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dwelling houses; where, in the diminutive pannelling of the wainscot, and the form of the windows, an evident similarity appears to what is common in Turkey. The khans for the bankers seem to rank next to the mosques, among the public edifices of any note. The Ménagerie shown to strangers is the most filthy hole in Europe, and chiefly tenanted by rats. The pomp of a Turk may be said to consist in his pipe and his horse: the first will cost from twenty to twenty thousand piastres. That of the Capudan Pacha had a spiral ornament of diamonds from one end to the other; and it was six feet in length. Coffee cups are adorned in the same costly manner. A saddle cloth embroidered and covered with jewels, stirrups of silver, and other rich trappings, are used by their grandees to adorn their horses. The boasted illuminations of the Ramadan would scarcely be perceived, if they were not pointed out. The suburbs of London are more brilliant every

aight in the year.

As to the antiquities of Constantinople, those which are generally shown to strangers have been often and ably de-scribed. There is a method of obtaining medals and gems which has not however been noticed; this is, by application to the persons who contract for the product of the common sewers, and are employed in washing the mud and filth of the eity. In this manuer we obtained, for a mere trifle, some interesting remains of antiquity; among which may be mentioned, a superb silver medal of Anthony and Cleopatra; a silver medal of Chalcedon of the highest antiquity; and an intaglio onyx, representing the flight of Eneas from Troy. There is every reason to believe, that, within the precincts of this vast city, many fine remains of ancient art may hereafter be discovered. The courts of Turkish houses are closed from observation; and in some of these are magnificent sarcophagi, concealed from view, serving as cisterns to their fountains. In the floors of the different baths are also, in all probability, many inscribed marbles; the characters of which, being turned downward, escape even the observation of the Turks. In this manner the famous trilingual inscription was discovered in Egypt. No monument was, perhaps, ever more calculated to prove the surprising talents of ancient sculptors, than the column of Arcadius, as it formerly stood in the forum of that emperor. According to the fine representations of its basreliefs, engraved from Bellini's drawings for the work of Banduri, the characteristic features of the Russians were so admi

rably delineated in the figures of the Scythian captives, that they are evident upon the slightest inspection.*

It is somewhat singular, that, amongst all the literary travellers who have described the curiosities of Constantinople, no one has hitherto noticed the market for manuscripts; yet it would be difficult to select an object more worthy of examina'tion. The bazar of the booksellers does not contain all the works enumerated by D'Herbelot; but there is hardly any oriental author, whose writings, if demanded, may not be procured; although every volume offered for sale is manuscript. The number of shops employed in this way, in that market and elsewhere, amounts to a hundred: each of these contain, upon an average, five hundred volumes; so that no less a number than fifty thousand manuscripts, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, are daily exposed for sale. One of my first endeavours was to procure a general catalogue of the writings most in request throughout the empire; that is to say, of those works which are constantly on sale in the cities of Constantinople, Aleppo, and Cairo, and also of their prices. This I procured through the medium of a dervish.† The causes of disappointment, which has so often attended the search after manuscripts by literary persons sent out from the academies of Europe, may be easily explained. These men have their residence in Pera, whence it is necessary to go by water to Constantinople. The day is generally far spent before they reach the place of their destination; and when arrived, they make their appearance followed by a jauissary. The venders of manuscripts, who are often emirs, and sometimes dervishes, beholding an infidel thus accompanied, gratifying what they deem an impertinent, and even sacrilegious curiosity, among volumes of their religion and law, take offence, and refuse not only to sell, but to exhibit any part of their collection. The best method is to employ a dervish, marking in the catalogue such books as he may be required to purchase; or to go alone, unless an interpreter is necessary. I found no difficulty in obtaining any work that I could afford to buy. The manuscript of "The Arabian Nights," or, as it is called, Alf Lila o Lila, is not easily procured, and for this reason: it is a compilation, made according to the taste and opportunity of the

Imperium Orientale, tom. ii. p. 521. The reader, referring to the work, is requested to attend particularly to the portraits of the Scythian monarch and of one of his nobles, in the third plate.

