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LETTER XXXII.
Religion of the Greeks — Ceremonies and Customs of their Super*
stition — Festivals — Funerals — A Mahometan Funeral — Greek
Cemeteries — Priests — Monks of the Order of St. Basil —
Their Monasteries — The Seculars — Instances of the Super-
stition of the Greeks — Notion entertained of the English by
Greeks and Turks — The Patriarchate of Constantinople —
The Arts — Medicine — Physicians— -Exorcisms— The Plague
— Use of the Hot Bath.
IN my former Letter I have endeavoured to let you
into some particulars of the Greek character, and shall devote the
following sheets to the same consideration.
The traveller, especially he that has left behind him the en-
lightened freedom of the English capital, and the decent ceremo-
nies of the Protestant Church, when he beholds the religious
system of the Greeks, must be prompted to suppose himself car-
ried back into the darkest ages of ignorance and superstition.
There is something sacred in every observance attached to any
Christian worship, which ought to preserve it from contempt and
ridicule, yet the rights of this church have in them such an air of
absurdity, and are performed with what we should consider such
a want of solemnity, that it is not easy to refrain from smiling
3x2
620
LETTER XXXII.
during the celebration of the mass. .The chief part of the service
seems to consist of frequent crossing, performed with the thumb
laid on the two fore-fingers, and ten thousand repetitions of
44 Lord have mercy upon me," sung through the nose, and, ap-
parently kept up as long as the breath of the chanter will last.
It is some time before you can make out the words they are re-
peating, which, though you may have supposed them a continued
psalm, or lesson, are only " Lord have mercy upon me ; Lord
have mercy upon me; Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me, a
Sinner — Κυρ»£ Ιλίτισον, Κυρ»ί ίλίΥΐνον, Κυρ«£ I»)(rcu Χρ»στε tXivxrov με τον xy-aproXo:/.
There is, at the same time, a degree of primitive simplicity in
most of the churches, which recalls our recollections to the earliest
ages of Christianity. They are very small generally, the floor of
mud, the altar of stone, the sanctuary separated from the nave by-
deal boards, and an enclosure of pales at the other end, for the women.
It is but seldom that there are any seats, but in one corner of the
building there is an assortment of crutches, on one of which each
of the more aged worshippers supports himself, leaning on his arms
and chin, in the posture of one of the figures in the cartoon of
Paul preaching before Felix.
In the great towns, as you have heard, and in some of the monas-
teries, the churches are better fitted up, though in the most paltry
style, covered with gilt daubings, and ornamented with pictures ot
Saints, whose only value arises from their supposed miraculous
powers.
It would be difficult to meet amongst the laity with a single
person at all sceptical on the article of religion; they all seem
most attached to the ceremonies, and strictly to observe the ordi•»
nances of their church, which are very strict and severe. There
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LETTER XXXII.
521
are only one hundred and thirty-nine days in the year free from
all fasts. The Easter Lent lasts two months, the Christmas forty
days, and there are two others, the Lent of St. Peter and St. Paul,
and that of the Virgin ; besides which, Wednesdays and Fridays
are fasts throughout the year. The caloyers have three other
lents, which last in the whole forty-eight days more.
The clergy enjoy a most unbounded influence with their flock,
and it is painful to see the sacrifices which the meagre, half-starved
peasants make to their priests. Besides many gifts, there are
certain days when all the attendants, men and women, of the
poorest class, bring loaves, and plates of sweetmeats, called a
colyva, and wax tapers, and lay them, during the service, at the
foot of the altar, whence they are conveyed into the sanctuary,
and serve as the evening's feast for the priests. The colyva is a
quantity of boiled wheat, covered with currants, and garnished
with pomegranate-seeds, sugar, comfits, sesamum, and sweet basil.
The Greek girls carry presents of these colyvas, and other sweet-
meats, on twelfth-day, which they call πολυκιρία , to their friends;
and in some other respects, the amusements and religion of this
people seem as much connected as in ancient times. They dance
in honour of some of their Saints, and on the feast of the Epi-
phany, bands of fiddlers and other musicians patrole the streets
from morning to night.
This feast, by accident, whilst we were at Athens, fell on the
same day as the second Bairam of the Turks, the 17th of January,
and the Mahometans were firing cannon, and discharging sky-
rockets, from the Acropolis, with the sound of drums and pipes,
at the same time that the Christians were manifesting their glee
•to commemorate another event, in every street of the citv below.
5<2'2
LETTER XXXII.
This oppressed people would find life too long and burthensome,
were it not for their religious festivals, and accordingly they have
retained much of the joyful part of the ceremony attached
even to the funeral rites of their ancestors. On the death of any
person of dignity, the body is dressed in a rich garment, and
laid upon a litter, strewed with flowers, and covered with a rich
canopy, and the corpse, with the face displayed, is left a short time
in the vestibule of the house, surrounded by the family of the de-
ceased. At the stated time, the procession sets forward. The
servants of the household move two and two before the bier,
which is borne on poles at a little height from the ground. The
male relations and the priests immediately precede the body. On
each side of the bier, are two or three old women, lamenting
aloud, detailing the dignities and virtues of the deceased, and
interrogating him, as to his reasons for quitting the world —
M Why did you die? You had money, you had friends, you
had a fair wife, and many children, — why did you die ?" These
mourners are hired, and the common pay of each is five loaves,
four jars of wine, half a cheese, a quarter of mutton, and about
fifteen-pence in money. Their howling is extremely ludicrous,
and has not even the semblance of grief. Behind the body, is
a long train of the female relations and friends, muffled up in
mourning habits. Tf the dead be a young woman, several girls
in white precede and follow the bier, and at intervals scatter real
or artificial flowers on the body.
At Constantinople, or rather at Pera, the distance to the bury-
ing-ground is considerable, and gives time for large bodies of
followers to collect, and accompany the procession to the tomb,
Arrived at the place of interment, the bier is set down, a short
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LETTEIt XXXII.
523
service read, and the body deposited with its dress, and rolled in
a winding-sheet, in the grave, the mourners continuing to howl
most piteously during this last ceremony. The garlands that
adorned the bier are some of them thrown into the grave, and
others carried home by the mourners and friends.
Afterwards, and generally on the ninth day after the funeral, a
feast is prepared by the nearest relation, accompanied with music
and dancing, and every other species of merriment. But the
priests gain the most by these festive demonstrations of grief.
They are supplied always on the ninth day, and frequently also
during the mourning, with large colyvas, which present is re-«
peated also for three or four anniversaries of the burial.
You may have before seen it observed, that there is a remark-
able conformity between some customs of the Irish and of the
G reeks. The funerals of the two nations bear the strongest simi-
larity to each other, though the lower classes alone of the former
people preserve that part of the ceremony which, amongst the
latter nation, is peculiarly attached to the wealthy and important,
for according to a modern Greek saying, " a rich man is wept by
hired mourners, a poor man by his friends." But a more singu-
lar resemblance is that which is to be remarked between a Maho-
metan and 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,
and, 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. It is a belief enjoined by Ma-
homet himself, that to carry a body forty paces gives expiation
of sin.
£24 LETTER XXX II.
No one who has been in Ireland, but must have seen the pea-
sants 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*.
The cemeteries of the Greeks are not in their churches, nor in
the precincts of any city, but at a little distance from the town,
in a space, not enclosed by a wall, near the high-road. The
tomb-stones are some raised, some flat, and they are generally in
a thin grove of cypress or yew trees. On certain days they are
frequented by the relations of those who are lately dead, when,
after a few tears, and the depositing of a garland and a small
lock of hair on the grave, the parties assume their accustomed
liveliness, and spend the remainder ot the visit in dancing and
singing.
The Clergy are divided into two classes, the Caloyers, or Monks
of the order of St, Basil, from whom all the prelates are chosen,
and the Papades, or secular priests, who may marry, if they choose
a virgin, and engage before ordination. Caloyers never say mass;
if they take the priesthood, they become what is called " Holy
Monks," and only officiate on high festivals. Admission to the
brotherhood is gained by applying to one of these Holy Monks,
and paying sixty or seventy piasters, no probation or examination is
requisite, and very young children are allowed to put on the cowl.
* Λ person who reads Mons. Galand's " Paroles Remarquables des Orien-
taux," would be surprised perhaps (o find, that the famous bull recorded of an
Irishman, who, looking over a person writing a letter, and seeing that he put—
" I would be more particular, but a tall blackguard of an Irishman is behind
my chair, and reads every word I say," exclaimed, " You lie, you rascal,"
is an Oriental story. The same book mentions two or three other good things,
which are also to be found in our jest-books, applied to very modern characters,
£b# i^sp?* *$%m&$ W^p, Ww± Wm
LETTER XXXII.
525
There are many inducements to belong to this religious frater-
nity. The priests are all-powerful with their flock, and enjoy
some respect even from the Turks. It is better to be a wealthy
man at large than a Monk, but it is better to be a well-fed recluse
than a hungry vagrant.
The first solitaries, the voluntary tenants of the burning deserts
of Nitria, selected the most barren spots for their retreats ; but
the monks and hermits of the Greek church, in the present age,
have not objected to abridge themselves of some of their meritorious
mortifications, and, besides other advantages, have seated them-
selves in all the most beautiful spots to be found in Greece. The
only establishment they possess in Italy, is situated as judiciously
amongst the woods and gardens of Monte Dracone, near Frescati.
The place is called Grotta Ferrata, and stands on the site of the
Tusculan villa of Cicero.
The marble porch, where wisdom wont to talk
With Socrates or Tully, hears no more,
Save the hoarse jargon of contentious monks ....
In their own country, their monasteries are frequent objects in
the valleys, the forests, and on the slopes and summits of almost
every hill, and are contrived as well for comfort as security ; their
farms, tenanted by one of their order, or a lay-brother, are scat-
tered over the whole country.
Notwithstanding the fasts, when their prescribed diet is pulse,
roots, and plain water, and their rising to pray an hour and a half
after midnight, they seem almost the only sleek and well-fed peo-
ple amongst the Greeks, and convince one how lavishly
Dieu prodigue desbiens
A ceux qui font vceu d'etre siens,
3Y
626
LETTER ΧΧΧΙί
The purest wine, the clearest honey, olives, dried fruit, wheaten-
bread, can always be procured in their habitations, and in theirs
alone; nor is it easy to account for the plumpness of their appear-
ance, without supposing them occasionally to transgress the rules
of their order. There are to be met with some more abstemious
anchorets, who live three or four together, and now and then an
ascetic, who passes his time in a solitary cell.
The Monks are supported partly by the lands attached to their
monastery, and partly by the voluntary contributions of their be-
lieving flock. On particular days, they carry about with them
little pictures of their saints, and a jar of holy water, with a brush,
and entering the Christian houses, give their votaries the one to
kiss, and make a mark of the cross on their foreheads with the
other, receiving a para or two from each person.
The most sanctified of the Caloyers are those who have re-
ceived their education in the monasteries of Athos, the Holy
Mountain (A*'ος), which, by an institution of which there is
no parallel in history, swarms with six thousand saints. The theo-
logical studies of these recluses are not so severe as their bodily
labour; for not only do they cultivate the ground, and attend to
the vineyards and orchards, but even build fishing-vessels, and
exercise many mechanical trades, some of them undertaking to
spin and weave. The monasteries of Patmos are also in great
repute, and mendicant brothers from them, as well as from
Mount Athos, are to be met with throughout Greece, dispensing
their sacred favours, and, amongst other absurdities, even admi-
nistering by anticipation the extreme unction to the healthy inha-
bitants of a whole house.
The Papades are not held in such estimation as the Caloyers,
and though they are certainly more serviceable, have every appear-
Φξφϊ SktPJ
LETTER XXXII.
52ί
amce of being more wretched than the recluses. A Deacon enters
into priest's orders by a kind of public election, for, being pro-
duced to the congregation at church, the officiating Papas asks
the audience if he is worthy, on which, if the acclamation of all
declares him worthy, (and the cry is always agio?, «£»*?), he is con-
sidered as duly qualified to commence his holy functions.
There is a chapel for almost every priest, it being considered a
kind of spiritual adultery for any man to officiate out of his own
place of worship. It is this that has multiplied the number of
churches in Greece. In Athens alone there are forty churches,
besides a hundred and fifty chapels, and those in all Attica amount
to four thousand; but this includes every consecrated cavern with
a door to it and a stone altar.
Some writers have represented the monasteries as the abodes of
every vice, and, as it appeared to me, with great injustice. As
to the accomplishments of those in holy orders, they must be
considerably improved during the last century, if it be true, as
Tournefort says, " that," in his time, " 'twas great merit in the
clergy to read," and " that scarce twelve men in the empire
understood ancient Greek/' Belon had before said, that only
two or three, of all the thousands on Mount Athos, knew their
letters*. The only persons of liberal sentiments, with respect to
religion, with whom I met in Greece, was a Bishop, and two
Hadjis, or Priests who had been to Jerusalem. The more one
knows and sees, the less one believes and admires. This Bishop
had initiated himself so deeply into the mysteries of his faith,
that he began to despise them, and the Hadjis, who had seen the
* Sec Ray's Collection of curious Voyages and Travels, torn. xv. cap, ii.
p. 9.
3 Y2
528
LETTER XXXII.
holy city, declared that it was not worth going to see, nor worth
seeing, regretting the thousand piasters they had each spent upon
their pilgrimage.
The generality of the priesthood are certainly most ignorant,
stupid, and inactive, and, to increase their gains, encourage the
rest of the people in superstitions so absurd, that it is difficult to
think that they believe them themselves. It is too true, that
to them may be, in a great measure, attributed the debasement
of the Greeks, or at least the continuation of that people in
their present state of mental impotence. According to them,
the world is still full of wonders, and the Devil possesses an active
and apparent influence over the bodies and souls of men. Thus
there are many E\ipyou/*em, or, Possessed, and the exorcising of
these unfortunate persons is a frequent and profitable employment
for the priests.
The Athenians are, of all the Greeks, the most credulous, or
inclined to invent ridiculous stories on this subject. They all, as
was said before of the women, believe in the power of magic, and
work up their imaginations to such a pitch, as to fancy themselves
actually the sufferers by the incantations of some malevolent
enemy. If a girl has two suitors, it is by no means uncommon
for the unsuccessful lover, when his rival's marriage takes place,
to have recourse to charms as a last resource. He ties the locks
of his hair with a certain form of words *, and by every knot
defers the bridegroom's happiness for a night; the tremendous
operation is made known, and the unhappy husband, through
credulity and shame, becomes not unfrequently the accomplice in
* " I tie A and B, and the Devil in the middle."
K7>f.'tt&zi
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LETTER XXXII
529
effecting his own misfortune. An Archon at Athens, whom we
well knew, suffered this calamity for the first month of his mar-
riage, and was only released from the bonds of the spell by the
repeated prayers, images, and holy water of his chaplain.
Several of the houses at Athens are believed to be haunted by
a spirit which is called an Arabia: the moans of one of them
were frequently heard from the bottom of a well belonging to the
house under the Acropolis in which Mr. Lusieri was lodged, and
it was not always easy to persuade the servants of the family to
draw water from the enchanted spring
Whether the Turks have been infected by the Greeks with
their superstitions, or brought their fables with them into Eu-
rope, they have belief in these fairies also, and denominate them
"Gins." We saw at Libokavo, a large house belonging to a
Turk, entirely deserted, the court and garden overrun with weeds,
and were told that no one would live there, as it was haunted
by the Gins. The operations of these beings are much the same
as those of our ghosts; they create strange noises, and disarrange
all the household furniture, but are seldom seen.
Panagia, or the all-holy Virgin, is the favourite of the Greeks;
the Minerva of the modern Athenians. There is scarcely a cot-
tage in which her picture, with a lamp burning before it, is not
seen in a niche of the wall, or in a wooden case. The making and
ornamenting of these images is a gainful trade; and sometimes
you meet with one of them very neatly executed. A lavish Eng-
lishman offered fifty zequins for a Saint, I think Demetrius, to a
painter at Athens, and was refused.
A peasant who lived at Athens told me a strange story. I was
riding in the island of Salamis, and observed a strong young man
530
LETTER ΚΚΚΙΪ.
running by the side of my attendant's horse, with a little box tft
his hand in which he had apparently collected charity. Enquiring
the nature of his petition, he told me with tears in his eyes, and
with the most solemn asseverations of the truth of his story, that,
for some offence of which he was not aware, the Virgin, with the
infant in her arms, and otherwise so accoutred as not to be mis-
taken by him, appeared before him every night, and jumping on his
bed, nearly throttled him. He had been to the priest, who could
do nothing for him, but observing that the picture of his Panagia
appeared rather shabby and worn, suggested that the terrible
visitation might not be renewed if the image was adorned with
fresh gilding. " I have no money myself," continued the Athe-
nian, " but am going to Ampelaki and Colouri, to beg a few
piasters, to pay the painter for his gold/' I gave him a trifle,
and my attendant, a good-humoured fellow, and a saint-maker by
trade at Athens, told the man that he would gild his picture for
him at a cheaper rate than he had ever done for any body before.
In the reicn of Theodosius the Second^ Gamaliel appeared to
Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and told him that himself and
St. Stephen wished to be released from the obscure grave in which
they had been buried in a neighbouring field*.
Since that time, revelations of this sort have been frequent ;
and St. Nicholas delivered a similar message to a woman whilst
we were at Athens. The holy apparition told the lady, that he
was roaming about in a church, which had fallen, and was buried
under ground, from which he desired to be delivered, and pointed
out the spot where they were to dig, and effect his release, Ac-
• Decline and Fall, vol. Hi,
&y*ggg*£ ^m ^m ^^ H|
LETTER XXXII.
531
cordingly, the next day, the lady, who was at once regarded as a
saint, for having been thought worthy of such a communication,
accompanied by a large party, consisting of the most respectable
Archons and Priests, walked in procession to the place described,
and pitched upon a part of the road west of that going to the
Pir&us, and leading to the gardens, about half a mile from the
town. After digging a short time in two places, they came to
some bits of painted tile, which may be found almost any where
near Athens, and especially in this quarter, the old site of the
Ceramicus without the city. Immediately there was a cry of the
Church! the Church! (Eklesia! Eklesia!) — all the crowd began
crossing themselves — candles were burnt before the holes — and an
opulent Greek, possessed of the land immediately close to the
road-side, made a {present of it to the Saint, to be dug away, in
order to give him a freer egress, and lay open the whole church.
There was a commotion at Athens on account of this discovery,
and the road would have been entirely cut up in the course of
this religious search, 'had not the Turks prudently interfered, and
prevented all farther excavations. As it was, however, the spot
was for many days watched by crowds of pious worshippers, and,
whilst I was present, a sort of controversy took place as to the
respective merits of the two apertuies, one of which was at last de-
serted, and all the tapers were burnt out before the other opening
in the ground. An old woman most earnestly appealed to me to
tell her which was the real church; when, as gravely as was in my
power, I told her that they were under a sad mistake, and that
the cavity which they had deserted was, in fact, the true church
ot St. Nicholas. The intelligence was immediately spread amongst
the crowd, that the Frank had decided in favour of the other
53S
LETTER XXXII,
spot ; and immediately the tapers were carried off to the deserted
place, and all the crossing, bowing, and praying, were directed
to the hole in the ground which had been before neglected. The
Greeks had listened to my decision ; for Franks are thought by
them to possess a preternatural, but by no means an enviable,
degree of knowledge, communicated to them by the Evil Prin-
ciple, their master and guide. The children in the streets, when
one of them is passing, call out, " Franco di Dio! Franco di Dio !"
by which, though I know not how the sentence is supplied, they
mean " Godless Frank! Godless Frank!"
The abhorrence of the Franks, which the division of the
churches, and the conduct of the Latins, created in the bosoms
of the Greeks, is still in some measure preserved by the spirit of
bigotry; and the mass of the people do not fancy that there are
in the world any true Christians except themselves and the
Russians. As for the English, they contend they are not Chris-
tians at all. If asked of what religion we are, they say, " We
do not know ; perhaps of none ; some call you Lutherans : it is
certain you are not Christians ; you do not cross yourselves/'
(3\» χύμνίτί το ο-ταυρο). Λ respectable person addressed this argu-
ment to myself. The Turks have pretty much the same opinion
of us ; and, seeing that we show none of the external signs of
reverence for Panagia, or other pictures, conclude us to be alto-
gether such infidels as themselves.
A party of us were standing at the back part of a Roman Ca-
tholic chapel at Pera, whilst the service was going on at the other
end. Just as the host was elevated, a Turk looked in at the
door, and seeing the congregation paying their reverence to the
wafer, threw up his head with a look of infinite pity and con-
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LETTER XXXII.
533
tempt, at the same time smiling, and giving a shrug at us, who
were standing, as if he said, " What must you and I think of
these poor fools?"
The English have no place for public worship at Pera, and
may, therefore, be thought never to pray at all ; service, how-
ever, has been once or twice performed in the Ambassador's
palace. But the ministers of Catholic nations sometimes go in
procession to mass.
Notwithstanding the disdain entertained by the Turks for the
Christian religion, they grant their protection to the Greek
clergy, and find it their interest to ratify the ordination of the
great dignitaries of the church. Mahomet the Great presented
to the first Patriarch chosen in his reign, the same gifts as the
Emperors of the Greeks had formerly given ; and, to this day,
that sovereign Priest is invested in a triumphant manner by a
minister of the Porte, who assists him in taking possession of
the patriarchal church in that quarter of Constantinople called
Balat. His influence with the Porte is very great, and his appli-
cations to the Sultan are generally effectual : he can punish with
death.
The dignity is now exposed to sale, costing about sixty thou-
sand crowns, and the Patriarch indemnifies himself by selling
every lucrative place, the patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch,
and Alexandria, and all the archbishoprics within his jurisdic-
tion. The Greeks themselves were the beginners of this prac-
tice, and the first Patriarch so elected ejected the incumbent by
force; a custom of which there are now frequent examples*.
Although the whole of the Patriarch's usual revenue does not
amount to more than three thousand pounds, yet he has occa<*
3 ζ
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534
LETTER ΧΧΧΓί.
sionally, by fines and extortions, the means of increasing his in-
come. The richest Bishops have not more than three hundred
pounds a year. — I find, by the registry of a parish in Yorkshire,
that subscriptions were made in the beginning of Charles the
First's reign, for the relief of the Greek church.
The synod of Constantinople, composed of the three Patriarchs
and twelve Archbishops, meets every month for the management
of church affairs, the only affairs now left at the absolute disposal
of the Greeks.
The state of the arts in Greece is, as might be expected, most
deplorable. It would be difficult to find an architect, a sculptor,
or painter, equal to the common workmen in the towns of Chris-
tendom. In building the inland towns, they make use of a saw
of a simple kind, a hatchet, and a hammer: the gauge and chisel
are used on the sea-coasts, and in larger cities. The cells of their
churches are constructed by a sort of quadrant -f-, which they apply
* An Archbishop or Bishop is styled " Your all-Priesthood, your Beatitude
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LETTER XXXII.
539
stories, both ancient and modern, which do not reflect any credit
upon the institution. Busbek has the advantage of a learned
language, to tell a most singular tale in his second epistle. The
manners of the barbarous people of the West and North, seem less
exceptionable in most points than those of the Orientals; amongst
which the Greeks, and in some measure even the Romans, may
be classed, and the modern Franks may reckon themselves to be
better, if not wiser men, than the boasted nations of antiquity.
An exact plan of a bath at Athens, which is here annexed, may
assist you in fully understanding the descriptions of this contri-
vance contained in so many books on the Levant.
JLETTER XXXIII.
The Literature of the Modem Greeks — Their Share in the Re-
vival of Literature in the West — The Romaic Pronunciation
— The Romaic, or modern Greek — its Date and Origin in-
quired into — Latter Greek Writers — Present State of Learn-
ing in Greece, fyc. §c.
THE Greeks may be justly styled a very ingenious
people, and though extremely ignorant, have all that quickness
of parts which, with a better education, and an amelioration of
their unfortunate condition, would enable them to distinguish
themselves for their attainments in the sciences and the arts.
The last precious present for which Europe is indebted to their
once-famous country, was the care of the silk- worm, and the weav-
ing of the materials produced by that valuable insect. This was
in the twelfth century. Since that period, I know of no useful
invention which they have transmitted to the nations of the West.
The convulsions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, attend-
ing the decay and fall of the Greek Empire, put us in possession
of those treasures of antiquity, which have taught us how to
think, to write, and to act ; but for this advancement in every
branch of knowledge, we owe more to the activity of the Italian
revivers of learning than to the exiled scholars of Greece.
m*mmam
mm mw n?y Ψ^ν
LETTEll XXXIII.
541
Notwithstanding the gratitude expressed by their pupils to
Chrysoloras, Argyropolus, Chalcondyles, and Lascaris, and the
veneration with which they were regarded by those who looked
upon them as their guides through a lately-discovered and de-
lightful region ; yet these Greeks are, perhaps, to be considered
in the light of grammarians, well versed in their native tongue,
not as the heirs of the genius of their ancestors. Their poets,
orators, and philosophers, had long slumbered in the monasteries
of Mount Athos, or the recesses of the Byzantine libraries ; and
the first by whom they were wakened and brought to light," or
who imbibed their divine spirit, and revived a true taste for an-
cient literature, were the scholars of the Florentine academies,
supported by the patronage of the princes and rulers of the Ita-
lian states*. Indeed, the recovery of the works of the most
valuable authors, is not to be attributed to the Greeks them-
selves, but to the munificent exertions of the Medicean family,
and the labours of those who were employed under their direc-
tions, or remunerated by their bounty. The industry of Aurispa
and FilefTo appears incomparably more active and useful than that
of any native Greek; and the talents and erudition of such men
as Ficino, Landino, Bracciolini, Politian, and Sannazaro, eclipse
the fame of those who are called the instructors of the Italians.
* Petrarch bad read Homer, and Boccace had studied more deeply under
Leontius; but it is in vain that Father Gradcnigo, in his Letter to Cardinal
Querini, printed at Venice in 1742, endeavours to prove, that Greek had been
generally cultivated in Italy in the twelfth century. Graeeum est non potest
legi! was the exclamation of Accursus, the civilian of Florence, and his scho-
lars of the thirteenth century, when they stumbled on a Greek word in the
Latin text. See Tenhove's House of Medicis, cap. 11.
4 A
542
LETTER XXXIII.
The great obligations of the moderns to the Byzantine scho-
lars who settled in Italy were questioned, and it appears with
justice, by the judgment and increasing refinement of the suc-
ceeding age. We are apt to talk of the revival of literature in
the West, as if there had been an uninterrupted succession of
good writers and able critics in the East, and with the presump-
tion that the learning of the Greeks was, by the irruption of the
Barbarians, first driven into exile, and then naturalized amongst
the nations established on the ruins of the Western Empire.
14 Alas Γ said one of the Grecian professors of the Academy at
Florence, " I see that Greece has fled beyond the Alps* ;" but
Argyropolus, if he had extended his meaning beyond the mere
knowledge of his language, might with greater propriety have
owned, that the genius of his native country, after the torpor of
a thousand years, was revived amongst, rather than transmitted
to, the scholars of Italy. The commentators and scholiasts of the
latter periods of the empire, form no exception in favour of their
countrymen.
That the Constantinopolitan Greeks of the fourteenth and fif-
teenth centuries were judges of the style, and understood the
construction, of the great ancient writers of their own country,
can scarcely be doubted ; but that they had themselves benefit-
ted by the contemplation of those perfect models, and could lay
claim to the merit of originality, or even of happy imitation, does
not at all appear. They were in possession of the key of a trea-
* Spoken to J. Reuchlen, a learned German, who died in 1521, from whom
the pronunciation that obtains amongst the modern Greeks was called the Rench-
linian. — See Addenda Mic. Lang, ad Eras. Schmidt dc Pronun. Grsec. apud
Syllog. Havercampi.
^h ^^h ^^^^^H ΤΨ^^^ ®$Ψ?Φ$ vrmW™?^^ ?^^^i^spm^>ri\
LETTER XXXI I L
543
sury, whose stores they were unable to use. Their literature was
in the same degraded state as their arts, which, notwithstanding
the advantage of consulting the noblest specimens of ancient skill,
were impressed with the deepest traces of barbarity. The paint-
ing of the funeral of St. Ephraim, in that part of the Vatican
library called the Sacred Museum, is the wretched masterpiece of
these bastard descendants of Zeuxis*.
But, in fact, the latter Greek grammarians have not only been
refused all praise, but have been severely condemned by some
writers, who have not hesitated to accuse them, either of igno-
rance or dishonesty ; ignorance, in accounting the depraved pro-
nunciation of their language to be correct, or dishonesty, in wil-
fully obscuring the study of the Greek tongue, to the end that they
might obtain greater authority by seeming the sole masters of
some most difficult attainment -f-. Our great countryman, Cheke,
with the boldness of a Briton, and the confidence of a scholar,
in his tract on the pronunciation of the Greek tongue, dis-
dains to submit to the authority even of Chrysoloras himself;
" who/' says he, " as he either acquiesced in the depravity of the
pronunciation of his countrymen, or was influenced by interested
motives, or studiously endeavoured to obscure the language,
* Such is the strong expression of Tenhovc, whose words (quoted also in
Mr. Roscoe's Loren. de Med. cap. 9) are, " Venisse et quelques villes de la
Romagne ou de l'ancien exarchat de Ravenne montrent encore des traces de
ces barbouillages Grecs. Le charactere d'un assez profonde barbaric s'y fait
scntir. La peinture qui represente les obsequies de St Ephraim, qu'on voit
danslemuseo sacro, partie de la bibliotheque du Vatican, passe pour let riste
chef-d'oeuvre de ces ills batards de Zeuxis. — Mem. Gen. lib. yii.
t De Ling. Graec. vet. pronunt. Adolp. Mckcrch. Libell. ap Syllog•. H a .
vercamp, p. Ϊ9.
4A 2
IHI
.544
LETTER XX XI Ι Γ.
sliould not have so much weight with us, as to induce us to fall
into the same ignorance, avarice, and envy*/'
( It may appear almost superfluous to say much of the pronun-
ciation of the modern Greeks, when we consider, that it was once
that of all the civilized nations of Europe, and that the present pre-
valent mode of reciting this noble language, was formerly thought
an innovation, strange, unfounded, and even sacrilegious.
From the first efforts made in the fourteenth century, to revive
the study of Greek literature in the West, to the time of Eras-
mus, the scholars of Italy and France, Germany and England,
intent upon the construction and explanation of the Greek authors,
neglected to inquire into the pronunciation of the language, and,
without examination, adopted that which was in use, and taught
by their Byzantine masters. But the more diligent inquirers of
the age of that great man, perceiving that a language so noble
and copious in composition, was in discourse so languid and effemi-
nate, and so destitute of all variety and grandeur of sound, sus-
pected that they had in this matter been hitherto deceived ; and
in this notion they were confirmed by the precepts on this ex-
press subject, scattered up and down the works of the ancient rhe-
toricians and grammarians, and also bv the manv hints of other
authors, which were irreconcileable with the adulterate pronuncia-
tion of the moderns.
The first who attempted to restore this ancient vigour and va-
riety of sound, was Erasmus himself, who, however, is said to
• Nam ante Chrysoloram qui sive depravatione patrii scrmonis con-
tentus, sive quaestu commotus, seu obscurandae (linguae studio impulsus fuit,
non movere nos debet, ut in eadem ignorantia, cupiditatc, invidia verscmur. —
Job. Chec. de pronunt. Grsec. ap. Syllog. alteram Havcrcampi, p. 23b.
^^H ^^B ^H r^p? ??ρΡ£ί ?φ*^Φ8&&£ψε& *¥.
4. Meletius Piga, an Alexandrian
priest, theologist and philosopher.
5. Maximus, a Peloponesian, wrote
against the Pope. A priest.
6. Maximus Margunius, theologist,
and author of Anacreontic hymns. —
" Acquainted with foreign litera-
ture*."
7. George CoresciiiSj a Ghian, the-
ologist — ανιν ταζίως, κ«) όρθίί όιακ(1σιως.
8. Cyrillus Lucaris, Cretan, Patri-
arch of Constantinople, a well known
writcr,and great controversialist, whose
Life was written by Thomas Smith,
and printed by Bowyer, in London,
1707. He died, being, as before men-
tioned, strangled in 1638. It was he
who sent the Alexandrine Testament,
now in Westminster Library, to Charles
the First.
9. Gerasiraus, a Cretan, Patriarch
of Alexandria, a theologist, philoso-
pher, and profoundly skilled in the
sacred writings, well acquainted with
Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He re-
tired to Mount Athos, and there died.
He wrote against the Jews.
10. Dionysius, a Constantinopoli-
tan, Patriarch of Constantinople; skill-
ed in Greek, and the sacred writings.
11. Callinicus, an Acarnanian, Pa-
triarch of Constantinople, versed in
Greek, and Ικανός νοίΐν τάς te των λογογφάφων,
χα! τά{ των φιλοσόφων βίβλας, bllt spending
all his time in reading the Scriptures.
A good preacher.
12. Gabriel of Smyrna, Patriarch of
Constantinople, " a warm admirer of
the Liturgy,'* and versed in Greek.
13. Athanasius, a Cretan, Patriarch
of Constantinople ; he knew the Greek
and Arabic languages, but chiefly
studied the Scriptures.
14. Alexander Maurocordatus, of
Scio. lie studied physic at Padua,
and wrote a book on respiration and
the circulation of the blood, frequently
printed in Italy, Holland, and Ger-
many; and also a Sacred History, in
Hellenic, printed at Bucharest, in
mdccxvi. His other books were
* The inverted commas mark the passages translated verbatim from Procopius. The catalogue doe»
not observe chronological order; and such dates as are here given, I have collected, not from Precopius,
but pther authorities,
pezm - ίΐ(%:^(5^(Λ ^ΨΗβ^^^.^
LETTER XXXIII.
561
Pu>pux£w Iropia, τά/χο* τρε?; τω όνη τολι/ΤΕλεσ•-
τατον κε»/χ»)λιον.
Φίλοσο^χ* vTOfjunijAOiTa.
Ρητορικά.
Έτπττβλοα.
IXoXmKM ΰπονϊκο».
Ο ττρο; Τίρμ,Λνχς ύτπρ ύ(γ,νν\ς λόγο;.
He is called illustrious amongst the
nobles of Constantinople, by the splen-
dour of his birth, and the most pre-
cious ornaments of wit and learning —
chief Dragoman and Privy Counsellor
at the Poi'tC, άν» ν ρ σοφωτοί-τοζ ττολιτίκωτατο,-.
He founded a school at Constantinople.
His true character is given in Tourne-
forte, torn ii. p. 12. He died in
mdccix, full of wealth and honour,
having been Minister from 1653 to
1699.
15. Theophilus Corydalleus, an
Athenian schoolmaster at Constanti-
nople, skilled in G*eek, Latin, and
Italian. He translated Aristotle from
the Latin, with the Commentary of
Ciesar of Cremona, and rhetorical and
epistolary formularies, printed at Ley-
den. He lived about 1630. The last
book was printed in London, 1625,
and again at Venice, so late as 1786.
16. Gregory, a Chian, a Constanti-
nopolitan priest, wrote on the seven
sacraments.
17. Meletius Syrigus, a Cretan,
(born 1585, died 1662); he wrote
ecclesiastical commentaries in Helle-
nic, and translated the Four Apologies
of John Catacuzenus into Romaic.
He was a Sacred Monk.
18. Nectarius, a Cretan, Patriarch
of Jerusalem. He wrote against the
Pope; and a curious book, the His-
tory of the Egyptians and Saracens,
from the records in the Monastery of
Sinai.
19. Dositheus, a Peloponesian, Pa-
triarch of Jerusalem, edited some
works on the Greek Church, <£ but
scarcely understood a word of Helle-
nic, and was altogether ignorant of
Latin."
20. Athanasins Patelarius, Cretan,
Patriarch of Constantinople ; he knew
Greek and Latin, but left nothing
printed.
21. Gcrmanus, an yEtolian, Arch-
bishop of Nyssa; " versed in foreign
literature, an Aristotelian philosopher,
a hearer of Theophilus Corydalleus."
He travelled into England.
22. Meletius Macres, a sacred Monk,
versed in the Scriptures.
23. Gerasimus Vlachus, a Cretan,
Bishop of Philadelphia, acquaint-
ed with Greek, Latin, and Italian.
He wrote a book, printed at Venice ;
called, The Harmony of Things.
24. Nicolas Cerameus, of Ioannina;
he knew Greek, Italian, and Latin,
and was a physician.
25. John Cottuueus, from Berhcea,
or Cara Veria, in Macedonia ; a phy-
sician; wrote commentaries on Aris->
562
LETTER XXXIII.
totle, in Latin, and many Greek books,
printed at Padua, where he established
a Greek school.
26. Dionysius, Metropolitan of Nau-
plia, a disciple of Theophilus Cory-
dalleus; versed in foreign literature and
theology.
27. John Cargophylles, a Constan-
tinopolitan; a Logothete; a learned
theologian, but fell into disgrace for
favouring the Calvinists.
28. Theodoret, Bishop of Mistra, in
the Morea; acquainted with foreign
learning, and a good preacher.
29. Hilario Tzigalas, of Cyprus,
Archbishop of Cyprus, a philosopher
and poet. He wrote a grammatical
essay in Greek.
SO. Cyrill, Patriarch of Antioch;
he knew Greek and Arabic.
31. Bessarion, a Monk of Ioannina;
he wrote " A more full Confession of
Faith," and a Grammar of the Greek
language, (which is in my possession);
the first was printed at Venice, the last
at Bucharest.
32. Panayot, of Constantinople,
chief Dragoman of the Porte ; before
mentioned*/ a most learned man. He
wrote to At lianas ins Kircher concern-
ing the obelisk at Constantinople.
33. Sebastus Cymenites, of Trebe-
zond, a schoolmaster, first at Constan-
tinople, then at Bucharest.
34. Paisius Ligarides, a Chian,
schoolmaster at Yassy ; «« skilled in
every kind of learning and science; in
his knowledge of sacred literature,
second to none. His various writings
never printed, are preserved/'
35. Palases, a Constantinopolitan,
(pyo« σχινοφνλαΙ), Great Keeper of the
Vases in the High Church of Con-
stantinople. A man, says Procerus,
who left no writings behind him, but
whose very silence is better, and more
precious, than many writings.
36. Stephaces, an Athenian sacred
Monk, skilled in foreign philosophy.
37. Eugenius, anAcarnanian sacred
Monk, a philosopher, theologist, and
lover of the poor. '
38. Gerasimus, an Acarnanian sa-
cred Monk, a scholar and theologist ;
a doctor of the Constantinopolitan
school.
39. Chrysanthus, a sacred Monk of
Ioannina, educated in the school of that
city; versed in foreign philosophy,
and a schoolmaster, first in Moschopo-
lis, and afterwards in Ithaca.
40. Antony Corai", a Chian, a phy-
sician and philosopher, who learnt
Latin and Greek in Rome, journeyed
through England, France, and Italy,
and wrote and printed Pindaric Odes
in Greek; " which are excellent imi-
tations of Pindar."
41. Clement of Chio, Metropolitan
of Ioannina — Ι^ημωνττ,ς Έλληνα yXwrrns.
* Le ttfr xxx.
Ya^tkm mw m& $&$m t&m ^^H ^^«z^mv?
LETTER XXXIII.
563
42. Meletius, the Geographer,—
άν« Ν ρ σοφοί, -sroX^aS^ij ρ'ι'ταφ, άηχνιντύς τη /3α-
θ«ί Τίϊν θείαίν γραφΛ, κ»* tw» θύραθεν φιλοσόφων,
ί'.ξοκηρνξ πψβόγπος, χοά τνν τνς Ιχτριχχς θεωρ^α-
ταν Ικανός ψπ»ρος. Tli is extraordinary
man, in his account of Natolico in
iEtolia, says, that a spring of pure
blood gushed up a cubit from the
earth near that town. From the praises
given to Meletius, some judgment
may be formed of the real merits of the
other writers. Besides his Geography,
he wrote a book of Ecclesiastical His-
tory, in the same middle Greek, be-
tween Romaic and Hellenic, as his
Geography.
43. Constantine Catacuzenus, a pur-
veyor at Bucharest, lived in the begin-
ning of the last century, wrote theolo-
gical and philosophical commentaries.
A scholar well read in the Fathers.
He travelled over Europe.
44. Constantine Julian, of Constan-
tinople, and of noble extraction; versed
in Hellenic.
45. John Porphyrites, a Constanti-
nopolitan; versed in Hellenic and the
Fathers.
46. Hierotheus Comraenus, a Con-
stantinopolitan, Metropolitan of Drys-
tra; versed in Greek, Latin, Italian,
Hebrew, and Arabic; educated first at
Constantinople, then in Italy. "Wrote
in Romaic, the History of Mount
Athos, which was printed. He died
at Bucharest, mdccxix.
47. Gcnnadius, Metropolitan of
Heraclea; versed in Greek.
48. Andronicus of Constantinople,
and of noble extraction, (j«*yws χαρτοφι/-
λα|), great librarian of the Church of
Constantinople. Versed in Greek.
49. Marc of Cyprus, a schoolmas-
ter at Bucharest ; versed in Greek, and
in foreign and domestic literature.
50. Antony, schoolmaster at Con-
stantinople; versed in Greek, foreign
philosophy, and theology, (•ηί»χ«θ' »V?*£? fkf^\
LETTER XXXIII.
567
93. Anasiatius Gordius of Acarna-
nia, a Monk, skilled in the Greek and
Latin languages, and who heard the
learned in Italy.
94. Anastatius of Nausa, in Mace-
donia; " a wise man and learned philo-
sopher, a theologist, and famous ora-
tor; knowing the Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew languages. He travelled over
almost all Europe. "
95. John of Thessalonica, and school-
master of that city, " skilled in Greek,
and not ignorant of Latin." Tiiv^tv^oi
την τε θύραθεν φιλοσοφίαν, wx\ τ*ίν ίεράν θεολογ/χ^
the common eulogy.
96. George of Trebezond, echool-
raaster at Bucharest, versed in Greek,
and the Aristotelian philosophy.
97. Agapius of Ithaca, a sacred
Monk, (Ιψ μονάχος) ; versed in Greek, the
Scriptures, and Fathers.
98. Philotheus, " a Monk of Parga,
a friend of the said Agapius, and like
him in every thing."
99. Gregory of Salonika, " a Monk.
A famous man, skilled in Greek, in-
structed in foreign philosophy and our
sacred theology : a sacred preacher."
Written by Demetrius Procopius the
Moschopolite, July moccxxi.
It may be supposed, that the learned Greeks of the middle
and close of the last century, were much of the same sort as
those mentioned by Procopius ; that the greater number of them
were theological writers, mostly educated in Italy; and that they
were thought prodigies by their countrymen, on account of being
able to read the Hellenic. The names of some are detailed in
modern publications ; and although never heard of in England,
have been for some time pretty well known in Italy and Ger-
many, and latterly at Paris. Such are Marinus of Cephalonia,
professor of chemistry at Padua, and Marcus his brother, a
good mechanist, who removed the rock on which the statue of
Peter is placed, to Petersburgh, and printed an essay at Paris in
1777.
The more intimate connection which has taken place of late
4d 2
5
68
LETTER XXXIII
years between the nations of Christendom and the Levant, has
certainty improved very considerably the general literature of the
Greeks. The number of those who seek for instruction in the
universities of the Continent, increases daily: Leghorn, Venice,
Vienna, and more especially at this time, Paris, abound with
young men from Constantinople, Smyrna, and Albania, but chiefly
from the Ionian Isles. Medicine is the study to which they
usually apply, in order to qualify themselves for gaining a respec-
table subsistence in their own country ; but there are not wanting
instances of those who, having made a greater proficiency, and
demonstrated more genius than ordinary, have settled in the
countries which gave them their education. In fact, the greater
advances which a modern Greek may make in knowledge, the
more insupportable must he find a residence in the Levant. If
he has devoted himself to the study of history, how can he con-
template the miserable condition of his country, and continually
behold oppression in all its modes — the injuries of the master,
and (what is more intolerable) the meanness of the slave ? If he
has imbibed any portion of the philosophical spirit, now so gene-
rally diffused throughout Christendom, how will he be able to con-
sort with the priests of his church, the most literate but unen-
lightened of his countrymen ? Must he not feel his genius pine
within him, and decay like the exotic transplanted to a soil unfit
for its encouragement and growth ? A very reasonable despair of
benefitting their country by their presence, has, indeed, natura-
lized the most illustrious of the modern Greeks at a distance from
their homes ; but they have been by no means forgetful of their
native soil, and have directed their labours to the improvement of
their countrymen.
&&*?' %■*#? W^tpy
LETTER XXXIII.
569
A variety of Hellenic grammars, in Romaic, with Italian
and French translations; and dictionaries, some in four, some
in three languages, are in use in all the principal towns, although
they are not very common. I was shown at Athens a lexicon, in
ancient and modern Greek, Latin, and Italian ; and my fellow-
traveller has in his possession one in Romaic, French, and Italian,
in three volumes, printed at Vienna in 1798, by George Ventote,
of Ioannina, to which is prefixed, a well-contrived grammar of
the two latter languages.
It is no disgrace for the Greeks, returned to a second child-
hood, to receive the instructions suited to infancy. It was the
peculiar advantage of their ancestors, and one which contributed
as much as any thing to form those mighty masters, that the
study of mere words made comparatively but a very small por-
tion of their education, that they had not to acquire the know-
ledge of any language but their own, but directed at once the
whole force of their rising genius to those useful studies which
are now not to be commenced without many previous years of
philological initiation. At present, almost the whole ingenuity
of the modern Greeks is exercised in the acquisition of many lan-
guages, and in this, it must be confessed, they display a won-
derful proficiency. A quick and delicate ear, a flexibility
of speech, a tenacious memory, enable their youths of a tender
age to speak five or six, and sometimes a greater number of lan-
guages, especially at Constantinople, where many even of those
of the lowest orders can make themselves understood in French,
Italian, Russian, Turkish, Sclavonian, and even Latin, some of
them being capable of also comprehending the Hellenic. But
unfortunately they have had but little opportunity of showing their
natural ability in any of the more useful attainments of literature ;
mm
570
LETTER XXXIII.
and their want of a press open to liberal writers, has thrown an
insuperable bar in the way of their improvement.
So early as the middle of the seventeenth century, one Nicho-
las Mataxo, a Cephalonian Monk, came from London, with a
press and Greek types, to Constantinople; but his endeavour was
stopped at once by the Turkish Government. One was indeed
established at Bucharest, but only theological works, and vul-
gar romances and song books, proceeded from an office liable to
be denounced, both by the civil and ecclesiastical authority. A
Greek press has been long established at Venice, but subject to
the supervision and censures of a licenser; and transmitting there-
fore no ray of light calculated to pierce and dispel the thick gloom
of ignorance. Grammars and dictionaries, with translations of
such books as are not judged dangerous, either by the Italian or
Greek clergy, were, it is true, a valuable, though a very inade-
quate addition to the homilies and catechisms which formed the
scanty library of the Greeks; but no original work of any im-
portance has ever been dispersed in Greece.
Pogozi, an Armenian, had a press at Constantinople, in 1798»
which has not of late been worked ; so that books of all kinds
must come from abroad — from Paris, from Venice, or Vienna;
and even at the last place, there is no certain security for those
who undertake the task. Riga, a well-known name, who, after
the failure of the last insurrection of the Greeks, endeavoured to
reorganize the confederacy, and again to rouse his countrymen,
having retired to the capital of Austria, prepared for the press a
translation, (not composed by himself), of Anacharsis; but just as
it was about to be printed, the unfortunate patriot was delivered by
the Emperor Joseph to the Turks. He failed in an attempt to
destroy himself, and was thrown into the Danube.
-v.^;^ ^^H
LETTER XXXIII.
571
Some years afterwards, a Romaic journal was established at
the same city, conducted by one Pouli, who, besides the sheets
of this paper, issued a violent pamphlet against the Emperor
Paul, called, " Considerations of a Greek Patriot, printed in Vi-
enna, in Austria, at the new press of the Greek Journal *." The
Sultan made a requisition for the conductor, and eight other
Greeks, living at Vienna, and Pouli was arrested by the Emperor,
although not delivered to the Turks, which was the fate of the
other eight persons, who were instantly beheaded. The Greek
types were destroyed, but have, I believe, been since replaced.
What then is the actual state of knowledge amongst the
Greeks? Mr. Corai, of Scio, has rendered himself well known, by
his French translation of Theophrastus's Characters, and of Hip-
pocrates, π*ξΐ ύπατων κλι αίξων, και τόπων, by an edition of the jEthlO-
pics of Heliodorus, with a Romaic preface, by his commentaries
on Herodotus, and more particularly by a version of Beccaria in
modern Greek, with a preliminary exhortation to his countrymen.
He has been lately concerned in an edition of Strabo, of which the
English reader has already had some information φ. Pie is a
member of the French Institute, which has given him a prize for
his Hippocrates, and he resides at Paris, in the enjoyment of a
reputation fairly acquired by his literary labours. " Offspring of
a country once the most fortunate of Greece, for him is it re-
served to associate his own with the immortal name of the Ora-
cle of Cos J. M
* Στοχασγχο) ινος φιλίλληνος. . . . lv Βίίννϊΐ τη? Αυστρίας, Ικ τίίί ττρωηρ τυτο-
γρα,φίχς των 'Ρωμαϊκών Ιφ%^ίρι§ων.
τ Edinburgh Review, No. xxxi. art. iii.
J Pouqucville en Moree, p. 338.
57'2
LETTER XXXIII.
Paris has also to boast of Panayotes Kodrikas, an Athenian,
who has translated the Plurality of Worlds into Romaic, and
keeps a school for students in Greek and Arabic; and of Polyzois,
a poet, who has composed several patriotic songs, the most cele-
brated of which is an address to those who served under the
French in Egypt : extracts of it are subjoined in the next Letter.
To these must be added Phillipides, author of a geographical
work, very decidedly superior to that of Meletius ; John Cama-
sares, a Constantinopolitan, who has translated into French Ocellus
Lucanus ; Athanasius of Paros, who has written on rhetoric, and,
not inferior to any except Cora'i, Psallida, the schoolmaster of
Ioannina. Marmaratouri, an Athenian merchant, should be
mentioned in this list. He has published a Life of SuvarofF, in
Romaic, not a translation, but, what is very uncommon, an
original work. His scheme for publishing a modern Greek ver-
sion of Anacharsis, undertaken by three Greeks, is already given
to the public*.
At the same time that I recount these men, it will be necessary
to add, that only the last mentioned resides in Greece. It should
be remembered also, that only a very few copies of their books are
to be met with. I only saw one of Psallida's on True Felicity, and
one of Cora'i's Beccaria. There is not in the Levant a library where
books are sold. It is possible, in the shops of those who sell
other articles, sometimes to pick up a collection of homilies and
romances, and, although very rarely, an Hellenic grammar.
Psallida, at Ioannina, was the only person I ever saw who had
what might be called a library, and that a very small one. It
consisted of such books as he found serviceable in instructing his
scholars. Amongst them were a Thucydides, with a Romaic
* In the Appendix to Childc Harold.
^m ^^m ^^^h ^^m KJ&fy ?&#?$, -
LETTER XXXIII.
573
translation, and Goldsmith's Grecian History, in Romaic. The
school at Athens had also a few classics; and I recollect being
shown a torn copy of Xenophon's Hellenics, which the owner
said he would have been very willing to give to me, had he not
kept it for the use of the English Resident. Some of the Greek
palaces of the Fanal*, and the patriarchal house, contain sets of
books, chiefly theological, and written by those who have been
enumerated by Procopius; but neither the owners themselves,
nor any portion of the public, are benefitted by these volumes.
A Romaic translation of Locke's Essay may be found in
Greece ; but I never saw it. I must say the same of Montesquieu
on the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and of Tissot's Avis
au Peuple sur sa Sante. One copy of Telemachus, and of Rolling
Ancient History, both in Romaic, I did see, and only one; as
also one volume of the Arabian Nights. The Plurality of
Worlds, which, (on account of a note where the invention of bal-
loons is mentioned, and something said about animal magnetism),
has been denounced by the Patriarchal Synod, never fell in my
way; nor did I ever meet with the Romaic Robinson Crusoe,
which, for some reason or other, is also a condemned book.
Thus it is evident, that there is no dissemination of knowledge
in Greece. That there are clever, enlightened, and well-informed
Greeks to be found out of the Levant, and that a few books, truly
excellent, are sparingly scattered about in the country, can hardly
be taken into account in estimating the general condition of the
people.
* More correctly, but not so frequently, called and written Phanar, as the
gate in that quarter, near the head of the port of Constantinople, is called Fener-
Capoussi, the Fener-Gate, yet the φανάρι, or light-house, is now on the side of the
sea of Marmora, between the two quarters called Thatladi and Ahour CapoussL
4e
574
LETTER XXXIII.
It is true, that schools where the Hellenic is taught, have been
established in all the great towns. Constantinople has two very
large academies. At Haivali. or Kidognis, opposite Mytelene,
there is a sort of university, for a hundred students and three pro-
fessors, now superintended by a Greek of Mytelene, who teaches
not only the Hellenic, but Latin, French, and Italian. At Athens,
there are two public schools, and many private instructors: but
neither Latin, nor any of the Frank languages, are there known,
except by a few of the Roman Catholic children who frequent
the Capuchin Convent.
The schools of Ioannina have been before mentioned; that of
Psallida, who has a hundred pupils, gives instruction in French,
Latin, Italian, and Hellenic: and the literal Greek, together
with writing and reading, is taught in another school, con-
taining three hundred boys, who pay nothing for their instruc-
tion. All the larger islands of both seas have establishments of
the same kind. Thus the generality of the Greeks can write and
read, and have a smattering, at least, of Hellenic, but without
books, these accomplishments are of no use to them ; and accord-
ingly they have not made any progress in any science, nor have
advanced a step towards the attainment of any useful art. They
are only enabled to read the church service, and their foolish ro-
mances, and are qualified for an employment in the service of
their Pashas, and the transaction of the business attendant upon
their petty traffic.
It will not therefore appear strange, that the Greek, I mean
the colloquial language, should, under such circumstances, become
daily more corrupt. In some parts of the Levant, the very basis
of the old tongue seems to have been subverted. Although, in the
days of Theodora Chrysolorina, the wife of Philelphus, the ladies of
mt'&f&^^&vjti
LETTER XXXIII.
575
Constantinople may have been notorious for the purity of their
speech, nothing can be more mixed and barbarous than the common
dialect of the wives and daughters of those principal Greeks of the
capital with whom strangers consort. Their language is indeed
materially injured, even by the superior education which these
ladies receive, in order to qualify themselves for the Frank society
of Pera, and which they take every opportunity of displaying, by
the introduction of words and phrases wholly French and Italian.
But the priests and princes of the Fanal, amongst whom young
Ipsilanti, whose father was lately Waiwode of Moldavia, is distin-
guished as a most elegant and accomplished scholar, affect a
greater accuracy, by the choice of ancient words, and a few of
them might, if so addressed by a stranger, be able to keep up
a conversation in pure Hellenic.
The Greek of Smyrna is much infected by the Franks. That
of Salonica is more pure. The Athenian language is not, in my
mind, so corrupted, nor has admitted so many Latin and Italian
words, as that of the Morea ; but it has not preserved so much
of the ancient elegance as the dialect of Ioannina, which the in-
habitants of that city boast to be superior to any, except that
of Constantinople.
Some villages near Triccala in Thessaly, speak at this day, not
the Romaic, but a corrupt Hellenic, as pure, perhaps, as the Za-
conian language before mentioned. Of the traces of the four
dialects, Doric, Ionic, Attic, and iEolic, which Cabasilas asserts
to have been preserved in his time, I neither found, nor heard any
evidence.
The substantives most commonly in use, have undergone the
most complete change ; such as represent bread, water, clothes,
4e 2
576
.1
LETTER XXXII Τ.
would surprise the ear of a Hellenist, and yet neither ψω/λί, νερό,
nor ρ»κα, are of a very late date *. But the names of plants are
nearly all Hellenic, and a botanical treatise would scarcely want
a glossary of Romaic terms. The old names of places are, as
might be expected -f, not altogether lost in the modern appella-
tions of the Greeks, although the Turks have, in many instances,
given names of their own.
With respect to the written tongue, it must be observed, that
the composition at this day current, is of three kinds: the first, is
the language of the mass, and some other parts of the rituals,
which are grammatically Hellenic: the ancient Greek has also
been lately used by Corai, and one or two others, but is not
adopted in any common books. The next may be called the
Ecclesiastical Greek; which is the kind employed by the majority
of the church writers in their pastoral letters, and which, besides
other characteristics, does not have recourse to the modern vuL•
garism of always recurring to the auxiliary verbs. This is the
stvle of many of those cited by Procopius, and even of earlier
authors, of Meletius, in his Geography, and several other later
works, and does not seem, to be formed by any certain rule, but
by an attempt of the writers to come as near as possible to the
* The first is fomul in live history of Apollonius Tyrius —
Έτη α σαι/ δίχωζ το ψω^αη κα> φά,ραν το ψα^ακ»;
vipov, derived perhaps from νγξον, is in Constant. Porphyro. Gen. de Adra.
Imp. cap. 9. Σκλα(3»νί<τπ Βεξόι/τζνι, ο 'ίση βξάο-μχ vf^a — ρ»κον and fixec, recur
repeatedly in Nicetas. — Du Cangc Gloss.
τ Monboddo on Language, vol. i. The contracted preposition and the
accusative article, (ο-'ττιν), have helped to form some of the new names. Thus,
Piiimin Thcssaly,is Standia; Cos,Stancho; and the capital, (Πολ»ί), Stamboal.
*#? &%$ ; #*^«3$?%#yfc ^Η Syw
LETTER XXXIII.
577
Hellenic. The Romaic is the third species of composition ; but
even in this vulgar idiom, there is necessarily some distinction
made by the nature of the various subjects, and the talents of
the respective authors. The philosophical treatises of Cora'i and
Psallida, are as good, in point of style, as the dedication of Simon
Portias' grammar to Cardinal Richelieu, and although, perhaps,
their subjects contribute much to their apparent superiority, are
not so entirely vulgar, as the downright common dialect, of which
some specimens, are added to these Letters from the translation
of the Arabian Nights, and some original romances.
The modern Greeks delight in poetry, and very many amongst
them evince a great facility in versification. There is an infinite
variety of love and drinking songs; some of which are common in
every part of Greece, whilst other pieces of poetry are known
onlv in the town or village of their author. A young man of any
spirit, who has been ill-treated by his mistress, anathematised by
his priest, or beaten by a Turk, seldom fails to revenge himself
by a lampoon.
I am not aware that there are any verses which the poet did not
write to be sung, or, as the expression is, «y 7/»aya&, " for a song."
Let me observe in passing, that the Greek music* is plaintive, but
monotonous. The specimens given by Dr. Crotch, possess the cha-
racter of all which I happened to hear. A first part of some airs
borrowed from Italian sailors, and the first part of Malbruc, 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 fiddle and three*
Two specimens of Greek music are in the Appendix.
578
LETTER XXXIII.
stringed guitar are the usual instruments, and on these most of
the young men, particularly the sailors, are able to perform ; for
al] ranks are most attached to singing and playing, no less than to
dancing, and, at some seasons, appear to do nothing else. But to
return. The accentual quantity, which seems to have taken place
of the syllabic so early as the eleventh century*, is alone observed
in all the metres. Of these there is a variety, but the most com-
mon is the fifteen-syllabled verse, of the kind before quoted.
Some lively expressions and agreeable turns of thought, may be
discovered in many of these effusions, which, however, have more
of the Oriental profusion of images, than of the Greek simplicity,
and although by no means deficient in the tender and pathetic
style, have nothing of the vigorous and sublime of ancient poetry.
There may be persons willing to except from this criticism two or
three patriotic songs of a late date.
Their amatory pieces, in which they chiefly delight, speak
that which some critics would call the very language of love.
These are exceedingly extravagant, abounding in metaphors,
similes, personifications, abrupt exclamations, and not unfre-
quently with the conceits rather than the licensed figures of
poetical rhetoric, ardent, wild, and unconnected, with more
poetry than sense, and more passion than poetry. Acrostics, and
even those echo verses, which an inimitable author of our own
nation has parodied and ridiculed, are much employed in their
* Previously to the political verses of Psellus, Manasses, Metaphrasta, Philip
the Hermit, Manuel, Philas, and Tzetzes, the noble Hexameters of Homer
were debased into miserable trochaics, which were printed by Pinelli, at Venice,
in 1540. A specimen of the openiug of the Iliad, is given in Philological In-
quiries, p. 78. — See vol. xi. p. 320, Fab. Bib. Grsec. edit. Harles.
^* f?s&9 ψ&*&
LETTER XXXIII.
579
romances ; in short, there is hardly a single evidence of what is
generally supposed a vitiated and paltry taste, which is not dis-
coverable in the poetical compositions of the modern Greeks.
Their Cotsakias, or alternate verses, which are composed and
sung apparently extemporaneously, but are in fact traditional,
display a singular talent for versification, and are of the same
cast.
Their prose writings can hardly be subject to any critical de-
cision, for these are, as has been said, almost all translations, and
leave therefore no room for any display of ingenuity, or depth of
thought. Their homilies, as well as their tales, are insipid and
affected, but evincing a copiousness of words, no less surprising
than tedious. I shall content myself with annexing some speci-
mens, the verbal criticism of which may be undertaken by more
competent judges.
It may appear hardly worth while to inquire into the merits
of a corrupted tongue, and, with respect to the best means of
restoring it to its purity, the condition of the people is to be
taken into consideration, rather than the state of their language.
It seems to me, perhaps erroneously, that the Romaic will never
receive any Hellenic improvements whilst the Turks remain
masters of G reece ι and even should any event drive the Mahome-
tans into Asia, any material alteration in the language of a people
who can never be independent, may be very problematical.
There are but few, very few indeed, of the Greeks themselves,
who have any conception of the benefits to be derived from such
an amelioration ; and, indeed, from a document now before me,
it should seem that there is, generally speaking, an indifference^
and even unwillingness, observable amongst them, to reach at any
580
LETTER XXXIIL
Extraordinary advantages, by departing from the common course
of education.
In 1808, a year after the establishment of the French at Corfu.
and, " by a happy synchronism, on the same day of the same
month which had brought their troops within view of its shores, on
the 15th of August, in the year when, if empires did not perish
like man himself a short time after the period of their glory, the
Greeks would have celebrated their Olympic Games for the six
hundred and forty-seventh time*," an institution, calling itself the
Ionian Academy, held its first sitting. Its first attention was
directed towards Napoleon, Benefactor and Protector ; it then
proceeded to declare, that courses of gratuitous and public lec-
tures would be given by competent professors, in physic and che-
mistry, natural history, physiology, and medicine. This in effect
was performed, if I may trust the paper before me, for the first
year, and an additional lecture was read to the students, on ana-
tomy and surgical operations, by Dr. Razis, at that time, says
the secretary Dupin who signs the prospectus, not one of our
colleagues. But, " notwithstanding these efforts, and the at-
tendance of some respectable persons matured by age and expe-
rience, (meritorious officers and men skilful in the different branches
of the art of healing), upon these courses, the Academy saw with
grief, that it had made a vain appeal to the Corcyrean youth ;
and had found no fathers eager for the instruction of their sons,
and no sons who had felt that this instruction might be a benefit
to themselves/'
The prospectus, which bears the date of June 1809, or, in the
* See the Paper in the Appendix.
$ψβ%. ^^B ■■ ■ ■■ ■ £pw^! ^^^H 3^?^ &fSg
LETTER XXXIli,
581
language of the Academy, " Corey ra, the first year of the six hun-
dred and forty-seventh Olympiad/' pronounces in a strain proceed-
ing professedly from an Ionian, but rather Gallic than Greek, that
to the former lectures will be added a course on Belles Lettres and
Hellenic by Dr. Mavromati, which, together with prizes distri-
buted at each quaternai celebration of the Olympian games, to the
authors of the best original Romaic composition, and of the best
translation from the standard works of the modern nations, especi-
ally the French, will, " in a few Olympiads, cause the corrupted
language of the modern Greeks to become one of the most perfect
dialects of the ancient Hellenic." The first prize is to be allotted
on the 15th of next August, (1812). It is to be a medal of iron.
" the money of Lacedemon" On one side is to be a resemblance
of the Emperor, with this inscription — " Napoleon, Bienfaiteur
et Protecteur ;" on the reverse a star, with these words — " Au
Genie, TAcademie reconnaissante ;" on the rim will be written the
name of the author and of his work, with the number of the
Olympiad.
" In the hall appointed for the public sittings, will be suspended
the crown of wild olive which shall have been bound on the fore-
head of the victor, with suitable inscriptions underneath* : these
crowns shall constitute the trophies of the Academy ." To this first
adjudication any living author may transmit his work whenever
published, to contend for the prize. The olive wreath appears
already to encircle the brows of Corai.
It is not difficult to foresee, that the success of Dr. Mavro-
mati will not be much more satisfactory than that of Dr. Razis,
particularly as the Ionian dominions of Napoleon are now con-
fined to Corfu, and the Olympic games of the ensuing August
may be disturbed by the cannon of a hostile fleet. Perhaps the
* See the Paper in the Appendix.
4 F
nil
582
LETTER XXXIII.
Academy has, ere this, ceased to exist*. Under every favourable
circumstance, the project of improving and settling the common
discourse of a people by any similar institution, is altogether
hopeless ; and although the number of Hellenic scholars in the
Levant may be somewhat increased by late events, the revival of
the ancient Greek language, even according to a modified mean-
ing of that phrase, appears an event too unparalleled in all history
to take place in our days, or at any future period.
But whatever may be the fate of the Romaic, the scholar may
expect that inquisitive travellers will add to his library, by the
discovery of many valuable manuscripts which may throw a fresh
light on the history of past times, and increase the number of
those treasures which the philosophers of antiquity with justice
hoped might be transmitted as " possessions in perpetuity"
to all future ages. Such sanguine expectations have, how-
ever, hitherto been disappointed, and, with the exception of
Dr. Clarke's manuscripts, of which the public may soon expect
a detailed account, the search of the learned has as yet been veiy
nadequately rewarded. Alter many an eager wish directed to-
..uds the Seraglio library, and a thousand conjectures as to its
supposed contents, all doubt appears to be lost in the certainty,
tliut as far back as the year 1688, there was not a single Greek
manuscript in that repository. The partial dispersion of the Sera-
* There was in our time a Corfiotc Journal in Romaic, which detailed some
of the principal events of Europe to the Greeks : one of litem reached Athens
with an account of transactions in. the English Parliament, and of a speech
from K-J/ho? BtWa ( u- — Mr. Windham. The dispersion of a well-written news-
paper would be of infinitely greater service to the Greeks than that of any other
publication, and, as the whole people are most eager to hear news, would soon
be very general. Yet some preliminary knowledge seems necessary to make
even this reading intelligible and useful to them; for the Bishop of Chrysso,
under Mount Parnassus, who lent us a Mcleiius's Geography, asked mc — it
Rpain, where the English were lighting, was in the Baljlic?
'^■Λ'^^ί
ijVrV-rfj '&/£%■?$£*:•; *ι^ίί?*'' ^^Η
LETTER XXXIII.
583
crllo library took place at the deposition of Mahomet the Fourth,
and shortly after that period M. Girardin, ambassador from France
to the Porte*, by the assistance of an Italian renegado and the
Jesuit Besnier, purchased fifteen manuscripts in Greek and one
in Latin, which he transmitted to France in the year l6'88, and
which are now in the Imperial library at Paris. The selection was
made by Besnier out of two hundred books which composed the
collection, and which, as they were all sold, should be now in the
libraries either of Western Europe or of Greece. They would be
easily recognizable by the Sultan's seal attached to each volume,
and some might be discovered by their Turkish binding. The
remaining 185 manuscripts were in bad condition, and had before
appeared in print; but it is with some reason that the learned Vil-
loison reprehends the scrupulous nicety of the Jesuit, which con-
fined him to his very partial selection. It may then be almost
unnecessary to add, that Prince Italinsky, late ambassador from
Ilussia to the Porte, having by permission visited the winter harem
of the Serai/io, in one of the apartments of which was the library
of the Eastern Emperors, told a gentleman who gave me the
report, that he could not see. a manuscript of arty kind in the
place. But the dispersed volumes cannot have entirely disap-
peared, and the mpnasteries have reasonably been supposed the
receptacles of these hidden treasures. Yet the Abbe Fourmont,
in 1730, in vain explored Nea Moni in Chios, and Mega Spelion
in Arcadia; and no greater success attended the researches of
Mons. Biornstapol in the libraries of Meteora. Mr. Villoison in
1785φ visited the Monks of Amorgos and Patmos, and his report
will scarcely justify the eager expectations at present entertained
respecting the literary wealth of the latter community.
* See the Ambassador's letters of 10th March and 15th Sept. 1687, to the
Marquis tie Louvois. Notice des MSS. de la Bibliotheque Imperial, torn. viii.
pp, 12, 13, &c. 1810,.
t Ibid. See the Appendix,»
LETTER XXXIV.
Patriotism of the Greeks — Their ardent desire of Emancipation
— War-Song — The object of their Wishes — Attachment to
Russia — Views directed tozvards France — Their Notions of
England — Chance of Emancipation — Importance of their
Marine — Short Remarks on the Political Conduct of the
English in the Levant.
MR. DE GUYS' s long thirty-seventh Letter, enti-
tled Patriotism of the Greeks, is much such an essay as Montaigne's
on a custom in the island of Cea ; or, like that chapter on Snakes
which Dr. Johnson could repeat entire, it leaves us only to conclude
that there is no patriotism worth speaking of to be found amongst
the modern Greeks, or indeed amongst any of the moderns; for the
whole of his remarks and examples are adduced from the two
great nations of antiquity. But notwithstanding such a deficiency
in an express panegyric of this people, it is most true, that the
generality of the G reeks are devotedly attached to their country
and nation, and, even to a degree which may appear foolish and
incautious, continually express their hatred of their masters, and
their confidence in themselves. This latter feeling is, however,
tempered by a complete sense of their own degradation ; for,
whatever may be their discourse to one another, they never fail to
enlarge upon this subject to a stranger. A common commence-
liij-y-p ^^H r>?>"c
LETTER XXXIV.
585
merit of a conversation with them is, " Your Excellency will find
but poor fare in our country; but you are not in Christendom.
What can be done amongst these beasts the Turks ?" The de-
testation of their masters breaks out on every occasion; and when
the chanter from the Minaret is announcing the death of a Ma-
hometan, each Greek that meets his friend in the street salutes
him thus, — " A dog is dead," (α^θ-ακί σ-κυλϊ *). The Archons,
* This expression σκυλί, a dog, is the favourite term of reproach with the
Greeks, whose convitiatory language is most violent and abusive. The vulgar
phrases, which are too indecent to be translated, are some of them borrowed
from, or are similar to, the Turkish. The γχμϊ.τί μίνα. α-*, the most common,
is the " anassinny sictim" of the Mahometans. Most of the assertions of the
Greeks are confirmed by an oath ; the ancient form being preserved; the most
usual are, Μα το Θίο, " By God ;" — Μά to κ£<ράλι μα 3 " By m y head ;"— -Met to
γίνι px, or Μα to yivi τ« πχτξος /λκ, " By my beard," or u By my father's
beard ;" — Μ» το ψω^ιί, " By my bread;" — Μα τίί ψυχί rm ποαδιωι/ ^a, " By
the life of my children." — The women in common conversation say, M« τα
porta pa, or Μα τα ψυχιί pa, or Να ζ /w, " By my eyes;" " By my soul;"
or " Let me live." — The strongest expression of anger, is the extension of the
five fingers, with the exclamation Να τα irsvrt 3 " There are five for ye."
Nearly all, if not all of these phrases, are of a high antiquity. The spreading
of the five fingers is, Dr. Pouqueville says, alluded to in the words " ecce dono
tibi quinque," in the Andria ; but neither in Terence nor in Plautus have I
been able to find such an expression. One of the most singular instances of a
transmitted habit is, that the Greeks of Tino universally carry their long sticks,
or guns, across their shoulders, with their arms over them oaeach side, some-
thing like the picture here given of the Albanian. Now an ancient coin of
that island represents a man carrying a staff exactly in the same position. — A very
usual expression of anger is Κ^ατα, " Horns." The Athenian oath mentioned
by Sport, Δια τον ανθ^ι/τ» τΖ κοο -pa, " By the Master of the world," I do not
remember to have heard ; but my fellow-traveller recollects two or three instan-
ces of it. The words of tenderness, tit /a», " My son," have an odd sound in ;
the mouths of the young girls, by whom they arc frequently used.
586
LETTER XXXIV.
who enjoy the confidence of the Turks, are infected with tlte same
spirit, and, in proportion as they are more powerful, feel a stronger
desire of revenge. Signor Londo, of Vostizza, the son of the
person who, under Veli Pasha, may be said to govern the Morea,
on hearing the name of Riga, when he was playing with me a
party of chess, jumped suddenly from the sofa, threw over the
board, and clasping his hands, repeated the name of the patriot
with a thousand passionate exclamations, the tears streaming down
his cheeks. The same person recited with ecstacy the war-song of
that unfortunate Greek. The strain is of a higher mood, and I
have endeavoured to preserve the metre of it *, and, with a little
variation, the position of its rhymes, in the following version of
the four first stanzas.
1.
Αιντε πχΐίες των Ελλήνων
Ό χχϊρος τίίί ίό£ίΐΓ τίλθίΐ/
Α ς φχνωμιν x%m ixtimv
Πβυ μ,χς δωσχν την dpyviv
Α ς πχτΒΟΌμ,εν χνίρείως
Τϊν ζυγον τΐί? τυρχννίίος
Ηκίικιίσ-ω/Αίν πατρίδος
Ka.d'L• οναίος χιο~νρον.
Τα οπλχ ας λχβωμεν 3
ίϊχΐδες Ελλγνων χγω[Λεν 3
Ιίοτχ[λ^ων ποτχμ.ι$ών
Ύων lyppuv το χψχ
A V f τρίΗ* 1 υ7Γ » ποδών.
1.
Greeks arise ! the day of glory
Comes at last, triumphant dawning;
Let us all in future story
Rival our forefathers' fame.
Under foot the yoke of tyrants,
Let us now indignant trample,
Mindful of the great example,
And avenge our country's shame.
To arms then, our country cries,
Sons of the Greeks, arise, arise ;
Until the blood in purple flood
From the hated foe
Beneath our feet shall flow.
* A mixed trochaic, except the chorus, the fourth line of which, for the sake of rhym-
ing with the fifth, is shorter by one foot in the translation than in the original.
$%=-* ¥^?0$iffi^& ^H
ΤΑΐ^ί? ^^i'lvSesi
LETTER XXXIV.
587
2.
"Οθ^ Ίιτ&ε των Ελλήνων
Κόκκαλα α,ί}ξειο[Αενα ;
Ιίνίυμ,χτΰΐ εϊκοοπισ-μίνα
Τωξχ λάβετε πνοτ\ν.
Στί θωΐ /riv της ο-αλπιγκός j«a
συΐ/αρ^θητί όλα ό^ου,
Τιίι/ επτάλοφον ζητείτε
κα» νικάτε προ παντού.
Τα ο•»•λα, κ. τ. λ.
3.
Σπάρτα, Σπάρτα, τ{ κοι/ιχα j9"6
υπνον ληθ'αρ'^οι/ βχ$υν j
Ξύπνησον, κράξε 7 Α$ήνχς 9
νυρρχγον παντοτεινην.
'EvS'ujtAfiS'ijTf Αεονΐ$ου
'Hpcooj τοιι £ακοο-του,
Tou α,νδρος επαινε[Αενου χ
Φοβερού κα» τρομεοου.
Τα όπλα, κ. τ. λ.
4.
*Ό7του εις τάς Θερμ,οπυλχς
ΤΙολεμον αυτός κβοτεΓ,
Και τους ΤΙεξο-χς αφανίζει,
Και αυτών κατά xdmtu.
Μ.Ιτξΐα•Λθ<τίους ανίοας
Εις το κεντρον ποόχωοει,
Hat ως λέων $υμωμί;>ος
Ε*ί το a*y.a των βουτιΤ.
Τα ότλα, κ. τ. λ.
2.
Whither now, alas! retreating
Limbs where Grecian blood is beating?
Breathe again ye spirits fleeting,
Now jour scattered force recall.
At my trumpet's voice resounding,
Each his country's flag surrounding,
Towards the seven-hill'd city bounding^
Fly, and conquer for your all.
To arms then, &c.
3.
Sparta ! Sparta! why in slumber ?
Why in lethargy so deep?
Rouse thyself, thy friend awaken,
Glorious Athens, from her sleep.
Call to mind thy ancient warrior,,
Great Leonid as of old,
Mighty, man of fame immortal*
The tremendous and the bold.
To arms then, &c.
4.
See him, where the noble patriot
AH th' invading war withstands,
At Thermopylae victorious
O'er the flying Persian bands.
With his brave three hundred heroes.
Forwards now the Lion goes,
Plunging through the blood of battle
To the centre of his foes.
To arms then, &c.
Μ
* The difference between the two languages, has prevented me from filling up all the
syllables in the translation without some trifling amplification of the original sense, a cirr-
588
LETTER XXXIV.
There may appear a triteness in reminding the Greeks of Leo-
nidas; but the truth is, that of him, and of the other heroes of
antiquity, the generality of the people have but a very confused
notion, and that very few of them trace the period of their former
glory farther back than the days of the Greek Emperors. Those
who are most fond of recurring to past times, dwell on the power
and merits of those Princes, and begin their history with the
great Constantine, the Emperor of the Greeks, (Ό Μεγκς Κωνο-τχν
ηνος ό Bxo-iXevg των Vupouw). All their hopes are directed towards
the restoration of the Byzantine kingdom, in the person of any
Christian, but more particularly a Christian of their own church,
and I believe they have never for an instant entertained the project
of establishing an independent confederacy on the model of their
ancient republics. Their views have naturally been turned to-
wards Russia for more than half a century, and every one is ac-
quainted with their two desperate attempts to create a diversion in
favour of that power in the heart of European Turkey.
Notwithstanding the failure of their efforts, in the Russian war
concluded at Kainargi in 1774, the Greeks prepared to take up
cumstance which, if it does not bespeak want of pains on my part, may serve to contrast
the ancient and modern Greek. This song, the chorus particularly, is sung to a tune
very nearly the same as the Marsellois Hymn. It may be necessary to offer an excuse for
giving in this place a specimen before published in a book so universally circulated as
Childe Harold; but on this head I shall only say, that the chance of multiplying the
copies of what is in itself a curiosity, and has some merit, may plead a sufficient apology
for the insertion of the Romaic text ; and, that as to a competition with any portion of
the admired work in question, all circumstances, whether of inclination or capacity, are,
in the case of the writer of these Letters, such as to render a disavowal of such an attempt
altogether superfluous.
$'φ$Β$>ΦΜ Ι ί*;•^ ίίτ%??. ^^ji'Vc^ ity'?f? '&)£$ &&;$
LETTER XXXIV.
589
arms m 1790, and Sulli, then in open rebellion, was the centre of
their operations. Three Greeks from that town arrived at Peters-
burgh, and hailed the Archduke Constantine with the new and
sounding title of Emperor of the Hellenes, (Βατίλιν? των Ελλήνων) *.
A plan was agreed upon, according to which the Greek army was
to set out from Sulli to Livadia and Athens, in two divisions, to
be joined by the Moreotes and Negropontines. Crossing the
plains of Thessaly, it was then to march to Salonica, and af-
ter collecting the Greeks of Macedonia, proceed with the whole
force, amounting, they supposed, to three hundred thousand, to
Adrianople. Constantinople was to be the immediate prey of the
confederate forces, even without the combined attack of the Rus-
sians, who, however, were expected to sail from the Crimea to the
Bosporus, and decide the fate of the Turkish empire. Lambro
Canziani, the celebrated Greek, was to cruise with his squadron
in the Archipelago; and this turned out to be the only part of the
project which was to be accomplished; for Lambro, although not
supported after the peace between Russia and the Porte, in 1791,
and declared a pirate, kept the sea, until his ships were destroyed
by a French squadron. The Sulliotes did not stir, but defended
their mountains, as they had before done, against the Pasha of
Ioannina. The close of their struggles is already known.
Mr. Eton, who has detailed this account φ, conceives the plans
* The word Βα<πλίυ$ answers to Imperator. The Greeks called Charlo•
magne " Vasileus," but the petty princes " Reges," (Ρηγες). Lieufprand says,
" Petrus Bulgarorum Vasileus." — Decline and Fall, cap. 55, note 16. This
serves to prove that the Greek Β was decidedly the Latin V, so early, at least,
as the twelfth century.
+ Survey, p. 37, et scq.
4 G
590
LETTER XXXIV.
of Pano-Kiri, Christo Lazzotti, and Nicolo Pangalo, the Sulliote
Ambassadors, to have been wise, and every way competent for
the attainment of tbe great object in view, and condemns the
policy of those who differed from them in opinion, namely, the
British, Prussian, and Russian cabinets.
Wherever the fault lay, the Russians ceased to be the favourites
of the Greeks, who, however, did not on that account loose sight of
their darling object; for, at the news of the French revolution,
they began to form other projects, or at least to indulge fresh
hopes. The friends of universal freedom were, of course, the
friends of the Greeks, and long before the cession of the Seven
Islands to the tri-coloured flag, the Carmagnole was danced on
the shores of the Ionian sea *.
During the expedition to Egypt, the health of Bonaparte was
the daily toast at Athens; and the Greeks of Crete were so far
assured of their approaching independence, that, until the victo-
ries of the English over the French destroyed their hopes, they
had, in a manner, taken the island into their own hands, and had
come to an agreement with the Turks, each of whom they under-
took, upon certain conditions, to protect. A small mountainous
district in this island contains, indeed, the only Greeks in the
whole empire who have never been subdued either by the Vene-
tians or Turks. It is called Sphakia, (Σφχχία), and has one town
and twenty villages, each governed by its own primates. It can
send about four thousand men into the field. The person, himself
* Μα ό* Φρ<χντζίζοι λίγασι
ΐΐχ τχς Κορφας τ«ς §ίλχ<Γΐ
Κεφαλοΐνκχ, κ» ι Τζάντί
ΓΊ.8 ίινχί το φιορχ τ5 Λίυίβντί.
"Tistrue the French would have it known
Corfu shall shortly be their own,
Cefalonia too, and Zante
The fairest flower of the Levant,
%~ΐ5*?Λ
LETTER XXXIV.
591
a Sphakiote, who furnished a late author* with an account of
these Cretans, makes rather a favourable report of them ; but
others have represented them to be a horde of blood-thirsty
savages.
In fact, in the French army in Egypt there were some Greek
soldiers whose patriotism was roused and kept alive by the muse
of Polyzo'is, the new Tyrtaeus. His song of nine stanzas in
trochaiCS is Called, XV /λ* νοΧψιςίμη των εν Αίγύντω ττερ\ ελευθερίας ρχχο-
pbm ΓραιχΑτ, " War Song of the Greeks in Egypt, fighting in the
cause of Freedom ;* and it opens with the following exclamation.
Φίλο» y.H συμπχτριωτχι
Δχλοι vx jWiS^a ως πότε
Των αρχείων Μζ<τχλμχνων
Της Ελλχδος των τυράννων ;
Έκίικτκτεως »ί ωρχ
' Eq/StxriVj ω φίλοι, τωρχ.
Gallant Countrymen ! for ever
Shall we dread the vile enslaver?
Shall the Mussulman victorious
Reign in Greece, the great, the glorious?
Friends! the tyranny is past,
Vengeawce is our own at last.
The concluding verses are in the same strain.
AqixvioSyru
Κ' εκ τίκ γ^ς ϊξαλειφ$γιτω
Η κχτχρχτος ίουλύκ——
Ζ>ιτω ri ελευθέρια,.
Fading from the face of day,
Banish 'd from the world away,
Cursed slavery expire —
Freedom is ray fond desire.
The last of these four lines is the burthen of the song, of which one
more specimen, part of the fifth stanza, may suffice.
* Leckie on Foreign Affairs, Tract xiii. p. 211.
4G 2
592
LETTER XXXIV.
Έ\ς τυράννων την $vovr y y άλλο? α,λλχ^ό^εν
Ύτ,ς Ελλάδος ττχντχγο^ιν.
*Ώ.ς Ιις Ιορτην συντρίχχν,
'£1ς πανηγύρια την εγχν»
Κα) Jev στίργίται κανένας
Απ αυτούς, (Λ-ινρος τ\ μέγας.
"Έζοττίνω να υπ ορεινή
Ε*ινχί 3 λίγει, καταισχύνη.
Ta? υιχς των οι πατέρες
Έγχχρ$ιωνχν } χαι αι μητέρες.
Εύγε ! τέκνα μα, τχς λεγχν
Κ' εις τον πόλεμον τας στελλαν
Έ'ως π ότι η ίχλειχ
ϊΐίπτει, και ή τυραννία.
To tlie sacrifice of tyrants,
All with eagerness combining,
Rush from eyery Grecian region.
Each his country's standard joining.
To the festival they fly,
To the fca.st of victory.
No one from the danger shrinking
Hesitates, or small or great,
Forward each advances, thinking
Nothing shameful but retreat.
Hark, their valiant sons inflaming,
Fathers, mothers, all exclaiming,
* Children brave, well done,' they cry,
' To the glorious combat fly,
' Till the fall of slavery,
' Till the fall of tyranny*.'
At the same time another Greek, in a small work printed at
Paris, but written at Rome, made this decisive declaration —
" Since this city, (meaning Rome), has, contrary to all expectation,
been delivered from the tyranny of the Popes, it must be averred,
in the face of all the world, that the hatred of tyrants is rooted in our
hearts, and that what has as yet prevented us from being delivered
from their yoke, is not our own want of courage — it is the jealousy
of the greater part of the Princes of Europe -f" The sentiments
of all the nation were not, however, in unison, for the Patriarch
* These extracts arc part of a communication made by M. Villoison to
Harles, and are contained in vol. xi. p. 563, of his Bibliotheca Graeca.
t See Letter from Villoison to Harles, in the page before cited.
^^H &&??
LETTER XXXIV.
593
of Constantinople, in his circular letter of the year 1798, informs
the Greeks, that " the wicked serpent, the origin of all evil, had
designed the nation of the Gauls to be the damnation of the
human race*;" a phrase which is cited, and indignantly refuted
by a writer, apparently the same quoted above, in a pamphlet of
eight pages, printed at the press of Pogozi, in October 1798,
and addressed " to the Romans of Greece, by a Patriot and Friend
to Freedom j•."
If Bonaparte had marched an army from Vallona, across Ma-
cedonia to Constantinople, as it is said he was prevented from
doing only by his war with Russia, there can be no doubt that
every Greek would have joined his standard.
The events of the last ten years have turned the attention of
the Greeks to the English nation, and, by degrees, their former
misconceptions as to the extent of our power and resources, have
begun to be dissipated. Hopes were entertained, during our
short war with the Porte, that we were to be the liberators of
Greece, or, at least, of her islands. In June 1807, a body of
fifteen hundred Macedonian Greeks seized upon the isles of Skia-
thus and Chilidronia, not far from the mouth of the gulf of Salo-
nica, and offered to co-operate with the English squadron off the
Dardanelles with a force of ten thousand men, but were advised
by their intended allies to lay down their arms. The islanders of
Hydra, which maintained three thousand seamen and one hundred
and fifty ships, actually fitted out privateers against the Turks
* Ό άξχίχχχος κχ\ -οννξος Όφις ίπινόν,ιπ το ϊ$νος των Γάλλων, $)χ ι/χ χολχ<τ*.
χο χν^ρωπινον γίνος.
f ΪΙξος τ»? 'Ρα.• ( ί*ομ8ί της Ελλάδος — Φ^όπατρις Ιλίνδεμάϊες.-*— See as above,
594
LETTER XXXIV.
and were disarmed, not by the Capudan Pasha but by the British
Admiral*.
This conduct, and the subsequent peace, checked any expecta-
tions which the Greek patriots might have entertained of being
assisted by the English; and even now that the Mediterranean is
in our possession, and even since we have occupied the Six
Islands, they do not, as far as I could judge, hope to receive at
our hands any decisive measures in their favour. They think of
the vicinity of the Russians and French, whom, notwithstanding
our prowess in Egypt, and allowing our unrivalled naval superi-
ority, they still consider the most formidable soldiers in the world,
(ττολυ φοβερά ντρατιωται, is their eulogy of them) and they believe us
placed at the extremity of the world — at too great a distance to
afford them any material support.
Even so late as the time of our travels, the notions prevalent
amongst the generality of the Continental Greeks, and other peo-
ple of the Levant, respecting our nation and country, were alto-
gether laughable. I collected, that England was an island, a
little bigger than Cefalonia, whose town is called London; of this,
however, all are not certain, for one person asked me whether
England was in London, or London in England. In this town,
all the English who are not employed at sea are supposed to live,
except a few peasants, who inhabit the villages. But the far
greater part of the nation exist upon the water, either in mer-
chant-vessels or ships of war, the management of which is the
sole purpose and occupation of their lives; and in which, together
with manufacturing cloth, hardware, and trinkets, the English
* Lcckic, Tract xxxiv. p. 34, 40, 41, 42, 43.
^^■D ί^έϊβψ*.^ ?&&%). frtf&r'k^' V ^S ?&&' '
LETTER XXXIV.
595
excel all the world. An Albanian directed a letter to his son,
who was in our service, with this address,
To
Dervish Tachecrc,
In the English Ships,
at Constantinople.
He conceived my fellow-traveller and myself belonged, of course,
to the English fleet, and after looking at the country by land,
would join our vessels at the port of the great city. Some of the
higher orders are doubtless better informed, and know as much
about England, as the majority of our countrymen know about
the present state of Greece: and thus, although they are far from
being acquainted with the actual extent of our resources, they
still believe us extremely powerful, and richer than any people in
the world. They frequently advert to the great subject of their
independence in their conversations with English travellers, and
protest to them, as they do to French, Russians, Danes, Swedes,
Dutch, and to every Frank, that with money, arms, and ten thou-
sand foreign troops, they would expel the Turks from Europe.
It is easy then to see, that the Greeks consider their country
to belong to them as much as it ever did, and look upon their
right to the soil as not at all affected by an ejection of three cen-
turies and a half. Their patriotism is a flame that has never been
utterly smothered, although it has so long glimmered in obscurity,
and has narrowly escaped from being, like the lamp of Rosicru-
cius, for ever extinguished by a heedless discovery.
It cannot be so easily determined that the Ottoman empire in
the Levant is now to be called an usurpation, and that the
596
LETTER XXXIV.
Greeks, when in revolt, are therefore to be regarded, not as
rebels, but as patriots righting for the recovery of their birth-
right. If the Grand Signor cannot establish a claim to the throne
of Constantinople, I know not of any sovereign in Europe whose
title will bear an examination. The singularity of two nations
living on the same spot, and of the conquered having been kept
so entirelv distinct from the conquerors, preserves the original
injustice of the subjection fresh before our eyes. Were it not for
this circumstance, neither the importance nor the character of the
Greeks is such as to awaken the political or moral sympathies oi
the nations of Christendom. The country called Turkey in Eu-
rope has received such a perpetual succession of invaders and
settlers, that it would be impossible to fix upon those in whom the
right of possession might be justly vested. A great proportion of
those comprehended under the term Romaioi, (Ρο,ααιο»), or Chris-
tians of the Greek Church, and amongst whom would be found
the chief supporters of an insurrection, are certainly of a mixed
origin, snrung; from Scvthian colonists. Such are the Albanians,
the Maniotes, the Macedonian, Bulgarian, and Wallachian Greeks.
And yet the whole nation, including, I presume, these Christians,
has been laid down only at two millions anil a half, of all ages and
sexes, and consequently there is no part of Continental Greece to
which a body of Turks might not be instantly brought, sufficient
to quell any revolt: the Mahometans of Albania are themselves
equal to the task, and on a rising of the Giauours, the Infidels,
would leave all private dissention, to accomplish such a work.
The Greeks taken collectively, cannot, in fact, be so properly
called an individual people, as a religious sect dissenting from the
established church of the Ottoman Empire.
^^1 ^Φ&Μ'Ρ. ^^1 ■ $p&£l•. ^ν%: χ ^^ϊ*5 ^^Λ ',••*^* ^^Η ^^Η
LETTER XXXIV.
597
Any general revolution of the Greeks, independent of foreign
aid, is quite impracticable; for, notwithstanding the great mass
of the people, as is the case in all insurrections, has feeling and
spirit enough to make the attempt, yet most of the higher classes,
and all the clergy, except as far as the expressions of discontent
may operate, are apparently willing to acquiesce in their pre-
sent condition.
The Patriarch and Princes of the Fanal * are at the devotion of
the Porte. The primates of the towns and the richer merchants
would be cautious not to move, unless they might be certain of
benefiting by the change; and of this backwardness in the chiefs
of their nation, the Greeks are by no means insensible. They
talk of it publicly, and make it the subject of their satire, reveng-
ing themselves, as is their constant practice, by a song. My
fellow-traveller was presented with a long paper of verses to this
import, which, in a dramatic colloquy between a Greek patriot,
an Englishman, Frenchman, and Russian, a Metropolitan, a Wai-
wode of Wallachia, a Merchant, and a Primate, and by the intro-
duction of Greece, personified as a desolate female in tears,
displays the apathy of the privileged classes, and concludes with
this assertion of the Frank strangers : " We have found a Metro-
politan, and a Bey of Wallachia, and a Merchant and a Primate,
all friends to tyranny ή*"
* The change of the Ρ in the Greek ψχνχρι into the L of the French i( fanal,"
and the Italian " fanale," shows the difficulty of exactly catching a word trans-
mitted only by sound.
+ MerpovoXiTrtv ϊυοομιν
Kasi Μ•7Γ£» τίί? Βλαχι'ας,
Πραγ/ΑΕτίυττινι xat ττξοεΐτίν
Φίλοι* της τνξχηιχς,
4 ιι
598
LETTER XXXIV.
This prudence, or timidity, of the principal people amongst
them, not only diminishes the chance of an actual insurrection,
but takes away from the zeal with which we might otherwise em-
bark in their cause ; and when we begin to examine the moral
power, if I may use the expression, of the nation at large, we
shall not be inclined to indulge in any very decided expectation of
their future success.
The Greeks have in many instances shown a desperate frenzy in
distress, and a sanguinary ferocity in prosperity, but are certainly
not at all notorious for that cool, determined courage, which is
necessary for the accomplishment of any great action. They are
light, inconstant, and treacherous, exceedingly subtle in all their
dealings, and quite remarkable for a total ignorance of the pro-
priety of adhering to truth*. Their situation may account for
these defects. I do not make them objects of accusation; I
merely state the fact. When Mahomet the Great overran the
whole of Greece, he said he had found a great many .slaves, but
only one mati-f• ; and, according to the notions entertained of men
by that conqueror, it is probable he would not, were he now alive,
make a more favourable report of the present race.
The Christian powers, however, must naturally look with
anxiety towards this people, or rather, towards their country;
and, although sure of their co-operation, cannot but endeavour to
cultivate such an acquaintance with them as might secure the im-
mediate success of any future project. In this the English are
* It seems an odd sort of praise, but it has been bestowed upon the Greeks
by Mr. Eton, p. 319 of his Survey, that they cannot tell the same story twice,
without varying the embellishments of circumstance and diction.
+ This was Thomas, a petty Prince, who defended the castle of Salenencia
for a year against the Ottoman army.
im*j? : :
^^^H "^■Y i $9 e l&
LETTER XXXIV.
599
more peculiarly interested; for the most important portion of the
Greek nation is the islanders, and their marine, if any thing,
promises to rescue their character from contempt, and give them
that weight in Europe which they have lost for so many hundred
years.
An attachment to commerce, one of the principal character-
istics of the nation, arising from the topography of their country,
as well as from its various productions, makes almost all the
Greeks of the islands, and very many of the inhabitants of the con-
tinent, acquainted at some time of their lives with the sea. There
is a petty trade carried on in innumerable boats amongst the
islands of the Archipelago, and thence, as also from the port of
Smyrna, to Constantinople. The boats, called volik, are half-
decked, and high at stem and stern, with one thick short mast,
and a long yard. I have seen them as if in squadrons, with a
strong breeze and rapid current, shooting out of the mouth of
the Hellespont, their white cotton sails glittering in the sunshine,
and pleasingly contrasted with the dark hue of the subjacent
waters. This navigation is performed without the assistance of
either chart or compass, and, as of old, only by the observation
of the coasts and headlands.
But the Greeks are acquainted with the management of vessels
of the largest size, and of the common European construction.
They navigate the Ottoman navy, the warlike part of the duty
alone being entrusted to the Turks, and they have also large mer-
chant-ships of their own which trade as far as America and the
West-Indies, making a voyage now and then to England. Those
of the island of Hydra, whose ships are built generally at Fiume,
are reckoned the most expert and the boldest of their sailors.
4h 2
eoo
LETTER XXXIV.
Hydra, the Aristera of the Ancients, is a rock, about a league
from the main-land of cape Skyllo, almost bare, having only one
town, which; however, contains inhabitants sufficient to man
eighty ships of about three hundred tons burthen. The Hydri-
otes, by the carrying trade, have accumulated considerable wealth,
and have purchased of the Porte the independent election of their
own magistrates; which privilege they exercised, for the first time
since the fall of the Greek empire, in 1810. The building of the
government-house in the island cost ten thousand pounds sterling.
Their ships are usually armed with ten or twelve short cannons,
and musquetry for the crew. In the common Greek songs, whose
burthen is liberty, the Hydriotes are spoken of as being no less for-
midable by sea than the Sulliotes are by land. Spechia, of old
the island Tiparenus, only six miles in length, and a little more
than two in breadth, and off the same coast, maintains also at least
sixty large vessels, chiefly occupied in the transportation of corn
from the Morea to Constantinople, or to the south of France and
Italy. It is the next to Hydra in the scale of the Greek marine.
The number of Greek manners actually employed at sea, is
supposed to be at least fifty thousand, and although the nautical
skill of this people is not very considerable, (for they are totally
unacquainted with the principles of navigation, and know not how
to take a common observation, directing themselves by the com-
pass only) ; a little practice under experienced seamen would ren-
der them capable of any naval service, and there is no doubt that
their employment by an European power would soon supply many
of the deficiencies of their present character.
The occupation of the islands of the Archipelago by some
Christian power, has long been a favourite topic of speculation ;
^^.^ιν.ί •>•£^>ί^ ^^m ^%>&0ε. $3&wi ^^m ^^m
LETTER XXXIV,
601
ami many years past, the traveller Sonnini settled Naxos to be the
point which the French Government should fix upon for the
centre of an insular dominion in these seas. A similar project has
been very lately discussed, and proposed as a necessary step to be
taken by the English Government, by a writer of our own nation,
to whose work, dictated, if I may presume to offer such a judg-
ment, by a generous and well-directed enthusiasm, I have before
had occasion to refer. Any one who pronounces decisively on a
variety of future events, must run the risk, in case of the non-
accomplishment of his prophecies, of losing some little politi-
cal reputation, and this Gentleman cannot but find a great many
critics ready to turn to those of his pages* which first foretel the
return of Mr. Adair from an ineffectual attempt to make peace
with Turkey ; and afterwards, (when the treaty, contrary to pre-
diction, had been concluded), insist on the folly of supposing tha,t
the peace can continue inviolate -f, and recover our influence with
the subjects of the Porte. Yet no one who has been in the
country can fail to be struck with the general importance of his
remarks, and with the truth of the fact upon which he most par-
ticularly dwells — the. extreme neglect of the British interests in
the Levant; a neglect arising, not from the incapacity of the
Ministers employed abroad, but from a want of information in
our Cabinet at home.
* Leckie, p. 434, Tract iv.
t Tract ii. of the Historical Survey of the Foreign Affairs of Great Britain
for the Year 1810. Mr. Lcckie's foresight with respect to Sicilian politics,
may be balanced against these passages. ISaylc, in his Dictionary, (Artie. Ma-
homet, note G. G.) relates, that a famous Minister in Amsterdam preached,
during the siege of Vienna in 1683, that the city would be taken by the Turks,;
and on its being saved by John Sobieski, died of griet
602
LETTER XXXIV.
The justice of seizing upon the islands, or any other appanage
of the Turkish Empire, may be fairly questioned; and the policy
of the measure, at this, or any former juncture, is not hastily to
be decided, nor without a knowledge of official details : but no
doubt can be entertained of the propriety of strengthening our
influence, and raising our character with the inhabitants of Tur-
key in Europe, and of providing by every precautionary scheme
for such an emergency as the ambition of our great enemy is
likely to produce. The certain co-operation of the Greeks, of the
islands at least, in our favour, in case the expulsion of the Turks
from Europe should be decided upon and undertaken by Bona-
parte, should of course be secured by every means consistent with
the good faith which we owe to the Turkish Government. It
would indeed be a lamentable stroke, if the whole of the Christian
population of Turkey should at once join a French invader, to the
prejudice of the British, and in opposition to their efforts; and yet
the nicest management is necessary to counteract those prejudices to
our disadvantage which even the most honourable conduct may
awaken in the bosoms of the Greeks, who cannot easily separate
the two ideas of a faithful ally of the Turks and of a determined
enemy of their own nation. Unfortunately, an acquaintance with
the actual national character of this people makes us inclined to
dislike them so much as to prevent us from wishing to examine
the cause of their debasement, and from duly appreciating the
improvement and important services which might be expected
from them under a change of circumstances.
Although the least observation must show, that the situation of
the two nations will not admit of their being compared ; yet it is
very true, that the Greeks and Turks are by most writers, and
by late ones especially, put in the opposite scales of the same
^^H i>^'^s>3 ^^H iAV^y^,•
LETTER XXXIV.
603
balance, and so weighed that the character of the one cannot pre-
ponderate without that of the other kicking the beam. Thus a parti-
ality tor one nation seems to involve a necessary dislike of the other.
An English traveller passes into Greece prepossessed in favour
either of the Greeks or Turks, in proportion as he gives the pre-
ference to Mr. Eton or to Mr. Thornton. But there is surely no
necessity for him to ask himself which he likes best, or to decide
whether he likes either of them. He does not come into the
country to form an affection or aversion for either one or the
other, but to see as much as possible of the manners and charac-
ters of both. In all communications with other nations, it is
particularly requisite to be sensible of the justice of a maxim,
recorded by a lively person of the last century* — that we are not
to despise the world, but to live in it.
Besides the mission at Constantinople, we have only one Mi-
nister in the Levant who is an Englishman by birth. Every other
agent, whether under the denomination of Minister, Consul, or
Vice-Consul, is a Greek, except at one or two places, where Jews
are employed. 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 twelve pounds sterling
a-year; the French Vice-Consul at the same place, eleven hundred
zequins, between five and six hundred pounds. The conduct of
some of the Vice-Consuls is exceedingly disgraceful. The person
* Colley Cibber. — See note to verse 167 of the Dunciad. Our countrymen
are not sufficiently aware of the necessity of showing a disgust to none, and of
making use of all. And this seems to be the case in the conduct of their cor-,
cerns in Turkey.
604
LETTER XXXIV.
settled in that capacity at Prevesa, who has many concerns with
our Adriatic squadron, on receiving information that an English
Midshipman had made a present of the wreck of a prize to some
Alhanians, near whose village (Volondorako, opposite to Sulli) he
was thrown ashore, and who had received him very hospitably,
applied to the Governor of Prevesa for an order to seize the vessel
himself, pretending that all such casualties should turn to his ad-
vantage, as British Agent. He obtained the order, and was em-
ployed in making himself master of the hull and some damaged
corn which it contained, whilst we were on the spot, and heard all
the bitter complaints of the indignant Albanians, who did not
think the English, they said, ever made a present in order to take
it back again.
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. The unwearied activity of these persons,
not only in commercial, but political concerns, although beneath
the dignified state of a British Resident, is verv serviceable to the
cause which they intend to promote. It may be alleged, per-
haps, that no Englishman would condescend to take these small
places ; they would not banish themselves, nor can they readily
associate, as is the case with our enemies, with people of all kinds,
stations, and capacities, from the most civilized to the most bar-
barous of mankind. And yet it would be well worth whiie to go
to the expense of supporting some creditable commercial agents,
who might, one should think, be found amongst the mercantile
establishments at Malta, and who, acting with vigilance and vi-
gour under the British Minister at the Porte, without dealing
out threats to the Turks and promises to the Greeks with the libe-
- υ:ϊ•.^!'Λ^*
LETTER XXXIV.
605
rality of a Frenchman, or having recourse to any low intrigue,
might not only support the dignity of the national character,
but put their Government in possession of very valuable in-
formation.
Being on this subject, I must farther remark, that considering
how long we have been in possession of the Mediterranean, it is
truly astonishing that the importance of the Seven Islands to us
has but lately been acknowledged, and that Malta, instead of
being made a grand depot for the support of a disposable force
to be employed as occasion might require on the shores of the
Levant, or even on the Italian coast, has been converted into little
else than a large warehouse. The merchant-houses in the island
in ten years, since the arrival of the English, have increased from
two to fifty-six, several of which, during our stay in Turkey, be-
came bankrupts.
Corfu, as far as relates to European Turkey, may be con-
sidered to turn the post of Malta, and the possession of the Six
Islands without their capital, can neither be tranquil nor very ser-
viceable. The French have now rendered the town as strong as
Malta, and the distance of the mainland of Italy from the island
is so small, and the garrison is so continually supplied from the
contiguous shores of Albania, as to give very little hope of the
success of a mere naval blockade. The siege of the town by
land would require a much larger force than we are likely to be
able to spare. Our enemies are now prepared for an attack; yet
little doubt is entertained by many in the Levant, that this strong
post might have been occupied, with very little opposition, a year
previously to the taking of Zante, when Lord Collingwood's
squadron was in the Ionian Seas. The peculiar situation of the
4i
606
LETTER XXXIV,
British Ambassador at the Porte must prevent our being able to
take advantage of any fortuitous circumstances, and the utmost
vigour and ability in that Minister will often fail to be of any ser-
vice, for want of prompt and immediate measures to second his
advice.
From the first establishment of the embassy at Constantinople,
in the time of Queen Elizabeth *, until within these fifteen years,
the British Minister has been sent to the Porte merely with a
reference to our commercial interests, and to give respectability
to the Levant Company. The place was given as a favour to
Noblemen, and other considerable persons, curious of observing
the manners and customs of the Turks ; and the Corps Diploma-
tique had little other business or object in view, than penetrating
the walls of the far-famed Seraglio. It is not very generally
known, that one of the prices set upon his patriotism by
Mr. Wilkes, was the embassy to Constantinople.
But of late years, our relations with Turkey have become
political and important to the last degree, and the responsibility
of the Ambassador has increased in a greater proportion, perhaps,
than his discretionary power. His influence is divided with, and
is, in a great measure, dependent on, the Commander in Chief
in the Mediterranean. This officer now holds not only a great
naval, but a diplomatic situation, and yet it is more than probable
that he may know nothing at ail of Turkish politics, and think
* The first English Ambassador in Turkey was, if I mistake not, William
Hareborne, whom letters patent dated at Windsor Castle, the 26th of November,
1582, appointed Orator em, Nuntium, Procurator em, and Agentem, certum
el indubitatum. See Hakluyt's Navigations, Voyages, &c. 2d. vol. fol. p. 157,
edit. London, 1599,
LETTER XXXIV.
607
only of protecting the trade from Smyrna to Malta, which is
now become a secondary consideration. Of seventy-nine English
pendants in the Mediterranean, there were, in 1809, only two, a
frigate and sloop, on the Levant station. Now, unless it has been
known to those officially acquainted with our naval resources, that
the thing was impracticable, it must, since the peace with Turkey,
have been by no means an useless disposition of our force, to have
had a small squadron always at hand, to act in conformity to the ad-
vice of the Minister at the Porte, who alone can be a judge of the
measures which any emergency may require. By the time that
arrangements can be made with the Commander in Chief off
Toulon, who may himself choose to wait for instructions from
home, the occasion may be gone by and lost. The Cabinet of
London cannot lay down any unvarying line of conduct with
regard to the Turks, who are not to be dealt with by rule or pre-
cedent, or to be managed, except by a sort of extemporary po-
licy, which it must require an actual personal knowledge of them
to arrange and conduct. This consideration might induce the
Government to entrust their Ministers in Turkey, (where, if
Napoleon succeeds by peace or war against Russia, we may soon
have to play for our last stake), with an extended authority, which,
even if not exerted, would give a considerable and requisite ad-
dition to his influence with the Porte, and with the subjects of
the Ottoman empire.
What is here said, is concio ad populum, non ad clerum.
The official gentlemen may know better: it shall only be added,
that these hints might be followed up by a variety of details, (not
enough connected with the subject in hand to be here inserted),
which every traveller in the Levant has it in his power to collect.
4i2
LETTER XXXV.
Departure from Athens — Passage to Smyrna — Entrance into
the Gulf of Smyrna — The Promontory Melana — The South
Side of the Gulf—Clazomene—Sangiak-Bornou — The Shoals
in the Gulf caused by the Hermits — Arrival at Smyrna — De-
scription of the City — The Frank Quarter — The Frank So-
ciety — The Consuls in the Levant — The Greeks of Smyrna —
The Armenians and Jews — The Buildings — The Burying»
Grounds — The Castle — The Shut Port— The Hospital— De-
scription of an Idiot — The English Hospital.
AFTER so long an oblivion of our own proceedings,
it may be time to go on with our tour, and give the account of our
departure from Athens. — We were surprised on Sunday the 4th of
March, by a visit from the Captain of an English sloop of war, who
offered us a passage in his ship to Smyrna, which we accepted ; and
accordingly made every arrangement for taking leave of the place
where we had so long and so agreeably resided. Having sent off
our baggage before us on the Monday morning, we bid adieu to
Athens at a little after one o'clock, and passing through the gate
leading to the Piraeus, we struck into the olive-wood on the road
going to Salamis, galloping at a quick pace, in order to rid our-
selves, by the hurry, of the pain of parting ; for true it was, that
fcETTER XXXV.
609
we were Hot a little melancholy at quitting the country; and that
although there was certainly not a single existing tie to bind us
to the spot, we felt that uneasy sensation which arises on behold-
ing, probably for the last time, objects rendered familiar by long-
use and habit. We could not refrain from looking back, as we
passed rapidly to the shore, and we continued to direct our eyes
towards the spot, where we had caught the last glimpse of the
Theseum and the ruins of the Parthenon through the vistas in
the woods, for many minutes after the city and the Acropolis
had been totally hidden from our view. It was no affectation
which drew, from the philosophic Julian a tear at quitting his
beloved Athens.
After riding round the shore of Port Phoron, and leaving the
ruined tower on the crag of land which stretches from Corydal-
lus, on our left hand, we arrived at the spot where the ship's
boat was in waiting for us, and embarking, soon found ourselves
On board the Pylades, which was lying at anchor in seventeen
fathoms water, between Salamis and the little island Psy ttalia.
