angles ; very uarrow ; and TURKEY. 355 still further darkened by the low, projecting roofs and large, wooden booths, in which the goods are exposed to sale. " The Seraglio of AH Pasha is an immense pile of building, lofty in itself, and situated on an eminence which gives it command over every part of the city. It may not unfitly be termed a palace upon and within a fortress. High and massive stone walls, on different parts of which cannon are mounted, support a super- structure of wood, of great extent, but apparently with- out any regularity of plan : the several portions of the edifice seem to have been successively added, as a ne- cessity was found for its enlargement. Yet, notwith- standing this irregularity, the magnitude and character of the building give it an air of magnificence, which is not always obtained by a more rigid adherence to architectural rules. The style of construction is entirely Turkish ; the roofs projecting far beyond the face of the buildings, the windows disposed in long rows underneath ; the walls richly decorated with painting, occasionally landscape, but more generally what is merely ornamental, and without uniform design. The access to the Seraglio is ex- ceedingly mean. It is surrounded by narrow and gloomy streets, without any circumstance to mark the approach to the palace of the Albanian ruler." Ioannina contained at this time, sixteen mosques, seven or eight Greek churches, and a motley popula- tion, . — Greeks, Turks, Albanians, Franks, Jews, Arabs, Moors, and Negroes, amounting to upwards of 30,000 persons, exclusive of the Albanian soldiers quartered there. The Greeks were at once the most numerous, the most respectable, and the oldest inha- bitants of the city, many of their families having been established there for centuries. But Ioannina, at least 356 TtJttKEY. the Ioannina of Ali Pasha, is no more, having been pillaged and burned by his own orders, in 1820, to prevent its affording a shelter and triumph to his enemies.* The Athens of Modern Greece, the capital of the transitory kingdom of the new Epirus, has passed away, and this portion of Ancient Greece has been thrown back again into Albanian barbarism. Happily, the islands of the Ionian Sea, which have been so singularly rescued from Turkish and Russian despotism, and protected from the exterminating fury of the revolutionary contest, offer an asylum to the nascent literature of Modern Greece, while they will prove, we trust, at all events, the nursery as well as bul- wark of Grecian civilization and freedom. The language of Shakspeare, and Milton, and Byron, — the only one lit for a Greek except his own, — will ere long diffuse itself over the Levant, and with it a renovating spirit, the influence of English laws, and the light of Scrip- tural Christianity. The Turkish empire is tottering to its fall, and a nobler race is rising, to justify here- after their claim to the long-dishonoured name of Creeks. • See Mod. Trav., Greece, vol. i. p. 100. THE END. Lokpon : Printed by W, Ciowks, Stamford Street. „-t.-v,;..^*.pS-JjH! ^m I J rf° ■SN3H.LV IV lOOHDS HSlliyg IHBGETTYCEtfg* MODERN TRWELLEfi TUtKKV