Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor: Series One and Series Two in one VolumeWalsh, R. (Robert)
History
Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor: Series One and Series Two in one Volume
Walsh, R. (Robert)
Istanbul (Turkey) -- History; Istanbul (Turkey) -- Pictorial works
A district of Constantinople is called Psamatia, from a miracle of the
Greek church. During one of those verbal and frivolous controversies
which divided it, a priest was reproved by a young child for some
unsound opinion. He replied, he would hold it till convinced by a
sensible miracle that it was wrong. The child was immediately seized
by an invisible hand, and held suspended in the air over the heterodox
priest, till he confessed and recanted his error. This miracle, called
in the Greek church _ypsomathea_, or “the divine elevation,” gave a
name to the whole district, where it is firmly believed at this day. It
is one of the quarters inhabited by the Armenians, and presents many
indications of the wealth and industry of that thriving people.
It contains one of the principal baths of the city, in the luxury of
which, Oriental Christians, as well as Moslems, indulge. After the
process we have already described is gone through, the bather, purged
from all corporeal impurities, and escaped from the sensations of
suffocation and dislocation, is led by the tellah to enjoy the luxury
he has, in the opinion of many, dearly earned. Here, in an apartment
reduced to a moderate temperature, reclined at ease on a divan, his
purified person slightly covered with shawls, entirely divested of
his clothes, and perfectly free from all pressure or restraint, he
feels a renovated existence. Refreshments of various kinds are brought
to him, and, after taking them, he lies for some time sunk in that
dreamy repose of half-conscious existence, which is the very paradise
of an Oriental. When this is past, and the heat of his body is reduced
gradually to its usual temperature, so that he apprehends no peril from
sudden change, he resumes his clothes, and goes on his way rejoicing.
Nothing can afford a stronger contrast than the cautious effeminacy of
a Turk, and the rude hardihood of his neighbour and enemy the Russian,
in this particular. Both equally indulge in hot-baths; but the one
reduces the temperature of his body afterwards, by careful gradations,
even in the midst of summer, and dreads any extreme sensation as
mortal; while the other rushes from burning heat, with every pore
streaming with perspiration, into the intense cold of frozen snow, in
the depth of winter, and thinks the luxury and salubrity of the bath
increased by the contrast.
By a return of the Stambol effendi, or Turkish lord-mayor, there were
in the city 88,115 houses, 130 of which were public baths, in which
most of the inmates of the other houses daily indulged. To accommodate
the number, men and women were obliged to have recourse to the same
bath, at different hours.
[Illustration: T. Allom. J. Redaway.
THE ACROPOLIS OF PERGAMUS.
ASIA MINOR.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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