An English traveller has an advantage which no one of any
other nation can enjoy, as, by the hospitable accommodation
which he receives from the Naval Officers of his own country,
he is not only most agreeably assisted in the progress of his
journey, but has the opportunity of indulging in that honest na-
tional pride, which must necessarily arise from a personal ac-
quaintance with the condition of the British marine, and with a
character, whose existence and absolute predominance,
" above all Greek, above all Roman fame,"
must be for ever remarkable in the history of mankind.
610
LETTER XXXV.
At sun-set, contrary to the advice of four Greek pilots on
board, who were not acquainted with the customary decision of
the service, we got under weigh, but made very little progress
during the night. The next morning we had a strong breeze
from the south, and by twelve o'clock were off Cape Colonni.
Doubling the southern cape of Macronesi, or Long Island, we
passed, at four o'clock, the north of Andros, a mass of rocks, as
barren as in the days of Themistocles, when Poverty and Despair
were the tutelary deities of the island. From this point we bore
north-west, looking out for the small rocks called Caloyero di
Andro, which we discovered at six, and varied our course a little
to the north. The rocks seemed a small peaked cluster, about
the size and height of our ship. They must be dangerous in a
dark night, especially as in the charts of the Archipelago, which
are all singularly incorrect, they are placed too far to the south.
During the evening and night, we had the same strong favour*
able breeze, and when we rose the next morning, found ourselves
in the mouth of the Gulf of Smyrna. The wind was now ad-
verse, and we were obliged to beat up the Gulf: this brought us
close to the land on the south, part of the promontory anciently
called Melaena, and now Kara-bornou, a stupendous ridge of
woody precipices. We saw a village near the summit of one of
the crags, named, from the appearance of the surrounding soil,
Kokkino Chorio — the Red Town. Sudden blasts from the hills, to
which the gulf is very subject, rendered it difficult to carry much
sail, and we did not get within sight of Smyrna during the day.
At three o'clock, a boat with a Midshipman came alongside,
and informed us that the English frigate, the Frederickstein, had
struck on a rock on the north side of the gulf. This accident
^m
νν-ϊ^? ■ ,|
LETTER XXXV.
611
happened on a long neck of land, which runs out from a pro-
montory, supposed to have been formerly the island Leuce.
The Captain of the Pylades, left us in his gig at six in the
evening, being anxious to learn the fate of the frigate, and we
continued beating up the gulf until twelve at night, when we
dropped anchor in a bay under the hills to the south, near some
islets, not far from the spot where Chandler found (but not dis-
covered, as he says, Pococke* having before mentioned it) the
mole of the ancient Clazomene, the work of Alexander, connect-
ing the little island of St. John φ with the mainland. A town
on two small hills, three miles inland, distinguished by its nume-
rous windmills, and called Vourla, overlooks the bay. To this
* Observations on Asia Minor, book ii. cap. ii. p. 40, edit. London, 1745.
The mole is about thirty paces wide, and a quarter of a mile long. The first
Clazomene, before the inhabitants fled from the Persians into the island, was
on the mainland, not as Meletius says, at a place still called ΚλχζομίΜΐο, on
the east side of the bay, but nearly opposite the island of St. John.
Strabo says the islets before Clazomene were eight; Chandler saw but six.
His words are, " Three of them were called Marathusa, Pele, Drymusa: it is
probable the names of all of them are contained in a passage of Pliny, book v.
cap. xxxvii." — Pliny's six names, in the thirty-first chapter, are, Pela, Dry-
musa, Anydros, Scopelos, Sycusa, Marathusa. Drymusa is called Κ in si mi
by the Turks, and Long island by the Europeans. Marathusa was, according
to Meletius, the island of St. John.
It may be worth while to insert all the biographical notice which Meletius
takes of Clazomene, Κλχζο[χεΐ/νίος 1<γτχ$υ\ Ανχζα,γόρκς ο φιλόσοφος, Όντις άπί-
ίίίχνε τ»ν χ» ο να να twxi (Αίλοανχ — "amongst the natives of Clazomene wasAnax-
agoras, the philosopher, who discovered that snow is black." One might have
expected that the Archbishop would have added another discovery of the same,
sage, namely, that the sun is bigger than Peloponesus.
+ Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xxiv.
612
LETTER XXXV.
place the Clazomenians retired from the peninsula, to free them-
selves from the perpetual incursions of the pirates of Tino.
We weighed again at seven in the morning, and still kept near
the south land, which, although very high, began to wear an
appearance of cultivation that announced the vicinity of some
large city. The vineyards running up the sides of the moun-
tains, and the extensive tracts of corn-land spread out on the
vallies beneath, the olive-groves, and gardens of fig, almond, and
pomegranate trees, all contributed to give a tint of the liveliest
green to the face of a landscape, whose beauties seemed to be on
a much larger scale than those of any scene which we had wit-
nessed in European Greece. We conceived, perhaps fancifully,
that it was easy to distinguish, by its comparative magnitude, the
other quarter of the world to which we were approaching, from
that which we had lately left.
The whole of that projecting part of the continent of Asia,
which has been distinguished by the name of the peninsula of
Erythrae*, is composed of two ranges of gigantic hills, the first
of which, running north-west to the promontory Melaena, is the
mountain anciently Mimas ; and the second, stretching westward
from the continent, that formerly called Corycus. Two peaks
rising from a range more inland, once the hill Corax, are now
named the Brothers. The whole of this vast mountainous tract
is interspersed with thick forests, abounding with every descrip-
* The once famous town in a bay of the promontory Melasna, called now
Rytre. Some bronze medals, several of which, in great preservation, are in
my possession, were lately discovered on its site, having a head of Hercules
on one side, and on the reverse the three initial letters of the town, and the
names of the magistrates*
^ν^Α. Λ •. ^ρψ-Λ }$$&'* ^.4&&$Φ<8ξν$.
LETTER XXXV.
613
tion of game, and also with wild boars. The Franks of Smyrna
frequently make parties, and encamp in the hills for several days,
to enjoy the diversion afforded by the chace of these latter ani-
mals. The woods are driven, and the boars roused by peasants
of the villages, assisted by their dogs, and the sportsmen, armed
with guns, destroy the game in the passes, after the manner ob-
served in shooting the Scotch roe. The isthmus, once called
Chalcidis, connecting the peninsula with the main, having Teos*
on the south, and Clazomene on the north, which is laid down
at seven miles and a half in breadth -f-, is a tract of level well-cul-
tivated land : we visited it in a shooting excursion from Smyrna.
The morning was spent in tacking backwards and forwards,
and it was half past twelve o'clock before we came to a low fort
on a tongue of land to the south, called Sangiak Bornou by the
Turks, and Agia Souli by the Greeks, which forms the defence
of the bay of Smyrna. We were obliged to steer near the
castle, in order to avoid the shallows to the north; and we passed
close to the mouths of enormous cannons, whose balls of gra-
nite were scattered about on the outside of the embrasures, so
as to afford another ostentatious specimen of the calibre of these
immense pieces of ordnance. The fort was built in 1656, and
has been very lately repaired ; I believe, during our war with
Turkey. As it is defended on the land side by nothing but a low
* The ruins of Tcos are seen at a place now called Bodrun ; its port, Gera?,
is now Segigeck, three miles and a quarter from Bodrun, and reckoned eight
hours from Smyrna.
t Plin. lib. v. cap. xxix. Strabo makes the distance fifty stadia, but does
not allude, perhaps, to the whole breadth of the isthmus, but to the distance
between the spot where the Alexandreia were celebrated, and the high ground
of Clazomene. Alexander the Great endeavoured, by cutting through thie
isthmus, to turn the peninsula of Erythrae into an island.
4 κ
■Μ
614
LETTER XXXV.
wall and shallow ditch, not having a single gun mounted except
towards the sea, all resistance from Sangiak castle would be effec-
tually prevented by landing a company of marines. — The shoals
(some of which, at certain periods of the year, are visible above
the water) have been formed by the sand and mud deposited by
the river Hermus, whose mouth is a little to the north of the
point opposite to Sangiak castle, and about seven miles and a half
from Smyrna.
We took an opportunity, during our stay at Smyrna, of visit-
ing the plain on the north side of the gulf, and found it to
have every appearance of newly-created land. It was intersect-
ed by dykes to drain off the water, which, however, was ancle,
deep in many places, and rendered some portion of this new ter-
ritory utterly inaccessible. A fishery constructed with fences,
like that of Messalonge, projected to a considerable distance into
the gulf. Farther inland, at the foot of the mountains, we had
a view of a tract of garden land, and passed through some acres
covered with the water-melon (the χεψο^πον of the Greeks), with
which the markets of Smyrna are supplied. The principal village,
Menomen, was distinguishable at a distance by several ruined
towers, the remains of fortresses erected at an early period by
the first Turkish invaders.
We were told that several shoals had appeared during the me-
mory of inhabitants still living at Smyrna, and our informants
seemed to entertain serious apprehensions that the gulf would in
time be entirely filled up. Yet notwithstanding the changes
which the Hermus has, in the course of many ages, been sup-
posed to have effected in this part of the coast*, there appears to
* Pliny ialks of the plains made by the Hermus: " a Smyrna Hermus amnis
Cftinpos facit." — Lib. v. cap. xxix. p. 77 5 edit. Paris, m.d.xxxii.
^^Η ^\••"?'>1 ^^H ^^H
LETTER XXXV.
61S
be some counteracting power, which has a tendency to prevent
any such catastrophe ; for the channel between the shoals and
Sangiak castle, seems to have been as small in the time of
Wheler*, as at the present moment. The event now appre-
hended was predicted fifty years ago, by another celebrated tra-
veller, who, at the same time, however, recorded a circumstance,
the possible recurrence of which, in some degree serves to render
doubtful the accomplishment of the prophecy ; namely, the dis-
appearance of the shoal opposite to Sangiak castle, from the con-
vulsion of an earthquake in 1739-f*. The continual incursion of
the waters of the open sea, pushed forward by a strong breeze
from the westward, called the lnbat, which blows almost daily
during the summer months into the gulf, may contribute to dis-
lodge the shoals from the mouth of the bay, and thus prevent
the ingress into the harbour from being choked up, until the
whole of the inner bay shall be entirely filled with sand.
Soon after our passing the fort, we had a view of the city,
* Sec a Voyage through the Lesser Asia, book iii. p. 240, London, 1682.
+ " The river Hermus, by its influence on the gulf, has already effected great
changes, and will gradually accomplish some signal alterations, of which the pro-
gress deserves accurately to be marked. The flats before Smyrna will mutually
approach, and leaving only a narrow ingress, the city will be on a lake. This
will be fed by the Meles, and by torrents, and in time become fresh. The
plague of gnats will then, if possible, be multiplied at Smyrna. The land
will continue to increase until it is in a line with the mouth of the gulf, when
the site of Clazomene, and the islets within Cara-Bornou, will be encompassed
with soil : and if no current intervene, Phocea will be deprived of its harbour.
The sea within the gulf will by degrees give place to a noble plain created and
watered by the Hermus. Commerce will then have removed to some more com-
modius mart, and Smyrna be, if not utterly destroyed, desolate and forlorn."—»
Chandler, cap. xxi. p. 77, London, 1776, sec edit.
4k2
616
LETTER ΧΧΧΥ,
and being carried gently along by the breeze, which now began
to rise, came to an anchor in the port at three in the afternoon,
having been more than thirty hours in passing up the gulf, whose
depth is at the utmost not more than thirty miles*. The Frede-
rickstein, so damaged that she was obliged to be heaved dow r n,
and the Salsette frigate, were in the port, and after dining on
board the latter, we removed to the house of the Consul-General,
to whose hospitality (with the exception of a few days spent in a
short tour to Ephesus) we were indebted for a most agreeable re-
sidence until the 11th of April.
Smyrna, called by the Turks Ismeer (a corruption probably
of γι Σμύρνα), as far as regards commerce, is without doubt the
most considerable city of the Turkish empire ; and notwithstand-
ing the frequent calamities of plagues and earthquakes, continues
to increase rather than to diminish in size, and is said to contain
nearly a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. Previously to
the year 1675, it had been partially destroyed six several times
by earthquakes, and it was predicted that a seventh convulsion
would be fatal to the whole city. Such a calamity, attended with
a dreadful fire, and the swallowing up of multitudes by the incur-
sion of the sea, recurred in 1688 *f•, and did, indeed, very nearly
fulfil the prophecy. Repeated shocks, and almost annual pesti-
lences, have since that period laid waste this devoted city; and
yet the convenience of a most spacious and secure harbourt, to-
* Wlieler makes it only twenty miles; Pococke states the width, at the
weslcrn extremity, to be three leagues. — Observations on Asia Minor, book ii.
p. 34.
+ Meletins, article 'Ιωνία, p. 465.
^ Smyrna is eight days by land from Constantinople, four hundred miles
by water, and twenty-five days, as the caravans travel from Aleppo. — Tourno
fort, letter xxii. p. 496.
Η W$0$ &m $$$ί ^|
LETTER XXXV.
617
gether with the luxuriant fertility of the surrounding country,
and the prescriptive excellence allowed during two thousand years
to this port, in preference to the other maritime stations of
Asia Minor, still operate to collect and keep together a vast mas*
of inhabitants from every quarter of the globe ; and how much
the population has increased in the last century and a half, may
be seen by a reference to Tournefort*.
The narrow streets of this town, especially the Bazar and
Bezestein, which are large and well-built, are on some days so
crowded as to be almost impassable, and the press is increased by
the camels, which, in strings of two or three hundred, preceded by
an ass, pace slowly along, or lying down in the middle of the
way, effectually prevent the crossing of passengers. The city is
built partly on a hill, once called Pagus, whose summit is
crowned by a castle, and partly on a plain extending to the north
of the eminence. The mercantile establishments have for more
than two centuries drawn together so many Franks to Smyrna-)-,
that the part of the town which runs along the edge of the water
* Tournefort reckoned the inhabitants of Smyrna at only 15,000 Turks '
10,000 Greeks, 1800 Jews, 200 Armenians, and as many Franks. Letter xxii.
p. 495. Pococke makes the whole number nearly 100,000, of which 7000 or
8000 were Greeks, 2000 Armenians, and 5000 or 6000 Jews. Observations on
Asia Minor, book ii. p. 37, edit. London, 1745.
+ In 1702 there were thirty French merchants, nearly as many English, and
eighteen or twenty Dutch. Tournefort, letter xxii. p. 496, Paris, edit. 4to.
1717. A list of the precious commodities exported by the European merchants
is given in Tournefort, (letter xxft. p. 498, Paris, edit. 4to. 1717); and in Po*
cocke (Observat. on Asia Minor, book ii. cap. i. p. 38, edit. fol. London,
1745) ; their nature and quality arc too well known to many of our London mer*
chants, (p require a statement in this place.
mtm
618
LETTER XXXV.
to the northern extremity, has been long allotted to them, and
distinguished by the name of Frank Street. The houses of the
Consuls and the principal merchants, are built altogether in a very
commodious fashion, enclosing on three sides a court or small garden,
but are only one story in height, and composed of unburnt brick
in frames of plaistered laths. The warehouses, stables, and offices,
are below, the family apartments above ; open galleries or ter-
races, on the top of the unraised part of the lower buildings, serve
for communication, or as a place of promenade. The best houses
are at the edge of the water, and as there is a stone pier for the
whole length of the Frank town, are thus very conveniently situated
for the loading and unloading of the boats from the ships. The
mansion of the English Consul-General, as far as respects the in-
terior of the building, is such as might do credit to any of the
capital streets of London. — There is in the Frank quarter a very
good hotel, besides several taverns and lodging-houses for the ac-
commodation of travellers.
The many English, French, .Dutch, German, and Italian
families, who are settled in the place, and some of them intermar-
ried with the principal Greeks, formed, before the revolutionary
war, a very large and amicable society, and the Frank quarter at
Smyrna deserved and was flattered by the name of Petite Paris.
Since that period, although the good understanding between those*
who are protected by the English, and those who are protected by
the French Consul (to whom all not British, except a few Ameri-
cans, and those under the Austrian Minister, are now subject), has
been interrupted by the manners of the new regime, yet there still
subsists an institution which renders a residence in Smyrna agree-
able to strangers as well as to settlers. This is a club, which sup-
■ ^^m ^m 5^#^ ^H ^^wfm
LETTER XXXV.
619
ports a set of public rooms, fitted up in a very comfortable and
splendid style, called, as in Italy, the Casino. Here there is a read-
ing-room furnished with all the papers and gazettes of Europe, ex-
cept the English, and there are two other apartments with billiard
tables: refreshments of every kind can be procured in the house, for
those who choose to form parties for supper. — The rooms open at
eight o'clock every evening; and during the Carnival, the subscribers
give a ball once a week, to which all the respectable Greeks and the
ladies of their families are invited. The annual subscription is five
guineas, and all strangers, not residents of Smyrna, are permitted
to attend the Casino without any payment. Unfortunately the wars
of monarchs have become the wars of the merchants of Smyrna,
and the Casino, during our visit, was threatened to be overturned
by the national feuds of the two belligerents.
Nothing attracts the attention of a traveller in the Levant,
more than• the consular establishments*, which the Turks, so
haughty and despotic, so averse to every thing Christian, have
long suffered, and still suffer, to exist in almost all the principal
towns of their empire. At Smyrna, the Frank town, no incon-
siderable place of itself, may be said to be under the complete
jurisdiction of the foreign powers. The Consuls display the stand-
ards of their respective nations; they have their prisons, and
their soldiers, who wait at their gates and precede them when they
walk or ride ; and their houses are sanctuaries which not even the
Turk attempts to penetrate. — On the night of the 10th of
March, a Greek was murdered by an assassin, who took refuge
* The first residents of this name, were I believe appointed by the republic
of Florence, in the time of the first Cosmo de Med icis, under the name of Con-
sules Maritimi.
620
LETTER XXXV.
in the house of the French Consul. The next day the gate of
the palace, as it is called, was besieged by Janissaries, and a crowd
of the relations of the deceased. The man was not given up;
and in consequence a whole host of complainants surrounded the
Governor of the city as he was riding; but, as I myself saw
could get from him no other answer, than that he would speak to
the French Minister.
This foreign interference, which the Turks originally admitted,
strange as it may seem, solely from a contempt of the Christian
dogs, and from a persuasion that these Infidel merchants were
fitly employed in administering to the luxuries of the true be-
lievers, has not contributed to increase the good liking between
the Mussulmans and the Franks at Smyrna, and dreadful disturb-
ances have been sometimes excited, either by the presumption of
the colonists, or the jealousy of the natives.
About nine years ago, a Venetian killed a Janissary, and fled
to a vessel in the harbour. The Turks, after various attempts to
get at the murderer, set fire to the Frank town ; and finding the
merchants had escaped to the ships, wreaked their vengeance on
the Greeks and Armenians, three hundred of whom they slew in
the streets. The crews of some Sclavonian vessels landing in
boats, completed the distress, by plundering the warehouse of
every Frank, except that of the English Consul-General, who,
with the assistance of two faithful Janissaries, resolutely and suc-
cessfully defended his house and property, and was the principal
means of allaying the disturbance.
When the war between France and Turkey was declared, the
lives of the French in Smyrna were saved only by a scheme, ac-
cording to which the merchants were made prisoners by a body
\>τϊ>-.ΐ; f^-V"•^
LETTER XXXV.
621
of soldiers sent into the town byCaraOsmanOglou, the celebrated
independent Pasha of Caramania. It may be supposed, that the
Governor of Smyrna has a difficult task to perform, in keeping
his city in tranquillity, and even in retaining possession of an
office from which he may be removed, not only by the revolt of
the citizens, but even (as has happened more than once) by the
intrigues of the Foreign Consuls with the Ministers at the Porte.
The present Governor purchased the renewal of his place in the
time of the last Sultan Mustapha : Sultan Mahmoud sent ano-
ther person to supersede him ; but he prepared to resist with two
thousand armed men, and by having recourse to the intercession
of a Foreign Minister at the Porte, re-established himself in his
post.
The Greeks of Smyrna, some of them, live near the Frank
town, and others interspersed amongst the Turks. They are all
in trade, differing in nothing from their countrymen in other
parts of the Levant, and they are next in point of number to the
Turks : they have an Archbishop and three churches. Since the
increase of strangers, and the removal of the factories once settled
at Aleppo, to Smyrna, the intermarriage between the Greeks and
Franks has not taken place so frequently as in former times.
Dr. Chandler* mentions the ladies of the merchants as dressed
in the Oriental fashion, and having the manners of natives. At
present that singularity is not to be observed, except in one or
two instances, and the tendour alone is now left, of all the par-
ticularities remarked by that traveller in the houses of the factors.
This utensil, similar to a contrivance employed in Holland, is a
* Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xix,
4 L
622
LETTER XXXV.
brazier placed under a table covered with a green cloth or carpet,
under which the assembled females of the family hide their feet.
Harps and piano-fortes, and many articles of ornamental fur-
niture, from London and Paris, are to be seen in the drawing-
rooms of Smyrna. When abroad, the ladies generally wear a
veil ; and I observed also, that in a large assembly of them at
the Roman Catholic chapel, they had ail scarfs over the left
shoulder, tied in a large loose knot behind. A girl at Smyrna,
even when she is an only daughter, is considered possessed of a
handsome fortune if she is heiress to ten thousand piasters.
The clerks in the merchant-houses are most of them Greeks ;
but the domestics employed in the families are Armenians ; and
the lower servants, or porters of the factories, Jews, who, not-
withstanding their laborious employments, live chiefly on bread
and dried olives, and can support themselves for about three paras
a day, although their daily pay, as well as that of other labourers
in the country, is from thirty to forty paras. The principal brokers
in the place are also of that nation, which is sufficiently' nume-
rous to maintain five or six synagogues.
The Armenians live in a quarter of the town to the north-east
of the Franks, and between the Greeks and Turks, called the
Three Corners*, and have a large well-built church of their own,
although many of them, being of the Roman Catholic persuasion,
frequent the Frank chapel.
"What may be called the principal buildings of the town, are
the Bazar and Bezestein, and a han called Vizir Han, built nearly
* Near the Three Corners, was the ruin seen by Wheler, which Chandler
supposed part of the ancient Gymnasium. Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xviii,
p. 6, 2d. edit,
^^H ^9^&ίψ ^^H ^^^^^H ^^H ■*r^i^ < - Β HHH HHJ HHHHHJ HHJ
LETTER XXXV.
623
a century and a half ago, and chiefly constructed out of the
marble ruins from the site of the ancient theatre in the north side
of the Castle-hill. The mountain Pagus itself contained veins of
fine marble, and some vestiges of the quarries are now to be
seen under the spot once occupied by the theatre, which, from a
pedestal found by Mr. Spon on the spot, has been supposed the
work of the Emperor Claudius. The site of this building, as
well as that of the Stadium, is still visible to those accustomed to
the position usually chosen for such places in the Grecian cities,
whose architects assisted themselves in forming these structures,
by raising only a part of the circular range of seats on arches, and
excavating the remainder of the amphitheatre out of the slope
of a hill. Every part of the buildings themselves has disap-
peared.
There is a considerable space unoccupied by any houses be-
tween the suburbs and the summit of the hill, and this is allotted
for a burying-ground to the Jews, who have nearly covered it
with their tomb-stones, lying flat on the ground, and not raised
in the manner usual in our church-vards.
A little to the north-east of the Jews' burying-ground, and also
on the side of the Castle-hill, is a Turkish cemetery, the most
populous I ever saw, walled in and shaded by a thick forest of cy-
presses. This fine tree has with its gloomy green, long oversha-
dowed the memorials of mortality ; and its thick foliage, as well as
the grateful odour of its wood, must serve to counteract the effects
which would otherwise be produced, if graves, only a foot or two
in depth, and containing corpses without coffins, were exposed
to the burning summer sun. The hardness and lightness of the
«cypress wood renders it very serviceable for the construction of
4l2
624
LETTER XXXV.
chests, or of any furniture which requires durable materials. The
Romans, as we learn from a line in Horace*, preserved their
manuscripts in boxes, or between layers cut from this tree, be-
lieving it, according to Pliny -j-•, to be capable of resisting decay,
and keeping out the moth.
The walls of the castle are extensive, and the lower stones, like
those of the citadel of Arta, are too massive to be confounded
with the superstructure which was erected at the beginning of
the thirteenth century, by John Angelus Commenus. The cis-
terns in the fort are also of a date coeval with the first foundation
of the new city of Smyrna by Antigonus and Lysimachus £.
* " linenda cedro, et loevi servanda cupresso." — De Arte Poet. lin.
332.
+ Plin. lib. xvi. cap. xlii. The folding doors of the Temple of Ephesus were
of cypress, aud after four hundred years looked like new ones, cap. xl.
if: The ancient Smyrneans came from the neighbourhood of Ephesus, and dis-
possessed the people called Lelegcs, then living on the site of the ancient
Smyrna, about twenty stadia, two Roman miles and a half, from the new city.
The Smyrneans were afterwards expelled by the ./Eolians, and retired to Colo-
phon, but reluming with an auxiliary force, recovered their town (Strabon.
Geog. lib xiv. p. 634, edit. Xyland, Parisiis, m.dcxx). The iEolian
Smyrna is that which contended for the birth of Homer. The Lydians under
Gygcs, in a war which was the subject of a poem in elegiac verse by Mimncr-
mus, (Paus. Boeotic. p. S84, edit. Xyland), destroyed the place, and the
Smyrneans lived dispersed in villages for four hundred years (Strab. lib. xiv.
p. 646, edit. qu. sup). Alexander the Great sleeping after the chase on
Mount Pagus, was warned by the goddesses Ncmescs in a dream, to build a city
on the hill where lie slept, and people it with the Smyrneans, who on consulting
the Oracle at Claros, were told, that those would be thrice and four times happy
who should till the lands on the farther bank of the sacred Meles. (Paus.
Achate p. 404 and 405,' edit. qu. sup. Hahov. m.dc.xiii). The task was
begun by Antigonus, and finished by Lysimachus ; Smyrna was the masi
ϊ^ί^ν^ϊ '{V-'^v*^
LETTER XXXV.
625
The castle can now hardly be said to be fortified, although a
few cannon are still mounted on the tottering walls. A low emi-
nence to the south-west of the Castle-hill, and separated from it only
beautiful of the Asiatic cities : part of it was built on the hill, but the larger
portion of it on the plain towards the port, and the Temple of Cybele and the
Gymnasium. The streets were large, and constructed at right angles to each
other, and well paved. There were large square porticoes both in the higher and
lower part of the city ; besides a library and a Homerium, which was a square
portico containing a temple and an image of Homer. The Meles flowed by
the walls, and besides the other structures, there was a port which might be
shut, (Strab. lib. xiv. p. 646, edit. qu. sup), it was the first city in Asia Mi-
nor which, even during the existence of Carthage, erected a temple to " Rome
the Goddess," (Tacit. Annal. lib. iv. sect. 56). Part of the city was destroyed
by Dolabella, when he slew Trebonius, one of the conspirators against Caesar.
But ι! flourished under the early Emperors, and under Caracalla took the name
of the First City of Asia.
Meletius in his Geography, (article Ιωνία), mentions that Smyrna was in pos-
session of the Venetians from the year 1056 to 1343; but the more accurate
sketch of its modern history is given in Tournefort (letter xxii. p. 508,
Paris, edit. 1717), and in Chandler, (p. 59). In 1084 it was taken by a
Turkish insurgent called Tzachas, and in 1097 by John Ducas. In the thir-
teenth century it was in ruins, except the Acropolis on Mount Pagus, which
was beautified and restored b> John Angelus Commenus, who died in 1224.
In 1313 it was conquered by Atin, the Sultan of Lydia, and was subjected in
1332 toHomur, his son and successor; but in 1345 some Knights of Rhodes sur-
prised, and made themselves master of a fort called the Castle of St. Peter near
the port, the ancient shut port, which they retained, in spite of the efforts of
Sultan Amuralh the First, and Bajazet, together with a new town attached to
it, until (hey were expelled by Tamerlane in 1402. The Acropolis and the
Latin City, commanded by an independent Turk, Cineis, or Ciueites, son of
CaraMipasi, governor of Ephesus, was taken, with the assistance of the Grand
Masfer of Rhodes, by Mahomet the First, who destroyed fort Si Peter, and
retired; but returning in 1424, finally subdued the city, which has continued
from that pciunt in the hands of the Ottoman Sultans.
■Ill
626
LETTER XXXV.
by a narrow valley, through which runs the road to the Ephesus,
has been called the Windmill-hill. On its summit are seen large
foundation-stones, and it appears to have been included within the
wall of the ancient city. In the south-western quarter is a recess,
where there are vestiges of the shut port mentioned by Strabo,
which was choked up by Tamerlane * ; and here the small armed
boats belonging to the Governor, or other Turks of the town, are
laid up in dock. An old fort (built perhaps out of the Castle of
St. Peterf*, which was constructed by the Latins, whom Lord
Sandwich, in his Voyage round the Mediterranean J, apparently
on the authority of Tournefort§, calls Genoese) stands at the mouth
of this artificial basin, and contains a few cannon, which the Turks
discharge on days of rejoicing.
The building which most attracted our attention at Smyrna,
was a large public hospital at the north-east side of the Frank
quarter. It is supported by, and is under the controul of the
Christians, being superintended by Greek physicians, who have
formed a sort of college, or faculty, and are in more repute at
Smyrna than in other parts of Turkey. The building is an open
square, divided into a laboratory and three sets of wards sur-
rounding a court-yard, which is pleasantly shaded by rows of
trees. One of the wards is appropriated to patients of every de-
scription ; another is for the reception of infirm and bed-ridden
* See the foregoing note.
+ See the foregoing note.
% Page 307, London 1749.
§ The Genoese historians fix the expedition against Smyrna at the year 1346.
The city itself was taken by Morbassan, a general of Sultan Orcan the Second,
about that period, so that these Genoese may perhaps be identified with the
Knights of Rhodes. — See Tournefort, letter xxii. p. 509.
^^m ^^m ^^U *^* ^H ^^M ^^m - φ&ψ$
LETTER XXXV.
627
old women ; and a third for idiots and maniacs. Of this last
class there were, when we saw the place, several most distressing
objects; but the one which alone was deserving of particular
notice, was a female, distinguished by the appellation of the Wild
Woman, quite dumb, nearly deaf, and possessed of no one con-
sciousness belonging to humanity. She was sitting, rolled up, as
it were, upon a truss of straw in the corner of her cell. Her
legs were crooked under her, but upon the name, " Athoula,"
to which she would sometimes attend, being loudly called, she
hopped slowly towards us, pushing herself along principally by
the use of her hands. Her length (for height she had none), if ex-
tended, would have been about three feet and a half. Her head
was sunk on her chest; not a muscle of her face moved, and the
keeper who attended us, passed his hand over every feature, in
order to point out its conformation, without her seeming sensible
of his touch. Her head was entirely bald, her eyes small, sunk
in her head and fixed, and her ears were of a disproportionate
magnitude. An idiotic smile was settled on her mouth, and every
line of her countenance indicated an entire absence of reason. Her
skin was yellow and shrivelled, but smooth, and neither body
nor limbs, although distorted, were at all monstrous in any par-
ticular, except that her fingers-ends had the appearance rather
of claws than nails.
The keeper, and other persons whose authority I understood
might be depended upon, informed me, that Athoula, who was
thought, although upon no certain grounds, to be near sixty years
old, had been nine years in the hospital, to which she had been
brought by a person who had found her in a wood near Smyrna,
and had nourished her for many years at his own expence. When
found, she was without any clothes ; she had not the use of her
628
LETTER XXXV.
feet, but appeared young and active. In other respects, she
was the same creature as when seen by us. That a being so idio-
tic could procure itself food, seems impossible; and this unfortu-
nate creature cannot be supposed to have continued any length
of time in the forest, but rather to have been left behind by some
of the wandering tribes of Turcomans, or of the Zinganies or
Gypsies, which often advance to the vicinity of the city. My
Lord Monboddo's theory will, I fear, receive no additional sup-
port from this singular fact, nor Athoula be thought a fit match
for Mons. Condamine's Wild Girl*.
ATHOULA,
Smyrna, March 28, 1810.
Besides this asylum, there is a small hospital belonging to the
British Factory, pleasantly situated in the outskirts of the town
to the north, which is as neat and comfortable as any similar
establishment in England. But the merchants in our time were
provided neither with a resident physician nor a chaplain, so that,
were it not for the occasional attendance of the surgeons from
the ships on the Levant station, the hospital would be not more
serviceable than the elegant chapel attached to the house of the
Consul-General.
* Mr. H. Tooke, however, has, from good authority, furnished his Lord-
ship with a tail of a foot long, and a tail like the tail of a horse, at least of such
a horse as Archbishop Beckel used to ride. See ΕΠΕ Α ΠΤΕΡΟΕΝΤΑ, Part I.
cap. ix. p. 397, sec. edit. London, 1798.
νΧ;Κ•ν,Λ
LETTER XXXVI•
The Musselhns Summer Residence — Fruits — Sherbets — Fish —
Meats — The Inner Bay — The Flat near Smyrna — Game of
the Djerid — Horses of the Turks — The Meles —Caravan
Bridge — Homers Cave — The Site of the Molian Smyrna —
The Road to Bournabat : that Village described — The Storks
— The Village of Boudjah — The Plague — The Climate —
Cranes — Chameleons — Lizards.
BEYOND the Frank street to the north, and close
to the edge of the water, is the summer residence of the Musse-
lim, or Governor of Smyrna. This title is given to the comman-
ders of some large cities in Turkey. The house is in the midst of a
spacious garden, and many acres of the adjoining grounds, belong-
ing to the principal Franks, are laid out in the same manner, and
abound with almost every species of fruit of the finest quality*.
Their figs, which are eaten when green, and their grapes, so
* Les orangers y sont si communs qu'on ne daigne pas en cueillir le fruit,
de maniere qu'il reste sur l'arbre toute l'annee jusqu'a ce que les fleurs pous-
sent. Le figuier, l'olivier et le grenadier croissent pele-niele dans les champs.
Hasselquist, Voyages dans le Levant, premiere partie, p. 38, edit. Paris,
1769. The ground-ivy (the χ<χ^«*κκπτο? of the Greeks) is found in great quan-
tities in the gardens.
4 Μ
630
LETTER XXXVI.
much prized in Europe, are not more delicious than their citrons,
lemons, oranges, pomegranates, and melons.
In the city there are several shops almost in every street, where
sherbets, made from these fruits, are sold. The sherbets are sweet-
ened with honey and pomegranate seeds, and are exposed in the
open windows in coloured glass jars, or in small tin fountains, in
which, by means of a little wheel turning round after the manner
of an overshot-mill, the liquor plays through several slender tubes
into the basin below. The heat of the climate renders these cooling
draughts, although they are extremely insipid, not only grateful,
but exceedingly salubrious. Whey, sour thick milk, called yaourt,
or οξυγχλ», and caimac, or άφρόγχλχ, something like our clotted cream,
and no bad substitute for butter, are also consumed in great quan-
tities, not only in Smyrna, but in every large town in Turkey. The
wines, particularly the muscat and dry white wine, grown in the
neighbouring plains and on the sides of the hills, are much
esteemed, and they receive an additional flavour by having the dry
and powdered blossom of the vine steeped in them during their
fermentation.
The tables of the Franks of Smyrna are supplied with every
delicacy. Fish abound in the bay, particularly the red mullet : in
March and April, oysters and sea-urchins, and other shell-fish,
amounting, according to Hasselquist, to more than ten different
sorts*, are dragged up from the beds in the inner part of the har-
bour, and innumerable fishing-boats, covered with a black-tented
sail, are at that season moored at a little distance from the shore.
* Nous ne connoissons que les huitres, et ils ont dix sortes de coquillages,
sans compter les ecrt-visses de mer, les cancres, les chevrettes, les langoustins,
&c. &c. — Voyage dans le Levant, edit. Paris, 1769, scconde partie, page 134,
wtmmm^t
^M
^M &fe? '-^/fe4•-
LETTER XXXVI.
631
Hares, red-legged partridges*, woodcocks, and snipes in abun-
dance, are found in the vicinity of the city.
The butchers'-meat cannot be kept long enough in the hot
months, to become tender and palatable ; but the mutton of the
broad-tailed sheep, the common breed of Asia Minor, is of an
excellent quality. It is between eleven and twelve paras a pound.
One of the most disgusting sights in Turkey, is a meat-market.
The limbs of the slaughtered animals have the appearance of being
torn, rather than cut into portions, and lie in mangled heaps to-
gether, exposed to the dirt and heat. Beef is very little esteemed,
but I have found it fat and well-flavoured at the tables of the Franks.
Beyond the Musselim's country-house to the north, is a flat
marshy piece of land, round which the sea winds, and forms a
bay to the east. This is a sort nf inner harbour.
About half a mile down the harbour, there is a long wooden
pier projecting from the land, near which the large merchant
vessels are laid up to refit. This inner port was, when we saw it
full of Dutch and other ships, under the French flag, unwilling
to run the risk of being captured by the English cruisers. Ne-
vertheless, a very considerable trade was carrying on in Ameri-
can, Greek, and Barbary vessels, with the French Ports. Ame-
rican ships have also lately furnished Smyrna with many articles
from the other hemisphere, which were once supplied by France
and England -f•.
* The red-legged partridges are reared in broods, like domestic fowls, by
the peasants of Scio. — See Busbeck's Letters, translated, London edit. 1744
p. 129.
+ The whole system and policy of our Levant trade have undergone a change
by our possession of Malta and the Mediterranean, and by the circumstances
4 Μ 2
632
LETTER XX XV Γ.
The Frederickstein frigate was heaved down at the point
of the wooden pier, which being covered with her guns and
stores, was protected by a guard, much to the surprise of the
of the present war. The monopoly of the Turkey Company, against which
Dean Tucker exclaimed many years ago, seems not at all favourable to the
British interests in the Levant. During our stay at Smyrna and Constantino-
ple, I took the opportunity of making several inquiries respecting the British
Turkey trade; but a mercantile gentleman, Mr. Gait, who was in the Levant
at the same time with myself, having published his travels, and given the
result of his observations, I refer to his work (page 372, 4to.), and content my-
self with hinting at these general prominent facts which fell within my own
notice. First, that English cloths, the former staple export, being undersold
by the German, scarcely find a market in the Levant, and are, therefore, seldom
to be met with ; but that cottons of our manufacture are in great demand ; se-
condly, that the direct trade in English bottoms from London to Smyrna has
nearly ceased, the goods being conveyed from Malta in Greek vessels; and
thirdly, that as a channel for supplying the European continent with our ma-
nufactures and colonial produce, has begun to be opened at Salonica, whence
our exports are now conveyed over land into Germany, the necessity of opening
the trade, or at least of forming other establishments in addition to those at
Smyrna and Constantinople, becomes every day more apparent. To this may
be added, that our resident Levant merchants arc not sufficiently interested in the
English trade, as they are able to engage with the merchants of other countries.
Some of them having been long settled, have married and become otherwise
connected with French, Dutch, and other Frank families, and have a share in
their concerns. Tiie success of a British cruiser has more than once beeu nearly
fatal to the fortunes of some of these British merchants; and I remember, that
not a little address was employed at Smyrna, to learn the destination of the
sloop Pylades, after she had brought us from Athens. As then these gentle-
men have found a means of carrying on their speculations, even in the event
of a war between Great Britain and the Turks, any English Negotiator with
the Porte, must not be surprised at finding his endeavours but poorly seconded
by the resident members of the Levant Company,
.•■■!<'■',
'&rfcA ^^U ^^^^^^H '!???* ^ψ-'^Ψ'^*
LETTER XXXVI.
633
inquisitive Turks, who did not know what to think of being
turned off from their accustomed walking-place. The flat piece
of land has increased considerably in half a century; for Hassel-
quist, who travelled in 1750, describes it as about an acre of
oround. There are certain evidences, as that naturalist has ob-
served, that not only the flat, but the garden ground more in-
land, have been gained from the sea; for marine plants, and such
grasses as will not grow without sea-salt, besides shells of every
sort, are still found upon this new soil*. This is the spot on
which the Turks amuse themselves at their favourite pastime of
throwing the djerid. They generally chuse a Sunday for this
sport, when all the Greeks and Franks are enjoying the sea-
breezes on the beach t
On the 11th of March, the spot was crowded with them
mounted on horses superbly caparisoned, the Musselim himself,
with the chief Agas of the city, being amongst the number. Se-
veral slaves, chiefly blacks, were attending on foot. Each of the
riders was furnished with one or two djerids (straight white sticks,
a little thinner than an umbrella stick, less at one end than at the
other, and about an ell in length), together with a thin cane)
crooked at the head. The sport soon began.
The horsemen, perhaps a hundred in number, galloped about
in as narrow a space as possible, throwing the djerids at each
other, and shouting : each man, selecting an opponent who had
darted his djerid, and was for the moment without a weapon,
rushed furiously towards him, screaming " Olloh! OliohP The
* Voyages dans le Levant, premier partie, p. 40 and 52, edit. Paris, 179.9,
tl le brin de buissons, le jonc raarin (arundo phragmites et donax)," and more-
particularly " le Triglochin palustre de Suede."
634
LETTER XXXVI.
other fled, looking behind him, and the instant the dart was
launched, either stooped downwards, almost touching the ground
with his head, or wheeled his horse with an inconceivable rapidity,
and picking up a djerid with his cane, or taking one from a run-
ning slave, in his turn pursued the enemy, who wheeled instantly
on throwing his djerid. The greatest dexterity was requisite and
practised, in order to avoid the concurrence of the different par-
ties, and to escape the random blows of the djerids, which were
flying in every direction.
The chief performer was a Mameluke slave, mounted on an
Arabian courser, whom I observed generally engaged with the
Musselim, himself a very expert player. His djerid flew with a
celerity almost sightless, perhaps for a hundred yards, and when
it struck against the high back of the flying horseman's saddle,
sounded through all the field. He would wheel in as small a
space as would suffice for an expert scater ; and not unfrequently
he caught the flying djerids in the air, and returned them at his
pursuer, before the other could have time to turn his horse.
The sport is not a little hazardous : a blow on the temple might
be fatal ; and several accidents have occurred, which might rea-
sonably deter any one from exposing himself on such occasions.
The late Capudan Pasha, Kutchuc Hussein Pasha, cut off the
head of one of his officers who wounded him on the shoulder
with a djerid. The conduct of JussufF Pasha, twice Grand Vizier,
was indeed very different. When he was Musselim of Erzeroum,
a slave deprived him of his right eye by a similar accident : Jus-
sufF, on recovering from the first stupefaction of the blow, or-
dered the man a purse of money, with an injunction to quit the
city immediately; " for," added he, " though I am not angry now,
■ ^U &^ < 0&*&:-?$ > •
LETTER XXXVI.
635
I know not what I may be when I come to feel the consequences
of this accident/'
The Mahometan had arrived at a more humane and practical
wisdom by the generosity of his nature, than a sage of antiquity
taught himself by the prudential maxims of his own philosophical
sect — " I am not enraged at present," said Diogenes the stoic, to
a man who spit in his face, " but I doubt whether or not I ought
to be angry*/'
The Turks engaged in this amusement with a childish eager-
ness, and however manly may be the exercise, a foreigner cannot
help thinking, that it would be very laughable to see the Mayor
and Magistrates belonging to a town in his own country, gallop-
ping about in a circle, and flinging sticks at each other for an
hour together. The custom, however, seems as old as the em-
pire of the Parthians, whose method of fighting it must have been
meant to represent, and it is practised by all the inhabitants of
the East who excel in horsemanship.
Niehbuhr the traveller has given in his work, a representa-
tion of the Governor and chief Arabs of Loheia, in Yemen*
playing in parties of four ; and the Moors left the same game,
called juego de canas, behind them in Spain, where it was re-
vived at the marriage of the present Charles the Fourth, when
prince of the Asturias. There, as in Arabia, it was not performed
promiscuously, but in quadrilles composed of the grandees, and
headed by a prince of the blood -f.
The great men of Turkey, like those of most countries, are all
* Seneca de Ira. lib. iii. cap. 38.
t Sec Carter's Journey from Gibraltar to Malaga.
636
XETTER XXXVI.
expert horsemen, and exemplify the saying of Carneades, who
averred, that rich men, and sons of kings, are generally good
riders ; because a horse is not, like other instructors, a flatterer,
but will throw down any person of any rank who has not learnt
to sit him *.
Every one knows what care and attention are paid by the Ori-
entals to their horses. The Turk thinks it beneath his dignity,
and indeed has no notion how any one can feel inclined, to walk
for amusement, and if he has only ten steps to go, always mounts
his charger. The numbers and condition of his stud, are the true
criterion of his wealth and importance ; and the Pashas, when
they would shew any distinguished honour to a guest, fail not to
present him with a horse. It is said of the Sultan Saladin, that he
never mounted a courser which he had not either given away or
promised. The horses of the Turks bear no marks of ill-treat-
ment, but are in general sleek, plump, and spirited, and the kind
usage they receive from their grooms, renders them exceedingly
tractable and free from vice. They are neither so fast, nor capa-
ble of bearing such a continued quick pace as those of our own
breed. Their best paces are a walk and gallop, although the
first is often interrupted by a curvetting amble, and the last is
constrained by the custom of frequently stopping them short at
full speed. This is effected by means of the long bit. The inner
corner of the stirrup, which is like the head of a fire-shovel, serves
the purpose of a spur, except that the Tartars or couriers gene-
rally have a sort of short goad fixed to the heel of their boots.
Entire horses are alone in use, for the Orientals are, in this par-
* Menag, Observat. in Diog. Laert. lib. iv, seg. 66, p. 1$5, edit. Wetsten.
^^H ^^^H ■Γ'ΤΤ-? rff-iVt-
LETTER XXXVI.
637
ticular, less cruel to the brute creation than to their own species,
and have never adopted a custom which is universal amongst the
Franks, and bespeaks their origin from the barbarian nations of
the north*. They live to a very advanced period of life, although
I cannot say I was ever shown any which were said to be fifty
years old, the age of those horses seen by Busbeck in the stables
of Sultan Solyman -j-.
In the spring of the year the Turkish horses are tethered in
the downs, and amongst the young corn. They are fed, when
in the stable, upon barley and chopped straw ; the use of oats
never having been, from the earliest times to the present dav, in-
troduced amongst the Oriental nations. There are no separate
stalls in their stables, but their fore legs are shackled, and one of
their hinder legs confined by a rope, to prevent them from doing
each other any mischief by kicking. Dried horse-dung is used,
instead of straw, for litter.
It cannot be thought that a people, who have no physicians that
can cure the diseases of men, should understand the treatment
of maladies in horses ; yet the Turks are successful in some cases
which might puzzle an European practitioner. Total blindness is
not unfrequently removed in the following manner: — They run
a needle and thread round the back part of the eye ; then, by
means of the thread, they draw the eye almost out of the socket,
so as to reach the back of it, and with a razor or knife cut off
the horny excrescence which is the cause of the disease : washing
the wound with a little salt, they afterwards return the part to its
* I(W it τη Σκυ3-»κ« και τ« Σα-,ρ/Αα-πκ» παντός ίχνους, το τονς ϊππους έκτέ/Λ-
mv 9 ίνπίβείχς γάμν.— Strab. lib. vii. p. 312, edit. Xyland.
t Busbeck's Letters, translated, London edit. J714, p. 133.
4 Ν
638
LETTER XXXVI,
position, and consider the horse to be sufficiently recovered to be
used the next day.
Below the djerid ground and the pier, the land is marshy, and
intersected with dykes near the water. Amongst their gardens,
the stream of the Meles is lost during the summer, but in the
winter, and even in the spring of the year, flows through a shal-
low pebbly channel into the lower bay. The river has its source
in a ravin, a mile and a half, perhaps, on the south-east side of
the Castle-hill : it runs in a deep valley, crossed by two aque-
ducts; the one is in ruins, the other still serving to furnish the
town with water supplied by torrents from the mountains. Im-
mediately at the back (the east of the suburbs), the Meles flows
in a broad placid stream through a green meadow ; at this point
it is crossed by a one-arched bridge, and two or three large weep-
ing willows hang over its margin. Under the shade of these
trees, the Turks collect in parties to smoke ; and the meadow of
Caravan Bridge, for so the place is called, is the Mall of Smyrna.
Beyond the bridge the river becomes more wide, and no longer
confined between its banks, overflows the road at the back of
the suburbs, and spreads into the olive-groves, and fields and
gardens.
The Meles, in its short progress, is equally serviceable to the
modern as it was to the ancient Smyrneans, but it has lost the
name by which it was once so famous, and goes by the usual ap-
pellation of " the Water. 3 ' The pleasing fiction which conferred so
much celebrity upon this sacred stream, after being for ages for-
gotten, was revived by a traveller of our own nation * ; for a cave
*' See Chandler.
'
^^^H .
■
LETTER XXXVI.
639
m the bank above the• aqueduct, near the source of the river, is
shewn, on the authority of that learned person, as the solitary
retreat in which the divine poet was accustomed to compose his
verse. No other memorial of Homer now remains. The Home-
rium, called by some the Temple of Janus, and seen by Wheler,
had disappeared before Chandler travelled, as well as the tomb of
St. Polycarp, who is said to have been burnt or torn to pieces in the
amphitheatre of the ancient city. But the worship of the Saint
has survived that of the Poet ; for the 23d of February is set
apart as the festival of the first Christian Bishop of Smyrna, " the
Lieutenant-general of the great army of Martyrs*/'
To the east of the Meles, lower down in the inner bay, amongst
the marshes, and under a low hill, some vestiges of what has
been supposed ancient Smyrna, the original city, were discovered
by Pococke-f•. They are near some springs of water mentioned
in all books of travels, and still well known at Smyrna under the
name of the Baths of Diana. Wheler thought the iEolian
Smyrna had been on a hill, south of the present city; but the
Clarian Oracle seems to show, that, with a reference to the an-
cient settlement, the position of Mount Pagus was beyond the
sacred Meles. Now Mount Pagus, the Castle-hill, is to the
south-west of the Meles ; therefore the ancient Smy means lived
to the north of that river.
At the extremity of the inner bay there is a sort of scale or
landing-place, near which is a solitary hut kept by a Turk, who
supplies you with coffee and a pipe, and a mat — the usual accom-
* Wheler. A Voyage in the Lesser Asia, book iii. p. 245.
t Observations on Asia Minor, book ii. p. 39, London, fbl. edit. 1765,
4N 2
040
LETTER XXXVI.
modations of these resting-places. At this place there is a number
of jack-asses kept ready saddled, for the use of those going to
the large village of Bonavre, or Bournabat, which is about four
mile» up the country, in a direction north-east from the city. The
jack-asses are attended by boys; and the hire of the beast is
thirty paras for going to the village, and the same sum for re-
turning from it. The whole road from the shore to Bournabat
is between hedge-rows.
When riding to the village, we found ourselves in a beautiful
green lane, which, as we had seen nothing like it since the com-
mencement of our tour, made us forget we were in Turkey.
Trees thickly dispersed in the hedges, gave the whole country the
woody appearance of one of our most cultivated English coun-
ties. They were chiefly of the sort producing amygdalon, or wild
almond, which was then (March the 21st) green, and eaten by
the peasants. The grounds on each side the road (which are of
a chalky soil mixed with a portion of sand, and covered with a
light black earth) were laid out in corn-fields, or cultivated with
the cotton and tobacco plant, interspersed with many large gar-
dens and olive-groves. The anemony, tulip, and ranunculus,
were blooming in wild profusion under the hedges and beside
the path. A little way from the village we passed a very large
burying-ground, shaded by an extensive forest of cypresses.
From the magnitude of this cemetery, Bournabat is supposed
to have been once a town of some note, and, indeed, the first
patents granted to our Levant Consuls, gave them jurisdic-
tion at Smyrna and Bonavre: at present, the village is chiefly
composed of very elegant country-houses, built in the European
fashion, belonging to the merchants of Smyrna. It contains one
::>γνον:.->ι sp^vs? &*■%& k>rv•:?, ; s> ?^ ¥£^3^*9?:.'
LETTER XXXVI.
641
open space, surrounded by a few neat shops, and shaded by seve-
ral large and aged cedar trees, whose branches are hung with
storks' nests. These birds had arrived from their winter quarters
nearly at the time when we passed into Asia. They were stalk-
ing about on the flat roofs of the houses, and even in the streets
of Bournabat, perfectly unmolested. Such, indeed, is the attach-
ment of the storks to the habitation of man, that I do not recol-
lect to have ever seen their nests in a tree at any distance from
some human dwelling, and they build even in the tops of
moscks and inhabited houses: I nave observed many in the
suburbs of Constantinople. — The traveller, in his walks amidst
the ruins of ancient cities, is often awakened from his reverie by
the loud chatte rings of one of these domestic birds, perched on
the fragment of a column, or on the shed of the solitary shep-
herd. The clapping of their long bills produces a souud similar
to, and full as loud as, that of a watchman's rattle when turned
round slowly, or of the wheel put in a garden to scare the birds.
The kind and salutary superstition, which grants to the storks
the protection of the Mahometans, is justified by the real utility
of these animals. They feed principally on the serpents, frogs 3
and other reptiles, with which the marshes, during the summer
months, are almost choked up.
A pillar in the mosck of Bournabat, contains an inscription
relative to the Meles, which was copied, and, I believe, disco-
vered for the first time, a short time before our. arrival by an Eng-
lish traveller*.
The country-house of the English Consul-General is in a village
between four and five miles to the south-east of Smyrna, called
* Mr. R. Walpole.
■II
642
LETTER XXXV 1.
Boudjah, which is less frequented than Bournabat, and is distin
guished at a distance by a large grove of cypresses. The man-
sion, fitted up altogether in the English taste, has an excellent
garden and vineyard attached to it, and is constantly inhabited
b} 7 the family of the owner from June to the end of September.
Houses belonging to Frank merchants may be found in Nar-
lecui, Hadjelar, and other small villages, scattered up and down
in the fine plain, of about four or five miles in breadth, extending
from the feet of the mountain at the back (the east and south-east)
of Smyrna to the suburbs of the city. During the hot season,
and the visits of the plague, the town is deserted, and the richer
part of the whole population passes into the villages.
Smyrna, which has been so long considered as the very hot-
bed of the plague, has of late years suffered less than formerly
by the ravages of that dreadful calamity. The Turks have be-
come more cautious to prevent infection, and the sale of clothes
taken from the bodies of those killed by the disease, which was
formerly encouraged, has been punished with death. The Frank
settlers, by frequent experience, know how to secure themselves
from danger, and talk of the plague with much more indifference
than those separated by a thousand leagues from the usual scene
of its ravages. All the numerous theories advanced on the sub-
ject, agree in attributing the diffusion, in a great measure, to the
terror, of the plague, and some very pointed instances corrobora-
tive of the fact, were related to myself. If, however, as has
been supposed*, the use of coffee, tobacco, and other narcotic
and alkaline substances, predisposes the body for the reception of
* See some Reflections on Shrieber's " Dissertatio de Pestilentia OdzacLo-
vii," in Baron Reidsel's Voyage en Levant, chap. xi. p. 369, edit. Paris,
1802.
■^■■■,!>i I ^^H i^i^si•
LETTER XXXVI.
643
the venom of this pestilence, the hope of ever exterminating the
disease from amongst the Turks cannot be entertained. The
plague powder of the famous renegade, Count Bonneval, which
cured ninety out of a hundred persons, is either forgotten, or has
lost all its credit.
The heat was never intolerable during our stay in this part of
Asia ; the thermometer continued at about sixty-eight until the
27th of March, when it sunk ten degrees, and the weather was
rainy and cold for several days. The spring had commenced
early, as was manifested by the arrival of the storks, and the
flight of the cranes northwards about ten days sooner than the
usual period. We observed the movements of the latter birds
on entering the Gulf of Smyrna. Numerous squadrons of them,
in the shape of a wedge, or the legs of an unequal-sided tri-
angle, might then be seen flying over the high mountains to the
north of the gulf, which they did not surmount by a direct
upward flight, but by repeatedly wheeling diagonally, similar
to the frequent tackings of a ship beating against the wind, or to
the patient march of an army winding up the paths, rather than
climbing over the precipices, of a hill. Some advanced columns
were disappearing over the summit just as others were beginning
their progress at the foot of the rocks. Their ceaseless clamour
might be distinctly heard during the stillness of the evening,
many miles from the shore, in the mouth of the gulf. The mar-
shalled order preserved by the cranes in their flight, and during
their migration, has been painted by the hand of a master, in
the Ambra of Lorenzo de Medicis*.
* See Appendix to Roscoe's Lorenzo de Medicis, vol. iii.
644 LETTER XXXVI.
Stridendo in ciel e gru veggonsi a lunge
L'Aere stampar di varie, e belle forme ;
Ε l'ultima col collo steso aggiunge
Ov'e quella dinanzi allevane orme.
Ε poiche negli aprichi lochi giunge,
Vigile un guarda, e l'altra schiera dorme.
The migration of these birds continued for three weeks.
A fortnight after our arrival chameleons were found amongst
the old stone walls of the gardens ; and an English gentleman,
resident at the Consul-Generars house, kept one of these singu-
lar animals on a fresh bough of the rhamnus, or white-thorn (its
favourite shrub), suspended in his room, for the sake of observ-
ing the frequent variation of its colour. Its usual hue was green,
of the same shade as the bough on which it was placed, marked
with a few white spots. When provoked, by being slightly
touched with a twig or feather, it became suddenly, first of a
bright yellow ; then large black spots broke out on every part of
its body, and it appeared by degrees to be of a dark grey. It
did certainly assimilate itself pretty nearly to the colour of that
on which it was laid, except that (as Sir George Wheler observed)
it never turned to a red or blue.
The unsightly form, the tail, the long tongue, and above all,
the curious conformation of the eye, which is fixed in a move-
able convex socket of an oval shape projecting from the head,
would direct the attention of naturalists to the chameleon, even
if it was not distinguished by its more characteristic peculia-
rity*. It was thought necessary by the traveller φ mentioned
* See Paley's Natural Theology, cap. xvi. p. 281.
t "Wheler, a Voyage into the Lesser Asia, book iii. p. 248 and 249,
■ ■ ^m ^^h ψ$* ^^^m ^^h ^h ■«■•
LETTER XXXVI.
645
above, to give a most minute description of this animal ; and the
very first object which Dr. Chandler notices, next to his recep-
tion at Smyrna, is his sight of a chameleon*. The swift lizard
(stellio) is seen perpetually crossing the walks in the gardens,
and the smaller kind (lacerta Chalcidica) is found also in the
court-yards of the houses, under the loose stones. The excre-
ment of the former is said by Belon to be sold in Egypt for an
excellent cosmetic -f\
* Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xvii. p. 56 and 57.
+ Cited in cap. vi. tome ii. p. 91, of Ray's Collection of curious Travels
and Voyages.
4 Ο
LETTER XXXVI.
A Journey to Ephesus — The Route— The Han at Tourhali — A
Dervish — Metropolis — The Coffee Shed near Osebanar — TW-
comans' Tents — The Plain of the Cayster — The Ferry — Ar-
rival at Aiasaluk — The Han — The Ruins — Desolation of this
Spot — The Site and Remains of Ephesus — The Temple of
Diana — Return to Smyrna.
AT two o'clock on the 13th of March, we set out
from Smyrna, accompanied by a Janissary belonging to the
Consul-General, and our usual number of postmen and baggage-
horses : our Albanians did not attend us. Indeed, from the mo-
ment we left Greece, we found but little occasion for their services
and they rather incommoded us than otherwise ; for their nation
is held in great horror amongst the Turks of Asia, and the Ja-
nissaries, who by prescriptive usage attend all travellers, do not
suffer them to interfere with their charge. Dervish and Vasilly
being richly dressed, were at Smyrna taken for our slaves, and
our Dragoman Andreas was one day in the streets asked if he
would sell them.
Passing through the whole length of the Turkish town, we
ascended the side of the Castle-hill near the Jews' burying-ground,
and came to a paved road in a state of dilapidation, the remains
— •>ηλ}•-.; ar^-ML.•^;.;; *$&£&••. >V;..T , > i i
^m ;i%f>v^>
LETTER XXXVII.
647
of the ancient military way to Ephesus. The paved road lasted,
with intervals, for about a mile ; we then went between hedges
on a hard well-beaten road, and in an hour had a view of the
village of Boudjah, and of Sedicui, a larger country town nearer
the hills to the east of Smyrna : our route was south-south-west.
Farther on was another village. The country appeared every
where well cultivated, and the abode of a people more civilized
than the inhabitants of European Greece. Large plots of green
sward, cotton grounds, and ploughed lands, extended on both
sides of the road, as far as the eye could reach, over the level
country to the foot of the mountains, which seemed themselves
partially cultivated, and crowned with trees to their summits.
Farther on we passed over some open down country, covered in
parts with prickly shrubs, on which a large drove of camels was
feeding dispersed over the plain.
In four hours from Smyrna we passed through a neat village,
Jemourasi, in which was a mosck shaded by cypress, surrounded
with a green. The country to the right (the west) was a succes-
sion of fine pasture lands, inclosed with low hedges and trees,
partly in tufts and partly disposed in rows : the route was south-
south-east and south. In an hour more, still travelling on a very
good road, and between pasture lands, we passed another village,
Terrenda, and in a short time crossed a stream, the same which
Wheler calls the Halys, and Chishull the Halesus. From this place
we went through a marshy extensive flat, directing ourselves to-
wards the woody hills to the south. It was nearly dark. The whole
country resounded with the croaking of the frogs, which was so
loud, and in so different a tone from any we had ever heard before,
that we were at first inclined to believe it proceeded from the packs
4o2
■II
648
LETTER XXXVII.
of jackalls with which the mountains abound, and whose howling
we had been told we should hear upon our journey. Beyond the
marsh the road was bad and stony. At half after eight we ar-
rived at a small mud coffee-house, near which was a large well-
built stable : this was the han or caravan-serai. Not choosing to•
take up our abode with several other travellers in the hut, we put
up our beds in the stable.
The traveller in Asia does not find himself accommodated as
in Greece, with lodgings in private houses, belonging to persons
who are obliged to give him entertainment, but either must pro-
cure introductions to the Agas, or squires of the villages, whose
hospitality, although very kind and liberal, is troublesome, from
the necessity of conforming to their customs, or must content
himself with the hans.
We spent an hour before we went to bed in the coffee-hut. The
floor was covered with a promiscuous company, sitting cross-leg-
ged on their mats, round a little fire made between four bricks,
over which the master of the hut was warming his coffee-pot.
Every man in the room was furnished with a pipe, and upon our
entering, they asked only a question or two of our Dragoman, as to
who we were, and whither we were going, beckoned us to a place
amongst them, and resumed their smoking. The silence was inter-
rupted by no one but a strange-looking fellow, who had established
himself in the best corner of the cabin. This man, without ad-
dressing himself to any person present, frequently ejaculated the
name of God very loudly, exclaiming " Olloh! Olloh!" with a
strong and peculiar emphasis, and now and then screaming out part
of a song. He seemed half in jest, and a smile curled upon the
grave lips of the other travellers, who, however, said nothing,
iilyl-^ pv^-V-^i^^f ^^H
LETTER XXXVII.
649
nor attempted to interrupt him. We were soon given to under-
stand, that the strange person was a Dervish, of that sect which
leave their habitations in the spring and autumn, and wander
about the country singly, supported by the alms of the believers,
or by less honest means. He addressed himself now and then
to us, and in the midst of his pious ejaculations not only laughed
very obstreperously, but both by words and actions gave us seve-
ral most indecent intimations. The other guests, when his back
was turned, spoke but slightingly of him, but showed him no dis-
respect to his face ; and gave a conspicuous proof of that charac-
teristic piety of the Mahometan discipline, which respects even
the semblance of religion, and will not run the chance of degrad-
ing the sanctity of the profession for the sake of reproving the
depravity of the man. These Dervishes abound in Anatolia,
where they have several monasteries ; one of which, near the
tomb of a saint of their order, contains five hundred brothers,
superintended by the chief of the sect, called Assambaba, or
Father of Fathers. From the specimen we saw, I could bring
myself to believe any thing bad of them, although I never heard
quite enough to justify the character given of them by a late
writer, and inserted below*.
We were up the next morning at sun-rise, and found that our
ban was in the neighbourhood of a village inhabited by Turks
only, called Tourbali. The stable in which we slept, is built
* " If they meet on the road a passenger whom they think in easy circum-
stances, they ask alms of him in honour of Ali, son-in-law of Mahomet; if he
refuses, they cut his throat, or butcher him with a little axe which they carry
at their girdles. lis violent les femmes qu'ils trouvent a l'ecart, et se livrent
entr'eux aux exces les plus monstrueux." — Notice sur la cour du Grand Seig»
neur 5 &c. par Τ. E. Beauvoisins, Paris, 1809.
■II
650
LETTER XXXVII.
partly on the broken columns mentioned by Chandler*. The
land round the village was all enclosed, but at a distance, to the
north and east, seemed wild and marshy, and was enveloped,
until the sun was fairly risen, in a thick white fog. To the south,
and close to the village, w T as a range of low hills, running east and
west, and covered with wild olive and turpentine trees. I consider
them to be a part of the ancient Gallesus, now called Aleman
by the Turks. Leaving Tourbali, we directed our steps to the
east, towards a lake of no great extent. The path was in places
paved, and leading near plane trees, under which, here and there,
were a few Turkish tomb-stones. Arriving at the head of the
small lake, we turned south-south-east, and travelled by the side
of it, under the hills to the right, for an hour and a half. The
lake was reedy, and flocks of wild-fowl, by our rustling through
the bushes near the banks, were startled from the sedge, and
sailed into the middle of the water. The path was in places very
narrow, and we were now and then stopped in our progress by a
camel browsing amongst the shrubs at the side of the road. Be-
yond the lake we crossed a shrubby plain, called by Tournefort
the plain of Tcherpicui, enclosed on all sides by mountains.
Near the southern entrance of the plain we passed by a large
collection of sepulchral stones, carved as usual into the Turkish
turban, under some trees. This was the spot called Cabagea, near
which some vestiges of Metropolis, the city of Ionia, nearly half
way between Smyrna and Ephesus, were discovered by Wheler,
and seen afterwards by Chishull-j-. We afterwards ascended low
* Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xxxii. p. 109, sec. edit. London, 1776.
t Wheler, a Journey through the Lesser Asia, book iii. p. 25, edit. London,
H582; and Chishull's Diary in Chandler, cap. xxxii. p. 112, 2d edit. Lon-
don, 1776.
ι ;,-; vi »,-, , !*.ri
Άν 1 *^'
λ^'ϊ?^^;'.'•!»' ^Η
r-,.t.\9.:i/^y ■
LETTER XXXVII.
651
hills, oveir a rough stony path, for an hour, and then riding for
a short tiune in a kind of pass along a dry water-course, came to
a forest of low thickets and brushwood ; passing through which,
we arrived by twelve o'clock at a fountain and a solitary coffee-
shed, with a green before the door. Here we stopped half an
hour, for the refreshment of the horses, the surgees, and our Ja-
nissary Suliman. Tracing Chandler's route, I find this spot to
be the one to which he alludes as near the Turkish village on the
mountain side, called Osebanar.
Leaving the coffee-shed, we turned a little to the east. An
extensive marsh was on our right, as far as we could see; the
heads of camels were seen peeping above the tall reeds. We came
to where a few black tents were dispersed in different parts of the
plain and on the brow of a low stony hill on our left, belonging
to the Turcomans, a wandering tribe, who have no other habita-
tion, but change their abode whenever it becomes expedient to
drive their cattle to fresh pastures. Their similarity to the ancient
Scythian shepherds has been recognised by travellers*, but their
character is not so harmless as that of the Nomades ; for the
Turcomans of Anatolia have been decried as being greater thieves
than the Curds of higher Asia, inasmuch as the latter sleep dur-
ing the night, but the former rob both by day and by night -f•.
They are not, however, all equally dangerous, although it is ge-
nerally acknowledged, that those amongst them who do not
* Chandler, cap. xxxii. p. 1 10.
+ Passe Tocat on n'entend plus parler de Curdes ; mais bien de Turcraans,
c'est a dire d'une autre espece de voleurs encore plus dangereux, en ce que les
Curdes dorment la nuit, et que les Turcmans volent jour et nuit. — Touruefort,
letter xxi. p. 439, edit. Paris, 1717.
652
LETTER XXXVII.
plunder by violence, support themselves partly by private theft.
Those whom we saw were black-looking half-naked wretches. A
few goats, sheep, and small cattle, together with some camels,
and two or three lean horses, were feeding near their tents.
A little farther we crossed, perhaps for a mile, a stone cause-
way over the marsh, which was in places entirely under water.
Before us to the south-south-east, we saw a castle on an eminence
under the hills. This was the castle of Aiasaluk, one of the sup-
posed sites of Ephesus ; w r e had now and then a view of the
Cayster winding through the plain to the east and south of the
marsh. — The route to Aiasaluk seems to have taken former tra-
vellers by a different way from that which we followed. A little
distance beyond the coffee-hut, near Osebanar, there was a road
more to the north, which must be that described by Wheler,
Tournefort, and Chandler ; for they did not cross the marsh, but
going to the head of the plain, passed the Cayster over a bridge
above Aiasaluk, which is now in ruins. Our path was that which
leads directly to Scala Nuova, the ancient Neapolis, belonging
first to the Ephesians, and afterwards to the Samians*. After
crossing the causeway, we turned to the west, instead of direct-
ing ourselves to Aiasaluk, and continued for more than a mile
over a sandy flat by the side of a shallow reedy lake. We ar-
rived at the banks of the Cayster, called by the Turks Kutchuk
Meinder, the Little Maeander, and crossed it on a raft of a tri-
angular form, with sides a foot high, which was ferried over by a
rope slung across the stream. — The Cayster is in this place about
the size of the Cam near Cambridge, but more rapid, as its waters
* Strab. lib. xiv. p. 641, edit. Xvland.
•^WV^•-'?! -ν'^ΛΜ 'Ίτ^Λ-
LETTER XXXV Ιί.
653
are raised by a fisherman's weir : in its course, however, down the
plain from the north-east, it winds with a stream not less sluggish
than that of the English river. It empties itself into the sea a
little more than a mile below the ferry to the west.
After passing the river, we turned again eastward towards the
castle on the hill, and crossing some marshy land, and a small
stream running from the south into the Cayster, which I take to
be the Cenchrius of Pausanias and Strabo*, arrived in an hour
(by three o'clock) at Aiasaluk. We did not notice the vestiges
of Ephesus, which, since our passing the ferry, had been under
the hills on our right.
At Aiasaluk we put up our beds in a most miserable han, but
we partook of some cold provision, which we had brought with
us, on a stone seat by the side of a fountain, in an open green op-
posite to a mosck shaded with high cypresses. During our repast
a young Turk, after washing his feet and hands at the fountain,
got on the wall surrounding the mosck, and there, on a flat stone
apparently designed for the purpose, went through his prayers
most devoutly, totally inattentive to the appearance and opera-
tions of us, who were within two paces of him.
The whole evening, and part of the next morning, were spent
in rambling about the ruins at Aiasaluk, and those under the hills
to the west. We passed but a bad night in the coffee-hut. Only
two other travellers, besides ourselves and our attendants, slept
* Tournefort puts that river in the hills above Aiasaluk, but Pausania»
(lib. vii. p. 406) says the Cenchrius runs through the Ephesian territory; and
Strabo (lib. xiv. p. 639) lays it down on the coast near Ephesus, a little dis-
tance from the sea, flowing through the Ortygian grove under Mount Solmis-
sus, where Latona was delivered of Diana and Apollo.
4 Ρ
654
LETTER XXXV Ι ί.
in the room, but some Turks of the village continued loitering
there, smoking and drinking coffee, until a late hour. Our wooden
bedsteads and our bed-clothes were the principal objects of their
curiosity; but when we went to bed, they watched the progress
of our undressing with a smile of astonishment; and seeing us
divest ourselves of one article after another, looked as if they
waited until we should strip off our skins, for they continued
staring to the last, even after we were in bed, and then burst
into a laugh. It is probable, that no former travellers had ever
gone regularly to bed in the Frank fashion at Aiasaluk; and as
for the Turks of the place, even the Aga himself can have but
one change of garments, and when once habited, is dressed for
half a year.
The morning had hardly dawned when we were awakened, and
found the same Turks taking their dish of coffee, and smoking,
at our bed-sides, waiting, although with nothing rude or uncivil
in their manner, to witness our rising from, as they had before
done our going to, our beds. — It may not appear worth mention-
ing, that I observed in this house the customers' debts scored up
on a board over my bed, as in our own pot-houses ; and that, on
inquiring, they told me, that in this, as well as in other similar
places in Asiatic Turkey, a cup of coffee costs one para; that the
attendant never receives any thing ; that nothing but coffee is
sold ; and that consequently each person brings his own pipe and
tobacco.
Aisaluk, or Aiasaluk, until the time of Chandler, was consi-
dered to stand upon the site of Ephesus ; but that traveller has,
with his usual learning and perspicuity, decided that the remains
at this place must < be referred to a comparatively modern town,
,^ΐ.-, >..-.'_
'■VVv^' -Λ- ^^^^|
iV-V— i?-*i r .'
-^t-^IWi' ίν^.'Ο.
LETTER XXXV J Γ.
655
established, perhaps, by the Mahometan potentate Mantakhia,
who conquered Ephesus and all Caria in the year 1313. The.
name of the town, by a derivation at first sight fanciful, but most
probably correct", has been deduced from the circumstance of a
famous church of St. John the Theologian having once stood
near the spot*. — Aiasaluk is now a miserable village, and a scene of
complete desolation. It is situated in a tangly flat overrun with
low shrubs and enclosed by a semicircular theatre of hills, from
the middle of which projects a narrow tongue of high rocky land,
which Tournefort mistook for Mount Pion, and which .is perversely
still so called by the compiler of M. de ChoiseuFs Voyage Pitto-
resque. On the northern extremity of this ridge, where it rises into
a circular mount, are the ruins of the castle. In the front (the north)
of the castle, is the head of the large marshy plain through which
the Cayster flows from a dell between the opposite range of Galle-
sus. The flat to the east of the castle-hill, is about a quarter of a
mile in breadth, and bounded by a rocky mountain, the ancient
Pactyas, which, taking a sweep to the north, and joining Gallesus,
closes up the eastern extremity of the great plain. Prom Mount
Pactyas to the castle-hill are the remains of a considerable aqueduct:
the piers are high and square, chiefly composed of marbles, many
of which contain inscriptions placed sideways and upside down, and
showing that the structure has been formed from ruins of ancient
buildings: Chandler calls them pedestals. Their inscriptions, as far
as the eye can reach them, have all been repeatedly copied. The
* The original words Agios-Thcologos, being pronounced shortly, and the
Θ, as usual in Asia Minor, changed into an Σ, become Agio-Sologos, or Ayio-
Sologos, thence Aiosolog, and, through two or three unimportant changes, Aia-
saluk. — Tournefort, letter xxii. torn. ii. p. 514..
4r 2
■II
656
LETTER XXXVIi,
arches are of brick-work. From Pactyas there is a chain of
thirty-two piers ; a long interval ensues, and then one is seen
standing by itself; after a second gap, there are seventeen others,
extending to the foot of the castle-hill.
The entrance to the outwork of the ruined castle, to which it
is somewhat difficult to ascend amongst heaps of shattered stones
and rubbish, is through an arch, supported by two side walls or
buttresses of marble, long distinguished by the name of the Gate
of Persecution. The famous reliefs copied by Tournefort, and by
Dr. Chandler's associate, Mr. Pars, are still seen over the arch;
but cracked in half, and otherwise so loosened from their bases,
as to threaten a speedy fall. It is to be lamented, that this fine
piece of sculpture has not been secured in the cabinet of some
European antiquary. There might be some difficulty in convey-
ing the fragments from the spot: the least of the pieces is five
feet long, and two feet and a half high; the second is ten feet long,
and three feet and a half high ; and the third somewhat less in
height, and four feet long*. The smaller marble represents boys
in a vineyard, the two others seem to relate to one subject, which
was first thought to be the persecution of the Christians, and then
the revenge of Achilles on the body of Hector, but has, by a
late author, been called the bringing the corpse of Patroclus to
Achilles-)-. If that be the case, very little ceremony is observed
towards either the living or the dead hero, for a soldier is drag-
ging Patroclus on the ground by the left leg. The part of the
castle which is of the most ancient construction, appears to be
* Sec Tournefort, letter xxii. torn. ii. p. 514.
t Constant. Ancient and Modern, p. 225, London, J7S7
LETTER XXXVII.
657
that to the south, and near this gate, Between this outwork and
the castle itself, the hill is choked up in parts with large masses
of brick and stone. The castle, with its walls and low towers
of a barbarous construction, is in many parts in ruins, and is
now entirely deserted. The sides of the hill are steep and rough,
and scattered with fragments of marble and carved stones.
Under the western side of the castle-hill is the mosck, which
has usually gone by the name of the church of St. John *, and
which, although nearly entire when "Wheler travelled, and called
by Pococke a stately building, partakes now of the general decay
and wretchedness of Aiasaluk. The part of the building to the
west, which is raised on a flight of steps, is of marble, but the pieces
composing it are of a size too small to be of any ancient date. On
this side there are several casements, with latticed window-frames
of wood, and Saracenic mouldings, which give this front the appear-
ance of a modern mansion in decay : the side next to the hill is of
stone. The mosck is composed of two buildings. There is an
uncovered court on the north side, the three walls of which have
each a door-way entered by a flight of three steps. This is over-
run with weeds, and contains also a few wild shrubs shooting from
the broken walls, and from a dry fountain in the middle of the
area. A minaret, which has been built over the west door, is now
in ruins, and a stork has built her nest in it. In this court there
are some broken columns, the remains, says Chandler, of a por-
* Tournefort speaks decisively as to its being the church of St. John, although
perhaps not that church which Justinian built at Ephesus. Wheler has the
same notion, (p. 256, book, iii.) but Pococke says, " the large mosck of
St. John at the village is falsely stated to have been a church," (Observ. on
Asia Minor, book i. p. 52) and Chandler seems to acquiesce in this opinion.
658
LETTER XXXVII.
tico. The other portion of the structure is the body of the
mosck, which is vaulted on five arches (the middle one being the
largest), supported by stately columns. Three of these are of po-
lished granite, two of which have stone capitals rudely carved in
the worst style of modern Greek architecture : the third has a
marble capital of the composite order. This last is twelve feet
eleven inches in compass*.
The interior of the mosck is divided into three compartments,
the middle one of which contains the kibleh (the recess directed
towards Mecca), and is covered in with two small cupolas, that
immediately over the kibleh being the least of the two. The two
other compartments are unroofed, and are overgrown with weeds.
On the west side of the altar-place is a sort of elevated pulpit for
the Imaum, or reader, to which the ascent is by a long flight of
marble steps. The mosck is now no longer used. The marble of
which it is partly composed is either of a creamy white, or streaked
with veins of rose colour, and must have been brought from the
ruins of Ephesus.
Besides this building, there are several other ruined moscks at
Aiasaluk, whose minarets at a distance may easily be taken for
the naked columns of some Grecian temple.
There is no monument of undoubted antiquity at this village,
except a marble sarcophagus•]•, very large and thick, serving for
a water-trough, with a bas-relief on one side of it, now not dis-
* Wheler, p. 52, &c.
+ Of this sarcophagus Chandler says, " some figures, holding Roman ensigns,
have been carved upon it; and, as we learn from the inscription, it once con-
tained the body of a captain of a trireme, named the Griffin, together with his
wife."— Cap. xxxiii. p. 113, Travels in Asia Minor.
V^^fe^*^ ; %:£•^
1^:ΝΛ~?
^^^M
LETTER XXXVII.
659
tihguishable, and the high marble" mouth of a well at the open
spot near the fountain where we dined. — The desolate walls of
the mosck of St. John, and the whole scene at Aiasaluk, can-
not but suggest a train of melancholy reflections. The decay
of three religions is there presented at one view to the eye of
the traveller! The marble spoils of the Grecian temple adorn
the mouldering edifice, once, perhaps, dedicated to the service
of Christ, over which the tower of the Mussulman, the emblem
of another triumphant worship, is itself seen to totter, and sink
into the surrounding ruins.
The site of Ephesus itself is to be sought for in the way from
Aiasaluk, a little to the south of west, to a square tower of white
marble which stands on a ridge (probably the hill Solmissus*),
projecting northwards from the chain of Corissus, the southern
boundary of the plain of the Cayster. This tower, commonly
called the Prison of St. Paul, is about two miles and a half from
the castle of Aiasaluk : from the point on which it stands, the
city-wall built by Lysimachus may be traced along the side of
Corissus towards Mount Pion. For a Lout half a mile from the
village the route is over a flat, interspersed with thickets of tama-
risk, agnus castus, and other shrubs ; it then arrives at a low
round hill, which extends to the north-east from the high range of
Corissus. All the principal part of the ruins are on the side of
this hill, and in a flat recess between the west side of it and the
high mountains. The hill is Prion, or Pion*, and was once also
called Lepre Acte, the name by which it is distinguished in Po-
cocke. On the slope of it, to the north-west, is a fragment of
wall of common stone, and near it, but standing by itself, a large
* Strab. lib. xiv. p. 639.
660
LETTER XXXVII*
arch of white marble, built, like the aqueduct at Aiasaluk, from
ancient ruins : flat stones, like those of a pavement, occur farther
to the south, in a sweep of the hill between the first remains and
the eminence which is a little more to the south, and on which
there are several bases and broken shafts of columns. On the
side of the hill, more towards Corissus, are two arches and other
vestiges of a theatre. To the south, also on the side of Mount
ο
Prion, and over a narrow valley which separates it from Corissus,
are pieces of walls and many broken shafts of columns ; and fur-
ther round the hill, to the east and towards Aiasaluk, are the
remains of a large circular wall and two arches, constructed
with stones of an immense size. The reader of Chandler will find
these remains on and round Mount Prion, described as belong-
ing to a stadium, a theatre, a portico, an odeum, and a gymna-
sium. The theatre, although robbed of its marble seats, discovers
its site by the usual excavation in the hill. The other remains are
not so distinctly marked : forty years may have worked some new
decay amongst the ruins -J*,
* Attollitur montc Pion< ---Plin. lib. v. cap. xxix.
+ Former travellers were not so decisive. Wheler speaks of the ruins without
assigning names to all of them ; Tournefort, besides the remains of Aiasaluk,
only particularizes the arch on Mount Prion, with the inscription,
ACCENSO
RENSI. ET. ASIiE.
(which is on a block certainly taken from another structure) Pococke, who
thought Aiasaluk included in the site of Ephesus, is more particular than the
former, but neither so minute nor clear in his detail as Chandler. To collect
every thing from ancient authorities, and insert every observation from local
knowledge, would only be doing what has been done so well by that accurate
traveller.
t^rt^iipftji ' ^^H s-^ : .^ryi ^^H ^^^^^^^1 ^^H ^^H
LETTER XXXVII.
661
In the flat recess to the west and south-west of Mount Prion,
which has been laid down by Pococke at half a mile long, and a
quarter of a mile broad, are masses of brick-work, partly fallen
and partly standing. These are fragments of walls and arches ;
they have evidently been coated with marble, from the frequent
holes which still remain to show how the facing was affixed. In
the same quarter are many broken shafts of columns; four of
which (three of red and one of grey granite), amongst the rubbish
under the largest mass of ruins, are fifteen feet long and of an
enormous circumference *.
A whole heap of pillars and other fragments f, lie in a flat spot
near the foot of Corissus. In several parts of the plain, and
under the structures by the granite pillars, are small brick arches,
on which, from the nature of the soil, it was necessary to raise all
the buildings at Ephesus, especially those nearest to the river.
To the west and north-west, between the Cayster and the ruins,
is a morass extending nearly to the sea-shore, from which a small
stream runs into the river ; to the south and west of this morass,
is a lake, the higher Selinusia: the lower and larger Selinusia
is that which we passed on the other side of the Cayster. The
present morass near the ruins is, with probability, thought to
have been once the city-port, which the Cayster has filled with
slime, and gained from the sea.
That one of the wonders of the world might not be supposed
* Pococke, p. 52.
+ The diameter of the shafts of these pillars is four feet six inches the leiWh
thirty-nine feet two inches ; they were each of one stone ; belonging, perhaps
to a temple in antis of the Corinthian order; raised by Augustus Cassar to the
God Julius. — Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, p. 122.
4 Q
662
LETTER XXXVII.
to have entirely disappeared, the subterranean arches before men-
tioned, as well as the brick structure above the granite pillars,
has been considered a portion of the Temple of Diana. The
pillars, indeed, appear to have belonged to the same building as
those which are in the mosck at Aiasaluk, and which, although
not similar to those of green jasper in Santa Sophia at Constanti-
nople, the ascertained remains of the great temple, are generally
conceived to be the spoils oi the Artemesium*. But such evi-
dence is by no means decisive. The columns may have belonged
to any other building, and the site of the great temple was with-
out the city at the head of the port. — A Sybilline oracle -j- fore-
told, that the earth would tremble and open, and that this glo-
rious edifice would fall headlong into the abyss ; and present ap-
* Procopius, •πγ£/η χτισμάτων Ιουστιν. has mentioned the fact of Justinian's
removing the columns of the Temple of Diana from Ephesus to support the
dome of Santa Sophia at Constantinople. He only relates the rebuilding of the
church of St. John at Ephesus by that Emperor, upon a magnificent scale, with-
out stating Vrliencc the materials were obtained ; and, indeed, the site of the
mosck at Aiasaluk, does not answer to that of St. John's church, alluded to by
Procopius. The same may be said of the place where the ruins now lie near
the marsh, although a late traveller has hinted, it may be the spot where the
church was built. Χωρον τινχ προ των Εφεσιων πόλεως συνεβχινεν εινχι, ου γηλο•
ψον } ουσ*ε δυνχτον χφεινχι κχρπους, ει τι? πειρωτο, χλλχ σκλνρον τε κχι τρχγυν όλως,
κ. τ. λ. (Πί/>ί κτισμάτων Ίουστιν. Λογ«ς ΊΓεμπτος, ρ. 46, edit. Vind. 1607.)
Aiasaluk, although on a rough barren spot, could not have been said to be προ
πόλεως. It was rather above than before, or in front of, the city; and the neigh-
bourhood of the marsh could not be called σχληρον and τρχχυς.
t Αρτέμιδος στίχος Εφέσου πηγνυμενος . . , , .
Χχσμχτι και σεισμοισι πο$ τ^ετχι είς όΐλχ Jmnv
H/wi?. κ. τ. λ.— Syb. Orac. lib. v.
$f$&t!*Qf iSf-fyS.'• ν^^Λν^*?.-
":Μ.>•άί..^ >Λ^ν
LETTER XXXVII.
6βί
pearances might justify the belief that it was swept from the face
of the earth by some overwhelming catastrophe. It is easier
to conceive that such an event, although unnoticed, did take place,
than that a marble temple, four hundred and twenty feet long
and two hundred and twenty feet broad, whose columns (one hun-
dred and twenty-seven in number) were sixty feet high*, should
have left no other vestige than two fragments of wall, some brick
* Pirn. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxvi. cap. xiv. The manner in which the archi-
tect transferred the immense architraves to their proper position in the building,
is mentioned in this chapter of Pliny, and confirms a hint before offered, re-
specting the mechanical powers of the ancients. " Id consecutus est ille pero-
nibus harena plenis, molli pulvino super capita columnarum exaggerato, paula-
tim exiuaniens ab imo, ut sensim totum in cubili sidcrct," p. 642, edit. Paris,
1532. There is some difficulty in reconciling Strabo's account of the temple
with that of Pliny, although (as Tournefort has observed) both authors doubt•
less alluded to the same building. Ctesiphon, or Chersiphron, was the architect
of the temple burnt by Ilerostratus, but Cheiromocrates of the second Artemc-
sium. Πρώτος μίν %ef>uv Ytpyj.TVATwrwiv, ιΐτ άλλος Ιττοιησε μύζω, arc the
words of the geographer, and the άλλος seems to allude (o Cheiromocrates; yet
Pliny talks evidently of the work of Ctesiphon. It is probable, that the first
temple was not altogether destroyed, and that, as the original design was fol-
lowed in the second structure, the naturalist speaks of the first architect,
although he describes the fabric as it appeared in his time — The image,
which dropped down from heaven in the time of the Amazons, was cither
changed for a new one, or was repaired. Some declared it to be ebony, others
cedar. JVIutianus, Consul in 75, A.D. pronounced it to be vine, moistened
with nard. — It was a small many-breasted figure, hermasan in the lower extre-
mities, or, with the legs and feet not cut out and separated, but rather traced
on a single block, in the manner of the Egyptian statues. It was supported,
in a shrine of gold, upon a block of beech or elm, by two iron rods, which were
useful props to the old original image, but were preserved as appendages to the
new one. The reader may consult "Constantinople, Ancient and Modern, " for au«
4q2
C64
LETTER XXXVII.
subterranean arches, and four granite pillars*. It is probable, that
Christian zeal accelerated the devastations of time ; and that the
Ephesians, in order to prevent the punishment denounced against
the seven churches of Asia, may have been eager to demolish
this monument of their glory and their shame. The cedar roofs,
the cypress doors, the vine stair-case, the sculptured column of
Scopas, the altar adorned by Praxiteles, the paintings of Parrha-
sius and Apelles-j~, and the ebony image of the goddess, may have
fallen before the enemies of Pagan idolatry ; and the piety of the
priests may have been more injurious to Diana than the rapacity
of Nero and the Goths J : but neither the cupidity nor the auda-
city of the reformers, against whom the sophist Libanius, an eye-
thoritics on this subject (sect. xiii. p. 213). Chandler (cap. xxxix. Asia Mi-
nor) has collected, and arranged in a narrative, everything relative to the temple.
How much Diana was venerated in early times, may be seen by the story from
Herodotus, told in iElian (lib. iii. cap. xxvi. Utpi Πιν$χρον τα Tupavvz, edit.
Kuhnii, p. 219) of the stratagem practised by Pindarus, tyrant of Ephesus,
to save the city, besieged by Crcesus.
* As little can some fragments of rude masonry on the side of the Cayster,
near the ferry, be thought to belong to the great temple ; nor will the spot
near the ruins, supposed by Pococke and Chandler to be those of the Gymna-
sium, at all correspond with its site.
+ He was paid for his " Alexander with a thunderbolt" — thirty talents, of
gold, above 38,750/.
£ Nero, the great plunderer of temples, robbed that of Diana ; and the
Goths carried a great booty from Ephesus in the year 262, the period of their
third naval expedition. Mr. Gibbon (Decline and Fall, 4to. vol. i. p. 323) de-
tracts from the magnificence of the temple, by saying, that it was only two-thirds
the measure of St. Peter's at Rome.
^'-i-ite^W'l
^^H
%ί'~$~~•ί» 'φΛΐ,ψ f/yVr ■ ■ •WiSJ-.••
LETTER XXXVII.
665
witness of their progress, so forcibly exclaims *, could have de-
stroyed, although they might deface, the vast fabric of the Arte-
mesium itself.
Everv memorial of the worship of Diana has been obliterated
with her temple, but the miracles of Christianity are still shown on
the spot which was sanctified by the presence of the Apostles and
of the mother of Jesus. It is an article of belief, that, after the
death of our Saviour, St. John and the Holy Virgin retired to
Ephesus ; and that the former undertook the care of the infant
church after St. Timothy, the first Bishop, had suffered martyr-
dom in the reign of Domitian. An artificial cut in the mountains
of Gallesus-f, seen on the higher road to Aiasaluk, is pointed out
as performed by the sword of St. Paul, as the watch-tower on
the hill is called his prison. A grotto sunk in Mount Prion, is
the cave of the Seven Sleepers ; a belief in whose long repose is
enjoined by the eighteenth chapter of the Koran, and whose
change from their right to their left sides, was seen in a waking
vision by our Edward the Confessor, and proved by three Eng-
lishmen, a soldier, a priest, and a monk, who travelled to Ephesus
in the year 1056 J.
* Oi ft κχ\ τψίν% και νεως κτήματα 'χυτών εποή,<τχντο, ειτχ μχλζ ευχερώς
hpi^ /χντες τα tfn t ξύλων νι άχυρων τους νεως ηπληο-αν. Ol ft χυ άνίρειίτερο^ και
καθίλόια-ίς, omtxg ωκησχν των εχεΤΒ-εν λί$ων τηποικμ'ενχς• Liban. Αογοι &ntoi,
edit. Morell. Paris, 1606, p. 941.
+ Horriblement taillees & plomb.— Tournefort.
φ The story is told by William of Malmesbury (lib. ii. de gestis Reg.
Anwlor. cap. xiii.) He says, that the King burst into a loud laugh when the
vision was first manifested to him. Those who are not of the Greek church 9
may laugh as much at the King, or at least the historian, as his Majesty did at
the restlessness of the Sleepers. Sec Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 7, edif. 1599.— In
666
LETTER XXXVII.
At present, one Greek, the baker of the village, at Aiasaluk,
and three or four fishermen who live in sheds near the ferry
and on the banks of the river, are the only Christians to be
found in the vicinity of Ephesus ; and there is not a single habita-
tion, not even a shepherd's hut, on the actual site of that re»
splendent city*. A village of three hundred houses, called Ker-
the Koran the Seven Sleepers arc called " Ashab. Kahaf, or Kehef— The Com-
panions of the Cavern." They had a dog with them, who became rational,
and was translated to heaven, to keep company with Balaam's ass, and that on
which our Saviour rode: hence the Oriental proverb, applied to a covetous
man — " He has not a bone to throw at the dog of the Seven Sleepers." The
Greeks say, that the Seven Sleepers were valets-de-chambre of the Emperor
Decius. — D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orient, article Ashab. Kahaf.
* Ephesus was taken by the Mahometans in the reign of Alexius Commenus,
and recovered by John Ducas, who defeated Tangripermes and Maraces their
leaders. In 1306 it was pillaged by Roger de Flor, and taken in 1308 by
Sultan Saysan, who massacred the greatest part of the inhabitants at Ty-
riaeum : Mantakhia, a Turk, conquered it, together with all Caria, in 1313;
Homur, or Amir, son of Atin before-mentioned, succeeded Mantakhia: Ta-
merlane encamped with all his tributary princes in the plain of the Cayster,
and sacked the city, in 1402. From that period, if not before, Aiasalnk is the
Ephesus of history. Cineis expelled Homur; but his brother, also by name
Homur, returning with Mantakhia II. Prince of Caria, and six thousand
men, besieged Carasu pa si, father of Cineis, in the citadel, which, after a long
siege, was surrendered, and Carasupasi made prisoner, and confined in the
castle of Mamalus, on the borders of Caria. He contrived, however, to make
his escape to his son, and Cineis returned with an army, and drove Homur into
the castle. Ί hese two princes were reconciled by the marriage of the daugh-
ters of Cineis with Homur; and after the death of the latter, the son of Cara-
supasi became the Sultan of Smyrna and Caria. Sultan Solyman the First
marched from Brusa against him with a large army, encamping at Mesaulion,
six leagues from his enemy. Cineis having collected his allies, the Princes of
.iSj.-SJ,-* '^■: J f"t ■
LETTER XXXV Γ I.
667
key ah, four miles to the east of Aiasaluk, contains the principal
portion of the few Greeks inhabiting the southern part of the
once populous Ionia. The plain of the Cayster, where it is not
too marshy to bear a crop, is cultivated with cotton and tobacco
plants, with sesamus and a little barley. The husbandmen are
the peasants of Aiasaluk. I saw one of them, as we returned
from Ephesus, ploughing on horseback, and contriving to direct
the progress of the share through a light soil by a short rope.
This, according to a saying common in some of our northern
counties, is one of the lazy child's three wishes, and is perfectly
congenial to the idle listless temper of the Turks.
We were only one day on the road returning from Ephesus to
Smyrna, but we travelled on that occasion for thirteen hours, and
did not arrive at the Consul-General's until eleven o'clock at
night. It was our wish, that our Dragoman and servants should
proceed at the usual rate with the baggage, whilst we and our
Janissary rode on quickly, in order to reach Smyrna at an early
hour ; but Suliman was not to be persuaded to participate in our
impatience ; he would not quit his smoking pace (for he had a
pipe in his mouth during nearly the whole journey) but replied
to all our applications both to him and his horse, by shaking his
head, and smiling, and maintained his point with a good-humoured
pertinacity and inoffensive disobedience, only to be met with, I
Cotyaeium and Fconium, prepared to meet him. ; but suspecting treachery in his
friends, and having commanded his brother to keep the citadel until he should
appear, rode off by night to the camp of Solyman, who, early the next day,
marching through the passes of Gallesus, crossed the bridge over the Cayster,
and entered Aiasaluk without opposition, the confederate Princes retreating
across a ford. The Ottoman Sultans have since that time been in possession of
the modern Ephesus.
668
LETTER XXXVII.
fancy, in a Turkish retainer. Not having slept ten minutes for
the last two nights, I determined, after we had crossed the ferry,
to ride on, and repose myself a short time, if possible, at the
hut near Osenabar, previous to the arrival of our lazy-pacing
caravan. Accordingly I galloped forward alone, but had rea-
son to repent of my scheme, for I soon missed my way, and
not being able to find the stone causeway crossing the marsh
towards Gallesus, wandered about in the muddy plain, sometimes
stopped by the winding stream of the Cayster, and at others
embarrassed by the overflowings of the lake. I contrived with
some difficulty to find my way back to the ferry, and asked a
Greek peasant (one of a party who were coming from the fishing
huts on the river) to accompany me on my way across the marsh.
The man consented, but said, that he must send back for his
gun, without which he could not go into the mountains. I showed
him my pistols, and said that they would be sufficient defence.
To this he replied, " Yes, for you and I to go into the hills ; but
not for me, when vou have joined your party, and I am coming
back alone." — Not caring to wait for his gun, I resolved to
make another trial by myself, and by good fortune hitting upon
the causeway, crossed over to the mountain, where I again lost
my way, but being put right by some goat-herds, proceeded at a
brisk pace on my journey. A mile from Osenabar I met Suliman,
riding slowly and smoking as before. He had been sent to look
for me ; and on my coming up, stopped, turned his horse, and
suffered me to gallop forwards, without accompanying me, to the
coffee-hut, where my party were waiting for me, and where we
were now obliged to wait for our unconquerable Janissary.
LETTER XXXVIII.
Departure from Smyrna — The Coast of Asia — Cape Baba —
Yughlan Bornou — The Vale of Nesrah-Keui — Liman-Tepe —
Cape of Troas — Vale of Ghicle — Stamboul Douk — Koum
Bornou — Land in Tenedos — The Port — The Town — The Castle
— The Wine — Importance of the Island — Visit to the Ruins
of Alexandria Troas — Granite Cannon-Balls — Dilapidation
of Troas — The Sepulchre called Sarcophagus — The Baths —
Effects of the late Earthquake — Site of the Town — Hot Baths
of Lidgah Hammam — Port of Troas — Country near Troas — -
Conjectures of Travellers.
THE Captain of Η. M. S. the Salsette, a frigate of
thirty-six guns, which was ordered to Constantinople for the pur-
pose of conveying his Excellency Mr. Adair, from that city,
having been so good as to offer us a passage, we embarked on the
11th of April, and sailed out of the harbour of Smyrna with a
fine breeze from the south. By nine in the evening we were op-
posite to Cara Bornou, and spoke the Pylades returning from a
cruise. We had a fair wind during the night, and at half past six
the next morning were off the north end of Lesbos, a long low crag,
scarcely distinguishable from the main-land, and inclosing, as it
4 R
670
LETTER XXXVIII.
were, the deep gulf of Adramyttium. This island, which for-
merly took its name from its capital city, has experienced the
same fate in modern times, and is now called, from its principal
town, Mytelene. The point which we passed, was anciently the
Sigrian promontory, and still retains the name of Sigri. Having
a strong southerly wind, we were soon opposite to the little town
of Baba*, in a nook of the cape of that name, formerly the pro-
montory Lectum.
From this point, the coast to the north began to assume a less
barren appearance : the capes were lower, and intersected by
pleasant vallies stretching clown to the shore. We next passed
Yughlan Bornou, the headland north of Baba, and saw that from
that extremity the shores fall back to the eastward. The island
of Tenedos then was seen before us, at a little distance to the
north-west. We observed, that beyond the cape the country
had lost all those wild features of mountain scenery, which had
distinguished it lower down to the south ; and that the shore was
no longer a line of abrupt precipices, but rose with a gentle ascent,
ending in a spacious plain of cultivated lands. A small river,
running near a hamlet called Nesrah-Keui, was seen winding
through the sands into the sea. The prospect more inland was
terminated by a horizon of white mist, the accompaniment of a
south wind at this period of the year, which not only prevented
us from seeing the vast range of Mount Ida in the back ground,
but precluded the view of the ruins of Alexandria Troas, at other
times distinctly seen from this position at sea. Indeed the coun-
* Il-y-a un petit village Turc, ou Ton fabrique d'excellens sabres et cow-
teaux.— Reidcsel, Voyage au Levant, p. 298, edit. Paris, 1802.
:•*:?■-*• ■
LETTER XXXVIII.
671
try seems to be frequently covered with exhalations ; for a late
traveller observes, that during a month's residence at Mytelene,
the landscape from the mountains down to Adramyttium was ob-
scured with a dense and gloomy atmosphere*. A mount, called
Liman-Tepe, the first of the many tumuli observed by the navi-
gator on these coasts, was visible at a little distance from the
shore. We coasted by another low cape with a house on it, where
the country seemed covered for some distance inland with low
woods, and by half past twelve came into the channel between
Tenedos and the Phrygian shores, which were in this part quite
flat and naked.
The country inland presented the view of another plain, culti-
vated and intersected with low inclosures, and watered by a small
stream, which is lost in some salt-marshes near the shore. It is
denominated by modern topographers the plain of Ghicle, and
the river, in the maps, is the Sudlu-su. A low cape, Koum Bor-
nou, terminated the land prospect to the north, and a very large
barrow, Stamboul Douk, was visible in the distance on the coast.
We anchored not far from the principal port in the island, and
in the afternoon went on shore in the Captain's boat. The mouth
of the harbour is narrow, and is here contracted by a loose stone
pier, raised on the foundation of the ancient mole or break-water,
which projects from the south side of the entrance. A round
fort is seen on the rocks above the pier. The port itself is a small
basin, of an uneven circular figure, scooped out of the foot of
the hills, which, with the intervention of a strip of flat muddy
beach, reach to the edge of the water. There is another smaller
harbour, frequented by fishing-boats, directly at the opposite, the
* Topography of Troy, p. 19.
4r2
■1
672
LETTER XXXVIII.
western side of the island. Strabo* mentions the two harbours.
There seems no reason why Virgil should call so sheltered a har-
bour as that of Tenedos,
" tanium sinus, et statio male fida cariiiist :"
he could hardly have alluded to the channel or road between the
island and the main.
The port was full of small craft, which, in their voyage down
the Archipelago, had put in to wait for a change of wind; and
a crowd of Turks belonging to these vessels, were lounging about
on the shore at our landing : but the town itself was in ruins, or
rather, there were no habitations, except two or three deal houses
fitted up as shops, and a few miserable mud huts ; for the former
place had been burnt to the ground by a Russian squadron in
1807. — The first objects which struck us were four great guns
lying on the pier, marked with the broad arrow : they had lately
been weighed up from the wreck of the Ajax, which was unfor-
tunately burnt and lost upon the rocks to the north of the port,
during our short war with the Turks.
The principal Turk gave us coffee in one of the shops, belong-
ing to a wretched-looking Greek who called himself English Con-
sul, and he paid our nation the merited compliment of observing,
" \\ hen the English came here in war-time, they only asked us
for a cup of water ; but the Muscovites, they burnt our town,
and took every thing from us, as you see."
An old castle on the north side of the harbour, the former
fortress of the island, seemed in a very dilapidated state, but had
perhaps suffered no other injury than from time and neglect ; for
* Λί /Atva? Jve, Hb. xiii. p. 604.
+ ./En. lib. ii.
^m
^H
LETTER XXXVIII.
673
there was no appearance of its having been battered, except by
a few cannon-balls which lay in the court-yard. The building
shows the importance formerly attached to the possession of the
island : although commanded from the heights immediately above,
it seems to have been constructed with some pains, being sur-
rounded with a deep moat and a strong castellated outwork, de-
fended with towers at the angles. What it was in the days of its
strength, may be seen by a plate in Tournefort. It is probable,
that most of the stones composing it were taken from the ruins of
ancient buildings ; perhaps from those of the large magazine*
erected by Justinian, to preserve the corn, when detained by the
continued contrary winds in its passage from Alexandria to Con-
stantinople. The Sultan Oth man seized the place in the year
1302, and made it the rendezvous of the fleet with which he
afterwards subdued many islands of the Archipelago, and he
may have begun the modern fortifications ; but the castle was, it
is most likely, completed or built anew by the Venetians, who
made themselves masters of the place in 1656, subsequently to
the battle of the Dardanelles, but surrendered it, after a four days'
siege, in the following year, to the Turks.
The size of Tenedos has been differently stated by different
writers. Sandys^•, following Strabo, makes it only ten miles in
circumference ; but, according to Tournefort, it is at least eigh-
teen : I should think it more extensive. Its breadth is about six
miles. It appeared to us from the sea to be rocky and barren,
but when we walked to the top of a considerable eminence above
* Σιτωνα ίπιτιχνννιχ,το τω ττχνη στολω απορορ-πτασ-Β-α» Λαρ^ω? ίρζοκτα. (ΓΓ?ρ*
Kthtjaktm IqvΗ,
.£ij:'i ί:^*Λ-*>\•
NV\3>-L-r*jiJj (HSff':
LETTER XXXVIII.
675
Tenedos partook of the fame attached to every thing connected
with the Trojan war, and has to this day preserved its name, in
order, as it were, to identify the alledged site of that ancient event.
Italian and other Frank navigators have in this, as in many in-
stances, by their ignorance of the language, exaggerated the
corruption of the ancient names ; for the island is Ten ε do, and
not Denetiio, according to the modern Greeks, notwithstanding
that they pronounce the Δ softly, and call itTenedtho. It has re-
tained, however, nothing except its name ; for no remnant of its
ancient capital, iEolica, nor of the Temple of Apollo Smintheus,
for which it was once celebrated, and which was plundered by
Verres, is now to be seen.
The large granite sarcophagus, with the inscription ΑΤΤΙΚΏ ΚΑΙ
ΚΛΑΤΔΙΑ ΣΕΚΟΥΝΔΑ* . . . referring to the father of the Atticus
Η erodes, so often before mentioned, was not shown to me ; in-
deed, visiting the place accidentally, I had not informed myself
of its existence, and not having looked for it, cannot say that
it is not to be found.
Tenedos has always derived an importance from its situation -f•,
of this coin is given, from one in the Emperor of Austria's collection, in Riga's
map for the Romaic Anarcharsis, published at Vienna in 1797; and a dissertation
on the Τένεδος πελεχυς may be seen in Tournefort (p. 393, torn, i.) who has
extracted the principal fable from Pausanias (Ό 21 πελεχύς Πίρίχλυτ», Phoc.
p. 634.)
* See Chandler's Inscriptiones Antiquae, p. 4.
+ Tenedos is fifty miles from Mytelene, about five from the opposite Asiatic
coast, and twelve and a half from the mouth of the Dardanelles, although in
De La Mottraye's Travels, vol. i. fol. it is made twenty miles. In the latter
periods of the empire, it was in the hands of pirates, until taken by Olhman.
676'
LETTER XXXVIII.
as its possessor may at any time blockade the Straits, and com-
mand the northern gulfs of the Archipelago. There were for-
merly six hundred Turkish families, and half as many Greek, on
the island, although there were, besides the capital, only two
or three hamlets. It is probable, that it will soon recover
from its last great calamity; for, as it is the station of the
vessels detained by the winds, both going to and returning from
the Dardanelles, it will always support a considerable popula-
tion.
The morning after our coming to an anchor off Tenedos, a
large party of us left the ship in two boats, to visit the ruins of
Alexandria Troas. We sailed over to the coast not immediately
opposite to our station, but lower down to the south, a distance
between six and seven miles, and landed in an open port, where
there was a small vessel at anchor. We saw the road from the
Dardanelles, running along the coast close to the shore, and a
string of loaded camels, on their way to the south, were resting
themselves on the sands. Several large cannon-bails 5 of granite,
were lying scattered about on the sides of the path. The ruins
of Alexandria have supplied the fortresses of the Dardanelles
with balls, ever since the time of the famous Gazi Hassan Pasha,
who having a chiflik, or country-house, at Krkissi-Keui, a village
in the Troad, was well acquainted with the vast fund of materials
to be found in his neighbourhood, and completed the destruction
of many columns, some fragments of which, as yet not consumed,
are now seen in different parts of this coast. If I mistake not,
stone was used for this purpose previously to iron, or at least pro-
miscuously with that metal, on the first invention of cannons, not
only by the Turks, but the nations of Christendom.
^H
LETTER XXXVIII.
677
If our countrymen were not, by experience, unfortunately too
well acquainted with the dimensions of these balls, I might hesi-
tate at observing, that the weight of those which are made for the
largest guns is between seven and eight hundred pounds •. It is not,
however, to be supposed, that the remains of this city have been
applied merely to purposes of destruction, or that the Turks were
the first who commenced the dilapidation of Alexandria : several
edifices in Constantinople owed their ornaments, if not their
structure, to the ruins of a city, the treasures of which lay so
convenient for transportation, and which, as it was exposed to
the ravages of the pirates who infested the seas during the latter
ages of the Greek empire, was probably deserted at an early pe-
riod, and left without an inhabitant to protect its palaces and
baths of marble, its spacious theatres and stately porticoes. In-
deed, it is likely that the rapine was begun at the foundation of
Constantinople, and that it contributed, with Rome, Sicily, An-
tioch, and Athens, to the splendour of a capital adorned by the de-
nudation of almost every other city — " pe?ie omnium iirbium nudi-
tate-f" A vast quantity of materials were carried ofifat once, by
command of the Grand Signor, at the earlier part of the last cen-
tury J. At present, the Turks and Greeks of the country sel-
dom point at a fragment of granite, or porphyry, an inscribed
marble, or carved pillar, inserted in the walls of the moscks and
churches in the neighbouring villages, without informing you,
that it was brought from Esky-Stambol, the name given to a col-
* Two of them may be seen over the gate of the entrance to Sir J. T. Duck-
worth's house, near Plymouth.
+ Decline and Fall, vol. ii. 4to. p. 14.
X Pococke, p. 110, vol. ii. Descrip. of the East.
4 s
f>78
IP.TTER XXXVIII.
lection of huts amongst the ruins of Troas. The traveller, there-
fore, must not expect to find all those remains of antiquity which
are noted by early travellers, and of which plans and written de-
tails have been given by Pococke and others.
