When a body is committed to the earth, the priest plants a cypress at the head, and another at the foot, of the grave; and hence those far-spreading forests, those bough o’er-canopied cities of the dead, which form so remarkable a feature in Turkish scenery. Should only one tree in six survive, enough still remain to form a dense and solemn grove; but the Turks have a singular superstition with regard to those that, instead of lancing their tall heads towards the sky, take a downward bend, as though they would fain return to the earth from whence they sprang; they hold that these imply the damnation of the soul whose mortal remains they overshadow; and as, from the closeness with which they are planted, and their consequent number, such accidents are by no means rare, it must be at best a most uncomfortable creed. But it is to the “Grand Champs” that the stranger should direct his steps, if he would contemplate a scene to which the world probably can produce no parallel. Emerging from the all but interminable High Street, whose projecting upper stories form a canopy above your head for nearly its whole length, you have on your left hand the plague-hospital for the Franks, and on your right a stretch of higher land, which is the burial-ground of the Greeks. Here there is nothing to arrest your steps; it is ill-kept, and, were it not for the houses that surround it, would be dreary and desolate from its very disorder. The Greek is the creature of to-day—yesterday is blotted from his tablets. Having passed the grave-yard, the road widens into an esplanade, in front of an extensive block of building, erected by Sultan Selim as a cavalry barrack. It is painted rose-colour, has a noble entrance, and possesses a look of order and regularity almost European. It is not until you descend the gentle declivity that slopes onward to the Grand Champs des Morts, that you discover the whole extent of the edifice, which is a quadrangle, having three fronts; its fourth side being devoted to a range of stabling. The road to Therapia and the “Sweet Waters” skirts the burial-ground; and the little Greek village or colony of St. Demetrius covers an opposite height. The first plot of ground, after passing the barrack, is the grave-yard of the Franks; and here you are greeted on all sides with inscriptions in Latin: injunctions to pray for the souls of the departed; flourishes of French sentiment; calembourgs graven into the everlasting stone, treating of roses and reine Marguerites; concise English records of births, deaths, ages, and diseases; Italian elaborations of regret and despair; and all the commonplaces of an ordinary burial-ground.