I suppose it is natural that few fountains of that early period remain to us. The newcomers probably found the city well enough supplied already, and five hundred years is a long time for such small structures to last in the open. The oldest inscribed wall fountain I know is that of Daoud Pasha, outside the mosque of the same personage, who was Grand Vizier to the Conqueror’s son Baïezid II (A. H. 890/A. D. 1485). There is little about the pointed arch or fairly deep niche to attract attention, save the bold inscription above a small mirror stone of palpably later date: “The author of charity deceased, the Grand Vizier Daoud Pasha.” This is the earliest form of ornament that appears on Turkish fountains—though I fancy the broad eaves that protect many of them did not wait long to be invented. I have already dwelt on the importance of writing in all Turkish decoration. I therefore need not add that the simplest inscription on a fountain has for the Turks an importance of a kind we do not appreciate. Some fountains are famous merely for the lettering on them—as in its day was that of Feïzoullah Effendi, outside his _medresseh_, whose inscription was designed by the celebrated calligraph Dourmoush-zadeh Ahmed Effendi. It must not be inferred that the matter of the inscription is comparatively of less importance—though here again the Western critic is not quite competent to judge. The commonest of all inscriptions is a verse from the Koran: “By water all things have life.” Other verses, mentioning the four fountains of Paradise and the pool Kevser into which they flow, are also frequent, together with references to the sacred well Zemzem, which Gabriel opened for Hagar in Mecca, to Hîzîr and the Spring of Life, and to the battle of Kerbela, in which Hüsseïn and his companions were cut off from water. Or the central tenet of Islam, “There is no God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God,” may be carved above the niche—sometimes without any indication of the name or epoch of the founder. The majority, however, are not so modest. They are more likely to give ampler information than he who runs may read. And after the time of Süleïman the Magnificent it became increasingly the fashion for celebrated poets to compose the verses which celebrated calligraphs designed. Thus the historian Chelibi-zadeh records the end of the inscription on a reservoir of Ahmed III: “Seïd Vehbi Effendi, the most distinguished among the word-wizards of the time, strung these pearls on the thread of his verse and joined together the two lines of the following chronographic distich, like two sweet almonds breast to breast: ‘With what a wall has Ahmed dammed the waters! For of astonishment stops the flood in the midst of its course.’”