We had with us a guide from Tenedos, but as we had landed
on the coast too much to the north, and he was acquainted only
with the usual route, we rambled some time through the woods
of vallonea, or low ilex, with which this country is covered, be-
fore we arrived at the ruins. We struck down to the south, at
first, near the shore, towards the point of land with a house upon
it, which we had seen the day before, and then turned up into
the country, by the advice of a peasant whom we found working
in a small vineyard in the middle of the woods. — As we were
pushing through a tangly path, something which I had taken for
the root of a tree, slid along by my feet into the bushes. Our
Albanian Dervish, who saw me jump back, and had observed the
cause of my surprise, hallooed out, a serpent (?«<&) and fired bis
gun, te - which he would ne'er forsake," after the animal at a ven-
ture, but of course without effect. Our guide told me, that there
were many much larger in the country (although this, to me, had
appeared of an unusual magnitude) and that in the hotter summer
months they might be very frequently seen basking in the woods,
and on the sands near the sea. The thermometer was at seventy
on the day of our excursion.
The first vestiges of antiquity which we saw, were two large
granite sarcophagi : one of them was in the bushes, and the other
by the side of a hedge, surrounding a plot which had been
cleared, and turned into a vineyard. The pains taken to exca-
vate these blocks of granite, which are of one piece, and were
LETTER XXXVIII.
m
covered also by a single slab, must have been considerable, and
it is probable, that none but persons of some distinction were
buried in such sepulchres. They were, indeed, rather family-
vaults than single tombs, as might be conjectured by their size,
and as we learn from their inscriptions, which seem also to hint,
that they were receptacles either for corpses, or the bones of the
dead ; for the fine was incurred by putting into them nekpon. H.
ΟΣΤΕΑ. — a dead body, or bones, of any one except the owners.
The name itself is sufficient proof that bodies were buried whole in
these exposed vaults*. A little beyond the sarcophagi, we found
two or three fragments of granite pillars, more massive than any
we had yet seen. One of them, inaccurately measured with a
handkerchief, was no less than twenty-five in length, and at least
five feet in diameter.
We soon came to a flat inclosure (still in the woods, as are all
the ruins of Troas) where there were two poor-looking huts, and
some goats feeding on a tangly green, half overrun with briars.
Getting over the inclosure, which was formed in part of granite
pillars, we saw arches, half subterraneous, of brick-work, the foun-
dation probably of some large building. Almost immediately at
the back (the east) of this spot, are those magnificent remains,
( f It does not appear that the name Sarcophagus, however, was in use
amongst the Greeks ; the word in the inscription at Pasha-Chiflik, or Erkissi-
Keui, (a village we visited in the Troad) of which there is a copy given in
" Constantinople, Ancient and Modern," p. 331, is Soros— ΤΗΝ ΣΟΡΟΝ. I
presume, that all that can be said on the subject of these sepulchres, has been
said in Dr. Clarke's Dissertation on the Tomb of Alexander, which J never have
had the good fortune to see— κλ£ο? o7ov «jcouOpfp. The inscription of Julius At-
ticus has also the NEKPON. Η. ΟΣΤΕΑ.
4s 2
6
;ov
LF.TTF.R XXXVIII.
called by early travellers the Palace of Priam, and, as Pococke
mentions, by the peasants " Baluke Serai" — the Palace of Honey;
possibly from the appearance of many of the masses, the stones
of which are studded with petrifactions of cockle-shells, looking
like the white cavities of a honeycomb. Mr. Bryant, however,
approves of Pococke's suggestion, that the denomination may be
derived from Baal, the Eastern name of Apollo. The last opi-
nion of Mr. Le Chevalier, that these ruins are the remains of
the public baths, is confirmed by the earthen pipes still visible on
the cornices of the building, and also, as that traveller has ob-
served, by the aqueduct of Atticus Herodes, of which there are
remains crossing the valley to the north-east of the ruins, and
which these Balnea? may have been intended to terminate. Those
who are acquainted with the public buildings of the ancients, are
aware that the word " bath," in our acceptation of the term,
gives but a very inadequate notion of those spacious and splendid
edifices so called by the ancients, and designed not merely for
the purposes of ablution, but as places of instruction and exer-
cise. — The earthquake of the last winter had thrown down large
portions of the remains, and the whole interior of the edifice was
choked up with fragments of wall and vast pieces of fallen marbles.
Entering through a gap, and leaping from one mass of fallen
fragments to another, we found ourselves in the midst of an
ample ruin, inclosed on two sides ; to the north and east by stu-
pendous walls raised on arches, and blocked up on the south by a
line of irregular fragments of stone-work, some standing, some
lying in heaps on the ground. The fallen blocks were of an
enormous size, and showed that no cement had been used in the
construction of an edifice which was thought sufficiently stable
sV>-A*"i.tvv^.;.,-j ,%•?£!*
3,-v-j ^^H
LETTER XXXVIir.
from the weight of its massive materials. In the middle of the
remains, and fronting the west, were three lofty portals or open
arches ; the principal feature in the ruins, and that part of them,
as I suppose, which is seen afar off at sea. Pedestals of mon-
strous columns, and broken steps, were lying amongst the frag-
ments below. A strip of marble cornice, highly finished, was
visible in the front and side, and projecting from the spring, of
the middle arch.
Our guide told us, that in this quarter the earthquake had
been most destructive ; and, indeed, on comparing the descrip-
tion of former travellers with what we saw, I am at a loss for
several portions of the stately ruins which have been mentioned
by those who preceded us, and must suppose that time and vio-
lence have, within the last twenty years, produced a very mate-
rial change in their appearance. No common observer would, I
believe, recognize Pococke's plan in the present appearance of
his Gymnasium ; an artist, however, would find but little diflfw
culty in restoring the building, as the ground-plan is discernible,
and enough of it yet stands to enable him to form a judgment of
the entire structure. The angle at the north-east of the inclosure
is preserved. The north side presents a view of twelve open arches,
for the most part unbroken, and the eastern front has twelve
closed arches in the substructure of the wall, which, together
with an open space in the middle of them, probably supplied by
an arcade of entrance, was, it should seem, the whole length of
the building.
Prom the baths, the distance from the sea has been computed
three miles ; it is probably not much more than two. To the
west and south-west, the ground falls in a gentle declivity dowi.
682
LETTER XXXVIII.
to the shore, covered with low woods, and partially interspersed
with spots of cultivated ground. On this slope the ancient city
was built. To the east of the ruins there is a deep valley, sepa-
rating the site of Troas from the roots of Ida, and widening as
it approaches the shore, beyond the village of Neshrah-Keui,
into a spacious plain. Through this valley flows a small river,
which we had seen from the frigate, and which rises in the hills
near a village called Bairam-Keui. On the slope of the emi-
nence, eastward from the ruins, are the hot-baths of Lidgah
Hammam. The spring, at a short distance from its source,
falls into two stone basins, one of which is covered in under
a casupolo, or hut of boughs, and appropriated to the women.
Overflowing the basins, the stream, called Aiyah-su, trickles
through a pebbly channel into the river in the valley. An
English gentleman, who preceded us in our tour, and whom
we saw at Smyrna, informed me, that his thermometer had
risen to one hundred, and forty of FarenheitV scale, at the head
of the spring. The people of the country resort to Lidgah
Hammam for -the -cure of elephantiasis and other cases of
leprosy. Hot springs abound on the western side of iEolia ; an
author has remarked, that the steam arising from them casts a
mist over the whole country at the bottom of the Adramyttian
Gulf.
To the north of Troas is a wide flat valley, or rather plain,
with a marsh, through which runs the rivulet Sudlu-su.
Part of the walls of Alexandria are to be met with in the woods
to the west and north of the Great Baths, and can be traced,
although with some difficulty, nearly to the shore. They have
been computed to be a mile in length from east to west, and as
^m
^h ■&?■?*■$ $*r$c\Z^wP?°
LETTER XXXVIII.
683
much from north to south* ; but they must be considerably, more
extensive, especially in the latter direction. The remains of the
theatre are to the south, below the Baths, in the side of the hill
fronting the sea, with the view of Tenedos, Lemnos, and the
whole expanse of the JEgean.
AVe did not return to the shore by the path which we had taken
to arrive at the ruins, but went towards the point of land to the
south, desiring, by a message, the boatmen to row down the
coast, and wait our arrival. We came to the ancient port of
Troas, a small circular basin, half choked up and stagnate, com-
municating with an outer harbour or bay, also very shallow, by
a narrow canal. The hollow sides of the hill, down to the basin,
were covered with brambles and brushwood, and in parts with
crumbled rubbish ; and near the water were many small granite
pillars, about the size of sepulchral stelae, whiclv it has been
thought, were used to make fast the vessels by ropes to the shore -j-.
Yet from the secure position of this basin, one might think it had
been like that harbour in the Odyssey J,
λιμην ίυορμος, ιν a χρ£« τ?ίκτ[ΑΧτος urriv,
Walking a little way higher up than the port, we came to a
narrow flat valley, looking like a dry canal, or an artificial exca-
* Pocockc, p. 110, book ii. Description of the East.
τ The Greeks, besides πεκτίΛχτοί, called these ropes π-ξυρ^σιοι, unroyaix,
and ocrroyux ; hence τα &πογιιχ λυ<Γ5ί(τ3^α», in the Hermotimus of Lucian. The
Latins gave them the name of ora. Vixdum omncs conscenderunt cum alii
resolvunt oras, alii anchoram vellunt. — Liv. Hist. dec. iii. lib. ii. See Car,
Stcphan. Libell. de re Navali ex Bayfii. Vigili. excerpt. Ludg. 1537.
% Lib. i. vers. J3G.
■
684
LETTER XXXVIII.
vation, which may have once been joined to the harbour, and
have served as a dock for the construction or careening of ships.
In this direction travellers have met with the site of the stadium,
which, however, escaped our observation. Above the valley to
the west, was a considerable fragment of the city-wall, and a large
pillar of granite broken in half. — Some of our party wandering in
the woods in this spot, were assailed by the dogs of two goat-
herds, whose charge must stand in need of very powerful protec-
tion, as they were guarded by seven of these fierce animals.
In the villages near Troas, ancient remains have been disco-
vered wherever the country has been explored, which it has been
only partially. Chemali, three or four miles to the north, has
several fragments of marble and granite, with a few inscriptions.
It w r as supposed by Chandler to be the Colonae of the ancients ;
but that town was, most probably, nearer to the shore exactly
opposite to Tenedos*. Perhaps, as a late traveller has conjec-
tured -j-, the eminence on which this town was situated, and which
gave it the name of " The Hills" was the lar^e mount now
thought to be artificial, and called Liman-Tepe.
Of the country at the bottom and the north side of the Adra-
myttian Gulf, anciently called Cilicia, and divided, according to
the Homeric geography, between Thebe and Lyrnessus, we
have very litde actual knowledge. This is the assertion of D'An-
ville:];, which was repeated many years afterwards, and with
* Έν τϊ) γη τίί Tpu?Ji χ\ κολώνα» κκτα ντχτοι/ χύμίνχι Λί'υκορρυΐ/.— Pausan. Phoc.
p. 634.
t Topog. of Troy, p. 19.
t Geographic Ancienne, abrcgee, Paris, 1768, torn. ii. p. 19; Dissertation
concerning the War of Troy, 2d edit. London, 1799, p. 144.
^^^^^^Η ^^H ^^H
LETTER XXXVIII.
685'
justice, by Mr. Bryant ; yet Edremit, and (if the maps are not
conjectural) Antandro and Asso, point at the site of the towns,
the ancient names of which they so very nearly preserve.
Pliny, who proceeds from the south-eastern point of the Troad,
begins with Ilamaxitus, mentions Cebrenia next, and then comes to
Troas itself, called Antigonia, and afterwards Alexandria*. Hence,
and especially from his expression " ipsaque Troas" it seems that
this city, which was indeed inferior to none of its name, ex-
cept the Egyptian Alexandria, was the capital of the province,
and that it acquired the appellation before attached to the whole
district. The citizens were by distinction Troadenses, as appears
by their medals, and by inscriptions discovered on the spot ; and
that the city was called Troas without any adjunct, is seen by
its being expressly so designated in ancient authors •(-. It was
not, therefore, very surprising, that this Troas should be sup-
posed by the common people of the eountty, and by those
who had not looked narrowly into the ancient geographers, to
have some connexion with the city of Homer. Meletius asserts,
that in his time it was yet called Troada J, as it is by the
* Troadis primus locus Amaxitus, dein Cebrenia; ipsaque Troas, Antigo-
nia dicta, nunc Alexandria, colonia Ro. — Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. v. cap. xxx.
t The votive tablet to Drusus Caesar, in the vestibule of the public library
at Cambridge, contains the words, col. avg. troadens ; and the coin of the
city, Λνίίϊι the Silenus on the reverse, has also the legend col. avg. troad.
The tr.a. on the exergue of the medal of Trajan found by Chandler (Travels
in Asia Minor, cap. x.) must be a part of the same word, and not, I should
think, of Thoas, as he has supposed.
In the Acts of the Apostles, chap, xx., verse 5 and 6, and in the Second
Epistle to Timothy, chap. iv. verse 13, the town is called distinctly Troas.
Χ ΚαλίΓτα» όμως ακόμη Tpuxfx, x&i Οπο run Tepxwv Έσ-^ί-Στα/Λπόλ».— -Melet,
Geog. Venice, p. 455, article Φρνγιχ.
4 Τ
6S6
LETTER XXXVIII.
Greeks at this day. This general persuasion made Belon take
the ruins of Eski-Stamboul tor the remains of the city of Priam,
and conceive, that the river in the vale of Nesrah-Keui, was the
actual Xanthus of the poet. The little stream of Lidgah Ham-
mam may have supplied him with a Simois. That this mistake
(if a mistake it is) was not made by every one who saw the coun-
try, may, however, be proved, by the account of a Voyage in
the Levant, written by an Englishman, so far back as the year
1593; who says, that he came down the Straits, " and so by the
Sigean promontory, now called Cape Janissary, at the mouth of
Hellespont upon Asia side, where Troy stood, where are yet
ruins of olde walles to be sceene, with two hils rising in a pira-
midall forme, not unlikely to be the tombs of Achilles and Ajax."
Adding, " From thence we sailed along, having Tenedos and
Lemnos on the right hand, and the Trojan fields on the left*/'
Sandys also, who began his journey in l6l0, objected particu-
larly to Belongs account, and asserts, that " in all likelihood" he
had mistaken the site of ancient Troy 4% At the same time,
however, it is a little difficult to understand the whole of his nar-
rative, taken together, as it relates to Troas ; for his phrase is
somewhat at variance with his meaning, and would almost make
us suppose that he had adopted the very notion of Belongs which
he appeared at first willing to correct.
The error into which Sandys certainly fell, was mistaking the
remains at Eski-Stamboul for those of Ilium — the Ilium of Lysi-
machus. Pococke, who followed the text of Strabo, knew that
* This is from the journal of one Richard Wrag, who accompanied Ed-
ward Barton, Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the Porte. — Hakluyt, 2d vol.
p. 308, edit. London, 1599.
+ A Relation of a Journey, &c. lib. i. p. 22, edit. London, 1627.
Ml m^g^m*^
^^M ^^M
,ν-:ΐ
BETTER XXXVIII.
687
what he had said of the site of Ilium would not apply to Eski-
Stamboul ; but Mr. Wood has been accused of that inaccuracy?
and of confounding two towns which were sixteen miles apart* :
yet I believe he will not be found speaking so decisively, as to make
it clear that he committed that considerable mistake -j-.
It seems to me a much more unaccountable error, to confound
Troas with Ilium than with Troy; for Strabo, to mention no other
authority, when he described Ilium, described a town which was in
a flourishing condition in his day, and so particularized its site, as
to identify it with a spot not much more than a mile from the
shore of the Hellespont ; but he spoke of Troy as of a city of
which not a vestige was left, and whose site, as it had ever been
a subject of dispute, he was able to fix where he pleased, but
without depriving succeeding writers of the same freedom of con-
jecture. In fact, we see that a late celebrated authority has sent
us to look for the city of Priam, even more to the south than Alex-
* Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. xi. 4to. p. 8.
+ I recollect nothing upon which the charge is grounded, except that, after
saying that the present town is not the Troy of Homer, he adds, " that was
higher up." Now Strabo having placed the site of Troy above the new Ilium,
it must seem that the traveller supposed the ruins of Eski-Stamboul to be those
of that second town. He asserts, in the same place, that the situation of the
Scamander is likewise changed ; and that the hot spring is below the source,
and docs not communicate with the river, the fountains of which are in the
mountains, where no town could have stood," (Essay on the Original Genius of
Homer, p. 329.) But the Scamander of Mr. Wood flows so many miles to the
north-east of Eski-Stamboul, that he could not well allude to the baths of
Lidgah Hammara, when he talks of the hot spring of the river. It is true,
that a map made, as Chandler supposed, by a Frenchman, in 1726, and be-
longing to Mr. Wood, did seem to admit the supposition, that Troas was either
Troy or Ilium.
4T 2
η
688
LETTER XXXVIII.
arid ria, between Lectum andAntandros*. Mr. Bryant founded his
argument not a little on the position of Tenedos, which he con-
ceived should be in front of Troy; and had he seen that the island
is placed too low in the maps, and that beyond Lectum to the
, .souih the coast is rocky and precipitous, he might have altered
his opinion : but it is not at all improbable, that he would have
fixed upon the plain of Ghicle, just to the north of Troas, as
the country in which (if in any) the poet meant to lay the scene
of his Iliad. He would not, indeed, have found the Sudlu rivu-
let so large as the-Scamander of the Iliad ; but, with his general
scepticism on the subject, he might not have been disturbed
by such a dissimilarity, especially as he would have seen some
other requisite points of resemblance to the Trojan plain of Ho-
mer, not to that of Strabo, which it would be in vain to look
for near the Sigean promontory, and in the plain watered by the
Mendere-su.
* See from page 133 to page 148, of Mr. Bryant's Dissertation concerning
tbe War of Troy.
M;rVfi ^^^^^B
^^H ^^^^^^^^H :».- : *-,.->ν•ί«ί•'>•• ^!ϊ!•.-.τ•ΐ•?":" ^'r^r^ 'tsrlF^
LETTER XXXIX.
Frigate anchors off Sigeum — The Troad of Strabo — Ilium — its
History — Not Troy — nor on the Site of it — No Vestiges of
Troy ever seen — Modern Travellers — No pretended Discovery
of the Site until the time of Le Chevalier — Description of the
Coast from Stamboul-Douk to Cape Janissary — Yeni-Keui —
Beshik-Tepe — Elles-Boumou — Mouth of the Dardanelles —
Ancient Geography of the Coast — Amnis Navigabilis of Pliny
• — Sigean Promontory — Giaur-Keui — Sigean Marbles — Si-
gSnm — Eleus — Elles Baba-Tepe — The Protcsileum — Koum-
Kale — Mouth of the Mendere River — The Thymbrek River
— In-Tepe Gheulu — Valley of Thymbrck-Derc — Marshes of
the Plain — Rivulet of Bournabashi — Udjek-Tepe — Bonrnaba-
shi — Course of the Mendere — Callifatli Village and Brook — -
Banks of the Mendere.
EARLY on the morning of the 14th of April, the
frigate got under weigh, and going on deck, we found ourselves
at anchor, not, as before, in the channel of Tenedos, but at a
little more than a mile and a half from Cape Janissary, where we,
■1
<590
LETTER XXXIX.
found IT. M.S. the Bustard, brig of war, and an English transport
laden with gunpowder for the Turks, which had been there several
days waiting for a firman to pass the castles of the Dardanelles.
No ship of war belonging to any foreign power, is now allowed to
enter the straits, without such an imperial order directed to the
Pashas of the several forts commanding the passage ; and we were
detained in expectation of receiving this permission until the 1st
of May. Such was the jealous caution of the Porte, that it would
not allow two British ships of war to proceed at the same time to
Constantinople ; and the Bustard having resigned her charge to
the Salsette, departed on the 18th for Malta. Whilst the frigate
was at this anchorage, and during nearly another subsequent fort-
night, I had an opportunity of surveying the whole of that plain
which for 3000 years has attracted the attention of the civilized
world, and which the ingenuity of our own age has illustrated by
discoveries so singular, that whether fanciful or not, they must in-
crease the interest of visiting these celebrated regions. For some find
it most agreeably congenial with all their early prepossessions, to
credit the conjectures of those who recognize on this spot every ves-
tige of the poetic landscape ; whilst others experience not a little
satisfaction in detecting the futility of former schemes, and in fur-
nishing themselves with arguments in favour either of more pro-
bable arrangements, or of a general scepticism respecting the
whole Homeric topography.
We may expect to find the account given by Strabo of this
part of Asia, equally correct with the other descriptions of
that invaluable writer; and we may at least hope to see his
plain of Troy, with the Simois and Scamander, the stations of
Achilles and Ajax, the harbour of the Greeks, and many of those
Aj^^^ksS ^'g^gpSjt^ 'b&$ , $&8!!fS ^U&iti&tty ^^H
^^^^^H
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LETTER XXXIX
691
celebrated objects which, on whatever foundation, were identified in
very early ages with the scenes of the Iliad. If the country bor-
dering on these famous straits does not correspond with the de-
scriptions of the poet, it may be found, perhaps, to agree with
those of the geographer ; and with this resemblance a prudent
traveller should, according to my humble judgment, be content,
without attempting to find those evident vestiges of the Trojan
war, which all investigation of the ancients was so utterly unable
to discover, that the words of the poet himself were quoted to
prove that some of them, as the rampart of the Greeks, had
perhaps never existed, and that others, amongst which was
reckoned Troy itself, had been destroyed by the event to which
they owed their celebrity.
Plutarch informs us, that Alexander the Great performed sa-
crifices at Ilium*; and Arrian adds, that he carried away from
the place some arms which were said to have been used in the
Trojan war, and ordered them to be borne before him in his
battles -f•. But this Ilium, which, from a village with a single
temple, was converted by his order into a considerable town, is
proved by the many arguments adduced in the treatise on the
Troad, contained in the thirteenth book of Strabo, to have not
* Άκαβά? St ug Ιλιοι», t3w£ τ« ASwoi. — In vit. Alex. p. 674, Op. Om.
edit. Paris, 1624.
τ *Ανελ$όντχ SI Ις "ΐλ»ον τίί τε Ά3>ιΐ/ί} 3wa< τί? ΊλιαΛ, xxi την πχνοπλίχν ττ\ν
αυτά χνχ^ιΐνχι Ις τον vxtv 3 και χχ$ελΐ~ν ά,ντι τχυττις των Ιερών τίνα οπλών ϊτι ιχ.
τα Ύρω\κα tpyn <τωζό[Λίνχ' Κα» λίγνην ©τ» οι υπχσπιστχ\ ϊφιρον προ χυτχ ίς τχς
μ,χ-χχς. — Arriani, de Expcdit. Alex. lib. i. cap. ii. p. 25, edit. Gronov. 1714.
It will be observed, that the annalist uses throughout, the phrase " it is re-
ported."
Α!ϊ ν #,^^<»Φ
^^Μ
1ETTER XXXIX.
691
celebrated objects which, on whatever foundation, were identified in
very early ages with the scenes of the Iliad. If the country bor-
dering on these famous straits does not correspond with the de-
scriptions of the poet, it may be found, perhaps, to agree with
those of the geographer ; and with this resemblance a prudent
traveller should, according to my humble judgment, be content,
without attempting to find those evident vestiges of the Trojan
war, which all investigation of the ancients was so utterly unable
to discover, that the words of the poet himself were quoted to
prove that some of them, as the rampart of the Greeks, had
perhaps never existed, and that others, amongst which was
reckoned Troy itself, had been destroyed by the event to which
they owed their celebrity.
Plutarch informs us, that Alexander the Great performed sa-
crifices at Ilium*; and Arrian adds, that he carried away from
the place some arms which were said to have been used in the
Trojan war, and ordered them to be borne before him in his
battles -f•. But this Ilium, which, from a village with a single
temple, was converted by his order into a considerable town, is
proved by the many arguments adduced in the treatise on the
Troad, contained in the thirteenth book of Strabo, to have not
* Άναβας t\ Ι»? Ιλίοκ, 'ί^υσε τγ Αθ«ΐ/*. — In vit. Alex. p. 674, Op. Om.
edit. Paris, 1624.
τ *Ανελ&όντχ il Ις "Ίλιον τί? τε \A9»v»j S~v-",%
^^M
LETTER XXXIX.
693
tribute was afterwards confirmed by the Emperors Claudius* and
Nero-f\
The love of proving an illustrious ancestry, common to the
two great nations of antiquity, made the Romans wish to believe
the Ilieans the actual descendants of the true Trojans, and to
call their town, as they generally did, by the name of Troy,
which was one of its Homeric appellations, but was obsolete with
the Phrygian Greeks J.
A proof of this persuasion may be adduced from the story told
of Tiberius, who, to reproach the Ilieans for their late condo-
lence for the death of Drusus, informed them, that he also sym-
pathized with them for the loss of Hector §. But the well-known
lines of Lucan, inform us with what success Julius Caesar searched
for the vestiges of the Trojan wall || ; and that the verses of the
* " Iliensibus quasi Romani generis auctoribus tributa in pcrpetuum remi-
sit."— Suet, in vit. Tib. Claud. Cass. p. 543, edit. qt. Schiklii.
+ " Impetrat ut Ilienses orani publico raunere solverentur." — Tacit. Annal.
lib. xii. cap. 58, p. 88, edit. Glasg. 1753. " Circensibus ludis Trojam con-
stantissime favorabiliterque ludit."— Sueton. in vit. Ncron. Claud. Cses.
cap. 7, p. 578, edit. qu. sup.
+ Dissertation concerning the war of Troy, edit. 2, p. 39; see also (he com-
mentary on verse 817, Perieg. Dionys., in which the Latins are censured
for calling Ilium Troy, p. 285, edit. Lond. 1679. It seems strange that Mr.
Bryant should be the first to remark, that the Ύξοιη of Homer is sometimes the
city as well as the district. — Dissert. Append, p. 13 C 2, 2d edit. To prevent
the necessity of adding an epithet to Ilium Immune, I shall distinguish the Ho-
meric city by the name of Troy.
^ Suet, in vit. Tib. cap. 52, p. SS8. The reader may recollect how happily
this story is introduced in one of Dr. Swift's letters to Mr. Pope.
H Mr. Le Chevalier, in alluding to the lines of Lucan, with a singular cits-
ingenuity, and confidence in the ignorance of his readers, only quoted the first
4 U
Cf)4
LETTER XXXIX.
port were founded on fact, is fully proved by the testimony of
Strabo, and the decisive evidence of the author, to whose assist-
ance he had recourse in describing the ilellespontinc Phrygia.
We do not know that Strabo had not himself been in the
Troad, but we are sure that no person could speak more to the
purpose than Demetrius, who was a native of Scepsis, a town
not far from Ilium, and who wrote thirty books on sixty lines of
liomer's Trojan Catalogue. From this authority we know, that
not a vestige was left of the ancient city*.
Neither Julius Caisar, nor Demetrius, nor Strabo, had any
doubt of the former existence of the city of Priam ; and the orator
Lycurgus, quoted by the latter author, at the same time that he
declared the total desolation, and as it were death of Troy, to be
known to all the world, spoke of its destruction as of a fact equally
notorious••)-. These authorities therefore are to be acknowledged as
three lines of the description, beginning " Sigajasque petit famsc miralor arc*
nas," as the five following verses were fatal to his hypothesis. The author of
the Topography of Troy, is much fairer in his notice of the passage, if he does
notice it when he attributes the prevailing error respecting the non-existence of
any Trojan remains, to the u etiam periere ruinae" of Virgil.
* 'Ouχαια? πόλιως.• — Strab. lib. xiii. p. 195.
These words, and the general tenour of the whole argument, may be quoted as
decisive against those places, where the words η πάλαια, or αογαΐον χτίσμα,
are introduced to signify either Troy, or the supposed site of it, at the Pagu»
Iliensiutn.
+ Sec Casar.bon. Coram, in Strab. lib. xiii. p.GOl. Την Τροίαν τίς «κ axn'xorv
οτι jUfyiVr*] yiytvnuivn ruv τότ? πολίων, και πάσης Ιπάρζχσα τνς Ασίας, ως όίπαξ
utp των Ελλήνων χατισχαφη, απο τον αιώνα αο»κ«το? Ιστίν. Strabo relates, that
Thucydides speaks of Troy being taken by the Athenians j but on referring to
ΜΜϋίϋιϋί
Hi
Λ^-Η-ί^-^;^.^.
».':<»;-:**•'>►> »<-*Ι•
^vsyra ^^^H ^-WA
LETTER XXXIX.
695
complete evidence against the remains of Troy having ever been
recognized by any credible witnesses amongst the ancients, and
are to be received with none of that distrust with which we may
hear the arguments of those who have in our times been arrayed,
to prove that such a place as Troy did never exist, and that con-
sequently the Trojan war was a mere fiction of poetry. The geo-
graphy of the Troad cannot be affected by any decisions on this
latter question, nor by those disquisitions which have lately in-
creased our doubts on all points relative to Homer, and have
made us uncertain not only of the productions and the name, but
even of the actual existence, of the poet.
The learned world may decide that the Odyssey and the Iliad
were not productions of the same person or period ; and Mr.
Heyne, annulling the labour and dissolving the union of Pistratus,
may disperse the two epics into their primitive rhapsodies, It is
enough for the traveller to be aware, that not only not a vestige of
Troy was ever seen, but that no ancient author ever pretended to
have ascertained with precision its actual site. It may be observed,
that in the forgeries of Dictys Cretensis* and Dares Phry-
the historian, Ave see that he docs not mention Troy, but only, τα tv τίϊ νπύρν
πολίσμοιτχ — the towns in the interior, or on the main-land, lib. iii. See Ca-
saubon's note to p. 600 of Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 226, edit. Xyland.
* In Dictys Cretensis the Scamander is mentioned only once (p. 99, edit.
Amstlea, 1730), the Simois not at all; the river (" flumen, p. 88, and flu-
vius, p. 99") is noticed but twice; Ilium is once named, p. 108; the tomb
of Achilles once, p. 109; Sigeum once, p. 132; and the tomb of Ajai, on
the Rhceteum promontory, also once, p. 137. The author says of Troy,
a urbs incendiis complanata" — u the city was burnt to the ground," p. 134;
but be makes Antenor, and ./Eneas and Antenor, inhabit it afterwards. He
4U 2
696
LETTER XXXIX.
gius*, no attempt is made at local description, and that this would
hardly have been the case if the site of the Phrygian capital, and
consequently the exact scene of the memorable events which they
recorded, had been universally known to the Greeks of the age of
Constantine.
The uncertainty respecting Troy must necessarily have increased
rather than diminished by the progress of time, and I do not
find that any judicious person amongst the early travellers, ever
thought of discovering the vestiges or the site of the city of
Priam. Dr. Pococke did not attempt to find any thing undis-
covered by Demetrius and Strabo, and spoke with great hesita-
tion even of conjectures founded on their descriptions. Mr. Wood,
in the essay which he wrote " to do justice to. Homer," wisely
reserved a " thorough examination of the poet's geography to a
every where calls the Trojans " Barbarians;" a distinction, as Mr. Wood ob-
served on another occasion, not to be found in Homer, and only once used in
Virgil (Essay on the Genius, &e. p. 504): Tzetzcs (Cfail. 5, iiisi. 3Qj as I find
him quoted in some notes oniElian) averred, that Homer followed this history;
but the learned Isaac Vossius thought the book was not the composition of a
Greek even so late as the time of Constantine, but that the Latin, now called
the translation of Septimius, was the original work.
* Dares Phrygius, who differs from Homer in very many particulars, for
which the letter from Cornelius Nepos to Sallust, prefixed to the treatise (p. 154,
ibi.)> asserts that he was much extolled at Athens, mentions scarcely a single
place by name except the Scaean gate, and the tomb of Achilles. The Phry-
gian Iliad, which was the foundation of this imposture, inferior both in anti-
quity and elegance to Dictys Cretensis, was said to be in existence in the time
of jElian ; that author, however, does not say that he ever saw it, but only,
that he believed it to be yet preserved — Kxi τον Φρυγχ Axpyrxy h Φρυγίχν
IXixL• in hx\ wv όίποο-ωζο[Λίνον %ι$χ. — Var. Hist. lib. xi. cap. 11.
Η
LETTER XXXIX.
697
more enlarged plan of his work ;" and notwithstanding: a singular
hint, that the country was more like Homer's landscape in his
time than it had heen in that of Strabo*, and some general
praise of Homer's accuracy, yet in his description of the Troad,
he notices rather the changes that must have taken place in the
face of the country, than the resemblance it bears to the picture
given of it in the Iliad ; and he does not hazard a single conjec-
ture as to the actual site of the ancient city, except that it stood
above Alexandria Troas: an omission caused not by ignorance or
carelessness, but, it is probable, by a thorough knowledge of the
insurmountable difficulties attending the enquiry.
Chandler, in his account of the Plain, followed Strabo and the
geographers; he attempted no discoveries as to Troy, and
although he spoke with more decision respecting other points, he
thought proper to make an excuse in his Preface, for hazarding
such assertions-)-. What he might have done in his announced
work, relative to the topography of the Troad, cannot be known,
as it never was published, or transmitted to the press. But the
world has become much wiser than formerly, especially, as Dr. Swift
observed, within these ten years. Mr. Le Chevalier determined
upon the discovery of Troy, and succeeded. The Pergamus of
* Essay on the Genius and Writings of Homer, p. 76.
J
>>»"!•*■ ■
•>;•>
LETTER XXXIX.
099
traveller, however, apparently of a totally different complexion*,
and who lent an academic faith to the whole superstition, restored
us to our ancient uncertainty; and when we travelled, the village
of Bournabashi was no longer Troy ; the springs of the Scaman-
der and the Simois, had disappeared, and the encampment of the
Greeks had again sunk into the nonentity to which it was before
reduced, by the trident of Neptune and the streams of seven rivers.
We repeatedly traversed the whole of that part of the Troad,
which is usually called the Plain of Troy. The frigate was an-
chored a little above one of those singular tumuli, four of which
are ranged near the shore of the Archipelago. Liman-Tepe, and
Stamboul-Douk, have been already noticed. From the flat
point Bournou, beyond Alexandria Troas, the coast, for four or
five miles, is a sandy flat, and a shrubby plain, divided by a small
rivulet, spreads from some inland eminences to the sea. About
a mile from the succeeding promontory, called in the maps
the Cape of Troy, another stream flows through a narrow but
deep channel into the sea. About a mile from its mouth, it is
joined by a small rivulet flowing from the south ; and to this
rivulet that channel of a mile in length formerly belonged, and not
to the stream now running from the north-east, which has within
the memory of man been let into it through an artificial cut.
From this point the shore becomes less level ; and the Cape of
Troy is a sandy promontory, terminated by a mass of shapeless
rocks. Haifa mile inland, and to the north of the. Cape, is the
third large barrow, ]3eshik-Tepe. The coast above is exceedingly
* See an Essay in the Edinburgh Review, July, 1805, No. XII. Franklin
and others have also written on the Troad ; but the general outline of the pro-
gress of the question is given above.
Μ
700
LETTER XXXIX.
abrupt, composed of high chalky cliffs, and on the flat of the hills
not far beyond the barrow, stands the town of Yeni-Keui, con-
taining perhaps two hundred houses, inhabited chiefly by Greeks.
Immediately below it is a circular part or basin, to which the com-
munication with the town is by a path winding down a steep pre-
cipice. Beyond Yeni-Keui, the coast still continues abrupt and
high ; but a little before, to the south of the fourth barrow, there
is a deep chasm in the coast. The path on each side is made
more easy by steps cut in the hill. At the bottom is a stone
fountain, and between the hollow, a small stream trickles through
the sandy beach, projecting in a thin strip at the foot of the
rocks. The fourth barrow rises from the hilly coast, immediately
above the chasm. To Cape Janissary, a mile and a half to
the north, the coast is a line of steep craggy rocks. Opposite to
our anchorage, a steep and difficult path ascends the hill : this
was our often-trodden route into the plains, and part of the
ship's company were daily employed in watering at two springs
near the landing place. From the top of the cliff the path turns
northwards near the edge of the precipice, and leading at first
down a slope, ascends some gently-rising ground, until it arrives at
the flat summit on which stands the town of Yeni-Cher, or
Giaur-Keui. From this point the Cape stretches off half a mile
beyond, to the north-north-west. On a flat above the town are
eight or nine windmills, which when the pilot sees in a line with
the tongue of the promontory he makes directly for the mouth
of the straits. From the ship we had a distinct view of Elles-
13ournou, or Cape Greco, the extremity of the Thracian Cher-
sonese, of Cahim-Kalessi, the new fort built by De Tott on the
hill, two miles within the Cape, and of Eski-Kalessi, the old castle,
iV.-VJ'
LETTER XXXIX.
701
a mile farther in the mouth of the strait : a harrow, called Elles
Baba-Tepe, was discernible on the hills above Cahim-Kalessi.
From Cape Janissary to Cahim-Kalessi the distance is about three
miles and a half; but as the angle formed at that point is ve i
obtuse, the straits seem to commence from Elles-Bournou ; ai d
thus having a width of five or six miles, sweep round the hi : i
cliffs on either side into the expanded sea, with all the grandeur
of an American river.
The usual place of anchorage for the vessels detained in their
passage to Constantinople, is under the hills near Cahim-Kalessi,
or in a small inlet under Cape Janissary ; where, however, they are
not always secure from the violence of the Etesian gales. On the
24th of April, many ships of different sizes, bursting from their moor-
ings, and borne down as upon a rapid torrent, shot swiftly by us
under bare poles, and were unable to bring up until they got shelter
behind Tenedos. The boundless sea prospect from the heights on
the Asiatic side of the straits, is broken by Imbros to the west,
and to the north of that island by Lemnos, whose high rocks are,
as it were, capped by the fainter peaks of Samothrace. Athos
itself is said to be sometimes visible in the utmost distance, but
it was not discernible during our stay on the spot.
The whole length of the coast from Koum-Bornou to Cape
Janissary is about eleven miles, in a direction due north. Its
ancient geography has not been determined very precisely. The
headlands Koum-Bornou, and the cape of Troy, appear to have
received no distinct names. Pococke says, that Achaium. may
have been near Yeni-Keui; but Chandler* assigns Nca or Nee
* Travels in Asia Minor, cap. xxii,
4x
702
LETTER XXXIX.
to tills spot, as being more agreeable to the detail of Pliny, and
as it seems to preserve its old name in a Turkish translation.
He gives a Latin sepulchral inscription, taken from a stone in the
village*. The land near the town is bleak and bare, but in the
slopes under the hill there are some extensive gardens, in which
the fig and mulberry tree are cultivated in luxuriant abundance.
Strabo, whose notice of this coast is by no means in detail, says,
that Achieum was opposite to Tenedos, and that its district was
next to that of Alexandria Troas, not far from Larissa-f-.
If Yeni-Keui, and the vicinity of the barrow Beshik-Tepe, be
near the site of Nee, we should look for the " Scamander Amnis
Navi'gabilis" of Pliny between that spot and Cape JanissaryJ. But
there is no river between the two points, and the stream nearest
to Yeni-Keui is that which flows into the sea, a mile to the south,
where the continent, agreeably to the site of Achaeum, is oppo-
site to Tenedos, at least to the north end of that island. The
stream in question is not noticed by Strabo, but it does, indeed,
seem to be the navigable river Scamander of Pliny ; and as it is
larger than the other rivulets below to the south, it may have
been so characterized, to show its comparative importance. It is
certainly not the great Trojan Scamander of which the naturalist
here speaks, for he mentions that river immediately afterwards, and
in the position given to it by every other writer, calling it the Xan-
thus : I shall leave it, however, to the etymologists to determine,
whether a stream, not capable even at its mouth of admitting a
* Inscriplioncs Antiquae, p. 4.
+ Lib. xiii. p. 605, 596.
% " Oppidum Nee, Scamander amnis navigabilis, et in proraontorio quo-
dam Sigaium oppidum." — Nat. Hist. lib. v. cap. SQ.
mm
ί-ί^Τί
LETTER XXXIX.
70ί
Thames wherry, and having all the characteristics of a mountain
torrent, could have been ever designated by the epithet navigable
Perhaps the ships navigating this Scamander were like those river
boats (τλοΤα τοτάμια) which, according to Diodorus, were made
by the orders of Slabobrates, King of India, out of a single
reed*.
Every ancient mention of the Sigean promontory seems to iden-
tify it with Cape Janissary, and the remains discovered in Giaur-
Keui, show that the town Sigeum was built on or near the site of
the present village. The Sigean decree in honour of Antiochus,
was removed in 1708 by Mr. E. W. Montague, and the Bou-
strophedon, which is called the famous Sigean inscription by
Pococke, and has had that epithet attached to it by every suc-
ceeding traveller, was removed by Lord Elgin. From the in-
scriptions, a fac-simile of which is given in ChishuH's Asiatic An-
tiquities, and in Mr. Payne Knight's Analytical Essay on the
Greek Alphabet f, it appears that the method of writing or
graving, from left to right, and from right to left, alternately,
" as an ox ploughs," continued after the adoption of the long
vowels generally supposed to have been invented by Simonides,
* Kat πρώτον ph εκ τ» καλα ( <Λ8 κϋίτκηιίυασ-ε πλο7χ ποτάμιχ τιτραχιο-χίλιχ . .
Υί yap Ίΐ/ιί»κ*ι πχξα. τε τους ποταμούς κα» τους Ιλύίείς τόπους φέρει κχλχμχ πλήθους
ου το πχγος ουκ αν ρζδίως α&ροοπος πχρχλάβοι . . .—Hist. lib. ii. p. 74 edit.
Η. Steph. 1559. " Ex uno arundinis trunco μονοζυΧχ," says Wesseling. These
boats were manned to resist the invasion of Semirnmis ; but the streams which
they navigated cannot be supposed of the same sort as those on which the ex-
pedition of Nearchus sailed, and which Arrian does not call ιτλοψοι navigable
by boats, but νχυο-ιποροι, navigable by ships.— Hist. Ind. cap. iv. pp. 317
318, cap. v. p. 318, edit. Gronov.
t Plate II.
4x 2
704
LETTER XXXIX.
but prevalent in Asia, it is probable, prior to the time of that poet.
The upper inscription contains the additional characters, although
the one below uses only the alphabet of Cadmus and Palamedes.
The earlier Sigean inscription was written, it is thought, six hun-
dred years before the Christian era, and the second, which is
nearly a copy of the first six lines of the other, seventy-seven
years subsequently to «the first*. Phanodicus, the son of Her-
mocrates of Proconesus, who gave the bowl and cover (KPHTHPA
ΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΤΓΠΟΚΡΗΤΗΡΙΟΝ) which are the subjects of the record,
to the Sigean Prytaneum, is supposed by Chishull to be the his-
torical writer of that name mentioned by the Scholiast in Apollo-
nius, and the same person who is more than once commended by
Laertius as the author of a treatise on the Tripod of the Sage,
and concerning Thales and Bias-f*. Yet this biography, which is
conjectural, does not fix the precise date of the marble.
The Montague marble was in the wall of a small church dedi-
cated to St. Demetrius, and the pilaster containing the Boustro-
phedon was in the same church, and served as a seat. The pe-
destal, with the piece of sculpture described by Lady M. W.
Montague J, and explained by Dr. Chandler §, was opposite to
the pilaster; but whether it is still left, I know not, for the
Greeks of the village telling me that the marbles had been
removed, I did not enter the church. Several fragments still
remain scattered about near that building, which may be on
the site of the Atheneum. Such was the opinion of the last-
mentioned traveller, who adds also, that the flat on which the
* Analytical Essay, p. 18.
+ Inscriptio Sigea, p. 32, see Appendix, Lond. 1728.
£ Letter xliv. p. 152, edit. London, 1790.
§ Cap. xii. p. 36, Travels in Asia Minor.
-ή/^ν;^ -^-β?Μ 7?%^
κ '-:"-!Μ ^Η
LETTER XXXIX.
705
village stands, was the Acropolis, and that the ancient town oc-
cupied a slope on the descent towards the mouth of the Straits.
The village of Yeni-Cher or Giaur-Keui, is inhabited by Creeks
only, some of whom are of the better sort. They cultivate the
cotton grounds and vineyards on the sides of their hills, and are,
in part, owners of the flocks of broad-tailed sheep which swarm
over the neighbouring plains. We found that several houses con-
tained a stock of wine sufficient to furnish a considerable quantity
for the use of our ship's company.
The traveller before quoted out of Hakluyt saw some remains
on this spot, as also did Belon, who took them for the relics of
the structure consecrated to Achilles. Sandys* talks of the Pro-
montory being " crowned with a ruinous city, whose imperfect
walls do shew to the sea their antiquity/' Some remnants appear
to have been seen by Lady M. W. Montague ; but they are not
noticed, that I am aware, by any subsequent traveller, and at
present there is not a vestige of them to be found. Whether they
belonged to the unfinished city of Constantine, as Sandys conjec-
tured, or were relics of Sigeum, has not been determined. The
remains of Constantine's design, were visible on the right hand
entering the Straits, but not, in all likelihood, on the Promontory
itself; since the gates, which were conspicuously seen by those
who sailed along the coast, were in the plain before Ilium, near
the shore, and above or beyond the tomb of Ajaxf*. The same
fatality seemed to attend the attempt at fixing the seat of empire
* Page 19, lib. 1.
t Καταλαβων it το πξο του Ιλίου TtiSlov πχοοί τον Έλλγιατπόντον υπ\ζ τον
"Α»αι/τος τοίφον. — Zozom. Ecclcs. Hist. lib. ii. cap. iii. Decline and Fal!>
vol. ii. cap. 17, p. 9, 4to.
706
LETTER XXXIX.
in the kingdom of Priam, as we are told prevented the rebuilding
of the ' mple at Jerusalem ; and the perseverance of Constantine
was of little longer duration than the inauspicious resolves of Julius
Caesar and of Augustus. The gates were all that was finished of the
intended work, and cannot have left behind them relics sufficient to
be called the ruins of a city : yet Kauffer, in his map, has laid
down "Ville de Constantin," on a site which, it must be confessed,
answers better thanGiaur-Keui, to that of the designed capital.
Sigeum was built by Archaeanax of Mitylene, and, as was said,
out of the ruins of Troy; a report which, although entirely un-
founded, was a proof of its extreme antiquity. After a variety of
fortunes*, it was destroyed by the people of Ilium, who from the
age of Antiochus, became masters of the greater part of the
Troad, as far as Dardanus, and retained it when Strabo wrote.
It was a ruin in his time, and the walls seen by modern travellers
can have no reference to Sigeum. They may have been the rem-
nants of some fort or watch-tower built in a much later period.
* We find in Strabo, that, the town was taken from the Mitylenseans by
Phryno the Athenian, and that Pittacus, endeavouring to recover it, several
battles were fought, in one of which the poet Alcseus lost his shield. Herodo-
tus (lib. v. cap. 94, 95) relates that it was taken by Pisistratus, who left his
illegitimate son Ilegesistratus governor, and that the latter was unable to retain
it without repeated contests with the Mitylenacans of the neighbouring fortress
Achilleuin. He makes Alcaeus' lass of his shield occur in one of these battles,
and mentions, that the place came into the final possession of the Athenians by
the award of Periander, the son of Cypselus; a circumstance which, in Strabo's
account, happened previously to the time of Pisistratus. Dr. Chandler (cap. xii.
p. ^7, Travels, &c. &c), to reconcile the statements, puts the conquest of Pisis-
tratus after that of Phryno and the other events mentioned by the geographer.
Chares the Athenian was governor of the town when Alexander landed in Asia.
Arriaui, de Exped. Alex. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 25, edit. Gronov. 1714.
^H
LETTER XXXIX.
707
If any argument were wanting, to shew that Cape Janissary is
the Sigean Promontory, its situation opposite to the point of the
Thracian Chersonese, might be adduced in proof. Near that
point, called formerly Mastusia, was the town Eleus, a little to
the north, on a precipice above Eski-Kalessi, and a mean vil-
lage now occupies its site*. The Protesileum, or sacred por-
tion of Protesilaus, who was worshipped at Eleus, where he
Avas supposed to be buried, was near the barrow Elles Baba-
Tepe, and the barrow itself may have been called the tomb of
that hero-f•. To the Protesileum there is a history attached: it
was laid waste and defiled by Artayctes, the governor of Sestos,
to deter the Greeks, as he told Xerxes, from again invading Asia ;
but the Persian was severely punished for having revenged upon the
people of Eleus the crimes of Agamemnon's army; for, being taken
alive by Xanthippus the Athenian, he was himself impaled alive :£,
whilst his son was stoned to death before his face§. Alexander
the Great having left bis main army near Sestos, marched to the
point of the Chersonese, on purpose to visit the spot, and sacri-
ficed on the tomb to the manes of the warrior who first landed in
Asia, and was the first victim of the Trojan war||. The barrow
* Slrab. lib. xiii. p. 595.
"f Έν yoio Έλαίουντί της ytovovrwn ε<ττ» Προτίοτιλεω τάφος τε χοα τίμίνος
7Γ£Ρ* αυτόν, 'ίν§χ ϊην χξήμχτχ πολλά. — Herod. Hist. lib. ix. p. 116.
Χ Ζωντΰίττξος .->~,, ^^m :.*->tr- ; ^^^H
LETTER XXXIX.
715
point to Callifatli flows through a highly cultivated country,
forming woody aits, now concealed amidst groves of cornel
and wild-almond trees, and now glittering through open tracts of
corn-lands. I traced all its windings, startling young broods of
wild ducks and flocks of turtle doves out of every brake, from
the vicinity of Bournabashi to where the path led me across
the plain and the rivulet towards the frigate, and found I had
walked for three hours ; but the direct road, even to Callifatli, is
not, I should think, more than seven, miles.
Nothing could be more agreeable than our frequent rambles
along the banks of this beautiful stream. The peasants of the nu-
merous villages, whom we frequently encountered ploughing with
their buffaloes, or driving their creaking wicker cars* laden with
faggots from the mountains, whether Greeks or Turks, showed no
inclination to interrupt our pursuits. The whole region was, in a
manner, in possession of the Salsette's crew, parties of whom, in
their white summer dresses, might be seen scattered over the plain
collecting the tortoises which swarm on the sides of the rivulets,,
and are found under every fufze-bush.
LETTER XL.
Barrows — Short Account of those ancient Mounts — Probably
not all of them actual Sepulchres — Barrows of Celtic or
Scythian Origin — as rvell in Phrygia as in Britain — The
Phrygian Barrows appropriated by the Greeks — Barrow-
Burial adopted by the Greeks, but not prevalent in the later
periods of their History — The present Barrows of the Troad
— Liman-Tepe, Stamboul-Douk, Beshik-Tepe, Udjek-Tepe,
§c. not mentioned in Strabo — Supposed Tomb of Achilles —
Account of its Excavation by De Choiseul Gouffier — Absolute
uncertainty respecting the real Monument — Arbitrary adop-
tion of Names for the other Barrows — In-Tepe possibly the
Manteum — Bhoztean Promontory.
IT must have been observed, that frequent mention
has been made of barrows, on the coast and in the plain of
Phrygia. The precise origin of these singular mounts has never
been determined ; for, whilst some have supposed that all of them
are specimens of the most ancient kind of sepulchre, there are
others who think that they may have been raised on other occa-
sions, and are not to be invariably regarded as memorials of the
LETTER XL.
717
dead*. It would, perhaps, be proceeding too far to suppose
every artificial heap of earth, even when found in countries where
such tombs abound, and although generally considered an ancient
tomb, to be an actual sepulchre. Mounts were raised by the
Egyptians sometimes to support a sacred building, and some-
times to serve, without any superstructure, as objects of vene-
ration. In this manner hills were accounted holy by the ancient
Persians, as they are by the modern Japannese; and amongst the
Jews, temples or other places of worship were, from the practice
of the idolaters, denominated High Places f. From the hillocks
of the Egyptians, Taphos, one of the Greek words signifying a
tomb, may be derived J, which can be accounted for by suppos-
ing, that many of these were in truth the tombs of their princes,
and perhaps the archetypes of their pyramids, and that the wor-
ship of the dead was the origin of the sanctity attached to their
supposed sepulchres.
In flat countries a mount was raised, but in other situations
either the foot, or the summit of a natural eminence, was selected
for the place of burial. We have the testimony of Homer himself
to prove, that hills, the size of which precluded almost the possibility
* Dr. Borlase, in bis Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 211, edit. 2d (quoted in
Dalzel's Notes on Le Chevalier) finds fault with the appellation, which being
usually barrow, and not, as in Cornwall, burrow, gives, as he conceives too
great a latitude to that which should always signify a sepulchre. It is possible,
however, that our word is not derived from the Saxon byrig, to bury, but beorg
or beorh, signifying " oppidum," a fortress or little hill, which is pronounced
gutturally, like berch, and (as talch is changed into tallow) becomes in English,
barrow. See note to page 20, of the Introduction to Sir It. Hoare's Ancient
Wiltshire, where both roots seem to be admitted.
+ Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, pp. 80, 81.
X Bryant's Mythology, vol. i. p. 449. Less curious etymologists may be
contented with the derivation from ϊτχφον, the aor. sec. indie, of S*Vr«, sepelio.
4 Ζ
718
LETTER XL.
of their being artificial, were called tombs. This was the case with
Batieia, named by the Immortals, or, in early ages, the tomb of
Myrinna*, where the Trojan army of fifty thousand men was
drawn out in battle array, which could not have been effected
even if the hill had been equal in size to the tomb of Ninus, the
largest barrow in the world -f\ King Dercennus was buried under
a hill J, and Cinethes, one of the companions of iEneas, on the
top of a mountain on the shores of Peloponesus§. The preva-
lence of the superstition above alluded to, which has been de-
nominated hero worship, although it may militate against Mr.
Bryant's general assertion, that all ancient barrows were not
sepulchral, and may induce us to think that if they were not
really tombs they were at least supposed to be so, may yet serve
to convince us that many of these mounts, whether natural or arti-
ficial, did not actually contain the ashes of the dead. In proof of
this, it is observed by the above author, that the tombs shown
in Greece " Mere some of them those of gods themselves |[ ;" and
Dr. Borlase has remarked, that ancient writers use that word for
* II. B. v. 811. See the Scholiast to verse 403, and Camerarius, λυΙιο give
an easier explanation of the double appellations in Homer than eil her Eusta-.
thins or Dr. Clarke. The second names of inanimate objects, it should be ob-
served, are not to be confounded (although the annotalors have not remarked
the difference) with those of men derived from any exploit, of which Homer
gives an example in Astyanax, the agnomen of Hector's son Scamander —
Αΐος yap Ιρυίτο Ιλιον "Εκτωρ. — Jl. yi. y. 403.
t It was nine stadia (more than a mile) from the bottom to the top, and tea
stadia in breadth, and was to be seen in the time of Diodorus, who says of it,
Ύον h ΝΓι/οι/ η Σί//.ιρα//,ί? ίθ-αψίί/ iv το7ς βασιλίίοις και χχτίο-χιΰιχ,σιν Ιπ ά,υτω χωιχοί
ττΆ[ΑΐΑίγί5ις, ου το μ\ν ύψο? ηνία. iv σταδίων το Si Ίυρος ως φ-,'κην Kmo-Ug <5εκ<*.-—
Lib. i. p. 67, edit. Steph. 1714.
t Virg. iEn. xi. 850.
^ Dion. Halic. lib. i. cap. 42.
j| Observations on a Treatise, pp.44, 45.
IHMttUi
lyAh?"
LETTER XL.
719
a temple, which signified properly a sepulchre *. The same may
be said of the monumental hillocks in our own country. The
barrow on Cotley Hill, and that in Elder Valley, in Wiltshire, on
being excavated, discovered no signs of an interment, although there
were sufficient proofs to show that they had been devoted to reli-
gious purposes ; and the black earth generally found on digging
into these eminences, which was once thought a decomposition of
carcasses, has been pronounced by competent judges to be no-
thing but vegetable matter -f•.
It would not, indeed, be saying too much to affirm, that the
same judgment which we form of the barrows in our own coun-
try, may be applied to those found in the north of Europe, in
Tartary, and in whatever part of the world was at any time
peopled by the Celtic race of mankind. The Nomades or the Scy-
thians of the early Greeks and Romans, and the Celto-Scythae of
later periods, have been recognized in every region of Europe and
Asia, and were discovered under different denominations in Britain,
in Germany, and in Gaul J. Not only the manners, but the name
of Scythians, was found, in the age of Pliny, amongst the Sarma-
tians and Germans §, who supplied the first population of our island ;
and we need not be surprised at beholding vestiges of the same
customs on the downs of Wiltshire and the plains of Troy. The
* Τύμβος, Lycoph. Cassand. ver. 613; " turaulum antiquae Cereris," Virg.
.'En. ii. 742; Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 222; Descript. of the Plain of Troy,
p. 93.
+ See Sir R. Hoarc's Wiltshire, pp. 71, 82, 92, vol. i.
X See the authorities on this head, collected in Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilt-
shire, Introd. pp. 8, 9, &c.
^ " Scytharum nomen usquequaque transit in Sarmatas atquc Germanos."— τ
Hist. lib. iv. cap. 12, p. 59, edit. Paris, m.dxxxii.
4z 2
720
LETTER XL.
Thracians and Mysians of Homer, as well as the Hippomulgi, Ga-
lactophagi, and Abii, may be said to be of Scythian origin, and
tribes of that wandering people were mixed with the nations south
of the ister in the time of Augustus*. The Thracians of Hero-
dotus have many points of resemblance with the Scythians of that
historian, amongst which may be remarked the practice of barrow-
burial. The latter nation constructed earthen sepulchres of an
enormous size over their kings φ ; and the Thracians, after burning
or interring their corpses, heaped a mount over them, and per-
formed funeral games J : it appears also, that they sacrificed
victims of all kinds at the funerals of their chief men§. Now
the early inhabitants of Phrygia were from Thrace ; and Strabo
asserts, that many Trojan names were Thracian: they were, there-
fore, a Scythian people, and may have constructed the barrows
on the south side of the Hellespont previously to the Homeric
sera. It is not getting over a single step to say, that these monu-
ments are Phrygian, and not, as Mr. Bryant asserted, Thracian;
since the Phrvcians are allowed to have been originally from
Thrace.
A gentleman, more practically acquainted with the subject of
barrows than any other enquirer, no sooner saw the first descrip-
tion and representation of the tumuli on the plain of Troy, than
he pronounced that they were exactly similar to those seen in Great
* Strab. lib. vii. p. 296.
+ Ταΰτα £1 ποιηα-χντις χουσ» ποινής "χωρχ [xiyoty α^ιλλίο^αίκίη, και προ^υμίό-
ptvoi ως jtAiyifoi/ ττοΤησχι. — Iierod. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 71, p. 251, edit. Edinb.
1806.
^ 'Ettutx $ί §χπτουσι κχτχν.χυ<τχνπς, h α,λλως yn κρυφχντις "χβμχ Si viourtst±
xyZvx TiS^ifTi τΓχνΎοϋον. — Herod, lib. v. cap. 8 ; &c.
§ Παντοία σφχζχντις Iprfix, Ibid.
;'.-wy^A,»*>-s
^H
LETTER XL.
721
Britain ; that they were the tombs of the Celts of Thrace, and of a
date prior to that assigned to the Trojan war. He was not at all
aware that Mr. Bryant had made a precisely similar remark, but
came to the same conclusion by actual observation, which that
learned person had derived from his books*. Repeated experi-
ments have proved, that the English barrows are of the most remote
antiquity; for frequently, after finding a Roman or Saxon burial
near the summit of the mount, the excavators have arrived at the
original British interment in the cist on the floor of the tomb;
and in the very old British sepulchres, stags' horns, and bones of
various animals, have been often found, together with other ves-
tiges of the Celtic practice of sacrificing, before remarked in the
Thraco-Scy thians -j•.
The Phrygian barrows were most probably then, as Mr. Bryant
has observed, appropriated by the Greeks to people of their own
nation, just as fancy directed. It was the common custom for
those amongst them, who pretended that their ancestors had re-
ceived the benefits, or witnessed the exploits, of an hero, to show
his tomb as the best memorial to keep alive their gratitude. This
remark, by which Dionysius of Ilalicarnassus J accounted for
* The late Mr. Cunnington, of Heytesbury, Wilts, stated this opinion in
presence of B. A. Lambert, Esq. F. R. S. to whom I am indebted for the anec-
dote.
+ Amongst other curious. articles (some of which, although ancient British,
are very similar to the trinkets, found in the tombs in Greece) there was disco-
vered in a barrow in Wiltshire, a piece of woven cloth, the web very coarse,
but exactly the same as that for the invention of which a patent has lately been
obtained : so that what Horace said of words, in his epistle to the Pisos, may
be applied to the arts —
" Multa renascentur qua; jam cecidere "
I Lib. i. cap. 46.
7£2
LETTER XL.
finding several tombs of iEneas, should make us hesitate to de-
cide any ancient facts by the appearance of these tumuli ; and it
may be observed, that when Virgil described the spots where the
trumpeter and the nurse of iE.neas had been buried, it was not
from the supposition that their bones were actually deposited in
Italy, but only to introduce a popular superstition into his poem.
Yet why should we not look for the ashes of Cajeta and Misenus,
as well as for those of Achilles and Ajax ? Mr. Bryant's opinion
respecting the Thracian, or (as I have ventured to call it) the
Scythian origin of the Phrygian barrows, would have been much
strengthened, if he had had an opportunity of seeing, with myself,
that these artificial hills abound on the European side of the strait,
especially in the vicinity of Gallipoli ; . where, two hundred years
ago a superstition prevailed, that they were the sepulchres of
Thracian kings * ; and his argument may, perhaps, receive some
little accession by the remark, that one of the words used by
Homer to signify a barrow, appears altogether of Celtic origin;
so that the poet, in celebrating the great and supereminent
tomb of Achilles-f-, did not even change the name of that monu-
ment, which long before the days of his hero may have been the
sepulchre of some Scythian warrior. Tumba is the Celtic root ;
hence the tombeau of the French, and the tomb of the English J,
whose church-yards still display a specimen of the same humble
sepulchre which contented their ancestors.
It is not to be denied indeed, that the Greeks adopted the
same method of denoting the site of their primitive under-ground
graves (ΰπόγχιχ). Not to mention the χντ* y»7x f the heaped earth
* Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, &c. lib. i. p. 26, edit. Lond. 1627.
"Γ Μίγχν και xy.vu.ova. τιγχβοι/. Odyss. Ώ. 80.
% Introduction to Sir It. Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, note :£, p. 20.
Uj*. ; 'j~f I ^^^H Sr^^V/ ^.K&rZ
■■. S .V*SV£
LETTER XL.
723
of Homer, their sign (<"?{**), burial-place (τάφος), and monument
(^νί^α), were raised mounts. The sign of Hecuba (κυ*ο? σ-ί^α), is
a barrow still seen on the shore of the Thracian Chersonese. The
burial-place of the Athenians, was a mount, since that or the
similar tomb of some of the heroes who conquered with Miltiades,
is at this day visible on the plain of Marathon * ; and the monu-
ment of Panthea and Abradates -j- was a hillock, for it was heaped
up J. The custom, however, of raising a mount only, does not
appear to have generally obtained after the early periods of Gre-
cian history. On the Marathonian barrow, and that of Panthea,
there were inscribed stelae ; and even in Homer's time, that re-
finement had begun to prevail, for the horses of Achilles, when
they wept for the death of Patroclus, stood fixed to the spot, like
a pillar on a tomb §. The Scythians raised no other memorials
of their dead in the vast plains on which they settled their tem-
porary dwellings || ; but these monuments were too bulky for the
* Τάφος xoci lv τω tt($uc Άθ^ι/αιων ΙστΙν. Paus. Attic, p. 60.
-+ Cyrop. lib. VU. cap. 11, το μνήμα, υ-7τεξ[Λ£γ&ες ε•χύ.<Γ§Ύ\.
% Οβον χ^ούμ Αχιλλέι* τάφε. Eurip. Hecub. v. 225.
'Ύηίξ^ επί στήμχ γ^εο-^χι. A poll. Rhod. Argon. lib. iii. v. 203;
as well as many other passages might be add need, in proof (hat the early
(ireek monument was a heap of earth.
§ Iliad. P. v. 434.
j| It seems likely, that at the time the English barrows were constructed, not
only those who died in battle, but every person of distinction, was buried under
one of these conspicuous mounts, some of which appear to have been family mau-
solea, as they contain several skeletons of both sexes ranged in order. The
weapons frequently found in the tombs, may not have pointed out that the
deceased died in battle, but only have shown what was the profession, or per-
haps the sex, of the corpse, at a time when all men wore arms. None of the
barrows in England appear to have been raised promiscuously over the soldiers
slain in battle; but some of those opened in America, have been found to con-
tain as many as a thousand skeletons. — See Jefferson's State of Virgiuia, p. 174,
724
LETTER XL.
precincts of cities, and with the civilized Greeks, the very large
mount was the sepulchre of those only who were slain in battle,
and were buried where they fell ; or of such as died on a military
expedition, as was the case with Demeratus the Corinthian, to
whose memory the army of Alexander heaped up an earthen ce-
notaph eighty cubits high*. Although earthen substructures
were used in the time ot Demetrius Phalereus -J-, and probably in
much later periods, yet the monuments of which such frequent
mention is made in Pausanias, are generally understood to have
been of polished stone J. The old appellation of the Greek sepul-
chres became almost obsolete ; and we may collect from a passage
in Cicero, either that its meaning was in his time not distinctly
understood, or that there was some difficulty in giving a precise
translation of it in the Latin language §. Except at Marathon,
and the hillocks near Phalerum, I do not recollect to have seen
any barrows in Greece conjectured to be sepulchral.
After this general view of the subject, and of the probable his-
tory of any monumental mounts, however ancient, which may be
seen in these parts of the world, we may proceed to examine the
particular specimens of the supposed tombs which are found on
the shore of the plain, and in the plain itself, watered by the
quoted in Dalzel's note to p. 88, Description of the Plain of Troy, and in the
Encyclop. Britt. article Barrow.
Κα» τα,φον lymviv ο στρατός ιττ άυτω τν> περιμέτρου μίγχν, ύψο? Si wyZv
ίγδοτιχοντχ. — Plut. in vit. Alex. p. 696, Op. Om. edit. Paris, 1624.
+ Sepulchris autem novis finivit modum, nam super terrce lumulum noluit
quid statui nisi columellam, &c. — Cicer. de .Legib. lib. ii. cap. 26.
J Τύμβος £ί<ΓΓ8 λ&α-Ύά,φος ζίστος.
§ Psenaque est, si quis bustum (nam id puto appellari τν/χβον) aut monu*
mentum f inqnit, aut columnam tiolaverit, dcjecerit 3 fregerit. — Dc Legib.
lib. ii. cap. 26.
mm
±-»^y-l,\)-*y-Z ^'^?0^'?/e :y i .^b^i^ Λ^ττ^ί
I ^^^^^^^H
LETTEK XL.
725
Mendere. It may have been observed, that they still bear the
name of tomb, for the Turkish Tepe is reasonably supposed
a derivation from the Greek Taphos. The largest of the Tepes
already noticed is Stamboul-Douk, the next Liman-Tepe, the
third Udjek-Tepe; the fourth and fifth, Beshik-Tepe and the
barrow next to Cape Janissary, are of nearly an equal size. The
whole of these are of such dimensions, that they might be, by
those who are unused to such appearances, considered natural
eminences; and the two last are so situated on the summits of
rising ground, as to make it doubtful where the artificial mount
begins. Dr. Pococke mentions a chain of low hills running south-
east from the Sigean Promontory, divided by small vales or rather
hollow grounds. On the first he places the town of Giaur-Keui,
on the next the first barrow, on the third the town of Yeni-Keui,
and on the north-eastern end of the fourth, which he says ex-
tends to the south-east, another barrow*. It will be seen he does
not notice Beshik-Tepe. The singular appearance of four large
barrows ranged along the shore at regular distances, and of the
conspicuous Udjek-Tepe, cannot fail of attracting the attention of
the most unobservant traveller, although " the succession of these
five tumuli" has not, in my humble judgment, the least tendency
" to ascertain the Trojan war*)-." They have been supposed the
work of the early Mahometan invaders, and are referred by the
present inhabitants to the Sultans, who at every considerable sta-
* Pococke, Observations on Asia Minor, page 106.
+ " The succession of five tumuli, under the distant horizon, tends more
than any other proof to ascertain the Trojan war." — Constant. Ancient and Mo-
dern, p. 340.
5 A
726
LETTER XL.
tion raised a mount, on which they erected the standard of Ma-
homet*, a custom still observed, as an eye-witness informed me,
by the Tartar princes whenever they pitch their tents. There is
such a similarity of size and form, which is conoidal, in all of
these five barrows, that the same opinion must be formed of one
as of the other mount ; and if Udjek-Tepe is, as late writers have
pretended, in reality the tomb of iEsyetes mentioned by Strabo,
we cannot but suppose that the other tepes are also Homeric
land-marks, or at least were so considered in former times, and
we must expect to see some ancient notice of their remarkable
appearance. Yet I find not the least allusion to either of these
immense tombs on the Phrygian coast, in the long and minute de-
tail of Strabo, nor in any other ancient authority, except we con-
clude (which no arrangement will, I fear, justify), that the Greek
sepulchres, which have always been hitherto put within the mouth
of the strait, were in reality on the shore of the open sea.
Whoever should sail towards the Hellespont with the expectation
of finding the tomb of Achilles on the iuttine promontory (a bea-
O VOX J \
con to the sailor afar off at sea), would fix at once upon the great
barrow next to Sigeum, as the monument of that hero, and Beshik-
Tepe would supply him with a tomb for Ajax. These, indeed, I take
to be " the two hils rising in a piramidall forme, not unlikely to
be those of Achilles and Ajax," seen by the traveller in Hakluyt.
Dr. Pococke, sailing from Tenedos to Alexandria Troas, and having
before made some conjectures respecting the barrows on the other
side of Cape Janissary, did think that this barrow, or Beshik-Tepe,
" as it was very much exposed to view from the sea," might more
* Observations on Asia Minor, p. 105.
LETTER XL.
72?
probably be the tomb of Achilles*. Other travellers, without a
shadow of support from any authority whatever, have called the bar-
row near Cape Janissary the tomb of Antilochus, and Beshik-Tepe
that of Peneleus. They are so noted in Olivier's map. We have
heard also, that. " it admits of doubt whether Beshik-Tepe is not
the tomb erected by Caracalla over his friend Festus-f."
Whether the Achillean tomb of Homer was that next to Sige-
um, can never be determined ; and those who consider the action
of the Iliad as a fiction, will not be affected by the uncertainty ; but
it must be interesting to know, whether any vestige remains of
that barrow round which Alexander ran, and which received the
homage of so many succeeding ages.
According to Herodotus, there was a place on the right bank
of the river Hypacyris, in the Scythian region Hyloea, called the
Course of AchillesJ, near which Anacharsis sacrificed, on his return
to his country. This spot is noticed by all the geographers; and
Pliny § adds, that the tomb of Achilles was shown on the opposite
island of Leuce or Macaron, about which so many strange stories
were related by the ancient navigators of the Black Sea||. There
* Observations on Asia Minor, p. 110. It is difficult to say to which of the
two Tepes he alludes.
+ Topography of Troy.
φ Ύον ΆχιλλίΗον κα.λίθ[λίνον Αξόμον. — Hist. lib. ίν• cap. 76.
^ Lib. iv. cap. xii. p. 59, edit. Paris. In lib. x. cap. x. p. 177, he has these
words, more decisive of the supposition: Perdices non transvolant Bceotiie fines
in Attica, nee ulla avis in Ponti insula, qua sepultus est Achilles, sacratam ei
sedern.
j| Pausanias, lib. iii. p. 200, relates, that Leonyrnus of Crotona found Achil-
les and the two i\jaxes, together with Antilochus and Patroclus, upon the
island, and Achilles married to Helena. They were departed spirits. Accord-
ing to other accounts, Achilles, sailing towards Taurica for the love of Iphige-
5 a 2
728
LETTER XL.
was a cenotaph of Achilles at Elis *. Whoever would see the
importance attached to every particular relative to this early hero,
may look at the discussion in Note A, to the article Achilles, in
Mr. Bayle's Dictionary, in which eleven authorities are quoted, to
settle whether the son of Peleus was actually fed on lion's mar-
row ; and a perusal of the whole article, which is taken from the
learned treatise on Achilles by Drelincourt, may show us, that
notwithstanding this attention, the death and burial, as well as the
life and exploits of the hero of the Iliad, are not to be settled by
a reference to any credible history.
It would be superfluous to quote the Greek poets, to show
that a pretended tomb of Achilles near Sigeum, is celebrated in
very early periods, but it is as well to mention that a town or for-
tress was built round it, not, as Timaeus reported•^-, by Periander,
nor out of the ruins of Troy, but by the Mitylenajans of Sigeum,
who, when expelled by the Athenians from the latter place, re-
tained the town Achilleum J. The Athenians possessed it after the
Mitylenroar.s. In the time of Strabo it was a small village, and
Pliny mentions it as having once existed §. Sigeum and the tomb
nia, stopped at this island- and there died, and was worshipped. lie used to
wander upon the promontory at the mouth of the Borysthenes, called the Course
of Achilles; a name which was, as some have thought, indiscriminately given
to many shores with a wide range of beach — "Dionysius Albinus ut rcfert/Lpol-
lonii intcrpres ίττο^Τι t«j Ιυξίιχς νίονοος XiytaSou Αχιλλίως ίρο/Λον."— -Casaub.
Comni. in lib- vii. Strab. p. 110.
* Paus. lib. vi. p. 389.
t Strab. lib. xiii. p. 600.
£ Herod. Hist. lib. v. cap. 94.
^ Fuit et Achilleum, oppidum juxta Tumulum Achillis, conditum a Mity-
iceneis, ct mox Athcniensibus, ubi chassis ejus stetcrat in Sigaeo.
LETTER XL.
729
are so connected in the mention made of them by Strabo*, as to
show their vicinity to each other*}-; and the expression of Pliny
in the passage quoted above, points out that the tomb was near
the shore where the fleet of the hero was supposed to have been
stationed. There was a circular temple, containing an image of
Achilles, upon or near his tomb ; and the barrow itself must have
been very conspicuous on a headland immediately overlooking the
naval station. A fragment of the Polyxena of Sophocles, pre-
served out of Porphyry, in Stobseus, gives three lines of a speech
addressed to the Greeks as they were sailing from the harbour,
by the spectre of Achilles from the summit of his tomb J.
But not only were the temple and the tomb of Achilles at the
Sigean Promontory, but the sepulchres of Patroclus and Antilochus
were seen in the same quarter § ; and with these monuments, the
three barrows mentioned on the route from Giaur-Keui to Koum-
Kale, have been thought to coincide. Pococke, before whom
no one, that I am aware, ever noticed them, said " they might
possibly be very extraordinary pieces of antiquity/' Chandler
more decisively called the barrow next to Giaur-Keui the tomb of
Achilles, and the following one that of Peneleus, but offered an
excuse for the assertion in his Preface. Since the visit of the last
traveller the first barrow has been opened, but with such myste-
* Lib. v. cap. SO, p. 78, edit. Paris.
t Άχο του ΡοίτΛου p -ίχρι Σιγείον κα» Άχιλλίως (Αΐ/ηρατος. — Lib- xiii. p. 593.
J Κα» KOiToc τον οίπόπλουν των Ελλήνων Ιτη τ Α^λλίως ποο<τφ<χ,ινο(Αίνον το7ς
Άνοίγομίνας νπ\ξ τ5 τάφα. — Longin. sect. xiii. Vid. Runkken. not. in Long,
sect. xv. p. 255, edit. Toup. 2d edit.
§ Τ a [a\v ουν Α^ιλλίως κοα ΐΐξίν Ιστί, χχι jum^a, ποος τω Σιγείω, ΠλτρΟκΧη $\
~λ<χ) λνηλόγρ [λντμοίΤΗ. — Strab. lib. xiii. p. 596.
730
LETTER XL.
rious caution, that the world has a right to doubt the account
of the persons concerned in the transaction. With what un-
fairness the researches of the French dilletanti had been con-
ducted previously to Mr. Le Chevalier's toar, may be understood
by reverting to the unwarrantable expedient in which the Abbe
Fourmont was detected by Mr. Stuart*. The detail of the open-
ing of the supposed tomb of Achilles, may incline us to suspect
that the loss of the Abbe Fourmont need not have been regretted
in France, whilst a Choiseui Gouffier, or a Le Chevalier, were
to be found amongst their living antiquaries. The son of Signor
Solomon Ghormezano, French Consul at the Dardanelles, was
employed for two months, in the year 1787. in opening the bar-
row, and worked at it alone, and by night, saying that he was
looking for a spring of water, " so necessary to the inhabitants of
Giaur-Keui." At length he discovered the place where the
relics were deposited. He immediately collected the whole, and
communicated his success to his employer, filling a large chest
with what he had found. This consisted of pieces of burned bones,
pieces of a large broken metal vase, with a small ornament round
the rim ; some charcoal ; a piece of calcined mortar of triangularly
shaped metal; pieces of fine pottery, well painted with wreaths of
* It is well known in the learned world, that Fourmont returning from
Greece, asserted that he had got an ancient copy of the laws of Solon, and had
found amongst the ruins of Amyclae, written monuments of higher antiquity
than any before discovered. Of these he published specimens in the year 1740.
The originals have never been shown ; and our learned countryman who fol-
lowed him, learnt that the Abbe had employed many persons in the Pclopone-
sus, not in finding inscriptions, but in destroying those before discovered, ιο
prevent the detection of his frauds. See Mr. 11. P. Knight's Analytical Essay
on the Greek Alphabet, p. 112.
&-$f~if: ^'-Xf'ri.\
,μ^^-:•;
JVy^t^i
LETTER XL.
731
flowers; some bits of large vases; small cups, some of them entire;
a fragment of brass a foot and a half long, and in circumference
as big as a quart bottle, weighing seven or eight pounds, which
" was at first called the hilt of a sword, but afterwards by Mr. Le
Choiseul declared to be the statue of a man, with a lion under each
foot ! ! ! And lastly, a small transparent piece of tube, a foot long
and two inches in diameter, ornamented with chased or embossed
branches, in good preservation.
* c At the foundation of the barrow was a large slab, extending,
as he supposed, over the whole surface, as, wherever he dug, he
still found it : in the middle was a hole, twelve feet square,
around which was raised a wall three feet high, which was the
sepulchre containing the relics ; on the outside of this stone was
strewed a quantity of lime, and of charcoal, supposed to be the
ashes of the funeral pile."
Now this is extracted from the account of the person who
opened the barrow * ; but Mr. Le Chevalier says, " towards the
centre of the monument, two large stones were found leaning at
an angle, the one against the other, and forming a sort of tent,
under which was presently discovered a small statue of Minerva,
seated in a chariot with four horses, and an urn of metal, filled
with ashes, charcoal, and human bones. This urn, which is now
in the possession of the Comte de Choiseul, is encircled in sculp-
ture with a vine-branch, from which are suspended branches of
grapes, done with exquisite art-j•."
Let me request attention to these two statements. The first
* Sec Constantinople Ancient and Modern, pp. 351, 352.
t Description of the Plain of Troy, p. 149.
732
LETTER XL.
is the least singular, and comes in the least questionable shape»
Yet why should Signor Ghormezano work by night, when he
had deceived the people, by telling them he was looking for a
spring of water ? The conducting of his operations in such a man-
ner could only have made the Turks suspicious ; and how could
he be two months discovering the relics, when he confesses that
the foundation, that is, the surface of the barrow on a level with
the ground, was covered with a slab, which he found wherever he
dug, and that in the middle of it was the sepulchre ? One would
think he might have come to this by digging straight down wards
at once. The slab may very likely have been found. A similar
artificial floor has been discovered in excavating the English bar-
rows ; and the cist, or stone coffin, has always been seen upon
or in this floor. The other articles are also such as have been
met with in our tumuli, and although the preservation of the
metal after so many centuries is extraordinary, it is not impos-
sible; the whole interior relics being, as it were, hermetically
sealed by manv strata of liaht drv earth. Dressed down by an
intermixture of large loose stones. The pottery might have been
also found ; for every traveller must have seen proofs of the du-
rability and high state of preservation of the terra cotta speci-
mens found in the ancient tombs of Greece. Mr. De Choiseurs
man with two lions requires no comment. Finally, we have only
the word of the Jew for the whole story ; if, however, his account
is true, the wonders of Mr. Le Chevalier must be fictions. The
Minerva has, indeed, been modelled by Mr. Fauvel of Athens, and
other specimens have been handed about, which have an appear-
ance of extreme antiquity, but may have been found elsewhere,
or have been manufactured at Paris. Both of the details can-
^^H
o^-ijf^h ir"'?vv~
*,->" T'-.Vh*.
LETTER XL.
733
aot be correct ; either the Jew is not to be believed, or Mr. Le
Chevalier must have ventured at an imposture ; for it is impos-
sible to suppose, that the fragments found by Ghorraezano could
have been metamorphosed by the heated imagination even of the
most zealous antiquary, into the Minerva and sepulchral urn
of Mr. De Choiseul. It is now almost impracticable to collect
any information on the subject at the spot ; for the same secresy
is observed respecting the discovery at this time as at the period
of the transaction.
Supposing this tumulus to be the tomb alluded to by Strabo,
Achilleum, the town, must have been on the spot, or close to it.
Dr. Chandler says, he was eight minutes walking to it from Giaur-
Keui, and that the town Sigeum was on the slope leading to it.
To this slope, in fact, the barrow is attached. But the Mity-
lenaeans of Achilleum, and the Athenians of Sigeum, carried on
a long war with each other from these respective places * ; and
allowing the first to be only a fortress (oppidum), the two rival*
armies must have always Jived within nearly a stone's-throw of
each other. Beshik-Tepe, or either of the other tumuli before
noticed, is three times as large, and incomparably more conspi-
cuous from every point of view than this barrow ; a circumstance
which struck me so forcibly, that I could not forbear, when on
the spot, from suggesting to myself, that the site of the Achil-
lean tomb must have been on the summit of the peaked hill on
which Giaur-Keui stands ; and that the town Sigeum was nearer
Koum-Kale, on the slope of the hill. Herodotus calls it " Sigeum
* Έπΰλί(*ίον y /χξ ϊχ. rt 'Αρζίλλίίϊκ πόλίοί of^io^D/m χα* 2jysjy.— Herod. Hist,
lib. v. cap. 94.
5b
734
LETTER XL.
on the Scamander*." Perhaps it may be thought some slight
confirmation of this opinion to observe, that when, in two places,
Strabo proceeding southwards, that is, towards Lectum, names
Sigeum and the tomb of Achilles, and puts Sigeum before the
tombf•, he may mean to identify the relative situations of the two
spots ; but, at any rate, the region opposite Tenedos does not
come immediately after the site of the present tomb ; it is at
least six miles lower down.
The supposed tomb is not on a promontory, where Homer
placed that of Achilles; but under and on the side of a hill; and
if it has been always so attached to that hill as it is at present,
Alexander would never have been said to run round it. It may-
be added, that there was evidently some structure upon the an-
cient tomb; Strabo mentions a temple. That which was anointed
and crowned by Alexander, could not be a barrow only J : Plu-
tarch § calls it a pillar. How has it happened, that no vestiges
of any building, or ancient stone-work of any kind, have been
discovered near or on this barrow ? The sepulchre was existing
* Μίτα $1 ίζίχώρηταν ες Σιγαον το επ\. τω Σκα^ακ^ω. — Lib. v. cap. 64, edit.
Edinb. p. 190.
t ςί After the Sigean promontory and the Achilleum, is the region opposite
Tenedos," (lib. xiii. ρ 604). " From lihoeteum to Sigeum and the tomb of
Achilles," (ibid. p. 505).
£ Nam Achillem cujus origine glorinbatnr, imprimis mirari solitus, etiara
circum cippum ejus curn amicis nudus decucurrit, unctoque coronam imposuit.
— Suppl. in Q. Curt, lib ii. cap. 4, p. 99, edit. Lug. Bat.
§ Tr.v Αχιλλίως στνι?νιν αλίίψα/Αίνο? λιπα } κα» μετά. των εταίρων συνχνΰίδρχμκα
■γυμνός, ωά -nip ε$ος ί<ττ)ν,εστεφοίνωσίν. — Plut. in vit. Alexand. p. 672, Op. Offi.
edit. Paris, 1624,
^^B ^^H ^:-ΐ'~' Γ
LETTER XL.
735
in the time of Caracalla; for, according to Herodian*, he adorned
it with crowns and flowers previously to the funeral of his Patro-
clus, the freedman Festus; and it is told, that the Emperor Julian
long afterwards passed by the sepulchres of Achilles and Ajax, on
his way to Dardanus and Abydus-j-. Now there are remains in
the barrow In-Tepe Gheulu, which have been pronounced to be
parts of the iEantium, and whoever thinks he has discovered the
tomb of Achilles, might expect to find remnants of a similar struc-
ture — a small shrine, partly inclosed in the hillock.
As to the other two barrows on the path towards Koum-Kale,
it is possible Strabo may allude to them, when he talks of the
tombs of Antilochus and Patroclus. Notwithstanding Homer
precisely said, that one urn contained the mixed ashes of Achilles
and Patroclus, and also, but apart, the ashes of Antilochus,
and that the sojis of the Greeks raised for them a tomb ; so that
there was only one barrow to cover the remains of the three
heroes; yet the Greeks showed Alexander the tomb of Patroclus,
and it was crowned by his friend Hephacstion J. The tomb of
* Έπελ^άν St πχντχ τχ τνς πολιούς λει^χνχ, %ν.εν εττΐ τον 'Άγ^λλεως τχψον,
στεψχνοις τε χο<Γμιη<Γχς κχι αν$εη πολυτελώς πάλιν Αγ^λλεχ ψιμειτο. — Hist.
lib. iv. cap. 14.
+ Annnian.'Marcellin. lib. xxii. cap. 8; Const. Anc. Mod. 345.
t OiSt on κα» τον Α\ιλλίως xpx τάφοι/ ίο~τεφχνωο-εν,Ήφχι<ττίωνχ St λεγαιην, Ότι
τ» Πατρόκλου τον τχψον Ιστεψχνωτε. — Arrian. dc Expcdit. Alex. lib. i. cap. 12,
p. 25, edit. Gronov. 1714.
Αλε£χν$ρος τον Αγιλλεως τχψον Ιστεψάνωσε και Ήψχκττιων τον τα Πατροκλ*.
iElian. Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 7. p. 561, edit. Lcdcrlin, 1713.
Odyss. Λ. v. 74, et seq.
'Aju.p' άυτο7<η S' ίπεχτχ ptyxv κχι χμνμονχ τυμβον
Χευχμεν
5b2
I
736
LETTER XL.
Antilochus is not mentioned by any author except Strabo ; yet
it is likely that all the tumuli on the plain were known under
some heroic title ; and, in truth, Diodorus hints as much, by
telling us, that Alexander performed ceremonies at the tombs of
Achilles, Ajax, and the other heroes *.
It would be superfluous to comment at any length upon that
arbitrary adoption of names for these barrows, in which late tra-
vellers have so wantonly indulged. It has, I trust, been seen,
that the authority which enables us to fix the Achilleura on either
of them, is but very doubtful ; and that there is no ground what-
ever for giving the preference to one rather than to the other
of the mounts. Nothing can explain why Mr. Le Chevalier
should call the Tepe next, on the south side, to Giaur-Keui, the
tomb of Antilochus, and at the same time suppose another, not
If wc suppose, according to the hypothesis of Mr. R.P. Knight, contained
in his unpublished treatise, " Carmina Hotncrica, &c." that the Odyssey is the
production of an age subsequent to that of the Iliad, or following the opinion
of the grammarians Aristophanes and Aristarchus, conclude the iiomeric Odys-
sey at the two hundred and ninety-sixth verse of the twenty-third book, the
authority of these lines is still preferable to that of any following author; and
that αυτοΓσι was not thought to mean Patroclus and Antilochus by the latter
Greeks, we may safely assert ; for they showed a tomb of each of them. It
may be deduced also, from the twenty-third book of the Iliad, v. 249, that
Achilles and Patroclus were buried under the same barrow; for Achilles desires
the Greeks to refrain from raising a large tomb over his friend, since they might
afterwards make it broad and lofty when he himself should die.
* Κα» τους y.\v τάφους των ypuuv Α χιλλεω? τε χαι ' Αια,ντος xact των α,λλαν ίνχ-
yio-{J.oia~i χίχ,ι το7ς άλλοις το~ς προς Ivfofyxv ηκουσιν ίτψ,γι<ην. — Lib. xvii. cap. i.
p. 570, edit. II . Steph. 1ΰ59. " Ceteris etiam heroibus quorum iis in terris os-
enduntur sepulclira parentavit." — Frcinsh. in Q. Curt. lib. ii. Suppl. edit,
%u. sup.
Jaj '-λ^γΪ 'irt.•?^.' ^-^_-ί>»>^
i"'^t-'-^
LETTER XL.
737
one-third as large, to be that of the great Achilles himself.
There was, indeed, something like an authority for his pre-
sumption, arising out of a curious mistake of his own. The na-
tive Greeks call the neighbouring barrows under Giaur-Keui
Δυο Τίττε, pronounced Dthio Tepe — The Uuo Tombs. This the
traveller metamorphosed at once into Dios-Tepe, and to show
that a remnant of ancient superstition was still attached to the
once hallowed spot, rendered it " The Divine To??ib." This is suffi-
ciently strange ; but no less singular is it, that the intelligent au-
thor of Constantinople Ancient and Modern, who detected this
mistake, should have quoted Strabo, as fixing the tomb of Antilo-
chus on Beshik-Tepe, and have found the ashes of Peneleus the
Boeotian, in the small barrow next to the supposed Achillean
sepulchre *•
There are some circumstances which show the coincidence of
In-Tepe Gheulu with the reputed tomb ofAjax. This monu-
ment was, as Pliny relates, on the other horn of the Greek naval
station opposite to Sigeum-f*. That author has been accused of
putting it on the Sigean promontory, owing, I presume, to a
mistake in the punctuation of the text £. But he, with every
* '* Advancing some furlongs over the promontory, we saw the barrow
(Beshik-Tepe) called the tomb of Antilochus by Strabo." — Const. Ancient and
Modern, p. 350. In the map, however, accompanying the work, Antilochus
is again removed to the barrow next to Cape Janissary.
+ Fuit et iEantion a Rhodiis conditum in altero cornu, Ajace ibi sepulto
xxx. stad. intervallo a Sigceo, ct ipso in statione classis suas. — Nat. Hist. lib. v.
cap. SO, p. 78, edit. Paris, 153f.
φ By Vossius — The words " in Sigceo," which belong to the former sentence,
are usually put with the passage above quoted ; so that the text runs thus : ""In
Sigaso fuit ct iEantior^:" an evident error. I find that Mr. Bayle, article•
738
LETTER XL.
other writer, proves that this famous tomb, where so many mi-
racles were wrought, and of which so many curious tales are
related*, was on the Rhcetean promontory. It was also so
close to the shore, that the sea broke a passage into the sepul-
chre f•.
In-Tepe is on a headland, which forms the eastern boundary
of the bay or marsh Karanlik-Liman, and which appears like a
promontory to those who are sailing up the Dardanelles, but not to
those coming down the straits. Its exact distance from Cape Janis-
sary, was found by Mr. Le Chevalier to be three thousand fathoms;
a measurement very nearly coinciding with the thirty stadia (three
R. miles and three quarters) assigned by Pliny to the interval be-
tween the two promontories. The tumulus is less conical than
those before mentioned, and is of the form called the Bell Barrow,
although not so regularly shaped. It is conspicuous from the
strait, but is not on high ground, nor of a size to be compared
with that of Beshik and Udjek Tepe. Near its summit are the
-— —
Achilles, note K, censures Solinns, because in his verses, attached to the em-
blems of Alciatus, he places the tomb of Achilles on the Rhcetean shore —
" ii^acitlis tumulum Rhceieo in littore cernis :"
but the Rhcetean shore is only a general term, applied not to the station of
Ajax only, but to the coast within Sigeum ; as that without the promontory
is called the Sigean shore. Thus Virgil uses the expression :
" Tunc egomet tumulum Rhceteo in littore inanem
" Constitui." JEn. lib. vi.
and Pliny also has the words " Rhoetea littora" (lib. v. cap". 30).
* They are collected in Kayle's Dictionary, article Ajax.
+ Pausan. lib. i. p. 66; Strab. lib. xiii. p. 595.
>'-.' ^8•~< ^^^^^^^^Η
LETTER XL.
739
ruins of a stone arch, and the crumbling fragments of some
wail-work. The masonry has been judged to be of a " much
more modern date than the death of Ajax*;" an opinion in which,
without knowing the precise period of that event, we may safely
concur. Jt may, however, be a part of that shrine called the
iEanteum, which was despoiled of its statue by Marc Antony,
who carried it to Egypt, but which recovered its treasure by the
bounty of xYugustus Caesar-j•. It was under the especial care of
the people of llhoeteum, a town on an eminence above the tomb.
The iEanteum rivalled in celebrity the tomb of Achilles, and was
perhaps, by the Athenian Greeks, regarded with greater vene-
ration. It was not to be expected that Alexander, who sacri-
ficed to Priam, should neglect the hero who, next to his own
great prototype, was the best of the Greeks both in form and
stature —
ος άριςος εψ ειΰός τε δέμας τε
Ύών άλλων Δαναών μ,ετ άμ.υμ.ονα ΙΙελείωνα..
ΟΔΤΣΣ. Λ. 468. Π. 17-
Diodorus, although other writers are silent, mentions the iEan-
teum amongst those heroic monuments visited by the Macedo-
nian conqueror. The ancient notices of the sepulchre of Achil-
les, include also that of Ajax ; but it has been the fate of In-
Tepe lo be neglected until very lately, whilst the barrows near
Sigeum have for some time attracted the attention of travellers.
This may be attributed in some measure to the different accounts
in the ancient geographers relative to the site of Rhceteum, which.
* Consfnnfinople Ancient and Modern, p. 338,
i Slrab. lib. xiii. p. 595.
740
LETTER XL.
Mr. Wood, preferring the measurement of Strabo (sixty stadia)
to that of Solinus (forty-five stadia) and of Pliny, has assigned
to Cape Berbieri, a point at least eight miles from Cape Janis-
sary. This was certainly a singular notion, for one who believed
that the Grecian fleet was actually drawn up on these shores, but,
in a matter of this kind, not sufficiently " culpable and unjustifi-
able*," to call forth such grave censures as those of Mr. Le Che-
valier, who has himself fallen into so many inconceivable absur-
dities.
It seems impossible to touch upon this debated point without
committing a mistake ; or to correct one error, without being
involved in some other misapprehension. Leunclavius, the
editor of Xenophon, who had himself sailed through the Darda-
nelles, fixed Rhoeteum at Pefkia, a place four miles from Cape
Janissary, and near In-Tepe, but at the same time placed the
iEanteum on the Sigean Promontory, and called Alexandria Troas,
Troy-f•.
Pococke sav» T some broken pieces of marble about the bar-
row, and thought Rhoeteum to have been in this quarter, but
spoke very indecisively about its identity with the iEanteum.j:.
The French tourist so often mentioned, expostulated with this
* Description of the Plain of Troy, p. 100.
t Heic Rhoeteum prom nntori um Troadis, et Sigcum, monumentis Achillis
et Ajacis nobile Pefkia distat a capo Jenitzari, hoc est, a Sigeo, mil-
liar ibus quatuor ; undc colligi videtur, Pefkiam esse Rhoeteum A capo
Jenitzari ad Tenedum milliarum sunt xii. a Tenedo ad Trojae ruinas, raillia-
lia x. note B, to the first book of the Hellenics, ρ 1062, of Leunclavius's edi-
tion of Xenophon. Frankfort, A. D. 1596
J " But whether this was the tomb of Ajax, would be difficult to determine.' 1
— Observations on Asia Minor, p. 105.
(f.^.-^ :>ΐΛ'7"ν :
•>,~ν„- τ ν
LETTER XL.
741
traveller for his diffidence, but gives him some credit, which his
learned editor seems willing to abridge. He had no doubt what-
ever that In-Tepe was the tumulus of the iEanteum, and ac-
counted for not finding the ashes of the hero, by supposing they
had been carried away, together with the statue, into Egypt *.
Of all that gentleman's conjectures, perhaps that respecting this
barrow is one of the least objectionable ; and those who, on visit-
ing the Troad, are determined not to be disappointed of their
due share of enthusiasm, should select the summit of In-Tepe, as
the spot on which their local emotions may most legitimately be
indulged. The sober visitor, without believing in Ajax, may be
delighted in thinking he has found the iEanteum ; but the man
of warmer fancies, as, undisturbed with doubt, he surveys the
swift-flowing Hellespont, the station of Agamemnon and his
heroes, and the plain impressed with the footsteps of the im-
mortals themselves, will feel a thousand lively sensations, and at
every glance of the imposing prospect, experience an increase of
bis satisfaction and a confirmation of his faith.
* He adds, " by Pompey the Great." Mr. Dalzel, in his note, informs us,
that for « Pompey the Great," we should in this passage, and in page 48, read
" Marc Antony," as if the other reading had been an error of the press.
■
5 c
LETTER ΧΜ.
The supposed Port of Agamemnon s Fleet — The Naval Station of
the Greeks — The Mouth of the Scamander — The Site of
Ilium — The Confluence of the Simois and Scamander not pre»
cisely known — Streams falling into the Mendere — The Thym-
htek — The Water of Callifatli and Atche-Keui, and the
Bournabashi Rivulet — Mr. Le Chevaliers Pseudo-Xanthus —
The Identity of the Mendere and the Scamander of Strabo —
The ancient Confluence of the Thymbrius and Scamander —
TM Thymbrek not corresponding with the former, but answer*
ing better to the Simois — Uncertainty respecting that River —
Palaio-Callifaili, possibly the Position of Ilium — Site of the
Ilicari Village — Not at Hallil-Elly, but perhaps at or near
Tchiblab — Remains on a neighbouring Mount — The Calli-
Colone of Strabo — The Vale and Brook of Atche-Keui — The
latter conjectured to be the River Thymbrius — The ErineUs,
the Tomb of JEsyetes, Batieia, the Tomb of Ilus not now
to be discovered — Udjek-Tepe not the Tomb of JEsyetes,
as described by Strabo — Note on the Homeric Throsmos —
Bournabashi — Tepid Sources of the Bournabashi Rivulet—:
Errors respecting them — Balli-Dahi — The Pergamus of Mr.
ta*".--5\^ rff^*•?-'•
LETTKIt XLI.
743
Le Chevalier' — Unfounded Conjectures respecting the Tomb
of Hector, and the Remains on Balli-Dahi.
ALL ancient accounts agree in placing the mouth of
the Scamander, and the port of the Greeks, that is, the supposed
station of Agamemnon's fleet, between the Sigean and Rhoetean
promontories. The river is described by Strabo and Pliny, as
forming near its mouth a marsh, called by the first Stoma-Limne,
and by the latter author Palae-Scamander. Present appearances
coincide very exactly with this description ; for from the Men-
dere to In-Tepe, immediately within the sandy projections, there
is a line of reedy swamps, to which most probably the Greek
geographer alludes, when he says, that the " Simois and Sea•
mander joining in the plain, and carrying down with them much
slime, create a new line of coast, and form a blind mouth with
salt lakes and marshes*." This accretion of sandy soil, which
may have been augmented since the days of Augustus, most pro-
bably has worked some change in the appearance of the bay, which
was called the Port of the Achaeans. It may be collected from
several passages of the above author, that next to Sigeum was the
mouth of the Scamander -j-, twenty stadia, two R. miles and a half
from Ilium % ; that what was called the Naval Station, that is,
where the Grecian fleet was drawn up on land, was near the mouth
of the river ; and that the port of the Achaeans followed, at a dis-
Ίυμ,πισοντις γ&ρ ο re Σιμόίΐς κα» ο Σχύ[ΑΟίνίξος Ιν τω πΐίίω, πολλγν xxroc-
ψίξονης ιλυν, π^οσ-χουίπ rriv πχξχλκζν, χλ/ τυφλον crroy.» τί χκι λψνο$αλάττΛ9
κ«» ίλη 7γο»8<π. — Lib. xiii. p. 595.
+ Lib. xiii. p. 597.
t Ibid. p. 598.
5c 2
7U
LETTER XLI.
tance of only twelve stadia of flat plain from Ilium *. By this
order, it should seem that the port of the Achaeans was not the
whole circular bay between the two promontories Rhceteum and
Sigeum, but an interior inlet on the Rhoetean side of the river.
Yet Pliny mentions, that the Scamander flowed into the port,
and favours the contrary opinion f. It is probable, however, that
anciently some recess may have been pointed out, which is now
choked up or covered with marshes, at the site of Karanlik-
Liman, or the inlet nearer to the mouth of the Mendere J.
Some alteration may have been effected in the appearance of the
coast, even in latter times, although not so much as we might
think from looking at the account of Sandys, who says that the
mouth of the Simois, meaning, it appears, the Mendere, is nearer
to Rhceteum than Sigeum § ; a manifest error, as it was not so
when Strabo wrote. In saying the river Simois was nearer
Rhceteum, Sandys followed Strabo ; but in asserting that it dis-
charged itself into the Hellespont, nearer to Rhoeteujin than Si-
geum, he could have consulted neither the authoritytof Strabo
* Lib. xiii. p. 598.
t Dein portus Achseorum in quem influxit Xanthus Simoenti junctns stag-
numque prius faciens Palae-Scamander. — Lib. v. cap. xxx. p. 78, iniluxit. leg.
i,nfluit.
X An error has prevailed respecting the Port and the Naval Station, which
have been considered the same, notwithstanding the express words of Strabo,
p. 598. That Αψη* and vxvrrocS-fAov are not to be confounded, will be seen
very clearly from the following passage of the same author, who, talking of
Adramyttium, says it is an Athenian colony, having a port and naval station :
ίχουΐΓΆ λιμένα και ναύστα^μον. — Lib. xiii. p. 606.
§ " Nearer Sigeum was the station of the Grecian navy ; but nearer Rhce-
teum, the river Simois (now called Simores) discharged itself into the Helles-
pont."— -Relation of a Journey, &c.
I ^H
• ..->1...-Jl,..vi^.^
LETTER XLI.
745
nor of his own journal. There may have been some addition of
new land since the beginning of the Christian sera ; but it is impos-
sible to say how great, for it is allowed, that the torrent of the
Straits will prevent any future accretion, and we cannot tell how
long the coast may have assumed its present form. The mouth
of the Mendere has been shifted more than once in modern maps ;
but there is every reason to think that it is not far from the an-
cient outlet, for Herodotus, in the place before quoted, describing
the site of Sigeum, says it was above the Scamander. This may
assist us in our search after the site of the Ilium of Lysimachus,
with the attempted discovery of which, being warned by former
examples not to look for the Troy of Homer in explaining the
Troad of Strabo, we may rest satisfied and content.
Ilium was twenty stadia, two R. miles and a half, from the mouth
of the Scamander, and twelve from the port of the Achaeans ;
consequently, it was on the eastern side of the river, and not
on the western, where it is placed by Mr. Le Chevalier; for had
it been on the western or Sigean side, it would have been nearer
to the mouth of the Scamander than to the port of the Achaeans.
It was on the slope of a hill, so that there was no free course round
it, and its citadel was on a considerable eminence* ; and it was
between the extremities of these two roots or elbows of Mount
Ida, one of which pointed towards Sigeum, and the other in the
direction of Rhceteum. Besides these circumstances, the high
* Slrab. lib. xiii. p. 599. I beg leave to notice a mistake in Mr. Bryant,
who, in order to show that a general misconception had prevailed relative to
the Might of Hector round the walls of Troy, quotes these words from Strabo —
ο'ικΓ ν T8 Εκτοξος $ί πίοιδ^ομος r\ πίξΐ την πάλιν ϊ"χιι τ» ίυλογον, and translates
them thus : " Nor is the flight of Hector attended with the least show of proba-
bility." Obscrvat. p. 35.— But the geographer is only arguing against the
claims of Ilium Immune; and amongst other reasons why it could not be on.
746
LETTER XLI.
ground on which stood its citadel, stretched like a neck of land,
through the plain to the point whence the elbows of Ida branched
off, so as to form a Greek Upsilon, or, as may be thought from
putting together this description, a figure like our representation
of the sign Aries*. Lastly, Ilium was a little above the con-
fluence of the Simois and Scamander. The discovery of this
confluence would be of the utmost importance to the enquiry.
Four streams fall into the Mendere in its course below Bour-
nabashi. The Thymbrek mingles with it, or at least with the
marshes at its mouth, near the wooden bridge ; the water of Cal-
lifatli runs into it near the village of that name ; the stream from
Atche-Keui, a mile and a half below Bournabashi ; and the rivu-
let from Bournabashi, as has been seen, about two miles from its
the site of Troy, says, " if it were, Hector never could have fled round Troy" —
iu yoip £χ£» πιαώρομον y νυν ίκζ ryv συνίχτί foc^iv y S\ 7ταλα»α iyi\ 7rfg»-
J^o/Aoir-— u for there is no course round the present city, on account of the
attached root of the hill ; but the old site has such a course.^ It is curious to
observe, that in the only instance in which Mr. Bryant acquiesced in the inter-
pretations of Le Chevalier, namely, that Hector did not run, and was not drag-
ged round the walls, and that ιτΐξ\ in this place does not mean round, but at or
near, he seems to have fallen into an error ; for, not to consult the grammarians,
Strabo in the above passage, evidently shows that he thought the w»^ did mean
round about. Virgil was the first who drewHector thrice round the walls of Troy;
but no less than fourteen authorities mention the circuit, without the number of
turns : their names are given in note Η to Bayle's " Achilles :" Sophocles, Euri-
pides, Ovid, Seneca, Statius, Dictys, Plato, Cicero, Hyginus, Philostratus,
Libanius, Servius, Tzetzes, and Eustathius.
* Strab. lib. xiii. p. 597. It does seem that this description answers better
to the shape of a barb yr\ than of a T. Perhaps Strabo does not speak of the
figure formed by the elbows and the neck of land conjointly, but only by the
latter, which, as it approached the mountains, branched oil on both sides.
ΐ^- : ^£*»
LETTER ΧΕΙ.
747
mouth. It was at the sight of this last streamlet that Mr. Le
Chevalier exclaimed, like La Fontaine's Callirhoe, " Ah! voila le
fleuve Scamandre* !" But the question has been completely de-
cided against this pleasant discovery, and the Mendere restored
to the title which it possessed as far back as. the time of Xerxes,
who found it, as he would at this day, the first river to be met
with in the road from Sardis to the Iliean plain -f\
A writer and traveller (Castaldus) is quoted by Mons. Morin,
to prove that the Scamander in latter ages was called the Simois;
but Ortellius, in his geographical Thesaurus, adduces the same
authority, to show its modern name to be Simores J. The Men-
dere is so called by Lady M. W. Montague §, and, as it appears,
by Sandys |f ; but none of the inhabitants of the country at this
time, are acquainted with such an appellation. The topographi-
cal picture given by the last-named traveller shows two distinct
rivers, but both, in this and every other respect, is a fancy piece.
The Simois, in I)r. Chandler's map, corresponds with the rivulet of
Bournabashi. Pococke^ mentions Udjek-Tepe as being above the
conflux of the rivers, and talks of the Simois as if it were decidedly
known, but I have not been able to discover whether or not he al-
luded to the same stream. The Simois is noted in Homer amongst
the rivers running from Ida, and is more than once called theldaean
* One may apply tlie beginning of the next line, and of that next but two,
to the progress of 1his disclosure — " On s'etonnc on en rit." Contes de
la Fontaine, Le FleuVe Scamandre.
+ Herod. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 42, p. 224, vol. v. edit. Edinb.
% Boyle's Diet, article Scamander.
§ Letter xliv.
| Lib. i. p. 2.1, Relation of a Journey, 1627.
% Observations on Asia Minor, p. 107.
748
LETTER XLI.
Simois by the poetical geographer Dionysius* ; it could not, there-
fore, be the stream which rises under the village of Bournabashi.
The Thymbrek bears so great an affinity to the Thymbrius in
name, that little doubt has been entertained of their identity. Ilesy-
chius, on what authority I know not, says, that Thymbra, or the
river so called, where there is a temple of the Thymbrean Apollo,
was ten stadia from the ancient city of Troy -f. I confess myself,
however, entirely at a loss in reconciling what Strabo says of
the Thymbrius with the present state of this stream. It is lost
in the marshes near the mouth of the Mendere ; for we crossed
it near those marshes in our way towards In-Tepe and the Dar-
danelles. Its actual point of confluence cannot be discerned, or
rather, it has none. One thing, however, is quite clear, that the
ruins on the side of the hill at Hallil-Elly, four miles above the
valley of Thymbrek-Dere, are not, as they are laid down in
Kauffer and every other map, those of the Temple of Apollo
Thymbrius ; for Strabo says precisely, that that temple was near
the confluence of the streams J, The confluence of Thymbrius and
Scamander was also fifty stadia from Ilium §, if I understand the
* Ηανθω £7Γ* ίυρυ ptovri κα» Ίίχιω XifAoivTt. V. 819.
And in another place,
Touj ποτ χπο ΗανθΌιο και Ίίχίπ Σι/κοντός. V. 683.
+ Θυμβρχ τόπος τις Ιλ»ου, πιρι τον θυμβρον λίγόμ,ίνον ποτοψ.ον > ούτως όνομ.χα~
θίντα, τ?? χρχχιχς πολίως χπίγοντχ α-τχίίους iUx, οπουγι και Upov 'Απόλλωνος
Θνρβρχ'ου. — Hesych. in v. Thymbra, p. 1742, edit. Albert. 1766. Vide Schol.
in Homer, II. κ. line 430.
| Κατ» το ΘυίΛβρχίχ 'Απόλλωνος Ιερόν — most audaciously translated by Le
Chevalier as if it were το Θν;φρχία Απόλλωνος Upov ε'<γτ» κατ», or rather κ*τ&>.
$ Τ» ft ννν Ιλ /a, κ*ϊ vtvT -ήχοντχ ντχίίους ίιίχ^ι. Lib. xiii. p. 598.
^H rC-'^iVv^ :>>'-_-*--• ^*v-^>>, ^^H ^^^^^^^^H
LETTER XLI.
749
author correctly; of which, although assisted in this translation by
Mr. Bryant*, I am by no means sure-f. The confluence could
not, then, have been between Ilium and the mouth of the Sca-
mander ; for the mouth was only twenty stadia from the city,
and the confluence was fifty. It must, therefore, have been above
Ilium towards the mountains, and not below it towards the shore.
The Thymbrek corresponds rather with the Simois, and
Ptolemy seems to put that river near the coast, by placing
it, in his notice of Phrygia, between Dardanum and Sca-
mander J. It is larger than the other streams which fall into
the Mendere; and no one accustomed to see the small tor-
rents which acquired notoriety by being attached to the ex-
ploits of the Greeks, will be surprised at beholding the dimi-
nutiveness of this Simois, if the Thymbrek may be so called.
