But of all “the cities of the dead” in the Turkish empire, that of Scutari in Asia, at the mouth of the Bosphorus, is perhaps the most striking and extensive. It stretches up an inclined plain, clothing it with its dark foliage, like a vast pall thrown over the departed. It extends for more than three miles, and, like a large forest, is pierced by various avenues, leading to different places. Such is its size, that it is said the area it encloses would supply the city with corn, and the stones which mark its graves would rebuild the walls. Among the causes assigned for this increase, one is, that two persons are never buried in the same spot, so the graves are constantly expanding on every side; another, a prepossession unalterably fixed in the mind of a Turk: he considers himself a stranger and sojourner in Europe, and the Moslem of Constantinople turns his last lingering look to this Asiatic cemetery, where his remains will not be disturbed, when the Giaour regains possession of his European city; an event which he is firmly persuaded will sometime come to pass. Thus the dying Turk feels a yearning for his native soil; like Joseph in the land of Egypt, he exacts a promise from his people that “they would carry his bones hence,” and, like Jacob, says, “bury me in my grave which I have in the land of Canaan.” Among the objects which distinguish a Turkish necropolis, is the stone placed to mark the grave. The island of Marmora, contiguous to the city, affords an inexhaustible supply of marble at a cheap rate, so that the humblest head-stones are of this valuable material. They are shaped into rude representations of the human form, surmounted by a head covered with a turban, the fashion of which indicates the rank and quality of the person: on the bust of the pillar is an Arabic inscription, containing the name of the deceased, without any enumeration of his virtues: the Turks never indulge in such panegyrics: the letters are in high relief, generally gilded with such skill, that they remain a long time as perfect and beautiful as embossed gold. The stones which designate the graves of women have no such distinction: they are marked with a lotus leaf, and surmounted with a knob like a nail, and this is said to be an intimation of the disbelief in the immortality of a female’s soul, as connected with their want of intellect.