While the fields are abandoned and agriculture is neglected, there is no art substituted or manufacture pursued, to engage the corresponding scanty population. The gold mines of Thrace were formerly so rich as to yield Philip of Macedon the value of £200,000 annually; an immense sum in those days, which enabled him to corrupt the patriot orators of Athens, and to boast that no city could resist him, that had a breach wide enough to admit an ass laden with the produce of these mines. They are unproductive to the Turks; and while they might raise a richer harvest of golden grain on those plains close to their capital, they are indebted to Odessa, and the permission of their enemies, the Russians, for the daily bread of Constantinople. Our illustration presents, not the general appearance of the country, but one of those wandering ridges, which running from the high Balkans, like the fibres of some gigantic tree, are the branches of those roots by which they seem fastened to the level ground, and its picturesque and romantic features are different from the usual character of the level country. The plain from hence to Adrianople, and to the sea, is generally a flat surface of immense extent. These village-crowned peaks are called, both here and in the neighbouring country of Macedon, meteors, or “appearances in the air.” They are usually chosen as the site of Greek convents, and sometimes ascended by a basket let down with cords, in which the visitor is drawn up. The sides of the hills, in every accessible spot, are covered with vineyards, from which the city of Adrianople is supplied with grapes of an excellent quality. [Illustration: T. Allom. S. Fisher. CAVALRY BARRACKS ON THE BOSPHORUS.] The feudal tenure by which the conquered lands were held by those to whom the victorious Sultan assigned them, were called Zaims and Timariots. This obliged every man to furnish a certain number of mounted followers, to take the field when called upon, and formed the first cavalry enrolled for military service by the Turks. But to these were added more efficient bodies, paid from the treasury, and enrolled as regular troops−-these were called Selictarli and Spahi.