We learn §, that the Simois approached, or had a direction
towards, the Rhoetean promontory, before its confluence with
the Scamander; and I did certainly find by experience, that
this stream, running from the valley of Thymbrek, turns a
little to the north towards In-Tepe, before it resumes its western
course and is lost in the marsh. When Strabo || says, that
the Astypaleans inhabiting Rhceteum built a small town, called
in his time Polisma, near the Simois, in a place which was not
* P. 19, Observations.
t Mr. Le Chevalier says in this place—" The opening info Ihe valley of
Thymbra is betwixt new and old Troy; and whatever it be that Strabo is pleased
to say of it (for it is again difficult to discover his real meaning), it was nearer
the former than the latter of those cities." — Descrip.of the Plain of Troy, p. 66.
j Lampsacus, Abydus, Dardanum, Simoeis, Scamander, Sigeum, Geo»•.
p. 137. Bryant, p. 31, Observat,
^ Strab. lib. xiii. p. 597. || Page 601.
5 D
750
LETTER X LI.
sufficiently firm, the marshes near the Thyrabrek seem to be
alluded to, rather than any spot farther up the country.
The water of Callifatii, which is less than either the Thyrabrek
or the Bournabashi rivulet, and might very easily be overlooked»
has no direction towards Rhceteum that I could discover, but falk
with a course due west into the Mendere, four miles from the
shore, at a distance too considerable to have been the confluence
of the two Trojan rivers, which being a little before Ilium, could
not have been farther than that city from the port, namely,
twelve stadia, one Roman mile and a half. — Whether the Thyra-
brek or the Callifatii be the Simois, Ilium must have been some-
where between these two brooks; but in the first supposition,
the little before (^mpou Ϊμπροσ-Ζεν) must mean a little to the north;
and in the other case, a little to the west. Some ruins of massive
foundation-stones have been dug from an eminence near the ter-
mination of a suite of hills, corresponding sufficiently with the de-
scription of Strabo, to answer to the neck of land (*»χ™) which
stretched from Ilium towards the mountains. They arc noted
in Kauffer's map, as the ruins of the town begun by Constantine ;
and it is not impossible that the walls and towers erected by com-
mand of that Emperor, may have been built near the site, and
perhaps from the stones, of Ilium. The spot is called Palaio-Cal-
iifatli ; and as the walls of Ilium were forty stadia in circumference,
that city, if on this hill, was near enough to the confluence either
of the Thyrabrek or the Callifatii water, to agree with what Strabo
mentions respecting the vicinity of the town to the junction of
the Simois and Scamander.
In the same line of hilly ground which separates the vale of
the Thymbrek fisom that of the Callifatii water, is the village of
-^Ϋ^,.τίτνΛ-. -•ΐ*" :
Λ*•,:3?^^ ^^Η
LETTER XLI.
751
Tchiblak, an hour distant. Supposing Palaio-Callifatli to be
Ilium, the view on every side towards the rivers, answers to
the description of Strabo's plain of Troy, properly so called*,
composed of the Simoisian plain towards the Thymbrek and the
Scamandrian towards the Mendere, which was broader than that
higher up, and in which the battles of the Iliad were supposed
to have been fought. The plain country of the Troad, which I
so call, to distinguish it from the " Trojan Plain," reached from
the line of shore between Sigeum and Acheum, for many stadia to
the east, as far as Mount Ida, bounded to the south by the district
of Scepsis, and to the north by the Lycian territory and Zeleia-f•.
Ilium is the best centre whence the topographer may direct his
enquiries on every side; and hence, to strain the words of Pliny a
little beyond their meaning, there is an opportunity of illustrating
many other celebrated objects — unde omnis rerum claritast^. — As
the progress of Strabo's description seems to proceed from east to
west, from the mountains to the plain, we may guess where to look
for the Pagus Iliensium, which, although he no where speaks deci-
sively, and expressly asserts that no remains were to be seen, he
considered as having much better pretensions to be on the site of
Troy than the new city, and does in more than one place distinguish
it as the old Iliean town §. The ruins near Hailil-Elly are very con-
siderable, and from them was taken the inscribed marble recording
aPhrontistes of Drusus Ca?sar, the son of Germanicus, now in the
vestibule of the Public Library at Cambridge ||. It cannot be
supposed that there were any large buildings or temples at this
* ΊΛως Tpu'ixov. — Lib. xiii. p. 597.
+ Strab. lib. xiii. p. 596.
% Nat. Hist. lib. v. cap. 30, p. 78, edit. Paris, 1532.
h ΆρχαΓον κτ/ογΑΛ, p. 598 ; »? τταλαια, p. 599, lib. xiii.
1| P. 43, n. 21, Clarke's Greek Marbles.
5d2
752
LETTER XLI.
village of the Uieans, sufficient to account for these remains, which
may rather be referred to one of the many cities of the Troad
which are mentioned by geographers, but not in such an order
as to enable us to discover their respective sites. There are a
few fragments of carved marble at Thymbrek-Keui and above
Tchiblak, besides many remains of pillars on a hill near the
latter village ; nor are we to be surprised at these vestiges in a
country, every region of which was regarded with peculiar sanc-
tity. The Iliean village was but little more than a mile (most
probably westward) from the eminence, five stadia in circumfe-
rence, called Callicolone, " The Beautiful Hill," under which
flowed the Simois*. Tchiblak might be considered nearly on the
site of the village, and the hill where are the ruins thought to
be the Callicolone. Hesychius calls it a place remarkable for its
sanctity, and the ruins on the mount above Tchiblak may be
the remains of its temples-)•. The distance between Tchiblak and
Palaio-Callifatli, will pretty well correspond with the three Ro-
man miles and three quarters which were between Ilium and the
village ; and the town and the hill are near enough to the Thym-
brek or the Callifatli water (whichever of these streams was the
Simois) to have been spoken of as being in the Simoisian plain,
where the Pagus Iliensium and the Callicolone are placed by the
geographer. The hills close behind Tchiblak to the east, may
likewise be the commencement of those two elbows of Mount Ida
(χΎχωπς) so often before mentioned, which were in the vicinity of
the village J.
* "Τπερ δε τ-ης Ιλ/ων χωμ,-ης^ δέκα στα&ιόυς εστίν rj Καλή Κολωι/η, λόβο^
τ)ς, πάρ ον ο %ιμ.όεις ρει, πεντεο-τάύιον έχων — Strab. lib. xiii. p. 597.
+ Καλλι-Κολωνη χωρίον Ιεροπρεπές — Ρ. 125, lom. ii. edit. Albert.
\ Τούτο ικεν δη μ,ετα^υ τ% τελευτης των λεχθέντων αγκωνών είναι, το
γΪ•'*•.•^:?*^-;.;,
LETTER XLI.
753
The country in the direction immediately eastward above Tehi-
bluk, has many inequalities of surface, and is rough and hilly;
but on the south side of the chain of eminences on which it is
placed is a fine undulating plain. In this stands Atche-Keui, and
from near that village a brook runs into the Mendere, a mile to
the north-east of Bournabashi. There is no end of conjecturing
on these subjects ; but the distance between Palaio-Callifatli and
this stream agrees with that between Ilium and the conflu-
ence of the Thymbrius and Scamander* ; and as the valley of
Atche-Keui runs up to the spot near which the Pagus Iliensium
may be fairly supposed to have been placed, it may be the plain
of Thymbra, which was in the vicinity of that village -f.
In the wide plain properly called the Trojan, some of those
objects were shown which are mentioned in the Iliad: the wild fig-
tree, or hill of wild fig-trees ; the tomb of iEsyetes, Batieia (or
the tomb of Myrinna); and the tomb of Ilus;};. The Erineus
was some rugged ground, shaded with fig-trees, under the Iliean
δε παλαιον κτ/σγχα μεταξύ της άρχης — Lib. xiii. 597. Whether the 7ταλα;ον
κτκτμ,α here means the village of the Ilieans or the actual Troy, the point is
the same, for Strabo thought there was a correspondence in the site of the two.
* Fifty stadia, six R. miles and a quarter.
"Γ ΙΙλη<πον yap εστί το πεΰιόν -η. Θυμβξα — Strab. lib. xiii. p. 598.
t Πλατυτερον yap εστί, κα) τους ονομαζόμενους τόπους ενταύθα ΰεικνυτ
μένους ορώμεν, τον Έ,ρινεον, τον τβ Άισυητβ τάφον, τψ ϋατίειαν, το τβ Ιλβ
<ττ,μα. " For here it is more extensive (the plain, πεδίον Ύρωϊκον), and we see
those places pointed out which are recorded by the poet — The Fig-tree Hill^
the tomb of iEsyetes, Batieia, and the tomb of Ilus" Strab. lib. xiiu.
p. 597.
754
LETTER XII.
village*. I need not say that I was unable to fix upon the Eri-
it will be as well, indeed, to avow that I made no effort
neus
to find either that or the beech-tree mentioned by Achilles, which
the geographer informs us was a little below -f*. The tomb shown
for that of iEsyetes was five stadia (something more than half a
mile) from Ilium, and not so high as the Acropolis of that city J.
If the meaning of the text in Strabo is at all understood, Udjek-
Tepe cannot be the tomb of iEsyetes ; for that barrow is at least
seven miles in a straight line from the supposed site of Ilium, and
in order to get to it, you have to cross two, if not three rivers,
the latter part of the way through a morass, and over hilly ground.
Besides, Polites, in running to Udjek-Tepe, would be going from,
not towards, the Grecian camp, and had, therefore, no cause of
fear ; he would, indeed, have had a much better view than from
the Acropolis (if we have found it) of Ilium ; but this is the very
advantage which Strabo says he would not have had. There is
only one point of resemblance between the barrow and the tomb :
Udjek-Tepe is near the road to Alexandria Troas ; but, allowing
the present path to be in the line of the ancient road, as that road
* **
Ό τε Έ,ρίνεος τραχύς τί$ τόπος, και ερινεώΰ-ης, τώ (xsv άρχαίιο κτ/<τ-
μα,τι ότοπίντωχεν . — Strab. lib. xiii. p. 598.
+ Κα* h φηγός δε/χίκρον κατωτέρω εστί τβ epivgoo, εφ β φ-ηην b Αρ£«λλίυ$.
—Ibid.
Χ " And (if Ilium were Troy) Polites also, * who being a spy from Troy,
trusting to his speed, sat on the very summit of the tomb of the ancient JEsye•
les, y he must have been improvident even if he did sit on the very summit; for he
might have had a much higher look-out from the citadel, and at much the same
distance: nor could he at all want his speed ; for that which is now show,, tor
the tomb of iEsyetes, is five stadia distant towards the road to Alexandria "— «
Strab. lib. xiii. p. 599»
■
'^fcrfyf
LETTER XLI.
755
ran all across the plain, and probably from Ilium, it is very likely
indeed, that there might be another barrow near it. Wherever
Ilium was, the tomb of iEsyetes was not more than two miles
from the port of the Greeks ; probably it was less, but Udjek-
Tepe is more than nine from the shore of the strait. This lofty
tumulus may be the Homeric tomb of iEsyetes. Of this we can
know nothing, but it is not that of Strabo. There are two or
three barrows which answer better to that tomb, and espe-
cially one between the village of Koum-Keui and Callifatli, no-
ticed in Mr. Gell's map, not as a barrow but as a mount. It is
in the plain near the Mendere, and about half a mile from the
projecting eminence of Palaio-Callifatli, to the west. Two other
barrows have been noticed in this quarter ; one is on a plot of
rising ground, which projects south-westward from the chain of
eminences between Palaio-Callifatli and Tchiblak, but is rather to
the south of the first place, and about two miles and a half from
the last ; the other is at the western extremity of the hills which
form the northern boundary of the plain of Atche-Keui, and two
miles on the left of the road to that place from the village of Cal-
lifatli. Under Atche-Keui, and nearly opposite to Bournabashi,
is a low natural hillock, called in Mr. Cell's map Batieia.
As Stratbo gives us no assistance whatever in identifying either of
these barrows with his tomb of Ilus, or the Batieia, but only men-
tions those objects as being in the plain of Troy properly so called»
and that only in the one passage above quoted, it would be useless
for one who is not perfectly persuaded that the scene of the Iliad
can be fixed upon with precision, and has been actually disco•
vered, to make any essay towards an arrangement of these an**
cient monuments on a modern map. As presumptuous might it
756
LETTER XLI.
be thought to fix upon any hill, or natural eminence, the name
of the Homeric Throsmos, on which the army of the Trojans was
stationed, more particularly as we cannot be sure that the Thros-
mos was a hill*.
* The grammarians have supposed this word, which, as Mr. Bryant mentions,
(Observations, p. 10) occurs only three times in Homer and twice in Apollo-
nius Rhodius, to signify a high place.
Θρωσ-μ,ός— υψηλός τόπος Βουνοε*δη£, άφ* ου καταβα*νοντα §ορεϊν Ισ"Π.
Hesych. in v. p. 1738, Albert, edit. 1766.
θ.ρομ,βός — υ'\|/ηλο£ τόπος idem quod θρωο~(χός.
Is. Vossii, not. in ν.%ρο[χβοί } Hesych. p. 1736, ib.
Εϊπ %ρωο-μ.ω 7τεδ/ο<ο— Ό δω τεδ/β jU -ή επιΰρό[χω.
Ibid. ρ. 1355.
The Scholiast on Homer, II. Κ. ver. 160, and II. Λ. yer. 56, Suidas, and
the Etymologicon Magnum in voc. < ^τρωσμ.ός ) make it to be near the CallU
colone — " Erat autem CalHcolone locus excelsus in campo Trojano, ab isto non
longe remotus qui Homero %ρ<υο-μ.ος dicitur," note 1, p. 1707, Hesych. ibid,
which can not be collected either from Homer or Strabo, The first places
the CalHcolone near the Simois (Iliad. T. ver. 53), and the latter ten stadia
above bis site of Troy; but the ^ρωο-μ,ος was near the ships of the Greeks, and
separated from them but by a very small interval—
Ουκ aieiSi ώς τξώςς Ιτπ ^ακηυ,ω ττεδ^ίο
EiCtra* oiy^i νέων, ολίγος δ°ετ/ χιοξος ε^ύκει,
II. Κ. 1. 160.
Mr. Le Chevalier, with just as little reason, fancied that, " like Batieia and
the tomb of the nimble Myrinna, the Throsmos and the tomb of Ilus were the
same. Descrip. p. 112. — The only difference between the two cases is, that
Homer says the first was the 6ame, but gives no such hint as to the hitter*
We may see from the poet, that they were not the same, although perhaps not
LETTER XLI.
757
We are now arrived at Bournabashi, the Troy of Mr. Le Che-
valier. It is a Turkish village, situated on some rising ground,
at the head of the great marsh. All travellers have with justice
far from each other; for Hector, and the other chiefs, retired from the camp
to the Throsmos, to the tomb of Ilus, to hold a council —
&siov παξά, (τη^απ ν Ιλοο
Νοσ-φιν aVo φλο/σ-ββ*
U.K. ver. 415.
Mr. Bryant (Dissert, p. 37) makes Batieia and Callicolone the same, but with-
out giving any reason for such a conjecture. The probable vicinity of the tomb
of llus to the Throsmos, may help to shew us that Homer never meant a hill or
mound by the latter word, for he makes Agamemnon pursue the Trojans from
the neighbourhood of the ships, to which they had advanced, by the tomb of
Ilus, through the middle of the plain,
Ό/ δε τταρ'Ίλου σ-η[χοί 7ταλαιου Δα§δαν/δαο
ΜεσΌ-ον κα7Γ7τεδ/ον παρ εξίνεον εσσεύοντα
"Ιεμενοι πό"Κεως. 11• Λ. ver. 166.
and not over any hill, which must have been the case if the Throsmos had been
high ground, as the Trojan station was between the place of action and the city.
Jn the two places of Apollonius, Θξω<τ[χος does not seem to mean an eminence.
Jason and his companions conceal themselves, and hold a council under cover
of the high reeds and shrubs in the bed of a river in Cholcis, and then quit
their concealment for a place in the plain above, named Circamm, which the
poet calls the Throsmos of that plain.
"Αφαρ ftoLva νηος νπ%ο δονακα$ τε και ύδωρ
Χέ'ρσΌΐ/δ' ε£α7τεβησ•αν Ιπϊ Β•§ωσ/χ» πεοιοιο.
Κ<§κά<ον τοδε πβ κ<κλη<Γκεται, εν$α δε ττολλαΐ
Έ£*ε/?5£ τ^ο^αδοί τε και Ιτέα* έχπεφυααην.
Argon, lib. iii. ver. 199.
5 Ε
758
LETTER XLI.
lavished their encomiums on the beauty of its situation, which
commands an extensive prospect of the whole plain, both to the
We see that on this Throsmos there were willows growing (although some,
instead of 7τρο^αδο<, have read, without assigning any reason, προμ,οιλοι, a sort of
wild oak) — trees not so likely to flourish on a hill as on the meadowy banks of
rivers. The Scholiast commenting on the passage, calls this Throsmos a place
overhanging the river — TS υπερκειμένου re xorafxe τόπου^ οτοι/ ε<ττ) ^τορεϊν
χα) 7τηδησ-α< άχο τ% νεώς, p. 276, edit. Shaw; and the translator has it " in
editiorcrn locum campi." The Argonauts, when they proceed from this Thros-
mos of Circauim (ver. 213) are only said to go from the plain, εκ πεΜοιο, not
from any height.
The other passage in which the disputed word occurs, does not convey the
notion of a Throsmos being any thing else than a spot with an open space,
where there was room to move about. It is not here the Throsmos of the
plain, but the Throsmoi of the river —
Κυταρ ογ )\υόεντες άνά %ρω<τμ>βς ποτα.[Αο7ο.
Argon, lib. ii. ver. S25.
" Per limosi salebras fluvii," are the words of the translator ; and the Scholiast
interprets it, αντί τ£, κατά, τας άναβολα£ κά< αναβάλεις, χα) καθόδους,
ρ. 219, edit. Shaw. — Supposing the word to be derived from ^ρωσκείν, or
Β-ο^εΤν, to leap, there seems no necessity for having the αφ' ου καταβα/νοντα,
§ορε7ν εστί, the " descending leap" of Hesychius: a level spot is more fit for
leaping or exercise than any high ground. When Homer mentions Batieia,
on, or at, which the Trojans were drawn out in array, he describes it as a hill,
and if the θρω<τμ.ος, where the Trojans were also stationed, had been a hill, it
is likely he would have likewise described it as such. We may be inclined, then,
to submit to Mr. Bryant's opinion, that the §ρω(τμ.ος of Homer should be ren-
dered saltus campestris and not the mound of the plain. The preposition up
(άνά), with which it is connected in the passages above quoted, may perhaps
persuade us that a gentle ascent is expressed, unless it only conveys the mcau->
ing of our phrase up the country, up to town.
■v
γ», γ. ;■•;>.
^Η
LETTER Χ LI.
759
shores of the strait and to the open sea, and gives a nearer view
to the north of low undulating hills, whose slopes are adorned
with frequent villages, and backed with a dark line of forest
scenery. To the right, at about half a mile distance, the Men-
dere flows through a green flat, winding from behind a rocky hill,
called Balli-Dahi, or the Honey Mountain, which rises at the back
(the south-east) of the eminence of Bournabashi, and is separated
from it only by a narrow woody dell. — Immediately below the
village is the path which crosses the country from the north to
the south towards Alexandria Troas, and on the other side of this
path is a slope of bard rugged ground, covered with Turkish tomb-
stones, chiefly granite, and having the appearance of being taken
from some ancient structure. Below this to the south, less than
a quarter of a mile from the houses, is one of those beautiful
springs from which the village takes its name of the Fountain-
Head. The principal basin is ornamented by a rectangular mar-
gin of white marble slabs and the fragments of two granite pilas-
ters ; and the water gushing copiously from below, slides over
the smooth brink, and moistens a flat plot of green sward, which
is shaded by a line of weeping willows rising from a shrubbery
of evergreens.
The temperature of this spring has been found to be sixty-four
of Farenheit's scale, and we learnt that in the winter a steam
arises from it, which altogether conceals the source and the sur-
rounding grove. It felt tepid in April, but was not so warm as to
be unpleasant to the taste. The head of the marsh, obscured by
tall reeds, commences a little to the west of the fountain. Walk-
ing for three minutes to the south, and keeping by the side of some
pools of water, interspersed with brushwood, you come to a
5e 2
760
LETTER XLI.
strong spring, bubbling up from beneath a rocky hillock, and
flowing off, dispersed in several pebbly channels, into the
marsh and through a line of gardens belonging to the Turks of
Bournabashi. The Aga, a considerable person in this part of the
country, has a kiosk in one of them between the two springs,
which is surrounded by an orangery, and sheltered by a grove of
ashes and poplars and other tall trees. On one of my visits to
the spot, our party, who had been on a shooting excursion in the
marshes, and were somewhat fatigued after a hot walk of five
hours, took some refreshment under a spreading walnut-tree, on
the brink of a rivulet running round the Aga's garden, which
supplied us with water-cresses.
As we were rising to depart, a tall fair complexioned Turk, half
wrapped in a tattered garment, having every mark of extreme
poverty, but with an easy graceful mien, walked over the little
plank laid across the brook from the garden, and accosted me first
in Italian, and afterwards, seeing my surprise at hearing any thing
but Turkish from a Turk, in Latin, enquiring if I understood
that language — " Domine scis linguam Lathnmi?" He added a
few sentences, in a manner which shewed he had once been accus-
tomed to converse. He was asked where he had learnt his Latin*
He said at home. Had he ever received any public instruction ?
" Vidi etiam academiam sed non frequcntaxi" was his reply.
He had seen the English at Alexandria. When questioned as to
the place of his birth, and his country, he answered, " Sum civis
mundi" — " I am a citizen of the world ;" and smiling, put an end
to our interrogatories, by asking me if I wished to see the garden
belonging to his master : " Visne Mere hunc hortum, mei ma•*
gi&tri est." At this instant a Turk richly dressed came up, and
LETTER XLI.
761
accosting him with great kindness and familiarity by the name of
Selim, they both walked away to the village.
The singularity of meeting a Turk talking Latin in a solitary
garden in the Τ road, although not so agreeable an adventure as
that which befell the friend of iEschines, and (as Mr. Le Che-
valier thought) on this very spot*, engaged our thoughts for some
time, and we could only conclude him to be one of the many pri-
soners or deserters from the French Egyptian army who em-
braced Islamism, some, as it was reported in France at the time,
from inclination, others to save their lives.
The springs and the pools of water unite their streams, which
are partly lost in the marsh, and partly flow into the channel of
the Bournabashi rivulet, and the whole fountain is called Saranda
Ochia — the Forty Eyes. The last mentioned source is thought
by the people of the place to be cold, but is in fact of the same
temperature as the tepid fountain, although, as it does not rise
and settle in a basin, but flows off into the pools, its warmth is
not so easily perceived as that of the other springs. To the taste
they appeared to me exactly the same, and only not chill ; a fact,
which, considering the number of warm sources in this part of the
country, it would not be worth while to mention, if Mr. LeCheva-
* Mr. Le Chevalier commenting seriously on the accident of Callirhoe,
calls it " a circumstance ever to be regretted, as it prevented iEschines from
entering into a minute examination of the plain of Troy, and from givino• the
result of his enquiries to the world." La Fontaine thought otherwise, and
made somewhat better use of Ciraou's adventure than Mr. LeC, who really
believed that iEschines came to Troas to write such a piece of topography as
his own. One circumstance has as usual escaped or been unnoticed by him,
although his editor has been more explicit: the letters of ^schines ai# thought
to be spurious.
Ίβΐ
LETTER XLI.
lier and his disciples had not positively pronounced them to be
the two fountains of the Scamander, the Δοκκί πηγαί of Homer, one
of which was enveloped in smoke 5 as of a burning fire ? whilst the
other in the summer rushed forth cold as the hail, the chill snow,
and theice-f•.
My last visit was paid to these springs on the last day of
April, which was more sultry than an English midsummer, and
might therefore have shown the freezing faculty of the cold spring
to advantage. I repeat, however, that no difference was percep-
tible between the temperature of the fountains. Yet Mr. Le Che-
valier, comparing it with the other, says it is " always cold* ;"
when, however, he could see the broad, the angry Scamander in
a rivulet, in spite of all ancient authority, whether of poetry or
prose, it is not surprising that he should reject the evidence of
his senses, and find the warm and freezing sources of that river
in the tepid fountains of Bournabashi. Demetrius of Scepsis
confessed that the Scamander rose in the hill Cotylus from one
source; and Strabo endeavoured to explain awn ν the difficultv,
by suggesting that the hot spring may have failed, or that the
two sources may have been those of some tributory stream, which
might therefore be fairly called springs of the Scamander. This
must be allowed, and was so by Mr. Bryant, to be a very rea-
sonable account; and those believers in the Iliad who can recon-
cile one hot and one icy fountain with many tepid springs, may
be willing to adopt the latter suggestion, and suppose the sources
at Bournabashi to be those to which Hector was pursued by
Achilles. It must, however, be observed, that the explanation
* Iliad, X. v. 147.
+ 127 Descript. Plain of Troy.
LETTER XLI.
763
can hardly be applied to springs supplying a rivulet which does
not fall into the main river till within a mile and a half of its
mouth ; and, moreover, that if Demetrius or Strabo had thought
these Bournabashi fountains to have been the Ao/ai χηγα}, or if
they had been commonly so called and noticed amongst the
other Homeric objects, it is next to an impossibility, that after
having made the remark and particularly discussed the difficulty,
the author should not have mentioned their existence in the Tro-
jan plain. Let me add, that those who believe in the fountains,
may as well believe Bournabashi to be Troy ; for if Achilles and
Hector fought on this spot, the great difficulty of the distance of
the city from the sea is removed ; indeed they are almost bound
to believe it, since the Scamandrian springs were in sight of, and
not far from, the city.
There are at Bournabashi several traces of some ancient town
having stood in the vicinity, and the situation of the village is
such, as I have observed the Greeks generally choose for their
cities ; blocks of carved marble and granite, one or two contain-
ing inscriptions which throw no light on the subject, are to be
found in the houses, and particularly in the Aga's court-yard :
vestiges of a paved way are also discernible. But it is on the
hill Balli-Dahi, a quarter of a mile to the south-south-east, that
the citadel of Priam and the tombs of his sons have been at last
discovered. Above the first rugged flat there is a second emi-
nence, the highest summit of the hill ; on this are three barrows,
not so large as those on the shore of the strait, but similar to them
in every respect, except that one, like the cairns of Scotland, is
chiefly composed of stones thrown loosely together. It is possi-
ble that the covering of turf may have been, worn away by expo-
T64
LETTER XLI.
sure to the wind and rain. Mr. Le Chevalier chose to call it the
tomb of Hector, and found a wonderful similarity between its po-
sition and that of the imitative sepulchre which Andromache
raised to the memory of her hero on the shores of Epirus*.
The cenotaph however was before the city, in a grove, on the
banks of the feigned Simois.
*' Ante urbem, in luco, falsi Simoentis ad undam."
Mn. iii. v. 300.
This barrow is in Mr. Le Chevalier's city, and no more on the
banks of the Simois, than Blaize Castle near Bristol is on the
banks of the Avon. It stands near the brink of a steep precipice,
very high above the Mendere. If Virgil had any particular spot
in view, we may find something full as likely to have been the
prototype of his description, for we see in Strabo-f-, that at a
place called Ophrynium, they showed the grove of Hector ; but
this was on the banks of the strait, twenty-five miles at the least
from Bournabashi. We do not know, in fact, that the sepulchre
was in that grove, or on any other spot ; for an oracle preserved
amongst the Thebans, related that the ashes of Hector had been
conveyed from Troy to their city, and his tomb was shown at
the fountain of CEdipus %. If any inference is to be drawn from
the lines in the Pharsalia, in which the Phrygian tells Caesar not
to tread on the ashes of Hector, it is, that no such barrow as is
* " Virgil takes a Very ingenious method of pointing out the true situation of
Hector's tomb. " — Descript. of Plain of Troy, p. 123.
+ Lib. xiii. p. 595.
φ Έ<γτ1 δ£ και "Εχτορος Θηβαίος τάφος τβ lipiafxe προς Ό<δ/7Γθδ/α κα*
7&μ.ίνγ χρηντ).— Paus. lib. ix. 569, edit. Hanov.
^^^H
LETTER XLI.
765
now seen on Balli-Dahi, was ever called the tomb of that war-
nor
Another of the tumuli is the tomb of Paris, but which of them
has not been as jet determined ; Strabo, however, relates that his
monument was at Cebrenef . On the surface of the summit of
Balli-Dahi are some flat stones regularly disposed, the vestiges of
two pits or cisterns, and near the edge of the precipice above the
river where it is four hundred feet high, the foundation stones of
massive uncemented walls.
A most correct view of these relics is given in the thirty-
seventh plate of the Topography of Troy, the author of which,
has never called his pencil to the aid of his pen ; but with a candour
and ingenuity very rarely to be met with in a theorist, has, in the
fidelity of his representations, furnished us with competent means
of disproving his system. Those who look at the vestiges on
Balli-Dahi in his plate, may be assured that such are the actual
appearances on that hill ; but enough may have been already said
* /λατα of those ages may, however mean and simple, have been decent
cnou»h for such divinities. The poet, when describing the celestial habita-
tions says nothing of their size or construction, but confines himself to the
costliness of their materials. Agamemnon's palace, or the treasury of Atreus,
lately discovered at Mycenae, is, it is true, a durable fabric, as also is the trea-
sury of Myneus at Orchomeno ; but we cannot be sure that those buildings
did exist in the times alledged; we can only know that they were very ancient,
and had those particular denominations amongst the Greeks of after ages..
* "Ε<ταν εν Ή}<π £άρδκπ ό/κ/αί, ά< [xev ττλεΰνε$, καλάμ-ιναι" "Otrai δβ
άντίων χού 7τλ»ν^ίί>α< %Scepsis was above Cebrene, επάνο Ke-
βρηνης, and sixty stadia above New Scepsis— ύστερον δε κατωτέρω <τταδ<ο'<$
εξηχοντα ε\ς την νυν Χχηψιν μετωχίσ^ησαν — but the Scarnander flowed be-
tween the territory of Scepsis and Cebrene — την hi Κεβρηνίαν δίηκε/ν \*-εγ$ι της
5κηψ/α£* "Οριον δε 1<να* τον %χάμα.νΰρον μ.έο~ον αυτών ρέοντα, ibid. ρ. 597.
According to this account, Scepsis should be on the north bank of the Scarnan-
der; vet how will this answer with what Strabo says in another place, that the
plain country of the Troad, in the narrow part towards the mountains, stretched
as far to the south as the neighbourhood of Scepsis, ibid. p. 506. The confusion
of confusions is seen in Mr. Barbie du Boccage's map of Troas, attached to
Anacharsis, and may convince any one of the extreme difficulty of restoring the
ancient geography of this celebrated region.
*
j...r=.-. s^il.-iV.WilpS
i&r.-V "i* ■ i ':'P-h ; ??'~i ''Si
iv-l'.tyii ,jj^A«--i 'ipt-i.vir -.-»»-^
u -■>-, ,λι^.-ι^'λ :.•'-
LETTER XLir.
771
Hadoum Oglou lives at the large town of Bairam-itche, which
gives its name to a long plain, extending on the banks of the Men-
dere, between twelve and thirteen miles towards the roots of Kas-
daghy : it is nine or ten from Ene. From the neighbourhood of
Bairam-itche, were brought two of the marbles in the vestibule
of the Public Library at Cambridge*. The whole district of
Ida was held in much veneration, and it is probable that an
inquisitive traveller would find remnants of the ancient supersti-
tion which sanctified this poetic region, in the most remote soli-
tudes, in the deep recesses of the forests and the summits of the
highest hills.
The source of the Mendere, a cataract, commonly called the
falls of Megara, is at the foot of Kas-daghy, about six hours
above Bairam-itche, and not only the written narrations of tra-
vellers, but the account of a friend who visited the spot whilst
we were in Turkey, make me lament that any incident should
have occurred to prevent our enjoying a spectacle more magnifi-
cent, as I understand, than the brightest conception can antici-
pate. The ascent to the top of Kas-daghy is an object which I
must also regret that we omitted to accomplish. If however we
had gained the eminence, it would not have been, on my part,
with the persuasion that we were scaling the terrestrial heaven
of the Idaean Jove.
There appears to me no way of getting over Mr. Bryant's argu-
ments in favour of Troy, as described by the poet, being under
the most southern parts of Ida, and near those mountains of Troas,
called Lectum and Gargarus-f; and I shall observe, that what
* No. XVI. No. XXVI. Clarke's Greek Marbles.
+ Sec Dissertation, p. 134, and p. 136, to the end.
m
LETTER XLII.
Mr. Wood calls the machinery*, and may be denominated the
celestial topography of Homer, can be adduced as a proof of this
supposition.
That which the ancient geographers called Ida, is a chain of
hills extending north-north-east from Baba, or Lectum. and
divided into several ridges, two summits of which (exactly ^ en in
the fifteenth plate of the Topography of Troy) overlook the whole
sloping country towards Tenedos. The highest point of these
ranges, once called Cotylus, now Kas-daghy, will be seen by
looking at Kauffer's map, to be at a vast distance, both from
Lectum and Sigeum, and to be near the sea on no side, except that
of the Adramyttian gulf, where the Grecian fleet could not have
been stationed, or it would not have been visible from the top of
Samothrace, as in the thirteenth book of the Iliad it is said to have
been. The plain of the Mendere towards Cape Janissary, is distant
from Mount Cotylus, or Kas-daghy, thirty-five miles at the least,
and separated from it by a ridge of low brown hills, and a large
tract of plain country. But Gargarus and Lectum were imme-
diately above the scene of action in the Iliad, not figuratively,
but actually. The king of gods and men might have remained
in the Thessalian Olympus -j~ to have seen the ships of the Greeks,
* Essay on Homer, p. 133.
+ This mountain Mr. Bryant calls the heavenly Olympus, and does not ima-
gine it to be a hill upon earth (Dissertation, &c. p. 143). His chief reason is
adduced from the circumstance, that Jupiter, in going thence from Ida, is said
to fly " betzeeen the earth and the starry sky" (II. Θ. ver. 46); but it appears
that Juno is standing on this same Olympus in the fourteenth book, and in that
place it is evidently the Thessalian Olympus, for her route is traced from the
mountain over iEmathea, or the plain of Thessaly, thence over the hills of Thrace
to Athos, Lemnos, and Lectura (II. 3. vcr. 225 to 285). This seat of the gods,
>.-.Λ}.•>
BETTER XLtl.
773
and the city of Troy, unless he had wished to be near the plain ;
nor would he have poured a cloud round his horses and chariot,
to render them invisible*, if the combatants, and the whole scene
of action, had been thirty miles distant from his station. When
the gods held a council to favour the Trojans, it was on a mount
in the plain; and when Jupiter quitted the heavens to watch
over their interests, the summits whence he launched his light-
nings against the Greeks were not, it is probable, divided from
Troy by intervening hills and plains. In the thirteenth book of
the Iliad, it is said, that from the position of Neptune on the
woody Samothrace, the whole of Ida appeared, and the city of
Priam, and the ships of the Greeks; and the vicinity of the objects
may perhaps be collected by their being mentioned together -f•.
although described by the poet as in the heavens, at an immeasurable height
above the rest of the earth, was still oil the actual summit of the many-headed
Olympus —
Άκροτατυ κορυρνι πολυ$ειρχ$ος Όλυμποιο—
in order to scale which, the giants heaped Ossa on Pelion, two mountains
also in Thessaly. Even the celestial properties of Olympus were those of a
mountain, not of any region in (he sky detached from the earth. " It was
never shaken by the wind, nor hidden by the tempest, nor approached by (he
snow, but was in a cloudless atmosphere, encircled with a pure splendour."
I find the variety in the Homeric descriptions of Olympus, noticed by Mr.
R. P. Knight in his Carmina Homerica, p. 26, not after Mr. Bryant's manner,
but as a proof that in the inventive parts of poetry congruity is not to be ex-
pected.
* Κατά δ^ yspa ττολύν εχευεν — II. Θ. 1. 46, 52.
+ I see that in the Observations on Mr. Lc Chevalier's Treatise (p. 2?), this
passage is adduced in proof of the same point. The sentence does not, how-
5o
774
LETTER XLII.
The part of Ida called Lectum, stretched down to the sea, for
there Juno and Somnus, on their passage from Lemnos, first left
the waves.
*Ίδην δ' ιχίσ'&ην 7Γθλυ7πδακα, μητέρα ^ηρών
Αεχτόν °Ό&ί πρώτον λιπίτην άλα.
11. Η. 283.
But not only the promontory, but part of the hill towards the
summits of the mountain was so called ; since the woods of Lec-
ium trembled under thejeet of the deities as they ascended; and
these woods were not far beneath Gargarus, for in them Somnus,
concealed himself on a pine-tree, to assist the machinations of the
goddess, who advanced swiftly to the seat of Jupiter.
Hf>j δε χραιτ&νώς προσφ-ησατο Τάργαρον dxpov
*lto}S ύψηλ%. 11. Η. £92.
Somnus may be supposed to have been at hand, and not far from
the top of Ida.
Now would Juno have gone fromlmbros to Lectum, in order to
arrive at the seat of Jupiter, who was looking down upon the plain
of Troy, if that plain had been near Sigeum, which is almost as far
from the promontory Lectum, as it is from the mountain which is
the summit of the Ida?an range ? Strabo indeed calls Gargarus the
top of Ida*, notwithstanding he gives the name of Cotylus totha
hill where the Scamander, together with the Granicus and iEse-
ever, admit solely of such an interpretation : it may imply, that the god could
sec the whole range of Ida, and could see also the city of Priam and the ships,
of the Greeks.
♦ Lib. xiii. p. 583.
ΐΑιϋΜίΑϋΐ
'Xt'*.*z •=>--""• ^Λ
Ϊ±Λ>.~$
LETTER XLII.
775
pus*, has its source, which is found by actual observation to
be the highest point of the whole Idaean chain, and about seven
hundred and seventy-five toises above the level of the sea. The
town Gargara was on a high promontory, twenty-seven Roman
miles from Lectum, and at the mouth of the Adramyttian gulf,
properly so called. The summit Gargarus may have been above
it, on the ridges either to the north-north-east in the direction of
Cotylus, or to the north-west towards Lectum. Antandros, the
town, was not far from Gargara, for it was only thirty-five
Roman miles from Alexandria Troas ; but a mountain called Cil-
leum was between the height Gargarus and Antandros -j-; so that
Cilleum most probably may have been the ridge in the northern
direction from Gargara, and Gargarus the north-western summits.
On the whole, there seems no positive authority for supposing
Cotylus and Gargarus to be the same mountain J, notwithstand-
ing the decisions of Hesychius, Vibius Sequester, and Macrobius,
and the dreams of the grammarians, who, to strengthen their
hypothesis, had recourse to the last resource of criticism, an ab-
surd etymological conjecture §.
* Lib. xiii. p. 602.
t Lib. xiii. p. 612.
$ Pococke says, that "Gargarum was another summit of Monnt Ida, pro-
bably more to the south than Cotylus." — Observations in Asia Minor, p. 107.
§ Vid. not. Phil. Jac. Mausacci. in Plutarchi Flu v. p. 76, vol. ii. Plut.
Op. Om. edit. Paris, 1624. " Γχξγχρον } ita dictum quasi Καρκαρον caput ca-
pitis ut somniant grammatici."
Another passage of the same annotator, quotes Vibius Sequester, the author
of the Treatise de Montibns> mentioned above, as saying that the Xanthus or
Scamander flows into the Propontis (Xanthus Troix, Ilio proximus, ex Ida
5 G 2
776 LETTER XLII.
Again — Jupiter seated on Ida, turns his eyes from the scene oi
action towards the land of the Thracians and Mysians. By which,
as Strabo in his seventh book observes*, Homer must be under-
stood to mean the Thracians separated from the Troad by the
Hellespont, and the European Mysians.
*Αντος δε πάλιν τρεπεν o κα» το Αρ^αι'κον στρκτί'πίίύν.
Lib. xiir. p. 595.
+ Plutarch. See Censura^ &c. Observations on tbe Author, prefixed to
Dictys Cretensis de Bello Trojano.
LETTER XLII
785
pies for a well-sounding name, whence it should take its title,
and fixed upon Otranto. Some time after the appearance of the
book, a lady who had travelled in Italy, sent him a picture of
the castle at Otranto, in which there were two small windows one
over the other and looking into the country that suited exactly
to the small chambers from one of which his heroine Matilda
heard the young peasant singing beneath her. Now Mr. Wal-
pole had not been aware that there was any castle at Otranto*.
A little ingenuity and a good deal of enthusiasm would find
the wished-for objects in any spot where there was a wide plain,
extending to the shore backed by high mountains, and watered
by two streams. In the present case, points of resemblance are
triumphantly noticed and insisted upon, whilst irreconcileable di-
versities are easily explained away, and referred to the change
caused by the revolution of ages. The modern supporters of the
hypothesis make the sea feel their power, and roll obedient rivers
through new channels, with greater facility than Cyrus or the
soldiers of Alaric. Mr. Wood finding none of the scenes of the
Iliad below Bournabashi, adds nearly twelve miles of solid land
to Phrygiaj-; and a late author marks out. the bed in which the
Mendere once flowed, being pushed by the rivulet .of Bourna-
bashi towards the Rhoetean promontory, and not as it now does,
and did in Strabo's time, near the Sigean side of the plain;];.
Not less liberty has been taken with the human frame than
* Lord OrfordVWorks, Miscellaneous Letters, No. 15, to Lady Craven
vol. v. p. 663.
t Great part of the plain below Bournabashi must have been created since.
Homer's time.— Description of the Troad, p. 310.
X Topography of Troy, pp. 42, 43.
786
LETTER XLII.
with the land and sea; and the modern topographers appear
to feel the same as the artist Bouchardon, who told Count
Caylus, that after reading Homer men seemed to him to be
fifteen feet high, and all nature enlarged*. Lycophron con-
fined the stature of the hero of the Iliad to nine cubits, and in
Quintus Calaberf, Achilles was the only giant of the Greeks;
yet not only this warrior, but the whole of the army have, like
the spectre which appeared to Apollonius J, grown upon the
moderns, and become capable of fighting over a distance of at
least forty miles in a day : an astonishing faculty in our eyes —
b) νυν βροτοί luriv επιχ^όνιοι — but only in proportion with the other
physical powers of those who could make their exhortations heard
distinctly one mile off, and could distinguish a man's voice at
three §.
* Tableaux tires de l'lliade, et de l'Odysse d'Homer, p. 227. Essay on the
Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. i. sect. vi. p. 365.
+ r Oio? νπίξφίχλος Τιτνος π'ί<τεν. — Lib. iii. ver. 391.
J Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius (lib. iv. cap. 5) relates, that the
spectre of Achilles appeared to that sophist, and was at first five, but grew to
twelve cubits high. — See Bayle, article Achilles, note N.
$ These difficulties were first started by Mr. Bryant, and have been since un-
relentingly followed up by the author of an essay in the Edinburgh Review,
No. xii. July 1803, p. 237, Vol. 6. In the day on which Patroclus was
killed, the Greeks passed four times over the space between Troy and their
camp.— (Observat. on a Treatise, pp. 2, 3, 4.) Mr. Le Chevalier's Bourna-
bashiorTroy, is at least twelve miles from his naval station, — multiply that dis-
tance by four, and we have forty-eight miles — deduct theeight, "not to overrate
the distance, and the Greek and Trojan armies fought over a space of forty
miles in one day." Now it is not saying too much to aver, that no whole-
army of one hundred thousand men ever actually fought over half of that dis-
tance in a day ; and it is needless to add another word against the pretensions
-;u-.->*;tV'-•^•
*^ -*£#;::*
LETTER XLII.
787
It has been remarked as a singular fact, that the map which
Mr. Pope composed, merely from the perusal of the Iliad, is no
of Bournabashi. — Pausanias indeed relates (lib. i. p. 66), that when the sea
broke into the tomb of Ajax, the knee-pan of that hero was found to be as big
as a quoit or discus, yet these Greeks were nothing to those with whom Nes-
tor fought. Every thing has been undergoing a continued degeneracy since the
creation, and well did Gil Bias' master, Don Pacheco, observe — Les peehes du
terns d'Adam devoient etre d'une grosseur merveilleuse. Attempts have been
made to render the account of Agamemnon's voice being heard from the centre,
to the two extremities of the camp, and of Achilles distinguishing Hector's
voice at his station of Ajax (II. Θ. v. 222, and Π. v. 127), somewhat probable
by contracting the breadth of the supposed place of encampment; but wherever
the ships of Ulysses were, wc are told that the reputed station of Ajax was at
Rhccteum (stad. xxx. intervallo a Sigjeo, et ipso in statione classis suce, Plin.
cap. xxx. 1. 5), and that of Achilles at Sigeum {ubi classis ejus steterat in
Sigceo, Plin. ibid.) and no contraction of the Port of the Greeks will affect
the distance between the stations of the two heroes on the promontories, which,
it is allowed, have not altered their positions since Pliny wrote. ]( any accre-
tion of soil has been caused by the river, the distance from the middle of the
bay to the two extremities was, as the essay in the above-mentioned Review
observes (p. 264), of course greater formerly than now; and the power of Aga-
memnon's voice more extraordinary than even present appearances would sug-
gest. After every possible shuffling of the positions, the Scumander will flow
into the port of the Greeks, making first a marsh (Dein Portus Achivorum, in
quem influit Xanthus Simoenti junctus Stagnum prius faciens, Plin. ibid.)
between the two promontories, and consequently through some part of the sta-
tion of the Greek army, which can never be reconciled with any thing said by
Homer of that river. It is with no less dismay than astonishment, that 1 find
in the Carmina Homcrica (p. 52) a direct eulogy of Le Chevalier, Morritt,
and Gell, somewhat at the expence of the ancient geographers, and to the
utter discomfiture of those " hawkers of trifles" (nugarum venditatoribus)
Bryant and Richardson. For noticing this opinion of Mr. R. P. Knight's,
1 should perhaps be coupled with " the fairest of critics," did I not hint
HI
788
LETTER XLII.
bad representation of the plain of the Mendere. It would be
singular if it was a fact, but it is not. The author of the To-
pography of Troy* says he has not " erred much" in placing his
Callicolone near Tchiblak ; but Mr. Pope's map has no modern
names ; and if he did not make any considerable mistake, why
do we find the Callicolone of Mr. Gell at Atche-Keui, four miles
from Tchiblak by his own map ? The fact is, that Mr. Pope's
picture (for it is not a map) bears not the least resemblance to
the spot in question. Mr. Wood thought the change of position
between Sigeum and Rhoeteum, must have been caused by the
inversion of the engraver's plate ; but there is no necessity for
adopting such a notion. Our great poet was not sensible of the
difficulty or objection, which, as there was a consistency of error
in his plan, was of so little importance, that he explained his own
descriptions to the perfect satisfaction of himself, and also of his
readers until the discovery made by Mr. "Wood.
This is a sufficient proof, in my mind, of the facility with which
these plausible arrangements may be made, and is an argument
against the ready adoption of any theories applied to the spot
in question, however ingenious, and at first sight satisfactory.
If Mr. Pope's chart answers to the descriptive part of the Iliad,
without having the least likeness to the Trojan plain of Strabo
and the moderns, the consequent inference must be more fa-
at the same time, that were my conclusions drawn solely from an investigation
of the subject in a library, and not from an actual survey of the disputed coun-
try, I should not of course presume to set them in contrast with the decision
of that distinguished critic.
» P. 55.
LETTER XLII.
789
vourable to the ingenuity of our poet than to the conjectures of
the topographers. The praise and the blame bestowed upon him
by Mr. Le Chevalier, who has devoted a chapter to the exami-
nation of his map, are equally futile and unfounded. He cen-
sures him for not having given a good representation of the plain
of the Mendere, when Mr. Pope had only endeavoured to follow
Homer. He praises him, by saying " his notion is perfectly
right respecting the situation of the Grecian camp between the
two promontories, the confluence of the two rivers at no great
distance from the ships, the general shape of the plain; the course
of the Simois of greater extent than that of the Scamander, the
distance of the city from the sea, and the two sources of the
Scamander in the neighbourhood of the city*/'
Now it is really laughable to observe, that in the map the
camp is not between the two promontories ; that there is in the
actual plain no confluence of two such rivers as are traced by
Mr. Pope ; that the general shape of the plain is nothing like
that in the plate ; that in making the course of the Simois of
grea.ter extent than that of the Scamander he was entirely wrong;
that as to the distance of the city from the sea, the translator's
plan gives no scale, but represents it not far from the shore ; and
Mr. Le Chevalier could know as little about its actual site as
Mr. Pope ; and lastly, that the poet, as well as the traveller,
having, if the plain of the Mendere is the plain of Troy, mistaken
the comparative length of the Simois and Scamander, was con-
sequently quite erroneous in his delineation of the sources of the
latter river.
* Description of the Plain of Troy, p, 17©.
5 ι
790
LETTER XLIL•
It may fairly move our spleen to behold the author of the
English Iliad, the model of severe taste and just criticism, enlisted
by a French enthusiast, to fight under the banners of ignorance
and presumption.
Lady M. W. Montague declared, that, viewing from Sigeum
the celebrated plains and rivers, she admired " the exact geogra-
phy of Homer, whom she had in her hand ;" she found " almost
every epithet he gives to a mountain, or a plain, still just for it*;"
and " parsed several hours in as agreeable cogitations as ever Don
Quixote had on Mount Montesinos." We may by this passage
form an estimate of this pleasing writer's actual knowledge of
Homer, and appreciate the real value of her testimony in favour
of these famous plains. Had, however, every subsequent travel-
ler contented himself with such cogitations, and launched into these
elegant and indefinite encomiums on the poet, without endeavour-
ing by researches and surveys, to illustrate, and, if I may use
the expression, authenticate the Iliad, the doubts of the learned
had never been awakened : Brvant had never written.
Trojaque nunc stares, Priamique arx alta manercs.
Having ventured upon debateable ground, I beg; leave to con-
clude these remarks by touching upon a question so much con-
nected with the subject in hand, that a satisfactory decision of
it would be of the utmost importance, in arranging a chart of
the ancient Troad. Much of the whole question relative to
Homer's Hellespont, (which has been as grievous and bitter a
river to the topographers, as it was to Xerxes — ΰολ*ρος κα< αλμυρός
* Letter XLiv.
4ETTER X LI I
7<)1
ττοτα/Αοί) must be necessarily affected by, and indeed depend
upon, the spot which we may suppose he chose for his plain of
Troy. If the stations of Ajax and Achilles were intended by h im
to be on the promontories afterwards called Rhoeteum and Si-
geum, the " broad," the ** boundless," the " rushing" Hellespont,
was the embouchure of the straits of the Dardanelles, and the view
of the expanse of waters from the station of Achilles, might jus-
tify all the above epithets. However we may attempt to dispose
of the word ΠΛΑΤΪ% " broad," which has been considered the
great difficulty, ΑΠΕΙΡΩΝ, " boundless," will still remain, and it
is worth while to observe, that Virgil saw no reason for altering
the common signification of the first word, which he appears to
have translated when he calls the very sea in question the " broad
Sigeaii straits" —
Sigea igni freta lata relucent.
Mn. lib. ii.
Mr, Bryant asserts, that " in none of the instances (quoted
by him) in which the word Hellespont is used in Homer, did the
poet allude to the canal of Abydus*." Perhaps he did not allude
to the strait between iVbydus and Sestos ; but when, in a passage
not referred to by that author -f-, he calls " the rushing Helle-
spont the boundary of the Thracians whom Acamas and Peiros
led to Troy" the canal does seem to be referred to ; for that is
the only portion of the sea which, with a reference to Asia, can
* Dissertation, p. 134.
+ Άυτά,ρ θρψχας ή γ* Αρ^οφια^ και ΙΙειρως Τ\ρω$
"0<τ<Γον$ Έλλη<ττοντοί άγήρροος εντός sspykt,
11. Β. vcr. 845.
5 ι 2
792
LETTER XLIT-.
"be properly said to confine Thrace ; and in this sense it is under-
stood by Strabo, in his seventh book*, who uses the very epithet
so much canvassed, in the following sentence: "The Mysians (the
Asiatic) — being in the quarter of the Troad — and separated from
Thrace by the " broad" Hellespont -f ." This seems to show that
the canal of Abydus was the Hellespont, and that it was thought
worthy of the appellation given to it by the poet, but it does not
fix the termination of that canal, or sea, at Sigeum. It does ap-
pear that in latter times, the strait beginning from Sest&s and
Abydus, and extending towards the Propontis as far as Callipolis
on one hand, and Lampsacus on the other, was called the Helle-
spont, and in this sense it is always taken by Pliny J.
According to this arrangement, the iEgean sea would come up
as high as Abydus. Herodotus gives a length of four hundred
stadia to the Hellespont, and appears to allude to the canal only§;
but although in one place he talks of that one of Xerxes' bridges
which was towards theJEgean\\, yet he does not say that the strait
did not reach below Abydus : nor do I find that Thucydides un*
* Page 295.
Τ MvtroSv .... ομόρων τγ Ύρωά^ι .... ΰιεργομ,ένων ?> άπο της Θράκης
7τλατει Έλλησττοντίο.
J Primas angustias Hcllespontum vocant. Hac Xerxes Persarum rex, con-
strato in navibus ponte, duxit exercitum.— Lib. iv. cap. xii. p. 58. Et Iler-
lespontum, sept em ut diximos stadiis Europam ab Asia divider», quatuor illic
inter se contrarias urbes habet. In Europa Callipolim et Seston, in Asia Lamp*
sactim et Abydon.— Lib. iv. cap. 11, p. 55 ; see also lib. vi. cap, 32, p. 80.
* Lib. iv. cap. 85; lib. vii. cap. 35, 36.
J) Κατά δε,την προς το 'Aiyafav. — Hist. lib. vii. cap. 55.
'.■*»-ϊ
-
Μ
LETTER XLII.
793
derstood that city to be at the mouth of the TEgean, and conse-
quently the south-western boundary of the strait*.
From several places in the first book of Xenophons Hellenics,
and particularly in the opening of it, the mouth of the Helle-
spont seems to have been at least as low down asRhceteum-f ; for
after "Dorieus had entered the Hellespont, the battle between him
and the Athenian Triremes was fought in sight of Mindarus, who
was at Ilium.
The naval actions mentioned in this book, which took place
after the twenty-first year of the Peloponesian war, are generally
allowed to have been fought in the Hellespont ; and in one of
them, when Thrasyllus and Thrasy bulus beat Mindarus, the Athe-
nian fleet manoeuvred along the shore from Eleus to Sestos, and
the Lacedemonian from Sigeum to Abydus*,
A later author, Diodorus Siculus, although he calls the strait
where the armies of Xerxes and Alexander crossed, the Hellespont]:,
Αρυίοί £f τω Έλλησποντω αφίο-τχται προς Αερχυλί^χν καΐ Φχρνχβχζον .——
Thucyd. Hist- lib. viii. cap. 62, p. 94, vol. v. Bipont. edit.
Χηστον πόλιν της ΧεροΌντ,σου καθίστατο φρουρκν κα! φυλχκην τχ παντός
'ΕλλτκΓ7Π3ΐ/του. — Ibid. ρ. 95,
Οι Si Αθηναίοι και of χπο Ικνιχς κχι ΕλλΎΐ<τπόϊτου £''|« ju.« ν ο ί.— Lib. ί.
cap. 89, ρ. 124, vol. i.
Ko»i μετά, τοϋτο (taking Sestos) άπεπλευσχρ ί% Έλλ-ήα-πόντα. — Lib. i. cap. 9,
p. 16, vol. i.
+ Xenopli. Hist. Grasc. lib. i. p. 428, et seq. edit. Leunclav.
+ Αλίζχνίρος $1 (astx της $υνχμεως πορευθείς Ιπ\ τίν Έλλκο-πόντον διεβίβχσι τγ\ν
3ΰνχ[Λΐι>. — Lib. xvii. cap. i. p. 570.
Χίξ&ζ & «? ίττύθίτο τον Έλλ»β•7τβντον ΙζεΖγχ$χι and just afterwards?
Ιφ Έλλησ7Γ5ντου τνν ποξίίχν ποιγκτχμενος.— Lib. ϋ. ρ. 243.
794
LETTER XLII.
does not determine any thing as to the length or boundaries of
the canal. Arrian's Hellespont was near Arisbe*.
The authorities here quoted do perhaps appear to confine the
extremity of the Hellespont to the Sigean canal ; but a good deal
may be said to show, that it was the part of the iEgean sea
which washed the shores of Phrygia Minor, beginning from Aby-
dus and ending at Ledum. We cannot suppose with Mr. Wood,
that Homer thought the Hellespont to be actually a river, any
more than Xerxes who called it so.
In the account of iEneas, copied from Hellanicus, a very anci-
ent historian» by Dionysius of Halicarnassus-j-, that hero is said
to sail from the Trojan shores over the Hellespont to the penin-
sula of Pailene in Thrace. In after times he would have been said
to sail over the iEgean sea, or the gulf Melas. Some of the My-
sians were called Hellespontine {. Mysia was not near the canal
of Abydus, but to the south-east of the Troad ; so that when any
of its people were called Hellespontine, it was, probably, because
they lived towards the shore of that sea afterwards named the
JEgean. The passage quoted below from Pliny, may have been the
reason why Macrobius, in a sentence given by Mr. Bryant §, calls
Mysia a province of the Hellespont. " Gargara sunt in Mysia,
quae est Hellespont! Provincia ||."
Let us appeal to Strabo. I am surprised to find Mr. Bryant
* Έξ Ιλίου S\ ίς'Αξ'κτβην rixti/, 3 τγλ<τχ jj iiWpj αυτω λχβφηχνιοί τον Έλλ«-
σπόντον ίστρατο7π$ίνΜ. — Lib. i. cap. 12, p. 27.
f Lib. i. cap. 39.
J " In Mysia Abretini et Hellespontii appellati." — Plin. lib. v. cap. 78.
§ Dissert, p. 134.
jj L. v. c. xx. p. 362.
LETTER XLII.
795
allowing, that this geographer favoured the opinion of the Helle-
spont being the canal from Abydus to Lampsacus * ; for it will
appear by the following passages that he, on the contrary, makes
Abydus the boundary towards the Propontis, and not towards
the JEgean. " It lies (Abydus) on the mouth of the Propontis
and the Hellespont -f."
'< It is that part of the coast of the Propontis from the straits
of Abydus to the 2Esepus%."
"In this quarter ( the Thracian Chersonese) is the strait of seven
stadia at Sestos and Abydus, through which the Mgean and the
Hellespont empty themselves to the north into another sea called
the Propontis \"
It will be seen also from these passages, that the Hellespont
is not solely the Abydean strait, but that it is a sea which has
one of its outlets through that strait. This notion is further
supported by the following places in the same author. Talking
of an opinion of Strato, the geographer says that naturalist
thought that the Euxine had burst its way through an isthmus to
Byzantium ||, " and had thence fallen into the Propontis and
* Dissert, p. 133.
t 'Επίχίΐτχι Je τω στρατί τνς Προποντίίος και τ« Ελλήσποντο*. Lib. χϋί.
ρ. 591.
% *Εστ» ίίαυτ» (subaud. πχρχλ(χ) y.\v τνς ΤΙροποντίδος χπα τκν πψ Αβυο*ο»
β-τινων ίνίτο/ΑισιιτΓΟ,, — Lib. xiii. p. 583. S lso lib. xiii. pp. 581, 584,
where the same coast is decisively called the coast of he Propontis.
^ Κατά TAvrriv £τ>~ : .-.λ-'Λ
LETTER XLIII.
805
to be the site of that celebrated city *. Near this spot he saw
some considerable ruins, as also did Mr. Tournefort-f-, but some
way within the Cape on the road to Chanak-Kalessi, and even at
this day there are a few scattered vestiges of an ancient town. A
fort has been raised near the point of land. — Mr. Le Chevalier,
who seems to have measured the distance between Cape Berbieri
and Nagara-Bornou, pronounces it to be seventy stadia ; precisely
that assigned by Strabo between Dardanus and AbydusJ.
The Thracian side of the strait, immediately opposite to Na-
gara, is a strip of stony shore projecting from between two high
cliffs § ; and to this spot, it seems, the European extremity of
Xerxes' bridges must have been applied ; for the height of the
neighbouring cliffs would have prevented the Persian monarch from
adjusting them to any other position. There is certainly some ground
to believe this to have been the exact point of the shore called from
that circumstance Apobathra || ; since there is, within any pro-
bable distance, no other flat land on the Thracian side except at the
bottom of deep bays, the choice of which would have doubled
the width of the passage. Here the strait appeared to us to be
narrower than in any other part, although to those on board our
frigate, who might be supposed skilled in judging of distances, it no
where seemed to be less than a mile across : the ancient measure-
* A Voyage, &c. book i. p. 74.
+ Voyage au Levant, lettre xi. p. 456, edit. Paris, 1717.
% Voyage de la Propontide et du Pont Euxin, chap. iii. p. Ί6, vol. i.
§ "E.-v*.;^
LETTER XLIII.
809
minutes in pulling us across from point to point. Pietro Delia
Valle, surnamed The Illustrious Traveller *, asserted that the
current in the Hellespont flowed both ways, for which he is cor-
rected by Wheler ; who observes, what is the fact, that " the cur-
rent is indeed stronger when the north, wind blows, than when the
south, or when it is calm ; but still it cometh out of the Black
Sea by the Bosphorus, into the Mare Marmora, and thence into
the Archipelago -f". It is true that the stream, setting as in other
straits in a direct line from point to point, and not following the
waving line of the passage, is. not perceived in every part of the
channel, nor always in the same part of it. At the Dardanelles,
where it runs in mid-channel obliquely towards Berbieri Point,
it forms what is technically called a back-water on the Thracian
side below Chelit-Bawri, which, when aided by a south wind,
has itself the appearance, and somewhat the power of a current.
The same effect is produced in other parts of the strait ; and the
boatmen of the Hellespont, by taking advantage of this circum-
stance, contrive to cross it at almost every season of the year.
The north-east wind blows down the strait for nearly eight out
of the twelve months, and in the summer lasts sometimes nine or
ten weeks without intermission. We thought we had arrived at
that period, and began to despair of reaching Constantinople in the
frigate. On the third of May the wind was foul ; on the fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh, it was still from the north-east ; on the
eighth there was a calm ; on the next day the Etesians again
blew, and we had a gale of wind. The current rushed round the
* His book is entitled " Les fameux Voyages de Pietro Delia Valle Gen~
iilhomme Romain, surnomme V Illustre Voyagem" Paris, 1670.
\ A Journey into Greece, &c. book i. pp. 71, 75.
810
LETTER XLIII.
stem of the frigate with the rapidity of the stream at London-
bridge, and the foaming spray was scattered by the hurricane on
either shore of Asia and of Thrace. The fruit-boats from the
Dardanelles, which plied round our sides on other days, did not
dare to approach us ; for we were riding in so rough a sea, that
we should have dashed them to pieces. Expecting that the ship
would drive from her moorings, we lengthened our cables, and
let go another anchor.
The next day the stormy weather was much abated, but it still
blew very freshly from the same quarter. We went on shore in
one of the ship's boats, and in returning, as our coxswain would not
haul down our sail until we were nearly alongside of the frigate,
we had so much weigh, both from the current and the breeze,
that in attempting to grapple we lost our boat-hook, carried
away our bowsprit, and breaking through some fruit-boats, were
borne off in an instant so far astern, that we were an hour rowing
up to the frigate, which we should not have gained so soon, had
not a towing line been floated down to us from on board. This
may show the actual rapidity of the torrent. The south winds
also blow very violently up the straits, and the English fleet passed
the castles at the rate of eleven knots within the hour.
We had nearly given up all hope of proceeding through the
straits, when, on the evening of our accident, it began to rain,
and our pilots predicted a change of weather. We had heavy
showers all night, and in the morning a drizzling mist. The
wind blew gently from the south. We weighed anchor, and at
ten o'clock sailed at last slowly between the castles, which we
saluted with seventeen guns, and had the compliment returned to
us by the battery at Chanak-Kalessi, where the red standard of
<":>?; ~φ Λ: ■
LETTER XLIII.
811
Turkey was unfurled to receive our homage. We stood over
to the coast of Thrace, and passed by the mouth of the bay of
Maito, and afterwards in view of another deeper inlet called Koilia,
which is most probably the Coelos of the ancients. We sailed
close under the cliffs, and came opposite to. Nagara-Bornou.
In the bay within the point, we were shown a large wreck a
little above water. This was the remains of a Turkish sixty-four
destroyed by the Repulse, and the boats of the Pompee, during
the passage of the Dardanelles on the 19th of February, 1807.
Sir S. Smith in the Pompee, with the Thunderer, Standard,,
and Active, brought up in the bay within Chanak-Kalessi, where
the sixty-four, four frigates, four corvettes, one brig, and three
gun-boats were at anchor, and in four hours destroyed or cap-
tured the whole squadron. The sixty-four ran on shore on Pes-
quies Point, and a frigate drifted over towards the Thracian coast,
where she was blown up by Captain Mowbray in the Active. A
battery of thirty guns, and a redoubt on the Point, were carried
and destroyed by the marines of the Standard.
One other vestige of this memorable expedition was pointed out
to us ; this was a cannon shot-hole in the front of the house at
the Dardanelles belonging to the French Consul, who, during the
second passage of the fleet, hoisted the tri-coloured flag, and re-
ceived that attention from our gunners, which he had, it seemed*
intended to attract.
Even when we travelled, the events of the two actions were
fresh in the memory, and were still in the mouths of the inha-
bitants of the Dardanelles. The Turks, notwithstanding the
warning which the Captain Pasha had received six days before
from His Majesty's Ambassador, Mr. Arbuthnot, that the at-
312
LETTER ΧΕΙΙΪ.
tempt would certainly be made, could not at first believe their
senses, when they saw the approach of the fleet round Berbieri
Point ; and when the van ship, the Canopus, passed between the
castles, were altogether stupified, and looked upon the adventure
as the fatal breaking of a charm which had hitherto bound them
in security, Ttnd protected the holy city from the insults of the
infidels. The burning of the flotilla filled them with conster-
nation and rage. A person attached to our Consulate at the
Dardanelles Mas concealed in an outer room of a house at Cha-
nak-Kalessi, which was entered by an officer of a Turkish frigate,
who had just lost his ship. He informed me, that the Turk
raved for an hour at the English dogs. The woman of the house
did not let slip a word of her guest in the next room, who lay
concealed under some rubbish, and although a jackass tied up in
the shed, trod and kept his foot for some time on his finger, did
not, like the citizen of Perugia* under similar circumstances, cry
out and discover his retreat φ.
No considerable opposition was made to the advance of the
* Boccac. Dccamer. Giomata Quinta. Novella Dec i ma.
+ Lest such a forbearance in a suffering by no means trifling though ridi-
culous, should appear improbable, I beg leave to insert a most extraordinary
instance, in another inhabitant of Turkey, of patience under acute pain. A
Capidgi/ or porter belonging to the seraglio, opening hastily the small iron grat-
ing of a door-way through which the Sultan was to pass, caught his hand in
the hinges between the wicket and the wall. The Bostandgys and other attend-
ants immediately formed a line with their backs against the grating, and dur-
ing the passage of the Sultan and of all his suite, the Capidgi/ suffered not a
murmur or a sigh to escape him, but fainted immediately afterwards, when on
closing the door-way, his four fingers dropped to the ground. — Notice sur la
cour du Grand Seigneur, &c. Paris, 1809, page 67.
Oft—a*.*.?-»
r : ^j'-^
LETTER XLI1I.
813
fleet*, nor to the destruction of the flotilla. The material injury
sustained by the English, was, as is well known, received on their
retreat, when the batteries, some of which had been repaired,
and others been recently constructed at every turn of the
straits, were superintended by French officers belonging to
General Sebastiani's suite. Yet even at that time the Turks
at the castles were thrown into the utmost terror and confusion ;
and an inhabitant of Chanak-Kalessi informed me, that when one
of our three-deckers, instead of passing through at once, hauled
up a little, and bringing her whole broadside full on the fort of
Asia, opened all her batteries at once, she appeared like a vast
body of flaming fire, and showering upon the walls and mounds
a storm of shot, drove the garrison at once from their guns.
The women and children and all the unarmed population of the
town fled to the foot of the mountains, five miles distant from the
strait, yet some cannon-balls fell near them in the villages to which
they had retired. This report I received not as a fact, but an evi-
dence of their fear. Notwithstanding common opinion, it is not
true that the English character suffered on that day. The Turks
were astonished at the cool valour and undaunted skill of our
sailors, nor did they know the disastrous effects of their granite
globes.
I was informed by the second in command, that when he was
blowing up their flotilla at anchor, some of the captains, as their
ships struck, came on board, and being served with coffee in his
cabin, made excuses for being so easily taken — " Hussein," they
said, " is dead ; Smit-Bey is gone—what can we do ?" They
* The only spars that were injured, were the sprit-sail yard of the Royal
George, the gaft of the Canopus, and the raain-top-sail yard of the Standard.
5 Μ
814
LETTER XLIU.
alluded to the famous Capudan Pasha, and to himself who had
fought with them in Egypt.
The breeze freshened, and the current was scarcely perceptible
when we passed the point of Nagara. We skirted the mouth of
a bay, Ak-Bashi Liman, reasonably conjectured the ancient port
of Sestos, and a little farther saw a hill crowned with a scanty
ruin called Zemenic, where (without taking into account the pas-
sage of the eight thousand Turks in the reign of Othman) the
standard of the Ottomans was, for the first time, raised in Europe,
by Solyman, son of Sultan Orcan, in the year 1356 *.
A rocky strand or mole two or three miles farther down the
strait, preserves also under the name of Gaziler-Iskelessi — " The
Victor's Harbour," the memory of the landing of the Mahome-
tan invaders. Zemenic is called also Choiridocastron, or Pig's
Tort. The besotted Grecians, says Sandys, jested at the loss %
and said they had but taken a hog-stye -f. At this point, Leun-
clavius asserts that the Hellespont is evidently narrower than in
any other part J. From beyond Nagara we had entered into
that part of the strait which it seems was properly called the Pro-
pontic Hellespont. For several miles the channel did not ap-
pear to widen. Cultivated hedge-row fields, green with high corn
and flourishing vineyards, and enlivened by frequent villages, pre-
sented, on either side, a succession of scenery altogether enchanting,
but rather rich than romantic, and of which those who have visited
* Voyage au Levant, lett. xi. p. 457, edit. Paris, 1*717.
+ Lib. i. p. 26, A Relation of a Journey, &c. It was said by John Paleo*
logus, and, according to Tournefort, applied to the magazines of Gallipoli.
J Ad Chiridocastron quo loco plane angustissimus est Hellespontus.
latitudinc sua Gnecum nnum miliare non superat. not. E. p. 1 066, edit. Leun-
clav. in Append. Xenophont.
LETTER XLIII.
815
the banks of the Menai have seen an exact, perhaps a flattering re-
semblance. The imposing presence of Penmaun-Mawr more than
compensates for the distant prospect of Ida. We glided past head-
lands and bays on both shores, each of them rendered memorable
by the poets, or illustrated by the historians of antiquity ; and we
passed without attention the mouths of two streams, which are
now the Bourghas-Su, and the Moussa-Keui-Su, but were the
river of Percote* once, and the Practius.
Above them, dividing the higher shores of the Chersonese, we
skirted the outlet of a stream, the Kara-Ova-Su, which, although
now undistinguished, would, if called as in former days, the
iEgos-Potamos, be never passed without notice : the name alone
is a history. The naturalist might assist the topographer in
identifying the site of that memorable stream, by discovering on
its banks the monstrous stone foretold by Anaxagoras, and re-
maining in the days of Pliny, which fell from the sky, and the
existence of which, although it would have been denied by the
inexperienced scepticism of former times, the occurrence of similar
prodigies in our own age, would very much incline us to believe φ.
* Le Chevalier supposes Percote the name of a river (Voyage de la Propon-
tide, &c. p. 19, vol. i.); but it was a town, or region, near the more modern
Parium. See Strab. lib. xiii. p. 590 ; and Plin; lib. vi. cap. 32.
t " Celebrant Grseci Anaxagoram Clazomenium, olympiadis septuagesim»
octavae secundo anno, praedixisse ccelestium literarum scientia, quibus diebus
saxum casurum esset e sole. Taleque factum interdiu in Thraciaa parte ad
iEgos flumcn. Qui lapis etiam nunc ostcnditur, magnitudine vehis, colore
adusto, comete quoque illis noctibus flagrante. Plin. Hist. lib. ii. cap 58,
page 18, edit. Paris, 1532. The naturalist adds, that there was a small one at
the Gymnasium at Abydus, which was worshipped, foretold also by Anaxagoras.
Plutarch, in his life of Lysander, has dwelt somewhat more at large on this
extraordinary stone, which was, as he tells us, considered by some as porten*
5 Μ 2
f
816 LETTER X LI 1 1.
At iEgos-Po tamos the Hellespont, according to Xeno-
tons of the fatal baidc of ./Egos-Potamos— κατηνερ^η γαρ ως η δο£α των!
ττολλών Ιζ ουξανβ παρ^γί^ες λ /^oc ως άιγος ποταμός, κ. τ. λ. in \it.
Lysand. p. 439, op. om. "There fell from the heavens (as many believe) a
large stone at /Egos-Potamos, which is even yet shown as an object of venera-
tion by the people of the Chersonese." The comet mentioned by Pliny is, on
the authority of Damachus, called by Plutarch " a large body of fire like a
blazing cloud," seen for seventy-five days previously to the fall of the stone.
The like meteoric appearances have attended the descent of stones from the sky
in modern times, and the phenomenon seen in 1620 in the Punjaub, one hun-
dred miles cast of Lahore, answers in description very exactly with the detail
in Plutarch^ In that instance, " a luminous body was observed to fall from
above on the earth, suggesting to the beholders the idea that the firmament was
raining fire.*' A cursory inspection would inform any mineralogist whether this
specimen, if such should be discovered at iEgos-Potamos, is of true celestial
origin ; since all those hitherto seen, in whatever part of the world, have been
found of the same composition. The stones from Benares, from Vienna, from
Bohemia, and the one found in Yorkshire, " all contained pyrites of a peculiar
character ; they had all a coating of black oxyde of iron ; they all contained
an alloy of iron and nickel; and the earths which serve to ihem as a sort of
connecting medium, corresponded in their nature, and nearly in their propor-
tions*." .
Although we may believe these stones to be meteoric formations, yet the pre-
diction, or rather the solution, of the phenomenon by Anaxagoras, by tlte sup-
position that the sun and stars were ponderous bodies, revolving in a luminous
atmosphere; and that one, or part of one, of these bodies might fall to the
earth, is a most extraordinary anticipation of modern systems and hypotheses.
The discovery (hat the sun was as big as Peloponesus (mentioned before, in
note, p. 611 of this volume), to our ears may have a ridiculous sound, but it
was making a vast step beyond the bounds of former ignorance; and to this
great philosopher may be applied the converse of what was said of Milton -
" He was a modern born two thousand years before his time."
* See an Account of some Stoues said to have fallen on the Earth in France, 6tc. &c. Phil. Trans-
1803, part i. paper vi. p. 200,
s
^U
";i;^.^j I •??~-~1 7^^^*i
'■1^ : Λ.<-.:
LETTER XLIII.
817
phon*, is about a mile and three quarters wide. A little way above
the mouth of the river, on the opposite shore, we saw the town of
Lamsaki, on a tongue of low land which seems to be the pro-
montory called Abarnis, whence Conon the Athenian set sail with
nine ships after the fatal battle φ, having seized the sails belong-
ing to the Lacedemonian fleet. The modern Lampsacus, although
but a small town of two hundred houses, with one handsome mosck,
would still be a present worthy of a king. Its territory is rich at
this day in vineyards of a superior quality, inclosed in hedges of
pomegranate trees, and, as far as could be judged by a transient
view, there is nothing wanting to complete the beauty of its situa-
tion. The mountains approach within a few miles of the back of
the town, and their sides are clothed with woods, which shelter
the villages and kiosks of the inhabitants of Lampsaki. Inscribed
marbles, and other remains, were found in the town by Sir G.
IVheler, which, together with its name, show it to stand on the
ancient site J. It was five o'clock when we passed this place.
Our pilot informed us that a shoal runs out from this part of the
Asiatic shore, and we stood nearer to the Thracian side.
Two miles farther on we had the large town of Gallipoli on
our left. The channel seemed about five miles wide from this part
of the Chersonese to Chardac, a headland in the region of Lam-
saki ; but beyond this point the receding shores of Asia opened
to our view the expanse of the sea of Marmora, Gallipoli, the
* Hist. Grjec. lib. ii. p. 455, edit. Τ ouncl.
τ Κόνων δε τους εννέα, ναυσι φίνγων ...... χατασγων Ιπ\ την Άβα,ρ-
νί£α την Λαμψάκου ακραν — Xenop. Hist. Graec. lib. ii t p. 457, edit. Leuiir
clav.
J A Journey ii\to Greece, &c. book i. p r . 75^
818
LETTER XLIII.
Callipolis of ancient geography, which was an important position
after the transfer of the empire to Byzantium, and was taken
by the Turks nearly a century before the fall of Constantinople*^
is still a very considerable town, containing perhaps fifteen thou-
sand inhabitants, half of whom are Turks, and the remainder
divided between Greeks and Jews. The latter people have been
established in the place since the twelfth century f. It has given
a name to the Hellespont, which the Turks call the sea of Galli-
poli (Galiboli Denghizzi), and is the chief station of the Capudan
Pasha J. Standing in a peninsula, it forms two harbours, and
not unfrequently receives the imperial fleets §.
A little beyond the town we noticed some perpendicular rocks,
having the appearance of regular fortifications, surmounted by
an old tower ; and still farther on passed by a light-house, placed
to point out the mouth of the strait, and the position of a long
shoal which runs towards the Asiatic coast* As we advanced
through the broad entrance of the straits, the breeze died away,
and the minarets of Gallipoli were but just out of sight when the
sun sank behind the hills, and closed a day which had been passed
in viewing a succession of prospects, more interesting by their
natural and associated attractions, than are perhaps to be met
with in any other part of the world.
* Voyage au Levant, pp. 461, 462, 463, lett. xi. edit. Paris, 1717.
+ Voyage de Benjamin fils de Jonas, p. 14 ; Voyages faits principaleraent
en Asie, &c. edit. The Hague, 1735.
| D'Herbelot Bibliotheque Orient. Galipoli.
"• ^ Gallipoli, after the Latin conquest, fell to the share of the Venetians, but
■was retaken by Vataccs in 1235, and possessed by the Catalans in 1306, who
raised the fortifications, after being besieged by Antony Spinola, in 1307. The
Turks took it in 1357.— Tournefort, letter xi. vol. i. pp. 461, 462.
LETTER XLIII.
819
We made very little progress during the night, but found our-
selves in the sea of Marmora, yet not far from the coast of
Thrace, which was here a line of high lands, more barren than
the borders of the Hellespont, but in many parts verdant with
pastures and vineyards, We discovered many villages in the
nooks near the water's edge and on the side of the hills. We had
light and baffling airs through the whole of the day, and had not
advanced by half after five farther than to be off the rocky island
Proconesus, whose modern name of Marmora has been ex-
tended to the surrounding sea, — The marble quarries which sup-
plied many of the public buildings, in Constantinople, and fur-
nished the great mosck of Sultan Achmet with all its ornamental
architecture, are now no longer worked; the population of slaves
formerly employed in those labours has, therefore, been with-
drawn. Passing to the north, we saw the only town now to be
found in the island. The general appearance of Marmora is
barren, but we discerned a few spots of vine and com lands, with
heathy downs, affording a scanty pasturage to a few goats. A
little to the west is a long low island, apparently uninhabited, and
round it there are two or three rocks, which are sometimes, to-*
gether with Proconesus, called the Isles of Marmora.
About eight o'clock in the evening a breeze sprung up, which
carried us five knots within the hour during the whole night, and
in the morning of Sunday, May 13th, we found ourselves near
the low green. land of Thrace, with a view of three long bridges
over, a marsh* called Buyuk Chekmedjee, or Ponte Grande, six
hours by land from the capital.
The mountains of Asia were just apparent in the farthest dis-
tance, and, in fact, the shore on every side is said to be visible from
820
LETTER XLIII.
the middle of this Mediterranean sea. We looked out eagerly to
catch the first view of Constantinople, and at two o'clock saw
some white columns, arranged much in the same order, and hav-
ing the same appearance, as the distant turrets of King's College
Chapel at Cambridge. These we were told were the minarets of
the great moscks of Sultan Achmet and of Santa Sophia. — It now
came on to blow hard from the north, and as we were obliged to
beat up against the wind, we approached the city but slowly.
The weather became very hazy, and obscured the surrounding
view; but object after object dropped into the prospect; and the
endless dwellings of a vast capital, rising from forests of cypresses,
and overtopped with innumerable domes and slender spires, were
indistinctly shown behind the clouds of driving mist.
In the course of our tacking we were sometimes at no great
distance from Princes' Islands in the sea of Marmora, and at
others we had a glimpse of the Seven Towers — a name formida-
ble to the ears of Christians, and coasted under the gloomy walls
of the eastern Cfesars, which seemed to inclose the fabled city of
the dead, as no distant hum or murmur was heard from within,
and not a human being could be seen without their solitary cir-
cuit. At sunset the frigate anchored near the headland imme-
diately preceding the Seraglio point ; and as no lights were visi-
ble, the silence and, in a short time, the darkness, were so com-
plete, that we might have believed ourselves moored in the lonely
cove of some desert island, and not at the foot of a city which,
for its vast extent and countless population, is fondly imagined
by its present masters to be worthy of being called the Refuge
of the World*.
* Alempenn,
^^H
LETTER XLIV-
Difficulty of obtaining information concerning the Turks, even
in Constantinople — Separation of the City and the Suburb*
— Foreign Missions at Vera — Departure from the Frigate —
Land at Tophana — Ascent to Pera — Dogs — The Hotel —
City Watchmen — Police of Pera — The Custom of Parad-
ing the Streets incognito — Palaces of Ambassadors — In-
glese Sarai — The Armenian Cemetery — The Amusements
there — Customs called Oriental — in great measure those of
the Ancient World — Seclusion and Treatment of Women —
Coincidence of Turkish Manners with those of the Byzan-
tine Greeks — Principal Difference between Ancient and Mo-
dern Manners — State of Turkish Women — Female Slaves, or
Odalisques, of the Imperial Harem.
I HAD at one time resolved to make my chapter on
Constantinople much the same as that called in Hakliryt Ci)0
fttopage of dUiiliam a^anuetrille to 3Ierti0alem, the sum of
which is this—" William ^anneDiile, Carl of <&mx> toitb
tjtoerg aEngiiaf) Lotus ann fcmgfjta, foent to tbe ©olp latin in
tfje 24 pete Of &entj? tfje ^eCOntl*. For without having re-
course to the expedient of the Earl's namesake, I despaired of
* The English Voyages, &c. p. 17, vol. ii. «lit. 1599.
5 Ν
822
LETTER XLIV.
telling any thing not before too well known to require repeti-
tion. Thinking, however, that each person must see some
objects, or views of objects, not noticed by preceding, or even
contemporary travellers, and that to dilate on various parts of
Turkey, and to say nothing of its famous capital, would scarcely
be forgiven, I shall endeavour to prepare some remarks, which,
although not altogether a new composition, will not be the con-
tents of one phial poured into another. It is not my intention*
however, to pourtray the general appearance, or the several
quarters, of Constantinople ; innumerable plans and pictures,
and two lively representations, which have amused the inhabi-
tants of our principal English towns, have rendered the first
attempt unnecessary; whilst the many travels, surveys, and itine-
raries, descriptive of the Turkish capital, with which every one
at all in the habit of investigating the countries of the east must
be already acquainted, cannot but dissuade me from hazard-
ing a new topographical detail of this celebrated city. Enough,
and perhaps too much, will be said on the subject, by extracting
from my journal, in the manner before followed, a narrative of
the manner in which our time was passed during the two months
of our residence at Pera ; since such an account will necessarily
include a notice of several interesting objects to be met with in
the capital and its environs.
One of the chief advantages which every man proposes to him-
self by travelling, especially by visiting large towns, must be to
mix with the best native society to which he can have access, or,
as Mr. Locke has it, " to get into the conversation and acquaint-
ance of persons of condition*.'' But it is in vain to expect that
* Some Thoughts on Education in Lond. dnod. p. 272.
LETTER XLIV.
823
benefit in the Levant, where the traveller has little employment
left except that which (although Lord Hardwicke pronounced it
a charming exercise, subservient to morality) has, methinks, when
unmixed with other matter, no very great attractions either for
writers or readers, namely, " to draw just conclusions concerning
the uncertainty of human things from the ruinous alterations time
and barbarity have brought upon so many palaces, cities, and
whole countries, which make such a figure in history*/'
A stranger at Constantinople would naturally wish to live
amongst the Turks, as he would amongst the French at Paris and
the Austrians at Vienna ; but the differences of manner, custom,
and language, render it absolutely impossible to become domesti-
cated in a Mahometan family, or, at a short residence, even to
join in the very little social intercourse enjoyed amongst the na-
tives themselves. Thus those varieties, and nice distinctions of
character, which must subsist in some degree between the indivi-
duals of every nation, and which a more intimate scrutiny might
discover, cannot be noticed by passing travellers in their partial
communications with the Turks, who seem to them to have so
entire a monotony, not only of manner but of mind, as to induce
a belief, that he who has observed one amongst them has seen
the whole people, and may form an estimate of them nearly as
well by the inspection of a week as by the acquaintance of a year.
With this persuasion, a traveller passes through the country with-
out forming an intimacy, or even an acquaintance, with a single
Turk ; and there is no part of the empire in which he will find
himself less inclined to make such an attempt than at the capital
* Spectator, No. 364.
5n 2
■
824
LETTER XLIV.
itself. — The water of the Golden Horn, which flows between the
city and the suburbs, is a line of separation seldom transgressed
by the Frank residents ; and an English stranger, if he waited for
the suggestions of his fellow-countrymen of the Levant Company»
would pass many weeks at Pera without paying one visit to Con-
stantinople.
No foreigner is now allowed to reside in the city itself, not
even the minister of a friendly nation ; a regulation which does
not arise from any ancient usage, but from the policy of later
times. In the days of Busbek, the King of Hungary's minister
resided within the walls, and Eltchi Han (the Ambassador's Inn)
is shown as the place in which that accomplished scholar is said
to have written his letters. Notwithstanding the beauty of its
situation, on which he dwells with much complacency, he seems
to have considered it a sort of state-prison, and complains of
not being permitted to purchase a house and garden at his own
expence*."
So late as the beginning of the last century -j~, the Hungarian
minister, and those of Poland and Ragusa, lived in Constantino-
ple ; but in the reign of Achmet the Third, who mounted the
throne in 1703, a proposal was made to the Divan, to confine all
the Ambassadors to Princes' Islands. Such is the dislike of the
hat, the distinction of the Frank, that the prudent always think
fit, and in our time it was absolutely necessary, in visiting the city,
to procure the protection of a Janissary. An English gentleman
who, contrary to advice, whilst we were at Pera, ventured across
* Cum vero me taeclcrct inclusionis in eodera divcrsorio, &c. — Epist.. iiu
p. 97, edit. Oxon. 1660.
t Voyage du Levant, lettre xii. p. 508, vol. i.
LETTER XLIV.
825
the water accompanied only by bis servant, was, for some unin-
tentional offence, immediately knocked down, and bis attendant
coming to his assistance, met with the same maltreatment. No
person interfered, and the strangers thought it adviseable to re-
turn to Pera. It is an offence against the state to insult any one
protected by a Janissary; and it is so much expected that each
visitor will avail himself of their service, that a complaint from
an unattended person would be productive of no redress. — The
distinction between the Mahometan and the Christian resident or
settler, is perhaps no where so decided as at Constantinople ;
and it has of late years, since the wars with France and England,
become somewhat dangerous to have an open intimacy with the
agents or merchants of any foreign power.
After such a preliminary, it will not be expected that a travel-
ler should insinuate himself into any Turkish company, or enjoy
any other society than that which is to be found at Pera. The
Franks have, as it were, engrafted themselves on that limb of the
capital, and the shoot has many more characteristics of the exotic
than of the parent plant,
I shall, before we leave the frigate, take some notice of this portion
of the inhabitants of Pera. There wer j formerly twelve missions
in Pera, which, with their respective diplomatic courts and their
attached families, together with the visiting guests, formed a so-
ciety not to be expected in the heart of Turkey; but the new
order of things established in. Christendom, has materially de-
tracted from the comforts of the Frank residents. The absorp-
tion of so many European states by the power of France, is sen-
sibly felt at Pera, where several of those governments whose for-
mer impoiiance rendered the presence of a respectable agent ne-
άϊο
LETTER XL1V.
cessary, having now no longer any independent interests to main-
tain, are in fact represented by the Envoy of the Emperor Na-
poleon, although they allow a certain number of Greeks in the
quality of dragomans and physicians, still to avail themselves of
the privileges of those attached to foreign embassies. As the
present diplomatic ceremonial does not admit of mutual civilities
between the English and French ministers, the former, and those
belonging to his nation (that is to say, those protected by him),
are in a manner excluded from every other company at Pera ex-
cept that of their countrymen.
The ministers, the interpreters, and the merchants, some time
ago formed three distinct classes of society. The first of these,
under the above disadvantages, has been disunited and broken
in upon by the second and the third description of persons, who,
however, do not mutually amalgamate. I speak not of our own
legation, which, with the exception of a few gala days, seeks no
other company than those travellers whom its hospitality domes-
ticates at the English palace.
There has been, for more than a century, an establishment be-
longing to the French embassy, and there is one protected by
the Austrian Internuncio, for the education of young persons of
the nation in the oriental languages, and such qualifications as
may enable them to take situations in the Levantine consulates ;
and, within a few years, the former power has employed these
Giovanni di Lingua (for so they are called) as interpreters at the
Divan. There was some remonstrance on the part of the Porte ;
but it was firmly advanced on the other hand, that the Emperor
Napoleon did not choose to employ any agents whose very dress
showed they were subjects of the Ottoman government; and that,
Muui ■*!
mm
LETTER XLIV.
82?
as he did not desire the Turkish Ambassador at Paris, or any
of his suite, to change their costume, so he would not suffer any
persons attached to his representative at Constantinople to wear
any other dress than that of his own court. This is not the first
time that the French have made a stand on a similar point of eti-
quette. The Marquis de Ferriol, after a long struggle, minutely
detailed by Tournetort, quitted the Seraglio just as he was about
to have his audience of the Sultan, who had come fifteen leagues
on purpose, because they would not suffer him to enter the
presence-chamber with his sword, which he said constituted a
part of a Frenchman's dress, and should not be taken from him
but with his life*.
The French have doubtless gained a great point in thus putting
the executive part of their intercourse with the Porte into the
hands of persons who, at the same time that an education in the
country teaches them how to deal with the Turks, so as to ad-
vance the interests of their employers, are, by their condition as
Franks, totally divested of the timidity and submissive habits in-
herent in the Greeks, or any subjects of the Turks. A rayah or
subject, wearing with his robes the badge of slavery, dares not to
utter the sentiments put into his mouth, and discharge the duties
intrusted to him by a foreign minister. A decisive sentiment,
even when he is backed by the presence of his ambassador, can
scarcely, or only with a pale face and trembling limbs, be forced
from his lips, Most of the minor concerns of the embassies are
carried on by the dragomans solely; yet even in these it not un-
frequently happens, that after many provoking delays and incon-
* Voyage du Levant, letlre xii. pp. 539, 540, 541, 542, Paris, 1717.
828
LETTER XLIV.
elusive answers on the part of the Turks, the matter cannot be
arranged without the personal application of the minister himself.
There are four dragomans attached to the English emhassy.
Mr. Pisani, descended, I believe, from an ancient Venetian family
of Galata, is the chief interpreter : he speaks the English lan-
guage with the utmost purity, an accomplishment I never met
with in any other native of the Levant. It would be difficult, ex-
cept perhaps from too minute and attentive a correctness and pre-
cision, to discover that he is not talking his mother-tongue. He
enjoys no little consideration on both sides of the water, and has
the manners of a man of ability and address.
The resident members of the Levant Company at Pera, have
lately much diminished in number ; as far as I recollect, they do
not possess at this time more than five or six mercantile esta-
blishments. I presume that the number of persons protected by
the English ambassador, does not in the whole amount to one
hundred ; whilst the French minister has, it is said, between two
and three thousand dependants. On days of rejoicing and church
festivals, the streets of Pera and the catholic chapel are crowded
with his tumultuous train. Since the departure of General Se-
bastiani, the government of Paris have maintained only a Charge
d'Affairesat the Porte, Mons. Latour Maubourg, the brother of
the general of that name.
Something has been before said of the singular regulation by
which the Turks permit the existence of independent jurisdictions
in their ports and principal towns, in a greater degree perhaps than
the Greek emperors admitted the interference of the magistrates
deputed by the powerful republic of Genoa to watch over their trad-
ing colony of Galata. The privileges granted in the year 1580
aMuk
m
LETTER XLIV.
829
by the Sultan Amurath to the English merchants and their con-
suls and governors, give an entire controul over all those of his
nation, to the minister, who is to protect them and settle all their
differences, without the interference of the Turkish police or courts
of justice*. For the purpose of their security and dignity, a large
body of the Janissaries, who nearly three centuries ago were at the
same time the formidable foes and the delegated protectors of the
Christians -f, is put under the orders of every minister. The
duty has attached a disgraceful name to these Janissaries, who
are sometimes called, by way of derision, the Christian pig-
keepers, as Pera goes by the name of the Pig quarter J. The
French and the English have each a whole oda, or chamber of Ja-
nissaries, set apart for their service; and although there are not
more than four or five in constant attendance, yet the whole body
is always at hand, and can be assembled upon any requisite emer-
gency. The oda of the British embassy is the fortieth, consist-
ing of about two hundred men.
A disturbance taking place one evening whilst we were at Pera,
between some English and Genoese sailors, which the patrole
endeavoured to allay, by knocking both parties down with their
long clubs, fifty of the English Janissaries being dispatched to the
spot, immediately secured the parties, with the exception of the
* See the Charter of the Privileges granted to the English, and the League
of the Great Turk with the Qneenc's Majestie, in respect of traffique, dated in
June 1588.— Hakluyt, English Voy. vol. ii. p. li\ y edit. 1599.
+ Per omnos fere ejus imperii fines, vel prsesidio munitionibus adversns hos-
tcm, vel tuteke Christianis Judieisque adversus injurias multitudinis, spargun-
tur. — Aug. Busbeq. epist. 1, p. 9, edit. Oxon. 1660.
$ Reidesel, Voyage au Levant, p. 347.
50
830
LKTTER XLIV.
offender, who having stabbed a marine of the Salsette, had fled to
the ϊ rench palace, and they also apprehended the whole guard ;
one of whom, but for the interference of the Captain of the frigate,
would have lost his head for his indiscriminate assault, and, as it
was, received a severe bastinade. Pera may thus be said to be
abandoned to the foreign ministers, in whose favour even hogs (the
abhorrence of the Mussulmans) are admitted once a year, during
carnival, into the suburbs; and yet these ministers experience on
their visits to the other side of the water, every humiliation which
Ottoman pride can contrive to inflict. Nothing is more true than
that the Turks are a people of Antithesis*, and they show the
contradiction of their character as much in their commerce with
the Franks, as in their behaviour amongst themselves and to
their own subjects. Although the most haughty, and, in their
own eyes, still the most powerful nation in the world, they con-
sent to see, in the suburbs of their very capital, the ministers
of foreign pow r ers exercising an authority which the most petty
potentate in Christendom would consider as a surrender of his
sovereign rights, and they require at the same time, from these
same representatives of the first monarchs in Europe, certain
other submissions in point of .conduct, which no other people
but themselves would demand even from the agents of the most
inconsiderable states. Some change, however, must have taken
place in the feelings of the Turks since Prince Repnin, in 1774,
rode through the city, attended by six hundred men with drawn
swords, after the signing of the treaty between the Empress Ca-
tharine and the Porte -J\
* Voyage an Constantii ople, chap. xvi. p. 143, edit. Paris, 1805.
+ Const. Aug. and Mod. p. 73.
^-^--*
^^H r^v••^ : "S*' { tiJ,?^ l l" : ¥
^H
H^HHH
VHW ι>ϊ ΤΟίΗΠΙΑ^Λ or Hie AKTIIJJKV
W J /*" _■*».
■I
■„/,>„. 7 'uMxh.-Jbv
AKSVrVAIj a1 <:OWSTA"NTI.\(H , 1jTK
I
■ -»r.~:"v»!.t by their howling, and have seen
a pack of them Hunting a strange dog beyond iheir boundaries.
We had not much less than a mile to ride, the whole way on
an ascent, before we cane tu our inn. This was situated at the
corner of the main street of Pera, where four ways meet ; all of
which were not less mean and dirty than the lanes of Wapping.
The hotel, however, (kept by a Mons. Marcnand) was a very
comfortable mansion, containing many chambers handsomely fur-
nished, and a large billiard-room, which is the resort of all the
idle young men of the place. Our dinners there were better
served, and composed of meats more to the English taste than
we had seen at any tavern since our departure from Falmouth ;
and the butter of Belgrade (perfectly fresh, though not of a pro-
per consistency), was a delicacy to which we had long been unac-
customed. The best London porter, and nearly every species of
wine, except port, were also to be procured in any quantity.
To this, eulogy cannot be added the material recommendation of
ch• -apneas. — There is another Frank hotel at a little distance in
the same street, which in this respect is preferable, but is in,
every other point of view inferior to that of Mons. Marchand.
* Present State of Turkey, p. 288, 4io. edit.
834
LETTER XLIV.
Immediately opposite to my bed-room window was a Turkish
coffee-house., and a wooden bench under the wall near the door
was constantly occupied by four or five of the patrole, sleeping at
their length or smoking. These watchmen, called Passevend*,
belong to the Topges, or gunners' corps, and the Topge-Bashe is
their immediate superior : they carry a long pole shod with iron,
which they beat violently against the ground in going their
rounds during the night, and employ with no little dexterity in
tripping up the feet of those whom they wish to overtake, by
flinging them along the ground.
There is no preventive police in the place ; and, in the punish-
ment of offenders, those who are caught suffer for those who
escape. A severe beating or bastinade is inflicted without any
previous enquiries, upon the first person whom, in any disturb-
ance, the patrole happens to seize. Either no pains are taken
to discover the guilty, or when discovered he may prove to belong-
to the Janissaries or some other corps, and will then be protected
by the whole body of his comrades. A single oda wili sometimes
refuse to surrender a culprit, even when demanded by theJanisoar-
Aga, the General of all the Janissaries.
I was at a little distance from the watchman's station one day at
noon, when a young woman, belonging to a class of which there
are but few in the place, made use of an abusive expression to a
galiondge, or sailor of the fleet, who, without answering, drew his
attaghan and stabbed her to the heart. One of our Albanians was
* The famous Passwan-Oglu was, as his appellation denotes, the son of one of
these watchmen. Many Pashas are what we should call nick-nanvd ; a species
of raillery at which the Turks are very ready: thus Topal-Pasha, is lame
Pasha; Kusch-Pasha, bald Pasha; Kior-Pasha, oae-eyed Pasha.
LETTER XLIV.
835
on the spot, and came up to me with the story. It happened
close to the guard-house, and the sailor walked deliberately down
the hill tow ards the port without any attempt being made to ap-
prehend him. The wearing of arms is prohibited in Constanti-
nople, but in Pera many Turks, especially the galiondges, during
the passage of troops to the armies, under pretence of being pre-
pared for service, carry pistols and daggers in their belts. I
have seen one man run after another with a drawn sword, without
the least effort on the part of the bystanders to interrupt the fray.
Notwithstanding, however, this state of insubordination, it
might be supposed that no little pains were taken to preserve the
peace, or at least to enquire into the state of the city, by the con-
tinuation of a practice which has furnished so many agreeable
incidents for the authors of the One Thousand and One Nights
and the Arabian Tales. I have more than once observed a grave
looking personage in a. mean habit, sitting on the bench amongst
the Passevend opposite our hotel, playing with his comboloio, or
string of beads, apparently lost in meditation, now and then turn-
ing up his head for a moment, and then again resuming his soli-
tary game. This I was informed was the Bostandge-Bashe in
disguise. This officer is a person of the highest dignity in the
imperial household* second only to the Selictar-Aga or royal
sword-bearer: he is. the chief of the Bostandges, who, from
being originally the gardeners of the Sultan, are now a domestic
guard, although without fire-arms, composed of five or six thou-
sand men. He is at the head of the police (not including Con-
stantinople ), from Gallipoli to the shores of the Black Sea, and
is Governor of Adrianople. It might be thought that the duties
of the Bostandge-Bashe render in his case this species of mas-
836
LETTER XLIV.
querading of some service, but the other great officers of state,
by no means connected with the internal regulation of the coun-
try, indulge in the same practice. I have met the Capudan
Pasha on horseback dressed like a common sailor, and unattended.
The Grand Signior himself sometimes parades the streets, as it is
called, incognito, but is nevertheless so accompanied, as to ren-
der it not only easy, but necessary to recognize him. The purser
of the English frigate Sea-horse and a woman, walking in Galata
crossed the street before the late Sultan Selim as he was going
one of his rounds : he ordered them both to be bastinadoed ; but
beino• informed that the man was an English subject, contented
himself with the cudgelling of the woman. Many stories are told
of summary vengeance being taken on petty offenders, and of
bakers and butchers having been hanged at their shop doors, but
I never learnt that the peace and good order of the state were
any way advanced by the administration of this furtive justice.
A fire which had burnt down nearly the half of Pera, rendered
it difficult to procure lodgings ; but in three days we were set-
tled at a house in the main street, and immediately opposite to a
small convent of nuns, and a lane leading to Frantzoos-Sera'i, the
mansion-house of the French embassy.
The word seraglio, so often confounded with harem, the dwell-
ing of the females, although used by distinction to signiiy the
imperial residence in Constantinople, means in the original
Persian word Sarai*, no more than a house belonging to any
person of distinction, and thus the Turks have the expression
Tnglees-Sara'i, and Frantzoos-Sarai' ; the English palace, or the
* D'Herbelot, Bibliotbeque, Orient. Artie. Sarai.
LETTER XLIV.
83?
French palace. The first of these is a large stone building, very
handsome in its external appearance, and containing several
long and lofty rooms, one of which is fitted up like an audience-
chamber, with a throne under a velvet canopy. It was built lately,
at the expence of the Sultan ; and the contractor, to make the most
of his bargain, completed the work so imperfectly, that some of
the suites of apartments are almost uninhabitable from the damp.
The palace is surrounded by a piece of waste ground inclosed by
a high wall, and stands at the edge of Pera, on the verge of an
extensive burying-ground which slopes down towards the Golden
Horn, and opens a view, from the upper windows of the house, of
that part of the port where the Turkish fleet is usually at anchor.
The vicinity of a cemetery is not in the capital of Turkey
judged by any means disagreeable, and no spot is so lively and fre-
quented as tire Armenian and Frank burying-ground at the outskirts
of Pera, called MNEMATA, or the Tombs. It is shaded with a
grove of mulberry trees, and is on the edge of some high ground,
whence there is a magnificent view of the suburb of Scutari, and
a great portion of the Bosporus. Between it and the town there
is an open space, having on one side, towards the north, a hand-
some structure of very considerable extent, inclosing a square,
which is the Topges, or gunners* barracks, and furnishes quar-
ters for several odas of artillery-men. The flat before the bar-
racks, is on Sundays, Saturdays, and Fridays, but more par-
ticularly the first, the scene of a hundred childish amusements.
There may be seen arabuis or light waggons drawn by a pair of
oxen painted in spots, and horses saddled ready for hire, together
with swings, mps and downs (Άιω'ρα*) ( tee-totums, and most of our
* Mr. De Guys hints at the antiquity of this see-saw (Letter xiv.), and not
less gravely than the sire of Scriblcrus approves also of Myinda^ or blindmanV
buff, as a classical pastime.
5p
838
LETTER XLIV.
common games of chance ; besides a number of coloured tents,
and moveable stands, containing sherbets, ices and fruits.
The Mahometans seem to enjoy the leisure of the Christian and
Jewish Sabbath, no less than that of their own holy day, and
leave Constantinople to lounge amongst their fellow-subjects of
the suburbs. Groupes of Turkish ladies stroll about the walks,
or seat themselves on the tomb-stones, or within the tents, sur-
rounded by their children and attendants, and spectators of an
amusement which has at least the recommendation of ancient
authority — this is the wrestling, which has been often described
at length, and may be understood from the following short sketch.
A ring is generally formed by Turks seated on the ground
(although two antagonists will sometimes commence the sport un-
observed, and apart), who contemplate the mutual efforts with
sedate eagerness, and now and then withdraw the pipes from
their mouths to applaud any unexpected exertion. The wrestlers,
excepting a pair of tight leather drawers, are completely undressed,
and their dark naked limbs and shaved heads shine with the oil with
which they are plentifully besmeared. They advance slowly to-
wards each other from opposite quarters of the ring, shouting and
clapping their hands forcibly on their thighs, at the same time
inclining their bodies, as if with the purpose of obtaining the
undermost grasp in the subsequent grappling, and they continue
at this kind of manoeuvre, cautiously surveying and circling each
other for some time before they join. They do not attempt to
strike each other, but lay hold of the arms as a prelude to the
serious encounter. When they are locked together, the chief
effort of each seems to be to pass the arm between his opponent's
legs. They soon bring one another to the ground, which does
by no means decide, but rather commences the ardent part of
the struggle. Then it is that the combatants present a complete
LETTER XLIV.
839
picture of the ancient ΑΝΑΚΛΙΝΟΠΑΛΗ, or incumbent wrest-
ling. They become so interlaced that it is difficult to tell to
whom the arms, legs, and heads belong, and the limbs are occa-
sionally twisted together more uncouthly than it would be thought
the utmost suppleness of joints would permit. They roll over and
over repeatedly, and continue the contest until the head of one of
them is decidedly under the body or grasp of the other, and he
is unable to regain a commanding position.
The Turks originally may have borrowed this art from their Con-
quered subjects, by whom, however, it is no longer practised,
for the Greeks never wrestle. The exercise would perhaps be es-
teemed too manly for slaves, and might render them suspected by
their masters. Yet it is possible that this game was not
adopted by the Turks for the first time at the conquest of the
Greek empire, but was a part of those habits which, although
they were found amongst the civilized Greeks, may have had
their origin, or have been practised of old amongst the barbarous
nations of the east. Sandys, with his usual gravity, deduces the
wrestling from the Trojans *.
The Byzantine ceremonies were some of them borrowed from
those of the court of Persia; and the Frank who witnesses the au-
dience of an ambassador at the Seraglio, may fancy himself another
Luitprand, at the court of Nicephorus Phocas, astonished by the
obscure splendour and mysterious magnificence of the presence-
chamber of the Imperial Greek. It is more probable, however, that
the Ottoman princes had observed the same form at Brusa, than
that tbey adopted it from a court which, after the taking of the ca-
pital, had ceased to exist. The Byzantine Greeks esteemed being
■
* Relation of a Journey, lib. iii. p. 205.
5 ρ 2
840
LETTER XLIV.
on horseback a sign of dignity; for no Jew but the first physician
was allowed to ride in Constantinople*. The same notion has been
before remarked as prevalent amongst the Turks ; but it had been
transmitted to them by their Tartar ancestors ; they did not learn
it from the Greeks. The fact seems to be, that the customs-
called oriental, were not exclusively possessed by the inhabitants
of anj T particular region or country, but were diffused over the
most civilized portion of Europe as well as Asia, and reigned
without a rival until the rise and predominance of another and,
as it were, a distinct race of mankind. — With respect to gene-
ral customs-)•, the Greeks and Turks had little to learn of each
other at the fall of the eastern empire. It is not meant to be
advanced that there was a perfect similarity between them. The
former people may not have mounted on the right side of the
horse, nor have turned their toes inwards, nor have bowed, by
dropping the head on the shoulder, like the Janissaries. The ar-
bitrary regulations of religion or of law, fashion, and what may be
called chance, have at all times made considerable changes in
those points which are looked upon as the characteristic distinc-
tions of nations ; yet, on the whole, the system of manners
belonging to the civilized ancients of the West and East, seems
to be nearly the same as that of the modern Orientals, and
entirely distinct from that of the Franks and of Christendom.
If the Russians, Poles, and Hungarians, have any peculiarities
which distinguish them from other Frank Christians, it is because
these nations are of Oriental origin, and have not long adopted,
* Voyage de Benjamin fils de Jonas, p. 13.
t The conquerors being the more ignorant of the two, might imbibe some
of the opiniuns of the Greeks, and such habits as depended upon those opinions.
See Letter xxxi. p. 508, of this volume.
LETTER XLIV.
841
and still only partially, the manners of the part of the world in
which they are now settled.
The beard*, the loose robe, the recumbent posture, the use
of the bath, distinguished the old inhabitants of Italy and Greece
no less than those of Asia.
In that most important of all points, the condition of the
female, the polished ancients approached much nearer to the
* 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 until (he time of Demosthenes at Athens, and no man was seen without one ia
Rome before the year of the city 454. A smooth chin was a prodigy amongst the
Saracen warriors, for the young Elemir, the son of the great Saladine, wp? frighted
ataman without a beard. Notwithstanding the discontinuanceof this usage before
mentioned, 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 amongst the Greeks, to the latest
period of their empire. The state of manners in a nation amongst whom such a
habit could be renewed after having been laid aside, must have been entirely
different from those of Christendom in our own days. It may be asserted, that
this appendage was worn not very long ago by some amongst the most polite
Frank nations ; but this, as well as the robes belonging to those of the learned
professions, and used on public ceremonies by the chief personages of the state,
was a custom not derived from our ancestors of the north, but from an intercourse
with, or perhaps a pedantic imitation of the civilized inhabitants of the south
of Europet. Tacitus remarks, that of the German nations, there were some,
amongst whom no one was allowed to cut off his beard until he had killed an
enemyj. The Lombards received their names from the singularity of wearing
this distinguishing mark on the face, and their appellation may show us, that
the custom in question did never obtain amongst the ancient Franks, in the
same manner as amongst the Greeks, Romans, and Orientals.
+ The Professors of the University of Paris wore beards until forbidden by edict in 1534 ; in England
the habit was continued much later.
i Et aliis Germanorum populis userpatum rara et privata cujusque audentia, apud Cattos in consen-
sual vertit ; ut primum adoleverint crinem barbamque summittere, nee nisi hoste ca:so exuere votivum
obligatumque virtuti ovis habitum.— De Morib. German, cap. 31.
