Title | Constantinople and the scenery of the seven churches of Asia Minor |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Contributor (Local) |
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Publisher | Fisher, Son, & Co. |
Date | 1838 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 92 plates |
Original Item Location | DR 427 .A44 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1817693~S11 |
Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
Identifier | exotic_201304_011 |
Title | Page 66 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | exotic_201304_011_141.jpg |
Transcript | 6G CONSTANTINOPLE, AND ITS ENVIRONS, be more dismal than the appearance they presented—their dark and dingy fronts torn and ragged, and the inhabitants frequently hanging out of the windows or against the tattered walls. The rage at one time was particularly directed against the priests After the execution of their venerable patriarch, all sense of sanctity, which the Turks are willing to allow to the sacred character, whatever be the profession, was converted into hatred and insult. The bishop of Derkon was hung against his own church at Therapia; his clergy were executed whenever they were taken, like common felons on the shores of the Bosphorus; and the beauty of this fair region was deformed by the most appalling sights. The waters, too, bore frightful testimony of these enormitio. The bodies thrown into the current were sometimes carried by the eddies into the little bays and harbours, where they remained putrifying in the still water, tainting the am and exhibiting to the terrified survivors the decaying remains of their pastors, still wrapped in the vestments in which they died. Happily this dismal period is passed away, and the constitutional gaiety of the Greeks now evinces its usual hilarity, and their music and dancing again enlivens the shores and villages of the Bosphorus. Their social dispositions, evinced in the structure of their houses, is strongly contrasted with those of the Turks. While the windows of the latter are shut up by impenetrable lattice-work, which is always kept jealously closed, and a human being is never seen in the solitary house, those of the former are distinguished by open casements, at which is generally observed some gay groups of laughing female faces, holding a cheerful and unrestrained communication with any passenger. Nor are the houses of their ecclesiastics prohibited from this social enjoyment. The Greek secular priests are allowed to marry : their religion does not inhibit gaiety, though it prescribes many fasts: they have often a numerous family, and the " priest's house" has nothing of that ascetic and austere observance that marks the celibacy of the Latin church. THE ACROPOLIS AT SARDIS. ASIA MINOR. Sardis, one of the seven churches of the Apocalypse, was anciently the capital of the rich kingdom of Lydia. Here was the court of the splendid Croesus, the contemporary of Cyrus the Great, to which were invited men distinguished by worth and learning. Here it was that iEsop composed those apologues, which at this day form the rudiments of our education; and here Solon gave that instructive lesson to the monarch on his throne, that riches and prosperity are no protection against the instability of fortune— a truth which the unhappy prince had soon reason bitterly to remember. This city, |