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92 CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS ENVIRONS;
This place was distinguished as the scene of blood, in the terrible commotions that
preceded the final suppression of the Janissaries. A body of those fierce and mutinous
soldiers passed the Bosphorus, and made an attack on the Barrack of Scutari, hoping to
convert the extensive edifice into a fortress, to overawe the opposite city from this
eminence. They were repulsed, however, after much carnage, by the cannon of the
topgees, and dispersed in two bodies: one took the route along the coast to Moudania;
another proceeded in the opposite direction, up the Bosphorus, which they re-crossed,
and established themselves among the woods of Belgrade, where they became a desperate
banditti, and carried their depredations to the walls of the capital. It was found impossible to dislodge them in the ordinary way from the dense forest, and the whole was set on
fire. The vast surface of timber blazed up, so as to illumine the dark waters of the
Black Sea with its glare; and the banditti, driven from its recesses, were shot without
mercy, with boars, wolves, and other beasts of prey, as they issued from the burning cover.
When the fire subsided, the whole district exhibited a melancholy spectacle of Turkish
destruction—vast forest-trees prostrate and half consumed, lying among the scorched
bodies of men and various animals.
GOVERNOR'S HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.
ASIA MINOR.
Philadelphia is one of the churches of the Apocalypse, which retains some traces
of its former prosperity. The serai, or palace of the muzzelim, as the governors of
the towns in Asia Minor are named, is a spacious and sumptuous edifice, and the interior is decorated with those displays of Turkish magnificence that befits the magistrate
who presides over a large and populous town. When a Frank traveller passes through
an Oriental city, it is not sufficient in general to show his firman by his janissary, but
the muzzelim expects to be personally waited on, and, after he has treated his guest
with the usual refreshments of coffee and a chiboque, he inquires his business. It is
impossible to make a Turk comprehend the usual objects of European travelling in the
East, no more than to communicate to him the feeling of a sixth sense. He cannot conceive why a man should break in upon the sleepy repose of a dozing life, and fatigue
himself by climbing mountains and exploring caverns, which can yield him no profit. The
only motive of which he can have any distinct comprehension is that which leads a man
to explore ruins; for every Turk is impressed with a notion that the ancients abounded
in wealth, and that in the edifices they left behind them, a man could find an urn of gold
under every stone, if he knew how to search for it, and this knowledge he believes the
superior intelligence of every Frank imparts to him. The janissary, therefore, who
attends a traveller, though perfectly indifferent in other places, is always on the alert
among rums. He watches him eagerly when he is trying to read an inscription, certain
that it points out a concealed treasure which the traveller will immediately discover. |