This catalogue may be considered as offering a tolerable view of the general state of oriental literature; such, for example, as might be obtained of the literature of Britain, by the catalogues of any of the principal booksellers of London and Edinburgh.

writer, or the person who orders it of the scribes, found only in private hands, and no two copies contain the same tales. I could not obtain this work in Constantinople, but afterward bought a very fine copy of it in Grand Caïro.* It was not until the second winter of my residence in Pera, that I succeeded, by means of a dervish of my acquaintance, in procuring a catalogue from one of the principal shops. The master of it was an emir, a man of considerable attainment in oriental literature, from whom I had purchased several manuscripts, which are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Whenever I had applied to this man for works relating to poetry or history, he was very willing to supply what was wanted; but if I ventured only to touch a Koran, or any other volume held sacred in Turkish estimation, my business terminated abruptly for that day. There are similar manuscript markets in all the Turkish cities, particularly those of Aleppo and Cairo. Many works, common in Cairo, are not to be met with in Constantinople. The Beys have more taste for literature than the Turks; and the women, shut up in the charems of Egypt, pass many of their solitary hours in hearing persons who are employed to read for their amusement.

Nor is the search after Greek manuscripts so unsuccessful as persons are apt to imagine. By employing an intelligent Greek priest, I had an opportunity of examining a great variety of volumes, brought from the Isle of Princes, and from the private libraries of Greek princes resident at the Phanár.†` It is true, many of them were of little value; and

* This manuscript was unfortunately so damaged by the wreck of the Princessa merchantman, that I have never since been able to get it transcribed, although I sent it to Constantinople for that purpose. It contained one hundred and seventy two tales, divided into a thousand and one nights.

GREEKS of the PHANAR.

"There are six Greek families of more note than the rest, who live at the Phanar, a district in the northern part of the city, near the sea; their names are, Ipsilandi Moroozi, Callimachi, Soozo, Handtzerli, and Mavrocordato. These have either aspired to, or obtained in their turns, the situation of hospodar, or prince of Walachia, and Moldavia. In 1806, the Porte was persuaded, by the French, to believe that Ipsilandi and Moroozi, the hospodars of the two provinces, were in the interest' of Russia, and in the Month of September of that year, they were removed; Soozo, and Callimachi being appointed in their room, by the interference of Sebastiani the French ambassador. Moroozi, on his recal, came back to Constantinople; but Ipsilaudi went to Russia, and thus brought on his family the vengeance of the Porte. His father, aged seventy-four, who had been four times Prince of Walachia, was beheaded January the 25th, 1807, while I was at Constantinople. Among the articles of accusation brought against him, it was alleged, that he had fomented the rebellion of the Servians; and that, at the time when the troops of the Nizam Jedit were about to march against the janissaries of Adrianople, he had given intimation of this, through Mustapha Bairacter, a chief in the northern provinces of Turkey, to the janissaries, who had accordingly prepared themselves for the designs of the Porte.

"The only persons in the Turkish empire, who could in any way promote the cultivation of ancient literature, and excite the Greeks to shake off that ignorance in