842
LETTER XLIV.
Orientals than to ourselves. It was, indeed, the boast of civili-
zation to confine one man to one woman, and to check the pro-
miscuous intercourse of the sexes—
" Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura mantis;"
but the frequency of divorce both in Greece and at Rome*, must,
as far as the respectability of the female was concerned, have
been productive of much the same effects as a plurality of wives.
As to the general treatment of women, the resemblance between
the Orientals and the Greeks and (it may perhaps be added) the
Romans, is too striking to escape observation. The ladies of
Athens were confined as rigorously, and were as reserved in their
manners, as those of a Turkish harem. The orator Lysias apolo-
gizes for the widow, whom extreme distress had prompted to state
her case in person to some male relations; and Demosthenes could
no other way prove that Orestes and his sister lived in the same
house, than by an examination of the female slaves, and the evi-
dence of a physician. These are decisive instances, and are quoted
as such in that one of Mr. Hume's Essays called a Dialogue.
A perusal of the fifth book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, will
show that the best Athenian wives were mere domestic drudges :
for the lady of Ischomachus is recommended kneading, baking,
and shaking clothes and carpets, as gymnastics productive of
health, and a better colour than the paint with which the faces
of the females were usually bedaubed-)*. The Theban ladies,
* De l'Esprit des Lois. Liv. xvi. cap. 16. " Coriolan, par taut pour son
cxil, conseilla u sa femme dc se raaricr a un homme plus heureux que Iui."
t Άγχ$ο» -ΐ?-•; i%^>r^i^lie/i M' Jam as• Cmv&om 24. CocAj-/tur,$lnee£fo'f2.
LETTER XLIV.
847
deserted the camp for the city. Neither Carpin, Rubruquis, nor
the otlier carl ν travellers amongst the Oriental Tartars, advert to
any seclusion of their females, although they notice the plurality
and the buying of their wives*. We learn, however, that the de-
Jicacy of never speaking of their females, is ascribed in a much
higher degree to the Turkish nations, than to the other Orien-
tals-!-.
Whether we are to call their seclusion barbarous or not, the
pity bestowed upon the Turkish women may well be spared.
Lady M. W. Montague, who had the best means of forming a
judgment, has given an enviable picture of their domestic life ;
and, as far as can be observed from their public appearance, they
are in possession of the enjoyments suited to their taste. They
can ride in their arabats, sail in their barges, and ramble at plea-
sure through the crowded streets of the city, or the walks in the
environs of Pera. Persons of high rank may refuse themselves
the latter gratification, but if they do, it is a voluntary restraint,
as under disguise they may walk alone in any quarter ; a liberty
not enjoyed by the higher classes of our own capital. Not only
the Armenian burying-ground, but the sloping gardens of Dolma-
Baktche, a mile beyond on the shore of the Bosporus, are fre-
* An rcslc, ' clincun peut avoir autant dc femmcs qu'il en peut nourrir ....
lis Ics achetent fort cherement de leur peres et meres .... Voyage de Carpin
en Tartaric, article ii. — " Pour ce qui est de leurs manages, il faut sea voir que
personne n'a de fern me s'il ne l'achete." — Voyage de Rubruquis en Tartaric,
chap. ix. ; Voyages faits principalement en Asie, &c. aLaHayc, m.dcc.xxxv.
+ The common delicacy of the Orientals in never speaking of their women,
is ascribed in a much higher degree by Arabash to the Turkish nation. — De-
cline and Fall, &c. cap. 65, note 31.
5Q 2
848
LETTER XLIV.
quented by many parties of ladies, who seat themselves on silken
cushions and rich carpets, the furniture of their houses, and view
the djerid playing in the flat below, or the humours of a Jewish
mountebank under a spreading mulberry-tree. A little boy, called
a Dolop-oglassi, generally accompanies them, and plays on a
mandoline whilst they are sipping their coffee and sherbet, and
attending to the gambols of their infant children.
No one has written on the character of this nation without no-
ticing the reciprocal affection of the mother and the children in a
Turkish family, and this feeling, tender in the one, respectful 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
annihilate. The Valide, or Sultan-Mother, possesses a maternal
power, and has sometimes exercised an unpropitious influence
over the Grand Signior himself. The law which forbids the Mus-
sulman to mourn for the dead*, still allows the mother to weep
three days over the tomb of her son. The woman has an abso-
lute controul in her household, and enjoys a domestic power
which, amongst ourselves, it is often the fruitless aim and labour
of a whole female life to attain. Though the " benden dosol,"
or two words of divorce, can dissolve a marriage, they cannot
deprive the wife of her portion, which remains at all times, and
under every circumstance, inviolable.
The plurality of wives, which the spirit of an European lady
cannot even reflect upon with patience, is not in Turkey so terri-
ble, nor so common a calamity as is generally supposed. The
wives, even if there are four, live in separate suites of apartments,
* Bobovius on the Turkish Liturgy, sect. 5.
LETTER XLIV.
849
and command their separate establishments. The daughters of
Sultans, or such as bring large portions, will not allow of a rival;
and those who are not wealthy cannot afford an expensive esta-
blishment of wives any more than of horses or slaves. The same
observation may be made respecting concubinage. The use of
female slaves is not, perhaps, more common in Turkey, than the
promiscuous amours of the husbands of Paris or London : the
difference is only in the institution, which avowedly admits of
such a practice. It should be recollected, that the female attend-
ants usually belong to the mistress, and not to the master of a
family. Former writers have corrected the errors of Christen-
dom, which encouraged a belief that the Mussulmans considered
their females made solely for the gratification of believers, and
denied them souls, and a place in the future Paradise*.
* C{ Mahomet was not so bard-hearted towards the women as to exclude them
from Heaven." There are passages in (he Koran which decide the matter—
*' Whosoever doth good works, either man or woman, and believetb, shall enter
into Paradise." ** They shall enter gardens of pleasure, together with those
of their fathers or wives that have done good." *' Believing men and believing
women shall enter into the heavenly Paradise." — See Surat, xl. v. 43; xvi.
v. 95 ; xiii. v. 23 ; xlviii. v. 5 ; lvii. v. 12; lx. v. 12; lxvi. v. 1 1. See a Short
Systemofthe Mahometan Theology, collected from (be Arabic Authors byAdrian
Reeland, Lond. 1712, sect. 18. Add (o (his, that the learned Dr. T. Hyde, com-
menting on the Turkish Liturgy of Bobovius, says, "the sensual pleasures of
Paradise are reckoned allegorical by the wisest Mahometans, that they may be
better conceived by human understanding ; just as many things are said in the
Holy Bible, after the manner of men. For, writing to (he Morocco embassa-
dor, when I mentioned a pleasant garden like that of" Paradise, he answered me
by a reproof, saying, Paradise was such a place ίο which nothing could be
likened in this world, to wit, which neither eye had seen, nor ear heard, nor
entered into the heart of mcn"-—i\. Treatise concerning the Turkish Liturgy,,
sect. 5, note d, p. I'LL,
850
LETTER XLIV.
These absurdities maybe credited by some of the vulgar, although
the same funeral service is performed over the defunct of both
sexes ; but Sir Paul Rycaut was entirely mistaken, when he attri-
buted the depravity of the Turkish women to their disbelief in a
future state*. He was also going too far, in describing them as
•destitute of all principles of virtue. Examples of sensualtity are
no doubt to be found amongst them, and many travellers, who
perhaps have only been served by the procurers of Pera with Ar-
menian females, will be ready to vouch for, and magnify the fact.
They have, it is true, as great a scope for the indulgence of any
evil inclination as the beauties of Christendom ; but Lady M. W.
Montague can not have been serious, when she hints that they
are equally licentious. I heard several tales similar to those told
in books, of assignations formed at the shops of Jewish mer-
chants and jewellers, some of which had terminated tragically.
An Italian, who kept a trinket shop in Pera, disappeared
suddenly, and a body was found in his house entirely stripped,
which was afterwards discovered to be that of a female of distinc-
tion, who, to gratify her lover, had robbed the harem of her
husband, and had been murdered to prevent detection. The
same motive has sometimes been fatal to the other party. The
courtesans of the suburbs are chiefly Greeks, although there are
some Armenians, and a few of the lowest class are Mahometans.
I should doubt whether there is in the character of the Turkish
women, ignorant as they are, more voluptuousness than in the
spiritual females of our own luxurious metropolis.
* Hist, of the Ottoman Empire, 8vo. p. 271, quoted in the above commen-
tary.
LETTER XLIV.
851
It is roundly asserted by Busbek, Sandys*, and otber writers,
that they are tainted with that which the author of the Present
State of Turkey has overshadowed in the delicacy of his phrase,
" as an incorrectness of taste, and irregularity of conduct -f."
The charge must have been founded on individual instances, but
these enormities cannot, from any thing I heard, be called cha-
racteristic of the Turkish women.
The external appearance of the females does not promise any
very superior personal beauty. Their form is unwieldy and
flaccid, but their large black eyes surmounted with an arched
brow on a forehead of dazzling whiteness, would be sufficiently
attractive, if the appearance of the same features in almost every
woman did not lead one to suspect those beauties to be artificial,
which is generally the case. The other parts of their faces are of
a regular make, and of a polished smoothness. Their died nails,
and some other personal peculiarities, are no more agreeable to
an European taste than their custom of smoking. Nothing can
be more dissimilar than the appearance of a Turkish lady at home
and abroad. Her envelopement is thrown off within doors, and,
as Sandys says J, her under are then her upper garments, which,
although covered with gold and other heavy ornaments, are cer-
tainly not contrived for the concealment of her charms.
Travellers are at this day under disadvantages not experienced
in former times, if, as Mr. Tournefort asserts, the interior of
female baths was once open to the inspection of the curious §.
These retreats are at present absolutely inaccessible ; nor does it
* Epistol. iii. A Relation of a Journey, p. 69, lib. i.
+ P. 355, edit. 4to.
X Relation of a Journey, lib. i. p. 68.
^ Voyage du Levant, leltre xiv. p. 93, torn. ii.
asH
852
LETTER XLIV.
now happen that the women take, as it is reported they formerly
did *, any interest in the conversion of unbelievers.
The purchase of females was at one time permitted to the
Christians : at present, none but Mahometans are allowed that
privilege, or can even be present at the inspection of the slaves.
Aurat-JBazar, the former female slave-market, was burnt down in
the last rebellion. The Imperial Odalisques, belonging to the
Sultan's harem, are for the most part presents from the Pashas,
procured from the merchants who trade in Circassia and Georgia.
They are the attendants of the Khaduns, or favourites of the Sul-
tan, the household of each of whom is composed of 150 or 200
of these beauties. This is a more probable relation than that the
whole of the Odalisques live and sleep in two large dormitories,
as is commonly reported. It is amongst the secrets of the mys-
terious interior of the seraglio (the devlet jureck, words never
pronounced without respect by the Turks), which, in spite of all
research, are even yet preserved, that the number of the Kha-
duns is net precisely known : the last account of the harem limits
them to seven «f•. This calculation, one way or the other, must
be much over- rated, as it would furnish the Sultan with between
thirteen and fourteen hundred concubines : Sultan Achmet the
First is said, in the Continuation of Knolles, to have retained
three thousand ; but Sandys, who was at his court, makes the
number five hundred J. It is reported, that the Odalisques of the
present Grand Signior do not amount to more than three hun-
* Paroles Reraarquables des Orientaux, par M. Galand.
+ Notice sur la Cour du Grand Seigneur, Paris, 1S09, p. 22. Dr. Dallaway
says they were six until the time of Abdulhamid, the last Sultan but two, who
added one Khadun. — Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 27.
J Relation of a Journey, lib. i. p. 74.
LETTER XLIV.
853
dred. Mr. De Tott* seems to think that the annual expence of
each female's dress does not exceed ten guineas, and concludes
from that circumstance, that the harem may be supported without
any vast revenue. — An effectual method of suddenly diminishing
this establishment was adopted by the late Grand Vizier Bairac-
tar, who drowned- more than a hundred Odalisques of Sultan
Mustapha's harem, instead of removing them, as is usually the
custom, to Eski Sara'i, the Old Seraglio.
The idle tales relative to the amatory ceremonies of the Impe-
rial harem require no farther contradiction than they have before
met with from well-informed writers. It appears that the Sul-
tan's selections are made during his visits to the Khaduns, or
sometimes the Valide, and that his choice is notified by the Ke-
yayah-Khadun, or Fntendant of the harem. The story of throw-
ing the handkerchief, which was so established a fact, that it was
introduced with no little success upon the English stage f, and
became proverbial, is not so entire a fiction as has been lately-
imagined, but originates in the oriental practice of accompanying
a visit with a gift, and generally of shawls worked in gold or silver.
The Keyayah, on delivering the notice, presents the Odalisque
with a piece of muslin, containing usually some night garments
and embroidered handkerchiefs.
Every epithet of commiseration has been attached to the ladies
of the harem ; but as no writer was ever able to speak from per-
* Vol. i. p. 131.
+ His Majesty withdrew with Ihe fair one to the interior; " which," said a
writer in a periodical paper of the day, " might be a subject of great content to
the parties, although we that staid without, made, methought, but a ridiculous
figure.
5 R
854
LETTER XLIV.
sonal experience, the pity may be gratuitously and unseasonably
bestowed upon persons who are not, perhaps, at all sensible that
ihey can be the objects of any other feeling than envy and admi-
ration. It was saying more perhaps than was intended, when
Mr. Tournefort allowed them to be, of all the slaves in the world,
the least miserable*. Educated from a tender age within the
precincts of the Seraglio, and feeling not a wish for that liberty
which no female in the empire enjoys, they partake of all the
amusements, and are educated in all the accomplishments of their
sex; and the hopes of each are constantly cherished by the chance
of her being the favourite of her Imperial master, and perhaps
the mother of an Ottoman sovereign.
The Valide, or Sultan-mother, has revenues, and a separate
establishment : her influence has in some reigns been considerable
enough to be highly prejudicial to the interests of the empire ;■
such was the mother of Mustapha the First.
In the first alliance of England and the Porte, there was an
interchange of presents and letters between Queen Elizabeth and
the Empress- Wife, as she was styled, of Amu rath the Third -(-γ
who possessed the importance always attached to the mother of the
heir apparent, and indeed to any Hasseki, or mother of a royal son,
and continued to enjoy her dignity and power as Valide, in the reign
of Mahomet the Third. The Queens of the harem have been
charged with the commission of every disgraceful violence ; and the
ferocious ambition of one female, whose character has been ren-
dered notorious by the pen which has represented it in the most
* Voyage du Levant, lettre xiii. vol. ii. p. 20, edit. Paris, 1717.
+ See Ilakluyt, The English Voyages, &c. vol. ii. p. 311, edit. 1593.
A STDTLTAKAo
London Pul>Iished> by Ja/nes Cawtfwrn ( 24i'('rAs/iiaSt>ret-/S/2.
-Τ-.•:ν•^
LETTER XLTV.
S55
agreeable traits, has communicated itself to the whole succession of
female Sultans. But Roxalana and the mother of Mustapha are
not to cast a shade over all the Ottoman Princesses, any more
than Catharine of Medicis is to be given as a fair specimen of a
French Queen*. The powerful females of the harem have been
allowed to possess in a superior degree a virtue which is of itself
the characteristic of a noble and ingenuous mind — their early be-
nefactors they never forget ; and the rise of several great men of
the Turkish empire has originated from the gratitude of a favou*
rite, who did not fail to bear in mind the author of her introduc-
tion to the Seraglio. The Valide, in the time of the late Selim,
was presented to Sultan Mustapha his father at the age of nine,
by Veli Effendi the Mufti ; and when, in the reign of her son she
was all-powerful, she loaded with wealth Veli Vade, the child of
her first master, and advanced him to the highest honours of the
Law.
I will now conclude this notice of the Imperial harem, which,
as Tournefort says of his account of Gallipoli, is all I can tell of
it without having been there, with mentioning, that I made no
effort to get a sight of its inmates, being persuaded of the total
impracticability of such an attempt. It has not been at all times
impossible to penetrate into the gardens of the Seraglio, by
* The cruel Queen of Solyman, who caused him to murder his gallant son
Mustapha, and the infant son of that Prince, cannot be recognised in the gay
French mistress. The Roxalana of Busbek (see Busbeq. epist. i. p. 29, usq.
ad. 37; epist. iii. p. 121, edit. Oxon. 1660) and Cantemir is not the Roxalana
of Marmontel ; but the author of Moral Tales has recorded the manner in which
she rose to power (and he founded his story on a fact), rather than the use
which she afterwards made of her authority over the Sultan.
5r2
856
LETTER XL1Y.
the assistance of a foreigner employed in their superintendence ;
but the time chosen for that enterprise must be when the Kha•*
duns and the Odalisques have been removed to their summer pa^
laces : even the adventurous Pouqueville beheld only an empty
dormitory. When any of the ladies walk in the gardens with
the Sultan, or move from the different dwellings of the Seraglio,
the Black Eunuchs precede them ; and at the redoubtable cry of
" Helvet!" any gardeners who may be within the walls, abandon
their work, and fly to the gates : even the White Eunuchs are
excluded. A loiterer would be at once cut to pieces by the sabres,
of the Blacks — " Qui est ce qui voudroit mourir pour un coup^
d'oeil si mal employe* ?"
* Touwefort, Voyage du Levant, lettre *iii. vol. iii. p. 20, edit. Parisj 1717,
LETTER XLV.
The Valley of Sweet Waters — The Plain of the Barbysses—The
Woods and Village of Belgrade — Road to Buyuk-dere — The
Thracian Banks of the Bosporus — The Town and Meadow
of Buyuk-dere— The European Side of the Canal to Fanaraki
— The Cyancan Isles, and Ancient Altar — The Asiatic Shores
of the Bosporus — The New Castles — The Hieron — Giant's
Mountain — The Shore to Scutari — Bourgaloue — Fanar-
Baktchessi — Kaddi-Keui on the Site of Chalcedon — Kis-r
Kalesi, or Leanders Tower.
STRANGERS at Pera are usually taken to see a
certain number of spots in the vicinity of Constantinople ; the
chief of which are the valley of Sweet Waters, the villages of
Belgrade and Buyuk-dere, the mouth of the Bosporus, the Giant's
tomb, the mountain of Bourgaloue above Scutari, and the garden
of Fanar-Baktchessi. At. the head of the port is a large rlat of
low land, having very much the appearance of the meadows near
the harbour of Portsmouth, which seems to have been created
by the perpetual alluvions of the river Lvcus, formed by the
united streams of the ancient Cydaris and Barby^ses. 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-
858
tETTER XLV.
encloses a flat valley adorned with the pleasure-grounds and kiosk
of Sultan Achmet the Third, which were constructed by a French-
man on the plan of the gardens at Versailles and Fontainebleau.
The river is there converted into a straight canal, running between
avenues of tall trees. At the kiosk the stream runs over two
flights of marble steps. Near the cascade is a grove of tall trees,
which is the resort of parties from Pera and Constantinople. I
have seen a circle of French gentlemen, with a cloth before them
covered with bottles and glasses and cold provisions, much after
the manner of our jaunting citizens, amusing themselves with a
Jew conjuror, and bursting into loud fits of laughter ; whilst the
groupes of Turks, also spectators, and some of them in two little
lattice-work boxes, built as namasgahs, or places of prayer, con-
templated the scene with countenances of invincible gravity,
forming a strong contrast with the obstreperous mirth of the noisy
foreigners. 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 in-
tended 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 ne-
glected and in decay.
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 sepa-
rates it from another long plain, enclosed 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
LETTER XLV.
859
Sultan's horses, which are turned out on the 23d of April; when
the Grand Master of the Horse (Buyuk-Embrokhor), and his
Deputy (Kutchuk Embrokhor), assisted by all the Squires of the
Stable (Salahor), and attended by the chief officers of state, lead
the horses from the royal stables at the gate called Ahour Ca-
poussi, in procession through the streets of Constantinople to
the valley of Sweet Waters ; the Sultan himself inspecting the
ceremony from the pavilion of Alay Kiosch, near the great gate
of the Seraglio. During the season of their feeding, they are
watched by parties of Bulgars, or Bulgarians, who live in black
tents pitched on the spot, and render it dajugerous to pass the
valley alone, or after the night-fall, as they make no scruple of
demanding alms in too imposing a manner to be refused, and
sometimes fire upon travellers, under pretence of attention to their
charge. A gentlemaa of the English embassy, attended by a Ja-
nissary, was one evening, on refusing to stop, saluted by several
shots, and only saved himself from running the gauntlet down
the valley, by galloping up one of the steep hills on the side of
the meadows. — It is not surprising that the royal horses should
be treated with such respectful attention, since the Imperial stir-
rup is still addressed by petitioners, as in the times when the city
of the Sultan was a camp, his palace a tent, and his throne a
saddle. The Rikiab-Agaleri, or officers composing the board of
state which goes by the name of the Stirrup, are the Bostandge-
Bashe, the two Embrokhors, and the Intendant of the palace-
porters, Capidge Kehayassi*.
* Mr. Eton asserted (Survey of Turkish Empire, p. 27) the preservation of
this ancient form. Mr. Thornton, "after searching with some care," (chap. hi.
860
LETTER XLV.
The country beyond the valley, as well as on each side, is an
expanse of open downs, which, generally speaking, is the charac-
ter 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 intervals for at least a hun-
dred miles. A rich vein of coal, which has not yet been worked,
has been discovered in the woods near the sea-shore.
At Bourgas is a portion of the aqueduct built originally by
Theodosius, or Valens and Valentinian ; destroyed by the Avars
in the reign of Heraclius ; repaired by Constantine Iconoma-
chus ; 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, winch is a stupendous structure, four
hundred and forty feet long and one hundred and seven feet hierh.
The aqueduct at Pontcysyllty may very safely be compared 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 skirts two large reservoirs. The largest of these is railed
p. 97) could hear nothing of the stirrnp, which does however exist, since a
firman of Selim's to Baron Hubschs, Danish minister at the Porte, relative to
some French prisoners, was dated from the Rikiab-Agaleri.
* Le Chevalier, Voyage de la Propontide, &c. vol. i. p. 109.
+ Observations on Thrace, pp. 136, 187.
LETTER XLV.
861
off, and as the wood grows down to the water's edge, and is in-
tersected 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 re-
servoirs, 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. Montague
has rendered an object of curiosity to every traveller. 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 groves, which so conceal the termination of the re-
servoir, as to give the water the appearance of a broad river
winding through the woods.
Some of the foreign ambassadors retire to this village during
spring and autumn. The French Minister gave a sort of fete-
champetre whilst we were there, and several large tents were
pitched on a green near the rivulet, for the accommodation of the
party during their repasts, and to enclose a space which was each
evening allotted to the dancers. The carousal lasted four days.
The repose of Belgrade is completely interrupted by the loud
merriment of the Greeks, who often retire thither from the eye
of superiority, and celebrate their marriages and church-feasts
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
5s
802
LETTER XLV.
Μ. W. Montague*, do not adulterate the beverage of the youths
who assist at these continued Saturnalia.
The route from Belgrade to Buyuk-dere is through the woods,
but after an hour's ride you burst suddenly upon the view of the
Bosporus, and the mountains of Asia. At this spot an aqueduct,
built in the beginning of the last century for the supply of Fera
and Galata, and the villages on the Thracian side of the canal,
crosses a narrow dell, and the road passes under one of the stu-
pendous arches into a valley between sloping woods, which ex-
pands at last into a large meadow, or rather green plain, stretch-
ing down to the shore of a deep bay or inlet of the Bosporus,
called formerly Bathykolpos, and still preserving its name in the
Turkish appellation of Buyuk-dere.
It was numbered amongst the ancient glories of the Bosporus,
that its banks were adorned with continued edifices ; and the ear-
liest of modern travellers remarked, that, after the desolation of
many ages, they had risen again under the empire of the Turks,
and covered the shore for ten miles, from Metopon, the point of
Galata, to the promontory Estias-f-. The same peculiarity is still
observable on the Thracian border of the strait ; and from To-
phana there is a succession of villages, or rather a street of wooden
houses, skirting the water's edge, the intervals between which are
occupied with royal palaces and their surrounding domains. The
banks are every where high, and their declivities above the dwell-
* Letter xxxvi.
t M Collucebat olim ab initio Bospori ad finem xdificiis continuis, qua;
longis bellis eversa iterura excitantur, &c. &c." — Pet. Gyllii, Praefat. ap*
Banduri Imperium Orientale. Pars tertia, p. 255, edit. Paris, 1711.
LETTER XLV.
863
ings are covered with wood, interspersed with vineyards and hang-
ing gardens.
To the artillery barrack succeeds the village of Fondoukle,
commenced by Hussein Aga, in the reign of Mahomet the Fourth,
on the site of the place called Argyropolis, by Atticus, an Arch-
bishop*. Beyond are the gardens and the pier of Dolma-Baktche,
or the Kiosk of Melons. Many of the serai, and summer-houses,
have received these significant, or rather fantastic, names : one
is the Pearl Pavilion ; another the Star Palace ; a third the Man-
sion of Looking-glasses.
The Imperial palace beyond Dolma-Baktche, at the following
village of Beshik-Tash, was built for Bey-Khan, the sister of
Sultan Selim, and is also a favourite retreat of the present Grand
Signior. Mr. Melling, who was employed in fitting up the inte-
rior of the mansion, gave no favourable report of it to his friend
Dr. Pouqueville-f• ; nor is there any magnificence in the ex-
terior appearance of the building. The white pannels and co-
loured pents, with gilded lattices, are, however, of a character
more suitable to every surrounding object than the domes and
colonnades which an European taste might have substituted
for the present serai of Beshik-Tash. At this village is shown
the tomb of Bek-tash, the Saint who blessed the infant corps
of Janissaries, by holding over them his mantle ; a type of
which depends from the caps of those soldiers. Dr. Dallaway,
however, calls this square piece of felt an Egyptian ornament.
* Socrat. Ecclesiast. Hist. Mclct. Gcog. Θρακ», p. 437.
+ Voyage au Constantinople, p. 207. He calls it " mesquin et mediocre;"
but the author of Constantinople Ancient and Modern, describes it in very dif-
ferent terms. P. 139.
5s 2
b04
LETTER XLV.
is ab
so
The tomb of Chairathene-Pasha, the famous Barbarossa
found on the same spot.
Next to Beshik-Tash is the village of Orta-Keui, and bevond
Tefterdar-Bornou, the succeeding point, that of Kourou-Tchesme,
where there is a string of large wooden houses, painted in dark
colours, belonging to the Greek princes, and ecclesiastics of the
Panal, and also to the richest of the Armenians and Jews.
Arnaut-Keui, the Albanian village, is next to Kourou-Tchesme,
and a large palace of the Sultan's succeeds, near Eflfendi-Bornou,
where the stream of the Bosporus, called in this part the Devil's
Current (Cheitan Akindissi), runs with the violence of a mill-race ;
and the boatmen, who are before assisted by a counter current,
formed by the fresh water of the port, are obliged to tow the
wherries for nearly a quarter of a mile. The depth of the water
near the shore is in most parts so considerable, that the Turkish
line-of-battle ships sometimes touch the wooden wharfs, and bear
away their yards against the houses at the edge of the canal.
The succeeding point, Kislar-Bornou, is conspicuous by the
old castle built on the site of some fortresses of the Greek Em-
perors, by Mahomet the Second, which, together with a fortress
on the opposite shore, points out the exact part of the channel
where the Persians, Goths, Latins, and Turks, successively passed
the Bosporus. There are no houses near the fortress, which is
in the midst of a thick grove, rising to a considerable height
on the steep declivities of the impending hill. It is at this spot
that the Bosporus appears like a majestic river, winding between
banks as high and woody as those of the Wye, and not less lively
and cultivated than the borders of the Thames.— I have seen,
says Gyllius, the banks of the Peneus, and the shady dell between
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LETTER XLV.
865
the Thessalian hills of Olympus and Ossa : I have seen also the
green and fruitful borders of those streams which flow through
the rugged mountains of the Median Tempes: "but I have beheld
nothing more lovely than the vale through which the Bosporus
rolls its waters, adorned on either side by softly-swelling hills and
gently-sinking dales, clothed with woods, vineyards, and gardens,
and rich with a gay variety of shrubs, flowers, herbs, and fruit-
trees *.
Nearly opposite to Mahomet's Tower, in the midst of a green
meadow watered by two rivulets, and shaded with clumps of trees
which give it the appearance of a park, stands a large country-
seat, the property of the Grand Signior, but inhabited by the
Bostandge-Bashe, with a centre and wings like an European
mansion-house. The inspection of the canal, as the straits are
called, is entrusted to this state officer ; and he may not unfre-
quently be seen, in the dusk of the evening, in his eight-oared
barge, skirting the villages on the banks. At this time the rayahs
are careful to extinguish every light, and suspend the sound of
music and dancing, which is often heard in passing under their
gloomy-looking dwellings.
The towers of the castles have a mean appearance, as they
are covered with conical roofs. At the bottom of Mahomet's
Tower the boatmen point out to strangers the low doorways of
dungeons, from which they say no one was ever known to return.
They were, indeed, for some time the prisons of Christian cap-
tives of rank φ. But the Towers of Oblivion (such was their name
* Prsfat. ibid.
+ Turribus ejus utuntur pro carceribus ad tucndos principes viros Chris-
tianos in bello captos, — Pet. Gjllii de Boss. Thrac. lib. ii. cap. 13.
SG6
LETT U Κ XLV,
in the time of the Greek Emperors) are now no longer a place
of confinement for the condemned, nor for prisoners of war.
The opposite castle of Anadoli, or Bogaz-Hissar, where the
battery is more formidable than of Roumeii, or Eski-Hissar, is
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 strait, is said by most authors to be midway
of the Bosporus, and according to the ancient dimensions of
the canal, may have been in that position ; but it is commonly
called at Constantinople by the boatmen, as far from Tophana
eis from Buyuk-dere, which corresponds with all the modern
maps, and gives the whole canal, from the mouth at Fanaraki to
the point of Scutari, a length of twenty or twenty-one miles.
Mr. Tournefort's computation of sixteen miles and a half seems
under-rated*.
Beyond the castle, and the point Kislar-Bornou, there is an
inlet of shoal-water, called Balta-Liman, in which we saw
many small trading vessels belonging to Frank merchants, stop-
ped in their progress towards the Black Sea by an order of
the Porte. A little river runs under a wooden bridge into the
bay. From Balta-Liman to a bay, Stenia, there are no houses,
but the remains of ancient foundations are to be seen near the
water side. Yeni-Keui is a village a little beyond ; and from
this point the canal takes a sweep towards the north, after a mile
of rocky shore. The long village of Terapia, where is the French
minister's summer palace, ranges close along the edge of the
canal. From a short distance beyond Terapia, boats going to
* Letter xv. p. 119, vol. ii.
LETTER XLV.
867
Buyuk-dere cross the deep bay ; and opposite to a point, "Keres-
Bournou," you have the first view of the opening into the Black
Sea*.
Buyuk-dere contains the country houses of the Franks of Pera,
and the Russian, Danish, Swedish, Austrian, and other minis-
ters. The facades of these mansions are most of them in the Eu-
ropean taste, and range along an extensive strand a mile and
a half long, in front of the sea, which is the evening promenade
of the inhabitants and visitors. Behind them are large gardens,
with groves of plane, lime, and walnut trees, overshadowing
parterres of flowers and valuable plants. The meadow or plain,
* Mr. Le Chevalier (Voyage de la Propontide, &c. vol. ii. pp. 50—64) has
taken considerable pains in arranging the comparative topography of the Bos-
porus, which may save the reference to Gyllius, and even to the learned detail
contained in Mr. Tournefort's fifteenth letter (vol. ii. p. 118, et seq.), although
he does not altogether agree with cither of those authorities. According to his
notice, Fondoukle is near the iEanteum, where the Megarenses adored Ajax;
Beshik-Tash, the site of the stone Thermastis ; Tefterdar-Bornou, the pro•
montory Clidion; Effendi-Bornou, Esiias; Kislar-Bornou, IIermeum t near
the Woman's Port; Balta-Liraan, the gulf of Phydalia ; the bay of Stenia,
JLeosthenios ; the bay of Terapia, Pharmacias ; Keres-Bornou, the site of
JPeira Dicaia, or the Just Stone, which resisted the robbery of one of two
sailors who deposited their treasure there, with an oath not to invade it except
by common consent (a story which Le Chevalier says is st ill in the mouth of
the fishers of the Bosporus). It cannot but be remarked, that the modern have
occasionally a reference to the ancient names, some of which are translated into
Turkish, others into modern Greek, others only half translated, and others
again not translated, but only having a relation to the old title. Thus, Buyuk-
dere, is Bathy-Kolpos; Terapia, Pharmacias; Kislar Bornou, the Woman's
Port ; and Balta-Liman, the Port of the Hatchet, which seems to be so called
from being thought the scene of a victory gained by the ancient heroine Phy-
dalia
868
LETTER XLV.
the Kalos-agros of the Byzantines, before mentioned, at the bot-
tom of the bay, is mown into a smooth plain, and is also a favou-
rite resort of parties from the village, who take coffee and sher-
bets under the shade of a large plane, or rather a clump of ele-
ven trees growing from one root, commemorated in the Gar-
dens of Delille. On every side this fine valley is embanked by
high and waving acclivities, covered with verdure ; and on the
west and north inclosed with the woods of Belgrade, running like
a park plantation along the verge of the hills.
There is at Buyuk-dere, upon the water's edge, an hotel kept
by an Englishman, one Harriot, in which a stranger may find
very comfortable lodgings and good fare.
On our first visit to this village, we went in the ambassador's
barge to the mouth of the straits. Keeping on the Thracian side,
we passed first a headland, and then a small bay, into which
runs a river*. At another time I rambled over the hills above
the river, where it is joined by another small stream, and
found them a continued vineyard. The strait at this part con-
tracts, and there is a battery on the European shore, at the foot
of the hill anciently called Amilton by Dionysius of Byzantium -f •,
erected by the French engineer Mounier in 1795, and containing
twenty-five pieces of heavy ordnance. It is called Teli-Talian.
Three quarters of a mile beyond we passed Roumeli-Kavak, the
castle of Roumelia, on the banks of the small river Chrysorrhoas,
where there is a battery, raised partly by Mr. Toussaint in 1783,
and by Mounier in 1794. Above are some ruins of a castle built
* u Proraontorium nuncupatum Simara praetcrgressos excipit Scletrinas
ginus." — Dionys. Byzant. ap. Pet• Gyll. de Bosporo, lib. ii. cap. 19.
t Ibid. cap. 20.
LETTER XLV.
869
by the Genoese, on the site of the Temple of Serapis, called by
Strabo the Temple of the Byzantines. On the hill above the
Chrysorrhoas, which commands a view of the Euxine and of the
Propontis, of the Bosporus and of Constantinople, was placed
the ancient light-house, to direct the vessels to the mouth of the
straits*. As we advanced we perceived that the hills on each
side became more high and rugged, terminating on the Thracian
shore in dark rocky precipices, having no appearance of that
culture and animated beauty which adorn the borders of the canal
below Buyuk-dere. Mr. Tournefort remarked a suite of frightful
caverns on this shore, the habitations of the pitiless Thracians, in
passing which the ear was often saluted with echoes as loud as
the discharge of artillery. The whole coast has been described
with inimitable accuracy by Gyllius, to whom, for every classical
information, the traveller should not omit to refer. We rowed
by a battery of twelve pieces of cannon, constructed by Mou-
nier and another French engineer, and also by the bay of Buyuk-
Liman, and passing afterwards near the fortress of Karipche, built
by De Tott in 1773, containing twenty-three guns, arrived at
Fanaraki, or Roumeli-Fener, the European light-house, where
there is also a battery and a village. We had been two hours on
our passage from Buyuk-dere.
We rowed out to, and landed upon the Cyanean rocks, which
are under the hills of Fanaraki. These rocks, rising in five
pointed crags, bear a strong resemblance to the wood-cut in
Sandys' Travels, although the Augustan column, commonly called
Pompey's Pillar, is not as there represented, but shows only the
* Dionys. Byzant. rip. Pet. Gyll. de Bosporo, lib. ii. cap.
5ϊ
870
LETTER XLV.
original base, a fragment of white marble a little more than five
feet high, and nine feet and a half in circumference. A festoon
of laurel leaves, with the head either of an heifer or a ram, is
still discernible round the marble ; but the faint traces of the in-
scription are defaced by the names of travellers. On the upper
surface are oblong grooves, the holes, most probably, by which
the iron and leaden clamps united the shaft to the pedestal of the
column. Mr. Tournefort talks of it as if he had seen it in its
original state, with the Corinthian capital represented in Sandys,
and about twelve feet high ; and mentions it as a decided point,
that the base and the shaft could not have been designed for each
other*. This had been said by Gyllius-j* and by Sir G.AVheler;};;
and Dr. Smith, who saw it before the last traveller, described
the height of the pillar to be about eighteen feet, and the dia-
meter three §. The present base may, as Gyllius conjectures,
have been the altar which Dionysius of Byzantium says was
erected by the Romans on the Cyanean rocks, and dedicated to
Apollo, and it may also have been intended as a landmark, in the
same manner as the statue of Apollo on the rock at the port of
Prasiae, or Raphti in Attica ||.
Supposing the shaft and base to be of different materials, yet
the whole of the column was, it is probable, put in the present
position of the fragment by the person who superadded the pharos*
* " Quand on examine avec soin cette baze et le fust, on convient que les
deux pieces n'ont jamais ete faites l'unepoui? l'autre." — Lettre xv. p. 151, vol. ii»
+ De Bosporo, lib. ii. cap. 25.
J A Voyage, &c. book ii. p. 207.
§ A Collection of Curious Voyages, &c. tome ii. cap. 5, p. 48.
i| See p. 421, of this volunje.
LETTER XLV
871
and dedicated it to Augustus, since the original place of the altar
was visible when Gyllius travelled. The column was standing in
1730*, and when it fell or was taken down, I have not been
able to learn. It is remarkable enough, that two conspicuous
objects at each extremity of the Bosporus, namely, this co-
lumn, and the fort in the islet opposite to Scutari, should have
received such inapplicable titles as Pompey's Pillar, and Lean-
der's Tower.
We did not pass over to the Cyanean rocks of Asia, but rowed
round the promontory of Fanaraki, the ancient Panium, that we
might say we had been fairly in the Euxine. The land recedes
much more suddenly than on the Asiatic side, so that to those
beating along the Thracian shore, the entrance to the straits is
abrupt, and has a fantastic appearance, like the mouth of some
mighty sea-monster; the white castles on the dark-coloured hills
having the resemblance of teeth.
The rugged rocks on each side of this strait, appear at this day
as if fresh from the irruption of the waters which tore a passage
into the lake of the Granicus and Rhyndacus, and creating new
* Lord Sandwich's Voyage round the Mediterranean, p. 136. It is worth
while to remark that Meletius, writing about the time of Tournefort, seems to
say that the pillar had fallen into the sea, unless he alludes to the position in
the midst of the waters. To Φχνκρι της PJu /χίλικ, πλησίον τ» όττοία Λΐ*«ρ3•«3>ι i
Στυλ»?, Ιπιγραψην 'ίχονσχ AuTiviy.nVy Oxrtxviocvx, ί)τ*ί ταΐ/ϋΐ/ Έίσμίνη ϊνίον της 3"α-
λύστης κίΓτα». «υτ2 ττί χιΐντα,ι και ά» Κυανεα* Νίχτιίί? — Θ/>άκ», ρ. 438 ;
which appears to bear this literal translation : " the Phanar of Roumtlia,
near which was erected (the word in vulgar Greek signifies restored J the pillar,
bearing the Latin inscription, of Octavius, which now fallen down, is in the
midst of the seas, where are also the Cyaneans islands."
5t2
872
LETTER XLV.
channels and seas, gave another surface to a vast portion of the
western hemisphere*.
We tasted the waters of the Euxine, and it was not to esta-
blish any theory, but merely from a persuasion of the fact, that
we all pronounced them to be scarcely brackish. The compara-
* The natives of Samothrace preserved in the age of Diodorus, a tradition
of the times, when their ancestors trembled at the flood rushing from the Pro-.
pontis through the broken channel of the Hellespont. — Hist. lib. 5, p. 322.
Tournefort, Letter xv. p. 125, vol. ii. See also th© first book of Slrabo,
pp. 49, 50, &c. and Casaubon's Comment, p. 32. Aristotle arguing upon these
supposed facts, thought, that at certain intervals the sea necessarily changed
its position ; and Pliny mentions that the passages now called straits were forci-
bly made, " invitis terris." — Prsefat. Hist. lib. vi. Naturalists have been con-
vinced that the plains between the Caspian and the Baltic were once an expanse
of water ; but that any earthquake would effect such a mighty revolution, may
not be so decidedly believed, notwithstanding the vestiges of great volcanic ex-
plosions still observable by travellers. External violence on the body of this
planet, may cause that partial alteration of its position, which would drive the
waters towards a new equator, and produce those changes on the face of the
earih, which have dried the sea, and deluged the land. But the perpetual
influx of rivers, which was supposed by the ancient naturalists to have
caused the irruption of the Euxine, will not, according to modem theories, ac-
count for such a phenomenon. The Mediterranean loses by vapour. 20,300,000
tons a day, which is very nearly three times as much as is supplied in
twelve hours by all the freshes, reckoning those of the Euxine amongst them,
which fall into that sea. Those who believe with Dr. Halley, that there is
"an cquilibre of receipt and expence in the whole sea," will doubt, perhaps,
whether the formation of straits is to be ascribed to any such event as that
alluded to above, nor will they be alarmed lest the prophecy which Polybius
records in his fourth book, should be fulfilled, and the Euxine become one vast
expanse of marsh and mud. See An Estimate of the Quantity of Vapours
raised out of the Sea, Sfc. Presented to the Royal Society by Mr. E. Hal*
ley, F. R. S.
LETTER XIV.
873
rive sweetness of this sea, which was remarked by the ancients*,
but was confined by Ovid-j- to the surface of the water, ha*
been indeed established by modern naturalists J.
On returning to Buyuk-dere we kept nearer to the Asiatic
shore, and being assisted by the current, were only an hour on
the passage. There is a fort and a light-house on the Bithynian
side of the entrance, upon the ancient promontory Ancyraeum ;
and from this point to the Fanar of Europe is a little more than
three miles. From the two Fanars the strait contracts ; and at
Porias-Liman, a mile and a half lower down, there is a fort of
twenty-three guns, erected by De Tott in 1773. The succeed-
ing headland, a mile beyond, now called Fil-Bornou, and formerly
Cape Coracium, forms, according to Tournefort, the beginning
of the narrows, for the width of the passage is there only a mile
and a quarter. But the Bosporus runs into a retreating bay
within Fil-Bornou, which having been distinguished by the an-
cients as the Gulf of Pantichium, ;tow has the name of Ketcheli-
Liman, and sweeps round for nearly three miles to the next
headland, one of the three points of ihe ancient cape of Bithynia.
Upon this point stands Kavak-Anadoli, the castle of Asia, nearly
opposite to Roumeii-Kavak ; and as the strait is not more than a
* Sirab. lib. i. p. 5a.
+ " II est certain que les caux de la mer noire sont bcaucoup moins salees que
celles de nos mers." — Vojage du Levant, lettre xv. p. 129. 1717.
^ Copia tot laticum qiuts auget adult^rat undas
Nee patitur vires requor habere a uas
Innatat unda fretodulcis, leniorque marina est,
Qua; proprium mixto de sale pondus habet.
See.Casaub. Comment. Strab. p. 52.
874
LETTER XLV.
mile across, the first modern defences of the canal were erected
in this place by Sultan Mahomet the Fourth, to stop the incur-
sions of the Cossaks, Poles, and Russians.
A battery of thirty-seven pieces of cannon, and twenty mor-
tars, constructed by M. Toussaint in 1783, and by Mons. Mou-
nier in 1794, has now given the name of the New, to what was
formerly called the Old Castle. The spot being considered the
entrance of the Bosporus, was chosen by the Byzantines for the
site of a strong-hold ; and on the slope of the hill, above the new
battery, there are considerable remains of a castle and wall, which
appear to be minutely described by the topographers of the Bos-
porus, as the fortress and circular wall, ruined by the Gauls, but
rebuilt by the Greek Emperors, and, as is generally supposed,
put into a state of defence by the Genoese.
A village near the battery, called Ioro, or Yoro, has been men-
tioned by every traveller as pointing out the site of the temple
and port of Ilieron, and consequently deciding the spot on or
near which Darius took his survey of the Euxine. Gyllius found
the village on the European cape called Ieros-Romelias * , and
Meletius says that the Turks call the castle Ieros-Kalessi-f•. I
did not hear of such a name ; but I find by my journal, which
was not written under the impression of the spot being an object
of so much controversy as by the detail in Gyllius it appears to
be J, that the best view of the embouchure of the Bosporus, and
of the expanding sea, is to be procured not on the hill commonly
* De Bosporo, lib. iii. cap. 20.
+ To lv τγ Άνατολϊϊ καλίΐταί ΰπο των Τούρκων Ί'.ρος Καλετ). ΠΟΝΤ. και
ΒΙΘ. ρ. 446.
% De Bosporo, lib. iii. cap. 5.
UMteiWtfi
LETTER XLV.
875
called the Giant's Mountain, but on a barren summit above the
Genoese castle.
The temple of Jupiter Urius was under this castle, and as the
Uieron, if not the actual temple, as is supposed by the latest
authority*, was however an adjoining district, it may, like the
ΤΕΜΕΝΟΣ, or sacred portion of Hercules at Marathon, have
included the summit immediately above the fane, but scarcely
the neighbouring hills. Tournefort, who, in alluding to the spot
where Darius was seated, thought the expression of Herodotus,
ΕΠΙ ΤΏ ΊΕΡβ, upon the Hieron, could be brought to signify
the port of the Hieron, might have extended the meaning to any
portion of the sanctuary, whence the most extensive prospect was
to be obtained. It is evident, that the preposition upon is not
to be taken in its most precise sense, or in construing the whole
passage, we must suppose Hieron, and the seat of Darius, to be
on one of the Cyanean isles-}- ; which no modern appearances will
justify J.
The headland Magiar-Bornou, fortified by the battery called
Youcha, with twenty-three guns and twelve mortars, constructed
by Mounier in 1795, is a mile and a half below Anadoli-Kavak,
and under the towering Giant's Mountain. From this point,
which corresponds with the Argyronian cape, the strait recedes
* Clarke's Travels, pp. 682, 683, 684, vol. i.
+ 'EvS'iimi' Ισβάς Ις νίχ ϊπλίΐ Ιπι τχς Κυχνιχς κχλιυμ.ίνχς τχς πρόπρον
πλχγκτας'Ελληνίς φχ<τι uvxi, Εζό[λ,ίΐ>ος $\ ίτη τω Ιρω ίθνΐίΓτο τον Πόντοι* ίόντ&
άζιοδίητον. — Hist. lib. iv. cap. 85, p. 268, vol. iii. edit. Glasg.
| " Sed si tcmplum aliquando in Cyaneis iuisset, qusedam vestigia restarent,
vel excavatorum itindamcntorum, velexcisa via ad a oensum, ubi nulla appa=
ient^' &c. — Pet. GvH• de Bosp. Thiac. lib. iii. cap. 5.
876
Gutter xlv.
opposite to 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 Port, a bay of a mile wide, is closed at
the other horn by Cape Stridia, or the Cape of Oysters, called by
the Turks, Selvi-Bornou.
We sailed towards this bay from Buyuk-dere, and landed at a
spot which is called the Grand Signior's Scale, having been the
landing-place leading to a magnificent kiosk now in ruins, but of
which the gardens still remain, at Sultanie-Baktchesi, near the
village of Beicos. We mounted some horses at a coffee-house,
where there were several ready saddled for visitors, and passed by a
large paper manufactory at the head of an extensive meadow, or
smooth-shaven lawn, shaded by rows of tall straight oaks, and
watered by two clear rivulets, where the ladies of the Imperial
harem often take boat in the summer, and jaunt up the beautiful
vallies in their arabats, to some artificial lakes or large reservoirs,
where they fish, and amuse themselves with the dancing and music
of their Odalisques. We wound up the hills towards Anadoli-
Kavak, and had peeps of several woody dells divided by little
rivulets, opening upon us from below. The most accurate ob-
server of the Bosporus says, that it receives thirty rivers, and
that its banks are adorned with more than fifty values*. In less
than an hour we were on the top of the mountain above Magiar-
Bornou, and repaired to the Tekeh, or Dervishes' chapel, where
w r e were shown, in the adjoining garden, a flower-bed more than
fifty feet long, rimmed round with stone, and having a sepulchral
* Pet. Gyll. Piiefat. de Bosp. Thrac.
LETTER XLV,
877
turban at each end, which preserves a superstition attached to the
spot long before the time of the Turks or of the Christian Greeks
of Byzantium ; and which, after having been called the tomb of
Amycus, and the Bed of Hercules, is still the Giant's Grave.
A century ago the shore near Beicos was named Amya, which
suggested to Tournefort, that the village was on the site of the
capital of the son of Neptune, slain by Pollux. Had that tra-
veller been aware of the name of the hill above Magiar-Bornou,
he would not have conjectured Amya to be the place of the hero's
sepulture ; but it appears that he too closely followed Gyllius,
who omitted noticing the summit of the mountain, and the tradi-
tion attached to its gigantic grave, although he took considerable
pains in rectifying the topography of this part of the coast.
The ride on the hills from the Giant's Mountain to the summit
above the Genoese castle, gave us a view to the right of a large
tract of dark forest country, intersected by deep dells, or green
ravines, which, when contrasted with the luxurious banks of the
canal rolling beneath us between a line of painted villages and
gardens, appeared like a dreary wilderness. It is set apart for
the Grand Signior's hunting.
The Bay of Beicos, or the Sultan's Bay, formerly called the
Round Gulf*, is succeeded b} r the ancient Catangean gulf, which
is terminated on the west by Kandlinge-Bornou, a promontory
with two points, inclosing a small bay called Placa, supposed by
Gyllius to be the port of Phryxus. Kandlinge is a considerable
village. Anadoli-Hissar, the old castle of Asia, opposite to Ma-
homet's Tower, together with a village, is a mile and a hall lower
* " Hie sinus jam Soltanicus prius Cycla minus appclhtlus." — Pet. Gyll. do
Bosp. Thrac. lib. iii. cap. 7.
5 tf
878
LETTER XLV.
down, at the western extremity of the Gulf of Manoli. A river,
Yok-su, the Green Water, which is navigable by boats for a mile,
and is the largest of the streams running into the Bosporus*, dis-
charges itself to the south of the fortress ; and the mouth of
Kutchuk-su, the Little River, is above Candile-Baktchesi, a
village on the site, as Gyllius and Tournefort thought, of the
Bitrrynian Nicopolis ; but Meletius places that town at Mutania,
twenty miles from Brusa-f•. The Bostandge-Bashe's palace, and
a long succession of royal gardens, occupy the plain and the sides
of the hills between the rivers. Coule-Baktehessi, a village a mile
and a half below Candile, on the plain formerly Cecrium, or Jprotos-
Discos Major, is opposite to Korou-Tchesme ; and from this piace
the towns of Tchen^el-keui, Stavros, and Cossourge, occupy with
little intermission the whole shore, as far as the great suburb of
Scutari. Tchengel-keui is on the site of Chrysokeramus ; Stavros
on that of a place of the same name, or Staurosis, so called from
a golden cross which was raised on a church constructed on the
spot by Constant! ne the. Great, and now remarkable for a magni-
ficent mosck built by Sultan AbdulhamidJ.
* Pet. Gyll. de Bosp. Thrac. lib. iii. cap. 8.
τ ΠϋΝΤ. και ΒΙΘ. p. 448. In Gyllius, a promontory to the west of Can-
dile-Baktrhesi, is the Ακρα Ροιζουσχ of Diunysius. The next headland is the
pro,• onlory Helia, and the succeeding bay I'rotos- Discos Minor. The point
between Chrysokeramus and Scutari, was in his time Hermonianum, but more
commonly Nagalon. — See Anaplus Bcsphori Thracii, ap. Banduri Imper.
Orientale, torn. ii. chart, iii. Chrysokeramus was so denominated from a church
with gilded tiles, built by Justin and Lobe. — See Anonym. Antiq. Constant,
lib. iii. ap. Band. torn. i.
% Melel. ΠΟΝΤ. κ «ι ΒΙΘ. p. 447. Tournefort, lettre xv. p. ISO, vol. ii.
Between Stavros and Tchengel-kcui is a large monastery of the Akoimeti, or
rife*
LETTER XLV.
As the villages on the Bosporus are not, like the capital, in-
closed in walls, the passage from Buyuk-dere to Tophana after
nightfall is indescribably agreeable. As far as the castles only the
Thracian border appears lighted, but below that point a thousand
twinkling fires gleam upon the margin of the canal, and near the
mouth of the straits the sloping hills on each side of the water
glow with the brilliancy of a vast illuminated amphitheatre.
The hills on the side of the modern Chrysopolis are for some
height one cemetery, or forest of cypresses. The prediction which
foretells the subjection of Constantinople to a white or yellow-
haired nation, has gained credit during the last century ; and the
Mussulmans, who choose a more secure repository for their ashes,
prefer the burying-grounds on the Asiatic banks of the Bosporus
to those of the capital.
We went more than once to the hill of Bourgalou, not quite
an hour's ride above Scutari. Near the top is a fountain of clear
water, which is much esteemed, and sold for five paras the half
gallon in Constantinople ; and the country upon the declivity, in
the immediate neighbourhood of the hill, is covered with gardens,
melon-grounds, and vineyards, supplying the capital with fruit.
Northwards the ground is also well cultivated, and divided by
sleepless monks. The spelling of the Turkish names by foreigners not ac-
quainted with their language, is entirely arbitrary, and so different in different
authors, as to cause much confusion in comparing their accounts. Wheler has
Bechihoash, Barloliman y Therania, and Boindore, for Beshik-Tash, Balta-
Liman, Terapia, and Buyuk-deie. I have endeavoured to spell those names
which I recollect, just as they sounded to my ears, although this docs not give
a very good chance of correctness. Mons. Bassompierre having occasion to
mention York-House and Kensington, spelt the one Iorchaux, and the other,
still more strangely, Inhimhort.
5u 2
£80
LETTER XLV.
hedge-rows and frequent avenues and clumps of trees. The sum-
mit of Bourgalou commands a prospect of the windings of the
Bosporus to Buyuk-dere, of Constantinople, Galata, and Pera 5
from the Seven Towers to the Topges* barracks, of Princes Islands,
the Gulf of Nicomedia, and, in a clear day, the island of Marmora.
We rode down the hill across an inclosed country to Fanar-
Baktchesi, on the point anciently Heraea, or Hergeum*, distin-
guished afar off by some tall cypresses, and a tower yielding a
very faint light. Some ruins of that which was first a church,
and then a mosck, near the light-house, are by the native Greeks
called the palace of Constantine, but were constructed out of the
remains, it is probable, of some buildings erected by Justinian.
On the south of the point is a fishery, where vast quantities of
young tunnies, are annually caught. A man is perched upon
a high pole, and when he sees the shoals of fisk within reach,
lets drop his net, which is suspended in the same manner as that
commonly used for the ensnaring of singing birds. Behind the
point are some gardens, and at the back of these is a raised ter-
race, overshadowed by tall venerable trees, and containing two
reservoirs of water, about four feet deep, with a jet playing in the
midst of each. One of these is used as a bath, and is made pri-
vate by a canvas screen or curtain. They are remains of the
baths of Justinian.
The grove of Fanar-Baktchesi is one of the many resorts of
the Franks, Greeks, and Turks, of the capital. At one of our
* Efi $y ττροτΓΰίρο&ε κλυτίίί Χαλκτίίονο? α,χρχ
Ηραία τρηκ»<τα πολυσπιλας .
Demosthenes dc rebus Bythinicis, ap. Gyll. de Bosp. Thrac. lib. iii. cap. xi.
In the time of Gyllius the point was called flic promontory of John of Gala-
moti, and the church was, I suppose, dedicated to that saint.
LETTER XLV.
881
visits we saw a party of French gentlemen and ladies carousing
under the trees ; and at another a Turk and three young Geor-
gians, who were amusing themselves with bows and arrows, at-
tended by several slaves, took their repast at the contiguous foun-
tain. An old Bostandge, the tenant of a cottage in the gardens,
furnished the company with pipes and coiFee.
We returned near the shore, and by the bay to the north-west
of the light-house, which is now called Calamoti, and was the an-
cient harbour of Eutropius, belonging to Chalcedon, notorious for
the murder of the Emperor Maurice and his four sons*, and after-
wards for that of the Empress his widow, and her three daughters.
We crossed over a peninsula terminated by the headland of Mounde-
Bornou, through lines of vineyards in a deep sandy soil,, and
passed by a village preserving no memorial of Chalcedon, except
perhaps in its name of Kaddi-Keui — the Judge's Town, which
may be thought to have some reference to the council that con-
demned the Eutychian heresy, and established by a majority of
voices the two natures of the second person of the Trinity. Per-
sians, Greeks, Goths, Saracens, and Turks, by turns despoiled
Chalcedon -f. The walls were razed by Valens, and much of their
materials were employed in building the aqueduct which goes by
his name, and which was, by a singular coincidence, as remarked by
* " Ad cccJcm Maurilii regis movetur Phocas, et in Eutropii portu primum
ejus qnatuor filios interficit, nihil aliud turn dicentes, quam hoc ipsnin : Justus
es Domine, et justurn judicium tuum." — Zonaras, ap. Gyll. Πε /u τ5 Ευτρο-
π/ου Κψ'ίνος. — Anonymi Antiq. Const, lib. iii. ap. Cand. torn. i.
t " Hicc enim iterum, et sapius vastata, primo a Persis, iterum a Valente
Iroperatore muris spoliata, deinde a Gotthis eversa, quam post Cornelius Avi-
tus aliqua ex parte restituit : postea a Saracenis, postremo a Turcis funditus
delseta, ut duntaxat pcrparvus vicus restat." — Pet. Gyll. de Bosporo Thracio,
lib. iii. cap. ix.
SS2
LETTER XLV.
Mr.Tournefort, repaired bySolymanthe Second from the remain-
ing ruins of this devoted city.
Between Mounde-Bornou and the point of Scutari is a head-
land, dividing the shore into two bays, the first of which was the
south-western port of Chalcedon. The headland is distinguished
by a kiosk of Sultan Amurath the Fourth's, called Kavak-Serai,
and now in ruins, the marbles having been taken by Sultan Selim
in 1794, to adorn a mosck within the walls of the Seraglio.
The second bay is partly occupied by the burying-grounds and
suburbs of Scutari; and on a hill above, stand the ruins of the
barracks erected by the late Selim, the exercising-ground, the
mosck, and several wide regular streets, intended by that enter-
prising Sultan to have been allotted to manufacturers of silk and
cotton, which, as it is, are sent from Smyrna to England, spun
there, and again imported to Constantinople, to be worked into
garments and household furniture.
In crossing from Damalis, the point of Scutari, to Tophana, we
rowed a little way into the mouth of the strait, in order to stem the
current, and passed within Kis-Kalessi, the Maiden's Fort, vul-
garly called Leander's Tower, on a rock just large enough for the
base of the building, and for a platform containing five cannons.
This tower, with a wall crossing the sea to the point of Scutari,
and a chain to a second fort on the European shore, was con-
trived by the Emperor Manuel to close the mouth of the Bospo-
rus; but it is now a light-house, not a place of defence; since the
guns are mounted only for saluting, and the garrison, as it was a
hundred years ago*, is, like TyrconneFs regiment, composed of
one man.
* Voyage du Levant, lettre xv. p. 137, vol. ii.
LETTER XLVI.
Galata — The Tabagies, or Wine-houses — Yamakis, or Dancm*
Boys — The Toxuer of Anastatius — Conflagrations — The Size
of Constantinople — Fopidation — Jews — Armenians.
THE suburb of Galata (the Sycae and Justiniana
of the Byzantines, of which Pera has been considered as making
a part*) covers the whole point of land and the hill on the
north of the harbour; and the walls, raised by the Genoese
in 1548, and repaired in 1446, are in circuit more than four
miles•-)•. The gates are always left open ; and as houses are now
built against the walls, the stranger passes through ihem imper-
ceptibly. The outside ditch on the upper quarter is now a rope-
walk. The streets are not so dirty, ill-paved, arid narrow, as
those of Pera ; many of the mansions are of stone, and they con-
tain the commodities and counting-houses of the Frank merchants.
Three churches of the Greeks, and one of the Armenians', besides
religious houses of the Dominicans and Capuchins, are to be found
in this quarter ; in which there is as much licence in the article of
morals as of toleration in matters of religion.
* Sjcena regio, jam vulgo nominata Galata, sivc Pcra, &c. — Pet. Gyll.
Topog. Constant, lib. iv. cap. xi.
t Quater raille ct quadringcntos passus. — Ibid.
BB
t>84
LETTER XLVI.
The use of wine is, as every one knows, prohibited by the
Mahometan law ; but it depends upon the humour of the reign-
ing Sultan, whether this article of faith shall be strictly acted
upon and observed. Selim the Second, and Amurath the Fourth*,
indulged in this excess without scruple ; some Grand Signiors
have staved all the wine casks, and punished those who sold the
liquor with death. The last Sultan Selim, contented himself
with taxing the commodity ; but I know not whether it was true,
as some one has said of his court, that the Seraglio was more
accessible to bottles than to grandees f. The present Sultan has
not been very severe with offenders. When we were in the city,
wine was to be had in all the tabagies or coffee-houses kept by
Greeks, and as no Turk is a drinker without being a drunkard, I
was witness to as much excess in this respect, as might be seea
in the same time at the west end of the English metropolis.
Tabagies are to be found in Constantinople, but Galata abounds
with them, and you seldom fail of being saluted with music, or
more discordant sounds, in passing through the streets of that
suburb. These wine-houses, for so they are called by the
Franks, are usually large halls floored with Dutch tiles, having
* Selim the Second was surnamed Mcst, or the Drunkard. Some historians
say that his frenzy caused by wine was religious, " which he himself declared
to be drunkenness, and so chose rather to be accounted a drunkard than a hy-
pocrite. But. such colourings for the vulgar." — Cantemir's Ottoman Hist
book iii. chap. v. note 1, p. 218. Tindal's translation, edit. 1734. "In the year
1043 (A.D. 1633) anew and hitherto unheard-of edict, is published by the
Emperor (Murad IV.), by which not only the sellers of wine are allowed to
exercise their trade, but also every one allowed to drink it freely, contrary to
the Mahometan law."— Ibid, book iii. p. 240.
+ Notice sur la cour du Grand Seigneur.— Paris, 1809, p. 138.
LETTER XLVI.
885
a fountain in the middle, and a wooden gallery for the guests
running round the sides of the room, about half way between
the ground and the ceiling. That part of the entertainment
which is most to the fancy of the company, and which no Eng-
lishman would patiently contemplate for a moment, is the exhi-
bition of the Yainakis, or dancing boys, who are chiefly insular
Greeks and Jews, but never Turks. The wretched performers
dance to the music of guitars, fiddles and rebeks ; and what with
the exclamations of the master of the dancers, and sometimes the
quarrels of the Turks, so much noise and disturbance ensue at
mid-day, as to bring the patrole to the spot. Rome itself, at the
period of the famous edict of the Emperor Philip, could not have
furnished a spectacle so degrading to human nature as the taverns
of Galata.
We visited the tower of Anastatius, formerly the citadel of
Galata, which was partly burnt down in 1794, but has been
since repaired. The ascent to the summit is by 147 steps, and
there is a wooden house at the top, which is inhabited by the
man whose duty it is to beat a large drum at the discovery of a
fire. The Janissaries' tower in Constantinople is used for the
same purpose, and when the cry of Yangen-var — There is afire!
is heard from the turret of the latter building, the melancholy
sound is repeated by the passevend, who patrole the streets, and
awaken the inhabitants by the loud ringing of their staves. A
fire that has continued an hour, and has been thrice pro^
claimed, forces the Grand Signior himself to the spot. At the
conflagration in Pera, just before our arrival, Sultan Mahmoud
posted himself at Galata Sarai, the college of the Itcholans
or pages, and when the fire burnt up to the English palace,
5 χ
886
LETTER XLVI.
sent repeated messages to assure the embassy that every neces-
sary aid should be afforded to prevent a disaster. He distri-
buted, according to custom, several bags of piasters amongst the
assisting populace. The householders are by no means gainers
by this singular usage, which has often been the cause, and has
contributed to the continuance, of fires. The people, to com-
municate their discontents, become voluntary incendiaries, and
the removal of an obnoxious ministry is accomplished, not by
petitions, but repeated conflagrations. The person of the des-
potic monarch of the Ottomans is, on these occasions, accessible
to all, and the Imperial Manslayer is then obliged to listen to the
revilings of the meanest amongst his people, even of the women
themselves*.
The Turks, who are very expert at pulling down the houses
adjoining to those where the fire rages, often wait until the arrival
of the Sultan ensures them payment for their exertions, and em-
ploy the interval in pillaging. The number of general fires in the
Capital and the suburbs, cannot be rated at less than three annu-
ally. A late writer says, that during a residence of three years»
the annual average was five or six. The houses, of laths and un*
burnt brick, are soon rebuilt, and the inhabitants prepare for this
frequent event, by lodging all their valuables in a chest.
The summit of the tower of Galata is the spot which was made
the point of prospect, for taking the panoramic view of Constant
* Hunkiar, possessor of men's necks. See Titles of the Emperor of tho
Turks ; Bobovius on the Turkish Liturgy, sect. viii. Rycaut says, the Sul-
tan may kill any number under a thousand a day, without assigning a pretext
for his anger ; but the Turkish casuists, Mr. Thornton observes, limit the num-
ber to fourteen. — Present State of Turkey, p. 95.
LETTER XLVI.
887
tinople exhibited in England. Those who have seen that accu-
rate representation, will be able to decide whether the seven hills
upon which this capital is said to stand, and which Pococke de-
scribed to the satisfaction of Mr. Gibbon*, are discoverable in the
present appearance of the city. For my own part, I could not,
upon repeated trials, distinguish the eminences, although assisted
by a plan which divided the town into seven quarters, with a
relation to the same number of hills. Gyllius, however, in his
topographical 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 -j•.
The tower of Galata does not present so complete a prospect
of the city as that of the Janissaries (or Yangen-kiosk — the tower
of fire) : from that summit the spectator will at once be convinced
of the exaggeration in which most writers have indulged, in speak-
ing of the size and population of the Turkish capital. The base of
the triangle on which the city is built, and which extends from the
Seven Towers to the port, is perhaps one-fifth less than the side
the sea of Marmora, and about a sixth larger than that towards
the harbour ; and it appears from this height of so inconsiderable
an extent, that having heard of a comparison between Constanti-
nople and Paris, and even London, I was induced to time myself,
in passing under the walls from one point to another, and found
* Decline and Fall, vol. ii. ρ Γ„ note 22.
+ " Ex eodem enira promontorii dorso sex colles nascentur, eminentes in
Sinum, ut fratrcs dicere possis, ita per ordinem locati sunt, ut alteri alterorum
aspeclum non auferant," &c. — De Topog. Const, lib. i. cap. v. ap. Band. Imp,
Orient.
5x2
L
888
LETTER XLVI.
the walk to have lasted one hour and seventeen minutes. This
will give about five miles for the breadth of the city on the land
quarter, and will reduce the extent of the three sides to fifteen
miles, the measurement of Mr.Spon, and three less than the com-
putation of Bondelmonte, which has been esteemed the most cor-^
rect : at the same time it must be recollected, that Chalcondyles
limited the circuit to one hundred and eleven stadia*, and Gyl-
lius made it less than thirteen miles -j*. It should be added, that
the walls, which are treble on the land-side, and eighteen feet apart
from each other, take away from the real dimensions of the town»
and that the gardens of the Seraglio, and a multitude of other pa-
laces, the large courts of the royal moscks, and the vacant spaces
of the Hippodrome and other open spots, diminish considerably the
jextent of the ground actually covered with houses. There is no
such determinate way of judging of the size of the suburbs of Ga-
lata, Pera, and Scutari, which, if they were not interspersed with
vast burying grounds, would be at least one-fourth as large as the
city within the walls, but cannot be said at present to be in the
proportion of more than one-fifth to the capital itself. A late
author, from a variety of calculations is persuaded, that there could
never have been a population of much more than three hundred
thousand souls within the walls J. But this number must be un-
der-rated, if the register of the Stamboul EfTendissy, or Mayor of
* Melet. Geog. Article, ΘΡΑΚΗ, p. 423. Mr Tournefort, in making the
Thracian side nine, and the whole twenty-three miles, could have hardly con-
sulted his eyes. — Voyage du Levant, p. 46a, vol. i. lett. xii.
+ " Ambitus urbis non attingit tredecim milliaria." — De Topog. Consta
lib. i. chap. iv.
■J: Survey of the Turkish Empire, chap. 7, p. 287, second edit.
LETTER XLVI.
889
Constantinople, showed, that in 1796 there were eighty-eight
thousand one hundred and eighty-five houses * within the jurisdic-
tion of that minister, that is to say within Constantinople, for
the suburbs are under other officers. At least five persons must
be given to. each house, and making every allowance for the
whole of the suburbs on the other side of the port and canal, five
hundred thousand does not appear too large an estimate for the
population of Constantinople and its environs. A stranger is told
by the Turks, that there are many more than a million of inhabi-
tants in the capital, and if he trusted to their accounts, would
also believe that there are seventy-two thousand moscks, whereas
the number of those buildings does not amount to more than two
hundred and twenty, with three hundred mesdjidi, or public
chapels.
I know not what numbers to assign to the different people com-
posing this city, but should suppose that there must be three
Turks for one person of any other nation. The most numerous,
next to the Mahometans, are the Greeks; the Armenians must
be reckoned after the Greeks, then the Jews, and last of all, and
in a proportion comparatively small, the Franks. As the rayahs
have separate quarters. of the town allotted for their habitation,
it might not be thought difficult to ascertain the actual proportion
which they bear, to each other, but no such computation, that I
am aware, has hitherto been made.
The Jews have all. the usual characteristics of their nation*
The most considerable amongst them are brokers and money-
* Constant. Ancient and Modern, p. 16. Dr. Dallaway however reckons
?era and Galata.
890
LETTER XLVI.
changers, jewellers, physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries ; the
lower classes are sherbet-sellers, silk-twisters, druggists, boatmen,
fishermen, confectioners, perfumers, tobacco-sellers, and mounte-
banks*.
Physicians have enjoyed the utmost favour and licence at the
courts of the greatest Mahometan princes, and many of the re-
markable sayings of the Orientals are put into their mouths. One
of the Caliphs being seated on a couch with his favourite physician,
amused himself, half involuntarily, with enlarging a rent in the
bottom of the doctor's robe, and amongst other questions relative
to his art, enquired, to what lengths those of his profession suf-
fered a madman to go before they bound him. The other hesi-
tated to reply, until he saw that his companion had extended the
rent up to his waist, when he said, " Commander of the Faith-
ful, we do not have recourse to the strait waistcoat before a man
is mad enough to tear his physician's gown from the bottom as
high as the girdle." The Caliph laughed at the rebuke, and,
* The present chief dentist to the Grand Signior is a Jew. When first intro-
duced to the Sultan, he was ordered io examine a tooth, which, upon inspec-
tion, he found it was necessary to extract. He very naturally considered it a
delicate matter to give such exquisite and sudden pain to an absolute monarch,
and resorted to the following stratagem. Hiding the instrument in his long
sleeve, he requested permission to re-examine his Highness's tooth, and fixing
the steel and drawing out the tooth with one motion, instantly gave a loud
scream, and fell, as if in a fit, upon the ground. The Sultan jumped from his
scat in his instant surprise and anxiety to reliev.- [he Jew, ami thought, nothing of
the operation or his complaint, until he found Λ ι cause of i( had been removed.
Whether or not the fact was understood at the Seraglio is not told, but such is
the reputation of this skilful Israelite, that he is in perpetual request, and his
fee is not smaller than that of the mos: fashionable London dentist*
LETTER XLVI.
891
after the fashion of the time, rewarded his friend with a purse of
money.
The first physician is a Turk, but the Grand Signior does not
trust his health to any Mahometan ; and the office of the Achim-
Bashe, is only to receive money lor the licences which he grants
to the various practisers of medicine in the metropolis.
The taxes levied on the Jews are not greater than those of the
other rayahs, and they feel the burden of them the less, by
being allowed a tefterdar or treasurer of their own, who collects
the whole sum, and settles with the ministers of the Porte. It is
said that they pay so much annually to furnish the Sultan with
tents. The origin of this obligation was, that a Grand Vizier
having become acquainted with a decision of some Hebrew doc-
tors, by which the Turks were placed on the outside of the walls
of Paradise, averred, that in that case, the Jews should at least
provide them with tents to shelter them in the winter*. This
comment on the Rabbinical dogma was of more importance to
the nation, than the opinion of the Mahometan theologians, who
settled, that in the infernal regions the Jews will be a story lower
than the Christians -f*.
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 shown by them in the ma-
nagement of all pecuniary concerns, give their principal people a
consideration in the eyes of the Turks, equal to that of any other
subjects, although the commonTurks,and more especially the Chris-
* Paroles Remarquables des Orientaux, Galand.
i H Les Mahometans mettent les Juifs dans un etage plus bas que les Chrc-
tiens en enfer. — D'Herbelot, Bibliotbeque Orientale, artic Jahoud*
892
LETTER XLVI.
tians, affect to treat and talk oi them with every mark of contempt
and disgust. They are distinguished by a high square cap of black
felt without any rim or border, which the Constantinopolitans call
in derision hauroux, a word signifying a certain chamber utensil.
The lower classes are dirty, both in their persons and dwellings, and
Ballata, the Jew quarter, is the most filthy of any in the capital,
and not less nauseous than in the days of Christian Constantino-
ple, 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 the
twelfth century, when the Jew of Tudela travelled, 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 petition to the Emperor, that the whole nation ought to
be banished from the metropolis -f•. In the middle of the seven-
teenth century, a traveller was persuaded that there were between
twenty and thirty thousand of that accursed and contemptible
people in the city \ ; and the smallest computation would rate
them now at fifteen.
* Voyage de Benjamin de Tudela, p. 13. Voyages faits principalement en
Asie, &c. tome i.
+ Γξοί[Α[Α<κ ποος τον ΑυτοχξΟίτοοχ πΐξΐ των Β'ίοχτόναν lxSxwv \νχ 1£ίλ$<ύ<Γΐ της
πόλεως. — A Letter to the Emperor concerning the god-killing Jews, that they
may depart from the city.
See Band. Comment, in Antiq. C. P. lib. ii. p. 614, Imp. Orient, torn. ii.
% The reverend and learned T, Smith, D.D. Fellow of Magd. Coll. Oxon,
and F. R. S. A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages, tome ii. cap. 5,
p. 38.
LETTER XLVI.
893
The Armenians are the most respectable of the Christian in-
habitants 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 par-
tial deportation of its inhabitants from the frontiers to the inte-
rior 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 time that he bettered the condition, and added to the im-
portance, 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, become the
patient cultivators of the soil, from the period of this forced emi-
gration substituted commerce for agriculture, 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 Constantinople in the
latter periods of the Greek empire*; but the Armenian mer-
chant, now so well known in every quarter of the globe, was
created by that prince when he established the great colony of
* See the three Epistles of the Patriarch Athanasius to Andronicus tbe Elder,
in which the Armenians are coupled with the Jews as profaning the city by
their religious rites, and worthy of expulsion — Και fri καί wtpl των Ιπίοίιων hou
Αρτίων, όπως ££ελθ»<π.— -Anselm. Band. Comment, in Antiq. CP. lib. ih
p. 615, torn. ii.
5 y
894
LETTER XLVI.
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 commerce, as they had before employed upon the labours of
agriculture, not only enriched themselves and added to the re-
venues of the state, but by an intercourse with more civilized
nations in their long and painful journies, and an interchange of
their merchandize 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 patient in all their
pursuits, honest although skilful in their dealings, accommodating
in their habits and manners without losing their individual cha-
racter, they did not fail to acquire a reputation in every country
to which they were directed by the enterprise of traffic ; and the
preference shown for those of their nation in all commercial tran-
sactions, soon 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,
no less than the Jews, a dispersed people, living in strange lands;
and in Turkey, notwithstanding their numbers, they may be con-
sidered 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 phlegmatic 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 suf-
LETTER XLVI.
895
ficient to assist them in the pursuit of one only object — the at-
tainment 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
advancement 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. " All the world knows," says Mr. Tourne-
fort (to whom the reader, without consulting the work of the
Marchese Serpos, may refer for an account of this people) " that
the Armenians are Christians, and that they would be very good
Christians, were it not for the schism which separates them from
us*/'
It seems that their principal heresy consists in some misunder-
standing of the hypostatic union, a sneaking attachment to the
Eutychian doctors, Dioscores and Barsuma, and an avowed ex-
communication of the council of Chalcedon ; in a belief of the
lesser gospels, of the doctrine of Origen relative to the creation
of souls at the beginning of the world, of the millenium ; and
lastly, in a denial of purgatory and a present paradise.
The practical errors of their church are, a scandalous participa-
tion of the communion by infants, an abominable adoration of the
elements before consecration, a sacrilegious use of confession, the
absurd administration of extreme unction to the dead, and, for the
most part, only to priests, and an ordination of persons unprepared
for the sacred office φ. But neither these theological vices, nor the
* Voyage du Levant, torn. ii. p. 396, lettre xx.
t The epithets are Mr.Tourncfort's, who writes en bon Catholique, but with
a serio-comic air which it is impossible to mistake.
5y 2
896
LETTER XLVI.
adoption of many Greek and Jewish ceremonies, nor the quarrels of
the Patriarchs of Itchmiadzin and Jerusalem for the monopoly of
the chrism* (or holy oil), can be so revolting to a Protestant Eng-
glishman as the dogma which comprehends all virtue, practical
and religious, in a strict attention to the duty of abstinence.
Each Wednesday and Friday are fast-days. Besides the four
great Lents, they have four other fasts of eight days each, pre-
paratory to the feasts of Christmas, the Ascension, Annunciation,
and St. George's day ; during the whole of which they eat no-
thing but roots. The Bishops eat flesh and fish but four times a
year; the Archbishops abstain from both altogether; and as eccle-
siastical honours and fasting augment in equal proportions, it may
be expected, as Mr.Tournefort observes 3 that the Patriarchs must
almost die of hunger.
There is, however, a considerable portion of the Armenians to
whom the above charge of heresy cannot apply. About the year
1520, the labours of Father Bartholomew, a Dominican Friar,
converted many of this nation to the Catholic faith, and to sub-
jection to Pope John XXII.; and since that period the missiona-
ries have proceeded with unequal, but generally increasing, success.
A Catholic Patriarch has been established at Racsivan, and an-
* Formerly the oil could only be manufactured by the Patriarch of Itchmi-
adzin : Jacob, a Bishop of Jerusalem, got himself appointed Patriarch of Je-
rusalem by the Grand Vizier about 1660, and commenced making the chrism
also. " Voi a le sujet d'un grand schisme parmi eux. Les Patriarches s'excom-
munierent reciproquement ; celui dcs Trois Eglises forma un grand proces a la
Porte contre celui de Jerusalem. Les Turcs qui sont trop habiles pour vouloir
decider la question, se contentent de recevoir les presens que leur font les Parties
a mesure qu'elles reviennent a la charge : en attendant chacun debite son liuile
comme il peut." — Voyage du Levant^ p. 405, torn. ii. lettre xx.
LETTER XL VI.
897
other at Caminiec, since the union of the Polish Armenians with
the church of Rome in 1666. Monasteries of religious of the
Dominican order, are to be found wherever any of the nation are
settled; and in some places they are enabled by their power, as
well as inclined by their duty, to brand those of their original
church with the name of schismatics. At Constantinople the
churches are in possession of the latter, and the Catholics frequent
the Roman chapel, although until lately they were more power-
ful than the other party, the Patriarch being a favourer of their
persuasion.
The hatred subsisting between the two sects may be easily
conceived : it frequently breaks out in violence and persecution.
A late Patriarch punished a convert from his church to the Ca*
tholics with five hundred blows on the soles of the feet ; a sen*
tence which he was enabled to inflict, as the holder of the dig-
nity is invested by the Porte with entire authority (except of life
and death) over all Armenians. Neither bribery nor intrigues are
spared to obtain such power, notwithstanding the accompanying
obligation of abstinence ; and there have been instances of two rival
Patriarchs enjoying, or rather dividing, the office between them.
In spite of the difference of their creed, the Roman Catholics, for
the sake, it is presumed, of conversion, have assimilated them-
selves to the temper, and have in some measure adopted the seve-
rity, of the schismatics, to a degree not required by the Latin
church. The first class of the Roman Armenians at Constantino-
ple, assume the manners of the Franks, but in the other orders it
is difficult to distinguish between the two sects.
Some of the customs of the Armenians are no less striking to.
a Frank stranger than those of the Turks. Their women are.
898
LETTER XLVI.
cqualiy enveloped when abroad, and are to be distinguished from
the Mahometan females only by the colour of the square capes of
the feredjes which hang behind their backs: and 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
the parties, are concluded and consummated before the bride-
groom has a view of the face of his spouse, and the disguise is in
some instances continued after the marriage ; but unless the honest
visitors at Pera are much deceived, the extreme delicacy of the
females is reserved only for their husbands. Their constant use
of the bath, and other personal habits, together with the little peril
of an amour with a Christian compared with a Mahometan in-
trigue, 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.
Such of the settlers as have attained considerable wealth,
although their appearance in Constantinople is that of the honest
mechanic, live in much splendour in their villas on the Bosporus
and at Belgrade, and, during the feasts of their church, indulge
freely in the pleasures of the table ; but a late writer was not a little
seduced by the charms of a simile, when he declared, that " their
festivity seems to consist chiefly in being intoxicated, and jump-
ing about with the preposterous activity of an elephant*.
The Armenian cemeteries in the neighbourhood of the capital,
and especially that behind the walls on the road leading to Seli-
vria, present a specimen of one of the scandalous customs in which,
Constantinople, Ancient and Modem, p. 83.
LETTER XLVI.
899
notwithstanding some pretensions to orthodoxy, these people
continue to indulge*. At the tombs may be seen the relations
of the deceased in all the attitudes of grief, from the torpor of
mute despa ; r, to the agitation of uncontrouled sorrow. The men
stand at the foot of the grave, their arms folded, their heads
upon their chests, and the tears rolling down their cheeks ; whilst
the women are seated on the ground, or prostrate on the flat
tomb-stones, beating their breasts, and lamenting aloud. A soli-
tary mourner is sometimes found weeping and praying amongst
the sepulchres ; but on stated days the ceremony is general, and
the priests attend during the performance, which concludes some-
what unexpectedly for strangers, with music, dancing, and feasting.
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-issue it in the loans with which they ac-
commodate the Turks, at the exorbitant interests of between
twenty and thirty per cent. This is the chief source of their
wealth. Many of their corn merchants are in good circum-
stances, and also their goldsmiths, as only a few of any other
nation exercise that trade. There are Armenian surgeons, physi-
cians, and apothecaries. The greater number of bakers are of
* Notwithstanding they have some errors worth to be rejected, and some
scandalous customs besides. So you shall see them here and there cry over
the graves of their deceased friends, &c. — Dr. Leonhart Rauwolf's Travels into
Ihe Eastern Countries, part iii. cbap. 14, Of the Armenians, and their Reli-
gion. The said traveller was of the reformed religion, and a good herbalist,
but a believer in Prester John and the Unicorn,.
900
LETTER XLVI.
their nation. They are the chief house-builders, masons, joiners,
turners, braziers, and locksmiths; and as porters, they show
themselves the most laborious, and, perhaps, the strongest oeo-
ple in the world. Sixteen of them, eight before and eight be-
hind, with their arms extended across on each others shoulders,
will carry a barrel of wine slung on four poles, throwing 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-sp.llers, boatmen, fishermen, silk-twis-
ters, 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 contemporary traveller,
they wash their printed calicoes in sea-water, to cleanse them
from the gum used in preparing the colours -f. On the whole,
the Armenians are the most industrious and useful subjects in the
Ottoman empire.
* Constantinople, Ancient and Modern, p. 128.
t Voyages and Travels by John Gait, p. 275, 4to. Mr. Gait adds, that he
has seen squares of muslin not worth ten shillings, raised in value by the labour
of the painter to upwards of a hundred.
LETTER XLVII.
Ters-Hane — The Harbour and Docks — Visit to the Cupudan-
Pasha at Divan-Hane — Executions — Visit to the Ters-Hane-
Emini — The Sultans Cypher— Russian Prisoners — Visit to
the Capudan-Pasha's Ship, the Sultan Sclim — The Turkish
Navy — Martial Music — Gratitude of the Turks — and other
amiable Traits of their Character — Λ Notice of some Points
relative to the Mahometan Religion, and to its Ministers —
The Mevlevi and Cadri — The Turning and Howling Dervishes.
THE east side of the port beyond Galata is a line of
public buildings, and of palaces attached to the state officers of
the Turkish marine. The Ottomans had been for more than half
a century in possession of the most advantageous spot in the
world for the establishment of a navy, before they applied them-
selves to navigation, for they were not masters of a single ship of
war until the reign of Selim the First. That monarch constructed
a dock for the building of galleys, which is still seen in a bay of
the port under the hill and cemetery leading to Pera and the Eng-
lish palace. A long wooden wharf runs along the edge of the
water, at which small merchant ships are moored, but the galleys,
now out of use, are removed to the inner part of the port. It is
called the Galiondge's Wharf. The point of Divan-Hane, the au-
5 ζ
902
LETTER XLVII.
dience-chamber of the Capudan- Pasha, terminates this bay to the
north. The long suite of buildings beyond Divan-Iiane, belongs
to the quarter of Ters-Hane, or the Arsenal, which owes its pre-
sent appearance to the labours of De Tott, and of the French
engineers Leroy and Lebrun. — The enterprising Hassan-Pasha,
from a waiter at a coffee-house in Gallipoli, raised himself to abso-
lute authority under Sultan Abdulhamid, and by one act of feroci-
ous courage (when he blew up his own and a Russian line-of-battle
ship at Tchesme) established a reputation, which he maintained
throughout his long continuance in office. He recovered Lem-
nos, quelled a rebellion in Syria, and totally subdued the Morea,
exercising the most prompt and horrible vengeance on the insur-
gents. His favourite was a young lion, whom most travellers had
the good fortune of beholding crouched down and serving as a
footstool to this terrific Admiral. He had, however, discernment
enough to give every encouragement to the French officers above
mentioned, the latter of whom was patronized by Kutchuk Hus-
sein, Capudan-Pasha, also a man of acknowledged abilities.
During the reign of Selim, whose projects will be hereafter
noticed, the improvements of the marine still continued under
Mr. Rhodez, a Swede, with a company of engineers of the same
^nation, and Mr. Benoit, a French gentleman ; and even after
the disastrous termination of his efforts, the external appearance
of Ters-Hane, such as it is at this day, would do credit to the
most civilized nation of Europe. Here there are large mast and
block houses, brass and copper foundries, rope-yards, naval store
warehouses, besides a dry stone dock constructed on the most
approved principles. A stone facing lines the harbour ; and such
is the depth of water, that the sterns of the three-deckers hang
■LETTER XLVII.
903
over the shore. Engines for masting ships and heaving down,
contrived upon the usual plan, are ranged along the pier. The
ships of the line of the first class are built near the shore, on a
natural declivity, and slide at once into deep water. The gal-
ley harbour succeeds to the stone piers, and beyond are the can-
non foundries, near Ain-Aleh-Kavak Sarai, the Palace of Mir-
rors, a deserted kiosk built by Achmet the Third. The ground
rises from near the shore of the port ; and the suburbs of Hassim-
Pasha, Piali- Pasha, and Piri-Pasha, with intervening cemeteries,
and spots of open land crown the declivities above Divan- Hane,
Ters-Hane, and the galley wharf.
The officers of the English frigate wished to see the Arsenal and
the Turkish Fleet, which was then in port. As a preliminary, we
visited Ali, the Capudan-Pasha. He was in his kiosk of audience
at Divan- Hane, a splendid chamber, surrounded by his attend-
ants, and, contrary to custom, received us sitting. He is reported
to be a ferocious character, and certainly had the appearance of
being so. His capacity for his office may be collected by the fol-
lowing specimen of his conversation.
After the usual compliments, he told the Captain of the frigate
he had never been at sea, but that he was very fond of it. He
asked him if the wind was likely to continue long in the same
quarter, and when he was answered that his Highness, from hav-
ing been accustomed to the climate, was more likely to know
than a stranger, was unable to comprehend the deduction. He
enquired if the Captain had a man on board to manage the com-
pass ; and learning that every man in the ship was acquainted with
that instrument, replied, pointing to a young Midshipman in our
company, " What! does that boy know any thing of the compass?"
5 ζ 2
904
LETTER XLVII.
It was evident this was no legitimate successor of Hussein-
Pasha ; but in the choice of a High Admiral, it is as likely as not,
that a person of total incapacity for the office should be selected ;
as this dignity, like every other under the Ottoman government,
is obtained by bribery, intrigue, and favouritism; and every Turk
is content with asking himself if the place is fit for him, without
enquiring whether he is fit for the place. He looks upon the
office of Capudan-Pasha as preferable to that of any other state
minister under the Vizier Azem, because it conveys more power
and wealth ; but if he cannot obtain that situation, he will take
up with being Tefterdar EfTendy (Minister of Finances), or Jeny-
cherry Aghassy (General of the Janissaries).
The Capudan-Pasha is supreme over all the islands subject to the
Ottoman dominion, and of all the great sea-ports and some ma-
ritime districts : he is member of the great council of state ; and
presides at Ters-Hane like an absolute prince, with the attendants
of a court; and, what is an important point in Turkey, an exe-
cutioner. An lutencianc and Judge of the Marine (Ters-Hane
Emini, Ters-Hane Effendi) are subject to his orders, but the latter
officer attends also to the police of Pera, under the Bostandge-
Bashe.
The place chosen for the death of criminals condemned by the
High Admiral, is usually a flat near the Galiondge's wharf. A
horizontal motion of the hand from his master, is sufficient
hint and warrant to the executioner, who usually stands near
him. The prisoner is led out without any ceremony, pushed
upon his knees, and beheaded with a short sword, or rather a
long broad knife, which does not always perform the task at one
blow. If the punishment takes place secretly, the prisoner is
LETTER XLVII.
905
strangled : sometimes he is hanged up on a nail, driven into any
house in the street upon which the hangman may fix. Persons
of condition are strangled first, and afterwards beheaded. I saw
a body turned on its chest, the carcass covered, but the legs and
arms bare, which had apparently suffered from burning or beat-
ing, and the head lying between the legs. This latter position
is an indignity confined to the rayahs, as the heads of Turkish
criminals are placed under their arms. The body was that of a
Greek Cogia-Bashe of Triccala, who was charged with lading
stores for the Russians; but, as a person acquainted with the case
told me, was in reality found guilty of being rich, and having
two or three handsome merchant vessels, which the Capudan-
Pasha desired to appropriate to his own service.
On the day of visiting the navy, we waited first on the Ters-
Ilane-Emini, whom we found with a kind of painting apparatus,
and a hair pencil, drawing a sprig or floweret upon small bits of
written paper, and handing them off to the officers in waiting.
What these billets were we did not learn, but conjectured that
they were official, and that the ornaments were the signets which
it was the Intendant's duty to affix*. — This manual skill may
seem unworthy of so important an officer as the Second Minister
of the Marine ; but the Nichandgi-Effendi, a counsellor of state,
corresponding with our Keeper of the Privy Seal, also draws with
a brush, or hair pencil, the elaborate anagram which stands at the
* A traveller should be cautious of making any conjectures of the above kind,
lest he should fall into an error like that of the Malabar merchant at the court
of Calcutta, who mistook a pair of green spectacles, for a necessary precaution
worn by those who approached Lord Minto, to ward oil' the effulgence of his
Lordship's presence.— See Mrs. Graham's Journal.
906
LETTER XLVI1.
head of all the Imperial firmans ; and employs himself, as I have
seen, in this mechanical discharge of his duty in the Divan. That
the office requires some painful attention, may be seen by the an-
nexed fac-simile of Sultan Mahmoud's cypher, taken on a scale
one half less than that of the original, from our travelling firman.
It is called Turre, but is properly the Khati-Sherif (which gives a
name to the whole mandate or public edict), signifying the holy
character, or Khati-Humayun, the sublime character, and no Turk
will touch it before he has ceremoniously kissed it with his mouth
and forehead, and brushed away the dust from it with his cheeks.
We learn from Cantemir, that it is held in reverence even after
the death of the Emperor whose name it repi'esents*.
Ottoman History, Parti. Bookiii. p. 160, of Τ indal's translation.
LETTER XEV1T.
907
The act of writing the Sultan's name, conveys therefore a sa-
cred dignity, and it would be a sort of profanation to entrust it
to common hands. In the same way, even the menial offices about
his court are considered highly honourable, although they are
not, like the Lordships of the Bed-chamber at St. James's, by any
means a sinecure. The Pasha of the Dardanelles, at a visit paid
him upon my return from Constantinople, learning that we had
been in the Seraglio, asked us how we liked the presence-eham-
ber ; and, on our reply, commended it highly, saying, that he
ought to know it well, having swept it out for fifteen years.
Leaving the Ters-Hane-Emini, we proceeded, accompanied by
some of his officers, to examine the port. There were nine two-
deckers, and one three-decker, laid up close to the pier, quite out of
repair, besides several frigates, one of which, distinguished by a
palm at the head, was La Justice, now La Victorieuse, that
carried Denon to Egypt. One three-decker was on the stocks.
The store-rooms seemed empty, and there were few people at
work in any part of the arsenal.
We met between two and three hundred Russian prisoners,
chained by the legs, going from the public prison, called the
Bath, to their labours. This place of confinement (the abode of
suspected Greeks and condemned Turks, as well as of captive ene-
mies) is enclosed with high walls at the head of the arsenal, and
probably merits the frightful description given of it from the re-
port of the unfortunate Frenchmen suffering there during the war
between their country and the Porte*.
* L'aspect du bagne oflre un coup-d'ceil qui fletrit ['imagination, &e. —
Pouqueville, Voyage a Constantinople, chap, xvii. p. 149.
908
tETTER XLVII.
A very great and good man has endeavoured to reconcile the
custom of enslaving prisoners of war with the laws of nature and
reason. Whether it is excusable or not, the Turks only follow a
practice which was formerly universally prevalent, and which was
certainly not extinguished amongst Christians until the thirteenth
century*; nor do they follow it to its full extent, for the prisoners
are released on a peace ; and, although they are very rigorously
confined, and obliged to work, they cannot, therefore, be said to
be enslaved. The Turks, however, no less than the ancient Scy-
thians, still think themselves fully entitled to a payment for the
head or redemption of every one whom they destroy or spare
in battle.
From Ters-Hane we went on board the Sultan Selim, the Ca-
pudan-Pasha's ship, of a hundred and twenty guns, built on the
French model, and perhaps as fine a vessel as any in the world.
The High Admiral's cabin is a magnificent apartment, surrounded
by a handsome stern-gallery; but that of the Captain, and the
ward-room, are not very comfortably contrived, especially the latter,
which is half filled with small arms : indeed the places where the
officers sleep are near the forecastle, where there is also an im-
mense oven for baking bread. Her decks were perfectly clean
and sweet ; and, as she was not burthened with any comforts or
conveniences for the crew, her quarters were quite clear below as
well as on the upper deck. Her complement of men is twelve
hundred, all of whom, the Captain told us, were on board, although
there were but few of them visible above, and the most perfect
* Grot, de Jure belli et pacis, lib. iii. cap. vii. Decline and Fall, vol, ii.
4to. p. 595.
iiyiiiMiidiiyiii
LETTER XLVII.
909
good order and silence were observed in every part of the ship.
On the lower deck were four enormous cannons on each side, upon
carriages without either trucks or wheels, and incapable of eleva-
tion. It is extraordinary that a reform in this particular should
not have taken place at the same time with the other improve-
ments. The crew is divided into two distinct bodies; the Greeks
who manage, and the Turks who fight, the ship : the former are
about two hundred in number. With such a regulation, it cannot
be expected that any excellence in the vessels themselves should
enable the Turkish navy to equal that of any civilized state.
The line-of-battle ships in commission when we were in the
Sultan Selim, were two of three decks, and ten of seventy -four
guns ; all of which were moored in the port near Ters-Hane.
Whilst we were in Pera the fleet left the harbour, and pro-
ceeded towards its annual cruise in the Black Sea. It first
anchored off Beshik-Tash, then remained some time in the bay
of Buyuk-dere, and was more than a fortnight in getting finally
out of the canal. We saw the ships under sail in the Black Sea.
Several of the squadron generally return, after suffering by mis-
management, into the canal, previously to the appointed season
for giving up the cruise.
During a war with Russia, great promises are annually made
on the part of the Capudan Pasha on commencing the expedi-
tion, which are almost as regularly disappointed, and have some-
times been fatal to the Admiral, who contrives in some instances
to acquit himself by strangling his Captain, or that of the Pa-
trona Bey or Vice-Admiral, and laying the charge of misconduct
on the pretended delinquent.
I had an opportunity of going on board one of the Turkish
6 Λ
910
LETTER XLv'H.
ships of war at sea, and saw nothing of that good order and dis-
cipline, which apparently prevailed in the Sultan Selim when in
harbour. She was a sloop of eighteen guns, and one hundred
and twenty-five men, and would certainly have proved herself not
equal to an English armed cutter. It was difficult to distinguish
the Captain from his sailors, either from his dress or manner :
indeed the dignity of naval command cannot be at all understood
in a Turkish ship of war ; for one traveller relates, that he saw
the Captain and one of his men playing at chess on the quarter-
deck ; and I heard Sir S. Smith mention, that upon his coming
on board the Turkish Admiral's ship, the great Capudan-Pasha
Kutchuk-Hussein, either as a distinguished honour, or as a proof
of his nautical accomplishments, fired a salute with his own hand,
running along the deck from gun to gun.
The people of a free state submit to unlimited subserviency
when enrolled amongst the troops of their country. The subjects
of a despotic monarchy reserve all their liberty of action for the
period of their service in arms. The anchoring of an Ottoman
fleet in a port, and the passing of an army through a town, is
a public calamity to the inhabitants of the invaded district.
The Galiondges, however, are reckoned more brutal and licen-
tious than the land troops of the Empire.
Whilst we were walking the deck of the Sultan Selim, the Ca-
pudan Pasha left Ters-Hane, to proceed to Buyuk-dere. He
passed near the ship in his gilded barge, and the band mount-
ing the poop, continued to play until they were relieved by
those m the three-decker of the Patrona Bey. Their long trum-
pets, the only instruments, produced nothing like our martial
airs, but slow and unvarying, though not unpleasant sounds.
LETTER XLVII.
9U
such as we may conceive the mournful music of the Goths, or
the long-drawn note of the ancient Swiss clarion *.
After leaving the Sultan Selim, we went on board a seventy-
four, commanded by a Captain who had been made prisoner in
Alexandria, when it was taken by the British, and who, although he
retired for three years to Syracuse before he ventured to return,
would have lost his head on coming back to Constantinople, had
he not been saved by English interposition ; by which also he
obtained his ship : another officer who had been his companion in
the same circumstances, was on board. We were received with
the utmost cordiality, and as they spoke Italian, they made us at
Mr. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. ii. 4to. p. 549, compares the Gothic
trumpets to the rauca cornua of the Uri, and remarks upon the art with which
Philip de Commines has noticed the blowing of these Swiss horns before the
battle of Nancy, in which the Duke of Burgundy lost his life. " Attendant lc
combat, le dit cor fut corne par trois fois, tant que le vent du souffleur pouvoit
durer; ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de Bourgouinge, car deja a Morat Vavoit
ouy" This passage, and particularly the last turn in it, produces all the
effect of the sublime in writing. I beg leave to insert from Knolles a specimen
of the pathetic, no less simple and effectual. Writing that Bushek admired
the order and silence of the Turkish camp, he adds, " he met only with a
rough Hungarian and his companion, a soldier, who, heavy himself, to the
lute, rather howled than sung a doleful ditty, containing the last words of a
fellow of his dying of his wounds, upon the green banke of Danubius; wherein
he requested the riner, because it ran to the place where he was born, to carry
news to his friends and countrymen that he died an honourable death, and not
unrevenged, for the increase of his religion, and honour of his country ;
whereunto his fellow sighing bare a foot.
Ο happy and thrice happy wight,
Would fortune with thee change we might.**
Hist, of the Turks, p. 777.
6a2
912
LETTER XLVII.
once understand how much they regretted they were unprepared
for the visit : they would have sent a boat on shore for coffee.
Upon discovering a gentleman of the embassy, who had come
with them in an English sloop of war from Malta, and whom
they conceived instrumental in their preservation, they hastened
to him with delight in every feature, pressed him tenderly by the
hand, made repeated enquiries after all their English friends, and
showed their love and gratitude by a thousand expressions of
kindness.
On our departure they renewed their professions, and with an
air of melancholy, let drop some hints of regret, that the suspi-
cions of their government would not allow them to repeat by per-
sonal visits, and frequent communications at the English palace,
their unfeigned attachment, and eternal obligations to their gene-
rous friends. Ingratitude is 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
belongs only to those whom nature has formed of better clay,
and cast in her happiest mould. Perhaps European civilization
would not give a greater scope to the exertion of their intrinsic
virtues, but it is clear, that many of their vices are to be attri-
buted to their faulty institutions.
The descriptions of Rycaut (and much earlier writers might be
mentioned) apply to the Mussulmans of Constantinople at this
day, as much as to those of the seventeenth century, and the
decay of their relative strength, as an European power, has but
little affected their national character. The Mahometan religion
has prevented, and ever will prevent, any material change in the
individual condition , and consequently the character of the Turks.
LETTER XLVIt.
913
The light thrown upon the manners and customs of this people
during the last hundred years, has left it unnecessary to disabuse
the world on the subject of the religion of Mahomet. The times
are past, when the Mussulmans were charged with believing that
God is a corporeal being, the author of evil, without providence,
and not eternal; that the soul is mortal; that the devils are friends
of Mahomet, and of God; that Venus is the proper object of wor-
ship ; that man was created of a leach ; and many other absurdi-
ties, originating only in the ignorance of their accusers*.
Into the doctrinal part of their religion the Turks do not en-
quire, but content themselves with an implicit faith in the one eter-
nal Deity, in his angels, in the prophets, in the day of resurrection
and judgment, in the decrees of God, and in the virtue of purifi-
cation, prayer, alms and fasting. There are some of their priests,
as might be expected, who disturb themselves with the subtle-
ties of the controversialists, and engrafting upon the simplicity
of the original law a variety of strange creeds, have established
sects, the opinions of which, if we are to believe some writers,
are not only different from, but altogether inconsistent with, the
faith of Mahomet. Rycaut mentions one brotherhood, whose
mystery, which it required a long noviciate to penetrate, consisted
in a profession of atheism, and a practice of the most horrid de-
* Pope Pius II. in a loiter ίο the Sultan of the Turks, made the first charge ;
Cedrenus the second, the same Pope the third, Bartholinus of Odessa the fourth
and fifth, Polydore Virgil the sixth, Johannes Andreas the seventh, the great
Selden, in his 4th chap, on the Syrian Deities, the eighth ; and EuthemiusZiga-
lenus the last. Sylburgius accuses Mahomet of having called the Blessed Virgin
the sister of Moses ; and Bartholinus of Odessa upbraids the Koran for saying
that she was impregnated by eating dates. Those who would see the origin and
refutation- of these follies, may consult the second book of Adrian. Rtlaiul's
System of the Mahometan Theology.
914
LETTER XLVII.
baucberies ; but Islamism can no more be affected by sucb a per-
versity, tban tbe religion of England by tbe monks of Meden-
bam.
The sect does not, as far as I could learn, exist at this day, but
institutions and practices no less foreign to the original faith, may
still be found. Such are the invocations of dead and the reverence
of living saints, a belief in prophecies* omens and dreams and the
power of amulets and charms, and the admission of numerous orders
of Dervishes; the removal of all which excrescences, and the re-
storation of the simple Unitarianism of the Koran, it is the pro-
fessed object of the Wahaubees to effect. These powerful secta-
ries have taken the holy cities, and overrunning all Arabia, and
part of Syria, have menaced at the same time the Sophi of Persia
and the Sultan of Constantinople, peremptorily inviting them to
recognise the divine commission of Wahaub, the Unitarian Chief,
and restore the faith to its primitive purity. Should the mission
of this reformer accomplish its aim, and meet with general success,
we may then expect to become acquainted with Mahometanism,
such as it was in its infancy.
Mr. Leibnitz says of it, that " 'tis a kind of deism joined to
the belief of some facts, and to the observation of some perform-
ances, that Mahomet and his followers have added, sometimes
unluckily enough, to natural religion, but that have been agree-
able to the inclinations of several countries;" and he adds,
we
* The knowledge of future events is obtained, they think, by the constant
practice of virtue, fasting, and humiliation. The Etishmj/sklerden, " the at-
tainers to the fulness of divine fervour," pretend to visions ; yet Mahomet is de-
clared in the Koran Achir Pergamber the last of the prophets, which the
modern Mahometans have explained, as usual, to suit their own notions.— See
Canterair, Ottoman Hist, book i. p. 39, Tindai's translation.
LETTEPv XLVII.
915
are obliged to that sect for the destruction of paganism in many
parts of the world *."
To this brief and just exposition, and the subsequent eulogy
of the religion, I shall only add, that its main doctrine has been
allowed to be so similar to that of a great heretical Christian,
that in times when theological controversies were more bitter
than at present, sober treatises were written, to prove the con-
formity of the Mahometan belief with that of the Socinians ;
and that sect, on account of the irregularities of Adam Neuser]
was charged with a conspiracy against Christianity, in conjunc-
tion with the Emperor of the Turks f. What was once thought
a disgrace to Socinus, may now be considered an honour to the
author of Islamism, who, when he declared There is but one God,
and Mahomet is his prophet, may, considering the infirmities of
human nature, be scarcely so much condemned for the imposture
of the latter article, as praised for having promulgated the sublime
truth contained in the first half of his concise creed. In short,
of the prophet of Mecca we may say what Adrian Reland has'
pronounced of his commentator Kerabisensis, This Arabian de-
livers some truth, covered over with a shell of fiction, being des*
titute of divine revelation.
'Ουκ ΗΖεν, αλλ' εδοκησ-εν ίδεΤν δ<ά νύκτα <τελ-ηνην.
in
* A Letter from Mr. Leibnitz to the author of the Reflections upon theOrig
of Mahometan ism, dated Berlin, 1706.
+ See Historical and Critical Reflections upon Mahometanisrn and Soci-
nianism, translated from the French, London, 1712. A Turk hearing a Po-
lish Socinian discourse on the Trinity and Incarnation, zaondered he did not
get himself circumcised. See the Letter of Mr. Leibnitz, who, of the two, pre-
fers the Mahometan, as more consistent than the Socinian.
916
LETTER XLYII,
The rapid progress of Islamism has been attributed to the vi-
cious licence permitted and promised to its votaries; but an Ara-
bian impostor, many years after the Hegira, allowed a much
greater laxity of morals to his followers, and notwithstanding
some success, his sect did not survive him. On the contrary,
the Prophet, in forbidding the use of wine, created a restriction
to which the Arabians were not before accustomed ; nor will any
religion owe its dispersion and prevalence to a declaration of free-
dom of action; for it is consonant to the genius of man, to admire
and follow systems abounding with rules and regulations, and
even prescribing a conduct which seems to do violence to all the
natural feelings and unbiassed inclinations of the human breast.
Were this not the case, Fakeers, Monks, and Dervishes, could
never have existed : it would have been impossible that any man
in the world should, like Uveis the Mahometan, have established
a sect and met with proselytes, whose pretensions to piety w«re
founded on the extraction of all their teeth.
Mahomet was too wise to omit the palpable parts and outward
ceremonials, which are the life and soul of all superstitions; which,
in fact, are the superstitions. He was too wise, to make his Ko-
ran a promulgation of licences instead of restraints ; his fasts and
abstinences, his ablutions, his pilgrimage to Mecca, are so many
meritorious mortifications, which have all tended to the propaga-
tion of his doctrine. To the same knowledge of the human mind
may be attributed the miraculous relations of the Koran.
It has been before hinted, that a variety of principles and arti-
cles of faith have been invented by the founders of different Ma-
hometan sects, but that these heresies do not engage the atten-
tion of the great body of the people. Some persons are inclined
■
LETTER XLVII.
917
to think, that many of the higher classes in Turkey are very
sceptical in matters of religion*. Of this I could form no judg-
ment ; but it was not difficult to see, that few except the lower
orders retain that spirit of intolerance and bigotry which Maho-
metans are accused of displaying in all their commerce with Chris-
tians. A notion has very generally obtained, of their contempt
and hatred of infidels so far prevailing, that it is established amongst
them, that they may break any engagement with an unbeliever ;
but nothing is more unfounded than such a supposition, for the
contrary conduct is expressly commanded by the Koran φ, and,
they have been always notorious for their good faith in their
commercial intercourse with other nations. " How do we trade
amongst the Turks," enquires Mr. Harley, who had fallen into
the common error, " and trust the Mahometans, one of whose
doctrines in the Alcoran is, not to keep faith with Christians?
They have obtained it by a just, punctual, and honourable prac-
tice in trade, and you credit them without scruple, nay, rather
than some Christians^."
All the people of the East, except the Mahometans, as Mon-
tesquieu § thought, look upon all religions in themselves as indif-
ferent, and amongst the Calmucks, the admission of every kind
of religion is a "point of conscience. The truth is, the Mahome-
tans themselves, whether originally from climate or otherwise,
* It must, however, be confessed, that in so great a nation there are many
of the learned Turks who do not implicitly believe all that is said in the Ko*.
ran," &c. Cantemir, Ottoman Hist, book i. p. 31, Tiudal.
+ See A Short System of the Mahometan Theology, book ii. sect. xxv.
} Essay on Public Credit, 1710 (reprinted 1797), p. 17.
