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
In the midst of this abundance is situated the town of Guzel-Hissar,
appropriately called “the Castle of Beauty,” which its name imports.
It lies on a small stream, about ten miles from the Meander, and on an
eminence which commands a prospect of the lovely vale through which
the river winds its way. Our illustration presents a view of it, with
Mount Thorax rising behind it, and the ridges of the Messogeis before
it−-the wooded plain of the Meander lying between, and spread out under
the city. Both seem to partake of the same quality of rank vegetation.
Among minarets, and domes, and houses, rise cypress, terebinth, and
oriental platanus, so that the whole is a forest of mingled spires and
trees; among these, myriads of turtle-doves take up their abode, and
they and their progeny, in surprising numbers, covering the branches
and roofs, fill the air all day long with their incessant and plaintive
cooing. The town is the residence of a pasha, but its edifices have
little to boast of; they are mean and ragged, and travellers complain
of the caravansaries, as being more comfortless and destitute than even
Turkish khans. The inhabitants feel the effects of a rank and exuberant
vegetation. During the sultry months, a mal-aria is generated, highly
pestilential. The plague sometimes rages with mortal malignity; and the
traveller, shut up in a small and naked room of a filthy house, panting
with heat and devoured with insects, rather endures any thing within,
than walk abroad, and encounter the ghastly and infected objects that
stalk along, and carry contagion with them through the streets.
[Illustration: T. Allom. Tho^s Turnbull.
GREEK CHURCH OF BALOUKLI, NEAR CONSTANTINOPLE.
ATTACHED TO THE SPRING OF THE MIRACULOUS FISHES.]
There is no superstition so strong in the Greek church as the
efficiency ascribed to fountains, and there are no objects of
veneration to which they are more fondly attached. Like their pagan
ancestors, they consecrate a well to some presiding being, and ascribe
to it corresponding virtues. The efficacy, however, is not of the same
character. A modern Greek recognizes no Hippocrene, whose draughts
inspire him with poetry; but he has innumerable sources of salutary
waters, which, by some supernatural power coupled to it by its patron,
heals diseases; and around Constantinople are many wells dedicated to
different saints, which retain all the virtues of the pool of Bethesda.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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