others, of some importance, the owners were unwilling to sell. The fact is, it is not money which such men want. They will often exchange their manuscripts for good printed editions of the Greek classics, particularly of the orators. Prince Alexander Bano Hantzerli had a magnificent collection of Greek which they are plunged, are the Greek nobles of the Phanar. But, instead of using their influence with the government, to enable them to encourage and patronize schools in parts of the levant, they are only pacing in the trammels of political intrigue, and, actuated by the lust of lucre,' or of power, are doing what they can to obtain the offices of interpreter to the Porte, or of patriarch; or to succeed as princes of Walachia and Moldavia. Excepting a dictionary of modern Greek, which was published under the patronage of one of the Mavrocordato family; and a povrioτnpiov, or school, the expenses of which were defrayed by one of the Moroozi family; ali that has been done, to increase a knowledge of their language among the Greeks, has been effected by the liberal and patriotic exertions of Greek merchants, living at Venice, Trieste, or Vienna. An undertaking which would have been attended with great advantage, had it not been frustrated by political interference, was a translation of the travels of Anacharsis into modern Greek, accompanied with proper maps. This was only begun; the Greek who was employed in it was put to death by the Porte: another Greek, of Yanina, called Sakellaris, has, I believe, translated the whole.Works of this kind would be productive of greater utility to the mass of the reading and industrious Greeks, than such performances as a translation of Virgil's Æneid into Greek hexameters, which I saw at Constantinople, published by the Greek bishop, Bulgari, who resided in Russia.

The Greeks of the Phanar are themselves very conversant with the authors of ancient Greece, and well understand most of the modern languages of Europe. There is an affectation of using words and phrases of old Greek, instead of the modern, evenamong the servants and inferior people at the Phanar The learned Coray is exciting his countrymen, by his writings and example, to a study of their ancient language; and the Greek merchants, who are led to visit the different cities of the continent, return to their country with information and useful knowledge, which is gradually diffused among the Greeks connected with them.

"The following advertisement, of an exhibition of waxwork at Pera, may give the reader a notion of the common Greek used at that place.

ΕΙΔΗΣΙΣ.

Ο Κύριος Καμπιόνης λαμβάνει τὴν τιμὴν νὰ εἰδοποίηση τὴν εὐγενεστάτην κοινότητα, ὅτι ἦλθεν ἐδῶ μὲ ἕνα μέγα σύλλογον τεσσαράκοντα καὶ περισσοτέρων αγαλμάτων, τὸ πλεῖστον μέρος των Μοναρχων τῆς Εὐρώπης, καὶ πολλον ἄλλων περιφήμων ὑποκειμένων, ἐν οἷς ευρίσκεται καὶ μία Αφροδίτη. Ὅλα αὐτὰ εἰς μέγεθος φυσικὸν, καὶ ἐνδεδυμένα ἕκαστον κατὰ τὸν βαθμὸν τῆς αξίας τοῦ.

Αὐτὰ τὰ ἀγάλματα παῤῥησιάζονται καθ ̓ ἑκάστην απὸ τὸ πουρνὸ ἕως εἰς τας πέντε τῆς νυκτὸς, εἰς τὸ σταυροδρόμι, ἔνδον τοῦ ὀσπητίου τῆς Κυρί ας Τομαζίνας, ἐπάνω εἰς τὸ Ἐργαστηρι ἑνὸς Κουφετιέρη. Τὰ εὐγενῆ ὑπο κείμενα θέλει πληρώσουν κατὰ τὴν πλουσιοπάροχον αὐτων προαίρεσιν. Ἡ δὲ συνήθης τιμὴ εἶναι γρόσι ἕνα εἰς κάθε ανθρωπον.

(TRANSLATION.)

NOTICE.

Mr. Campioni has the honour to inform the nobility and gentry, that he is arrived here, with a large collection of forty and more Figures; the greater part of the kings of Europe, and many other illustrious personages. Among them is a Venus. All these are of the size of nature, and dressed, each according to the quality of the person.

These figures are exhibited every day, from the morning to eleven at night, in the staurodromo, in the house of Mrs. Thomasina, above a confectioner's shop. The nobility

manuscripts, and long corresponded with me after my return to England.* I sent him, from Paris, the original edition of the French Encyclopédie; and no contemptible idea may be formed of the taste of men, who, situated as the Greek families are in constantinople, earnestly endeavour, by such publications, to multiply their sources of information. Some of the Greek manuscripts now in the bodleian were originally in his possession; particularly a most exquisite copy of the four gospels, of the tenth or eleventh century, written throughout, upon vellum, in the same minute and beautiful characters.