^ Liv. xxr. chapit. 15, de l'Esprit des Loix,
6 b
913
LETTER XLVII.
notwithstanding great apparent steadiness in their own faith, are
perfectly tolerant in their practice; and I cannot help sup-
posing that they entertain very charitable notions on this head,
for I recollect a person of authority, to whom one of us had
introduced our Albanian attendant Dervish, with the recom-
mendation that he was a Mussulman, observing, that he did not
enquire into a man's faith, but his character, and that he presumed
Heaven would be wide enough for persons of all religions *. The
generality of the Turks are at the same time exceedingly atten-
tive to all the forms prescribed by their law, and perform their
religious duties without either affectation or levity. The obli-
gation to external piety is not confined to the priesthood. They
pray in the streets and in their open shops at Constantinople, not
for the sake of ostentation, since every one is equally pious, but to
perform a portion of their civil duties. On the same principle, no
one, whatever may be his private opinions, utters any sentiments
disrespectful to the faith. Such a levity would be sedition, and a
* The Korau, Surat 2, verse 59, has these words: " Verily, those who be-
lieve, both Jews andNazareens (Christians), and Zabiam ( Gentiles in Arabia,
or JshmaelitesJ, whosoever of these believe in God and the last day, and do good
works, have their reward with their Lord, and no fear shall come upon them,
neither shall the?/ be ajfecledwith sorrow" Artus Thomas, in his Triumph of the
Cross; Bellarmine, in his Controversies, vol. ii. p. 293, 294; and Thomas a
Jesu on the Controversies of the Gentiles, p. 677, and others, cry scandal
against this toleration, the last dotage of Mahomet; and Reland has, I fear,
with some success, defended the Prophet against the heinous charge. A short
System of Mahometan Theology, book ii. sect. 2. — The Cham of the Tartars
told Rubruquis in 1253, " Que comme Dieu avoit donne aux mains plusieurs
doigts, ainsi avoit il ordonne aux hommes plusieurs chemins pour aller en Pa-
radis" — Voyage en Tartarie, cap. 4.6, p. 119*
LETTER XIVII,
919
crime against the representative of the Prophet ; for tlie Sultan is
the Vicar of Mahomet, and is the supreme head of the govern-
ment, which is not less a theocracy than the ancient Jewish mo-
narchy.
It has been established beyond doubt, by the writer who, in
my humble judgment, has given the truest and most satisfactory
account of the Turkish government, I mean Mr. Thornton, that
the Ulema, or ministers of the Mahometan law, at whose head
is the Mufti, do not assume or exercise a power paramount to
that of the Sultan, however they may have been resorted to, in
order to sanction the Imperial edicts, or to join with the Janissa-
ries, or general voice of the people, in deposing a cruel or inca-
pable prince*. The Mufti, who has been likened to the Popes
or Patriarchs of the Christian sects, but is in fact more similar
to the Pontifex Maximus of ancient Rome, is in dignity, though
not in power, the second person in the empire ; but he is not, as
some have endeavoured to prove, the first. To show this, it is
sufficient to say that his continuance in office depends upon the
will of the Sultan.
In a despotic monarchy nothing remains fixed but the reli-
gion -f; the Mahometan law is unchangeable and all-powerful;
but its immediate ministers possess neither the one nor the other
attribute. If the fetwa, or decree, of the Mufti were a neces-
sary sanction to every act of importance, which it seems not to
be, the person who disposes of the office may be supposed capa-
ble of controuling the officer. The religion may be called supe-
♦ Present State of Turkey, p. 100 to p. 113.
t De l'Esprit des Loix.
6b 2
920
LETTER XLVII.
rior to the Sultan, for by it he holds his power, but I cannot
think that any opposition to the Imperial authority on the part of
the Ulema, however long or successfully it may continue, can be
adduced to show that the Sultan of the Turks is not a despotic
prince, or can be considered in any other light than an insurrec-
tion, to which every absolute monarch must occasionally be sub-
ject.
It is the custom for the Grand Signior to back his ordinances
relative to peace and war, and other state matters, by the fetwa,
as it is for him to go to the mosck publicly on every Friday, and
to attenc) in person at a conflagration ; but the two latter obliga-
tions are equally strong with the former ; nor are the three ex^
ceptions to the exercise of his own will and discretion, of sufficient
importance to be mentioned as a proof of limitation in the Otto-
man sovereignty, or of any other point, than that no prince is
altogether superior to established usages. Nevertheless, Abu-
Taleb, the traveller commonly going by the name of the Persian
Prince, a much better judge than either De Tott, Sir James
Porter, or other Europeans, who have adopted the same notion,
informs us in his Travels, that he did not consider the power of
the Grand Signior absolute, which I can only account for by sup-
posing, that in the Asiatic governments to which he had been
accustomed, insurrections were not so frequent, nor the influ-
ence of usage so apparent, as in the capital of Turkey.
The identity of law and religion gives a sanctity of character
to the Mufti, the Cazy-askers of Roumelia and Natolia, the
Istamboul-Effendi, the Mollahs, Cadis, Naibs, and all the admi-
nistrators of justice in Turkey ; but the ecclesiastics, or Murta-
ziki^are, except in their education, a distinct body from the Ulema,
LETTER XLVII.
921
and are not immediately dependent upon the Mufti, but upon
the Kislar-Aga, or Chief of the Black Eunuchs*. The Santons,
Alfaquis, and Sheiks, explain texts of the Koran, but their ser-
mons are not given at any stated time, nor very frequently ; the
Talismans perform the same office, but are chiefly employed in
transcribing the holy books ; the Imaums recite the prayers, at
stated hours of the day in the moscks, but not aloud, only animating
the people by their example : on Friday, however, before prayers at
noon, a reader or chanter (Nat* chon) sings the praises of Maho-
met. To each mosck there is also a Haim, or overseer; Fernesh, a
sweeper; and Abkesh, a water-drawer. One Muezzin, or chanter,
will serve for several moscks. The burying-grounds are under the
inspection of a Turba-dhar, or sexton. There is also a person
whose business it is to attend to the innumerable lights with which
the larger moscks are supplied, and to provide for the illumina-
tions of the Rhamazan, when all the minarets are adorned with
lamps, hanging not only round the galleries and to the tops of
the spires, but upon strings from one turret to another, so as to
form various figures, and verses from the Koran.
There is no part of the religious duties of a Mussulman which
* The Cazy-askers are chief justices : they sit not on the right, as Mr.
Thornton says, but on the left hand, of the Grand Vizier in the Divan. The
Istambol-EfFendi is chief justice of Constantinople ; the Mollahs, or Moulas, are
presidents of great towns, to whom the ancient Ottoman kings paid five hunr
dred aspers a day, but who now receive nothing from the government (Bobo-
vius, a Treatise concerning the Turkish Liturgy, sect, ii.); the Cadis are
judges of small towns ; and the Naibs, puisne judges. Each court has a Katib,.
a secretary; a Mokaiyd, a clerk; and Muhzir, a crier. The Mufti's pension
is five hundred zequins a day from the Seraglio. (Notice sur la Cour du Graud.
Seigneur, p. 141).
922
LETTER XLVII.
requires the intervention of a priest; nor, although a reader and
chanter are retained in some great families, is the distinction which
separates the Christian laity and clergy, to be recognised amongst
the Mahometans. There is nothing in the external behaviour of the
Imaums, or others of the secular priesthood, which distinguishes
them from their fellow-subjects : they assume no authority, either
temporal or ecclesiastical ; and are under the controul of the
Cadis, or municipal judges : in short, they are the guardians of
the moscks rather than of the Mussulmans. The Hogias, or
schoolmasters (one of whom is attached to each of the great
moscks in Constantinople), are in smaller parishes the only public
readers of the Koran.
The extreme simplicity of this religion, and of the ordinances
by which it is supported, has not, however, prevented all preten-
sions to extraordinary holiness, or the encouragement of several
sects of fanatical impostors, to whom some allusion has before
been made. The Christian recluses were the admiration of the
Mussulmans before they had adopted the same practice; but
since the first institution of religious orders in the reign, and by
the patronage, of Nasser-Ben-Hamed, the third prince of the
Samanide dynasty, in the year 331 of the Hegira, there has been
a constant succession of saints, distinguished from their fellow-
citizens by the title and profession of poverty, and supposed to
be occupied in the perpetual contemplation of the more abstruse
points of the Mahometan doctrine*. These saints have been
* D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Articles Nasser-Ben-Hamed, Der-
vische, Sofi, Zaked, Fakir, &c. Sftadi, in the Ghulistan, relates, thattlie Chris-
tian monks of Mount Libanus in his time performed miracles ; and Bokhari, in
LETTER XLVII.
925
known under the names of Calenders, Torlaquis, and other dis-
tinct appellations applied to particular sects, but are more gene-
rally spoken of under their original title of Dervish, a word
having the same signification in the Turkish and Persian language
as the Fakir of the Arabic, and denoting a poor man. They
have their travelling mendicants, fraternities of settled recluses,
and some few solitaries, amounting in all to thirty-two orders ;
all of which differ from each other, and are distinguished also by
particular manners and appearance from the rest of the world.
Although it is expressly said in the Koran, that the vow of
celibacy is not received in Paradise, the Calenders do not admit
of marriage ; but the generality of the orders are under no such
restriction. Some individuals amongst them have, like Haji
Bek-Tash, attained an extraordinary reputation ; but the profes-
sion of piety, beyond the acquirement of alms, is not attended
with any advantages in Turkey. The Mussulmans consider them-
selves obliged to contribute to the support of the religious ; at
the same time, that not only the more enlightened of them, but
the common people, regard the Dervishes with but little internal
reverence, and rather tolerate than approve of their institutions»
The Seyeh, or wanderers, who raise contributions by proclama-
tion, are relieved, but not respected*. Their kirkah, or torn
habit, notwithstanding its alleged descent from the ancient pro-
Ms book entitled Sahib, recounts the wonders of the Abyssinian, Saheb Gioraije,
a Christian solitary, with the good faith of a Capuchin. There is also an Ara-
bic history of Christian monks.
* On coming into a town, a Seyeh cries aloud from the market place or
court of the mosck, " Ya allah sendeti besh bin altitn isterim''' — Ο God, give me,
924
OTTER XLVII.
phets, has been the subject of much sarcasm for the Oriental wits,
and the vices which it is known to envelop, have not added to its
respectability*. — A Dervish attempted to kill Sultan Mahomet
the Second, and also Achmet the First; and in the reign of Osman
the First another enthusiast ventured to disturb the peace of the
empire, by foretelling the triumph of Christianity upon the strength
of a vision seen at Mecca. The prophet was cudgelled to death φ.
I pray, jive thousand crowns — or some other sum or commodity, which he is
to collect in the course of his journey. The Seyeks come even from India.
One of them delivered to Kioprili Mustapha Pasha, Grand Vizier to Solyman
the Second, letters from the Great Mogul, and told him that his master, hear-
ing of the Sultan's distresses, had sent an offer of assistance to his brother Mus-
sulman. To which Kioprili replied, that Solyman would be ever grateful
for the zeal and friendship of the great Padishah of India, hut that his
affairs just then being in a prosperous state, " he could be honoured zuith no
greater favour from his Indian majesty, than his commanding his beggars
not to enter the Ottoman dominions." — Cantemir, Ottoman Hist. Part I.
"book i. p. 40, of Tindal's translation.
* Saadi, in the eighth chapter of his Gbtilisfan, addressing the religious,
says, ct Possess the virtues of a true Dervish, and then, instead of a woollen
cap, wear, if you will, a Tartar bonnet." Ebu-Cassab, one of their spiritual
masters, calls their garments the mask of hypocrisy ; and Hafiz prefers a gob-
let of wine to the blue mantle of the Dervish ; which the Persians, who have
given a mystical meaning to all the verses of this poet, explain as an attachment
to divine love, and a hatred for hypocrisy. Dervishlik khirkhaden bellu dog-
hil, is a Turkish proverb, which answers to the cucullus nonfacit monachum.
See D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Article Dervische.
+ In the early ages of the Mahometan religion a Mahometan said that he
was God. A man reminded him, that one who had called himself a prophet
had been killed. " They were right," said the other, " for I did not give him
his commission: he was no prophet of mine."•" Paroles Rcraarquablcs dcs
Orkntaux, Galand.
LETTER XLVII.
925
The character of the mendicant Dervishes of Asia Minor has been
already seen*. Yet the Santons and Sheiks, whose exhortations
make most impression in the moscks, are the superiors of these
fanatics ; and a sermon preached by one of the former in St.
Sophia, was the origin of the disgraceful expedition undertaken
by Sultan Solyman against Malta in the year 1564-f•.
Attempts have been made to abolish the institution, but the
Janissaries still retain eight Dervishes of the order of Bek-Tash,
as chaplains to the army; and the people of Constantinople run in
crowds to amuse themselves (for no other motive can be assigned
to them) at the exhibitions of the turning and of the howling
Dervishes, to which all strangers are carried, as to the theatre or
other places of entertainment in the cities of Christendom.
There is a monastery of the former order, the Mevlevi (so
called from Mevlana their founder) in Pera, and we were admit-
ted to the performance of their ceremonies on Friday the 25th of
May. We were conducted by a private door into the gallery of
the place of worship, a single octagonal room, with the middle of
the floor, which was of wood highly polished, railed off for the
exhibitors. A red carpet and cushion were placed at the side op-
posite the great door near the rails, but there were no seats in any
part of the chamber. We waited some time until the great door
opened, and a crowd of men and boys rushed in, like a mob into
a playhouse, each of them, however, pulling off his shoes as he
entered. The place without the rails, and our gallery, were filled
in five minutes, when the doors were closed. The Dervishes
* Letter xxxvi. p. 648, of this volume.
t Notice sur la Cour du Grand Seigneur, p.
6c
148.
LETTER XLVII.
dropped in one by one, and each of them crossing his arms,
very reverently and with the utmost grace bowed to the seat of
the Superior, who entered at last himself, better dressed than the
Others, and with his feet covered. With him came in another man,
who was also distinguished from the rest by his garments, and
who appeared afterwards to officiate as a clerk. Other Dervishes
arrived, and went into the gallery opposite to the Superiors seat,
where there were four small cymbal drums. The Superior now
commenced a prayer, which he continued for ten minutes; then
a man stood up in the gallery, and sang for some time from a
book : the cymbals began to beat, and four Dervishes taking up
their neih or long cane pipes, called by Cantemir the sweetest of
all musical instruments*, played some tunes which were by no
means disagreeable, and were, indeed, something like plaintive
English airs. On some note being struck, the Dervishes below
all fell suddenly on their faces, clapping their hands with one ac-
cord upon the floor.
The music ceased, and the Superior began again to pray. He
then rose, and marched three times slowly round the room, fol-
lowed by the others, who bowed on each side of his cushion,
the Superior himself bowing also, but not to the cushion, and
only once, when he was half way across it. The Superior reseated
himself, and said a short prayer. The music commenced a second
time, all the Dervishes rose from the ground, and fourteen out
of the twenty who were present, let drop a long coloured petti-
coat, round the rim of which there were apparently some weights;
and throwing off their cloaks, they appeared in a tight vest
* Ottoman Hist. Part I. book i. p. 40,
LETTER XLVII.
927
with sleeves. The clerk then marched by the Superior, and bow-
ing, retired into the middle of the room. A Dervish followed,
bowed, and began to whirl round, bis long petticoat flying out into
a cone. The rest followed, and all of them were soon turning
round in the same manner as the first, forming a circle about the
room, with three or four in the middle. The arms of one man
alone were held straight upwards, two of them crooked their
right arms like a kettle-spout, the rest had both arms extended
horizontally, generally with the palm of one hand turned upwards,
and the fingers closed and at full length. Avery accurate and lively
representation of this curious scene may be found in Lord Bal-
timore's Travels. — Some of them turned with great speed ; they re-
volved round the room imperceptibly, looking more like automatons
than men, as the petticoat concealed the movement of their feet :
the clerk walked with great earnestness and attention amongst them,
but without speaking, and the Superior remained on his cushion
moving his body gently from side to side, and smiling. The per-
formers continued at the labour for twenty-five minutes, but with
four short intervals ; the last time they turned for ten minutes, and
notwithstanding some of them whirled with such velocity that their
features were not distinguishable, and two of them were boys of
fifteen and seventeen, apparently no one was affected by this pain-
ful exercise. The clerk, after the turning and music ceased, prayed
aloud, and a man walking round, threw a cloak upon the Der-
vishes, each of whom was in his original place, and bending to the
earth. The Superior began the last prayer, and the company
withdrew.
The ceremonies just described are said by Volney to have a re-
ference to the revolution of the stars, and whether or not they
6c 2
928
LETTSit XLVII.
are to have credit for any superior astronomical science, these
Dervishes certainly possess some literary merit, as all of them are
instructed in the Arabic language, and make it their study to be-
come critically acquainted with its beauties. Their monasteries
contain many rare books, collected at considerable pains and ex-
pence in all the countries of the East where they have any esta-
blishments, or which are visited by any of their fraternity.
It cannot be supposed that any set of men who are better in-
structed should be more superstitious than their fellow-citizens;
but it is very probable that they may be aware of the awe and
astonishment which any strange religious ceremony creates in the
mind of the vulgar, and that without being in reality enthusiastic,
they take advantage of the reputation sometimes attached, even
amongst the Turks, to that character. They cannot be unwilling
that the spectators of the performance should discover some mys-
tical meaning in their revolutions, which it seems to me were in
their first origin nothing but a sort of religious penance; but lean-
not think that they are themselves deceived as to the efficacy or
intention of the ceremonies. The Superior does not inflict upon
himself the execution of so rigorous a duty, and it may be added,
that there is a marked superiority, both in his appearance and that
of the musicians, to the air and manner of the Dervishes employed
in the exhibition, who may, after all, be retained to display their
feats for the benefit of the institution.
TheMevlevi are, however, rational worshippers, when compared
with the Cadrhi, or Howling Dervishes, whose exertions, if con-
sidered as religious ceremonies, are more inexplicable and disgust-
ing than those of any enthusiasts in the known world, and if re-
garded merely as jugglers' feats, are legitimate objects of curio-
LETTER XLVII.
929
sity. A large party of our countrymen went to see them on the
26th of June.
From our lodgings we walked to the back of Pera, and keeping
the suburbs of Cassim Pasha on our left, passed over the large
plain and hill of the Ok-meidan, or archery ground, where there
are many marble pillars erected as memorials of the distance to
which some of the Sultans, and other distinguished Toxophilites,
have shot their arrows ; for the endeavour of the Turks is not to
hit a mark, but to exceed each other by the range of their
bows; and I think it is Olivier who mentions, that they have con-
trived an extravagant method of flattering their sovereigns and
grandees, by placing in the Ok-meidan, signs of a prowess alto-
gether impossible. I recollect perfectly well walking another
time across the plain, quite unconscious of the sport, and being
stopped by the shouts of some Turks on a neighbouring hill, and
by a fellow who ran hastily up to me, and pointed to an arrow
which had just lighted in the ground. The archers were amongst
some large loose stones, and at a distance which rendered them,
scarcely discernible. Some of the Asiatic troops still carry bows
and arrows.
After crossing the Ok-meidan, we waited an hour in the
court-yard of a ruined mosck, shaded by large plane trees, and
containing two dry fountains and a range of deserted cells. We
were told that the ceremony never took place except with the at-
tendance of a sufficient number of spectators, and after leaving the
mosck we staid some time in an outward yard, until a crowd was
collected, and we heard music and praying in an anti-chamber.
We then entered, and found a large party singing, or rather
bawling, in a dirty deal apartment, fitted up at the further end
930
LETTER XLVII.
with several flags, having axes, swords, pikes, and cymbai-drurns
on one side, and a silk cloth inscribed with characters on the
other. This they said was a part of Mahomet's tent, the other
portion of this holy relic being at Vienna. On the left hand
corner was a latticed box for women, and next to it was an open
compartment railed off from the floor. In this place we seated
ourselves, and saw three principal personages of the sect kneeling
under the flags, and waving their heads sideways, keeping time
with the musicians, who were beating drums and singing at the
lower end of the room. In the corner under the latticed box, was
a black or tawny dwarf half naked, upon his knees, contorting
himself into many frightful and ridiculous gestures, now and then
becoming furious, and knocking his arms and head violently against
the ground. To him we directed our attention, until at last he
tore open his vest below his waist, and struggling on the ground,
was led off* frothing at the mouth, and suffering apparently under
the convulsions of actual madness.
After this exhibition the principals advanced ; the crowd ranged
themselves along three sides of the lower end of the room, and six
persons squatting down in the middle of the party, commenced
singing, and were joined by the remainder of the company in the
chorus, which was the repetition of the name of God. The whole
of the three lines, amounting in all to between thirty and forty per-
sons, none of whom belonged to the fraternity, but were introduced
promiscuously by kissing the principal's hands, continued waving
backwards and forwards, and sideways close together, howling
and grunting to a tune, which was lost at last in a general and
continued exclamation of Yallah-Illah ! Yallah-Illah ! when they
jumped and jogged themselves into that which appeared to all of
LETTER XLTII,
931
us, from undoubted symptoms, to be that peculiar kind of artifi-
cial frenzy, which we learn was produced by the Sarmatian art
of see-saw, or session on a cord *.
I should mention, that before the violent howling and jogging
began, a Dervish perfectly mangy, and covered with filth and
sores, came round, and reverently taking off every man's turban,
placed it under the banners. The three principals only jogged
their heads and moved on their heels. They seemed half in joke,
as also did several of the party, especially a young Imaum of our
acquaintance who had accompanied us to the place, and who,
although he joined in the whole ceremony, was laughing heartily
and winking towards our box. During the howling the Superior
of the order, a red-faced, drunken-looking man, entered the room,
and walking busily amongst the party, made various exclamations
of ill temper and discontent, as if displeased with some parts of
the ceremony.
After the howling, a prayer was recited, and all the company
dispersed into the anti-chamber to take coffee and pipes to recruit
themselves ; but they soon returned, and a jug of water, into
which the Superior had blown, and a consecrated shirt, were
handed round the room. Two infants were also brought in and
laid on a mat before the Superior, who stood first on their bellies,
and then on their backs, and afterwards breathing upon them,
delivered them to his attendants, cured, as we were told, of some
complaint which this charm was calculated to remove.
The howling and jogging recommenced, and to this succeeded
a prayer. The Superior then brought forward two men, and ran
* See Swift On the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit — Tale of a Tub.
m
LETTER XLVII.
long needles, like netting needles, with large handles, through their
cheeks, pushing them out at their mouths, and also through the
thick skin above the wind-pipe. After a short time he pulled the
needles out, wetting the wound with his spittle, and so contriving
the extraction that no orifice was visible, although it appeared that
a hole had been made, and the performer brought the men close to
our box, as if to convince us that there was no delusion in the ope-
ration. The feat was repeated, and a black curly-headed fellow,
who they said was an Egyptian, on the needle being drawn out,
appeared to faint, and falling down, lay for some time on the ground,
until the superior puffed into his mouth, when he jumped up,
screaming out Yollah ! in a convulsed but ridiculous tone, and reco-
vered instantly. The boring was practised on several in the room,
and the jogging and singing were continued by the crowd below.
The Superior, having first drawn several rusty swords and returned
them to their sheaths, now took an attaghan, and breathing upon
it, gave it to a black Arab, who stripped to his waist, and, after
crying several times on the name of God, applied it to the narrow-
part of his abdomen as tightly as possible, sawing it with the ut-
most violence upon his belly, but without leaving any marks, ex-
cept a few bloody scratches : whilst he performed this frightful
feat, he called out to us, bono? bono? as much as to ask if it
was well done.
Another swarthy Arab then took the attaghan, which by the
way was handed to us, and was as sharp as a razor, and lying
on the ground, placed it with its edge downwards across his body,
and suffered the Superior to stand with his whole weight upon
the back of the knife. The same man then took two sharp
iron spikes, headed with wooden globes, and a tassel of iron
LETTER XL'VII.
93:}
chains, and knobs, which were all breathed upon and blessed,
and drove them repeatedly into each of his flanks, so as to make
the pair nearly meet in his body. During this trial he seemed in
a fury, calling loudly on God and Mahomet, and with a kind of
enthusiastic coquetry, would scarcely suffer the spikes to be
forced from his hands.
A brazier of burning charcoal was then brought in, and six or
seven men, chosen promiscuously as it appeared from the crowd,
were presented by the Superior with red hot irons, breathed upon
and blessed like the other instruments, which, after licking them
with their tongues, they put between their teeth. One fellow-
near us made many wry faces, and pulled the irons from his
mouth ; but the others, although they were in evident pain, and
the water streamed from their lips, seemed as if they were loth to
part with them, and, either from pretence or some actual con-
vulsion, were with difficulty forced to open their jaws. One of
the Arabs then swallowed several pieces of burning charcoal, after
they had been blessed ; and this, as well as holding the hot irons,
whatever preparation may have been actually used, was per-
formed without any visible trick or slight of hand. The charcoal
and irons were certainly both at a red heat.
Whilst this business was transacting in the upper part of the
room, several tambourines were handed down, and played upon
by persons of the crowd, who seemed highly delighted with the
scene ; and during the whole ceremony, those below continued
screaming and jumping, and shouldering each other in a mass,
and at last huddled themselves together into a ring, leaping
round and round, and squeezing those in the middle into a jelly,
until the whole party was utterly exhausted, and the perform-
ance closed, having lasted for three hours.
6ώ
934
LETTER XLVII.
We retired after paying for our seats, but were followed by
the two Arabs ; one of whom spoke a few words of English, and
asked us for an additional present, on account of some unusual
exertions with which we had that day been favoured. He told
us he had played before the English at Alexandria.
The part performed by the two Arabs, and by the dwarf first
mentioned, was clearly a juggle; and, notwithstanding the reli-
gious preparations, it appeared that no one regarded it, or wished
us to think it supernatural ; but I confess myself at a loss to ac-
count for the voluntary sufferings of the others, all of whom were
common fellows taken from the spectators. It is to be remarked,
that the Superior himself did not seem to be one of the order,,
but only to be chosen for the occasion as director of the magical
rites ; and that the Dervishes took very little share in any of the
laborious part of the ceremony.
The women, and the very lowest of the vulgar, may be fright-
ened into some religious feelings by these horrid and absurd mum-
meries, accomnanied as thev are with freauent pravers and reli-
gious rites, and a constant invocation of the Deity. The exist-
ence of the jumping sect of our own island, renders unreasonable
all scepticism as to the follies of enthusiasts ; but it did not ap-
pear that either the spectators or performers were under any
delusion as to the motive or effect of this species of devotion.
Having given the relation of the facts just as they happened,
from a note taken on the spot, I shall leave every one to form his
own conclusion on this extraordinary scene.
The Cadrhi were abolished by Kioprili Mustapha Pasha, but
revived after the death of that Vizier.
LETTER XLVIIL
Excursion to Constantinople — The Wall on the Land Side of the
City — The Miracle of Baloucli — The Seven Towers — The
Coffee-Houses near Yeni-Kapoussi — The Meddahs, or Τ ale-
Tellers— Teriakis, or Opium Eaters — Koum-Kapoussi — Kebab
— Balih-Hane — Execution of Viziers — The Kiosks under the
Walls — Battery and Boat-Houses of the Seraglio.
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, and which amounted in 1777
to five thousand seven hundred, including the private pleasure-
boats. The number of fishing-boats at the time of the Latin
invasion was one thousand six hundred*. The resemblances of
the kirlangishes or swallows, as they are called, to the shape of
the ancient boats, has been often observed, and is so exact, that
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
* Decline and Fall, cap. lx. p. 149, note, and 152, 4to.
6d2
Μ
UHMU
BB
936
LETTER XLVIII.
the walls begin to cross the peninsula at Askame-Iskelessi, 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-Sarai is recognized for the Hebdomon, a palace of the
Caesars standing in this region of the metropolis. We then arrived
at a range of sheds, where there were many gilded arabats for hire,
and some attached stables, from which, after waiting some time
near a large burying-ground, 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 Theo-
dosius) is more venerable than that of any other Byzantine anti-
quity : their triple ranges rising one above the other, in most
places nearly entire, and still retaining their ancient battlements
and towers, are shaded with large trees, which spring from
the foss 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 foss, of twenty-five feet in breadth,
is cultivated and converted into herb gardens and cherry or-
chards, with here and there a solitary cottage*. Such is
the height of the walls, that to those following the road under
* I only reckoned, but it was during a cursory view, one hundred and
eighteen towers. The Florentine Bondelraonte, whose plan bears the date of
1422, saw one hundred and eighty. The outer ditch is faced with a wall,
which makes the third rampart, and only the two other walls are defended by
towers. Every late author, except Dr. Dallaway, appears to have overlooked
the third range; but Gyllius notices it — " Alter paries effertur aliquanto
supra fossaniy crebris pinnis cf /siz» c/ Mi .' *«— Dc Topog. Const, lib. i. cap. xix.
■
LETTER XLVIII,
937
them on the outside, none of the moscks or other buildings of
the capital, except the towers of Tekkuri-Sarai, are visible ; and
as there are no suburbs, this line of majestic ramparts, defenceless
and trembling 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 distant 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 passenger ; 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-Kapoassi (the Oblique gate), where,
the triple wall commences, and next by Edrene-Kapoussi (the gate
of Adrianople), Top-Kapoussi (the Cannon-gate, where the victo-
rious Mahomet made his public entry into Constantinople), and
afterwards by Mevlane Yeni-KapoussL We then crossed over
the road leading from Selhri-Kopoussi (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, and is remarkable for one of the many standing mira-
cles that support the sinking credit of the modern Greek church.
In a little chapel dedicated to Agia Panagia, we were shown,
in a recess lighted up with candles, a fountain of cold water, and
were desired to remark a fish about the size of a minnow, of which
the monks related, that the last Constantine taking a repast at
the side of this spring with a priest, and being told that the Turks
had made a breach in the walls, said, that it was no more possi-
ble than that the fish on his plate should ever again swim in the
938
LETTER XLVIII.
water ; when, upon his saying the word, it jumped from the
dish into the fountain, and the city was taken! Our informant
would not exactly say that what we saw was the identical animal,
but averred, that it was more than a hundred years old, had
never been smaller nor bigger than it appeared in its then state,
and was of the same species as that which leaped from the Em-
peror's plate : in proof of this latter assertion, he begged us to
observe the glitter of his scales, transmitted from his fried fore-
fathers. Our Greek attendants crossed themselves, and took a
draught of the water, which, as well as many other holy springs
in the neighbourhood of the capital (Αίασγχ,ατα), is thought a spe-
cific in various disorders*.
Returning from Baloucli, we entered the city at the gate of
the Seven Towers, which we attempted to visit, but were stopped
at the entrance, and informed, that without a firman it was inac-
cessible to strangers. The world has been favoured with a de-
tailed description of this redoubtable prison, by the unjust deten-
tion of the traveller frequently referred to in the course of these
Letters, who has also amused himself, like his countryman De
Retz, with sketching some biographical notices of his jailors*.
The defences of this imperial castle do not entitle it to any
* The difference between the above relation and the story as it is told in Pou-
queville's third volume, shows that the Greek fathers reserve to themselves the
privilege of varying the circumstances of the miracle. The Emperor, in his
time, was a servant, and the existing fish the actual performer in the prodigy. —
Voyage a Constantinople, p. 93.
+ Celui qui commandait le chateau pendant ma captivite appele Abdulha-
midStaitun veillard venerable, aborigine Tartare, qui avaitfaits ses premieres
annees dans le serail en qualite de muezzin ou de sacristan* A Vage de
LETTER XLVIII.
939
respect as a fortress, and if the Ottoman armies lost, as is said,
twelve thousand 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 hi*
garrison of sixty-five men prepared against the crews of two
Lazic vessels, who stormed the place in 1795, and carried off a
captive fellow countryman. We walked through a little door into
the first court, and saw a crowd of boys at play, who were, as
they told us, pupils of the Imaum or chaplain of the fortress, but
being allowed no further ingress, we saw neither the golden gate
of Theodosius, nor the chamber in which Osman was stran-
gled, nor any of the other objects of curiosity to be found within
the circuit of the castle.
Not more than two of the seven inscriptions given by Banduri*,
Wheler, andTournefort-f, were seen by Pouqueville; but a more
observant antiquarian would perhaps have discovered the remaining
soixante ans n? ay ant plus de voix pour chanter sur un minaret, ou a la porte
d'une mosquee, on Vavait cree commandant de place. Brave homme, au
reste, plein de vertus," fyc.
" Cet aga avait sous ses ordres un Idaya ou lieutenant* une garnison com»
posee de cinquante quatre disdarlis, divises en dix sections, commandees par
autant de belouk-bashis ou caporaux. Sans rappeler les noms de ces illustres
personnages, je dirai que le lieutenant du chateau etait dessinateur dans une
manufacture de toiles peintes ; et que, parmi les caporaux, on comptait Vimam
ou cure des Sept Tours,• un batelier, un marchand de pipes, et plusieurs per'
tonnages de la meme importance." — Voyage a Constantinople, pp. 67, 68.
* Inscrip. Constant. Antiq. CP. lib. vii.pp. 182, 183, tom.i.
t A Voyage, book ii. p. 129. Voyage du Levant, pp. 466, 467, (om. 1,
teti. xii.
940
LETTER XLVIII.
marbles. Although four only of the Seven Towers have remained
entire (for the fifth is rent in half) since the earthquake in 1768,
the fortress still retains the names of Efta-Coulades in the Greek,
and Yedi-Kouleler in the Turkish language, both of them signi-
ficant of the former number of its conspicuous bulwarks *.
It was supposed that Count Bulukof, the Russian minister,
would be the last of the Moussafirs, or imperial hostages confined
in this fortress ; but since the year 1784, Mons. Ruffin and
many of the French were imprisoned in the same place; and the
dungeons of the Seven Towers were gaping, it seems, for the
sacred persons of the gentlemen composing his Britannic Majes-
ty's mission previous to the late rupture between Great Britain
and the Porte.
Not finding our boats as we expected at the water' s-edge, we
Tode onwards for some way near the walls, and through several nar-
row 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 was performed by the hand. On our
route we passed ImrhorDgiamissi, amosck, once the church of St.
John Studius, where there are still some pictures preserved ; and
skirting the outlet of the gate Psammatia, near which are two decent
* Dion mentions, that there were from the Thracian gate to the sea, sevea
towers, and Cedrenus alledges this sea to be the sea to the north, that is,
the port. A person directing his voice, or throwing a stone against the first of
these towers, heard the sound repeated afterwards by all the other six ; a mi-
racle, says Pliny, which the Greeks call echo, and which was produced also by
seven towers at Cyzicum. This is from Gyllius; (lib. i. cap. xx. de Topog.
Const.) but I do not make out from it, that the fortress at the other end of
the walls on the shores of the sea of Marmora, had its name of the Seven Tower*
-from an echo, as is asserted in Constantinople Ancient and Modern, p. 19,
LETTER XLVIII.
941
Greek churches, and of Vlanga-Bostan (the gate of Theodosius),
came 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.
A comparison of KaufFer's Map with Banduri's Chart of Con-
stantinople, divided into regions, such as it existed at the time of
the Greek Emperors, with every remarkable object distinctly-
noticed, renders it 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 regular division of the
ground-plan of the city, enables us to discover their respective
sites, and it is most probable that an attentive scrutiny would
discover many ancient monuments enclosed within the palaces
and gardens of the incurious Turks. The mechanical labours of
the engineer above-mentioned, deserve a better and more copious
illustration than the work of Mr. Le Chevalier, which, although
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. But to
treat of these things properly, would require a distinct volume,
which it is my present intention, if circumstances should ever fa-
vour me with the requisite information and opportunity, one day
or the other to attempt.
" Me si fata meis paterentur vivere vitam
" Auspiciis."
From the Armenian quarter, and the cotton manufactory,
we walked a little distance, and passing through Yeni-Kapoussi,
came to a long range of coffee-houses by the sea-side. These
6 Ε
942
LETTER XLVIII.
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 the outside of the
houses. In one, several well-dressed Turks were sitting with
their pipes, listening to the pretty airs of a guitar and violin,
whilst the recesses were occupied by others asleep. Some of these,
with their turbans off, and their 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 outside, who w T ould 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 de-
licious bliss of total inactivity and listlessness, were lulled into the
soft approaches of repose by 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-Sarai, 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. The stories of the
Meddahs are partly dramatic, and partly descriptive, turning
upon a suite of uninteresting adventures, mostly in private life,
which are detailed with painful minuteness, and often invented
extemporaneously during the progress of the history. It must
be supposed, however, that the same oriental taste which has
produced the Alf Lila Ο Lila, or Thousand and One Nights 3
LETTER XLVJII.
943
would secure now and then a tale not totally uninteresting.
In fact, the Turks are an acute people, and some of the better
sort are authors of elegant compositions, which their fear of being
suspected for ambitious innovators, prevents them from making
public. The oriental courts were formerly crowded with poets.
Mirza Khan promised one thousand pieces of gold to any one
who should find a fault in the works of any of his numerous
bards. Mahomet the Second said, " were I to imitate Mirza
Khan, I should exhaust my treasury." However, an eastern
author of reputation asserts, that there were some good Turkish
poets in the time of that Sultan*. A modern Grand Signior
would neither have the ability, nor the opportunity of making
such an observation. The Grand Vizier Kioprili Mustapha
Pasha, who was killed at the battle of Salankamen, always car-
ried a little library amongst his baggage, and when out of em-
ploy at Constantinople, gave lectures every day to sixty scholars,
for whom he furnished lodging and boarding. But learning is
not now a recommendation to favour, although it is not totally
neglected. A dying Sultan would not now, like Othman-j-, re-
commend to his successor the patronage of the learned as one of
the bulwarks of the state. The author of Constantinople An-
cient and Modern asserts J, that many of the gentlemen of the
capital can quote the Persian poets as happily, and refer to the
Arabic philosophers with as complete erudition, as we can do
* LETIFI. — See Paroles Rcmarquables des Orientaux. Galand.
+ See the last words of Othraan to his son Orchan, as reported by the histo-
rian Saadi. — Cantemir, Ottoman Hist. Part I. book i. p. 20, Tindal's transla-
tion.
% Page 86.
β e 2
944
LETTER XLVIIi.
to the Greek and Roman. Of this I know nothing, but I know
that the minister who was lleis Effendi, or Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, when we were at Pera, was with difficulty
persuaded that Spain and Italy were not one and the same coun-
try, or at least parts of the same kingdom.
The works of the present writers are, as I understand, chiefly
historical,, but some are interspersed with narratives, which show
a turn for point and antithesis, although their humour may be
judged to be not very exquisite from the following specimen*
Two blind beggars, one of whom always called on the name of
God, and the other on that of the Sultan, had, one day, a plea-
sant dispute concerning which was the most efficacious mode of
address. This came to the ears of the Grand Signior, who or-
dered the man that put up petitions in his name, to be given a
duck stuffed with zequins. The beggar put it in his wallet,
and meeting with his friend at night, asked him what he had got
that day by calling on the name of God. " I have got eight
paras" said the other. " Then you are more lucky than I"
returned his friend, u for I have only a duck which was given me
at the Seraglio gate, and which, as I am in no humour for fowl
to-night, you shall have for five of your paras." The agreement
was struck, and the beggar soon eating his way to the money,
the other repented of his bargain. " Ah !" he said, " the Sul-
tan has done less for me than God has done for you: he gave me
a duck, hut never told me it was stuffed mth zequins." It is
fortunate for the audience of the Meddahs if they hear any thing
enlivened even with this sprinkling of pleasantry.
Amongst the frequenters of the coffee-houses near Yeni-Ka-
poussi, may be seen some of those Teriakis, or opium-eaters, who
LETTER XLVIII.
945
are always noticed amongst the curiosities of the Turkish capital.
Pale, emaciated, and ricketty, sunk into a profound stupor, or
agitated by the grimaces of delirium, their persons are, after the
first view, easily to be recognized, and make, indeed, an impres-
sion too deep to be speedily erased. Their chief resort is a row
of coffee-houses in a shady court, near the mosck of Sultan So-
lyman, which I visited, but certainly did not see so frequented
by these singular debauchees, as I had been led to expect. The
increasing attachment to wine, has diminished the consumption
of opium ; but there are still to be found Teriakis, who will swal-
low in a glass of water three or four lozenges, amounting to one
hundred grains. They are mixed with spices, and stamped with the
words mash Allah (the zvork of God). Yet the exploits of these
persons are insignificant when compared with that of the taker of
a daily drachm of corosive sublimate, who was alive in 1800, and
nearly a hundred years old ; but was, like Partridge the almanack-
maker, almost reasoned out of existence by a verbal criticism,
which has since turned out to be incorrect *.
Prom the coffee-houses we walked on to a tabagie near Koum-
Kapoussi, the next gate, where we dined upon kebab. This
dish, which any palate would reckon a delicacy, consists of mut-
ton chopped in small bits, either with or without herbs, larded.
* Dr. Pouqueville mentioned (he fact, and said the man was known by the
name of Suleyman Yeyen, or Suleyman the taker of corosive sublimate. — Voy-
age a Constantinople, p. 126. Mr. Thornton thought the story false from be-
ginning to end, — Present Slate, &c. p. 229, because " yeyen" is from, " ye-
tnek" to eat, and the name can be only Solyman the eater; but, says my fellow-
traveller, Suleyma n-yeyen, put together discreetly, mean thcswallower of subli-
mate, without any Suleyman in the case; Suleyma signifying corosive subli-
mate.— Childe Harold, pp.178, 179, second edit.
946
LETTER XLVIII.
with milk and butler, and fried upon a wooden skewer ; an ope-
ration which is performed over a small brazier on a marble dresser
in the front of the shop. 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 kebabgees, or cooks, who are
in the most repute, live near Eski-Sarai, the old palace, assigned
to the establishments of deceased Sultans ; 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 ; and 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 tum-
blers of wine, pledging repeatedly our healths, and looking at
us for approbation, 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 com-
mence, and Balik-Hane (the fisher's house), a small green kiosk
projecting 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 running out by itself, and forming, as it were, an
upper wing of the kiosk. Λ 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 has been waiting to convey him to the place
LETTER XL VI II.
947
of banishment. Balik-Hane is not the only spot chosen for the
punishment of the Sultan's enemies : a dark chamber at the gate
of the second court of the Seraglio, called Mabein, where the
Viziers' heads are always exposed, is allotted to the same purpose,
and is the permanent station of the royal executioners.
In situations where a minister is said in England to lose his
place, and, under the old French regime, was called a disgraced
man, a Turkish Vizier not unfrequently loses his head, and when
only banished, is deprived of nearly the whole of his wealth.
Reckoning on an average, deduced from a hundred and fifteen
Grand Viziers who successively governed the Ottoman empire,
to the time of the siege of Vienna, the place of the prime minis-
ter of the Porte may be esteemed worth three years and a half
purchase*..
The instability of every powerful individual in Turkey, may
be judged by the events of fifteen months, from the year 1622,
during which time there were three Emperors, seven Grand
Viziers, two Capudan-Pashas, five Agas of the Janissaries, three
Tefterdars or High Treasurers, and six Pashas of Cairo -f. The
power of the Vizier Azem continued unrivalled until the reign of
Mahomet the Fifth, 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 Aga of the Janissaries,
the Capudan-Pasha, and others of the great officers of state. Ab-
dallah Pasha, Vizier Azem under Sultan Abdulhamid, was not
only raised to the vizierat by the Selictar-Aga, but deposed and
strangled in the prison of Roumeli-Kavak by the intrigues of the
* Marsigli, Stato Militarc, &c. &c. p. 13.
note 89, p. 375, 4to.
+ Knolles' Hist. Turks, p. 1387.
Decline and Fall, cap. lxv.
948
LETTER XLVIII.
same minister. Nevertheless, the ostensible authority of this Pre-
torian Prefect is still absolute over every subject of the empire ;
and, as far as his responsibility is concerned, the burden which he
has to bear* is not less grievous than that of his predecessors.
After Balik-Hane, we passed by Indogouli-Kiosch, Mermer-
Kiosch, and Yali-Kiosch — the Pearl and Marble Pavilions, and
the Kiosk of the Landing-place. From near the second there is
a view of the summit of the Corinthian pillar of white marble,
fifty feet high, in the gardens of the Seraglio, with the inscription
FORTUNE REDUCI OB DEVICTOS GOTHOS.
This has been erroneously supposed the column of Theodora.
Pococke mentions that it was taken from some other part of the
town to the Seraglio gardens -f•. It is surmounted by a handsome
capital of verd-antique. The latter kiosk, which is covered on
the outside by a screen of green canvass or cloth, contains a long
chair or sofa of silver ; and on this the Grand Signior seats him-
self to take public leave of the Vizier Azem or Capudan-Pasha,
previously to any warlike expedition, and also on certain occasions
of rejoicing, when tents are pitched for the grandees of his court
and for the foreign ministers, and games and fireworks are exhi-
bited 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 cannons 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
* Vizier is from a Persian word, signifying a porter; as Bailo, the title of a
Venetian ambassador; and Baillif, a French and English municipal officer, are
derived from bajulus. — See Bibliotbeque Orientale, Vazir.
+ Observations on Thrace, p. 132.
LETTER XtVIII.
949
giant. Λ similar story was formerly told of some immense bones
in the royal palace of Ben-Hadad at Damascus*.
Close to Yali-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 lat-
tice-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 Bostandge-Bashe, except during a conflagration, when the
place of that officer, in the event of the Sultan crossing the water,
is occupied by the Hassekis-Aga, the Chief of the Second Guard.
From this place we passed over to Tophana, having in boats, on
horseback, and by walking, made the circuit of Constantinople ;
an expedition which, including stoppages, employed us from nine
in the morning to half after four in the afternoon.
* Je vis la cote (Tun Geant suspendue dans le rndme palais, long de neuf
paumes, et large dc deux. On pretend que c'cst cellc d'un Roi de l'ancienne.
Race des Geants, nomine Abchamas. — Voyage dc Benjamin, Fils dc Jonas,
p. 28. Voyage faits principalemcnt en Asie, torn, i.
6 F
LETTER XLIX.
The Atmeidan — Antiquities of the Hippodrome — Theodosian
Obelisk — The Colossus Struct His — The Delphic Serpentine
Column — The Burnt Pillar — Note on the Historical Column
— Three other Columns — The Ancient Cisterns — The Aque-
duct of Valens — The Fountains and Baths — The Hans — En-
couragement of Commerce in the East — Bezesteins and
Bazars of Constantinople,
IN our several walks to Constantinople, we saw the
antiquities of the Atmeidan, the cisterns, and the aqueducts; and
we visited the hans, the bezesteins, and the bazars.
It would be very difficult to recognize the ancient Hippodrome,
even such as it existed a little previously to the last conquest of
Constantinople, in the present Atmeidan, or Horse-course. Onu-
phrius Panvinius remarked the change which had taken place
in its appearance during the hundred years preceding the de-
scription of Gyllius; and the devastations of time and barba-
rism have been proceeding with an equally rapid pace since the
age of that learned traveller*. It is now no longer a circus, but
* Ejus Circi descriptione?n ex antiqua Const antinopolis topographia, qua:
paulo antequam Urbs in Turcorum potestatem venisset facta fuit, excerp-
tam, adjeci, parum his qnce a Petro Gyllio dicuntur quadrantem. Fieri enim
potest ut centum annorum intervallo, Circi sive Hippodromi Constantinopo-
litani as pectus mutatus sit ; Turcis eum in dies demolientibus, et xastantibusj
LETTER XL1X.
951
an oblong open space, two hundred and fifty paces long and one
hundred and fifty wide*, flanked on one side by the magnificent
mosck of Sultan 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 granite obelisk of Theodosius, the
broken pyramid of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, stripped of its
bronze plates, and the base of the Delphic pillar, were all that
remained, even in the time of Sandys -j*, of the many noble monu-
ments with which this spot was formerly adorned ; and were it not
for these antiquities, 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 object of controversy. The djerid
playing is less frequent there now than formerly : the surface of the
ground is uneven, and of a hard gravelly soil. Part of the base
of the Theodosian obelisk is hidden in the ground, so that the
fourth and fifth line of the inscription, which record the name of
the Pretor during whose year it was raised in the reign of Theo-
dosius the Elder, and the time employed in its erection, are no
longer visible J. This appears to have been the case so early as
the beginning of the last century §.
ac ad suos usus prccclarissima marmora, et columnas vcrtejrtibus." — De Ludis
Circcnsibus, lib. i. p. 61. Bandurii Comment, in Anliq. Cl\ lib. iii. p. 661,
torn. ii. The view leaves out the Delphic column, and in some respects, seems
made from conjecture.
* Wheler makes the length five hundred and fifty and the breadth one hun-
dred and twenty paces. — A Voyage, &c. book ii. p. 183.
+ Relation of a Journey, &c. lib. i. p. 34.
X TER DENIS SIC VICTUS EGO DOMITUS QUE D1EBUS.
JUDICE SUB PROCLO SUPERAS ELATUS AD AURAS.
Inscript. Const. Band. Impcr. Orient, lib. vi. p. 182.
S Lady M. W. Montague's Letters, xli.
6f2
952
LETTER X MX.
Supposing that this obelisk was one of the original ornaments
bestowed upon Byzantium by Constantine, and that being shaken
down by an earthquake, it was only transferred by Theodosius to
the Hippodrome, it may appear surprising that a single mass of
fifty feet long, although of the hardest granite, should not have
been broken by the fall; yet the first line of the Greek inscrip-
tion on the north side of the base, given by Sandys and Wheler,
seems to show that it. had lain some time on the ground, and was
not transported directly from Rome or Egypt by that Emperor*.
It is observed by Gyllius, that there is no mention of an obe-
lisk in the Hippodrome in the ancient description of the regions of
the city, although a square pillar of Egyptian stone is noticed in
the fifth region, which he might have been inclined to think was
this identical monument, removed after its fall by Theodosius, if he
had not discovered that the same work had made some omissions
in the detail of the many antiquities of the capital, and that it was
written after the date inscribed upon the granite -f•. By the
sculptures on the pedestal, representing the Hippodrome, it ap-
pears indeed that there were two obelisks in this place.
The marble pyramid, called by the old topographers the Co-
lossus Strucrilis, raised by Constantine the son of Romanus, had
been stripped of its brazen plates before it was seen by Gyllius J ;
and Sandys describes it as greatly ruinated. The last measure-
ment makes it ninety-four feet in height §. Gyllius, upon the
occasion of a grand festival, saw a man ascend to the top of it
* ΚΙΟΝΑ ΤΕΤΡΑΠΛΕΪΡΟΝ ΑΕΙ ΧΘΟΝΙ KEIMENON ΑΧΘΟΣ
ΜΟΤΝΟΣ ΑΝΑΣΤΗΣΑΙ ΘΕΤΔΟΣΙΟΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΪΣ.
\ I)e Topog. Constant, lib. ii. cap. xi.
\ Do Topog. Constant, lib. ii. cap. xii.
% Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 69.
LETTER XLIX.
955
and descend without injury, when it was higher than the obelisk.
Another person, who made the same effort immediately afterwards,
was so giddy when he arrived at the summit, that he leapt from
it with a violence sufficient to carry him beyond the base of the
pyramid, and although he lighted upon his feet, and sinking deep
into the earth, remained upright, was found to be dead.
Le Chevalier is the last traveller, who, following Thevenot's
pretended voyage, describes the serpents' heads forming the capi-
tal of the Delphic column of bronze, as having been struck off
by a blow of Mahomet's battle-axe. That such a story should
ever have prevailed is extraordinary, since every traveller, from
Gyllius to Wheler, who has given a picture of it, describes the
column as entire. The reputation of this monument has been
various. Gyllius established beyond all doubt its identity with
the column supporting the Platsean tripod at Delphi ; Sandys
noticed it without any remark; Smyth does not mention it
at all ; Wheler disputes its actual history, and supposes it to
have been placed on the Colossus Structilis. In 1700, as Tour-
nefort relates, the heads were gone, one having been struck off
by the Sultan Mourat; meaning probably, Amu rath, the Fourth,
who died in l639> and who could ; not have performed the exploit
any more than Mahomet, as Wheler saw them entire after that
period. The French traveller adds, that the others had been
broken off, and the pillar thrown down, and afterwards placed in
its present situation : he in a great measure restores the monu-
ment to its ancient credit. Lady M. W. Montague beheld the
heads again in 1717; but they had disappeared when the Hippo-
drome was seen by Lord Sandwich, who mentioned the story of
Mourat, and disputed the antiquity of the column. Pococke
notices the ruin of the capital, but without adding the story; and
XBBB
954
LETTER XLIX.
Chishull avers that the serpents' heads which lately terminated the
pillar, were taken off privately by the servants of the late Polish
ambassador. It is difficult to discover the precise period to which
he alludes, and I presume that he speaks only of the two heads.
Subsequent travellers have revived the story of Thevenot; but
by way of compensation, the well-known decision of our last
great historian has stamped the authenticity of this venerable
relic*. It is now generally believed at Constantinople that it
has been removed, as Tournefort relates, from its former 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. It has before been noticed as being about
seven feet above the surface of the ground, hollow, and filled with
stones -f\ The brazen column at Sant. Ambrogio, which is be-
lieved to be the serpent of Moses, was brought, if we may credit
the Milanese historians, from Constantinople, and may have
been some way or the other confounded with this serpentine pillar.
The column which was raised by Constantine, and repaired by
Manuel Commenus, subsequently to the great earthquake in
1150, and which is commonly called the porphyry or burnt column,
is near the Atmeidan. AVe entered a house to see the base of it,
but found that the Turks had built a stone facing round the bot-
* Sec Cyll. lib. ii. cap. xii. De Topog. Constant.; Band. Comment, in An-
tiq. CP. torn. ii. p. 6G8 ; Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, lib. i. p. 34; A
Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages, torn. ii. chap, v.; Whcler, A
Voyage, &c. book ii. p. 185; Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, pp. 511, 519,
torn, i.; Lady M. W. Montague, letter xli.; Lord Sandwich, A Voyage round
the Mediterranean, p. 128; Pococke, Observations on Thrace, p. 131; Chis•
hull, Travels in Turkey, p. 40.
t P. 253, of this volume.
LETTER XtlX.
955
torn of the monument. This happened after the fire in 1779*.
The shaft is black, from repeated conflagrations, and this circum-
stance, together with the hoops of iron encircling the pillar, has
concealed the joints of the blocks, and gives the column the ap-
pearance of a single mass. It is now an unsightly structure, ninety
feet high, and thirty-three in circumference.
From a mention of this antiquity by Busbek, in the same no-
tice with the famous historical column in Aurat-Bazar, it has been
thought by some writers to be one of the two hollow pillars -j-
* Const. Anc. and Modern.
+ Τω it αυτω txti ϊ(ττη<τίν ΑρκαΛο? τον χίονκ τα HiipoXopa.— - Theophancs. ap.
Band. Comment, in Antiq. CP. lib. i. p. 507, tome ii. Both of these were
adorned from the base to the capital with figures sculptured in relief, represent-
ing the triumph of Theodosius over the Scythians, and other barbarous nations.
They were both standing when the city was taken by the Turks, and Mahomet
(so foolishly calumniated as an enemy to the arts) employed Gentilis Bellinus,
a Venetian, to copy the sculptures, all of which, the designs being deposited
in the Royal Academy of Painting at Paris, were carefully engraved under the
inspection of Claude Fran$ois Menestrier, the Jesuit, and afterwards under that
of Banduri, in the second volume of whose Imperium Oricntale they are found
divided into eighteen plates. Ducange also has given an engraving of one of
the columns. The column of Theodosius was taken down, it is said, by Bajazet
the Second, to build a bath, about forty years before Gyllius visited the city,
that is to say, in 1505. That of Arcadius was measured by him: the ascent to
the top was by two hundred and thirty-three steps, and the height of the struc-
ture was one hundred and forty-seven feet. A plan of it was taken by Busbek,
which has never been published, but there is one of the whole column in
Sandy's Travels, copied apparently with great minuteness*. It was taken
down in the year 1695. Now a doubt has arisen, whether the drawings of Gen-
tilis Bellinus represent the sculptures of (he Theodosian, or of the Arcadian
column. Banduri, in whose time the latter monument was standing in Aurat-
Bazar, could not solve the difficulty, but inclined to the Theodosian. He com-
pared the elevation in Sandys, with the detail of the Venetian, which I have
• Relation of a Journey, lib. i. p. 35.
|P\
95(5
LETTER XLIX.
which were seen in the ancient city. But it is not hollow, and
those two columns were those raised by Theodosius the Second,
also done with some pains, as far as any comparison can be made between the
two. There is just such a resemblance between the minute confused figures in
Sandys, and the plates of Bellinus, (such as a ship, soldiers and men on horse-
back), as would be sufficient to decide the question, were it not that the two co-
lumns were alike in the subject of their sculptures, and in every other respect*.
Mr. Le Chevalier is decidedly of opinion, that Bellinus copied the Theo-
dosian columnt, and founds his notion upon a discovery which he made at
Constantinople, that the pedestal still remaining in Aurat Bazar, answers in
some of its ornaments to the description of Gyllius ; and he might have added,
the picture of Sandys, but not to the drawings of the Venetian artist. It will
be observed, that in the eighteen plates of Bellinus, no drawing is given of the
pedestal, and that the picture of the entire column in Banduri, is from Ducange.
The other remark of Mr. Le Chevalier, relative to the quality of the sculpture,
apparently too excellent for the fourth century, and superior to that on the frag-
ment in Aurat-Bazar, is not confirmed by the observations of Wheler and
Tournefort, both of whom describe the figures on the base, as of a style superior
to that of the age in which they were executed, and, what is worthy of remark,
similar to those in Ducange's picture, which Banduri suspected to be not a
faithful representation. The French traveller, indeed, corresponds so exactly
with that picture, that I cannot but think his description taken from it, rather
than from an actual view of the monument;};. Mr. Tournefort is not, in fact,
always to be depended upon, and in some instances he appears to have written
hastily. For example, in translating the inscription on the Colossus Structilis,
he calls Constantine Porphyrogenitus the father, instead of the son, of Romanus.
1 find no assistance from any of the accounts or designs already noticed, but,
on the contrary, much confusion ; yet on the whole I conclude, that as the
Arcadian column was probably in a state of much better preservation than the
Tlieodosian at the taking of Constantinople, it was therefore the model of Gen-
tilis Bellinus, who however did not refrain from improving upon the original,
and must be understood to have only copied the sculptures on the shaft.
* "Or* ο Ηιφόλοφί Efyo* Ιστίν Apxa£i& t o^xowv κατά. ττάντα τι* Ταυρω, are the words of Cedrenus.
f Voyage de la Propontide, &c. p. 158.
ί Tournefort, Voyage du iLcvant, p. 513, tome j. Lett, xii. Wheler, a Journey, &c. book u, p. 189
LETTER XL IX
957
in the forum of Taurus, in the eighth year of his reign, and by
Arcadius in the ninth year of his reign, on the place called
Xerolophus. Aurat-Bazar being burnt down in the last rebel-
lion, we had not a view of the base of the Arcadian column, which
was about fourteen feet high when seen by Dr. Dallaway, but
mutilated and entirely defaced. The granite column of Marcian,
discovered by Wheler, now standing near the mosck of Ibrahim
Pasha, and called Kistach, that near Yeni-Kapoussi, and the one
in the Seraglio-gardens, are the only ancient monuments of this
description remaining in Constantinople.
The Turks never having suffered the siege of their capital,
have neglected the cisterns of the city. Remains of several of
these useful structures are still to be seen, but I believe that
only one is applied to its original purpose. The largest cistern
is called Binderik, or the thousand and one pillars, and has
now the appearance of a suite of gloomy underground dungeons.
It is occupied by a number of half-naked pallid wretches, em•
ployed in twisting silk through all the long corridors by the glare
of torches. The roof of this reservoir, apparently that of Phi-
loxenus, was supported by a double tier, consisting altogether of
four hundred and twenty-four pillars, of which only the upper
half are now cleared from the earth.
Dr. Dallaway, it seems, did not recognize the double set of
columns so exactly described by Gyllius*, as he simply mentions
that the number of those in Binderik is two hundred and twelve-f•.
* Cujus concameratio quadringentis et viginti quatuor columnis marmoreis
sustinctur duplicatis, nempe ducentis et duodecim supra se ducentas et duode•
cim columnas habcntibus. — De Topog. Const, lib. ii. cap. xxv.
t Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 110.
Go
953
LETTER XLIX.
Le Chevalier says, that the Imperial Cistern of Constantine, of
which only the site is now visible, is at Yere-batan, which may
lead a traveller into an error, as Binderik is called also Yere-
batan Sarai, the under-ground palace ; and so far from having
disappeared, is that which he names Cisterna Maxima*, and which
has been just described. It is a little distance from the burnt co-
lumn, in a quarter of the town anciently called Lausus.
The cistern A spans, constructed by A spares and Ardaburius.
in the reign of Leo, who destroyed the founders of it in the reser-
voir itself -f, may be that of eighty columns, near the mosck of
Laleli, on the third hill. Tschukour-Bostan, now a herb-garden
within a high walled inclosure between Tekkuri-Sarai, and Ederne-
Kapoussi, is supposed by Le Chevalier to be the cistern called
from a neighbouring church, Moc'isia; but it corresponds more
precisely with that which was constructed by Bonus, a Patrician,
in the time of the Emperor HeracliusJ, at the back of the Hebdo-
mon (Tekkuri-Sarai), and which had lost its columns, and cham-<
bers, 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 fifth hill ||. A subter•*
ranean corridor of twenty-four columns near the Seven Towers,
and some ancient remains between the public bath, Tschukour-
Hamam, and the mosck called Seirek-Dgiamissi, belong also to
three other cisterns.
* Voyage dc la Propontide, p. 106.
+ Anonymi. pars tcrtia. Antiq. CP. lib. iii. p. 49 } ap. Band. Imp. Orient.
^ Anonymi. ibid.
^ De Topog. Const, lib. iv. cap. iv.
(| Ibid. cap. ii.
LETTER XLIX.
959
Bosdgohan-Kemeri, the aqueduct of Valens, before 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 aerial
chambers*, the admiration of the Byzantines, have, as an archi-
tectural monument, nothing either grand or agreeable.
The style of the numerous fountains at Constantinople is ex-
travagant 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. Two
exact representations of them are given in the annexed views of
Tophana and the Gate of the Seraglio. In the court of St. So-
phia is a fountain, erected by a Persian architect, after the fa-
shion of his own country.
The public baths, of which there are no less than one hundred
and thirty 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 degree superior to the baths of the provin-
cial towns, every accommodation requisite for the perfect enjoy-
ment of the first of Oriental luxuries. The best in the city is near
* *0 αγωγός των μιγχλων άψ/ίωΐ/, rj-ro» α» ουράνια» κα^άραι νπο Ονάλεντο;
txT»V3»ατΛί.— Anonymi. ibid.
6g2
BBBBBB
960
LETTER XLIX.
the church of the Armenian Patriarch, and not far from the
Atmeidan.
The hundred and eighty hans of Constantinople, are so many
immense stone barracks or closed squares, which have, like the
baths, every recommendation except architectural 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 ban,
and fitted up for the time with the carpets and slender wardrobe
of the several occupiers. The generality of the hans are for tra-
velling merchants ; but the chambers of the one we visited, were
let out as counting-houses to 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 mu-
nificent individuals, so that strangers, excent a small ffratuitv 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 ?nen,
of 'whatever quality, condition, country, or religion soever; 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 merchandize of the farthest boundaries of
Africa and Asia to the capital of Turkey.
The commercial intercourse of distant nations seems congenial
Whclcr, a Journey, book ii. p. 192»
LETTER XXIX.
961
to the spirit of the Mahometan religion, and it has been pro-
moted not only by the chief injunction of that system, the pil-
grimage 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 caravan-
sarai in the wilderness, as an act of devotion no 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 character with which we
become acquainted in the very outset of history*, is the favourite
and the friend of Islamism : for the few days of the annual pilgri-
mage, the fair of Mecca, until the late disturbances of Arabia, was
the greatest perhaps on the face of the earth f. From that centre*
a constant and abundant supply of a thousand useful and luxurious
commodities 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 land-
carriage 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, glass; and from Yemen to Persia, painted
* Genesis, xxxvii. 25.
+ Robertson's Historical Disquisition concerning India, sect. iii. p.
edit, quart.
160,
m
LETTER XLIX.
calicoes*. It is by the aid of the caravan that the shawls of Ca-
chemire, the muslins of Bengal, and the diamonds of Golconda,
as well as the gold and ivory of Southern Africa, are to be met
with in the Bezesteins of Constantinople.
The life of an eastern merchant is spent upon his camel, or in
bans, and the institution of these buildings is not only commend-
able, but absolutely necessary for the existence of trade. During
fires or insurrections their iron gates are closed, and they afford
complete security to the persons, as well as the goods of the mer-
chants.
Whilst we were at Constantinople, the commercial intercourse
of the East being interrupted by the Wahaubees, it was not easy
they told us to procure foreign articles of real value in the market.
A man asked me four hundred and fifty piasters for a Damascus
blade, which a connoisseur informed me was, after all, not the
true steel, nor of the proper age ; for it is pretended by the Turks,
that no swords manufactured within a century, I believe, even at
Damascus, are of the requisite quality ; and the report that a
sabre of the true sort is to be sold, brings as many chapmen as a
valuable picture or piece of genuine porcelain in England. Not a
few travellers have been deceived in their purchase of shawls and
ottar of roses. However, the great Bezestein, or covered exchange,
was hung round with goods of the utmost brilliancy and apparent
richness, and the immense crowd of men and women in splendid
habits, together with the active busy air of the merchants, would
not suffer one to suspect there was any unusual dulness of trade.
We did not see any of those brokers selling old clothes, w r ho
frightened Wheler out of this place, but only a crier or two
* Paroles Remarquables des Orientaux. Galand.
LETTER XLIX.
963
squeezing through the crowd, and proclaiming the price of a mus-
lin or other article which he held in his. hand.
The covered Bazars of Constantinople have more the appearance
of a row of booths in a fair, than a street of shops. Yet the ar-
rangement and exposure of their various and gaudy articles, would
astonish a person acquainted even with the splendour of London :
one alley glitters on each side of you for an 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 ermines 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 is 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 resemble open
streets, are severally allotted to particular trades and merchandize,
after the manner of Athens, Home, 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 goldsmiths
another. The curriers and leather-workers, as well as horse-deal-
ers, all live at At- Bazar. Misir-Tscharchi is a long line of drug
repositories. All the Mocca coffee is ground by hand in Tahmis-
Bazar. The ancient Charto-Pratia of the eastern capital may be
recognized 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 books, and many of them were
employed in giving the gloss which is found on all their writing
964
LETTER XLIX.
paper, and which they effect by placing the sheets in box frames,
and perseveringly rubbing the surface with a Chalcedonic ame-
thyst, or piece of jasper let into the end of a short stick — a con-
trivance which is applied by our own artizans for polishing other
substances. Those acquainted with oriental literature would na-
turally resort to the shops of Tusuk-Bazar, and, as I understand,
would meet with most of the books in any repute in the East ;
but as curiosity without skill would be of no avail, I did not
myself make any researches in this quarter.
LETTER L.
The Dgiamissi Selatyn, or Royal Moscks — St. Sophia — The
Mosck of Sultan Achmet — Little St. Sophia — Nourri Osma-
nie — The Tomb of Constantine — and Prediction of the Fall
of the Ottoman Empire — Suleymanti'— Other Moscks and
Public Buildings.
ST. SOPHIA may be seen without a firman ; a few
shillings procure admittance, but the other moscks cannot be vi-
sited without such permission. The case seems to have been
exactly the reverse in the time of Lady M. W. Montague*. It
is usual to grant a firman for this purpose to strangers, upon the
arrival or departure of an Ambassador, and other occasions are
sometimes found by the foreign ministers, in order to gratify
their friends.
The Dgiamissi Sejatyn, or royal moscks, which are fourteen in
number, are, with the addition of a syllable, called simply, in
some cases, by the name of the founder. The Suleymanie, Os-
manie, Muradie, signify the churches of Solyman, Osman, and
Amurath ; but in all other instances, the word Dgiamissi is added
to the distinctive appellation, as in the case of Daoud Pasha
Dgiamissi and Yeni Dgiamissi, the mosck of Daoud Pasha, and
* Letter lxi,
6 π
966
LETTER L.
the New Mosck. It is not lawful even for a Sultan to give bis
name to any other building; and Cantemir remarks, that no
town of Turkish origin, except Othmanyick. retains the name of
its founder*.
It is required of strangers to pull off their shoes, or to cover
them with the yellow papouches or short boots of the country,
on entering the moscks, a preliminary of which they have no
right to complain, as it is not dispensed with by the Turks them-
selves. However, if they grudge this respect to Islamism, they
may retain their hats when they part with their shoes; for
amongst the many customs which run counter to our own, it may
be observed, that to uncover the head in company, is esteemed
amongst the Turks an indecent familiarity, and want of respect-)-.
The necessity of an observance of forms in visiting the moscks,
was evinced, in a manner very disagreeable to the parties, by a
disturbance which is still the subject of conversation at Pera, and
which might have been fatal to the supposed offenders. The late
Ν
* Ottoman Hist. Parti, book i. p. 37. Tindal's translation.
t The reader will find in a passage of Mr. Thornton's valuable book, before
referred to, a general allusion to the pointed difference between Frank and Ori-
ental manners and customs. I will put down as many instances as I recollect,
in which the Turks not only differ from, but are just contrary to ourselves.
Some have been mentioned before, but when arrayed together, they will make the
contrast more striking. They turn in their toes — they mount on the right side
of the horse — they put their guests into a room first and out of it last, serve
themselves at table first ; take the wall, and walk hastily, in sign of respect—
they think beheading disgraceful in comparison with strangling — they cut the
hair from the head and leave it on the chin — they invite with the hand, by
throwing it backwards not drawing it towards them— their mourning habit is
white.
i^H
LETTER L.
96"?
Russian Minister, Mr. De Tamara, and a large company of gen-
tlemen and ladies, were assaulted in the Suleymanie, first by the
students of the mosck, and afterwards by the assembled crowd.
Madame de Tamara and two other ladies knocked hastily at the
door of a neighbouring house, and were taken into the harem.
The gentlemen were some of them much bruised, and with diffi-
culty saved themselves by dispersing through different streets.
A body of Janissaries arrived too late to quell the commotion ;
but on a complaint from the Russian Minister, several of the stu-
dents were bastinadoed, and two of the assai/ants, as is reported,
were banged*.
One story says, that they refused to put on the papouches,
walked arm in arm with the ladies, and laughed at the Turks at
prayers-)-. But the first and last of these offences were impracti-
cable when we saw the moscks ; and we heard an account less dis-
creditable to the visitors. The disturbance originated in some
involuntary breach of decorum, joined to a little imprudence in
the younger part of the strangers.
Between twenty and thirty Englishmen proceeded to take a
view of the moscks on the 15th of June, accompanied by Janis-
saries and other attendants ; but whether from the long demand
for constant admiration, or the formality of the visit, or want
of taste and curiosity, we were satisfied with seeing St. Sophia.
♦ Two Russian officers had been shot at Galata just before, and two Greeks
hanged, as peace-offerings rather than as culprits. The Turks will not destroy
their Mussulman subjects readily, and they appease the complaints of their
Christian allies by the same vicarious compensation, as the envoy of the mighty
Tottipotimoy received from the American Elders commemorated in Hudibras.
t Notice sur la Cour du Grand Seigneur.
β Η 3
Paris, 1S09.
968
LETTER L.
the Mosck of Achmet, the Little St. Sophia, the Osmanie, and
the Suleymanie.
I know of no monument of antiquity which has excited so much
curiosity, both amongst the learned and the unlearned, as St. So-
phia. For its dimensions and integrity it may be thought incom-
parably more curious than any other relic of former ages ; but in
every other respect it must disappoint any sanguine expectation.
Its external appearance is that of a vast building, whose ill-
assorted construction requires a proportionate heaviness of mass
to preserve it standing and entire. The weighty buttresses,
and the attached compartments of the temple, falling, in a suc-
cession 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
' JO
churches ; but your admiration 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 body
of the building, is spoilt by a thousand little cords depending from
the summit within four feet of the pavement, and having at the
end of them lamps ot coloured glass, large ostrich eggs, artificial
horse-tails, vases and globes of chrystal, and• other mean orna-
ments. The columns appear too large for the arches which they
support, and the carving of their capitals can scarcely be more
painful to the eyes of an architect, than to those of a common
observer. Grelot knew not to what order they belonged, or by
LETTER L.
969
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 Cyclion, 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
ranged 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 sanctuary
directly towards Mecca, which being formerly due east, is by
the above contrivance drawn a little to the southward of that
quarter. At this new centre is a niche, with a large chandelier
on each side, called the Mirabe or Maharabe, which is the repo-
sitory 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 tesserated.
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 are sold to strangers, is not visible to those
standing in the body of the mosck. It is composed of very mi-
nute 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 shows,
* 11 est dijjicile de dire de quel ordre ils sont f si ce rCest qiion leur veuille
donner le nom de Grec Gothise. — Grclot, ap. Band, in Comment, in Antic-,
CP. lib. iii. p. 748.
970
LETTER L.
indeed, an inward depression from the summit towards the cen-
tre of the cupola. With a diameter 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. Banduri added the plans and pictures of
Grelot to the description of this temple by the anonymous au-
thor of the Constantinopolitan Antiquities, whose details could
not, he thought, be understood without the aid of some such re-
presentation*.
To attempt any account of St. Sophia at this time, without a
similar advantage, would be a fruitless task, and it is rendered
almost unnecessary by those accurate delineations, and other va-
luable notices on the same subject, contained in the Imperium
Orientals and more narticularlv bv the masterlv description
inserted in the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
When in order to rouse our unwilling admiration we resort to
the measurement of areas, cupolas, and columns, and the enumera-
tion of ornaments and other architectural details, we must on the
whole have found no work to wonder at. Being disappointed by
the general effect of St. Sophia, I did not examine whether it
contained one hundred and seven columns, or if the length of its
base was two hundred and sixty-nine, and the breadth of it two
* Comment, in Antiq. Constant, lib, iv. p. 748.
p. 748.
Imperium Orientate,
LETTER L.
971
hundred and forty-three feet. 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 showed that it was calculated for nocturnal
illuminations. All was gilt and gaudy colouring, and the empe-
ror would have inlaid the pavement with solid gold, if his astro-
logers had not warned him that the building would be dilapidated
by his needy successors f•. It must indeed have a brilliant appear-
ance when lighted by its myriads of lamps, and its vault may
glitter like the 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 is required in vain.
The only modern curiosity in the mosck is the two banners
suspended above the pulpit of the Imaum, which were carried
before Mahomet at the taking of the city. The private gallery
of the Sultan in the sanctuary, and the seat of the Mufti, are
pointed out to strangers. The opening into the cistern in the
body of the area, is the site probably of the holy well, the mouth
of which was brought from Samaria J. The crosses, although
* Κα» το σ-χγμοί τ« vaa κατ' ovxp £&»£« τω βασιλίΓό άγγελος Κυρία"— and the
Angel of the Lord showed to the Emperor, in a dream, a plan of the temple.-—
Anonymi. de 8. Sophia Antiq. Const, lib. iv. p. 69, ap. Imp. Orient, torn. i.
Another Angel, whom Justinian knew Xo be one by the form of his oath, ap-
peared also in the shape of an eunuch, and took an active part in superintending
the building, and providing for the exigencies of the Emperor.
t Ibid. p. 75.
4 ΑΠΟΝ ΦΡΕΑΡ. ibid. pp. 67, 75.
972
LETTER L.
great pains have been taken to deface them, are still visible on the
brazen gates of the Gynaikonition.
The mosck of Sultan Achmet is of a magnificent exterior. The
founder is said to have expended three aspers upon every stone of
the edifice, and to have employed his Imperial hands upon the
work for one hour every Friday. 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 fur-
nished) are too tall for the building, but their distant appearance
is imposing and agreeable. Ascending by a flight of thirteen mar-
ble steps into a fine vestibule or ambulatory, paved also with mar-
ble, and surrounded with an arched cloister of granite colonnades,
you anticipate something more striking than the interior of the
building, where a dome, much smaller than that of St. Sophia, is
supported by four gigantic ill-proportioned piers, spoilt also by
tawdry fresco paintings, and the cords of the lamps and conse-
crated vases. The windows of stained glass are a rich and suit-
able ornament to the building. In this mosck is the curtain, or
cloth door of the Kibleh, 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.
In the court of this Dgiamissi a number of cats are fed twice
every week, according to the bequest, and out of the provision,
left by one of the Sultans. Mr. Pope, when he ridiculed the
legacy of his Duchess, could not expect that a royal example
would be ever adduced to sanction the endowment of cats. But
the cat was a favourite of Mahomet, and a story is told of his cut-
ting off the skirt of his robe, that he might not, by rising from
LETTER L.
915
his seat, awaken one of these animals who was sleeping upon it
by his side.
Little St. Sophia (Kutchuk Agia Sophia) is a small mosck,
which deserves notice from its having been a Christian church de-
dicated to St. Bacchus and St. Sergius, and built in the reign of
Justinian. It is a small round temple, covered with a dome
standing on eight pillars, of a mean appearance, and in the inte-
rior is remarkable only for two rows of eighteen and sixteen Ionic
columns, 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 the illustrious
saints* has retained the attributes of his namesake in the heathen
mythology. The same holy person seems also to have preserved
his divinity not only in Greece, but in Italy and Spain, where it
is common at this day to swear by Bacchus. A Greek inscrip-
tion, in letters a foot long -f, runs round the whole of the building.
It contains a mention of the Imperial founder. Frocopius 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 expressions of admiration, which confirm the opinion
before expressed of the architectural beauties which were in most
repute during the reign of Justinian. — Kutchuk Agia Sophia stands
near Thatladi-Kapoussi, a gate on the shore of the sea of Mar-
mora, not far from the mosck of Sultan Achmet.
The Osmanie, called also Nourri-Osmanic, the light of the Ot-
* Sane etiam Templum aliud construxit illustribus Divis, Sergio et Bac-
cho.— Procop. de Mdif. Just. ap. Gvll. de Topog. Const, lib. ii. cap. xiv.
t Et Zoophorus grandibus Uteris versuum Grascorum sculptus ambientium
totius cedis circulum» — De Topog. Const, ibid.
61
974
LETTER ί.
tomans, is well worthy attention, as a decisive proof that the taste
of the Turks is at least equal to that of the Greeks in the latter
oeriods of their empire. The plan of the Osmanie, 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 walls of
the edifice. The plan of it was selected out of many others by
Mahomet the Fifth*, and the superintendance of the work en-
trusted to Greek architects. That Emperor did not live to see
it finished, but it was completed in the reign of his brother and
successor Osman the Third, in the year 1755. The whole pave-
ment of the mosck is of white marble: the windows are of painted
glass ; and where there is any gilt or gaudy colouring, it is dis-
posed with appropriate elegance and splendour. A range of co-
lumns of Thebaic granite, twenty-two feet in height, add to the
ornament, at the same time that they contribute to the support
of the edifice ; and the general appearance of the Osraanie is that
of a magnificent saloon, the graces of which the eye at one glance
can comprehend, without the labour of a divided and minute in-
spection.
There are two sarcophagi of porphyry at Constantinople, shown
for the tomb of Constantine : one of ten feet long, six feet wide,
* In Constantinople Ancient and Modern (p. 62), it is said to have been
planned by Mahomet the Fourth, who died in 1687, and completed by his
brother Osman the Third. Mahomet the Fourth lived five years after his depo-
sition, and died in 1688. He had no brother Osman : his immediate successors
were Solyman his brother, and Achmet the Second, Mustaphathe Second, and
Achmet the Third, his sons. Osman the Third succeeded Mahomet the Fifth,
his brother, in 1754, and died in 1757. Le Chevalier has copied the mistake.
LETTER L.
975
and eight deep, and of one mass, is close to the mosck of Seirek,
or Klisse Dgiamissi (the mosck of the churches), near the At-
Bazar ; the other, nine feet in length, seven in width, and five in
depth, also of one stone, is to the north of the court surrounding
the Osmanie. The covering of each is lost, and the latter serves
as a cistern for rain-water. Whence the pretensions of the sarco-
phagus near the Osmanie originated I know not, but there ap-
pears no reason to doubt, that the one near the mosck of Seirek,
which I did not see, is that which the citizens of Constantinople, at
least three centuries ago looked upon as the tomb of Constantine.
It will be seen from Gyllius, that the site of the church of the
Apostles, in which, according to Socrates and Eusebius, the re-
mains of that Emperor were deposited, was at or near the At-
Bazar ; and we find that, in his time, the mass of hollowed por-
phyry without a lid, the alledged tomb in question, Mas near the
same spot, close to the highway leading from St. Sophia toAdria-
nople gate*. The dimensions of it were ten feet in length, and
five and a half in depth. The difference between the latter part of
the measurement, and the depth which I have given from the last
authority!*, may arise from the cavity being alluded to in the one
instance, and the whole stone in the other. The claims of the
sarcophagus of the Osmanie, appear then to be totally inadmis-
sible; and it is certain that the tradition, whether true or false,
was attached to that near Klisse Dgiamissi. Gyllius was sceptical
with respect to the tomb; but the story prevailed at the taking
of the city, at which time the operculum of the sarcophagus
* Gyll. de Topog. Const, lib. iv. cap. xi.
t Voyage de la Propontide, torn. i. p. 119.
6l2
BOBS
976
LETTER L.
seems to have been entire, and to have contained those detached
letters, which were filled up and explained by the Patriarch Gen-
nadius, judge of the Imperial court under John Palaeologus, and
which gave birth to the famous prophecy relative to the expulsion
of the Ottomans from Constantinople.
The letters were alledged to have been inscribed upon the tomb
by some sage contemporaries of Constantine ; but nothing can be
more clumsy than the adjustment of Gennadius, or can so com-
pletely expose the imposture; for, -according to the Patriarch's ex-
position of the prediction, the letters of the inscription must have
been designed to represent Romaic, and not Hellenic words*.
Yet on the faith of this absurd story, not only the Greeks have
persuaded themselves of the approaching downfall of the Ottoman
empire, but the Turks themselves have looked towards that fatal
event, and some of them at times have confirmed their belief by
inventing additional predictions.
When Leonart Rauwolf travelled in the East, the Mahometans
* TiTf 'ΠΤΔ ΗΒΣΑ ΤΊΜΑ ΟΚΛΜΝ ΜΑΘ ΜΛ.
Tij ττρωτν τη? IvSntris. τιβασιληα τ» Ιογχ,αίλ, ό χαλύμενος Μωάμεθ, αίλλι».
Δ Ν ΤΡΠΩΣ ΓΝ Τ ΠΛ ΟΛΓ Τ ΕΠΤΛΦ ΚΡΤΣ ΕΣΘ
ίιά νχ τροτίύσ-γι γίκος τΖν Παλαιολόγων, την Επτχλοφον χρΛτήο-ει, ϊτω&εν, &C.
Without quoting any further, it will be seen (hat the last word of the first line
and the three first words of the second, are according to the modern Greek con-
struction, and that one of the words (va) is purely Romaic. The whole prophecy
may be rendered as follows: —
In the first Indictwn, or term, the kingdom of Ismael, which is called
Moamtih, shall overthrow the race of the Palceologi, shall become master
of the seven-hilled city, shall reign therein — shall govern many nations, and
shall lay zoaste many islands as far as the Pontus Euxinus — shall depopulate
the banks of the Danube; in the eighth term shall subdue the Peloponesus ,•
LETTER L.
977
entertained a notion that the term of triumph (the one thousand
years) granted to their religion, was nearly expired, and had a
custom on their holidays, of shutting up the gates of their great
towns and camps at nine o'clock in the morning, thinking that
they were then to be attacked by some general insurrection of the
Christians. The good Doctor was himself convinced that they had
not quite eighteen years to come, they having passed nine hundred
and eighty-two years of their term when he lived amongst them
in 1573*. The comet which appeared in the reign of Osman the
First, was thought prognosticate of the fall of Islamism, which the
opinion of Mahomet himself was quoted to certify ; for the Prophet
in the ninth term shall carry war into the regions of the north ; in the tenth
term shall overturn the Dalmatians ; and again for a time shall turn upon the
Dalmatians, and shall excite great wars, and shall in part overwhelm them.
Then the multitudes and tribes of the West collected together, shall make
war by sea and by land, and shall overturn Ismael : his posterity shall reio-n
but for a little time: the yellow race, together with the first natives, shall
overturn all Ismael, shall take the seven-hilled city with its sway. Then they
shall raise a civil war, until the fifth hour, and a voice shall exclaim thrice
Stand, stand from your fear. Hasten speedily, on the right ye
shall f1nd;aman, noble, wonderful, and strong; him take for
your master, for he is my friend; and taking him, my will shall
be fulfilled. — See Matthia; Cigala Cyprii de Sepulchro Constantini Magni
Narralio, &c. Band. Antiq. Const, lib. vii. pp. 184, 185.
The prophet, whoever he was, evidently trusted for the accomplishment of
his prediction to some events which were to occur not long after the conquest of
the city ; and his allusion to the Dalmatians, points most probably to (he strug-
gles of Scandcrbeg, which Gennadius, or any contemporary of Mahomet the
Second, may have witnessed.
* Travels into the Eastern Countries, chap. vi. part iii. p. 311. Ray's Col-
lection of Curious Voyages and Travels.
j*
978
LETTER L.
foretold, that ignorance and avarice would be fatal to bis religion.
In the reigns of Mustapha the First the calamity was thought
to impend, and was repeatedly in the mouths of the Turks*:
since that period the prophecy has at times been revived, and in
late years a belief in its speedy accomplishment has become very
prevalent in Turkey ; so that when we were there a copy of the
Gennadian inscription was handed about by the Greeks with much
mysterious importance, and an air of complete faith.
The sarcophagus of Constantine has detained me on my pro-
gress to the Suleymanie, the most magnificent of all the Imperial
moscks, which was built out of the ruins of the church of St. Eu-
phemia at Chalcedon in 1556. 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, 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 bulk, but they are all of the
same size, and correspond with the scale of the whole 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 bronze doors or casements, inclosing a collection of books
attached to the college of the Suleymanie. The ambulatory, or
court of approach, 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 of a singular taste, of fret-work, like the top of
* Knollcs, p. 1387.
LETTER L.
979
an episcopal cathedral chair. The ascent to it is by a flight of at
least twenty marble steps. At the back of the mosck is an in-
closed court, shaded with trees, which contains the mausoleum of
Solyman. This was the most regular and best made of the sepul-
chral 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 con-
tains a serpentine column, with the base and capital of white mar-
ble; 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, and that of his son, at the foot of which
there 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. Λ sum is set apart to 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 Signior, 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 they af*e 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 Selim. A large co-
* Grelot — De Celebrioribus urbis, CP. monumenlis hodiernis, Band. Imp.
Orient, p. 1011.
980
LETTER L.
loured turban, covered with ornaments, is fixed at the head of
each bier.
The Suleymanie is placed in a spacious rectangular court, in-
closed by low walls, pierced with a row of open casements, which are
latticed with iron-work. The Turks do not allow their temples to
be encroached upon by the immediate vicinity of meaner edifices.
In the moscks which we visited, we saw several people studying
in one recess, boys reading aloud to their Hogia in another ; here
a man stretched out asleep, and there a party of three or four
idlers lounging round the area, or through the long colonnades.
The foundation of a royal mosck comprises also that of a col-
lege, a hospital, and an alms-house. The number of students in
the Medresse of the Muhamadie, built by Mahomet the Second,
is at least four hundred*. The colleges of the moscks of Soc-
man, Bajazet, and Selim, maintain an equal number of scholars,
whilst the Medresses of Mustapha, Osman, and Achmet, educate
five hundred pupils. The establishment of St. Sophia amounts to
about one hundred and fifty. The students are under a certain
number of softas and mudderis, tutors and professors, and are
educated either for the secular priesthood, or the honours of the
Ulema. Besides the Medresses there are also Mektebs or free-
schools, for the poor of the quarter, the expence of whose educa-
tion, as well as the board and lodging of some of them, is defrayed
out of the revenues of the mosck. In 1782 there were more than
five hundred schools registered in the books of the Stamboul-
* In Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 63, the number is four hundred and eighty;
but all these establishments have diminished during the last twenty years. Mr.
he Chevalier, who I suspect copied Dr. Dallaway, and mistook his meaning,
gives an immense proportion to all the Medresses.
LETTER L.
981
Effendissi*. To complete the notice of these truly noble founda-
tions it must be added, that of the thirteen public libraries in Con-
stantinople, nine or ten belong to the Dgiamissi Selatyn, and are
part of their attached establishment.
The mosck of the Valide Sultan, mother of Mahomet the
Fourth, of which there is a drawing and description in the Itine-
rary of Grelot, and that of Bajazet the Second, containing ten
columns of verd-antique, four of jasper, and six of Egyptian gra-
nite, are usually visited by strangers ; but the Muhamedie being
reputed of peculiar sanctity, is not shown without a specific order.
Its ornamental architecture was taken probably from the ruins of
the Church of the Apostles near At- Bazar, in the neighbourhood
οϊ which it was built.
When it is recollected that each of the edifices here noticed
is adorned, and chiefly composed of rich marbles, 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
materials more or less rich, and all protected by the same costly
covering, the Turks will not be accused of neglecting the splen-
dour of their capital. Their admiration of the dome displays
itself in all their edifices, not only the moscks and the mesdjidis or
* Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 64. It must be observed, that some writers add
the ssi to names in which it is left out by others ; for instance — Top-capou , or any-
other gate, is often called Top-capoussi ; and Ε fieri di, is made Effendissi. I
have added the ssi in most instances, but it should be known that it is the
Turkish article: thus, Yenitcheri-Agassi, is the Aga of the Janissaries ; but
Yenitcheri'Aga, is only Aga of the Janissaries ; so that, although in compli-
ance with common usage 1 have prefixed the to the Turkish names, the English
article is gratuitously inserted where the additional syllable is retained.
6' κ
982
LETTER L.
chapels, but the hans, the bezesteins, and the baths are crowned
with cupolas ; and as they are known by this distinction from the
dwelling-houses, Constantinople appears to the distant specta-
tor to contain as many public as private buildings. I consi-
der 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 de-
serving those epithets 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 two
last the Turks do not feel any want : they are all within doors
after sun-set, and their epistolary correspondence is not too fre-
quent to be conveniently carried on by the assistance of travelling
friends, or other casual conveyances.
LETTER LI.
The Ambassadors* Audience of the Caimacam — The Ottoman
Grandees — Audience of the Grand Signior — The Janissaries
— The Nizam-Djedid, or New Instituion — Short Account of
the Three Revolutions which dethroned the late Sultans Selim
and Mustapha, and destroyed the Grand Vizier Bairacter —
The Conclusion,
ALTHOUGH the forms with which an Ambassa-
dor is received at Constantinople have been often minutely detail-
ed, I hope to be pardoned for taking some general notice of the
two last audiences of his Britannic Majesty's late Plenipotentiary
at the Porte. The first occurred on the twenty-eighth of May,
1810, and his Excellency then took leave of the Caimacam, the
representative of the Grand Vizier during his absence from the
capital. The whole of the Le\ 7 ant Company, the Officers of the
Frigate, with about one hundred sailors and marines, with the
interpreters, and a long train of servants, proceeded with the for-
tieth orta of Janissaries to Tophana. There the Chiaus, or cham-
berlain, deputed to serve as a master of the ceremonies, em-
barked with his Excellency, and the whole party crossed the
water to Constantinople. On landing, a visit of ceremony was
paid to the Chiaus- Bashe in a small apartment near the water's
6k 2
984
LETTER LI.
edge ; after which the procession mounted horses richly capa-
risoned, provided. by the Porte for the occasion, and after a tedi-
ous ride in great state for half an hour, arrived at the Little
Porte, or new government-house, built by Yussuf Aga, the intend-
ant of the finances to the Valide, mother of Sultan Selim. The
original palace of the Porte was burnt down in the last rebel-
lion. As we passed along the streets, the windows were filled
with heads, but the Janissaries, another orta of which corps of
about two hundred had met us on this side of the water, pre-
vented any impediment to our progress from the assembled mul-
titude. Dismounting in the court-yard of the palace, we all
hurried up stairs, an immense crowd of Turks pressing round
us on every side without the least ceremony, and paying atten-
tion only to the Ambassador ; for the etiquette of the Turkish
court recognizes no one but the representative of the king, and as
there are no introductions of travellers or other individuals at the
Seraglio, those who attend the minister are without distinction
taken for his suite or his slaves.
We were pressed forwards through two or three apartments,
to the door of the audience-chamber, where the iVmbassador was
detained a short time, that it might be contrived that he and the
Caimacam should enter at the same moment. The Ministers of
the Porte were standing in lines on each side of a sofa reserved for
his Highness. A door opened to our right as his Excellency en-
tered the room, and the Vice-Vizier appeared : immediately a
shouting or short exclamation burst from the whole company, who
bowed also their heads to the ground as their master advanced
between the rows of state-officers to his seat. As the Vizier and the
Ambassador walked up the step to the higher part of the cham-
LETTER LI.
ber, another loud prayer was recited, and as they took their
seats, there was a third and still louder exclamation. I was much
struck with this ceremony, and did not recollect at the time, that
the custom of offering up a short prayer for prosperity and length
of years, obtained amongst the Romans, and was found in the
formularies of the Byzantine court. Luitprand relates, that he
heard the Emperor Nicephorus saluted with the song or ex-
clamation of ττολλά ετη, " many years ;' and it appears that a
phrase or word was invented to express this musical compliment*.
The Caimacam being seated on the sofa, not in the common
oriental fashion, but with his feet upon the ground, and the Am-
bassador placed in an arm-chair opposite to him, in virtue of a pri-
vilege belonging only to the highest order of Plenipotentiaries, his
Excellency proceeded to the business of the day, by repeating a
speech, of which, for the convenience of the Dragoman, he held a
copy in his hand. Prince Maroozi, standing on the left hand of
the Vizier, and officiating as chief Dragoman to the Porte in the
place of his brother, interpreted this oration, but in so low a
tone, that it was impossible to catch a word of what he said. His
address lasted at the least three times as long as that of his Excel-
lency. The Caimacam then made a speech, which he endea-
voured to recite by heart, but was obliged frequently to look at
his paper, and repeated, as I heard, some words three or four
times over, with the boggling and hesitation of a school-boy.
He was, it seemed, eighty-four years of age, and in his dotage.
This speech was also interpreted in a low tone to his Excel-
lency by the Prince Maroozi in French.
To ψ«λλ£»μ το 7τολυχρόνιον— το 7Γθλυχρον»ς£»ν•— ττολυχρονίβγΑα, are used by
Codinus. — See a Collection of curious Voyages, and Travels, tome ii. cap. 5..
986
LETTER LI.
Sherbets, sweetmeats, and perfumes, were now served up to
the Vizier and the Ambassador, but to no one else. A pelisse of
honour, of sables and gold tissue on a white ground^ was placed
on the Ambassador, and the Prince Maroozi, who almost touched
the ground with his head on the receipt of it, was also arrayed in
a miserable imitation of the same robe, composed of a stuff like
sackcloth. Seven pelisses of cloth and dark fur, ten of ermine,
and four or five of a common sort, were distributed and placed on
the visitors by the chief Dragoman of the Embassy, who from a
paper called over the names of those to whom they were allotted ;
a ceremony sufficiently tedious and humiliating. After being thus
cloathed and fed, the Ambassador rose at the same time with the
Caimacam, and the whole party bustled from the audience with
as little form as they had entered the room.
The chamber was very small, and quite filled by the croud
who pressed round us, treading on our toes with the utmost per-
severance and unconcern. No one was seated except the Am-
bassador and the Caimacam. The various members of the Tur-
kish cabinet were ranged on each side of him ; and at his left
hand stood the Reis Effendi, whilst the Kiayah-Bey, or Home
Secretary of State, was on his right. Each of these Ministers,
when addressed by his Highness, answered him with every mark
of humility and respect, kissing the hem of his garment.
It is remarked by Montesquieu, that in a despotic govern-
ment power is deputed and descends entire*. This transmission
of absolute authority displays itself in Turkey by the total annihi-
lation of every lower dignity in the presence of superior rank»
* Dans le gouvernement despotique, le pouvoir passe enticr dans les mains
de cdui a qui on le confie. — De L'Esprit des Loix, liv. v. chap. xvi.
LETTER LI.
987
Command amongst the Turks is sole and individual, and admits
no visible contiguity of either similar or second power. The
Caimacam would in an instant lose his supremacy before the
Vizier Azem, and bend with his companions in slavery to the
skirt of his master's robe ; whilst that absolute prince is him-
self shorn of his beams, and degraded into a nonentity by
the appearance of the Sultan. There are no gradations of
subserviency. There is one master — the rest are slaves, with-
out individual or aggregate dignity. When Sultan Achmet the
First, in 1614, made a platform from the Seraglio into the sea,
every house in Constantinople sent forth a man to forward the
undertaking. Not only the Spahis and Janissaries, but the chiefs
of families, and the grandees of the empire themselves, assisted at
the work, under the inspection of the Grand Signior, who ani-
mated and dignified their exertions by his presence and his praise*.
The reader of Xenophon will be reminded of the eager alertness
with which the most noble of the Persian satraps, at the com-
mand of Cyrus, threw off their robes in the mud, set their
shoulders to the wheel, and evinced a praiseworthy emulation
in extricating from a quagmire the baggage-waggons of their
master -f.
It is almost unnecessary to repeat a faet so well known, as that
the Ottomans acknowledge no hereditary power in any sub-
ject of the empire. It is mentioned by Cantemir, that the Ibra-
* History of (lie Turks. Knolles.
+ De Exped. Cyri, lib. i. p. 257, edit. Leunclav. Xenophon however does
not remark upon the principle of despotism apparent in this personal effort, but
rather admires it as a portion of military discipline — w$* $v μίρκ τ» της Ιντσας
ην StetcocaSuii,
LETTER LI.
ham Khan Ogli, or the descendants of Ibrahim Khan, who
concealed the death of Sultan Mahomet the First for forty-one
days, are treated with much respect by the Grand Signiors* ;
and possess the inspection of moscks founded by their ancestors,
and the exemption from offices. The Emirs, the supposed pos-
terity of Mahomet, are also a privileged class ; but generally
speaking, dignity of blood is unknown to the Turks. The succes-
sion of power in the family of Cara Osman Oglou, Pasha of Mag-
nesia, can only be called a tolerated usurpation. The sons of Ali,
the Albanian, will probably form another exception to the general
rule. The Malikiane, or fiefs held possessively, disused for many
ages, and revived by Mustapha the Second, only allow a re-
sumption of the father's lands by the son, at a price one-fourth
less than any other purchaser, and cannot be called a stable here-
ditary tenure. The pashalik of Magnesia, and the agaliks of
the Ghavrinos who conquered Macedonia, although descending
from father to son, have not created a Turkish nobility -f*. The
possession of the Vizirat by the three Kioprilis, is always quoted
as a solitary instance ; and so little are the favours of the Em-
peror confined to any distinct class or order, that Mahomet
Pasha, who was made Grand Vizier in 1614, was the first native
Turk ever raised to that pre-eminence.
The greater part of the prime ministers of the Ottoman Sultans
have been purchased slaves, and have owed their rise to per-
sonal accomplishments. Yussuf, the Vizier Azem in our time,
was a Georgian, carried off in his youth by the Lesguis Tartars,
and sold to the Pasha of Erzeroum, who made him his chief pipe-
* Ottoman History, Part I. book ii. p. 76, TindaPs translation.
+ Cantemir, Ott. Hist. Part I. book iii. page 153, ibid. Present State of
Turkey, page 130.
LETTER LI.
989
bearer, and after giving him his liberty, appointed him governor
of the town. Whilst Muzzelim of Erzeroum, he enriched himself
by some gold and silver mines, and conciliated the favour of Yus-
suf Aga, before mentioned as intendant of finances to Sultan Se-
lim's mother, who ordered him to Constantinople, and made him
in 1798 the successor of the deposed Vizier Mehemmed Ised
Pasha*. After his dismission and a retirement of some years, he
was, by a fortune of which there has been, I believe, scarcely an-
other instance, again raised to his former dignity in 1808, and, at
the age of seventy-eight, was at the head of the Turkish armies
when we left the country. — Few of the Vizier Azems have been
indebted for their power to any other merit, or may be traced
to a more respectable origin, than that of Yussuf.
The posts of honour and profit in the Ottoman court are prin-
cipally filled by persons who have received their education in Ga-
lata Sarai at Pera, to which boys of the lowest extraction are
committed by the Pashas of the provinces, as presents to the
Grand Signior ; who, after their noviciates as Itch-olans, or chil-
dren of the chamber, admits them to the employments of the
Seraglio. The pages of the first three of the four chambers into
which the Imperial Itch-olans f are divided, after some previous
service under the Chief of the White Eunuchs, and about the
person of the Sultan, are raised to the honours of the household,
and become the bearers of the sword, the cloak, the stirrup, the
ewer, and the turban, as well as the masters of the wardrobe, the
buttery, the hounds, and the cranes. One is the first barber ;
* Notice sur la Cour du Grand Seigneur, pp. 98, 99.
+ The word is more properly Itck-oglans, but is pronounced as it is spelt
above.
6l
990
LETTER LI.
the second, controuler of the privy purse; a third» the chief secre-
tary of the Sultan*. Each of these officers may possess himself of
such influence over his master, as will lay the treasures and honours
of the empire at his feet, and either as favourite or minister, con-
troul the measures of the Ottoman government. The barber of
Bajazet the Second was made Grand Vizier φ. In a despotic mo-
narchy the approach to the person of the sovereign is an advan-
tage which no merit can easily counterpoise ; and the rays of Im-
perial bounty not unfrequently shine through the mutilated minis-
ter of the Sultan's pleasures, the Chief of the Black Eunuchs.
From the fourth division of the pages, the Khasne-Odassy, or
the chamber of the private treasures, many of those state officers
are chosen who are entrusted with the administration of public
affairs; and the Tefterdar-Effendi, or Grand Treasurer of the
empire, has for the most part been an Itch-olan of this class J. —
* The Turkish names of these twelve personages, are, Selictar-Aga, Tcho•
kadar-Aga, Rikiubtar-Aga, Ibriktar-Aga, Dulbendtar-Aga, Kemissar-AgUy
Tckesnegir'Aga-Baske, Zagardar-liashe, Tournadgi-Baskcj Berber- Bashe,
Muhasebedgi-Bashe, TeskeredgUBashe. Besides these officers, there are five
others, who, together with the first four of the last- mentioned, compose the
Ars-Aghaleri, or Lords of the Memorial, through whom petitions are presented
to the Sultan: these arc the Khasnadar-Kehayassy, or the Vice- Treasurer;
the Kiler-Kehayassy^ Intendant of the Confectionary; the Doghandgi-Bashe,
or Grand Falconer; the Khas-oda-Baske, the Chief of the First Chamber;
and the Capou-Agassi, Chief of the White Eunuchs, or guards of the palace-
gates.
t Cantemir, Ottoman History, Part I. book iii. p. 123.
% The first chamber is called Khas-Odassy (the Master's Chamber), and is
composed of forty pages, who are near the person of the Sultan, and from
whom the first five of the household officers afcove-mentioned are selected ; the
second chamber is the Kiler-Odassy, or Chamber of the Confectionary; and
V
LETTER LI.
991
Such is the policy of the Turkish court, whose chief dignitaries
are so free from the ties of consanguinity, and the duties of civil
life, as well as from all other dependence, pretension, and object,
than the favour of their master, that there is nothing invidious
in their rise, nor hazardous in their ruin.
On July the 10th, the day of the Ambassador's audience, the
procession, in much the same order as on the former occasion,
moved from the palace to Tophana, about half after four in the
morning ; and the sun rising over the hills of Asia, glimmered
through the clouds of dun smoke which burst from the cannon of
the Salsette, as we passed under the broadside of the frigate. On
landing we visited the Chiaus-Bashe, as before ; and whilst we
were sitting in his chamber, heard the ship saluting the Sultan in
his passage from the Saraiof Dolma-Baktche to the Seraglio. The
frigate was dressed, and her yards manned ; and as the Imperial
barge laid upon her oars for a short time during the discharge of the
artillery, the sailors flattered themselves that the Grand Signior
took an opportunity of admiring the trim of the vessel.
The salute was the signal for our departure, and mounting the
horses which had been sent from the royal stables, we began our
procession, headed by the Chiaus-Bashe himself, who was dressed
in a superb robe and caftan of flowered gold. We rode slowly
for half an hour, until we came to an open space and a large tree,
where we waited for the Caimacam, who soon arrived with a nu-
the third the Seferlt/Odassy, or the Chamber of the Warriors, who are en-
trutsed with the arms of the Sultan, and amuse him with the bow and the
djerid ; they pass after some probation into the first chamber. — The latest and
best account of these particulars is contained in the Notice sur la Cour du
Grand Seigneur, by J. E. Beauvoisins, Paris, 1809.
6l2
992
JLETTEft LI.
merous train, in his way from the Porte, and passed before us
towards the Seraglio. He also was dressed in his court suit, a
satin robe of bright green, and wore his turban of state. — The
head-dress is the distinguishing mark of the various orders and
ranks, and it is said that not less than two hundred different tur-
bans are to be reckoned in Constantinople.
A short time after the passage of the Caimacam we moved for-
wards, and in nearly half an hour arrived at the entrance of the
Seraglio, The Baba-Humayun, or Sublime Gate, is accurately
represented in the annexed plate. In the niches on each side of
the porch are placed the heads of state criminals ; on the right
hand is a dunghill, on which the bodies are thrown. The foun-
tain is built over a tomb or sarcophagus, which is shown in G re-
lot's picture of this gate*.
* Band. Imp. Orient, p. 1016. From the Baba-Humayun lias been erro-
neously supposed to originate the title of Sublime Porte; but the term is a
favourite Oriental metaphor, and is used also in other designations. Thus a
hospital attached to a mosck, is called Darush-shifa, the gate of health. The
entrance to a royal palace, the King's gate, was, as we learn from sacred his-
tory, the seat of petitioners at the court of the Assyrian monaichs ; but the un-
sightly porch of the Seraglio did not furnish the magnificent epithet applied to
the Ottoman government, although being the entrance to the usual residence of
the Sultan, it is called Sublime, The Porte (if it has any substantial existt
ence) is the palace of the Turkish Cabinet, but, more properly speaking, it is
the point of access and communication through which the decisions of the
supreme power pass and are promulgated. Mr. Thornton, p. 1 19, quotes Can-
temir, as hinting that the Porte follows the person of the Sovereign ; but
although I find in that historian, that the governor of Babylon, Elkasib-Mirza,
is ordered to be sent in irons to the Porte, it seems that the capital is alluded to ;
for Mehemmed-Pasha, who was dispatched to act against him, is said just after-
wards to depart for Constantinople, to give an account of his proceedings ; so
that Sultan Solyman the First was most probably at the Seraglio, and not in the
provinces. — Ottoman Hist. p. 209, Part I. book iii.
iFHia^sir ΦΛ /rm m
S SSmA®ILH©:
■■■■■
«■■■■^ΗΒΒΜΜ
HHBB^BflE^SHSBRnnBnBBHBa
LETTER LI.
993
We entered the Baba-Humayun on horseback, and rode up a
gentle ascent towards the second gate, the entrance to which was,
lined on each side with rows of Capidges or porters, and other
officers of the palace* whose splendid attire, and diversified head^
dresses, produced at a distance an admirable effect. The first
square of the Seraglio contains Tarap-Hane, the royal mint, and
the ancient church of St. Irene converted into an armory, which,
according to report, is filled with curious specimens of the mili-
tary engines of the Byzantine Greeks, and the armour and wea-
pons worn by the companions of Godfrey of Bouillon*. We
dismounted about a hundred yards from Baba-Salam (the gate
of Health), upon entering which all our state vanished, for we
were shown into a dirty chamber on the left hand of the porch,
where we remained in darkness for some time, all huddled toge-
ther in this and another room, appropriated to very unsavoury
purposes. This is the executioners' lodge, and it seems that we
were detained here in order that we might enter the second court
at the instant that the Janissaries run for their pilau, which is
placed in innumerable little pewter dishes, and, at a given signal,
scrambled for and seized upon by the soldiery assembled for the
occasion, to the number generally of four thousand.
The second court is considerably smaller than the first. It is
colonnaded on three sides, and the middle space is a green, thickly
shaded with rows of cypress tress. On the right are the Seraglio
kitchens, arid on the left is an open walk, with a fountain and the
hall of the Diyan.
The third gate, Baba-Saadi (the gate of Happiness), and the
walls of the interior palace, front the entrance to the court. The
Divan is a small vaulted saloon, with three windows in the dome
* Const. Anc. and Mod. p. 24.
994
LETTER LI.
which admit but little light; it is richly ornamented and wain-
scotted with a plaister or stucco well polished, and representing a
pink variegated marble. On the left of the saloon is a second
chamber, also vaulted, and about the same size as the first
divided from the council-hall by a division only breast-high : this
is filled by the clerks and attendants of the court. A cushioned
bench, something like that of our Court of Chancery, ranges
along the back of the chamber, and in the middle is the seat of
the Grand Vizier, a little raised and immediately under a small
latticed casement, through which the Sultan himself inspects, or
is supposed to inspect, the transactions of the Divan. On the
left side of the room is another cushioned bench, and on the rip;ht
to
a lower bench without any covering, attached to the wall. On
entering we found the Caimacam in his seat; on his left hand,
at a little distance, were the Cazy-askers of Romania and Na«
tolia, and on the bench on the same side, were the Tefterdar-
EfTendi and two other officers of the treasury. On the small
bench to the right was seated the celebrated Chehbv Nichand ΟΊ-
Ο J ■ - - — «
EfTendi, a minister of the first repute, and well known to all the
foreign missions. He was employed with his hair-pencil and the
other implements of his office. A stool was placed for the Am-
bassador near the keeper of the cypher, but the remainder of the
company were obliged to stand, except when sheltered behind
the robes of the dragomans of the mission, they ventured to rest
themselves at the lower end of the bench near the corner of the
room.
After the adjudication of a cause by the Caimacam, which con-
sisted of reading several papers, and the affixing of his signature,
the payment of the Janissaries * was commenced, and continued
until nine o'clock. The money was brought forward in yellow
purses, containing nominally five hundred piasters each, but in
LETTER LI.
995
reality not so large a sum ; for the Tefterdar-Effendi contrives by
the deficiency to put about one hundred and fifty thousand pias-
ters into his pocket at each general payment. The purses were
heaped up in two conical lines or wedges from each side of the
Caimacam to the door of the saloon. After the bags had been
told out the first time, they were again numbered aloud ; and be- .
ing carried out by fifties into the yard in front of the Divan, were
laid upon the pavement at a little distance from the door. As each
of the fifties was so deposited, the teller exclaimed with a loud
voice, " Oda, come Γ mentioning the number of the chamber ;
and instantly a body of Janissaries, who were stationed at about
a hundred yards distant, started at the same moment, and
racing towards the money, fell one over the other in their scram-
ble for the bags. Each soldier who carries off a purse, receives
one piaster upon delivering it to his Captain. This distribution of
their payment to the Janissaries lasted so long, that we were
heartily fatigued before the conclusion of the ceremony, which,
according to an established usage, was, however, designed to cap-
tivate and astonish us by a display of Ottoman wealth. — An hour
was passed in giving audience to some officers of the Janissaries ;
each of whom, on his name being called, came forward and kissed
the hem of the Caimacarn s garment, returning thanks for his
respective corps.
