Near the northern extremity of this unattractive plain, at the confluence of Maritza and Tunja, lies the city of Adrianople, enveloped in trees, whose sight delights the eye of the weary traveller. Adrianople, in reality, consists of a number of villages, separated from each other by orchards, poplars, and cypresses, above which peep out the minarets of some hundred and fifty mosques. The sparkling waters of the Maritza and Tunja, of rivulets and of aqueducts, lend animation to the picture, and render Adrianople one of the most delightful places. But it is more than this. It is the great centre of population in the interior of Turkey, and its favourable geographical position has always secured to the city a certain amount of importance. The ancient city of Orestis, the capital of the Kings of Thracia, stood on this site, and was succeeded by the Hadrianopolis of the Romans, which the Turks changed into Edirneh, and made their capital until Constantinople fell into their power. The old palace of the Sultan, built in the {107} Persian style towards the close of the fourteenth century, still remains, though in a dilapidated condition. But here, likewise, the Osmanli are in the minority. The Greeks are their equals in numbers, and far surpass them in intelligence, whilst the Bulgarians, too, muster strongly, and, as in other towns of the East, we meet with a strange mixture of races, from Persian merchants down to gipsy musicians. The Jews are proportionately more numerous in Adrianople than in any other town of Turkey, and, strange to relate, they differ from their co-religionists in every other part of the world by a lack of smartness in business transactions. A local proverb says that “it requires _ten_ Jews to hold their own against _one_ Greek;” and not Greeks alone, for Wallachians, and even Bulgarians, are able to impose upon the poor Israelite at Adrianople. The communications between Adrianople and Midea, the ancient Greek colony, famous for its subterranean temples, and with other cities on the Black Sea, are difficult. Its natural outlets are towards the south—on the one hand to Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmara; on the other, down the Maritza valley to the Gulf of Saros. The railway follows the latter, and the Rumelian Railway Company has constructed an artificial harbour at Dede Aghach, enabling merchantmen to lie alongside a pier. The allurements of commerce, however, have not hitherto induced the inhabitants of Enos to exchange their walled and turreted acropolis for the marshy tract on the Lower Maritza, with its deadly atmosphere.