The exercises of the Athlete, whether derived or not by the Turks from the subjugated Greeks, are still preserved, and often exhibited, in the different towns of the empire.† 'The

and gentry will pay according to their liberal dispositions; but the customary price is a piastre a head."

To confirm what I have said above, relating to the knowledge which some of the noble Greeks possess of their ancient language, I refer the reader to the elaborate performance of Nicolas Mavrocordato who was Prince of Walachia, written in ancient Greek: the title of which is, repi KannóvтwV. This work was printed at Bucharest in 1719: it contains nineteen chapters, and embraces a variety of moral and religious topics, relating, as its title imports, to the duties of man. The following paragraph is taken at random from the work, as a specimen of the language;

Γή τε γὰρ οὐκ ἀρδευομένη συνέχει μὲν ἐν κόλποις, ὡς εἰπεῖν, τα σπέρματα, αλλ' ανίσχυρός ἐστιν αὐξῆσαι καὶ εἰς φως αὐτὰ προαγαγεῖν· καὶ νοῦς καν εὐφυως ἔχῃ, τῆς ἔξωθεν μέντοι γε αρδείας αμοιρήσας, ἢ ὅλως ἐστείρωται πρὸς ενέργειαν των καλων, ἢ καθ ̓ ἑαυτὸν ὀργων καὶ σφαδάζων, ακολασταίνει, μὴ παιδαγωγούμενος, μήτε τυπούμενος εἰς κρίσιν καὶ αἵρεσιν ἀρετῆς.

Nam et terra, cum non rigatur, continet quidem sinu suo, ut ita dicam, semina, sed ad ea vegetanda, et in lucem edenda, invalida est; et mens quamvis habilis, si destituatur irrigatione, aut plane sterilescit ad bonus actus, aut per se turgens et lascivicns proterve agit, dum non instituitur et formatur ad discernendam et eligendam virtutem.

"The library of Nicolas Mavrocordato was stored with manuscripts procured from the different monasteries in Greece, and the islands of the Archipelago; and so valuable was it in every respect, that Sevin, who had been sent, by the government of France, to collect manuscripts in the levant, in a letter from Constantinople to Maurepas, dated Dec. 22, 1728, thus expresses himself: La bibliotheque du Prince du Valachie peut aller de pair avec celles des plus grands princes; et depuis deux ans il a employe deux cent mille ecus en achats des manuscrits Turcs, Arabes, et Persans."-Walpole'e MS.Journal.

* It was through his means that I procured for Mr. Cripps, at the particular instigation of the late Professor Porson, who read his letter upon the subject, the superb copy of the Orators, now in the possesion of Dr. Burney.

The combats of wrestling, which I have witnessed near Smyrna, are the same as those which the ancient writers describe; and nothing strikes a traveller in the East more than the evident adherence to customs of remote ares

The habit of girding the loins' was not formerly more general than it is now, in the countries of the Levant. The effect of this on the form of the body cannot fail of being observed at the baths, in which the waists of the persons employed there are remarkable for their smallness. The long sleeve worn at this time in all the East is mentioned by Strabo, and Herodotus, lib. vii. The head was shorn formerly, as now; and the persons of common rank wore a lower sort of turban, and those of dignity a high one; as is the case to this day in Turkey. (Salm. Plin. Exc. 392.) The following passage in Plutarch (Vit. Themist.) describes a custom with which every one is acquainted: The Persians carefully watch not only their wives, but their slaves and concubines: so that they are seen by no one: at home, they live shut up; and when on a journey, they ride in chariots covered in on all sides.' We find that antimony, the stibium of Pliny which is now employed by the women in the East who draw a small wire dipped in it between the two eye lids and give the eye an expression much admired by them, was used in former times. Jezabel 'put her eyes in paint,' (2 Kings, ix. 30.)

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