At ten , the dinner was served, and the Ambassador, attended
by Prince Maroozi*, sat at a table with the Caimacam. Some
of the gentlemen of the embassy, with my fellow-traveller and
* Maroozi is mentioned as Dragoman to tbe Porte in page 515 of these Let-
ters : I have since found out that he was acting for his brother. He was after-
wards raised to the principality of Wallachia, and being suspected of some in»
trigues, was beheaded at Bucharest, in the course of the last year (1812).
996
LfciTER LI.
myself, were placed at another table with Cheliby-Effendh
There were one or two other tables and some seats brought into
the room, but the greater part of the company were obliged to
stand. Any person may join an Ambassador's suite on these oc-
casions, and there were several raggamuffins in the Frank habit
amongst the crowd, who seemed to have been collected purposely
to disgrace the embassy. The table-furniture consisted of a
coarse cloth, on which a wooden spoon and a crumplet were set
before each guest. The first we dipped into the soups and sher-
bets promiscuously ; the latter article served us instead of a plate*
after we had torn off the meat with our right hands. Two-and*
twenty dishes were served up, one after the other, and we tasted
of each ; but some of them were suffered to remain scarcely an
instant on the table, and were borne off as if under the influence
of Sancho's dread doctor and his wand. Rising from dinner, we
were sprinkled with rose-water, and the Ambassador was served
with an ewer to wash his hands.
In a short time a message arrived from the Sultan, intimating
that he would receive the Eltchi, whose arrival and humble request
of an audience had been before communicated by an officer of the
Divan. The Ambassador accordingly, and the whole party, left
the council-chamber, and were conducted towards the third gate
of the Seraglio, but were directed to wait under a wooden shed
at the right hand of the approach, where there was a dirty stone
seat for the accommodation of his Excellency. Two common-
looking ill-dressed fellows brought two bags full of pelisses, which
were distributed without ceremony to seventeen or twenty of the
party, who at the same time took off their swords. We conti-
nued for some time under our shed, totally unnoticed and over-
looked, until we saw the two Cazy-askers proceed from the Divan
LETTER LI.
997
through vows of Janissaries, and take their seat on a bench at the
right of the third gate, where there was also a line of state officers.
At this time the left of the gate was covered with a crowd of
Bostandges, Hassekis, Baltages, and others of the body guard*,
without arms ; and facing it, at some distance, there were three
rows amounting to twenty-one, of the household soldiers called
Peiks, crowned with plumage. The Cazy-askers passed into the
third gate, but soon returned, and at last the Caimacam marched
from the Divan in great state, preceded by two officers with large
staves of silver and gilt, which at each step they rung upon the
ground. The Janissaries, the guards, and the chamberlains,
* The Bostandges have been before noticed. The Hassekis are the Imperial
messengers, a body attached to the Bostandges, which are employed in execut-
ing the secret commissions of the court, and sometimes carry the firmans.
The Baltages arc properly the wood-cutters of the Seraglio, and the servants of
the kitchen ; but they are now a species of corps, whose weapon and distin-
guishing mark is a hatchet (balta), and who have another body called Zuluflus-
Baltages belonging to them. The Peiks are the guard of the second court,
wear a beard, and are armed with a bow and arrow ί they walk on each side of
the Sultan's horse on processions, and shade him with plumes from public view.
The Solaks belong to the interior court ; they walk before the Sultan with a
halbert. The Capidges or porters are a numerous corps also belonging tp
the Seraglio. The Capidge- Bashes usually carry the death-warrants of the
Sultan to the offending Pashas, an office formerly entrusted to the forty mutes
of the court: three hundred Black Eunuchs, and as many White Eunuchs,
the body of the Salahors or equerries, all the pages, and the attendants not
enumerated, the females, and the separate corps just mentioned, are supposed
to raise the number of persons inhabiting the Seraglio to ten thousand. When
Julian reformed the Imperial household, he is said to have found one thousand
barbers, one thousand cup-bearers, and one thousand cooks ; besides Eunuchs
innumerable. I should fancy these retainers to have been like those of the
Ottoman princes, separate corps preserving the name of, without being actually
employed in, their original occupation.
6 Μ
998
LETTER LL
bent to the earth as he passed. After stopping for a few seconds,
his Highness entered the porch, and in ten minutes an order
arrived for the Ambassador to advance to the presence.
Just as we entered the gate, there was much unseemly squeez-
ing and jostling, and those who had not pelisses of fur were pushed
away by the attendants. We afterwards moved forwards with
more regularity, each of us being accompanied and pressed upon
the shoulder by one or two of the guard. My attendant was one
of the White Eunuchs, a crowd of whom were standing within the
gate. We went through a court, or rather a large saloon, open
on both sides, and passing on our right several rows of the Solak
guards, in white robes and pointed caps of gold, mounted a low
step into a passage, covered with rich carpets, which brought
us into the presence-chamber. The room appeared quite full
when we entered, but my Eunuch pushed me quickly forwards
within ten paces of the throne, where he held me somewhat
strictly by the right arm during the audience. He had not for-
gotten the assassination of Amuratb.
to
The chamber was small and dark, or rather illumined with a
gloomy artificial light, reflected from the ornaments of silver,
pearls, and other white brilliants, with which it is thickly studded
on every side and on the roof. The throne, which is supposed
the richest in the world, is like a four-posted bed, but of a daz-
zling splendour ; the lower part formed of burnished silver and
pearls, and the canopy and supporters encrusted with jewels.
It is in an awkward position, being in one corner of the room,
and close to a fire-place.
Sultan Mahmoud was placed in the middle of the throne, with
his feet upon the ground, which, notwithstanding the common
form of squatting upon the hams, seems the seat of ceremony.
LETTER LI.
999
He was dressed in a robe of yellow satin, with a broad border of
the darkest sable : his dagger, and an ornament on his breast,
were covered with diamonds : the front of his white and blue turban
shone with a large treble sprig of diamonds, which served as a buckle
to a high straight plume of bird-of-paradise feathers. He for the
most part kept a hand on each knee, and neither moved his body
nor head, but rolled his eyes from side to side, without fixing
them for an instant upon the Ambassador or any other person
present. Occasionally he stroked and turned up his beard, dis-
playing a milk-white hand glittering with diamond rings. His
eye-brows, e}'es, and beard, being of a glossy jet black, did not
appear natural, but added to that indescribable majesty which it
would be difficult for any but an Oriental sovereign to assume :
his face was pale, and regularly formed, except that his nose (con-
trary to the usual form of that feature in the Ottoman princes)
was slightly turned up and pointed : his whole physiognomy was
mild and benevolent, but expressive and full of dignity. He
appeared of a short and small stature, and about thirty years old,
which is somewhat more than his actual age.
On each side of the throne was an embroidered cushion : that
on the left supported a silver purse, containing the letter from
the Grand Signior to the King of England, and near it was a
silver inkstand adorned with jewellery : a sabre, partly drawn from
a diamond scabbard, was placed nearly upright against the cushion
on the other side of the Sultan.
It seems from Busbek, and other authorities, to have been the
custom formerly for Ambassadors and their suite to kiss the Sul-
tan s hand* ; and that their whole reception was more courteous
* Posteaque veluti deosculata ejus manu ad parietem opposilum ita sumus
reducti, &c. — Busbeq. Epist. i. p. 62, edit. Oxon. 1640 ; and tbe traveller in
6m2
1000
LETTER LI.
than at the audiences of the present day : amongst other points,
it was usual for the Sultan to address a word or two to the minis-
ter, which he now never deigns to do*.
The Ambassador stood nearly opposite, but a little to the left
of the throne ; and on his left was the Prince Maroozi, who
acted as his interpreter. On the right of the Sultan the Caima-
cam was standing between the throne and the fire-place, with his
head bent, and his hands submissively crossed in front of his vest.
There were only a few feet of an open circular space between the
Grand Signior and the audience, the rest of the apartment being
completely occupied by the crowd. His Excellency laying his
hand on his breast, and making a gentle inclination of the head,
now addressed the Sultan, in a speech delivered in a. low tone of
voice, which was interpreted still less audibly by the Prince Ma-
roozi. The Sultan then said a few words to the Caimacam,
who proceeded to speak to the Ambassador, but hobbled repeat-
edly, and was prompted aloud several times by the Grand Sig-
nior. He seemed also to stoo before he had concluded his
oration, which, however, was a very immaterial circumstance,
as the Dragoman was previously acquainted with it, and had
TIakluyt, Richard Wrag, says, " The Ambassador thus betwixt two which
stood at the door, being ltd in, cither of them taking an arme* kissed his
hand; and so backward, with his face to the Turke, they brought him nigh
the doore again, where he stood untill they had likewise done so with all the
rest of his gentlemen."
* Solyman the Magnificent, after hearing Bnsbek's speech, said, c< Guisel,
guisel" — Well, well ; and the above English traveller relates, that on the Am-
bassador, Sir Edward Barton, making his three demands to Amurath the Third,
the Sultan said, " Nolo ;" which (as he adds, somewhat to the surprize of the
learned in the Latin) is in Turkish as much as, it shall he done.
LETTER LI.
1001
learnt it by heart. The answer of the Caimacam being in-
terpreted in French, there was some little hesitation in the pro-
ceedings, and his Excellency seeming as if about to retire, the
Sultan whispered something to the Caimacam, who began hob-
bling another speech, and was again prompted by Mahmoud.
This address being also interpreted, and received like the preced-
ing, with a bow, the Sultan taking the purse in his hands, and
saying a few words, delivered it to the Caimacam, who, having
first kissed the sleeve of his caftan, received the letter upon it as
it covered both his hands, and saluted also the purse with his fore-
head, bending humbly to the earth. He then spoke a short sen-
tence, and presented the purse to Prince Maroozi, who repeated
the reverence of the Caimacam, and, interpreting the words, put
it into the hands of the Ambassador.
Immediately afterwards his Excellency bowed and withdrew,
the audience having lasted twelve or fifteen minutes. On retiring,
my attendant Eunuch hurried me briskly along, and dismissed
me with a gentle push down the step of the anti-chamber. The
embassy, and the whole suite, then passed through the third and
the second gate of the Seraglio, where we mounted our horses,
and waited for nearly an hour under a scorching sun covered with
our fur robes; and were not permitted to move before mid-day,
nor until the Caimacam with his suite had proceeded from the
Divan on his return to the Porte, and all the Janissaries had
issued from the second court. They came out roaring and run-
ning, many of them being children, and all, in appearance, the
very scum of the city.
1 did not through the whole of the ceremony, observe any of
that silent sedateness and well-regulated conduct in these soldiers.
1002
LETTER LI.
which attracted the admiration of early travellers, and rendered
it doubtful whether they were men or statues *. But every
merit which enabled Busbek to draw a comparison between the
brave and disciplined Turks of the age of Solyman, and the
courtiers of Christian princes, and to couch, after the manner of
Tacitus, the reproof of his contemporary fellow-subjects under
the praise of barbarians, has long vanished, and ceased to adorn
the character of the Janissary.
The decline of this corps, whose name alone filled Europe with
terror, and to whom the Ottoman Sultans have been more in-
debted for their successes and their sufferings, than ever were the
Roman Emperors to the Pretorian cohorts, may be dated from
the reign of Amurath the Third, who permitted these soldiers
to enroll 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, from being children of the tri-
bute and of the Sultan, they acknowledged another father than
their Emperor, they began to be equally dangerous to the govern-
ment as to the enemies of the Porte ; and accordingly we read,
that having previously to this great change confined their tu-
mults to the times of an interregnum, they broke into open
revolt for the first time, and murdered the governor of Cyprus,
in the reign of the prince who was the author the impolitic in-
novation. In the time of his immediate successor they raised a
rebellion in Constantinople, and attempted to depose Mahomet
* Digna erant precipue quaz speclarentur, aliquot gianizarorum millia;
qui longo ordine sejuncti a reliquis tarn immoti stabant, ut me diu judicii in•
certum redderent homines tie essent an statuce. — Busbcq. Epist. i. 6\.
LETTER LI.
1003
the Third : subsequently to that period they have several times
disposed of the Turkish sceptre, and have been the origin of, and
the actors in, a quick succession of bloody commotions, which,
were it not for the standing example before our eyes, might be
judged incompatible with the existence of any empire. Many
fruitless attempts have been made to destroy their power. Baja-
zet the Second, even whilst they were at the height of their disci-
pline, and the first military body in the world, seems to have
foreseen the future ill-effects of their predominance, for he is
said to have planned their extermination. Nassuff-Pasha, Vi-
zier- A zem to Achmet the First, employed the Spahis and forces
of the provinces for their subjection, but was finally sacrificed,
and being too fat to be strangled, was ignominiously beheaded.
Delavir-Pasha, the Vizier of Osman, in the year 1620 proposed
the organization of a new militia amongst the Curds, at the head
of whom the Sultan was to march from Damascus, and entirely
destroy the whole body of the rebel soldiers ; but the same Vizier
added to this scheme a plan for the abolition of the Spahis or
feudal horse, for the change of every establishment, even to the
name of the city, and for the subjection of all Europe. He was
cut in pieces, and one of his legs was seen at Pera by Sir Tho-
mas Rowe the English Ambassador. Osman himself was deposed
and murdered.
That deterioration of discipline and order in the Janissaries,
which is said to have been connived at by Mahomet the Fourth,
was more probably the effect of their increasing insolence and
independent power. Those of the present day 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
1004
LETTER LI.
protection, and an increase of individual importance. The num-
ber of those who receive their pay (amounting to about three
pence daily for each man) at the Seraglio, is said by the last au-
thority* to be forty thousand; but in the year 1798 all the Ja-
nissaries enrolled in the capital and the provinces amounted to
more than four hundred thousand-)-. A late traveller, quoted by
the same writer, thinks they are the most select and regular of
the Turkish troops, better dressed, and more regularly equipped;
but whatever may be the order of their camp, which seems to
have been the point considered by Dr. Witman, their prowess
in battle is comparatively despised, even by the Turks them-
selves, and has been proved by recent events inferior to that of
the provincial soldiery. The vast dominion still possessed by the
Ottoman Sultans, is upheld neither by the real nor reputed
vigour of the Janissaries, which is felt most, and may be almost
said to be formidable only at Constantinople.
The inferiority of the army of the Turks to that of any Chris-
tian power, may be caused, perhaps, more by the improved
tactics of the latter, than by the decay in the military discipline
of the former nation. Whatever respective proportion we give
to these two efficient principles, the total inequality of a contest
between the Ottoman troops and a disciplined European force,
has been of late years decided in a manner that may justify our
belief in the victories of the Greeks, of Alexander, and of the
Romans themselves.
From the founder of the dynasty, each of their successive sove-
* Present State of Turkey, p. 174.
+ Tableau des Nouveaux Reglemens de l'Empire Ottoman, compose par
Mahmoud Rayf Eflendi, &c. Constantinople, 1798, p. 17.
LETTER LIo
1005
reigns, during a period of two hundred and sixty-five years, bad
led his armies in person to the field : their career of victory,
scarcely interrupted by the misfortunes of Bajazet, seemed to pro-
mise universal dominion ; and, whether from their own strength
or the weakness of their antagonists, they continued in the reign
of Solyman still to flourish, to predominate, and to extend daily
the boundaries of their empire*. Kioprili Mustapha Pasha aver-
red, that all the successors of that Sultan had been tyrants or
fools f; but the spirit of the people survived that of the sove-
reigns ; and the Turkish power has generally been supposed most
formidable during the administration of Achmet Kioprili, who
held the government for twenty years, and died in the year
1676. In the war which began in 1672 and ended in 1680, the
Ukraine was conquered and Poland made tributary; and in the
second Imperial war of the same reign Vienna was besieged, and
only not taken. From that time the terror of the Turkish arms
has gradually subsided, and subsequently to the victorious mas-
sacres of Eugene, which dictated the peace of Carlovitz in 1699»
and restored Transylvania to the empire, the powerful states of
Europe have, in the opinion of most writers, been prevented
from the expulsion of the Ottomans from Europe, only by their
interested jealousies and mutual dissensions. Yet although the
existence of this barbarian power in the most flourishing regions of
Europe, confined on every side by hostile kingdoms, or by an
element possessed by Christians, has been for a century regarded
* Ergo Mi rebus gestisjlorent, dominantur y imperii fines quotidie profe-
runt. — Busbcq. epist. i. p. 63, edit. Oxon. 1640.
t Marsigli, Stato Militare, p. 28. Decline and Fall, cap. lxv.
6 Ν
1006
LETTER LI.
as a reproach to all civilized nations, and a standing wonder, it
must be acknowledged, that the decline of the Ottoman empire
has bv no means been so rapid, nor its disgraces so repeated and
uninterrupted, as casual observers are apt to believe.
In the reign of Achmet the Third the Russians were worsted
by the Turks, and lost by the peace of Pruth. The Austrians
have gained but little honour or advantage in any of their late
wars with the Porte ; and notwithstanding the splendid successes
of Galhtzio and Romanzow, and the cessions of the peace at Kai-
nargi in 1774, the Sultan withstood with honour and success the
united arms of Catharine and Joseph in the succeeding war,
wben all Europe expected that the partition of his dominions was
inevitable and at hand. The Prince de Ligne, who served in
the campaign, by asserting in his memoirs that there was nothing
formidable in the Turks, if their bare right arms and their shouts
were disregarded, implies that they had not lost all their terrific
qualities. The incredible exploits and slaughters of Suwarrof
seemed the forerunners of their fall ; and the peace of 1790 was
considered a permission for them to exist and linger a little longer
on the confines of the European continent. Since that period,
however, they have had to contend with the same foes, and with
the two most formidable of existing nations, neither of which
had before been known to them as enemies. After losing a king-
dom, for Egypt may be so denominated, and after beholding a
hostile fleet under the walls of their capital, they were rather
triumphant than worsted ; and, with respect to ourselves, were
equally unsubdued by our attacks as they were successful by our
assistance. It seemed fated that they should gain no less by our
weakness than by our strength, and that when we were to com-
LETTER LI.
1007
mit a folly, and sustain a solitary discomfiture, both the one
and the other were to conspire to their advantage. The English
could conquer Egypt for the Turks, but not for themselves, and
their victorious fleets were for the first time disgraced, in a con-
test with a nation against whom it was impossible to anticipate a
failure*.
The mismanagement, forbearance, policy, and mutual rivalry of
the English, French, and Muscovites, are looked upon as having
been the best protectors of the Ottomans: no one imagines that the
inherent strength of the people can oppose any obstacle to imme-
diate subjection. Let the cause be what it will, the fact is the same;
the late peace at Bucharest has intrenched but little on the domi-
nions of the Sultans, who, with neither a fleet, nor an army that
can command respect, retain the fairest islands, and the most
favoured regions of southern Europe. The justice and wisdom of
expelling them from that portion of the continent which they have
so long possessed, may be discussed by any one accustomed to
similar speculations; but the question of the facility with which
this object might be accomplished, is more competently handled
by those who have studied the character of the Turks on the spot,
and have enjoyed the advantage of some personal intercourse with
their paradoxical nation.
The internal dissensions of the Porte, and the rebellion of the
provinces, although they invite the invader; would not contri-
bute to his success. If the crusade which Mr. Eton and other
writers have thought it their duty to preach against the Turks,
* See in the Appendix the paper in which the expedition to the Dardanelles
is noticed at length.
6n 2
1008
LETTER II.
should be ever attempted by the united forces of the Christian
kings, the standard of Mahomet would unite all the children of
Islamism, and the march of regular and finally victorious armies
would be impeded by obstacles which their confidence in them-
selves, and their contempt of their enemies, would not permit
them to foresee. The obstinate fury of religious zeal, and the
valour of despair, would arouse the sleepy vigour of their charac-
ter, and call forth efforts which, without proving equally formi-
dable, would be as spirited and unanimous as those which led
them on to conquest, and founded their mighty monarchy on the
ruins of the four empires*. Without an ally, their capital and their
islands must at any time be at the mercy of a maritime power, and
it can hardly be thought that any resistance to a regular army by
land, would be so effectual as to save them from the necessity of
final submission. But even supposing that the partition of Turkey
should be amicably settled by the Christian powers, it appears to
me that the struggle would be protracted and sanguinary, and
that the Mussulmans, like the volunteers of Mecca who attacked
the French in Egypt, would to a man quit the defence of their
country and their religion only with their lives. I say nothing of
the extreme improbability of any arrangement of contending inte-
rests, by which they would be left without a friend to defend
themselves against the union of all Christendom. The report that
the division of their European dominions was finally agreed upon
at Tilsit, is now understood to be altogether unfounded ; and had
such a treaty been concluded, late events must show how many
* Grimstonc, the continuator of Knollcs' History, says, that the Turkish
monarchy is founded upon the four empires, the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and
Jioraan.
LETTER LI.
Γ009
accidents may intervene to prevent even the commencement of
the attempt. It may be added, that in case the effort had been
made, the British cabinet, whose successful diplomacies in the
East and the West, with the Persians and the Four Nations,
evince that they have no squeamish aversion to barbarous and
unchristian alliances, would, most probably, have stood firm by
the Mussulmans, and exerted every effort to oppose the partition.
The French, who have been supposed to look with a greedy
eye upon all the shores of the Mediterranean, were the cause and
first movers of a project to retard the decline of the Ottoman power,
and to introduce such reforms into its military and naval establish-
ments, as should enable it to keep pace with the improving tactics
of its Christian enemies. Hence the origin of the Nizam-Djedid,
and the new constitution of Selim the Third.
This Sultan, who succeeded to the throne on the death of his
uncle Abdulhamid in 1788, evinced at an early period: of his
reign, a determination.. to attempt; some change in the organiza-
tion of the forces of the empire, and in the internal administration
of the government. The cabinet, or great council of state*, wajs
* It is composed of the Kehayah-Bcy, the Tefterdar-EiTcndi, the Reis-Ef-
fendi, the Chiaus-Bashc, the Capudan-Pasha, the Ters-Hane Emini, the two
Ex Cazy-askers and those in office ; the Stamboul-EfFendi, the Nakib-Ulsheraff,
(Chief of the Emirs), the Aga of the Janissaries, the Gebege-Bashe (Commander
of the Military Stores), the Topge-Bashe, the Arabdge-Bashe (Chief of theWag-
gon Train), the Aga of the Sipahylers, an abolished corps; the Selictarler-Agassy
(Commander of the Swordmen, also abolished), the Nichandgi-EfFcndi, the
Tarapa-Eruini (Master of the Mint), the Coumbaradgi-Bashe (General of the
I^ombaditrs), Laghoumdgi-Bashe (General of the Miners). The reader may
consult Tableau de la Cour Ottoman, p. 108, for other details of the ministry
•f the interior.
1010
LETTER LI.
more frequently assembled than in former reigns, and diminished
the labours as well as the importance of the Grand Vizier. Yussuf-
Aga, the intendant of the Valide, and Hussein, the Capudan-Pasha,
were in possession of the conlidence and the power of their master,
and they had an active coadjutor in Mahmoud Rayf-Effendi, a
virtuous and enlightened minister, who, after passing through all
the subordinate degrees of office, and receiving the more impor-
tant benefit of an intercourse with civilized society at Vienna,
Paris, and the Court of London, where he was attached to the
Turkish Legation, was raised to be 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,
and had arranged the original plan. The Sultan himself is said
to have received the suggestions of the French and other Frank
residents of the capital, and his ministers availed themselves of
their skill and personal service*
It would be impossible to find an instance in the annals of any
country, of an attempt equal to the new constitution of Selim, either
in the magnitude of its design, or the decisive originality of its bold
innovations. The re-establishment of an immense empire upon its
former basis was the proposed result, and this was to be accom-
plished by a total change of national character. The efforts of Peter
the Great, stupendous as they were, had been directed to an amelio-
ration of his subjects, which, compared to the reform intended by
Selim, was slow and partial. Inveterate prejudices were to be forci-
bly and suddenly corrected; ignorance established and protecTed by
religion and law, was to be dispelled by the introduction of suspected
sciences and dangerous arts. The Mussulman was to become the
friend and the pupil of the Infidel. But Selim was unequal to the
LETTER LI.
1011
task, and although deficient neither in virtue, nor perhaps in power,
he was not possessed of that commanding genius which alone can
dare to violate the habits of a whole nation. He was wanting either
in prudence or in resolution ; he was too hasty, or not sufficiently
decisive. Others may think that the Turkish character is not sus-
ceptible of the intended improvement, and that the end was no
less unattainable than the means were imprudent. Should, how-
ever, a more fortunate master persuade the Turks of some future
age to consent to their own aggrandisement, the successors of
the present generation will revere the memory of the sovereign,
who lost his crown and his life in the noble endeavour to give
force and stability to his empire, by improving the moral capa-
city of his subjects.
Fortunately we are able to judge of the several provisions of
the Nizam-Djedid, by the account of the institution written by
Mahmoud Rayf-Effendi, composed in the French language, and
printed at the Imperial press*. The introduction of printing has
always been violently opposed by the Ulema, and the copiers of
Tusuk-Bazar. Achmet the Third attempted the establishment
of a press near the kiosk of Kiat-Hane, but his Armenian prin-
ters were obliged to desist ; and the buildings fitted up for the
establishment, were converted to other purposes. Selim erected
a large edifice at Scutari, and the necessary materials were pro-
cured, as well as an adequate number of persons qualified to super-
* The following is the full title of the treatise : Tableau des Nouveaux Re-
glemens de 1' Empire Oltoman, compose par Mahmoud Rayf-Effendi, ci-devant
Secretaire de l'Ambassade Imperiale, pros de la Cour d'Angletene. Imprime
dans la Nouvellc Imprimerie du Genie sous la direction d'Abdurihamin
Effendi, professeur du Geometric et d' A lgebre, a Constantinople, 1798.
H^BB
EEBB
1012
LETTER ίί.
intend the establishment, and to execute the mechanical part of
the labours. Whether from the want of attention or of a de-
mand for the commodity, only forty different books were pro-
duced in twelve years. The building was spacious, and well
adapted for the purpose, but contained only one press. There
were, however, six presses in the School of Design at Ters-Hane»
whose principal productions were a Greek grammar, and a dic-
tionary of the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian languages.
The first attention of the Sulnan was directed to the renova-
tion of his armies and navies : indeed it was his principal aim ;
and as his subjects were Turks and a nation of soldiers, it must
not be considered as a mere change of tactics in the forces of the
empire. As the regulations were intended for a people who
had every thing to learn, some articles of the new constitution
may raise a smile in the unwary reader, who is accustomed to the
establishments of civilized states ; and those who decide on the
merit by the success of an innovation, may think the details of
abolished ordinances scarcely deserving of regard. But a view of
the proposed improvements might be valuable, if it was only to
convey to us the clearest notion of the deficiencies which they
were intended to correct, and which are, in fact, the existing
errors of the Turkish system.
The new regulations of the Ottoman empire bear the date of
1796• The levy of twelve thousand men, who were to be disci-
plined 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 arrange-
ment. The new troops were to wear a uniform, and they 1 ere
to be taught the manual exercise, of which the regulations con-
LETTER LI.
1013
tain 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 Bos-
tandges, whose red bonnet they were to wear when at home,
although they were to change it for a lighter cap of the same make
and shape upon actual service.
For these Bostandge fusileers (Bostany Tufenktchissy) as they
were called, were erected handsome barracks in the middle of a
down, three miles to the north-east of Pera, capable of con-
taining fifteen thousand 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 spacious 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
the range of wide regular streets for the cotton and silk manu-
facturers which have been before noticed.
The inspector of the new troops was one of the principal men
of the empire : their commander was a Capidge-Bashe, assisted by
an intendant, two commissaries, 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 Arabdges (or carmen),
twenty-four Sakas (or water-carriers), and seventy-two attend-
ants, called Cara-Colloutches, with their proper officers. Each
company had a field-pieoe, and was commanded by a captain,
6 ο
1014
LETTER LI.
two lieutenants, an ensign, a tchaouchi (or Serjeant), and ten cor-
porals*.
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 of the tail ; a Nazir (or intendant), with
a Kiatib (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 govern-
ment, and were different from each other. 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 Wedncssdnys, 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 distin-
guishing 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 -f.
* The details in the treatise are much more minute than those given above,
ΛγΙιίοη contain rather the spirit of the regulations than the regulations themselves.
+ Mahmoud Rayf concludes the regulations for the Topges with the follow-
LETTER LI.
1015
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 theTopges; 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. Bar-
racks were built for them near those of the Topges, with shops and
stables, the repairs of which were superintended by the principal
officers in quarters. They had a body of carpenters, smiths, sad-
lers, and farriers, besides a 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 pri-
vates and an officer, who learnt to halt at a word. On the march
provisions were regulated by a commissary.
An important officer of state was named (not by rotation as
before, but for a permanency) Inspector of the powder maga-
zines. 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
establishments, and the quality had been daily deteriorating in
such a proportion, that it was unfit for any purpose but saluting ;
so that although Turkey produces saltpetre in abundance, the pow-
der used for service was purchased from the Franks at sixty and
seventy piasters the quintal. The price of this article was there-
ing encomium : Les Jleglemens de Sultan Selim III. pour le Corps des Topt•
chys sont (Tune sagesse consommee. Page 24.
6o2
1016
LETTER LI.
fore doubled, and expert artisans were hired for the construction of
mills as well as for the service of the manufactories. The maga-
zines of Constantinople were repaired and augmented, and a large
similar construction was built at Kutchuk-Chemedge, near the ca-
pital. The salaries of the workmen were tripled, 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 thou-
sand quintals of powder, eight times stronger than that of the
ancient manufacture, were soon furnished 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 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, work-
shops, magazines, and a mosck, was built for them at the lower
end of the harbour, below the arsenal. An inspector, taken from
the great officers of state, and the Reis-Efiendi, were charged
with their superintendance ; and they were under the orders of a
commandant, an intendant, and a commissary. Ten bombadiers,
five cadets, 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 uniforms different from those of the men, and the
whole corps was to be distinguished from the Miners by a red
ribbon in the turban. They were ordered to exercise every day
during summer at the barracks, and study at the mathematical
*l!;ni ur iii iii
inttttttiuuittiiUMnmiaUifcuut.t
THE MW M,
ΊίΆ
OF
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IIBOMISAKDIKKS & MINERS.
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LETTER LI.
1017
school; and finally, the commissary of the body was obliged to
read aloud all the regulations, both old and new, at the barracks
every month.
The Miners, a corps much neglected, were increased, and at-
tached by the new constitution to the Bombadiers, in whose bar-
racks they occupied two sets of quarters. They were divided into
two classes ; one of which studied the art of mining, whilst the
others applied themselves to every 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 military fiefs.,
and the cadets raised by the new constitution, employed them-
selves daily (excepting on Tuesdays and Fridays) in drawing plans
and designing models in wood and plaster, the most ingenious and
best constructed of which were presented to the Grand Vizier.
In summer they were exercised in exploding real mines, and in
laying out intrenchments and camps. Once in every six weeks
they underwent a general examination, of which an exact report
was presented to the Grand Vizier; 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 superintendance of a ministry,
formed on the plan of the European admiralties ; and the official
details, which had been formerly 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 examination of the can-
ρ— — — I
ΡΜΜ— 1
ΙΟΙδ
LETTER LI.
didates; and retaining such only as were fit for the service, 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 pu-
nished 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 he thoroughly acquainted with the regulations of the
Admiralty, and know how to write and read. The same officer
was, 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 intendant in victualling 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 loi/ger bought at a fixed low price, but according to their
current value by the intendant, 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 payed monthly, were raised and attached
to the fleet ; and a certain portion of them were distributed into
the ships during the summer cruise, whilst the remainder were re-
viewed daily, and exercised at the arsenal. To these were added
two hundred Egyptian calkers, fed and clothed at the expence of
the state, and lodged in barracks behind the admiralty. The ships
LETTER LI.
1019
were formed on a plan entirely 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 attend-
ants, 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.
Ory docks, calking basins, a harbour for fifty new gun-boats,
and all the necessary appurtenances of a great arsenal, were built
at the edge of the water at Ters-hane, and designs for similar
contrivances were to be applied to the other principal harbours of
the empire. Λ line-of-battle ship of three decks, a frigate, a cor-
vette, and a brig, all copper-bottomed, were launched in one dav
during the year 1797, from the docks of Ters-Hane. It was pro-
vided that two ships should perform their manoeuvres once a year
in front of Beshik-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
merchantmen capable of standing the sea at all seasons of the year,
and accordingly of instructing the Turkish sailors in the more diffi-
cult branches of practical navigation. An academy was built at the
arsenal for the education of cadets, who were furnished with com-
petent professors* 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
1020
LKTTER LI.
to the superintendance of Messrs. Rhodes and Benoit, the gentle-
men before mentioned in these Letters.
In addition to these institutions for the formation of the new
troops and their attached corps, and the improvement of the Ot-
toman navies, a general regulation 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 assistants, 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 in person.
The Gebeges, 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 other points near the seat of war, and a sum of
12,500,000 masters was appropriated for purchasing 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 department 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 disbursements 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 ex-
clusively to the purposes of the recent institution. To this end a
treasury was formed, under the controul of a great state officer,
chosen from amongst the chief men of the empire, with the title
LETTER LI.
1021
of Treasurer of the New Bank (Iradi Djedid Teftendary), and
Inspector of the New Troops (Ta-alimlu Asker Naziry ). To' in-
crease 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 incor-
porated 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 Malikiane, (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 tobaccos 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 estimation being made according to the census of
these proprietaries collected in 1790 ; and a rule was established
for filling up all future vacancies, by cadets capable of actual ser-
vice in the cavalry of the Ottoman armies. The fiefs originally
granted for the equipment 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 Chris-
tian subjects, and of one para a head on sheep and goats. The
tax on cotton, which was formerly an asper on everv oke, and
6p
1022
LETTER LI.
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
32,250,000 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 zvhom we are indebted for their institution ;
just as a single drop of water is sufficient to indicate the exist-
ence of the river from which it flows*. — It is not to be supposed
that the designs of the Sultan were seconded by the vigour and
alacrity of his subjects in every article of the intended reform. Mr.
Browne reports, that when he visited the mathematical schools of
the arsenal, there was a want of nothing but books and instru-
ments, and that the professors met together to smoke ; and yet
Dr. Pouqueville speaks favourably of the performance at the
Academy of Design, directed by Mons. Ilicard, a French gentle-
man of Toulon, who taught a number of young Turks to draw
charts and to engrave on copper, and had formed an incipient col-
lection of some valuable materials relative to Asia Minor, and the
countries on the borders of the Black Sea. The grand object,
the raising and the discipline of the Bostandge Fusileers, proceeded
with rapidity, although the number enrolled did not amount to
more than twelve thousand, and was not sufficient to occupy one-
fourth of the barracks designed for their reception. The Topges
* Tableau des ISouveaux Rcglemens, p. 59.
LETTER LI.
1023
evinced by their speedy improvement the efficacy of tlheir recent
instruction.
Selim, however, had been thrown upon evil times ; and being
the successor of a monarch who, during his feeble reign of thirteen
years, had lost the Crimea, part of Bosnia, Sebatz and Cotzin,
had to struggle against the misfortunes which usually forerun and
prognosticate the fall of an empire. The rebellions of the pro-
vinces (which had been frequent since the reign of Mahomet the
Third, when Carsan of Caramania raised the standard of revolt),
were multiplied in his reign; and in the year 1797, Ali of Albania,
Passawand Oglou of Widin, Mustapha of Mecca, and the Pashas of
Damascus and Bagdad, held their governments in open opposition
to the Porte. Arabia was desolated by theWahaubees; Roume-
lia overrun with brigands. The convulsions of France were des-
tined to shake the earth from the banks of the Seine to the bor-
ders of the Red Sea ; and the dominion of the Great Nation was
to be augmented by the dismemberment of the Turkish provinces.
The capital trembled at the Syrian victories of Bonaparte ; and
at the moment of indecision, when it was doubted whether war
should be declared against France, and the Mufti refused to issue
his Jetwa, the discontents of the people were declared by repeated
conflagrations, and Selim tottered on his throne. The passage of
the Russians from the Black Sea through the straits, and the an-
choring of a Christian fleet under the walls of the Seraglio, were
no less an object of horror than the fall of Egypt, and the Sultan
was endangered equally by his allies and by his enemies*. The
* Admiral Uischakow passed with his squadron, and war was declared
against France, on the 10th of September, 1798. Mchcmed Ised Pasha, Grand
Vizier, as well as the Mufti, who refused to sign the declaration, was banished.
6p2
1024
LETTER LI.
exploits of Nelson and Abercromby recovered the Turks from
the defeats of Gaza, Jaffa and Acre, 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 the assassinations at Galata, and the disturbances (before
related) in the Suleymanie. The proceedings of the Sultan on
these melancholy occasions, and the public punishment of the
delinquents, at the same time that they exasperated his subjects,
might have failed to appease the cabinet of St. Petersburgh, had
not a new turn been given to the politics of that court, and the
face of Europe been changed by the death of the Emperor
Paul*.
* Dr. Pouqueville, who was at Constantinople when the affair occurred*
relates, that the Dragomans of the insulted nations were solemnly convoked^
and that four of the offenders concerned in attacking Mr. De Tamara and his
company in the mosck, were in their presence strangled, whilst thirty were
severely bastinadoed (Voyage a Constantinople, p. 186). Mons. Bcauvcisins,
who was confined in the Seven Towers with Dr. Pouqueville, mentions, as
has been before related, that two were hanged (Notice sur la Cour du Grand
Seigneur, p. 80), which I believe to be the actual number. But the effect pro-
duced on the Turks was equally prejudicial to the popularity of the Sultan;
and it is certain, that when the two Greeks supposed to have been concerned in
shooting the Russian 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 Cliiauscs attached to the arsenal — " an unheard-of honour, when
paid to the corpse of an Infidel, a dog, a Giaour." Voir des Mussulmans der•
riere le convoi (Tun infidtle, d'unchien, (Tun dgiaour, est tine chose inouie! Je
garantis posit ivement ce £ait f que ne serqit pas croyable si je n'eusse ele sur
les lieux, et si des temoins oculaires n'eiissent a V instant atteste son authen-
ticity. — Notice sur la Cour du Grand Seigneur, p. 84,
LETTER LI.
1025
That event, and the subsequent general peace, quieted the ap-
prehensions which had been entertained from the external enemies
of the Porte; but the recommencement of hostilities renewed the
distresses of the empire, and it soon appeared that the two great
belligerent powers were determined upon involving the Sultan in
a war, whose features and general character were totally different
from any contest in which Europe had hitherto been embroiled,
and whose principle was, indeed, too universal to admit of the neu-
trality of any considerable independent state in any quarter of the
globe. The intrigues which had before disturbed the civilized
courts of the continent, were transferred to the palace of the Reisr
Effendi, and the Porte was for more than two years distracted be-
tween allies, two of whom pleaded in. union their recent services,
whilst the other advanced his existing preponderance : Russia and
England were to try their strength against France in the Divan;
and the Sultan was the sad spectator of a contest of which he was
himself the unwilling umpire, the ostensible object, and the pro-
posed 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. When the French Ambassador General Se-
bastiani, and the successes of Austerlitz, had destroyed the former
equilibrium, and were found an over-match for Prince Italinski
and Mr. Pole*', one of the threatened alternatives was at once
brought into view : the Porte was then informed, that the armies
* A severe domestic calamity had rendered the Ambassador Mr. Arbuthnof,
incapable of attending to his official duties, and the relations between Great
Britain and the Porte were carried on by the Secretary of Legation, Mr. Long
W. Pole,
Μ—
1026
LETTER LI.
and fleets of the allies were to receive a new impulse*. The new'
impulse was the advance of the Russians in Moldavia, and the
appearance of a British squadron at Constantinople. The war
with Russia commenced : the distress of the Sultan was daily in-
creased ; and notwithstanding his affection for his favourite Sebas-
tiani, he would willingly have retained the friendship of his other
ancient allies. He had not, however, the choice of impartiality,
and was not even to continue his attentions to the French Ambas-
sador, the unprecedented honours paid to whom, was one of the
particular grievances of which the English Plenipotentiary thought
himself obliged personally to complain, as well as of the disgrace
of those Turkish ministers who had been concerned in forwarding
the triple alliance between England, Russia, and the Porte -f*.
Never was sovereign 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 em-
barrassment of making a selection between one of the menacing
parties, when his capital was alarmed for the first time by the
* Papers presented by His Majesty's command to the House of Commons,
pursuant to their address of the 16th of March, 1808. Note from the Right
Hon. Charles Arbuthnot to the Reis-Effendi, dated Buyuk-dere, 28th August,
1806.
+ See the same note to the Reis-Effendi, in which his Excellency Mr. Ar-
buthnot notices these points; but with the introduction of I will omit to men."
tion, &c. and an avowal that he did not wish to interfere in the internal admi-
nistration of affairs. Such forms of rhetoric are, I presume, fully understood
by diplomatists as well as common writers.
LETTER LI.
1027
presence of a hostile force, and the last of calamities seemed
reserved for the reign of Selim.
The good fortune which interposed to save the seat of empire
was not extended to the sovereign, and the evils which were ine-
vitable from the triumph of either power, gathered fast around
him, even from the day which saw the city of the Faithful deli-
vered from the insults of a Christian flag. The success which
freed his subjects from their fears dissolved also their union.
The discontented of the capital began to murmur at a monarch
whose reign had been a tissue of misfortunes, and they found
subject for complaint even in the event which had contributed to
their preservation. The employment of the Infidels for the pro-
tection of the Believers, and their subsequent honours, but above
all, the increasing kindness with which the General Sebastiani was
received at all hours in the Seraglio, and enjoyed familiar converse
with the Sultan himself, became a constant topic of animadversion
amongst the Ulema, who connected with this conduct the predi-
lection which Selim had always evinced for the sciences and the
arts of the Franks, and construed the whole series of his measures
into a systematic attack upon the religion and the fundamental
laws of the empire. The Janissaries united with the ministers of
the law, and were with facility persuaded that the innovations of
the Sultan had been directed principally against themselves. In
the formation of the new troops, and all the regulations of the
Nizam-Djedid, they felt the decrease, and foresaw the extinction
of their influence, and being themselves determined upon revolt,
they did not delay to furnish others of the military bodies of Con-
stantinople with a plausible pretext for resisting the Imperial ordi-
nances. They found a chief to encourage and direct their sedi-
J 028
LETTER LI.
tion in the person of Mousa-Pasha, the Caimacam. This man had
been for twenty years the sport of the ruling Turks, had repeat-
edly lost his pashaliks, and been deprived of his honours, and as
he had borne all his disgraces with a patient shrug, had acquired a
reputation for submissive humility and resignation, which but ill-
accorded with the ferocity and turbulence of his natural character.
The real sentiments of his ambitious mind, however nicely con-
cealed by the habitual dissimulation of his carriage, were dis-
cerned by the penetrating eye of the famous Djezzar Pasha of
Acre, who foretold of him that he would be the cause of many
troubles. The ministers of the Porte and the Sultan had not the
good fortune to make the same discovery, and at the period that
some suspicions were entertained that the grandees of the empire
might oppose the innovating measures of the cabinet, Mousa was
chosen to fill the important post of Caimacam, as a person who ?
free from ambition, would hazard no intrigue, and would be con-
tent with the pageantry without aspiring to the power of his
office. Scarcely was he invested with the caftan, when he
resolved to pay himself the debt of revenge, and contrived, though
without throwing off the mask, to fulfil the prophecy of Djezzar,
and to act the most unworthy part in the most disgraceful revo-
lution which has stained the Ottoman annals. Retaining his
outward devotion and obedience to Selim, he privately fomented
the discontents of the Janissaries, and employed the apprehen-
sions of the one, and the menaces of the other, to destroy such
of his fellow ministers as he had long considered the objects of
his hate, and had singled out for proscription and punishment.
The first symptom of the general disaffection was displayed
amongst the garrisons in the castles and forts of the Bosporus,
LETTER LI.
1029
the protection of which had not been forgotten, amongst the nu-
merous reforms of the new constitution. The old forts had
been much improved, and new defences raised on each side of the
canal. The guards at each battery were augmented, and a
Nazir with honourable emoluments was appointed to inspect their
discipline, besides an officer (On-Bashe) for every ten men, who
should attend to the vigilant and regular discharge of their duty.
Two sentinels were to watch at each castle during the night, and
in the event of any ship attempting to force the passage, the gar-
rison zvas by no means to go to sleep. They were to be em-
ployed daily in exercising the artillery, except on holidays, when
they were to clean and inspect their guns. They were also to
learn the use of the musket, and be manoeuvred after the man-
ner of the troops of Levend Tchiftlik*. The garrisons of the
canal had always been composed of Bostandges, and notwithstand-
ing the contrivance by which, in order not to infringe upon the
ancient usages of the empire -j-, the new troops were attached to
their corps, they were not disposed to co-operate with the Sul-
tan, and even the trifling addition to their military duties required
of them, seemed an intolerable slavery and violation of their an-
cient privileges. Infinite pains were employed to reconcile them to
exertions which were not to be dropped when there was no instant
and visible cause for activity ; and it was found more feasible to
form a new body of men altogether upon the improved system,
* Nouvcaux Reglemens de l'Empire Ottoman, &c. pp. 51, &c.
+ Pour ne point porter atteinte aux anciens usages de V Empire, ces nou-
veaux corps out ete reunis a I'ancien corps des Bostandges ct ils sont connus
sous la denomination de Bostany Tufenktchissy Odaghy. Such are the words
of Mahmoud Rayf-Eflendi. — Reglemens, p. 86.
6 Q
1HH
SB
1030
LETTER LI.
than to engraft a part of the recent regulations upon any of the
corps belonging to the ancient establishment.
A suspicion prevailed that these Bostandges were to be united
to the new troops, and it was confirmed by the order for clothing
them in the uniform of the Eusileers. On the 25th of May, in
the year 1807, iu less than three months after the discomfiture of
the English fleet, the garrisons burst into open mutiny, and tho
virtuous Rayf-EiYendi* was the first to fall a sacrifice to their fury.
On the morning of that day he carried the commands of the
Sultan to the castles, and finding the troops not disposed to obey,
retreated hastily towards Buyuk-dere. His Excellency Count
Ludolf, the Neapolitan minister, from his country-house in
that village, saw him pass in a kirlanguish with one attendant,
and bowed to him as he rowed along the shore. Not three
minutes elapsed before another boat full of armed men pulled
swiftly down the bay, and the immediate event was the murder
of the obnoxious favourite. The slave threw himself round his
master to protect him from the Bostandges, and was instantly
cut to pieces, whilst Mahmoud, without resistance, and in silence 3
fell at the same moment under the sabres of his assassins.
On the same day Halili-Aga, Nazir of Hyssar castle on the
Asiatic shore, was also killed ; and the report of the insurrection
having reached Constantinople, the Sultan, not acquainted with
the extent of the mischief, early on the next morning (the 26th)
dispatched his commands for allaying the commotion, and pu-
nishing the mutineers. These were rejected with disdain, and
* Λ very tolerable full length picture of Mahmoud Rayf, drawn by W.
Miller, and engraved by Sciavonetti, junior, may be found in (be print-shops
in London.
LETTER LI.
1031
the insurgents assured of the co-operation of the Janissaries, de-
serted their respective stations, and assembled to the number of
three thousand in the meadows of Buyuk-dere, choosing for their
general Katchaya Oglou, one of their own body, and a promi-
nent leader in the revolt. The rebels were now considered to
have assumed an appearance sufficiently formidable to justify an
offer of negotiation from the Sultan, which was accordingly
transmitted from the Seraglio, and met with a rejection as
decisive as that which had been given to the preceding orders.
Receiving an accession of force from every quarter, they marched
directly to the capital. The Janissaries rose on the 27th, and
carried their kettles to the Etmeidan, or place of feasting, an
open square near the aqueduct of Valens, which is allotted to
the distribution of provisions to the soldiers, and has been the
immemorial camp of their rebellious predecessors *.
On this decisive signal of revolt, the inclinations of the various
orders began gradually to develop themselves, and it soon ap-
peared that the Ulema, if they did not declare against the Sultan,
were determined at least to remain neuter in the contest ; for the
Mufti, as if in concert with the Janissaries, and whilst the me-
lancholy clanking of the kettles in their passage to the Etmeidan
still sounded in the streets of Constantinople, issued an edict to
the inhabitants of the capital and its neighbourhood, intreating
* The two large copper kettles in which the tchorba or soup of each oda is
cooked, are placed in front of the respective tents of the chamber to which they
belong. They are carried between two men on a pole, preceded by two other
soldiers of the oda, one of whom bears a long skimmer, and fhe other a ladle ;
and as they pass along the streets, the Janissaries rise and make a reverent
obeisance to the procession. The cook of each oda is a person of some import-
ance, being a sort of provost-marshal or gaoler, and the Tchorbaji or Colonel,
derives his name from the inspection of the rations.
6q2
1032
LETTER LI.
them to take no part in the disturbance, to furnish the daily
supply of provisions for the markets, and to consider the contest
as a struggle in which they were totally unconcerned. The
Franks of Pera were also exhorted to remain tranquil, and to feel
assured that their lives and properties would be secure under
every event.
The Sultan was now awakened to the sense of his danger : he
assembled 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 institur
tions ; 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 appease 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 presence 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 suggested to his mind,
that with the new troops of Scutari and Tchiftlik, and other sol-
diers in the vicinity of the capital, he might speedily assemble thirty
thousand men, no less devoted to himself than inimical to the
Janissaries, and that until their arrival he could maintain the Se-
raglio against the rebels, by arraying the forces of his numerous
body guard. Yet the testimony of all the reports prevalent at this
LETTER LI.
1033
day in Constantinople, concurs in the persuasion that such an op-
position, with the instant death of the Caimacam, would have dis-
mayed the insurgents and crushed the rebellion. But the traitor
prevailed, and with a cruel ingenuity, contrived to include in the
proscription, the names of two old and innocent men, the Keha-
yah Bey and Reis-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 num-
ber 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 bloody offering,, and recognizing the
aged victims of the resentment of Mousa, declared that they had
required another sacrifice. " The heads were not those of the ene-
mies whose punishment they had demanded." The Sultan hear-
ing this last intelligence, 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 Maho-
homet, 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
stept from a throne to a prison, and that the reigning monarch
1034
LETTER LI.
was his cousin Mustapha the Fourth, eldest son of Sultan Ab-
dulhamid.
This prince, when he was drawn from the luxurious obscurity
of his harem to gird on the sword of Mahomet, was thirty ywvs
old ; but not being possessed of a capacity sufficient to supply the
defects of his 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 continued struggle for prpdnminance. — The be-
ginning and the close, are the only transactions of his reign in
which he himself may be said to have played any part. The Janis-
saries 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 excecution of their principal officers,
dispersed. — Their triumph was but of a short duration ; and the
lawless exercise of their usurped authority filled the capital with
complaints, and spread from the centre to the farthest provinces of
the empire. It was in vain to hope for a suppression of their in-
solence from the feeble and intimidated Sultan ; but the ambition
of a daring subject effected that which should have been accom-
plished by the virtue of the sovereign.
Mustapha, Pasha of Rudshuk, retained in the surname of Bai-
ractar (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 exalta-
LETTER LI.
1035,
iion 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 equal to the accomplishment no 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 sus-
pected attachment to^ the Janissaries, or a confidence in his mili-
tary prowess, was dismissed to the command of a body of forces
on the frontier, and to the distant government of Rudshuk. From
the moment he was informed of the deposition of Selim, it appears
that he contemplated the bold design of seizing upon the govern-
ment ; and convinced of the pernicious measures of the Janis-
saries, or seeing no other way of raising himself than by depress-
ing that lawless, body, determined upon opposing the hardy troops
of the provinces to the enervated militia of Constantinople.
So early as the October of the same year in which Selim had
been dethroned, Bairactar dispatched to the Sultan a formal no-
tice, that he should advance to the capital to reform the abuses
of the state, and assist him in the administration of public affairs.
Accordingly, he collected a force of nearly forty thousand men,
composed chiefly of Albanians from the garrisons of Roumelia,
and marching to Constantinople about the end of the year, en-
camped on the plains of Daout-Pasha, four miles from the walls
S9SE
1Ό3β
LETTER ΕΙ.
of the city. His arrival was the signal of submission. He con-
voked the chief men of the empire, and depositing the banner 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 ar-
rangement : even the semblance of power was transferred from
the Seraglio to the camp at Daout-Pasha ; for the ministers of
the Porte, and the missions of Pera, directed their visits of Cere-
mony to the tent of the triumphant general, who, without any
acknowledged 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 legi-
timate, and give a sanction to his ambition.
The 28th of July, of the year 1808, was fixed upon by Mus-
tapha for a hunting expedition to the forests of Belgrade, and it
was determined by Bairactar 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 con-
finement of their dethroned princes, and it was the preservation
of the Sultan whom he resolved to restore, that prompted 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 entrusted to several of the ministers of
the Divan, and the Grand \ 7 izier, though a friend, was suspected
LETTER LI.
1037
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 under arms, and every
preparation for a determined resistance.
The victorious rebel disappointed, but not intimidated, 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 dispatched to his
apartments, where they found, as is reported, the dethroned mo-
narch at his devotions, and attempted to surprize bim whilst in
the attitude of prayer. He discerned their purpose, and before
the bow-string could be fitted to his neck, wounded one of the
mutes with his hangiar, but being thrown upon his back, was
overpowered, and instantly strangled.
From the murder of Selim the executioners proceeded 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 the Sultan in the eventual death of his brother. Selim 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 furnace of a
bath. The feeble contest continued under the walls, and the
assailants thundered at the gates, whilst the search for the prince
was prosecuted with 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
6 R
1038
LETTER LI.
had burst his way into the Seraglio ? The insurgents rushed to
the interior of the palace, headed by their leader, and by the intre-
pid Seid Ali, the Capudan- Pasha. Advancing to the third gate, they
called aloud for the instant appearance of Selim, and the eunuchs
of Mustapha casting the body of the murdered monarch before
them, exclaimed, Behold the Sultan zvhom 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, proceeded hastily to the presence-cham-
ber. Mustapha never shewed himself worthy of his crown until
the moment when he was compelled to resign it. He did not de-
spair of awing the rebels into submission by the Ottoman majesty :
at least he was determined to fall with dignity, and on the en-
trance 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 by the august spectacle,
but advancing towards the Sultan, drew him from his seat, saying
to him in a hold and angry tone, What dost, thou the he?
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 measure of his resistance, it proved ineffectual;
for on the same night the cannon of the Seraglio announced to
the people the dethronement of Mustapha 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. Ko sooner was the
seal of the empire committed to his charge, than the Vizier com-
LETTER LI.
1039
menced 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 Bosporus, who had led the insurgents atBuyuk-
dere, the most seditious of the Janissaries, and all those of the
household who had opposed the deposition of Mustapha, Mere
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 such measures as appeared to him calculated to restore
the ancient vigour of the Turkish power.
The Vizier openly avowed his resolution of abolishing the Ja-
nissaries, 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 campaign against
the enemy. The disorder and presumption which had so fre-
quently disturbed the tranquillity of the capital, were entirely sup-
pressed. 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
6 R 2
1040
LETTER LI.
Janissaries should be the objects of his terror and his hate» and
that he should be no unwilling instrument in the hands of the Vi-
zier in promulgating the repeated acts by which their character
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 according 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 solcliery, as belonging to an institution more an-
cient 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, no less than the complete dissi-
mulation 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 irrecon-
cileably injured. He even seems to have felt some compunction
for the depression and disgrace of the ancient soldier}^ of the em-i
pire, 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.
LETTER ΕΙ.
1041
Previously to their departure, he resolved to confirm the union
which he fondly hoped had by his efforts been formed between the
two contending parties, the Janissaries and the other military
bodies of the empire ; and for this purpose the valley of Sweet
Waters was chosen for the scene of an imposing ceremony, in
which the oblivion of all former enmities, and the peace of the
empire, were to be solemnly proclaimed and finally ratified in the
face of the Ottoman nation. The plain of Kiat-Uane was lined
on each side with tents, and preparations for a repast were spread
tender the long avenues on the banks of the Barbysses. The camp
of Daout-Pasha and the barracks of the Etmeidan were emptied
of their troops, and fifty thousand soldiers gallantly equipped and
in arms, assembled at the feast. Bairactar himself, surrounded
by the ministers of state and the chief Pashas of either army,
presided at. a feast, of which, whether we consider the importance
of the object, the number, and character of the guests, or the
circumstances of the occasion that called them to the same
table, there is not, I believe, any parallel in the history of the
world. It is not the least astonishing part of the event, that the
half of a vast multitude chosen from the lowest class, should, ia
any nation, be found capable of smothering their emotions, and
of concealing from their companions, through a long series of
artifices and professions, the real state of their feelings, and the
nature of their designs.
At the conclusion of the repast the chief officers of the Janissa-
ries, and the generals of the provincial army, at the command of
Bairactar, rose from their seats, and unsheathed their sabres: in an
instant the plain from the kiosk of Achmet to the Golden Horn
flashed with the arms of the intermingled troops, who crossed
1042
LETT Ε ft LI,
their swords, and swore on them and by the name of the prophet,
an eternal fidelity to each other, and a steady allegiance to the
new constitution.
The Albanians began their march on the succeeding morning*
and the number of soldiers attached to the Vizier who still
remained in the capital, amounted only to four thousand ; but
Cadi-Pasha, the friend and associate of Bairactar, with eight
thousand Asiatics, was encamped on the heights and in the bar*
racks of Scutari.
Two days after the feast at Sweet Waters, on the 14th of No-
vember, 1808, after the passevend had commenced their nightly
rounds, a large body of the Janissaries issued from their quar-
ters, 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 fly, 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-IIane 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 ma-
gazine, with the Grand Vizier and his companions, had been
blown into the air. Whether this event occurred by accident or
design, is at this day unknown, but it decided the issue, although
it was far from proving the conclusion of the contest. The Sei-
mens, the armed populace, and the Albanians, who would have
rallied under Bairactar and perhaps have overpowered their anta-
LETTER LI".
1Ό43
oOiiists, were dispirited by the fatal event ; but 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, but
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 impru-
dently made his appearance in the Etmeidan in the turban of
the new regulation, and was massacred 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 de-
clared against the Janissaries, and the Topges, remained under
arms, but took no part in the struggle.
On the 16th Cadi-Pasha passed over from Scutari at the head
qf his eight thousand troops, and marching through the court of
St. Sophia, proceeded to the barracks of the Gebeges, in the vici-r
nity of the mosck, where five hundred of the Janissaries had
taken their stand. Cadi surrounding the square, did not at-
tempt to force an entrance, but setting fire to the building, re-
tained his regiments at their stations until the quarters were con-
sumed, and the whole of the five hundred were burnt alive. The
Asiatics, leaving the ruins in flames, made no efforts to extinguish
the spreading conflagration, but departed in search of their ene-
mies, and filled the streets with carnage. The town was in a
blaze from the walls of the Seraglio to the aqueduct of Valens,
and a man-of-war, by the order of Seid Ali, continued at the
same time to play upon the Janissaries' barracks. The event was
doubtful on the night of the 1 6th, during which the shrieks of
the women, the shouts of the soldiers, and the repeated discharges
1044
LETTER LI,
of fire-arms, declared to the terrified inhabitants 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 Etmeidan,
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
o-ates, awaited within the walls of the Seraglio the event of the
contest, but the decision of the seamen and the cannoniers, ren-
dered it necessary tor him to consult his own safety by an exer-
tion of the Imperial authority in behalf of the triumphant party.
His counsellors, for it is not known that Mahmoud himself gave
the order, thought fit to secure him from the victors by the
death of the imprisoned Mustapha, 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 par-
tiality of the Janissaries for his immediate predecessor, and seeing
that their cause had been espoused by the most powerful and
entire of the remaining military bodies, he dispatched his man-
date 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
successful soldiery still vented their rage upon the unresisting po-
pulace. Seid Ali and Cadi-Pasha, on seeing their adherents dis-
perse, left the Seraglio point in two wherries, and rowing hastily
LETTER LI.
1045
up the Bosporus, 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 has subsequently been sent to the Seraglio.
The Janissaries were not suddenly appeased by the concilia-
tion 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 five hundred 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 gra-
dually allayed.
On the 19th, Mahmoud having issued a proclamation exhorting
his subjects to keep the Bairam, which commenced on that day,
in peace, they attended tranquilly and in good order the funeral
of Mustapha, who was conveyed with much pomp from the Se-
raglio to the tomb of the Sultan Abdulhamid, his father. The
same day the streets were cleansed and cleared of the dead, three
thousand 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-llane.
In an open space near one end of the Hippodrome, 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 disfigured corpse of Bairactar.
6 s
1046
LETTER LI.
Such was the close of the most sanguinary of the three revo-
lutions which occurred within the short period of eighteen months,
and which, after dethroning two monarchs, and spilling the best
blood of the empire, terminated in so entire a re-establish-
ment of every former prejudice, that, for the Turks, the last
twenty years have passed in vain ; or, it may be averred, have pro-
duced rather the confirmation of ancient errors, than any of the
benefits usually derived from experience. The Janissaries, since
the fall of Bairactar, have made no effort to disturb the govern-
ment ; but having borne down all opposition, and not being agi-
tated by any rival power, they cannot be said to have evinced a
subordination either meritorious or unexpected.
The election of Yussuf-Pasha, a known enemy of their order,
to the Vizierat, was thought an evidence that they had submit-
ted to Mahmoud ; yet the general popularity and peculiar situa-
tion of this Sultan, who in 1810 was still the last of the Otto-
man princes, may well account for their acquiescence in a measure
which bespoke no actual hostility, and could not be dec'\dec\\y
injurious to their interests : in fact, Yussuf has since been dis-
missed. It is reported, that the bow-string thinned their ranks,
but no open innovations were attempted during the period of his
authority. Of the late military institutions not a vestige remains
to excite their apprehensions ; for although the Topges retain a
portion of that discipline which they learnt from DeTott, 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. The schools of the arsenal, and
the barracks of the bombadiers, are no less deserted than the
exercising-grounds of Scutari and Levend Tchiftlik ; nor can the
pious alarms of the Ulema be now raised by the unhallowed en-
LETTER LI.
104?
couragcment of Christian refinements. The presses of Ters-Hane
are without employ ; the French language has ceased to be taught
in the Seraglio ; and the palace of Beshik-Tash is no longer enli-
vened by the ballets and operas which amused the leisure of the
unfortunate Selim.
I have in my own mind long fixed upon this point, for bringing
the labours of the Writer and the reader to a close ; and indeed it
is suitable that the observations made on this my journey to the
Levant, should terminate with the notice of that which occurred
a few days previously to my taking a final leave of the Turkish,
capital. — The Ambassador had his audience at the Seraglio on
the 10th of July : on the evening of the 14th we embarked on
board the Salsette, and after touching at the Dardanelles and the
island of Zea, where Lord Byron left the frigate on his return to
Attica, we arrived on the 28th of the same month at Malta ; from
which place it may be recollected that the foregoing Tour origi-
nally commenced. — Here then I beg leave to conclude, and with
the avowal of a sentiment which I should have endeavoured to
express in my own language, had I not found it infinitely better
turned, and more completely conveyed in the Latin of Ovid
.... Veniam pro laude peto : laudatus abunde
non fastiditus si tibi, lector, ero.
6s 2
APPENDIX
Page 185. Psallida is mentioned as being the author of a Trea-
tise on the Immortality of the Soul. The subject and title of that
work is True Felicity, and it is noticed in page 572.
Inscriptions at Charonea, given without any emendation, from
Meletius, page 541.
5^£τον Κλαύδιον άυτο'βουλον όρυνυμον τω ΙΙατ-.ι, εχτον άπο Πλουτάρ^»,
άξβτην xaVav εν β /ω και Χογοις επιΰειξάμ,ενον, εν TJ) ... Φιλιο-οφον ετών
... .β', η ττξο*, Μητ§ο$ Μάμ,μ,η Καλλικλέ . . . ι. οι Γονείς, και αϊ Α'δελ,-
φα) tu : v η§ω ... δη ... β . δ» .... ~
[Έ.£ δε τον Ναον της ΤΙαναγΙας εν λ /S-aTJ .
Α!ξχοντος Φιλόξενου, μ,ψος άλαλκο/χενηβ 7Γεντεκαιδεκάτ>), άλίξων ρόΰωνος
άνατι&ηο-ι την Ιδίαν δούλη ν Δ ιονυ<παν. το ν τβ.ζτ /V χ^όνον άνά&εο"ΐν ποιούμενος
διά του ο-υνεδρ^Όυ κατά τον νόμ,ον,
Ρί!(>•χοντος Καφισ-ίου, μηνός Βουκατι'ου τ§ιακάδι, Κράτων Α'μινιβ, και
Εύγιτάν Γκα^έτου, ο~υνευαξεςουντων χα\ των Υιών, άνατι&εαο-ι το δβλικον
αυτών κοξάο-ιον %ωο~ιρ£αν ίερον τω %ε%απι πα^αΐίΛναν. Κρατών και Εύνι-
τάν εω£ αν ζώο~ιν άνενκλητω^ την άνά^εοτιν ποιβμενοι διά των (τυνεδριβ κατά
την νόμ,ον.
ΡΖ%"χοντος Διοκλεου$ του %ιμμίου, μηνός %υναομοχωου χεντεκαιδεκάτη
δε£ [τα λοΐ7τά διεφ&αρ^υ,ενα} .
Kq -χοντος Πάτ§ωνο£, ]«.ηνο£ 7ταα^•ανιου, παθόντος άυτ-ί} του άνδρ^ο'ου <τα-
μίχον του Φιλο^ε'νβ, άνατι^ηοΊ δωξον τά$ ιδ/α£ δούλας Καλλ/δα και πυ^ινίν
, . . . [εν τω άυτω λι&ω ειο"ί και άλλαι χλεΤ^αι, άλλα διεφ&αρ^αεναΓ] .
1050
APPENDIX.
Πνάλλω]. Εύνο'/χ,α αμ,φίλυτοςΚοιτόλα απουσίας ά§τα/λ/διει λει&ιη ενπείωνος
...... άρχοντοζ μ,ψος ^ηλβδ/ου 7τεντεκαιδεκάτγ), παλλάς Κξάτωνος άνα-
τί&•η<ην την ιδ/αν 0ε§α7ταιναν Καλλώ Γε^άν rij αρτερ και τά
λοιττά.
[Έν ετε^ω λ&α>] . Κξίτολαο^ άξίςίων.
Κάλλι$ Καλλιτπδα^ Α^τα/χι'δειΤ λει^ή}. [εν ετε'^ω.] χαΐ^οις σωτη^ε, και
εν ^νητοϊς τπ&ητε. [εν ετε'§α>] . 6υχαξΐς"ηριον.
[Έ/£ την ay /αν Πα§αο-κευην τη£ Δωξίτοΰ^, ev rf χλακι τη? ra-goo -κο-
/Αΐδηί] .
Α'υτοκ§άτο§ι KaiVagi Θεού Α'δξίανοΰ Τιω Θεού Ύξαίανβ Π*ξ $ικ5
ΥΊωνώ, Θεδ Νε^ούα εγγονω Τ/τω Αίλ/ω Α'δ^ ιανω άντι . . . . ενω ευο-εβεΓ
α-εβαςω Α'ςχίΒξβΐ μεγίςω ΑγιμΛξχω (τεξου tots το γ"
firano γ" Tlarqi Harqiag ιγγ ν vr.
[Έν ετέ^ω ειδωλον άνού ε^οντι κα) κυνΌ$, και «τ^αφην], πολυξένης*
και αλλαι ούκ ό'λίγαι.
The inscription from Stiris is more accurately given in Wheler,
book iv. p. 323.
Inscriptions at Orchomenos.
It is mentioned in page 270, that these inscriptions would be here
noticed, but they have been inserted in the Appendix to my fellow-
traveller's poem, and the stone itself is either on its way to Eng-
land, or is actually in this country, so that it would be superfluous
to give them a place in this work, unless I had it in my power to do
that which it appears may be done, and by giving an accurate copy
of them, explain the dialect and restore the metres of Pindar.
See Childe Harold, 2d edit, note at the end.
Page 281, mention is made of the supposed tomb of St. Luke of
Stiris; a reference to Wheler, book iv. p. 332, will inform the reader
that it was the sarcophagus of some ancient Pagan,, whose name was
Nedymos.
APPENDIX.
1051
Inscriptions in the Church of St. George, at Talandios in Bceotia,
from Meletius, p. 346.
A'yo&f τυχγ. Έ'ΰοξεν τ$ U%& γερουσία του ο-ωτ^ος Α'νχλ'ηπιου εν
χοινώ ς-ηλψ άναγςαφηναι, [εν γ ς-ηλγ είναι τα υπογεγραμμένα'] . αντί πολλών
χα) μεγάλων, ων ευεςγετΎ^τ, παξά του %εου ο μνημ-ης άγίς-ης Τουλιος Α'ο*-
ςεας, εχαξΙο~ατο δ<ά του Θεού τγ γερουσία χωξίΰιον ςυφλ οίον
πουτι πλεισιογε'ιτωνες άπο μεν ϊί'ους Αυξί^άλαμος, χα) ζ^ξος Νοτον Καλ-
λίςης χληξονόμων, άπο δ= Α'^χτου άυξ Θεόδωξος. άπο Δύσεως
οί άξέσ-χοντες Ο*λμωνίου χλ-η%ονόμοι. άπο δε Μεσ"ημ.βξίας <τυμ ορός
ονιος χα) οι Ν ιχοςξάτου χλ-ηξονόμοι επ) τι φυτευο-η τους ye-
ξουο-ίας τάς χα) άχε αιώνιον άναφίξοτον. ομοίως εΰοξεν,
κατά τ-ην άυτψ. χα) τα. έξης*
Page 330, contains a description of the bas-relief which is the
frontispiece to this volume, and which, on reconsidering the subject,
appears to me to be a funeral supper amongst the gods. The ser-
pent is typical of renovated life as well as health, and the cakes
ranged along the couch are Eleusinian emblems. Wheler calls a
similar tablet, a representation of Isis and Serapis, book v. p. 406.
Page 377. On reexamination, there is nothing which makes the
insertion of this inscription of any purpose, especially as all the in-
scriptions at Eleusis, as well as at Megara and /Egina, have been
copied by Villoison.
Explanation of the Inscriptions from the Paneum at Vary.
At the Landing-place.
Αξγεΰημος ο
φτ^αιος, ο νυμ-
φολτ]πτος φξα-
οαιο-ι Νυμφ[ω~]ν
αντοον εξηογ-
ηο~ατο
0?ι one side of the loose
Stone.
Αξχεΰεμος rj[o φες]
αιος xai Χολ[λεΓ]
δες Ta<[V) Nu/a[$J
[αι~\ς oixoho [μέσε]
On the other side of the loose
Stone.
\_Αζχε] ΰαμος η ο φεξ
[αιο]ς καπον ~Νυ[μφ]
αις εφυτευσεν
Iuscriptiones Antiquse, Part II. ρ. 76, Oxon. 1774.
1052
APPENDIX.
The other words in the inscription do not require any explanation,
except the ΑΡΠ02, which Chandler thought part of a word, direct-
ing the worshippers where to place the offering.
Page 527. I heg to compare what Belon said of the learning of
the Greek monks, with that which Montfaucon advances in his Pa-
latograph^, p. 438, on the authority of John Commenus the phy-
sician, namely, that in the libraries of Mount Athos were many
ancient books, treating of every subject and science, and that at
the very time Belon travelled, the monk Mathusalas copied the
works of Aristotle for his own use*.
The body of Greek Chemists, composed by the monks and other
learned persons of Alexandria, and continued at Constantinople after
the taking of the city, is in many of the great libraries of Europe.
It is to be found in those of the Vatican, the Escurial, of Milan,
Venice, and Paris. The copy in the latter library was compiled by
Theodore Pelican, a monk of Corfu, in 1478, and being in modern
Greek, is, I should think, as early a specimen of the Romaic as the
translation from Boccacio or the Belisarius. Fabricius, in the eighth
chapter of the sixth volume of his Bibliotheca Grsca, regrets much
that it has not been edited by a person skilled in the language as well
as the science.
In this place it may be as well to insert what Cantemir says of
the learning of his countrymen: — " We are not to imagine, with the
generality of Christians, that Greece is so far sunk in barbarism,
as not in these latter ages to have produced men little inferior to the
most learned of her ancient sages. To say nothing of times more
remote from us, even our days have seen three Patriarchs of eminent
reputation for learning; one of Constantinople and two of Jerusa-
lem. He of Constantinople was Callinicus, a very eloquent orator,
who, which seldom happens, died in his patriarchate : those of Jeru-
salem were Dositheus, and his kinsman and successor Chrysanthus,
yet, as I hear, alive. For the first, besides other monuments of his
♦ See l'Acadeniie des Iuscript. torn, xxxviii. p. 71.
APPENDIX.
1053
learning, we have three printed volumes of controversial writings
against the Latins. Besides these, there flourished at Constantino-
ple Meletius, Archbishop first of Arta, and afterwards of Athens, a
man skilled in all parts of learning, but chiefly studious of those Hel-
montian principles (or rather those of Thales), which he also ex-
plained to me for the space of eight months; Elias Miniati, a sacred
monk, a most acute philosopher, and eminent for his knowledge of
both dogmatic and scholastic divinity, afterwards Bishop of Mes-
sene in Pcloponesus ; Marcus Larissseus, an excellent grammarian;
Metrophanes, a sacred deacon, chiefly studious of poetry, and a
happy imitator of the ancients ; Licinius, born at Monetnbasia or
Malvasia, philosopher and physician, and both ways eminent. lie
was chief physician of our court. His skill and experience in the
medical art procured him both esteem and authority amongst the
Turks. He afterwards left Constantinople, and in his own country
was honoured with the title of a Count by the republic of Venice.
About a year after he was taken in Monembasia by the Turks, and,
as I am informed, publicly hanged in Constantinople for a literary
commerce which he had before held with the Venetians. Constan-
tine, son of Ducas, Prince of Moldavia, superior to most in the au-
cient Greek, and in philosophy a scholar of Spandonius; Andronicus,
of the noble race of the Rhangavi, justly praised for his knowledge
of the Greek tongue in its purity, and for his reading the Fathers.
To these I might justly add, Jeremias Cacavela, a Cretan by birth,,
a sacred monk, and preacher of the great church at Constantinople,
from whom I drew the first precepts of philosophy; Anastatius Con-
dridi, a Corcyrean by birth, preceptor to my sons ; as likewise Ana-
statius Nasius, a Macedonian, a man whose eminent knowledge in
Greek rendered him sufficiently known both in England and Ger-
many
# >>
This is very much in the style of Procopius the Moschopolite's
* Ottoman History, Parti, book iii. p. 92, note 10.
6 τ
1054
APPENDIX
catalogue, and commemorates many of the same men. I conceive
Prince Cantemir himself to have been a greater honour to his coun-
try than any one of the persons whom he here notices.
Romaic Pronunciation, page 549 of this volume.
The following is a sketch of what appeared to the disciples of
Erasmus the classical pronunciation., and., together with some re-
marks from other sources, is given from the treatises in the Sylloge
of Havercampius ; chiefly from that of Mekerchus. The Romaic
pronunciation is put opposite to the letters, in the characters of the
English Alphabet.
A = A, sometimes broad and open, sometimes like the a in mate,
plate * ;
Pronounced always as the Italian A, and the a in vast, past.
B= V,
Was a labial consonant, like our B, and pronounced as we so una
the letters in Βο/χβεο and Βαμβαινω. It was originally an aspirated P;
and the yEolians and Dorians employed it sometimes as a pure or
simple aspirate, writing ΒΡΟΔ05 for POAO^f, The change of
the Beta to Veta, originated probably from the necessity of spelling
by means of the B, Roman names beginning with a V, which, after
the incorporation of Greece in the Roman empire, so frequently re^
curred, as to induce by degrees an alteration of sound in the original
Greek letter. It has before been mentioned, that the Tartars cannot
pronounce the B: the early Scythian settlers in Greece may have de-
cided the change in favour of the V. It is evident, that what was
* See Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet, p. 2.1.
Λ Analytical Essay, &c. pp. 6, 7,
APPENDIX.
1055
gained by one letter was lost by another, and when the latter Greeks
wanted to spell any foreign word containing a B, they had no other
way of representing it but by μ, and τ : thus, Anna Comrnena writes
Robertus, Ρορταξτο^. When this change took place is not exactly
known; the similarity between the labial letters may have occasioned
an accidental confusion in early periods: thus, Octaviiis,, is on some
medals Οκτάβιος. But long after that period proper names from the
Latin were spelt with a B, as is seen in Plutarch, Dion, and other
historians, take for example, Β§οΰτο$, %τ%άβων, Ύιβίοιος ; and words
also from the Latin have the same conformity; plebis and urbano
being spelt, in Theophilus Antecessor. Institutionib . de Jure. Nat.
Gent, et Civil, π\ίβις and βφάνα. Latin words from the Greek prove
the same fact: βοω made boo, βύφαοβς barbarus; not voo and var-
varus. An initial V in Roman names was rendered by ov, as Όυα-
λεξίος, Όυαληί, Omqyu^iog, for Valerius, Valens, and Virgilius, as if
that diphthong had something of the sound of our W. Modern lan-
guages, in some words taken from the Greek and Latin, preserve the
sound of B, not V. The German and Dutch " bosch," (a wood)
and the French "bois," are evidently from βοσ-χ-η; and ff blaspheme,"
is from βλαα-φτ^Ίν ; as well as the French ff embrazer," and English
" brazier/' from ηχβξάξειν.
The verse of Cratinus,
oft ijXiS-iOjr cuenrep π^οβαταν βη βη λεχων βαδφι,
shows the sound of the Β to have been not V, but like the first
consonant in " bleat," a word itself taken from βλ-ηχειν. It may be
said, that the Greeks had not the power of pronouncing our B, and
that although να, va, was not so like the bleating of a sheep as ba,
ha, it was the nearest representation of which their alphabet would
admit. To which I answer, that as the modern Greeks have in μ.7Γ,
a distinct B, it is nearly a certainty that their ancestors also had that
letter, and that the ancient Greeks were supplied with a V, or some-
thing very like it, in the sound of their Digamma.
6t2
1056
APPENDIX.
Γ = G, except before ε and /, when it is y, and before y, χ, χ. £,
when it has the power of n,
Appears to have been pronounced always hard. The g in f ' gref-
fier," « graver/' and "engraft," shows what it was in yga= R.
Aspirated or pronounced more gutturally than the English R, and
in a similar manner to the Welsh. Rhaider, a waterfall, in that
language, is derived, it should seem, from pis^oov or ρίω.
S=S.
In which manner it was always pronounced by the ancient Greeks.
The sound of the <Ρ, χ> Ψ•
This diphthong was something similar to the αυ, as it is pronounced
by the Italians. Aristophanes represents the barking of a dog by aZ,
The Latins put aula and austtrus for άυλη and άν^ξος, and the
m
• Lib. vi. iu vit. Ner. Claud. Cass. cap. 33.
6u
1062
ΔΓΓΕΝΟΙΧ.
Greeks wrote Κλάυδ<ο$ Φα.ν<ττος for Claudius Fau&tus, and Παύλος for
Paulus. It has been objected., that, according to Cicero*,, the
word Cauneas sounded to the ears of Crassus at Brundu:?ium, like
Cave, ne, cas; but Mekerchus gets over the difficulty, by asserting
that the Latin V consonant was like our W, so that Cauneas and
Cave ne eas 3 were not very dissimilar.
EI = Ε
Pronounced as the ei y an egg, in Flanders, and the French ei
in plein. It cannot be the same as the i in sound, or Cicero, in his
letter to Papyrius Pcetusf, would not have said that the word |3iW,
the imperative of βινίϊν, coire, had a different sound from bini.
An epitaph of eight lines discovered at Rome., shows that the old
Romans spelt their long I with EI.
ET = EV, before β 3 y, δ, ζ, λ, (χ, ν, ρ, and EF, before &, κ, ς, π,
e-j ί $> χ> Ψ•
The English pronunciation of EU, approximates to, but does not
entirely represent, this diphthong. ΈΖξος, Τευτονε$, and Έυξίβιος, were
in Latin, Euru§ 3 Teutqn.es, and Ensebius. not Evros 3 Teftones, and
Efsevius.
ΟΙ = Ε
Like the oi_ in the French soin and besoin, consequently pro-
nounced correctly in the English schools. Had it been otherwise,
and like the Romaic oi, how could Strabo have spelt Boii, βοϊοι ?
W i and oi had been sounded alike, there could have been no contro-
versy respecting the old oracle —
Ύ]ζει Αωξίακοξ 7τολεμ,θ£ και 7.oi[xog αμ. αυτω.
For according to the modern Greeks, the words λοί /xoV and λιμό?,
' Dc Div. lib. ii. f Lib. ix. Epist. Fam,
APPENDIX.
1063
are not to be distinguished from each other in common speech. It
must be owned, however, that the whole strength of this argument
lies in the word «ίνο^αασ-^α , used by Thucydides* ; for if the debate
had gone to inquire how it had been written, the whole force of the
fact would tend to the contrary side of the question,
OY = oo.
It was as we read it, and like the same diphthong in our word
plough. The Latin U represented the two letters ο and u conjointly,
and Tullius, Junius, Brutus, were written Τβλλ«ο£, Ιβνιοζ, Βρβτος.
Martianus Capella spells conticuerc by χοντικβ-ηρε. The Latins also,
in converting the proper names Awxegyog and ΊΤλβτα,ξχος into their own
characters, made them Lycurgus and Plutarclius. How this diph-
thong came to represent the Latin v, may perhaps be understood by
sounding the two letters rather distinctly in Ονάϊρων and Ουαλίοιος,
according to our method of reading, which will then come very near
to the w — ou «rronej wrtrronc, &c.
TI= E.
This was pronounced as in the French huile, and had the vocular
sound in our word xvlieel. If it had been like οι and si, which it is
in the modern Greek, it would not have been reckoned one of the
three diphthongs called κακοφανο*.
HT = EV and EF, according to the rule, for AU and EU.
Sounded as in our schools, as far as respects the separation of, and
the hiatus between the vowels. If ψ had been like so, there would
have been no change in making τ,υχό^ν from εύχομαι.
The same observation may be made of &Y.
In order to render the sound of the Italian ce and ci, or our ch }
the modern Greeks make use of τξ.
* Lib. ii. page 81.
6u2
1064
APPENDIX.
In addition to the above account of the Romaic pronunciation of
the letters, it is necessary to add, that for the pronunciation of the
words, or in order to read after the manner of the moderns, no other
rule is required than a strict observance of the accents, the presence
or absence of which, determines what we call the quantity of the
syllables, in modern Greek ; and it should be also mentioned, that
the three accents have the same power, and are not to be distin-
guished from each other in the recital either of verse or prose. The
use of the aspirate is equally obsolete with that of the long vowels.
An example will convey the clearest notion of the manner in which
the best scholars of modern Greece read the first poet and father of
their language. The a in the following words, is to be pronounced
like that letter in ate.
Menin aedthe Thea Peleiadtheo akelios
Oolomanen e mere akaees alge atheke
Pollas d' ipthemoos psekas aedthe proeapsen
Eroone, aftoos de elorea tevke kenessin
iEonaese te pise. Dtheose d' eteleeto voole.
Without entering into the controversy started by the younger
Vossius, in his book de ca?itu Poematwn et viribus Rytlimi, or go-
ing the length of that scholar and Henninius, in decrying all those
accentual virgulae, which do not quadrate with the natural quan-
tity of the syllables*, we may with safety assert, that the ancient
Greeks, whatever attention they paid to their 7Γ§οσ-α>δ/α<, tones or ele-
vations, did not read the first lines of Homer as they are written
above. In a short account of the late Professor Porsonf, I find
that he was of opinion that Mr. P. a modern Greek of Salo?iica }
* Primatt's Defence of Greek Accents, p. 408. See Foster on Accents, Introductipn,
page vi. and page 113.
| London, 1S08, printed by Baldwin.
APPENDIX.
1065
ivko had also a considerable knowledge of its ancient language,
read Homer so as to preserve both accent and quantity, p. 18. Any
decision of that great authority would be reckoned oracular ; but
having inquired of one or two persons full as likely to have collected
these detached Sybilline leaves as the author of the pamphlet, I
have reason to think that Mr. Porson did never approve of the Ro-
maic rules in reading Greek. Mr. P. of Salonica I have never seen :
he may have adopted a new method., but Mr. Psallida of Ioannina,
whom I suppose to be equally versed in the language, I have heard
recite Homer, and exactly in the usual manner of all the modern
Greeks. One might think it sufficient to settle the question, that
Tzetzes, who has given in his Chiliads such a lamentable proof of
the abuse of accent, was sensible of the depravation of the language,
and openly lamented the barbarism of his times, in regard to the
corruption of pronunciation and metre, in the introduction to his
iambic poem — 7Γί§< παίδων αγωγής. Now it is clear that the strolling
muse of which he complains—
μ,βσ-ης αγυξίτίΰος
Ή την ποοων Ιόου&μ.ον β τήξει βά(Τΐν,
would never have existed, if accent had not prevailed over quantity
to a degree not known by the ancient Greeks (who admitted no such
verse), and that consequently the present practice is of a compara-
tively later date. But of this point I shall say a few words in another
place.
The present Hellenic scholars, although they are equally able with
Tzetzes to write verse according to all the rules of metre, yet they
do not, like him, acknowledge the errors of their recitation, nor
are at all aware of that fault, which in fact gave rise to the barba-
rous poetry of the present day. It is not, of course, meant to be
asserted, that the true method of reading Greek is understood by
066
APPENDIX,
the scholars of the English or any other university, who, iu the re*
eital of either prose or verse, prove, at least by their own practice^
that the Greeks had recourse in writing to a variety of signs, of
which they made no manner of use'*'.
Page 550. If the reader should wish to see a very different opi-
nion with respect to the corruption of the Greek language, he will
find it in Primatt's fifth chapter on Greek Accents.
In page 559 of this volume, I have stated an intention of giving art
extract from Portius's Romaic Grammar, but seeing by the public
prints, that a work of a similar nature is about to appear in a volume
by itself, and considering also, that those who are curious in such
points, may probably have Du Cange's Glossary ( which contains
the Treatise of Porlius ) in their possession, I have not thought it ne-
cessary to complete or introduce any part of the abridgment. At the
same time I deem it advisable to insert from this authojt, a general
outline of the change which the language has experienced in passing
from the ancient to the modern Greek.
Id porro nobis in prcesens adnotasse suffecerit linguae is ius corrup-
* The accented verse from the Antiope of Euripides, in red and black letters, which
was found in the hollow-ways of Resina, March 6', 1743, upon a wall on the angle of a
street leading to the theatre of Herculaneum, .shows how much those were deceived who
considered that accents were not introduced until the seventh century.
ως h και ύπο τών Γτα-
λων Βαλώνα, την εκυξίευσαν οί βένετοι ενετει 1690., είτα μετ ολίγους
μήνας, ΰιωγ^εντες υπο των Τούρκων, κα< κ^ημνίσαντες άυτην κατελιπον.
μετ άυτην ητον Πολις παξο&α7\.αο-ο~ί<χ τών Έ>λ?.ημιώτων η Βουλλις, ω'(Γ7Γεο
κα* μεσόγειος τα Ε λύμα, κλη^ε7ο-α άϊτο Ε'λύμου τβ νο'^β Υ'<οΰ τβ Α'γχί-
σον. άυτην τίνες ο'ιονται νά έ<να» τα. KaViVa, Πολ»ς πληαΐυν του Α'υλώνος
ευρισκομένη κατά το μεσόγειον, κα) άλλο» να ειναί η Χείμαρρα, άλλ* απα-
τώντας οτι απ άυτης η Χε/μάρρα, απέχει 25. Μίλια, της δε Ο'ρ,ε^ί'δος ήτοι
vj Α'μαντ/α, ΤΙόλις παραθαλάσσια, ητ<ς τανΰν λέγεται ΤΙόξτο Ρ'α^β^ε'ο,
μεταξύ τβ Α'υλωνος, και τβ ίΤοίκοΰ, ου σμακ^άν τών Α'κξοκεξαυνιων Ο'ξών.
ομοίως κχί άλλη Α'μαντια άυτης ητον Μεο-ο'γεως, λεγομένη κοινώς Α!βόςμα,
εκλήθησαν αύται αί Πο'λε<ς άτο τών Α'μαντων τών περ) τον Ε' μαφηνοοα, οί
όποιοι μετά την αλω<πν της Τ^ωάδος, δ/εβηο-αν ε/ς την Η'ττε^ον, κα< τελευ-
ταΤον κατωκηο-αν τουτβ^ τού^ τόπους, πεφ τα, Κκροκε^αΰνια 0"§η. αυτή 7j
Χώρα εκλη'&η Ο^ε^ίί α7το τοΰ Ο^ε'^ου, τβ καταφυ^ο'ντο^ ε<^ ετβτον τον τόπον.
τελευταϊον ε*να< ό Κε'λυδνο£ Ποτ: οο-τ<ί χωξίβει την Ο'οεςίοα της Μακεδο-
νίας, άπο τη£ Παλαιάς Ιϊπείξβ λέγεται κοινώς βτος %α?^.νίκη.
Α Ρ Ι» Κ Ν D Ι Χ .
1071
4. Ταύτης της Ε'παοχίας μεσόγειοι ΤΙόλεις, παξά, τάς ρηθείσας, "είναι
κα) αύται. Α'λβανοχολι?, η Μητοο'τΓΌλ*? 7Γθτε των Α'λβανών. Λευκή ΪΙε'τξα,
έρημος, των δε Ε'οοδετων Πο'λε/? ήσαν, οί Χκαμπεϊς, την οποίαν τίνες λε-
γουσ< νά ε/να* τα Βελάδαγοα, ?^εγομενη ΰπο των Τούρκων Α'ξναουτ Μχε-
λ<γράδ, Πο'λ η τ§ε<£ σχεόον
μήνας, οπβ εφα&η ατο το σπίτι, χωξίς να ιζευοτ\ βτε αυτή τι εγινεν. εγω
εις τετοιαν ειΰησιν ελαβον μεγαλην λυπην οια τον ^αναΐον της σκλάβας. δ*α
δε τον υιον ε?^αβον καποιαν έλπιζα παοηγοοιας, μήπως και τον ξαναειοω.
άλλα ]αετα ε§ μήνας έφθασε καί το Μχα*§α/Λ* χωξίς να λάβω καμμιαν
ειΰησιν δια τον ύιον μβ. τότε επα^ηγγειλα τβ ζευγητβ μου να μβ φεξγ την
πλέον παχυίεξαν αγελαΰαν δια να την ^υο-ίασω εις Ιίοξμπανι. ο ζευγητης
επληξωσε την τ^ξοσίαγην μβ, και μβ εφεοε την αγελαδαν, η οποία ητον η
σκλάβα μβ εις εκεινην την μοξφην. βλέπω την αγελαδαν να κλαιγ, και να
χαμντ. κάποια κινήματα^ οπβ με επεξακινησαν εις ευσπϊ.αγχνιαν δ;α να μη
την θυσιάσω, αλλ' η' γυναίκα μου οπβ ητον 7ragov, εμεταχειοισ&η κα%*
τρόπον και πανβξγιαν, εις τόσον οπβ με εκάίαπεισε να τε^οσϊα^ω τέλος πάν-
των τον ζευγηΐην δ<α να την ^υσιασ•^ • το Όποιον και εκαμεν ο ζευγητης. αλλ
αφ' β την ησφαςεν έμεινε το πεϊζι μόνον και τα κοκκαλα, με όλον οπβ εφαινείο
πολλά παγεια. όταν λοιπόν την είδα ετζι ακα/χνην, ε^οσ^α^α τον ζευγητην
Ζια να μου φεοτ\ ηνα καλόν και παχύ μοσχαοιον να θυσιάσω, και αυτός μβ
εφηξε τον ύιον μβ εις το σχήμα τβ μοσχαΐύβ. τβτο, οτι με ειοεν ευ^υς ωξ-
μησε, και έπεσε εις τβς ποοας μβ λβγκξΐ^ονίας και κλαίοντας, ωσάν να η^ελε
να μβ φανεξωσγι πως είναι ΰιος μβ, και να μη τον ^αναίωσω. εγω απο μιαν
εσωϊεξίκην κινησιν τβ αίματος ελαβον τοσην συμπα^ειαν και ευσπλαγχνιαν,
οπβ αποφασ»σα να μη το θυσιάσω, τόσον η φύσις μου εκίνησε την καοΰιαν
APPENDIX.
1073
εις έλεος, όπβ εποοςαζα τον ζευγητην δ/α να το γυοισγ οπίσω εις το ζευγαςι,
και να μβ φεοη Ινα άλλο. η γυναίκα ]«,« εμεταχειο /ο-&η το<γη£ τοο7Γ8£ δια να
as καίαπεισγι να το 9-υ<παατα> δ/α tots, opo£ syco vavlole στα&εοος εις την
γν«)|«.ην μβ, της υποσχεσ^ην δια το εοχομενον Μπαιοαμι, ο/α να παυσ^.
Την εογ^ομενην ημεοαν αττο την αυγην ηλ&εν ό ζευγίτης μβ, και αε ε£η-
τβσ -s δ/α να μβ όμιλησγ, κα/ να μβ φανεοωσγ Ινα ^,υ^ηξ/ον, κα/ λέγει, μβ.
αυ^εντη, εγω εχω μιαν ^υγατεοα, όπβ καταλαμβάνει την μαγειαν, και εχ-
%ες Όταν ε/δεν όπβ εγυοισα οπίσω το μοσχαοιον κα^ως με επαοςα^ες, ττξωτον
εγελασε, και υστεοα έκλαυσε, και την εοωτηο-α την α/τ/αν, και μβ ειπεν
ότι τβτο το μοσχαοιον είναι ο υιός τβ αυ^εντο? μας, όπβ η* γυναίκα τβ η' κυ-
οα μας το εμεταβαλεν εις μοσχαοιον, και την μητεοα τβ εις αγελαίαν, καί
εγελαο-α χαοβμενη, δια το να το ε/οα ζωντανον. έπειτα εκλαυο-α δ/α την
μητεοα τβ, όπβ ε^υο~/α<τ^•η.
Εγω ακβωντας τέτοια λογία αττο τον ζευγητην, ετοεξα ευ^υς δ/α να ε/δω
τον ύ/ον μ» ' τον αγκαλιάζω, τον φιλώ, όμως αυτός δεν εΰυνετο να μβ απο-
■λο&ύ). κοαξω ευ^υς τψ θυγατέρα Τβ ζευγητβ, την παοακαλω, και της
τάξω όλα μβ τα ΰπαοχοντα, αν ημποζγ, να μεταμοοφωσ^ τον ύ/ον μβ εις την
τεξωτην τβ μοοφην. κα/ αυτή μβ απεκοι^τη, ότι ημποοει, και είναι έτοιμη
να το καμ-τ), όμως με δυω υποσχέσεις τοιαύτας, ηγβν να της οωσω τον αυτόν
μβ υιον δ/α ανδ$α, και να της δωο~ω ελευ^εοιαν δ/α να τιμωοησγ εκεινην, όπβ
τον εμεταμο^φωσεν εις τοτοιον σχεμα ' και εγω τγς ύποσχε^τ,κα και τα
δυω ζητήματα, τότε αυτή ελαβεν Ινα ayy=/ov γεματον νεοον, επάνω εις το
όποιον είπε κάποια λογία μυστικά έπειτα γυοιξοντας τποος το μοσχαοιον,
τβ ειπεν, ω μοσχαοιον, ανισως και είσαι φυσικά α7\.η$ινον τετοιον, κα&ως
τωοα φαίνεσαι, να απομείνεις πάντοτε τετοιον, ε/δε μη και είσαι αν^οωπος
μετσ,μοοφωμενος εις μοσχαοιον απ-ο τεχνην μαγικην, σε τνοοσταξω με τβτο
το νεοον να λαβής την φυσικην σβ μοοφην, και το είδος, και λέγοντας αυτά
τα λογία τβ, εχυσεν επανυι το νεοον. ω τβ θαύματος εν τω άμα εμετα-
μοοφωση εις την πτοωτην τβ αν^οωπινην μοοφην. και β?.επωντας εγω τον
αγαπητον μβ υιον, τον αγκάλιασα, τον εφιλβσα, και ατο την χαοαν μβ
έγινα αλλο^ ε% αλλβ. έπειτα ευ^υς εμεταμοοφωσε την γυναίκα μβ εις ταυ-
6γ
1074
APPENDIX,
την την ελαφον, όπβ βλέπετε • και τητο της το ε£ητηο~α εγω δια να μην
είναι τόσον άσχημη, μετά ταύτα. ΰπανο^ευσα τον υίαν μβ με την κοςιην τη
ζευγητβ κατά την υποσχεσιν μβ. χαι μετ ολίγον καίξον οπβ εσυνεβη τβ ΰιβ
μβ και εχηξευσεν, αυτό? εμισευσεν εις τα£ιδ»ον, και ειος τωοα εΐΐε^ασαν
τόσοι χξονοι, και καμμιαν ει^ησιν μη λαμβανωντας δι αυτόν, αποφάσισα
να διαβώ εις όΐαφοξβς τοπβς εις αναξητησιν τβ, και μην ενεμπιστευομενος
εις άλλον ταύτη• ν την γυναίκα μβ την ελαφον, την (βεοω /χα£ι μβ οπβ υπάγω,
αυτή λοιπόν είναι η' Ιαττο^ια ju.8, και ταύτη? τη? ελαφβ. cto>? era? φαίνεται,
§εν είναι /Λία Ιστοοια θαυμαστή και αταοαδοξο? ; λέγει το Τελωνιον. έχε'?
όλον το δίκαιον ' ιδβ "λοιπόν, δια ^agiv (Γ«, χα§ι^ω ενα τρίτον α7Γο το έγκλημα
Τ8 τδοαγματευτβ.
Ευ9υ? ό δευτε§.ο? γε§ων όττ» ει^ε τα δυ«> σκυλιά εγυξίσε τ&ξος το Τελω-
νιον, και τβ λέγει. &ελ<υ να <Γ8 διηγηθώ εκείνο, οπβ εσανεβη μεταξύ εμβ
και τβτων των δυω σκύλων, και είμαι βέβαιος, ότι θέλει φάντ) πλέον θαυ-
μασιωτεξα αττο εκεινην οπβ ηκβσες ' αλλ' όταν σβ αξεσγ, μβ χαξίζεις το
ΰευτεζβν τξίτον της συμπάθειας τβ τΰ^αγματευτβ-, λέγει το Ύελωνιον. θέ-
λω σβ κάμει το ζήτημα, και αοχισεν ο δεύτερο? γεξων εις τον ακολβΟον Τξθ•
πον .... Αλλ' η' Χαλι/Λα όταν είδε ττως επλησιασεν η ω§α, οπβ ό βασιλεύς
έμελλε να υπαγγ εις το προσκύνημα τβ, και έπειτα εις το συμββλιον, αφησ-
την ΰιηγησιν. η «ποια τόσον εκίνησε την τζεοίεογειαν τβ Βαο~ιλεω?, ωστζ
οπβ επιθυμώντας να ακβση το τέλος, ανέβαλε τον καίξον εως εις την εξχομε-
νην αυοιον ημεξαν. βλεπωντας ο Βε£υ§η? τον Έασιλεα, οπβ δεν τον ζτ^οστα-
£ει κατά τον νομον δια θανατωσγ την Χαλι/χ,αν, ευξίσκετο εις μιαν υπεφο-
λικην χαραν ' ομοίως και η φαμίλια τβ. όλοι τβ παλατιβ, και όλος ό λαο*.
χοινως εχαιοον, ^αι ε&αυ^α£όν την μεταβολην μην ιξευξοντες την αιτιαν.
APPENDIX. 1075
The following specimen is the conclusion of a romance,, entitled,
UNFORTUNATE LOVE,
HISTORY THE SECOND,
OF A CORCYREAN DRAGOMAN OF THE VENETIAN EMBASSY AT
CONSTANTINOPLE.
The young man, it seems, is deeply in love with Choropsima, whilst Mairam
is deeply in love with him. The parents of Choropsima are in opposition to
every arrangement. Mairam does her utmost to persuade Andreas that Cho-
ropsima is false, and has been seen talking to a young man, the son of a rich
Armenian : both she and .Aiukeas ftrjs sick at heart with their passion. Mai-
ram sends a letter in verse, with which the specimen opens: Andreas rejects
it with scorn: she dies, after singing a song. The Dragoman's servant relates,
that, passing Choropsima's door, he heard the music of a marriage-feast :
this throws him into fits ; but recovering, he sings or rather nwrmurs some
verses, and fainting away, expires, without having sacrificed to Venus or
her son. Choropsima resolves to live single; and the whole concludes with
the praise of true love, and an anathema against hard-hearted parents.
Η* Μείξεμ δε ευ§νς οπβ ij γοεα ανεχωοησεν, ττοιμασε το ακολβ&ονρα-
βασακι προς τον τ£ελε7τη Ανδρέα*
Ψυχτημβ Κυρ Ανδοεα !
Αν δεν ποντ$ κανένα, λυπ-ηο-β καν έμενα,
7Γ8 &α σε ςεξτβ^ω'
Και δεν εχ άλλον φίλον, πιςον κα&ως σοι δηλον,
να ςεμνςΎ^ευ&ω.
Η καν τον εαυτόν σβ, "Κυπησβ μοναγος σβ,
ίτβ ^α με γω^ισ^ιης,
Κοίΐ δεν έχεις κανένα, πιςην ωσάν έμενα,
να παξΎ,γαοΥ^γς.
1.07 (3 APPENDIX.
Μη γίνεσαι αίτια, μια κα^αοα φίλια
να απομακξυν^γ,
Τιατι ο.ποτυγγανεις ςον τόπον οποίαν βάνεις,
χαι θέλεις λυπη^γ.
Αατο ςογασβ μενον, πως της ζωής τον χοονον,
όλον εις το εζης,
Ερ/ω να τον πεξασω, εγω όταν σε γασω,
με ςεναγμβς όζεις.
Ανισως και γνωρίζεις, οτι το νταγιαντιξεις,
μετά ;/aga£ κ εγω,
Αεγω το πεποωμενονν, ετ£' ητον γεγξαμμενον,
να πάγω να πνίγω.
Αφ* β δε το ετελειωσε το εββλωσε και ετξι ανεπα\&Ύ\ ολίγον κείμενη ας
ΤΎ,ν κλινην Όλην την νύκτα, το οε π^ωι ευ^υς κοαζει δ<α της βυ^αςοας της
την γειτονισσαν και την λέγει, 7τα§ακαλαί ; μητέρα μβ, %ελω ο~ε μειτί\ ύπο-
γ^εως, αν με καμγ,ς αυτό, ίπβ $α σε ειπώ. πεσμε, xoqr\ μβ, της αποκρίνε-
ται η γειτόνισσα, πεσμε. η Μείξεμ βν την λέγει, εγω ηκβσα, Ότι συχνά-
ζεις εις το σαράγι τβ ποεσβεως της Βενετίας, και δεν αμφιβάλλω να μην
ιξευξγβ χαι τον A§aye/x,avov τβ κυρ' Ανδ^εαν; η' γειτόνισσα της αποκρίνεται,
μαλις-α, τον γνωοι^ω χολλα καλά. λοιπόν aya7T8ντα£ το επι της κλίνης κείμενος εΰαιμωνισ^η πα^ευ^υς, βλεπων-
τας πως είναι απο την Μείξεμ. ό&εν το εζεχισε πα^ευ^υς λεγωντας την γει-
τονισσαν της να μη πατησγ πλέον εις τον ονδαν τβ και τβ αναφεογ οια
εκεινην, η οποία έγινε π^ωτη αίτια τβ -χίο^ισμβ τβ απο την Χοξοψιμαν,
και της ςεξησεως της £ωης τβ' ευ§υς οε Ιπβ <δε και ηκβσεν αυτά η γειτόνισσα
APPENDIX.
1077
έτρεξε και τα ανέφψν ολα την Μ.ειψμ, η όποια ατπ» την λυπην της και
απελπισιαν ε7αγο§υμησε, αδυνατηο-β, ενεκ§α>&= εχαο~Β rag αισθήσεις της
ωσάν εκείνη, όπβ πίπτει εις αποπληξιαν. τρέχει ευ^υς η βυξαςρατης την
τοιβει, την ταξαξει, την β^χει με ξυϊι, και ετξι ηλ^εν ολίγον εις τον
εαυτόν της και άρχιζε να τξαγωΰησν) το ακολβ^ον με μιαν φωνην τόσον
σιγανην, όπβ μο7\ΐς ηκβετο.
Ύαχ ανΰξωπος εσταΟη,
Τα τοσ-α βάσανα μβ,
Αιαστημα δεν δ<δβν,
Τα πξωτα δεν τελειωνβν,
Ολαις r] ΰυστυχιαις,
Χε μένα εγενηκαν,
Τα μυΟολογημενα,
Νιόβη και Έκαβη,
Μα τι να συντυχαινω,
Κ/αυτο δία χα/δε/αν,
Ομως, ω σκληρότατη,
Αειξε καν απλαγχνιαν.
Αφ' β με βασάνιζες,
Κακία κευσπ7\αγχνια,
Ζ,πολατε ςην ςωην μβ,
Κιαν πέθαινα μακαξί,
άλλος κάνεις να πα$γ,
νεα και πάλαια μβ;
συχνά πυκνά τα δίδβν,
κ' ευθύς νεα φυτοωνβν.
πβναι σταις Ιστοοιαις,
εμπράκτως και φάνηκαν.
αληθευσαν σε μένα,
όποιος με τγ δεν βλαβει.
πβ μόλις αναπναινω,
να ζω με τυραννιαν.
τύχη §υμον γεμάτη,
σε λογβ μβ τελειαν.
ζωην τι με χαρίζεις,
δεν εχβν συμφωνία.
δεν σ εχω την ΰικην μβ,
το γνωξίζα για χαοι.
Ύελειωνωντας δε αυτά τα λογία πάλιν ενεκρωΰη πρισσοτερον απο το πρώ-
τον και λεγωντας Ιυω φοραις το αχ με αναστεναγμον απο το βα^ος της καρ-
Ιιας έγινε %υσια εις τον έρωτα ελεεινή, παραΰβσα το σώμα της τη μητρι της
77) δ/α την αστοχαστον και χωξίς ανταποκρισιν α^αττην της• την ερχομενην
δε ημεςαν εύχεται ό ΰβλος τβ φιλβ μας απ' εξω και τον λέγει, τξελεπη αττε-
ξαο-α αττο το σπητι τβ τξελεπη Χτεπαναγα και ηκβσα ΰιαφορα μβσικα
*>ργανα, ωσάν να είναι κανένας γάμος, δεν ατετελε/ωο-ε τον λογον ό δβλος
6ζ
1078
APPENDIX.
κα* ευθύς επεσεν ο τσελεπή Ανοοεας εις λε*7Γθψυχίαν , ενεκ^ωθη όλος αττο την
απε\π ισιαν τβ στογαζομενος, οτι 7τλεον η Χοοοψί/χα τβ απεταξεν. ό' δβλο£
δε τρέχει, τον τξίβει, τον σηκώνει, τον β^εχε/, και μο7^ις ε δύνη 5η να =λ$τ
o'/./yov εΐ£ τον εαυτόν τβ. είτα δε αοχκτε να Τξαγωΰησγι, η καλλίον να 5<7Γ(0
να μβμβξίσγ το ακολβ^ον.
Το αγγελικον σβ ήθος,
Κα* των στεναγμών το πλήθος
Η ζωημβ ειν πλια μύθος
Αχ! αχ! αχ! — — —
Πάντα το κοομιμ ταράζει,
Και ό egr«£ /Λ,ε τρομάζει,
Κάθε <τβ μάτια με σφάζει,
Α λ• *%■ α χ• — — —
Την καο^ιαμβ την καιμενη,
Και αυτή απελπισμένη,
Δεν ιζευοει τι να γένη,
Αχ! αχ! αχ! — — —
ju,e κατηντησεν εις βυθός,
μβ ηφανισε το στήθος.
κ έμεινα νεχξος ως λίθος.
απο κάθε μικρόν νάζι.
θάνατον ευθύς με τα§ει.
την καφιαμα την ααπα^ει.
Ιωτησαι την τι παγαίνει ;
κι απ τον εοωτα γαμενη %
το κε^εμι σβ ποοσμενει.
Kai αφ' β το ετελειωσεν, έπεσε πάλιν εις λειποθυμιαν, και μη οντος τβ
ο«λβ εκε/ να τον βοηση<τ*), κ£τ$3κ;Τ3 τον βίβν τβ ε?^εεινως μήτε Tj t Αφοούιττ^
μήτε Ttp υιω της ^υσιαν ποοσενεγκων.
Την ε^γομενην δε η'/Λε^αν το έμαθε και ο τ^ελετη Χτετταναγα^ και η κο^η
τβ κα< μετενοησαν οπβ δεν επξολαβον το πράγμα, η Xogo\|/i|U,a δε κατα-
7τολλα ελυπειτο ΰακουβσα. αλλ' ε<£ μάτην' επειδή να τον βοηθησ^ ττλίον
δεν ημποξβσεν' εις ανταμειβην δε τη£ πίστης τβ αγαττηί απεφάσισε να μεινγ,
και αυτή πίστη αχοί ^ανατβ αποφευγβσα κάθε εοωτα' και ετ§ι και τα
τξία υποκείμενα, υστεο ηθηκαν πάσης γαοας και ευφροσύνης, και πάσης αισθη-
τής ηόονης δια τον πιστον ε^ωτα, οπβ ε>χον, καί έγιναν παράδειγμα μιας
καΰα^α^ ( αεν α^αττη^ εις τους ΰιβς και ^υγατεοας, κακβ δ» φερσίματος των
γονέων, ο] όποιοι ποοχοινβν τον θάνατον των υιών τβς των δεισιδαιμονιών.
al'LT.NDIX,
1079
Glossary of some Words in the Specimen of a Romaic Romance.
VoPjclccoci, a note; τ£ελε7τη, Mister, Signior; ξε[χυστ-ηοευ$ω , I make
manifest; νταγιαντιζεις, thou sufferest; (όυζαστξα, a nurse; γειτόνισσα,,
a neighbour; πεσμ,ε, tell me; σαράγι, the palace; £υδί, vinegar;
πβνα,ι, i.e. tts είναι, where are; γεματΎ), full, filled; σπο?Μτε, bid fare-!
well; σπητι, the house; χαταντ-ησεν, has reduced; κοομ,ιμ,, my body;
νάζι, affection, movement; τάξει, promises.
The title of the book containing the Romance, is as follows :
> ~ \ Λ/
ειρ εκίίκο το ποαοίον
άαϊτιαΐς είς καθί μίξος ;
(Ε"ΡΛΣ)
πως ο< μ.ν$οι των Ε'λλήνων,
μί $εας συγχχτκλίγχν ;
(λίγ»ν)
* That the metre of this song may more distinctly be seen, it has been thought ad-
visable to insert the accents, although, tor the reason before given, those marks are omit-
ted in the Romaic specimens of any considerable length.
1080
APPENDIX.
Μα £$ει/ χχμνει πχν το τρχυμχ
£1 ς ν χχχνγω^ς ρχνμη
Α ν ξχγε τί προξενείς,
Πάντοτε νχ μχς πεερχζγ,
ΕΓι/αι κϊ χλλνι τυρχννίχ,
Η* Ι \ » \ 1 /
UCXV XVTV) ΚΧμμίΧ,
ΪΙοιχ ειν χυτή είπε την,
Ι» \ > /Λ \ /
χχ νχ μχ -jnv τον φονεχ,
Κα» αυτί) ςην τυξχννιχ,
OV5 πόλεμος χν λαρζ*?,
Κα» ποίον ο~υντροφον νχ εχ,ν,
Ύόο~ον οπα νχ ^χνμάζν,
ΤωξΧ πεμε \νχ ςιγον
Ε'λαλ5(Γί? εν πξος ενχ 9
Να ο Γ'χοί χπεχ,ξ'&Υ,,
Ε'ρως λεγαν κάμνει χάζι,
ς-χΤς χχρδχις ως υ,ίγχ Β-χυμΧ,
π* καθ' εν* χποχάμνει,
(κάμνει)
εις χυτό οπα κινεΐη ;
κα» ποτέ α εν νννχχζει .
(κ α '£ £ •)
και ρ^είξοτεςη πχιδείχ,
ζ-'ήν οτΗ,λνοέτνιτχ όμοίχ j
(μοιχ)
πχντχχχ φχν'ερωοΛ. την,
πχ$ας και φθοράς γονίχ,
(νεχ)
τι λε? ναρ^*) συντροψιχν,
νχ μνν πχχνι κχν μονχγτι.
("«per)
~\χ νχ νμποατ νχντεγν
ο κα•9"' £t? ν χνχς-ενχζνι
(νχξν)
hex ποότεξον με ηρ^βν,
εις τον ς\%ον τίν καθ - ' ενχ
(tm)
πχοευ§υς Ifip^zpynSn•
μιχ ν'εχ νχγν νάζι.
(νάζι)
The Romance and the Echo Song are a complete specimen of the
modern Greek, such as it is spoken at this day, with all its contrac-
APPENDIX.
1081
tions, combinations of words, and other barbarisms. The following
pages will convey a more favourable notion of the style to which
the learned of the Romaic writers are able to raise their degraded
language.
THE SPEECH OF PHORMIO,
From the Romaic Tliucydides.
Β?.ετων τον φοβον, ω ανόξες στρατιωται, τον όποιον έχετε δια το πλήθος
των πο7\εμιων, σας έκραξα δια να σας πληροφορήσω, ότι δεν πξεπει να φο-
βησθε τα μη άξια φοββ • κα&οτι αυτοί οι πολέμιοι, πρώτον μεν επειδή ενι-
χηθησαν 7ΓΡθτέρον παο -ημών, και εν ταυτω επειδή γνωοιζβσι και αυτοί , ότι
δεν εχβσι τα αυτά π^οτεξ-ηματα ποος ημάς, ετοίμασαν τον 7τολυα§ ιθμον
τβτον στο7\ον, και δεν ετολμησαν να ελθωσι καθ* ημών, επιστηοιζομενοι πε-
ρισσοτεξον εις την στρατιωτικών δια ξηξας εμπείξίαντων, ωσάν να ανηκη
μόνον εις αυτβς η ανδ^ια ε7τειδη νικωσι πολλάκις εις τας πεζομαχιας ' εντεύ-
θεν στοχάζονται, ότι θελβσι κατορθωσ-^ το ιόιον και εις τας ναυμαχίας '
τβτο όμως εν λογιρ δικαια> ανήκει τόσον πεξίσσοτεξον κατά το παρόν εις -ημάς,
όσον εκεινοί καυχώνται εις τον ττοΤ^εμον της ξηοας' (επειόη κατά την ανδοιαν
αναμφιβόλως δεν μας ΰπερτε^βν παντελώς) οντες δε εκατεοοι εκατεξων εν
ΰιαφοξοις πξαγμασιν εμπειρότεροι, εκείνοι μεν εις την τακτικην της πεζομα-
χιας, ημείς δε εις την εμπείξίαν της ναυμ,αχιας, έπεται να υπεξτεξωμεν πξος
το παοον εις την τολμην. και προς τβτοις οι Λακεδαιμόνιοι, οί όποιοι δια την
ιδίαν δο£αν και υπολη-^ιν εχβσι την ηγομονιαν των άλλων συμμάχων, πα-
ρακινβσιν εις τον πολεμον τβς πεξίσσοτεξβς με βιαν, χωξίς να αναΰεχθωσιν
εκβσιως τον κινδυνον ' καθότι αν δεν εβιαζοντο, δεν ετολμβσαν να ελθωσιν
εκ δευτεοβ εις ίτολεμον. εν ω ενικηθησαν πξοτεξον ΰφ* ημών κατά κράτος*
μη λοιπόν, μη φοβείστε την τολμην αυτών' πολύ δε πεοισσοτεξον και βέβαιο-
τερον φοβον προξενείτε εσείς εις αυτβς ' καθότι και τβς ενικησατε ποοτεοον,
και προς τβτοις στοχάζονται, ότι δεν ηθελετε αντισταθη εις αυτβς, αν δεν
Ι Α
1082
APPENDIX'.
ηλπιβετε να κατορθωσητε κατ αυτών εκ δευτεξβ την νικην ' επειδή οι πεοισ-
σοτεοοι των ανθό ωποιν, Όσοι κινβνται κατά τίνος, δεν πιςευ&σι τονον εις της
καρδίας την τολμην (καθώς οι εχθροί μας εν τωπαροντι) Όσον εις την ύπεξ-
βαλλβταν δυναμιν ' άλλοι όμως, Όσοι τβς απαντωσι με μιαν δυναμιν υπο-
δεεστεραν παοα πολύ, και εν ταυτω "χωοις να είναι βιασμένοι, αντιπαοατατ-
τονται κατ αυτών ως πληοοφοξημενοι βεβαίως εις την ςαθ ενότητα της κάπ-
οιας των. tol Όποια αυτά ςογα^ομενοι ο\ εχθοι μας, πεοισσοτεοον μας φοββν-
ται δια το παοα7\ογως ΰποδεζςτεοον ημών ναυτικον, παοα αν ειγομεν ίνα
ςολον αναλογον ποος τον ςο~Κον αυτών και ποος τβτοις 7τολ.λα ςοατοπζ^α ειδα-
μεν νενικηαενα υπο μιας ολιγωτερας δυνάμεως, πολλάκις μεν όια την απει-
ριαν της τακτικής, εο-^οτ= δε και δια την δειλιαν ' τα οποία είναι δυο ελατ-
τωματα αλλότρια παντελώς την σήμερον εις ημάς. ως τόσον εγω, Όσον το
S7T εμοι δεν ^ελω συγκρότηση τον πολεμον μέσα εις το ς ενόν, μήτε θέλω
7Γλευ<τη ένδον τ» κολπβ ' καθότι γνωξί^ω, Ότι η ςενογωρια δεν συμφέρει εις
Ινα μικρόν j -ολον εμπειρον και ελαφρον εις τον π?^βν } να νικηται εναντίον εις
ένα ττολυα^/3 -jaov και ανεπιτηδειον ναυτικον. επειδή μητε^να Όξμησγ τις εισ-
βάλλων κατά το δέον δεν δύναται, μη βλεττων /χακ^ο^εν την ταξιν των πολέ-
μιων' μήτε πάλιν να αναγωοησγ οπίσω κατά την κοειαν δια την πυκνότητα
Των εγθοων και την ςινογωριαν τ« τοπα' και, πάλιν μήτε να διαπεοασγι τις,
Ζιασγι'ζων την ταξιν των ενάντιων, μήτε πάλιν να επις-ρεψν) οπίσω ' τα
Όποια είναι προτερήματα ενός ςολβ εμπειοβ και ελαφρβ εις τον πλ*ν. αλλ'
έπεται εξ ανάγκη? να καταντησγ η ναυμαχία εις ταξιν πεξομαχιας ' το
Όποιον συιχφεοει μαλιςα εις το πο7ωαξΐθμον ναυτικον. ως τόσον πεοι τβτων
Θε7.ω φροντισγ εγω Όσον το δυνατόν ' εσείς δε φυ7^αττοντες την ταξιν σας
έκαστος επι των νέων δέχεστε τας παραγγελίας μετά προθυμίας, και μα-
λιςαεν ω το διασττ^μα, εξ s θέλει γενγ η 7Γ§οσ-βο?νη τβ πολεμβ, είναι ο7^ιγον
επάνω δε εις τον αγώνα φυλάξατε αναγκαιως ευταξιαν και σιωπην ' τα
Όποια συμφεοβσι και εις παν είδος πολεμβ, και περισσοτερον εις το είδος της
ναυμακιας, και εναντιωθητε γενναίως εις τβς εχθρβς κατά την αξιαν των
νπεοασμενων κατορθωμάτων σας ' αυτή η ήμερα μας παοασταινει ε να με-
γάλων αγωνν η να σηκωσωμεν Ό7,οκληρως την ελπίδα των ΪΙελοποννησιο*-.
APPENDIX.
1083
λτο τψ &αλατ<Γαν, η να καιχωμεν τβς Α^ψαινς να φοβωντα* πεςισσοτεοον
να αη ςεοτ^ωσι το βασιλειον τη£ ^αλαο-<Γ7]$ ' και τέλος χαντων αναφέρω
εις την μνήμην (Γα£ εκ δευτ姫, ότ* ενίκησατε το πεξίσσοτεξον μεςος αυτών "
και αί ψυχαι των νικη^τεντων δεν ο-υνη&ι^βο-ί να εφοξμωσιν ε*£ τβ£ <δ»«£ κίν-
δυνε εκ δευτεξβ ομοίως με την ιδίαν τολμην και ποο&υμιαν.
Hist. lib. it. cap. πθ. p. 209.
A suspicion that I may appear not to have given their due weight
to the numerous translations of the modern Greeks, has induced me
Jo insert the foregoing extract from the Romaic Thucydides, printed
at Vienna in 1805. This work is the composition of Neophytus
Lucas, a Greek, who resided, and, as I believe, still lives at Vienna.
It is in ten volumes, and besides having the original on one side, and
the translation on the opposite page, contains also a subjoined com-
mentary to facilitate the study of the historian. Neophytus has
prefixed a dedication in Hellenic to Dositheus, Metropolitan of Wal-
lacbia, which commences with an invocation of Phoebus Apollo, and
Themis — Κα< Φοίβος 'Απόλλων άξιοΊ, καϊ Θέμις η όεσποινα δίκαιοι, Πα-
νιεοωτατε Δέσποτα., τβτό σοι το Τρίτον, όσον εκ των εμων πόνων, πξοσενεχ-
%ηναι. The translator has also prefixed a short detail relative to his
author, and the excellence of his history; of which the following
short specimen will not only show the Hellenic style, but the ac-
knowledged deficiency of the modern Greeks.
Ό^ων ya.0 τβς εν Έ,υοωπη αϊ^λογενεις, ίσον μεν επτοηνται πεξί τον συγ-
γοαφεα, οιαν δε επιμελειαν κα; φιλομα$ειαν πεοι την βίβλον ε7τεδ=;£•αντο
ταυτην, πολλάκις εις την εαυτών έκαστοι, καίτοι βκ ευστογως hi πλειβς ως
αυτοί Τ8&' ώ,αολογησ-αν, μεταφ^ασαντες γλωσσαν, και εκύοντες ες φως,
ησγ^ηνομην ατεγνως και ανάξια επασγον. ειγε των ημέτερων τοιβτον πξα*
πατοοα εγοντες ζνγγξαφεα, οι μεν αγνοοιεν όλως, ειτις ποτέ θυκ<διδτΐ£ ys-
7 λ 2
1084
APPENDIX.
γονεν εν τοις Ελλη<πν, οι δε και ε&ατες φ^ικ-η συνεχαιντο, ώστε και γ&•ησ$αι
αμψιλαφως, Ιμαντελιγμον οίον εν ποΚΚοις το ποαγμα όλα>£ οιομενοι. ειοε τίνες
αυ τβλαχιστον κα< εχξ'ησαντο, ούτως επιποΧαιως και εν χ^ω το τβ Xoye, βδ
εντυγως, ως εμαυτον πεώω, ώστε μ-φεν οι πΤ^ειβς αυτών, μικ^β ΰειν, αιτο-
φεοεσύαι ττλεον, η μη δ= την αρ^ην, βτα>£ ειπείν, επεγειοησαν τβ ποαγμα-
τος άψασβαι.
A note attached to this Preface shows me, that in an enumeration
of the learned men amongst the Greeks, should be mentioned a phy-
sician, resident, it seems, at Vienna, Silvester Phiiites, a friend
and encourager of Neophytus, who concludes a panegyric of him by
exclaiming affectionately, Αι Ζευ πατεο ! τοιβτοι ειβν -ημιν δέκα υιες
ΑγαιωνΙ &κ ο<δ* ει Όμν)ξω μάλλον άξιον πε^ι ΙΝεστοξος, η εμοι ταύτα πεξί
σβ, <ρ<λ' εταΐξ=\ ΰικαιον ει-η Χεγεσ&αι.
Besides the Thucydides, I take the opportunity of mentioning, that
there is in Greece, though rarely to be met with, a spirited translation
of the Gierusalemme Liberata, and that a Romaic Epictetus with
notes, has the character, with a friend of mine in whose judgment I
must have every confidence, of being a very creditable performance.
I have also now before me iEsop's Fables; Erophile, a pastoral drama,
by George Chortachi, a Cretan, the Coj'jjplueus of poets, printed at
Venice in 1772; and the new Robinson Crusoe; all of them belonging
to the Hon. Frederic North, whose collection of Romaic books at
Zante, Constantinople, and England, amounts, as I understand, nearly
to a thousand volumes. Notwithstanding, however, the number and
the merit of the Romaic literati, in spite of the large schools of Con-
stantinople, loannina, Aia-Bale, Nea Moni, and Kidognis, and with
a due respect for the labours of the Venetian and Austrian presses, I
must repeat my original assertion, that there is no diffusion of know-
ledge in Greece.
When Mons. Villoison was at Athens he discovered an inscription,
which he showed to the dascalos or schoolmaster of the city, who
APPENDIX.
1085
assured him that it was not in the Greek language; first, because he
himself could not read it; and, secondly, on account of its making
mention of certain games called Nemean, which never were heard of
in ancient Greece*.
Page 573. To the notice of the libraries in the Levant, I should
add, that a Greek of the name of Mano, who has a house near Buyuk-
dere, on the shores of the Bosporus, has a very valuable and large
collection of books, partly there, and partly at Yassi.
In addition also to what I have asserted of the language and lite-
rature of the modern Greeks, I beg to subjoin, that in saying that
the Romaic was not an established tongue until a century after the
Turkish conquest, I mean distinctly, that the actual language of the
Greeks. of the present day cannot be traced higher than that period.
The Body of the Greek Chemists in the King's library at Paris,
written in 1478, which I presume to be as old as the translation from
Boccacio, or the Belisarius, whose date I do not know, is said to
be written in the vulgar tongue; but the Iliad in trochaics, of which
I have seen a much earlier copy than that of Pinelli (mentioned by
Harris), dated in 1528, and edited by one Nicolaus Lucanus, is
also said in the programme to the volume, to have been written for-
merly in the vulgar tongue —
ΟΜΗΡΟΤ ΙΛΙΑ2 ΜΕΓΑ. ΒΑΙΙΘΕΙΣΑ ΠΑΑΛΙ ER KOINHN
γλα><Γ<ταν νυν δ* δ*ο§$ ω&εΊ(τα, και δ/ατε^εΐσ-α συντόμως κα) κατά, βιβ?άα,
κα&ώς έχει η τβ Όμ,τ,ξβ βίβλος, παξά Ν/κολάβ τβ Αβχ£νβ. κ. τ. λ.
Mr. Harris has by some inadvertency dated the Pinelli Homer one
hundred years too early, having put 1540 instead of 1640 (α, χ. μ.,);
und he says that the work was probably some centuries earlier, which
may be collected also from the above-quoted phrase. Since then that
* L'Academie des Inscriptions, torn, xlvii. p. 308,
1086
APPENDIX.
style in which the trochaic Iliad is written., is called by Nicolatis
Lucanus the vulgar tongue, it may be necessary to sec whether the
composition is altogether Romaic, or only that depraved Language
which bears more resemblance tothellcllenicthanto IheprcsentGrcek.
An insertion of a few lines from any portion of the work, will show
that the Iliad is not written in Romaic ; and it will he quite conclu-
sive to observe, that the editor in 1528 prefixed a glossary, in which
certain hard or Homeric words contained in the poems, are explained
in the common dialect* : so that what was κοινή γλαχτσ-α at one time,
was to be rendered at another in the vulgar tongue, in order to be-
come intelligible ; a plain proof that the words χοινη yXrtj.r)v χονί^ει
OTUV ήσαν 7ΐυπη[Χενΐ
to (ogcaov 7Γξόο~ω7τάν τβ
rr t v £ανί)-ην τβ δ= χο^χην
δΐ άυτον τον συντροφόν τ»
ex της γης -χωμ,α λάμβανε ι
ως αν ειγαπι ο~υντ^ειαν
χ εις την γτ^ν χα&Ίπας τότε
ηο~γυνε χ εμ,οΛυνίτο
Ιζανίσττα δ<ά την λύπην.
Such poetry may be thought worthy of the vignette accompanying
the description,
and would be almost understood by a Greek of this day. But the
reader will discern a difference between the style and language of
these verses and those of the Romance, and, until a sight of the Be-
lisarius, or any other book of early date, shall make me alter my opi-
nion, I must revert to my original position, that the Romaic may be
supposed to have assumed its present form somewhat about a hun-
d: rμο£,
Philippus and Phsedromus? How could Ovid have said,
stricturaque Orionis ensem,
except that he obeyed the antepenultimate accent of Ώ§/α»Ό£? Au-
sonius also makes idola, eremiis, and tetragon^, dactyls, because
είδωλα, %οΎ\μ.ας, and τετξάγωνοξ, had their antepenultimates long. The
English, in saying St. Helena, and idea, are not regulated by the
APPENDIX.
1089
former quantity of those words, but by the accentuation ; as are the
Italians in their pronunciations of words ending in ia, as philosophia.
The metre of all the modern European languages is a metre of ac-
cent, not quantity.
To this it may be some sort of a reply, that we know from the expe-
rience of our language, that accentuation, or stress, the effect of it,
varies according to whim and fashion. The word mankind, which,
in Pope, is equally long in the last and first syllable, is in several
poets prior to his age, long only in the first. A few years ago every-
one pronounced nabob as it is given in the Rumbold epigram, endin^
'* And sternly answcr'd na-bob."
There is no reason to suppose, that although the rules for accen-
tuation we're more certain and defined than our own, they were not
occasionally affected by any of the circumstances which change our
pronunciation; and if the Greek poets had followed the accents, or
had allowed their acute to have a lengthening power, is it not likely
that in some words there would have been a difference between the
writers of different ages ? Would not there have been a few in-
stances of a syllable which is long in one being short iii another, or
vice versa? Besides, since the known effect of an obedience to ac-
centuation produced the Chiliads of Tzetzes, how came it, if accents
had always a similar force, that none of these verses were written in
former ages ? It is true, that Dionysius has talked of that faulty
species of poetry which is similar to prose*, but it by no means ap-
pears from this, that there was amongst the ancient Greeks a sepa-
rate sort of vulgar poetry, like the political verses. The critic
alludes rather to that poetry, which as Aristotle says of the verses
* Μη$Βΐς xoci υπολαμβάνίτίύ με uyvouv, on κακι'α 7Γζ>ιτ,[Αχτος -η χχλψίιγι Λβ«
yotioiux, $wi? τις uvoii, κ. τ, λ, — sect. 26.
7β
1090-
APPENDIX.
of Empedocles, resembled Homer's only in the metre* ; or to those
versus scnarii of the comic writers, of which Cicero has observed
in his Orator, that they are so like discourse, that the number and
verse can scarcely be perceived. He does not say that they have not
verse or number ; and Horace, talking of the same poetry, tells us
how it differs from prose —
Differt sennoni sermo inerus.
pede certo
The scholiast on Hephsestion, has been adduced by Forster, to
prove that the στίχος λογοειΰ-ης, was a species of political verse; but I
shall observe, that the instance brought by this writer, convinces us
to the contrary —
"Ιππβς κα) %αν$άς εκατόν κα\ πεντήκοντα.
This is prosaic, but nothing to the purport of the vulgar poetry
of the Chiliads ; nor would any proof, except the finding of several
consecutive lines, in which the accent regulated the metre, be suffi-
cient to establish the antiquity of the measure in question.
It would be tedious to give specimens of the various Romaic
metres, which arc diversified according to the tunes and dances to
which the poetry is applied. The charm of a gingling rhyme is
never neglected ; and most of the fifteen-syllabled songs, even when
not divided into quatrains, in the manner of the English distich be-
fore quoted, rhyme at the eighth as well as the last syllable. By
the following cotzakias, which I have translated literally, we may
judge of the taste of the modern Greeks, and from the last stanza,
shall, I think, form no unfavourable opinion of it.
K>\>$iv yccfi Kov.ly icr'nv Όμύξω χχ\ Έ^ττίίοκλίΓ, rAiJV το uircou.
APPENDIX.
1091
COTZAKIAS
Τον spavbv κάμνω γαρτι
Την ^αλαοτταν μελάνι
Νά γράψω τά πιο-μάτικα
Και ολα δεν με φθάνει
1ο~ω£ θαρρείς χ αν μ. apvrpfrg
ΤΙώς &ενά κιτρινίζω
Ταροφαλάκι βαγενά)
Δ/α νά <τε όαιμονΙο~ω
Κυπαρκτο~ακι μβ ύψηλο
5ίκύψε νά ο*ε λαλη<τ«>
ΐν^ω όυα> λογία να ο~ εττω
If all the ocean were of ink,
And paper all (he skies,
Should I attempt to write ray woes,
They never would suffice.
You hope, when you deny me thus,
To make me wan with woe ;
But I, thy passion to provoke,
Like violets fair will grow.
My lofty cypress, hear me speak,
And bend thy head so high ;
Two words alone 1 ask, and then
Will be content to die.
Kat άπε να ξεψυχ-ηο-ω
This specimen of the alternate verses of the modern Greeks, which
they repeat for a continuation, and with no other connection than
that they all have some reference to love, is inserted in Dr. Pouque-
ville's account of the Morea, which contains also one of the son^s
which are sung by the leaders of the Romaic dances, and repeated
after the choryphaeus by the whole string- of the performers. At
each verse or strophe, as Dr. Pouqueville calls it, some change takes
place in the figure or footing of the dance. He gives it the name of
the Romaic Ranz de vache.
Κόρη μαλαματένια μβ My maiden of gold! my beautiful jewel*!
Kai μαργαριταρένια μβ
Κάμνεις τους νιους κα\ χαίρουνται The young all delighted, thy presence
survey ;
Του£ γέρους κα) τρε λαίνουνται The aged entrane'd, look their wisdom
away.
Κάμνεις κα) με τον ορφανό 1 too must despair, as I find thee so cruel;
Τίιάνο μαχαίρι να. σφαγω Then bring me a dagger, a lover to slay.
Μοίξγοΐξΐτ*ξίνιχ pa, literally, of pearls. Hibernice, my jewel.
7b2
§
1092
APPENDIX.
%ιωπ ορφανέ ju -ή ο-φάξε<τει Peace, pitiful boy, why tell us of killing ?
Κα/' απ 6μ.ορφια7$ [Λψοιαξεσ-ε These charmers should ne'er be the cause
of thy sorrow :
Κ' εμείς να βοΰ rr> φίρψεν We'll bring thee another, since this is
unwilling,
Τψ κόρψ Όπβ ξευρομεν Another much fairer and kinder, to-raor-
row.
The copy in Pouqueville has many faults, and appears to have
been taken down by some one unacquainted with the Romaic pro-
nunciation, or, it is very probable, by a Greek ignorant of the spell-
ing• of his own language. I should mention, that a great many words
which are in common use, are not contained in the Romaic dictiona-
ries. Boo tnd νοίαζί are not in Ventote*. One might almost suspect
them to be the French vous and ennuiez. It is nearly impossible to
make out some of the words, through the barbarous contractions and
unions with which they are obscured. The &a, which is sometimes
joined with the next verb, seems the sign of the future tense, as %a
γενώ,, I will become.
I shall leave every one to make his own comments upon the speci-
mens of the Romaic before given ; but I cannot help noticing Mr.
Villoison's opinion on this subject, as that learned person has paid a
critical attention to tlie language, not only in the libraries of the
French capital, but in the Levant, where he travelled with tylr. de
Choiseul Gouffier, and was sent upon a mission by Louis XVI. in
search of MSS. Mr. Villoison, in the researches which he read at
the French Academy of Inscription on the 12th of May, 1772, deli-
vers a decided opinion, that the Romaic is but a dialect of the ancient
• The dictionary does not include these words; it contains, however, tlie definition of
that hateful animal a Tory. Tory — Όι/ο/χα iv ^AyyXix των οπαδών Καξόλα Β. irov Si
τά;ν οπαοων τί»ί Άυλί?. Tory — In England, the name for the partizans of Charles. //^
bnt noiv of a partisan of the court.
APPENDIX.
1093
Greek*; and he enlarges upon the utility of paying more attention
to it than had yet been bestowed upon the language. For the study
of Hellenic manuscripts, a knowledge of the Romaic is indispensable.
{C Souvent on trouve," he says, 4f dans lib manuscrit Grec, une
date, un remarque, qui indique son age, l'original d'apres lequel il
a ete copie, lc nom de celui qui Pa transcrit, ou de ceux a, qui il a
appartenu, et le lieu ou il a etc decouvert : e'est en Grec vulgaire
que ces particularity's qui peuvent etrcde consequence sont ecrites."
Following up his notion that the Romaic is a dialect of the Helle-
nic, he brings as proof, that some ancient roots may be discovered in
the vulgar tongue of the modern Greeks, which are not to be found in
the extant works of the ancient writers. In Hesychius, Suidas, Eu-
stathius, and the Etymologicon Magnum, vaoog and ν-ηςος signify hu~
mid. Nrgebg, Ν-ηρψοες, and Nr^iov, a sea-god, the water-nymphs,
and a, sort of plant which, according to Dioscorides, grows in marshy
places; all these, as well as the two adjectives, were originally
formed from Negov, water, the modern Greek word ; so that the line
in Lycophron, εν χιόνος νηοο7$ [λνχοΐς, does not. mean in terros humili-
bus, as usually translated, but humidis recessions. The extreme
antiquity of many Romaic terms can not be denied. Apollonius in
his dictionary, and He; chius, mention that the word βξανος, had
amongst the Persians the signification of royal tents. Now in mo-
dern Greek, βξανια is the eanopy of an altar. There is however in
French a similar phrase — le del du lit. Indeed Mons. Bonamyf
observes, that the language contains many expressions which could
only be derived from the French, and probablv from the period of
the Latin conquest; and he even thinks the indeclinable participles,
such as γειχφοντας, λαλβι/τα^ writing, speaking, deduced from the
* Alors il Vest qu'un dialecte d? l'ancien Grec. — Page 6*4, torn, xxxviii. l'Acadeinie des
Inscriptions, &c.
ν L'Acadeinie des Inscript. torn, xxiii. p. 250; torn, xxxviii. p. 6Ί.
1094
APPENDIX.
same source ; a notion successfully combated by Villoison. Mons £
Villoison discovered amongst the Tzaconcs, in Mania, the lan-
ffiiaire of the ancient Dorians, the dialect of Pindar and Theorri-
tus*. The whole body of his proofs I have not seen; but ί *hali
remark, and I trust without presumption, upon one asserted fact re-
lative to pronunciation, on which much stress has been laid. This is
the use of the Sigma for the Theta, which is said to prevail amongst
the Maniotes.
The speech of the ancient Lacedemonians differed in some respects
from that of the rest of Greece, and, amongst other particularities,
they pronounced πάο<τενε <τιά for πάβτενε &sa, and σιων for &εών, as
may be seen in that comedy of Aristophanes entitled Lysistrate,
Villoison, it should be seen, advances this fact, not only to prove
his general assertion respecting the preservation of the Doric dialect
in Mania, but in an argument against the antiquity of the usual
pronunciation of modern Greece f. It is nothing, says he, that you
prove the modern sound to be like the Laconian ; for the Laconian
was different from the rest of Greece. Upon which the editor of
the memoirs well observes, ff Pcut 6tre les Grecs seront-ils satisfaits
de TaYeu qu'au moins leur pronunciation actuelle est la meme que
celle des anciens Lacons." It would be well for the argument, if
the sound of the Sigma was confined by Villoison to the Mainotes,
which, however, it is not ; for he allows that the Athenians call
their town Asini. Now I was three months in Athens, and never
heard it so called ; on the contrary, the Θ was to my ears a complete
Ο Th. The origin of the mistake will soon appear. To prove the an-
tiquity of this sibilation, if I may so call it (which, according to his
own account, was, we see, not confined to the Laconians), Mr.Villoi-
* L'Academie des Inscrip. torn, xlvii. p, 284.
t Ibid. torn, xxxviii. p. 60', note (a).
ΛΓΓΕΝϋΙΧ.
1095
son quotes Eutychius, who died Patriarch of Alexandria in 940,
and who wrote a history in Arabic, edited, with a Latin version, by
Pococke in 1658. — In this history the Greek Thetas are represented
by an Arabic Tse (Θεοΰοσ-ιος, is Tscodosius — Θίο$, is Tseos), which,
says he, is equivalent to the English Th, and which it may be, but
still will have no sound of the Sigma. Since Mr. Villoison does not
know how the English of the present day pronounce their letters,
he cannotbe expected to teach us what sound the ancient Greeks
gave to the character of their alphabet. Nevertheless, I was natu-
rally very eager to know the opinion of such a scholar on the dis-
puted point of the pronunciation ; and from what I can collect of
his way of thinking, in the Anecdota Gra?ca, and in the Memoirs of
the Academy, it appears to me, that he is, on the whole, against the
antiquity of the present common method ; for he replies to the inde-
finite praises of I)e Guys and others on the softness of the Romaic.,
that such a quality is by no means a proof of its correctness and an-
tiquity—car adoucir une pronunciation est souvent Valterer. He
does not believe that Crusius, who travelled from the year 1394 to
142? *, could have heard the words, suXoyi μίνα Αεσ-ποΙα, and ο Θεός
εν7<ογίιτω σίναν, pronounced efflogi mena despot a, and ο theos cjjlo-
gilo scnam; for he might have written it in his own German fashion.
This seems to me very improbable: he was writing Latin, and wished
to convey in_ that language the sound of the words to his ears. He
agrees that the Β had lost its sound in the time of Alexius Comme-
nus, which it is indeed impossible to deny. In Philip Bounarottt's
observations on some fragments of ancient glass vases, adorned with
figures (Florence, 171(3), it is seen, that, the Greek words 7ns and
$pWSi are found written on drinking-cups in Roman characters, thus,
pie, zescs^ On which Villoison observes, " Si autem Latini II ut iota
^ronunciassent utique zcsis non zeses scripsissent; undepatet Grsecos
See Turco Greccia, p. 41.
1096
APPENDIX.
recentiores τβ Η, ut et quaerundam aliarum literarum pronuneia-
tionem immutassc. Sic eosdem Graecos recentiores constat e capite
secundo grammatical linguae Graecae vulgaris a SimonePortio scriptse,
et ex aliis,, saepe in praeantepenultimam et nonnunquam in quintam
syllabam rejici accentus, qui a veteribus non longius rejici poterant
quam in antepenultimam, si autem recentiores Graeci earn pronun-
ciations partem, quae in accentibus posita est, corruperunt cur non,
et earn quae ad literas pertinet*." Here follows a long note, which,
as Mr. Villoison thinks that he has by it reconciled the very strong
arguments on both sides of this vexed question, and as it shows
that the present pronunciation is much older than usually supposed,
I here insert.
lOlympiade ou le prix aura ete* remporto, les noms de l'auicur, de son ouvrage,
de sapatrie, et del'ecole qui I'a forme : ce seront la les tropbees de l'Academie.
En presence des plus grands homines de la nation, comment rien d'indigne
d'eux pourra-t'-il jamais sortir de son sein !
Par un Synchronisme heureux, le 15 Aout 1807 l'armee Francaise arrivait a
la vne de ces rivages, le 15 Aout 1808 l'Academie Ionienne tenait la premiere
des seances solcmnelles qu'elle avou£es a celebrer son bienfaiteur et son protcc•
teur: enfin ce meme ete 1808 eut ete celui dans lequel les Grecs cusscnt rcnuu-
velle leurs jeux olympiqucs pour la C47e fois, si les empires, ne mouraicnt pas
aussi, comrae l'homme, peu apres qu'ils ont brille.
Partant done de cette epoque, ou TAcademie prcnait naissance sous I'aus-
pice des Francais, les premiers de nos prix seront distribues le 15 Aout 18 Ιδ.
Ce sera la premiere annee de la 648 c . olympiade.
Nous n'oifrons qu'une reminiscence de ces epoqnes solemnelles, nous laissc-
rons au temps a developper un premier germe que nous jettons pour la pos-
ter ite.
Nous donnerons pour prix une medaille. Elle portera l'embleme de l'Em-
pereur des ftanprii avec ses mols; NAPOLEON^ beinfaiteur et protec-
teur : e'est le cachet de l'Academie. Au revers nous graverons une etoile avec
ces mots; Au Genie, VAcadtmie reconnaissante. Sur le contour de la medaille
seront ecrits, les noms de l'auteur ct de son ouvrage avec le quantiemede l'olym-
piade. La medaille sera de fer ; e'est la monnaie de Lacodemone ; e'est celle
de l'honneur etde la vcrtu, revetue des empreintes de l'immortalite.
Un jour nos majestueuses panegyries renouvelleront leurs vastes concours,
d'autres juges nous succederont dont la gloire fera bientot oublier la notre ;
mais leur grandeur meme sera notre ouvrage, et ce sera la la gloire que le
temps ne pourra nous ravir, et qui nous rendra chers a tons les vrais amis des
idees grandes et liberales.
Γ*®^*; :.,
APPENDIX.
1105
P.S. L'Academie nc jugera que des ouvrages qui scront envoyes a sou secre-
tariat (francs dc port) et elle devra les avoir re^us au 1" Mai 1812, pour donner
les premiers de scs prix olympiadiques. Pour le premier concours l'Academie
recevra les ouvrages de tous les auteurs vivants qu'elle qui soil la date de leur
publication.
yi CorcyrCy l re annce de la 6ί7έ olj/mpiade,
(Juin 1809;.
Le Secretaire pour la languc Frangaise,
Ch. Dupin.
ACADEMIE IONIENNE
Emeignement public.
PROSPECTUS.
Le 15 Aout 180S, l'Academie Ioniennc fit connaitre aux Corcyreens qu'elle
allait leur ouvrir des cours gratuits ct publics de physique etchimie, d'histoire
imturelle, de physiologie et d'hygienc. Elle tint plus qu'elle n'avait promis:
a ces premiers cours, elle ajouta celui d'anatomie et d'operations chirurgicales,
que M. le tloclcur Razis par un mouvement digue d'eloges, s'ofFrit a professer,
quoiqu'il ne fut point encore au nombre de nos collegues.
Un denuement absolu d'instruments en tout genre, d'emplacements memc
pour operer les experiences de chimie et les dissections anatomiques, toutes ces
causes out nui aux premiers cours ouverts par rAcademie. Cepcndant malgre
taut d'obstacles, ces cours n'ont point etc faits sans quelques succes.
L'Academie a vu, nous oscrons dire avec orgucil, des pcrsonnes deja miiries
par l'age ct le travail, des officicrs pleins de merite, et des hommes habiles dans
les diverses branches de l'art de guerir, honorer constamment de leur presence
les cours dc scs professeurs.
Mais en meme temps l'Academie a vu avec doulcur qu'elle avait fait un vain
appcl a la jeuncsse Coreyreennc, l'Academie n'a point trouve de pores qui ayent
cheri l'instructio:! de leurs ills, et point de fils qui ayent senti que l'instruction
pouvait etre un bienfait pour eux memes. Cependant l'Academie avait paru
taxer injtistemcnl quelques parens d'un vain orgueil, en leur disant, avec me•
aagement,, qu'un amour propre aveugle et mal calcule peut-etre, les empechait
1104
APPENDIX.
d'envoyer lcurs fils a des ecoles publiqucs quelqu'elles fusscnt. Combicn
I'Academie verrait avec plaisir l'experience dementir ccs assertions qui lui
content, et qu'elle s'empresscrait d'avouer qu'clle &eu tort dc vous faire un re-
prochc. que tout lui donne aujourd'bui lc droit de renouveller!
Aux cours de l'annec dernierc, nous devons ajouter un cours dc literature
Grecque, ouvert par notre collegue le docteur Mavromati ; c'est un nom qui
vous est connu et qui porte avec lui son elogc. Le docteur Mavromati deve-
loppera lcs beaufcs des principaux chcf.d'oeuvrcs de vos aycux. Ii fera pro-
prement pour vous un cours National. II est beau de voir que c'est sous
I'egide du Gouverncmcnt Fraii£ais qu'apres deux millc ans de silence, les phi-
losophes de l'Hellenie renouvellent leurs lecons eloqucntes.
Cours de Physique et de Chimic.—On s'est borne dans la premiere annee a
faire connaitre les loix dela physique generate et sur tout de I'astronomie phy-
sique, dans laquelle on a pris pour base le traite de l'ancien eleve de l'Ecole
Polytechique M. Biot. Cette annee la physique particuliere, et s'il se peut la
chimie, seront developpees d'apres les le$ons de cette merae ecole par ses an-
ciens-eleves MM. Augoyat et Dupin.
Ilistoire Nalurelle — M. le docteur Picrri professera la boianique en general,
ct specialement I'histoire naturelle des Isles loniennes.
Medecine. — Monsieur le docteur Gangadi professera la physiologic et Thy-
giene appliquee specialement aux habitanls de ccs contrees, d'apres les bases
offertes par la nature du clirnat et la salubritc speciftquc dos diverses regions de
ccs Isles.
Chirurgie• — Monsieur le docteur Razis, professera I'anatomie et dans lc
meme temps il feraun cours d'operations chirurgicales et d'obstetrice.
Belles-Lettres. — Monsieur le docteur Mavromati ouvrira un cours de litlera-
ture Grecque, il fera sentir lc caracterc des divers genres de constructions
grammaticales et l'esprit des tours oratoires ou poetiques, il marquera cora-
parativement les beautes dont ils sont susceptiblcs, avec les defauts qu'on doit
eviter pour ecrire avec elegance ct purete la langue Grecque. II passera de
ces elements a la comparison des auteurs, en cherchant a reconnaitrc la trempe
de leur genie dans le caracterc de leur stile, et l'elevant successivement des
plus simples etudes aux plus composees ; il parlera tour a tour, des prosateurs
didactiqucs, des philosophes, des historiens, des orateurs : eniin il etendra sa
methode jusqu'aux ouvrages des poetcs, en faisant sur le stile de la poetic lcs
etudes qu'il aura deja presentees sur le stile de la prose.
Α Ρ Ρ Γ. Κ D Ι Χ .
110,5
Au premier Oclobrc, epoquc de I'ouvcrture dee cours, I'Academie fera con-
nature les jours et les heurcs choisies par ses professeurs pour donncr leurs
IcCAfts,
A Corcyre, Aout 2c' annee de la
\17c ol^mi.iddc i\S09).
I,c Secretaire pour la langue Franc aise }
Qh. Dupin.
Page 583. The History of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, written
by Dositheus, and printed in 1715, mentions the Seraglio library;
and Gregorias Ghika, Waywode of Wallachia, printed at Leipsic in
1772, in two volumes folio, a commentary on the bible, entitled,
(τείξα των πατεςων, a book which all the Greeks of the fanal assured
the Abbe Todcrini, the author of the book on Turkish literature,
was procured from the same collection by the Prince's ancestors.
The story told in the volume which was hunted out of the records of
the Imperial library by Villoison, and is given in the eighth volume
of the Notice of the MSS. in that collection, which is subjoined to
the last edition of the Academy of Inscriptions, printed at Paris in
1810, will account for the possession of any rare manuscript vo-
lumes by wealthy individuals or corporations in Greece, and the
τεί&α πατεεων is known to have been in the Seraglio library. The
words of Monsieur Girardin, in his two letters to the Minister of
Louis the Fourteenth, are decisive, especially those of his second
epistle. Je me suis, Monsieur, exactcment informe.de ce qui con-
cerne celle (la bibliotheque) du Grand Seigneur, etjepuisvous
assurer quelle est sans ordre, et sans catalogue. Les MSS. Grecs
ne consistoient qu'en200 volumes, ou environ; et le Pere Besnier,
apres les avoir examines, n'a trouve queceux dont j'ai pris la liberie
de vous envoyer le memoire, qui meritassent d'en etre tires pour. la
bibliotheque de sa majestc. Tous les autres, mal conditionncs et
1106
APPENDIX.
qui ne contiennent que des auteurs imprimes dcpuis long temps, on't
m'anmoins etc vendus sur le pied de 100 livres chacun ; ainsi il
n'EN RESTE PLUS DE CETTE LANGUE DANS LE SER51AIL.
The MSS. selected by Besnier, were as follows : I . All the works
of Plutarch, a copy of the thirteenth century. 2. Many of the
works of Hippocrates and some others — fourteenth century. 3. The
Chain of the Fathers ( treiga πα,τεξόν) — eleventh century. 4. Homer's
Iliad — fifteenth century. 5. The Cassandra of Lycophron, Oppian,
Dionysius Periegetes, Ammonius on the Isagoge of Porphyry, and
a few other works — twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 6. Manv of
the works of Plato, and the golden verses of Pythagoras, fifteenth
century. 7. The Orations of Dion Chrysostom — fourteenth century.
8. Many works of Xenophon, Plato, Hero, Ptolemteus, Appian,
Manuel Phile, and others — fifteenth century. 9. The great Syntax
of Ptolcmaius — fourteenth century. 10. Some works of Philostratus,
Alciphron, and others — eleventh century. 11. The nine books of
the History of Herodotus — twelfth century. 12. The annals of
John Zonaras — thirteenth century. IS. The Homilies of Jacob the
Monk on the Virgin Mary, and some other productions of the same
kind — eleventh century. 14. The Chronography of George Syn-
cellus- — eleventh century. 15. A voluminous collection of medical
treatises, to which are prefixed the Aphorisms of Hippocrates —
sixth century. 16. And finally, a Latin tract, Pauli Savetini Du-
censis 3 concerning military tactics and warlike engines, with figures
— the fifteenth century.
The Abbe Sevin, who was sent by Louis the Fifteenth in search
of MSS., was assured at Constantinople, that all the Greek vo-
lumes bad been burnt by Amurath the Fourth ; but how un-
founded that assurance was, has been before seen. The Abbate To-
derini, a subsequent traveller, gives a list of oriental books in
the Seraglio, which a page of the palace was forty days in copying.
APPENDIX.
1107
The monastery of Patmos was found by Villoison, to contain a
better regulated collection of MSS. and printed books, than any
other library in the Levant. He saw there a variety of ecclesi-
astical works, but only a few profane authors, of which he remarks
none but the Dialogues of Plato, and a part of Diodorus Siculus
from a recent hand. It possessed, however, an excellent collection
of some early editions, although much worm-eaten and otherwise
injured. His words are: On y trouve aussi beaucoup de bons
livres Grecs imprimis, et egalement rongcs par les vers; la plupart
des bonnes editions des Peres Grecs, quelques uncs des Aides et des
Etiennes, entre autres les Ρ ο eta Grceci Principes, et le Tresor de
la langue Grecque de Henri Etienne ; I'Anlliologie en lettres Majus^
cules de Lascaris ; le Demosthine si precieux de Bernard Feliciani,
Venise, 1543, le Suidas de Chalcondylc, Γ Euripide d'Aldc, enfin
plusieurs autres editions primaires, devenues fort rare, puree
qu'elles sont anciennes et sont allies se perdre en Grece et sur tout
dans les couvens de Mont Athos ; VEustathe de Rome, les Com-
mentateurs Grecs d'Aristote les Commentaires de la langue Grecque
de Budee; quelques auteurs Italiens et Latins, comtne St. Augusr
tin de civitate Dei- See the same volume, p. 31.
Page 641. The inscription was copied by Villoison, and is given
as follows, in the Academy of Inscription, vol. xlvii. p. 304.
ΤΜΝΛ ΘΕοΝ
ΜΕΛΗΤΑ ΠΟΤΑΜΟΝ
TON 2ΩΤΗΡΑ MOT
ΠΑΝΤ02 ΔΕ AOIMOT
ΚΑΙ KAKOT ΠΕΠΑΤΜΕΝΟΤ.
Page 660. Plates 39 and 40, of Part II. of the Ionian Antiqui-
ties^ contain a view of the Gymnasium at Ephesus.
1108
APPENDIX,
Only ACCEN
RENSI ET, remains of the inscription on the arch on
Mount Prion.
Page 704. Phanodicum quod attinet, id nominis (ut crcdide-
rim) raro alibi observatum. Peropportune tamen occurrit apud
Scholiastem Apollonii Phanodicus historicus, Deliacorum auctor ;
Idem que, ut videtur a Laertio semel atque iterum laudatus, tau-
quam dc tripode, sapientis dicto, deque Thalcte et Biante scriptor*.
It is possible, that some persons not smitten with the love of an-
tiquity, may be surprised that a treatise of great learning, and no in-
considerable length, and so much and such repeated attention have
been bestowed upon a memorial which, translated word for word,
from Chishull's Latin interpretations, is as follows:
1.
Of Phanodicus Ϊ affi (i.e. theHermsean statue) the son
of Hermocratcs of Procon-
esus. And I the bowl,
and the stand of the bowl, and
the cover, to the Prytaneum
gave as a memorial, to the Si-
geans; but if any thing I should suffer,
to take care of me I will command
the Sigeans. And he made
me, iEsopus, and his brothers.
2.
Of Phanodicus
I am, the son of Her-
mocratcs of Pro-
conesus. The bo-
wl truly, and
the cover of the bowl,
and the stand, to
the Prytaneum
gave he,
to the Sigeans.
Page 706. There was, however, a Sigeum in the times of the
Christian Emperors. Revisit tamen seculis Christianis et suh me-
tropoli Cyzicena Episcopates honor e floruit f .
* Chishull, Inscriptio Sigea, p. 32.
t Sigea Inscriptio, p. 2, Lond. 1728.
■
APPENDIX.
ιιυο
Page 740. The seventh plate in the second volume of Banduri's
Iuiperium Orientale, gives a bird's-eye view of the straits of the
Dardanelles, the sea of Marmora, and Constantinople. When it was
taken is not mentioned in the plate, but it was after the building of
the castle of Koum-Kale in 1659. In this view some old walls are
put on Cape Sigeum ; other ruins, called Ruins de Troye, are seen
underneath, on the left bank of a river, apparently the Mendcre,
which is called Xanthus or Scamander; and the stream, now the
Thymbrek, is named the Simois. — This notice is of so much impor-
tance, that I regret much that it is not inserted in the text.
Page 757. I am desirous of propping up my own scepticism on
the subject of the Troad, by the authority of no less a person than
Chishull, who visited the country in the year 1701, and who says
of the site of the city — C( But still we must be cautious of pointing
out and distinguishing the very place ; since in the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, we are assured by Strabo, that there remained not the least
footstep of ancient Troy to satisfy the curiosity of the most search-
ing traveller. So vain are the accounts of our modern journalists,
who pretend to have seen the walls, the gates, or other ruins of
Troy: that which now remains, being nothing but the rubbish of
New Ilium, or of that city once attempted there by Constantine*.'*
Pompey's Pillar. Page 870.
The inscription on Pompey's Pillar is given by Sebastian Erizzo,
and, as Mons. Villoison has observed, evidently more exactly than
in most other copies —
OCT. CAE. AUG. FLAV. CIAN. FAB. FIL. CLA. FRON\
* Travels in Turkey, p. 35.
1110
APPENDIX.
Flavius Ciannidius commanded the Claudian legion when Augustus
gained the battle of Philippic and he it was that erected the column,
to commemorate the arrival of that conqueror on the shores of the
Bosporus*.
The Corinthian Column in the Seraglio. Page 948.
" In relation to this inscription (Fortune Reduci ob devictos Go-
thos)_, the medal of Belisarius may be observed, on the reverse of
which are the words DEVICTIS GOTHIS.
rc On the opposite plane of the basis is this religious device :
±» (
IC xc
ΝΙΚΑ
* L'Acadomie des Inscript. torn, xlvii. p. 315.-:
t Chishull's Travels in Turkey, p. 46,
APPENDIX,
U11
EXPEDITION TO THE DARDANELLES.
The following notice of the enterprise which, under the above
name, has been the object of so much obloquy, may serve to change
the opinion of those who have hitherto imputed the objectionable
parts of the measure to the misconceptions of Lord Grenville's
ministry.
It seems that the English fleet, having passed the straits on the
19th of February, came to an anchor at ten o'clock on the morning
of the 20th at Princes' Islands, eight miles to the south of the Se-
raglio Point. This anchorage had been recommended in a dispatch
addressed to Mr. Secretary Fox by His Majesty's Ambassador to
the Porte, Mr. Arbuthnot, so early as the 29th of September, 1806*.
The ships, however, might have taken a position less distant from Con-
stantinople, for the Endymion frigate, after they anchored, moved
to within a little more than four miles of the town, and the squa-
dron itself might have got still nearer, if it had stood on towards
the city, instead of dropping down to the Islands. One of the ad-
vantages originally proposed by the Ambassador, as likely to be
gained by this position, was the cutting off the communication be-
tween the two continents, and so starving the city into submission•)•.
It may be now of no service to ask, how such an object could be
obtained by a force stationed in the sea of Marmora, when the
whole canal of the Bosporus was in possession of the Turks ; for,
without examining into the wisdom of such a project, it is certain,
that when the expedition sailed, it was not a slow siege, but active
ϋ
1
* See No. 5, Papers presented to the House of Commons, pursuant to their Address of
the 16th of March, 1808.
f No. 5, Papers, &c
1119
APPENDIX,
operations, which were to be undertaken against the town*. The
nearer therefore the fleet could be stationed to the city, the more
imposing would be its menace, and with the greater facility might
open hosklities have been carried into effect.
The dismission of the General Sebastiani, and the surrender of the
Turkish fleet, with a supply from the arsenals, was to be demanded;
and Lord Collingwood recommended, that only half an hour should
be allowed for the deliberation of the Porte. His Lordship was justly
desirous of losing no time by negotiation ; but he was not aware that
the Turks are the most dilatory people in the world, and would be
driven by such a demand of impossible promptitude, to the bravery
of despair. There were two extremes to be avoided, the one just
jnentioned, and the admission of such a negotiation on the part of
the Turks as could only be intended to gain time. It appears by
Lord Collingwood's order to Admiral Duckworth, that these de-
mands were to be made " when the squadron was disposed in such
stations as to compel compliance;" but it is not exactly known
whether the actual proposal was made to the Porte. The Endy-
mion had charge of the Ambassador's dispatches to the Grand Vi-
zier when she left the fleet at anchor; but as our force was not at
that time in such a situation an to compel compliance, it may be pre-
sumed the real terms were not therein decisively stated. The requi-
sition respecting• General Sebastiani was, however,, either actually
conveyed to, or understood at, the Divan.
On the 21st, the day after the anchoring, Isaac Bey, a .minister
of the Porte, arrived with a flag of truce. Mr. Arbuthnot, whose
opinion was to guide the Admiral as to the necessity of commencing
hostilities-)-, and with whose advice and assistance the whole affair
' Lord Howick's Letter to the Lords of the Admiralty, No. 1, Papers presented to the
House of Commons, ordered to be printed 23d March, 1808; Orders from Lord Col-
lingwood to Sir John Duckworth, No. 2, Papers, &c.
} Ordors from Lord Collingwood, &.c. Papers, No. 2,
APPENDIX.
1113
was transacted*, consented to open a negotiation: a letter, containing
a project, as a basis on which peace might be preserved, was dis-
patched through Isaac Bey; and a gentleman of the British Factory,
who communicated some of the circumstances to me, went on shore
to receive the answer. On the 22d the breeze served, and although
some apprehensions were entertained on account of the current, it
appears the fleet would have got under weigh, and have attempted
at least to work up to join the Endvmion, had not the Ambassador
cc desired that a few hours might be given for an answer to his
letter f." Mr. Arbuthnot's dispatch to Lord Howick, dated Malta
the 10th of April, 1807, has the expression, that "once for a moment
a hope existed that the wind was about to change J;" but the Com-
mander-in-Chief's letter says, that " for a few hours the breeze was
sufficient to stem the current where they were placed."
The negotiation was carried on until the 27th, but from the morn-
ing of the 22d the weather was calm, with light contrary winds, and
on the 28th it blew strongly from the north.
At the conclusion of the negotiation, the Turks endeavoured to
erect a battery on one of Princes' Islands, and in attempting to dis-
lodge them from a convent, owing to misinformation received by
the Admiral, an English officer and several marines were killed. The
heads of some of them were shown in triumph at Constantinople.
The wind continued to blow down the Bosporus, and the Com-
mander of the expedition was now <( convinced of the utter imprac-
ticability of his force making an impression, as at that time the
whole of the coast presented a chain of batteries ; as twelve Turkish
linc-of-battlc ships, two of them three-deckers, with nine frigates,
* Vice-Admiral Duckworth's Letter to Lord Collingwood, Papers, No. 7-
f Vice- Admiral Duckworth's Letter to Lord Collingwood, No. 7, Papers, &c. p. 16.
t Papers presented to the House of Commons, pursuant to their Address of the l6th
of March, 1808, No. 0.
7e
1114
APPENDIX,
were With their sails bent, and apparently in readiness, filled with
troops; and as 200,000 soldiers were said to he in Constantinople* ,'"
and he was also of opinion, "that he might heive coped with tlic
latteries alone, oi ΰ ith the sliips, if they came out of port, but not
with them as described, so as to be afterwards able to repass the
Dardanelles." Accordingly be weighed anchor on the morning• of
the first of May, and after standing off and on to sec if the fleet would
give him battle, bore up, and arrived on the evening of the 2d oft*
Pesquies Point ( Abydos), where the squadron anchored. The next
morning the Dardanelles were again forced, but with a loss which
was reckoned very severe, and which being added to the failure
of the expedition, has not yet been effaced from the mind of the En-
glish public.
Such is the simple detail of the expedition itself, as far as it is
recorded in the official papers delivered to Parliament. Let us now
look into the origin of these unfortunate operations, and endeavour
to collect to whom their conduct and issue are fairly to be ascribed.
It has generally been supposed that the circumstances under which
His Majesty's Ambassador, backed by the letter of Rear- Admiral
Louis, commanding a squadron of three lim-of-battle shins oft' the
Dardanelles, recommended the passage of an English fleet to Con-
stantinople, were materially altered by the three weeks which elapsed
from the date of Admiral Louis's letter, to the actual passage of the
Dardanellesf. On this ground, and this alone, as far as I can judge,
has the odium of the failure of the expedition been thrown upon the
Cabinet at home. Whether this delay was imputable to the King's
Government, will be seen by the dates of the several dispatches :
Mr. Arbuthnot's letter, finally announcing that (c the time might
* Vice-Admiral Duckworth's Letter, &c. Paper No. 7, p. 16.
-r Nos. 7, 8, 0, of Papers presented to the House of Commons, pursuant, to their Ad-
dress of the Kith of March.
APPENDIX.
1115
shortly arrive when His Majesty would be obliged to act hostiiely
against the Turkish empire*/' was received at Downing-street on the
9th of November. The orders to Lord Colliugwood to detach the
squadron to act against Constantinople, were sent on the 22nd of the
same month, and given by his Lordship to Sir John Duckworth on
the 13th of January ; but previously to this period, in consequence
of some differences between the British Ambassador and the Porte,
which were adjusted, SirThomas Louis, with three sail of the line and
two frigates, was sent to the Dardanelles, in pursuance of instructions
from Lord Colling wood dated the22d of November, which squadron,
v, if the Ambassador thought it necessary and proper," was to appear
before Constantinople f. Sir Thomas Louis, in a dispatch to Mr. Ar-
buthnot, dated the 26th of January, off the Dardanelles, told the
Ambassador, ? that he might depend on the squadron's proceeding
to Constantinople, in spite of opposition on the part of the Turks,
whenever he might think such a measure necessary, as he was con-
fdent of performing that service with facilitijl." To this opinion
Mr. Arbuthnot referred His Majesty's Ministers in his dispatch to
Lord Howick§. If therefore the service could have been performed
at that time, and the Ambassador, who had the sole direction of the
operation, did not command such an appearance of the fleet before
the capital, the English Ministry are surely to be absolved from all
blame of unnecessary delay ; and if more than three weeks from the
date of Sir Thomas Louis's letter of the 26th of January, were gained
by the Ottoman Government ||, the reason why a circumstance so
fortunate for the Turks was suffered to occur, when a squadron
competent and ready to prevent it was under the Ambassador's order,
* Dispatch, No. 5.
f Papers, Inclosure No. 2.
χ Second Inclosure in Paper No. 9.
$ Paper, No. 9.
|| Dispatch from Mr. Arbuthnot to Lord Howick, Paper No. 9-
7e2
1116
APPENDIX.
is not to be demanded of the Cabinet at St. James, but the bureau
diplomatique of Pera.
The true point of enquiry will be seen also by a view of the tran-
sactions on shore immediately preceding, and during the period of,
the expedition. On the 29th of January the Ambassador and his
suite, together with every individual of the British Factory, were
invited to dine on board the Endymion frigate at anchor in the har-
bour of Constantinople. As they were sitting at coffee after night-
fall in the cabin, they found the ship under weigh. Her cables had
been cut. The assurance that they had been saved from certain de-
struction, did not prevent the merchants, who had left their counting-
houses open, and even their papers exposed, from earnestly intreaU
ing to be allowed to land and abide the event. The story now told
at Constantinople is, that a few strong words hastily delivered at the
Divan by the Secretary of Legation, Mr.Wellesley Pole*, who during
the long period of the Ambassador's unfortunate retirement from
public business carried on all the political intercourse between Great
Britain and the Turkish empire, occasioned a hint to be dropped,
that a repetition of such a menace conveyed in such a manner, would
be answered by the opening of the Seven Towers; and at the time of
the Ambassador's flight from the capital, not only imprisonment, but
death, and tc the most severe tortures that malice could inventf," were
* The Turks had interfered with the governments of Wallachia and Moldavia, in a
manner which was judged a violation of their treaty with Russia : Mr. Pole, in terms which
Ins better judgment would disapprove, threatened the capital with twenty sail of British
Hne-of-battle ships, and was so far thought to have gained his point, that Mr. Arbuthno.t
reported that the negotiation had taken a favourable turn (No. 6', Papers, cVc); and the
recommendation of the Russian Minister Italinsky, conveyed to Count Woronzow at
London, procured the Secretary, unless I am much mistaken, a pension of eight hundred
pounds per annum, for having risked the character of England in behalf of another
power, with whom in a few months she was in open war.
\ Rear-Admiral Louis's Letter to Lord Collingwood, Paper No. 5.
APPENDIX.
1117
understood to await .all the English at Constantinople, should they
be seized as hostages, and should the fleet fire upon the forts or the
capital. Whether these apprehensions were well founded I cannot
myself determine, but they were not credited at the time by the Eng-
lish residents, and are now the subject of universal ridicule. Mr.
Arbuthnot, however, by his sudden departure, certainly removed
one of the obstacles, which iu case of the seizure of his person, might
have impeded the operations of our forces; and as he joined the squa-
dron ofi the Dardanelles on the 31st, no such change could have
taken place in the state of defence at the Dardanelles during the in-
terval from the 26th to that day, as could prevent the squadron from
proceeding to Constantinople. The delay then must have originated
either from the state of the wind or the advice of the Ambassador.
Rear- Admiral Louis does indeed in his letter of the 5th of February
ίο Lord Collingwood, seem to have changed his opinion delivered ten
days before, and to have thought that a greater force was necessary
to accomplish the purposes of the expedition* ; but the facility with
which the passage was made, and circumstances afterwards known of
the state of public feeling at Constantinople, would make it appear,
that his apprehensions were unfounded. The additional force under
Sir John Duckworth arrived on the 10th of February, and the Am-
bassador declining the invitation to return with the Capudan-Pasha
in the Endymion to Constantinople, the squadron sailed through the
Dardanelles, as before described, on the 19th of the same month.
On the appearance of the fleet before the capital, the Grand Sig-
n.ior was convinced of the necessity of submission: he sent for Gene-
ral Sebastiani, whom he had for some time admitted to a familiarity
of intercourse never before witnessed between a Sultan and an Am-
bassador, and said, that, however reluctantly, he must require his
immediate departure. The General acquiesced in the decision, and
• No. I, Papers relative to the Expedition to the Dardanelles.
1118
APPENDIX.
taking his leave, retired to the French palace, where he burnt all
his papers, and made every preparation for quitting the capital.
The horses were saddled in the court-yard. At this time the principal
ministers of the Porte were dressed in their official robes, and the
state-barges were in readiness to convey them to the fleet, with offers
of entire compliance with the British Minister's demands. Yet the
whole population of Constantinople, ignorant of their incapacity,
and fired with indignation, rushed to arms, and the gentleman who
went on shore with the flagof truce assured me, that the whole Sera-
glio Point, the shore, the walls and the houses, were completely hidden
as it were, beneath a panoply of moving weapons. Such a species of
defence would, had the town been attacked, have only increased the
carnage and consternation of the besieged. The ships of war in the
harbour were at once manned with a promiscuous crowd of soldiers,,
sailors, and citizens : the Sultan Selim was filled with not less than
three thousand men: they demanded to have the fleet led against
the infidels, but at the earnest prayers and intreaties of General
Sebastiani, were detained by the Sultan's orders, and saved, as
he avowed, from inevitable destruction. At the moment that the
Turkish Government had decided upon submission, and the French
were on the point of flying from the city, the advice of the Spanish
Resident, who thought that no very active operations were decided
upon by the commander of the squadron, persuaded a trial at nego-
tiation, the darling but unsuccessful passion of the English people*.
* " Never was there any treaty between the French and English" says De Comoiines,
" but the French always outwitted them ; insomuch (as I have been told) the English
have a common proverb with tJiem — That in all, or most of their battles and conflicts
with the French, the English have the better, but in their capittdations and treaties
they come off still with the loss." — Book iii. cap. viii. We have dropped the proverb,
which may not perhaps be less applicable to us than to our ancestors, who, it must be con-
fessed, had no great reputation for capacity, as the same author in another place hac tliese
Λ V FEND IX.
1119
It was hoped that time might be thus gained until all the guns were
mounted on the Seraglio walls,, and batteries erected which might at
least have an imposing appearance, but above all, until the setting
in of the northeast wind secured the inactivity of the fleet.
When the flag of truce arrived on shore on the 22d, every arti-
fice was employed to gain time, and the bearer of the dispatches
was detained for many hours with pipes and coffee, and repealed in-
vitations to dine and participate in a variety of ceremonies with the
ministers of the Divan. This gentleman incessantly pressed, the
Turks assiduously protracted, the answer, but both the one and the
other expected each moment to hear of the advance of the squadron
from Princes' Islands, as the wind was then southerly, and was by
those on shore thought strong enough to bring up the ships to the
Seraglio. Had the English fleet weighed anchor and stood towards
the city on that morning, there had been no war between Great Bri-
tain and the Porte. The Grand Signior would have chosen between
the two alliances — theTurkish Ministers would have hastened to their
barges, and the French Embassy to their horses. As it was, it was
presumed that the English had not decided upon what measures they
should pursue : the emissaries of our enemies advised a protraction
oi the negotiation, and at the same time assisted the Turks in form-
ing every possible species of defence. It was, however, never in-
tended that the Turkish fleet should quit the port and fight the
squadron. What the Ambassador had reported in his dispatches
of tiie 15th and 27th of January, was perfectly true, that notwith-
standing the " ships were called in readiness for sea, seamen of no
words: " Before the King of England took shipping, he sent to the King of France
ens of his heralds called Garter (a Norman born), with a letter of defiance, so well con-
trived, and in such excellent language, lean scaice peisuade myself any Englishman
writ it." — Book iv; cap. v.
1120
APPENDIX.
kind could be found to man them*;" and it is not possible, that in the
course of a month the case should have been so much altered, as to
render the Ottoman fleet an object of just reliance to the Turks. \>r of
reasonable fear to the English Admiral, who, notwithstanding his re-
port, must have known their real inefficiency. This naval superiority
rendered a bombardment of Constantinople at all times, wheothe wind
served, practicable, in spite of any land defences ; and as a dozen shell?
would have set the whole city in ablaze, it was so fully expected that
the squadron would remain at anchor until the first fair wind should
enable them to commence hostilities, that when, on the 2d of Mav,
the English ships were no longer visible from the town, it was some
time before the fact of their departure, and of the abandonment of
their enterprise, was credited at Constantinople!
An inclination to avoid what might possibly look like the gratui-
tous censure of any individual, has prevented me from inserting
some details, in which the immediate agents in the above proceeding
would appear certainly to very little advantage; nor would I have
said so much on the subject, if the blame attached to the whole plan
and conduct of the Expedition had not been, with the height of in-
justice, laid solely to the charge of the Ministers composing at that
time the British Cabinet ; and if that opinion had not been, in a
great measure, founded on some expressions contained in the last
dispatch from the Ambassador, dated at Malta, after the failure of
the attemptf .
This last circumstance, together with the consideration that the
Ambassador owed his appointment to, and has since been ranged
amongst, the political opponents of the accused Ministers, may be
• Papers, Nos. 7, 8, presented to the House, &c. pursuant to their Address l6th
March, 1808.
•f See No. 9> Dispatch from the Right Hon. Charles Arbuthnot to Viscount Howie',
dated Malta, 10th April, 1807, received May 29th, by Mr. Secretary Canning.
APPENDIX.
1131
urged in reply to the only remainiug charge which can be made
against those statesmen, namely, that the employer is answerable
for the actions of the employed. It is true that Viscount Howick,
in a dispatch to Mr. Arbuthnot, conveyed to him the King's appro-
bation of his conduct*. But it must be recollected, that this appro-
bation was consequent upon the Ambassador's report of his own
measures, in which it was not to be expected that he should include
the sallies of his Secretary (the true cause of his own unfortunate
misapprehensions), and which were not duly appreciated until the
breaking out of the war. It was impossible for the Cabinet of Lon-
don to be aware, that at the moment Mr. Arbutlmot reported so fa*
vourably of the interview between the new Reis Effendi and Mr.
Pole, the circles of Pera were amusing themselves with the intem-
perate triumphs of the youthful diplomatist. When the Ambassador
saw his Secretary galloping down the streets of Buyuk-dere, waving
his hat, and crying victory, it was not perhaps very probable that it
-hould be suggested to him, that in a short time afterwards he him-
self should retreat no less speedily through a backdoor, from the
palace of Pera to the port. The domestic calamity, and very serious
illness, which rendered the Ambassador (e incapable of paying due
attention to any part of his public business f ;** and the nonnage
of his substitute, may be some excuse for the mistakes which caused
the rupture between Turkey and Great Britain: but the delicacy
which prevented the arraignment of the agents by their employers,
cannot operate upon the impartial and unconcerned spectator, nor
absolve him from the duty, however insignificant may be his efforts,
of disclosing such a portion of facts not generally known, as may
counteract the imputation cast upon great public characters without
the slightest foundation or pretence for blame.
■
* Papers, No. 6.
\ See the above Paper, No, 9.
7f
1122
APPENDIX.
With the persuasion that a more decisive menace would, on the
appearance of the fleet, without any hostility, have effected the pur-
poses of the expedition, we may feel many regrets, that other mea-
sures had not produced a different termination of the affair; hut as
the war was not prevented, we cannot surely lament that we did not,
by the rapid conflagration of a wooden city, cause the certain de-
struction of an immense defenceless population, and the massacre of
all the Christian subjects in the capital, which was expected and
threatened at the time, and which the power of the Grand Signior,
in opposition to a multitude of armed fanatics, might have been
unable to prevent.
It may be some consolation, under our discomfiture, to believe,
what every thing I could gather on the spot induced me to suppose,
that there was not an intelligent man in the empire, who thought
that those who had burst through their redoubtable Dardanelles,
were intimidated by the cannon on the mouldering walls of the Se-
raglio, or who attributed the safety of the capital to any other mo-
tive than forbearance, and a disinclination from having recourse to
unjust extremities.
APPENDIX.
1123
ALBANIAN LANGUAGE.
I have asserted the Albanian to be an unwritten language, which,
as far as the Albanians themselves are concerned, is the case
in every part of the country which came under our observation ;
but it appears, that an attempt was made about the beginning of
the last century to reduce it to rule, and embody it in a grammar,
bv a member of the Society for propagating the Faith, who seemed
fully aware of the nature of his task, and called it, indeed, a new
sign in the grammatical heaven. The book, which is now before
me, has the following title : Osservationi Grammatical!, nella lin-
oua Mhanese del F.Francesco Maria da Lecce, Min. Oss. Rif.
'Esprefctto Apostolico delle Missioni di Macedonia dedicate agh
,ηιΐηηιίί*' e reverendissimi Signori Cardinali delta Sagra Congre-
«azionc di Propaganda Fede. In Roma, Delia Stamperia delta
°mg Conor• di Prop. Fcdc, 1710. Any one, from a perusal of the
orammar, might conceive it to be that of a written tongue; but a
Sentence of the prefixed notice to the reader, would undeceive him,
for there it is said, that the Albanian people dispersed through va-
rious provinces and kingdoms, not having the written knowledge of
their own idiom, expect with impatience the present work, that they
may behold, as in the purest chrystal, their proper image. Ε qua
popoli Albanesi dispersi per varie provincie e regni, non avendo la
notizia scritturale de propria idioma, aspettano con impazienza la
presente opera, per osservare, come in chiarissimo cristallo, la
propria imgine. From the concluding sentence of this preface, it
appears that father da Lecce directed his grammatical observations
to those Italian religious who were destined to the service of the
mission ; and to them, I believe, it has been confined, for, as is be-
fore said, I never heard of the Albanian as a written tongue. The
1124
APPENDIX.
grammar was composed for the previous instruction of the young
missionaries., and to prevent a catastrophe that had before frequently
occurred, the return of many of them from Albania, in despair of
acquiring without any master, a competent knowledge of the lan-
guage. Some characters must have been, however, in use amongst
the missionaries previously to the date of this attempt, for the Padre
talks of an Albanian alphabet as in existence in his time, and as
formed, with the exception of five letters, of Roman characters.
His words are, Lc Utter e appo gl ' Albanesi sono 28, la jigura dellc
quali e la m p desima che quella de Latini, eccetto cinque, come nel
scguente alfabtih) si mestra, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, I, m, n,
o, p> q, r, s, t, u, x, y, ζ, ψ, ψψ, «, ε, λ Whether in the
bishoprick of Butrinto, in Dalmatia, Calabria, or amongst any other
Roman Catholic Albanians, these characters are in use, I am not
qualified decidedly to say, but I never heard of them in the course
of our journey. Four of the additional letters are representatives of
sounds which are found in the Romaic, but not in the letters of the
language of the Padre Francesco. ^ is a Romaic delta, pronounced
dth; ψ ψ is the Greek Θ, of which the Italians are altogether ig-
norant, calling it seta; a is sounded as the modern Greeks read that
diphthong, which is shorter than the Italian u, but so little different
from it, that another character was scarcely necessary to express its
signification, λ is the Greek lambda, as we pronounce it, and the
addition of this letter to the Italian e, seems unnecessary, as only
one I is sounded by the Albanians ; but £ is sometimes stronger than
either the Romaic ζ or English z; and after repeated trials with our
Albanians, I am not sure that it is quite correctly represented by dz.
As the Padre was so attentive to the insertion of the additional
sounds, he might have taken notice of five which cannot be repre-
sented by any of his or our single letters, but which, the Albanians
pronounce so simply, that thev can hardly be called diphthongal :
ATPLNIMX.
1T2 5
these are the tn and n, and g and/, and k, prefixed to another conso-
nant; the two first of which the modern Greeks have made use of in
spelling words derived from other languages, but have dropped
their sound. Thus, although in Romaic [χπάξ[Απαοος, is barbarous,
and ντάννο, danna, yet if those words were Albanian, the μ and ν
would ha\e a half sound, such as I know not how to figure by any
written example. As for the combinations of consonants, they are in
this tongue productive of words which an English mouth must find
it no easy task to produce.
The Turkish, Romaic, Latin, Italian, French, and English lan-
guages, seem to have had a share in the composition of several of the
Albanian words and phrases. As might be expected from the insta-
bility of an unwritten tongue, the speech of one part of the country
differs materially from that of the other quarters of the same region,
and the twenty-four dialects of the ancient Asiatic Albania, may be
equalled in number by those of the modern European provinces. In
the country above Tepellene, a great portion of the words are
Turkish ; lower down than Ioannina, the Romaic is generally bor-
rowed to supply the deficiencies of the tongue ; and on the coast, the
Italian is the predominant mixture. Mr. Swinburne, in a passage
of his travels, referred to at the end of Letter XIII., has given a
tolerably copious list of English words, and those not borrowed
from the Greek or Latin, or the prevalent languages of modern Eu-
rope, which he. declares are to be found representing the same mean-
ing in the jargon spoken by the Albanians '.settled ii\ Calabria; but
only three, of all he has enumerated, would be understood by an
inhabitant of the country which we visited. The Varanges, or
English body-guard, who were employed in the service of the latter
mperors, and a corps of whom attended Alexhis Commenus to the
battle of Durazzo, are the only British of whose possible communi-
cation with the settlers in Greece and Epirus, history makes any
1126
APPENDIX.
mention ; but if the English and the Albanians could be traced to
their original soil, the partial similarity of the two languages might
not be considered so singular, as it is rendered by our present limited
retrospect into the antiquities of nations. The most striking resem-
blance is in the present, indicative of the verb to be, which is u or
ou yam.
I had collected with considerable pains, a vocabulary of the Al-
banian spoken by the peasants of Attica, and should have given it a
place in this Appendix, if the Grammar of Da Lccce had not fallen
in my way. From comparing the two specimens, I find the lan-
guage of the Attic and Epirote Arnoot to be the same, although
with a certain discrepancy, which may be well attributed to the
variety of its dialects, and to the different impressions which it has
received in the many regions inhabited by this dispersed people.
The Missionary declares in the commencement of his book, thai
the Albanian coincides in plirase almost entirely with the Italian —
la lingua Albanese conviene quasi in tutto nclla frasc con la nostra
Italiana. He was evidently talking of those who were inhabitants
ef, or confined upon, the territories of the Venetians, or the Cala-
brian A moots. He would not have made the same remark relative
to the natives of Delvinaki and Tepellene. A great portion of the
phraseology of the Italiuized Albanians (if I may use the word), is
possibly very similar to that of the Milanese or Tuscan peasant ; but
the truth seems to be, that in the naked Arnoot may be discerned the
visible remains of an ancient language which no longer exists*.
* Nous ne parlerous pas ici de certaiiies langues peu etendues, reste visible d'un ancien
langage qui ne subsiste plus, ou du nioins de quelques anciens dialectes si fort alteres qu'il
est diflicile d'en demeler l'origine — Telles sont dans notre Occident, les langues Basques,
Galloise, et Flandoise; telle est au voisinage de la Grece, celle des Albanois, ou Mon-
tagnards de l'Epire. Nous avons un dictionnaire de cette derniere langue, et il semble
quelle ue soit qu'un melange de plusieurs langages differens. — Histoire de I'Academie
li ovale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome 1 8, p. 69.
APPENDIX.
1127
Da Lecce however, appears to have taken much pains in putting
to-other this grammar; and I shall give an abridgement of the
performance, with scarcely any remarks on his arrangement or pre-
cision.
ΠΌ prevent the necessity of making use of tki strange characters given in the gram,
mar of Da Lecce, ψ will, in the following ahrulgment hcrepresenteihy Us
cauicaknt, an English d U the Roman character; ΨΨ "y • Greek 0;
hy dz in the Roman character; * by an English 1 ,. and a by « also m
Roman tatters.] '
I„ the Albanian language the articles are not prefixed, bat added to the
Aiev are a e, f, t-i is the masculine article of the Angular number, e
ll-guree, the stones, frati, the brother ; fraUnU the brothers ; « is
ftlinne article in the singular number, and I in the plural • as dzo^«, the
ktf i Azognat, the ladies. The singular article of neuter adject.ves and pro-
nouns, is te, as,
Emireia, Temirete,
Bona, Bonum ;
Emeici, Temti'i
Mca, Mcura;
except the demonstrative pronouns this and that, which , as well as the proper
names in the singular number, have no article. The dcclens.ons of nouns are
ST The first declension makes the genitive case termmate m .«, as dog*,,
L;,«e, the lady, of the lady. The second declension has the gen.Uve ,,w
s Zl, U,l the gentleman, of the gentleman. JJ JjJ^ JJ
third declension, ends in «I, as lor/,», far*»* the belly, of- he belly. Pope,
η none, is thus declined: p«p«, the pope; gen. papese ; did. papese ; ace.
Zn ■ voc. e P «pe; ahl. pre/ papet , fN: **« popes, p« P e c, the
-, papeJ,-d:d. papevet ; ,cc. papele ; voc. 6 ftgt* ahl. pre,
1 ; It is a' general rule, that the vocative is the same as the nommat.ve
Xut the article: and that the genitive and dative cases are abke ,„ toth num.
be fa*»*, a lady, with the article in the nominaUve, U AtfM, gen.
Imiri,
Bonus,
And Em'h
Mens,
* The Albanian wor
rds are to be read according to the Italian mode of pronunciation.
1128
APPENDIX
dzognese ; dat. dzognese; ace. dzognene ; voc. b dzognc ; abl. prei dzognet ;
and in the plural dzogne, ladies, is dzognat ; gen. ozognavet ; dat. dzognatet;
ace. όζο gnat ; voc. b dzogna ; abl. preidzognase.
The letter / may be taken from the ablative singular, and it may be adjoined
to the ablative plural. Thus, instead of prei paietoret, may be said, prei
paietore, from the advocate ; and prei paielorascit will signify, from the ad-
vocates, as well us prei paietorasc. Tbe Padre then gives a neuter noun,
which seems irregular; croue, head; crouet, the head; gen. crese, of the
head; dat. crese ; ace. crouet; voc. ό croue/ abl. prei creie, or prei creiet;
plu. crena, heads (κρανιά) ; crenat, the heads; gen. crenavet; dat. crenavet i
ace. crenat ; voc. b crena; abl. prei crenasc, or crenascit. This noun, when
applied to the name of a title or office, such as head of the church, is turned
into the masculine gender.
The Second Declension, Genitive in It.
Dzoi, master or sir; dzotti, the master; gen. dzottit; dat. dzottil; dat.
dzotne, oxdzone; voc. b dzot ; plu. dzottinij, masters or sirs; dzottinijte, the
masters; gen. dzottinijvet ; dat. dzottinijvet ; ace. dzottinijte; voc. ό dzottinij;
abl. prei dzoitinijsc. There arc four other examples of masculine nouns, each of
them having their plurals similar to those of the above substantive, but varying
in their singular number. Their accusative cases are formed by the addition of
η to the definite nominative, and shortening the penultimate vowel, ex. giai.
cussaari, the robber, accusative cussarin; mescetaari, the priest; accusative
mescetarin.
The grammar gives thirteen examples of anomalous nouns belonging to thi*
declension ; but the irregularity of ten of them consists, as appears to me, in
the nominative plural; for in other respects they are declined like the former
example; prift, priest, makes priftinit, priests, gardina, cardinal, gardinaii-
gruun, grain ; grunte — helb, barley, helbina—giarpen, serpent, giarpagne —
gilpan, a needle, gilpagne — drappen, a hook, drippagne — duchien, a foundery,
dugagne — sctratt, a bed, sctrettina — scpirt, a spirit, scpiriina. The remaining
three, brevia\ 9 breviary; ungil t evangelist ; missal, napkin, make their plu-
rals, breviaj, unjii, missaj, but vary in the other case from the foregoing
nouns; they arc declined as follows: missaj, napkins; missaite, the napkins;
gen. missaiet; dat. missaiet; ace. missaiete; voc. missai; abl. prei missaise.
ι ■■
APPENDIX.
1129
The Nouns of the Third Declension,
Are all declined like ^A•, fig; which makes fiku, the fig; gen. fikut; dat.
fikut; ace. fikmi; voc. bjik; abl. prei Jikut ; plu. ficchie, figs ; ficchiete, the
figs; gen. ficchiet; dat. ficchiet; ace. ficchiete; voc. bficchie; abl. preifechi•
ese or like Jar A:, belly, in which noun the plural is different from that officii,
making the nom. indef. barchi; the nom. def. barchiete; gen. barchiet; ace.
barchite; voc. t» barchi; abl. prei barchiesc.
Nouns Adjective.
All the four instances in the grammar are similar to the following example
of, i'lam, blessed; and from it a general rule may be extracted, which will
serve for any adjectives beginning with a vowel, the only kind noticed by the
author.
Singular.
Masculine.
Feminine.
Neuter.
N.
Hum,
Elume,
Telume.
Nom.
def.
llumi,
Elumeia,
Telumete.
Gen.
Telumit,
Selumese,
Telumit.
Dat.
Telumit,
Telumese,
Telumit.
Ace.
Telumin,
Teluraene,
Telumete.
Voc.
ο Hum,
ό Elume,
ό Telume.
Ablat
Prei selumit,
Plural.
Prei selumet,
Prei selumet.
Masculine.
Feminine.
Neuter.
N.
Telume,
Teluma,
Like the feminine
Nom.
def. Telumte,
Telumat,
Telumevet,
Telumevet,
Telumte,
ό Telume,
Prei selumisc,
Telumavet,
Telumavet,
Telumat,
ό Teluma,
Prei selumasc.
7o
ΛΒ
1130
APPENDIX.
Pronouns.
I.
Of me.
To me.
Me.
From Ui0
U, une, unaj.
Mue.
Mue.
Mue.
JPm «icie
We.
Of us.
To us.
Us.
From us.
Na.
Neve.
Neve.
Ne.
Prei ρ esc
Thou.
Of thee.
To thee.
Thee.
From thee.
Ti.
Tou.
Toil.
Tou.
Prei teie.
Ye.
Of ye.
To ye.
You.
From ye.
Yu.
Yuae.
Yuue.
Yu.
Yusc.
Of himself.
To himself.
Himself.
From himself
Veti.
Veti.
Velehen.
Prei veti.
Of liis very self.
Dative.
Accusative.
Ablative.
Vetivetiut.
Vetivetiut,
Vetevehen
Prei vetiveti.
Or, oucti,
oueti,
ouetehen,
pre, oueti.
The possessive pronoun e»j, mine, is declined like the adjectives in every re-
spect, except that the nom. plural, neut. is tern, not teme ; out thine, is
irregular i nom. sing, out, iote, tat; nom. def. outi, ioteia, tatt; gen. tit,
ssate, tit ; dat. tit, ssate, tit ; ace. landen, tapdene, tatt ; abl. prei sitit }
prei sate, prei sote. In the plural, the neuter and feminine are the same.
Nom. tetuu, tetua ; nom. def. tetuute, tetuat ; gen. tetuvet, tetuavet', dat.
teiuvet, tetuavet ; ace. tetuute, tetuat', abl. prei seiuusci, preisetuasc. His is
itij ; hers etije*.
Sing. nom. def. ilinaj, etija; gen. tetijt, or tetinaj, essai, or essaine; dat.
the same as genitive; ace. tetijne, tessaine; abl. prei setijt, prei sescut,
Tetij, his, and talija, hers, in the plural, are declined like regular adjectives.
Tetij, his, in the neuter singular, with the article, makes tetijte. The other
cases are the same as the masculine in the singular, an4 as the feminine in the
plural, number.
Ou«, ours, is thus declined: Nom. oun, jone, tane; nom• def. sing, oune,
jona, tanete; gen. lounit, sanese, tine; dat. the same as genitive; ace. tanen,
tanene, tanete; voc. the same as nominative; abl. prei sounit, prei sane
* It must be remembered, that the Italian j is pronounced like y.
MH
APPENDIX.
1131
or sone, prei sine. In tbe plural, tane masculine, and tona feminine, are de-
clined like adjectives : there is no neuter plural.
On/, yours-, nom. sing, 0117, tuej, tai; nom. def. ouij, tueja, tatt; gen. touit,
ssuej, touit; dat. the same as genitive; ace tain, taine, tattne\ abl. prei
souit, prei sote, prei sou ; plu. nom. ait, tuei\ nom. def. taite; tueit ; gen.
toouiet, tuievet ,• dat. the same as genitive; accus. taite, tueit\ ablat. prei
setoucscit, preisesuasc. The neuter the same as the feminine. The pronouns
demonstrative Aou: this — is thus declined : Nom. Aou, kio, keta ,• gen. ketij,
kessaif ketij; dat. the same as genitive; ace. kete, kite, keta ; ablat. prei
kessi, prei kessoie, prei kessi; nom. plu. keta, kelb, these; gen. ketoune,
ketoune ,• dat. the same; ace. keta, ketb ; abl. prei kessisc, prei kessosc. The
neuter the same as the feminine.
At or «ou, that — is declined exactly the same as kou. These two pronouns
are declined with substantives, but the ablative case is then made kesso and
asso in both numbers. Juetimi or jouetemi alone, and tieter, another, are
declined like adjectives, as also is ml, such. Ndogn, or ndonagni, some one,
is irregular in the neuter gender and the plural number.
Nora, ndogn, ndogne, or ndogna, ndogne ,• gen. ndognanij, ndognese t
ndognaii dat. the same; ace. ndognanin, ndognane, ndogne-, abl. prei
ndonagnit, prei ndogne; nom. plu. dissa, dissa,• gen. dissavet, dissave ; dat.
the same; ace. dissa, dissa; abl. prei dissa, prei dissa; neuter the same as
feminine.
Numerals.
Gni, one, declined.
Nom. gni, gniani, gni; gen. gnanit, gnianese, tegnai ,• dat. tbe same ; ace.
gnanin, gnanene, gni ox gnia : abl. prei gnanit, prei gnanet, prei gni.
Nota.--Che non ha plurale : per cagione, che uno di sua natura e singu-
lare. F. M. da Lecce.
Dou, two, declined : the same in all genders.
Nom. dou; gen. douue; dat. the same; ace. dou ; abl. prei dououse.
Tr$, three, makes tri in the feminine and neuter, and is not declined, except
with prei, the sign of the ablative case. " One of the two men," is iddouti;
one of the two women, eddoute ; and the two vowels are applicable in the same
manner to the other numbers. Pari, the first, with its feminine para ; douti,
the second, and the feminine douta, are declined like substantives,
7g2
^ti'E-
1132
APPENDIX
The Verbs.
It would exceed my limits to give any thing more than a short sketch of the
verbs, of which the grammar treats at great length. There are ten conjuga-
tions uf regular verbs. Those of the first conjugation have their infinitive in
uem, the indicative in ogn, the past tense in ova, mekenduem, to sing;
kendo gn, kendova.
2. Conjug. infin. ouem; pres. indie egn; past, eva, me scerbouem, to serve,
scerbegn, scerbeva.
3. Conjug. infin. une; pres. ind. ign; past, a, me lidune, to tie, liaign,
I id a.
4. Conjug. infin. aqm; pres. ind. agn or aign; past, ana, me baam, to do,
bagn, bana.
5. Conjug. infin. re; pres. indie, r; past, a, me marre, to take, mar, muora.
6. Conjug. infin. e; pres. indie, el; past, a, me celle, to open, celle eel, la.
7. Conjug. infin. im; pres. indie, i or ign; past, va, me piim, to drink, pi,
or pign, pha.
8. Conjug. infin. urn; pres. indie, e; past, una, mevuni, to put, ve, tuna•
9. Conjug. infin. em; pres. indie, egn or ign; past, eva,— Idem, to drink,
kiegn, kieva.
10. Conjug. infin. ane; pres. indie, ay past, a— me ngrane, to eat, Λ«,
Bang f a.
I have made two or three alterations from the book before me, as the exam-
ples were such as to show that the rules were ill .constructed, and the reader
may observe that the above division might be simplified and otherwise improved.
The verbs active are conjugated with the auxiliary verb me passune, to
have, whose tenses are as follows:
Pres. indie, une kam, I have; ti kee, ai ka y na kemi, we have; yu kini,
at a kane.
Past imp. une kesc, 1 did have; ti kiscgnie, aikisct, na kiscgnime, we did
have; yu kiscgite, ata kiscgine.
Perf. past, une pace, or puccia, I had ; tipatte, ai pat, na palme, or pame,
we had; yu pate, atapaine or pane — I have had, is made by adding passune
to the pres. indie. ; and, I had had, by adding the same to the past tense.
m
APPENDIX.
1133
The future is formed by adding me passune to the pres. indie, as une ham me
nnisune* 1 will have, or I am to have.
P F«""condit. ndepueeia, if I ma, or shall bave; nde pace, nde past, nde
imceim, if we may, &c. nde paeci, nde paccin. ...
^Cimper. fa ti, have thou; faef ai, let him have; fa™ na, have we;
'''Ihe'ltaUanfuLe imperative is formed by putting me passune between the
v,rb and pronoun of the indicative present, as Ice me passune In
The optative present and imperfeet is formed by adding «en form, te to the
pal, imperfect indie, as S reor, or seei ,e kese, that I m.ght, or *™«**-
The optative past imperfeet is the same as the future cond.t. present w.th
the pronoun subjoined, and the nde taken away, as pueexa une, that I may
''The'oTativeTast perfeet, seeiteUem passune, keese,keet, ken», keni,kene.
ΤΪ 1Β Jative preter-plu-perfeet the same as the present optattve, wtth the
ad Tt:i:eTuTure, the same as theoptative past perfect without ^passune.
Tim conjunctive present, cfa une te Mem, the same as the keem m the opta-
''"τΓΓοφΤ^νΙ" past imperfeet, cHi une te kese, the same as.the kese in the
^£S?£SS. cki une U keem passune, the same as the con-
^teT.'Xune tue passune, I having; une tuepas passune,! having had;
Joules passune" makes the Italian eonciosiacke to fe~» avutc , .nd
I ■ I- Zvassune make seio havesn haxuto-eur te keem, when I shall
::::tr; e trr;; * ^ ,*** ** . •« .^ h a d , &c . .*
pueeia passune, If I shall have had.
' tuJtive present and ^^^ ££ „ p „ , am to
Perfect, me passune passune, to nave ηα , r
have, keper te passune *c. ^ te ^ she ,„„ „ as .
Participle, passes, or i passune, t
Sujjine, passune, had.
1134
APPENDIX.
Μ ( kenduem, to sing, is tbus conjugated.
Present tense, une kendogn, I sing ; ti kendbn, ai kendon, na kendojemi
we sing, yu kendbne ata kendbine.
Imperfect, une kenlbgnete. I did sing; ti kendognie, ai kendbnt, na ken*
dbgneme, we did siii£ ; yu kendbgnite, ata kendbgnine.
Past, une kendbva, I sang; ti kendbve, ai kendoi, na kendueme, we sang j
yu kenduete, ata keniiiene.
Past perfect, une kim kenduem, I have sung, &c.
Plus.-quarn.-perfec', une pace kenduem, I had sung.
Future, une kam ne kenduem, I will, or I am to sing.
Future conditional, nde kendofscia, if I shall sing; nde kendhfsc, nde ken-
doft, nde kendofscim if we shall sing ; nde kendofsci, nde kendofscin.
Imperative present, kendon ti, sing thou, same as indicative present.
Imperative future, te me kenduem ti, in Italian, canterai tu — ka me ken-
duem, fyc.
Optative present anc imperative, scei te kendbgnete, would that I might
sing ; scei te kendogne, tyc.
Past perfect, scei te keem kenduem, would that 1 had sung ; scei te kesc
kenduem.
Preter pluperfect, scsi te kesc kenduem, would that I should have sung ;
scei te kiscgnie kenduen.
Optative future, sec te kendogn, diovogliacbe io canti, scei te kendoisc,
and the same as the prtsent indie.
Conjunctive, chi urn te kendogn conciosiache io canti, and the same as the
optative future.
Gerund, une tue kerduem, I singing.
Past imperfect conjuictive, chi une te kendognete conciosiache io cantassi,
or canterei.
Imperfect conditional, une me kenduem, if I might sing ; ti me kenduem >
ai me kenduem, na me kenduem, yu me kenduem, ata me kenduem.
Past perfect, chi une te keem kenduem conciosiache io habbia cantuto, fyc.
Gerund, une tue pasiune kenduem, I having sung, declined with ti, ai, na,
yu, ata.
Pluperfect, chi une tekesch kenduem, conciosiache io havessi cantato, &c.
Pluperfect conditiona , une nde pas kese kenduem, if I should have sung,
&c. ; or, une me passure kenduem.
■
APPENDIX.
1135
Future conditional, rule paccia kenduem, if I shall have sung, nde pace, SfC. ;
or cur te kendo^n, when I shall sing; and cur te keem kenduem, when 1 shall
have sung.
Infinitive, me kenduem, to sing; me passune kendiiem, to have sung; per
te kenduem, to be about to sing.
Participles. Kanghessi, he who sings ; kenduem, sung.
The Second Conjugation.
Me scerboue?n, to serve, is formed in every respect like me kenduem, to sing;
and the only simple tenses which are not composed by the help of the auxiliary
verb, are the indie, pres. scerbegn, 1 serve; the imperfect, scerbegnete, I did
serve ; the past, scerbeva, 1 served ; the future conditional, nde scerbefscia,
if I shall serve. By compounding these tenses according to the rule of the for-
mer verb, it will be easy to form the other tenses of me scerbouem.
The Third Conjugation.
Me lidune, to tie, is subject to the same rule as the preceding verb; the
indicative present, is lidign, 1 tie; imperf. lidgntte, I did tie; lida, I tied ;
fut. condit. nde lidcia, if I shall tie; the present imperative is, however, lid
ti, tie thou.
But the grammar gives examples of verbs belonging to this conjugation,
which are irregular in the indicative present, although their infinitives are in
une, and their part tenses in a.
Me buitune, to lodge, makes une bugn, I lodge; bugnete, I. did lodge;
buita, 1 lodged; nde buiscia, if I shall lodge ; buy ti, lodge thou.
Me prekune, to take or touch, makes une perkas, I touch; perkisgnete, I
did touch ; preka, I touched ; nde prHscia, if I shall touch ; prek ti, touch
thou.
Me poMetune, to demand ; une poues, I demand; puesgnete, 1 did de-
mand ; poueta, I demanded j nde poueccia, if I shall demand ; pouet ti, de-
mand thou.
Me paditune, to accuse ; une padis, I accuse (ti paditen, thou accusest)
padignete, I did accuse; padita, I accused; nde padiccia, if I shall accuse;
padite ti, accuse thou.
Me dasciune, to love or will ; une due, I love ; dbgnete, I did love ; desciuy
I loved ; nde daccia, if I shall love ; duei ti, love thou.
1136
APPENDIX.
Me ndegune, to sit; une ri, I sit; rignete, I did sit; ndegnia, I sat; nde
ndegnscia, if 1 shall sit; rt ti, sit thou.
Me mbaitune, to hold; une mba, I hold; mbaignete, I did hold; mbaita
I held ; nde mbaicia, if I shall hold ; mba li, hold tliou.
Me mpowtune, to suffocate; une 7npous, I suffocate; mponsgnete, I did
suffocate; mpowta, I suffocated ; nde mpouscia, if I shall suffocate ; mpououete
it, suffocate thou.
Mebriiune,to gnaw; une bre, I gnaw ; bregnete, I did gnaw; brita t l
gnawed; nde britscia, if I shall gnaw ; bry ti, gnaw thou.
Me brittune to bray ; une britas, I bray ; brhtasgnete, I did bray ; britla I
brayed; nde brittescia, if I shall bray; britt ti, bray thou.
Me arazune, to come ; une vign, I come ; vignete, 1 did come ; ersc, I
came*•, nd } arscia, if I shall come; eia ti, come thou; the tenses of this verb
are some of them formed by the auxiliary verb me kiene, to be.
Me votune, to go•, une mete, I go; vegnete, I did go; voita, I went; nde
rcbsfscia, if I shall goj (nde vofsc, nde voft) : ze ti, go thou j also partly com-
pounded of me kiene, to be.
Me mbetune, to remain ; unejes, I remain ; jdsgnete, I did remain ; mbecc
I remained; nde mbeccia, if I shall remain; ilt ti, remain thou.
In like manner, me bdecune, to die, make une bdes, 1 die, &c.
By some accident, the Padre then conjugates in part for the second time
me prekune, to take, and me ndgeniune, to sit ; but as he himself says, be-
sides the tediousness of the work, it would require a world of paper to go
through the whole of his detail^.
The Fourth Conjugation, Inf. aam.
Me baam, to do; une bagn, I do; bagnete, I did do; bona, I did; mbafs-
cia, if I shall do; ban ti, do thou.
Me daam, to divide, the same as the last verb, except that the indie, pres.
is daign.
The tenses of these verbs are formed in the same manner as those of the first
conjugation, but there are three examples of irregular verbs, which are,
* The author has forgotten, that his anomalous verbs of the third conjugation have their past
tenses in a.
t Oltre il tedio vi vorrebbe ancora un mondo di carta, p. 130.
APPENDIX.
1137
Menurdam, to slay ; une nurds, I slay ; nurisgnete, I did slay ; nurava, I
slew; tide nurafscia, if I shall slay; nurae ti, slay thou.
Me raam, to fall ; une bye, I fall ; bygnete, I did fall ; rae, I fell •, tide
rafscia, if I shall fall ; by ti, fall thou.
Me paam, to see; une setoff, I see; scifgnete, I did see, pae, I saw; tide
pascia, if I shall see; sciffti, see thou.
The Fifth Conjugation, Infin. re.
Me bdierre, to loose; une bdier, I loose; bdieergnete, 1 did loose; bdbra, I
lost; nde bdierscia, if I shall loose; bdyre ti, loose thou.
The Sixth Conjugation, Infin. le.
Me ce\e, to open ; une eel, I open; celgnete, I did open ; ci\a, I opened;
nde ciheia, if I shall open; eel, or ci\ ti, open thou.
Me fo\e, to speak (irregular); une fas, I speak ; Jlisgnete, I did speak ;
fola, I spoke; nde fblscia, if I shall speak; /ol /«', speak thou.
Seventh Conjugation, Infin. ijm.
Me h lint, to enter; une hiign,l enter; hiignete, 1 did enter; Λ}/««, I en-
tered ; nde hiifscia, if I shall enter; hum ti, enter thou.
Eighth Conjugation, Infin. uum.
.Me vilum, to put; wwe ree, I put; vegnele, I did put; rawer, I put; Htfe
tufscia, if I shall put; r^e Zi, put thou.
Ninth Conjugation, Infin. jem.
Me kiiem, to drink; unelaiegn, I drink; hiignete, 1 did drink ; A «era, I
drank; nde kiiefscia, if I shall drink; kiiei ti, drink thou.
Tenth Conjugation, Infin. ane.
3/e ngrane, to eat ; wwe //#, I eat ; hagnete, I did eat ; hangra, I ate ;
nde hangriscia, if I shall eat; ha ti, cat thou.
Me zane, to learn; une zaa, I learn; zignele, 1 did learn; sz/wa, I learnt;
nde zancia, if I shall learn; see ti, learn thou.
Under this head the grammar includes me ®ane, io say; une ®bm, I say (ti
©we, ai ®ot); Qbscgnete, I did say ; ®asc, I said; nde Qascia, if I shall say;
®ue ti, say thou.
7 η
■<*> ^-
1138
APPENDIX.
On the mountains of Scutari, they say me®, it did please me, &c.
Me dimbtune, to grieve; mi dembet, it grieves me; mi dimbie, it did
grieve me, &c.
Meu dasciune, to be needful; duhet, it ought; duehite, it was needful, &c.
Meudukune, to seem, to appear; mi dukct, it appears to me; mi duke fit, it
did appear to me; ni'u duk, oxm'u dukti^ it appeared to me. besides, hanet, it
is made, and several other verbs.
The grammar in the next place considers the particles, which arc placed
instead of pronouns, before, together with, and after the verbs. The examples
given, are,
Mi die v. s. illuslrissima una lettera.
Midaa dzotliniiajole e ndricine gni lettre.
Ti ho tante volte ordinate di parlar poco.
77 ham kach here urdenuem ne fo\e pak.
Ne die in quel giorno quaranta sferzatc.
\a dan nd'ht ditte kattre dsett te raamet,
Ci disse: dover passare di la dal mare.
Ne ®ά per fu sckuem per te dctit.
Vi piacque, ό signori, ascoltarch
V* pelchien, b dzollinii yne na ndiem.
I I
APPENDIX.
1141
G\{ γιοήό un canestrino di frutti dal suo giardino.
I peruni gni sctporitedze pemesc prei bacit se vete,
Li venue in pensiero di partirsi.
Iraa nde mend me sckuem.
Dacei fratello il tuo cavallo raigliore.
Epna Ve\aa kaalne tande maa lemir.
Per unirlo alia cavalleria del re.
Me e mbasckuem mbe lueriisc regit.
IJarovene un' altro piu ornato per il papa.
Kam meju dane gni tieter maa stolhsune per papene,
Guardatevi pero di manifestarc, die sia il mio.
Ruchii pro me ka\edzuem, se asct emi.
Guardici Dio, di no ubbidirti.
Ruitna IIoui/, mos me te ndiguem.
Se ne vadino dunque con Dio^
Sckbui pro. me tene&zbne, or te sckbine pra me Houyn.
The te in the two last examples seems to be that which, in the Albanian of
Attica, is generally the sign of the infinitive mood.
Prepositions .
Nde, in, with a nominative case ; ndai } near, with nora. and ace. ; perpara,
before; dat. cundra, against ; dat.se, or kete, from this side; ace. Re®, per-
chiarch, about; dat. prei, towards; nom. prei, from; ablat. jasct,por, besides;
dat. nder, amongst, between; ace ndene, under; dat. and nom. per, through,
or for; ace. ajj'er, near; dat. ablat. secundrese, according; dat. per te, or te,
beyond; ace. per mbi, or mbi, above; nom. ace. ndicr, up to; nom. and dat.
me, with; ace. part, without; ace. mbe, in, and to; ace. and nom. tele, or te,
from; nom. m, from, ablat.. and ace. as asct m* jusc, it is from you; η
from, ablat. as nteje, from thee. Po and a are called by the Padre verbal pre-
positions ; the first of which is used with the present and imperfect tenses of the
indicative mood, as po vign, 1 corae > or cisc pb ban <\zotli, what does the
master? and the second serves for all the tenses of the indicative mood, as a
sign of interrogation, as eh Frank a pb vien Markup Here, Frank, is Mark
coming ?
Adverbs.
Sod, today; die, yesterday; nde minghies, this morning; mbramene, this
evening; sonde, this night; ?iessere, tomorrow; nessere heret, tomorrow.
1142
APPENDIX.
morning; mbas nessere, the day after tomorrow; te nessere, two days after
tomorrow; pora die, the other day; nde kete cias, at this instant; nde kete
sahat, or nde kete ore, or nde kete kohe, at this hour; tasc, or lascti, now; pak
here, a little ago; ndogn here, one time; here here, sometimes; giQhere.
always, every time; as gni here, no time•, cuur, or ascnur, never; heret, in
good time; vbue, late; prei mies ditte, near mid-day; preimbrane, about the
evening; nde mies ditte, at mid-day; rtdier se, until; dissa here, at some
time; at here, immediately; perpara, before; bassandai, for the future;
parandai, for the past; sin victt, the past year; para victt, the year be-
yond; molt motti, from time to time.
The reader will have observed, that the greater part of the above adverbs are
in fact only nouns with the preposition prefixed.
Adverbs of Place.
Ketu, here; kakh, there; athie ox atoxx, beyond; kendei, from there; andic,
from beyond; per te Oouer, across; per brignete, by the side; ku, where;
termal, upon; siperi, above; maa nalt, more above; ndene, beneath; posct,
below; mha nk®ell, lower; ketu pari, from here beyond; kessainde, from
there beyond; atoxx pari, thither beyond; assaide, beyond farther; mbrend,
within; iasct } without; vend, this place; vendassit, from this place.
Adverbs of Quality.
Mire, wettj ketch, badly; mirefil, truly; ditscim, learnedly; marrisct,
ignorantly; hiescim, lightly; hiaurc, beautifully; fortscim, strongly; trimi-
niscit, bravely; urtisct, prudently; diekecchisl, cunningly; cussarisct, like
a robber; tineaze, secretly; vdob, or kolai, easily ; fuctire, difficultly; turn•
scim, happily; diemenisct, devilishly; parapscte, on the reverse; mpare, to
the right ; fratinisct, brotherly ; priftiniscit, priestly; buiarisct, nobly; dzot-
tinisct, gentlemanly; Talianisct, or Latinisct, Italian-like; Arbenisct, Alba-
nian-like; Turchisct, Turk-like; giaurisct, foreignly; mbale faccie, covertly;
fscehas, hiddenly; katundsisct, rusticly; kecch, worse.
Adverbs of Quantity.
Scium, much; schimbox sciiim, very much; tepere, too much ; pak, little;
paMz, a very little; mengu, less; fort, or fortscim, or mha fort, all toge-
APPENDIX.
1143
tlier* giatscim, at length ; sckurtscim, shonly, saa, as-, ek&cim, deeply;
scium, or *w a/wi, » g reat (leal *
Adverbs of Negation.
Ma, or «m, or, »«ί, or io, or ,, or os, not and no; «sgia*, or ««,£*&•,
or nslierie, or aspak, nothing, by no means, &c.
Of swearing, per .««W, b/.P-d, par tab, by my brend; per iroupt
bv my Bait. ilfomp/e*, says the good father, a.A.c/1 r dee;» suffiaent, that I
,L not in ikis pi™ give to the heedless, rules for swearing.
Besides the above, there are other adverbs, such as asctu, so; evo, yes, yes;
famine, ch, eh; dutoui. e Azaset, please God; pan hiir, luckdy; pasta fat,
i„ spite; per Ahune, by force; per duune, for shame; fat mire, good lock;
/«ω.,, fortunately; or« e dzedza, lucky hour; *A pra, holdup; mMn
ie mire, or Azembre e meri, cheerfully. ....
The grammar adds various eKclamations, as ti ndieft Azot oum «moenere,
God P Hy you; hangrete huiku, may the wolf eat yon; hangrete giarpene,
m ay the suake bite you; hangre-e mune, or gni mutt, let h.m eat dung; re
paeeia sendose, ve\aa, health, brother; tejam truem «elaa, 1 am nt your lee ,
brother; . bafseia Turk, nde mos te vrerafseia, make me a lurk .f don t kill
vo„ ; " bapJ» knur nde mos te perefseia erouei, make me an mfldel ,f I don t
Γα off your head; I Bin, or aset, whose is it , kuse a ehi, and te ku.te «me,
Xse are they > te ziia, jane, what are they» eise ban, what does he d. «
I„ e , what does he want* perse erdi, why does he comer •--*. *^'
mas ez Me, away from there; eia let,',, come here; e S «ton, go th.ther,
rfL», quickly; per te epeit, at once; merente, *Pf f '"^ ~
«th all haste; « si te peJoA««, go where yon please; ι* £* *> « &
or slow; «rI knew;
Alas! I find them poison' d too.
Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net,
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.
4.
A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within thesublle snare,
1 burn, and feebly flutter there.
5.
Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neithei feel, nor pity pain —
The cold repulse — the look askance —
The lightning of Love's angry glance.
6.
In flattering dreams 1 deemed thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
1 feel my passion, and thy power.
1150
APPENDIX.
My light of life ! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and altered eye?
My bird of love ! my beauteous mate !
And art thou changed, and can'st thou hate ?
8.
Mine eyes like wint'ry streams overflow :
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird ! relent : one note could give
A charm, to bid thy lover live.
9.
My curdling blood, my maild'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain ;
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults — while mine is breaking.
10.
Pour me the poison ; fear not thou !
Thou can'st not murder more than now :
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.
11,
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest ?
Alas ! too late, I dearly know,
That joy is harbinger of woe.
1152
APPENDIX.
Translated into English, as near as I can understand it, the letter
is as follows ; the crossed lines at the top being apparently a post-
script.
2
r~>
^
Q>
*■*
+J
,Ή
α>
1
43
V
£
&
9
ΒΙ
£2
.t^
_Ξ
—
a
go
ο
ρ
ο
<
ο
ill•
00
69
■29
υ
— 1
—
a
ο
Η
to
δ
α,
β
— >
=
Μ
My beloved Jacob Bey All Bey and whichever of
my Bolu-bashees is to be found at Vrachore, after
my salutation, I make known to you that these two
English Gentlemen* my friends, come hither in order
to go to Messalonge. Do you receive them with
every respect and attention, and give them
men sufficient to guard them on their way
as far as Messalonge, and do not let them meet
witli any difficulty at all.
1809
October
10
Tepeltes (the Secretary's name).
(The direction at ihe back of the letter).
To my beloved Elias Bey Jacob
Bey and the director of the treasury
Joseph Aga Health
Vrachore.
* The usual appellation of every English traveller in the Levant, of whatever rank, is Μιλορΰος,
the word used in the original of this letter.
The opposite Fac-siniile is given as a specimen of writing from the pen of a more
careful scribe.
THE END.
London ι Printed by B. M'Millan, J
How Street, Covent Garden, $
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DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.
ΝΕΚΡΟΔΕΙΠΝΟΝ, to face the Title.
Map of Albania, page 1
Dancing Girl, • • • • "^
An Albanian, 133
Remains of the Stadium at Delphi, the Village of Castri, and the") ^Q
Castalian Summits of Parnassus, J
Valhy of the Plistus, with part of the Gulph of Salona 253
Athens, from the foot of Mount Anchesmus, ^ 292
Hadrian's Temple, Acropolis, and Parthenon, 322
West front of the Acropolis, I 336
South-east angle of the Parthenon, .•. 343
Marathon, with a distant view of the Plain, 433
Greek Lady in her walking dress, 500
Turkish Female Slave, 535
Turkish Bath, 539
Western half of the Hcllespontinc Phrygia, 6fe8
View of Tophana, 831
Turkish Woman, 847
Sultana, 855
Colonel of the Janissaries, 864
First Gate of the Seraglio, 992
Barracks of the Bombardiers and Miners, 1016
Fac-simile of Ali Pasha's Letter, 1151
Fac-simile, ... U52
Greek Music, the end of the volume.
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