Travels in Turkey and back to England / By the late reverend and learned Edmund Chishull.

  • Chishull, Edmund, 1671-1733.
Date:
1747
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels in Turkey and back to England / By the late reverend and learned Edmund Chishull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of Sultan Achmet, and make a drifter obfervation on the three pillars there erefted. Here I was informed, that the brafs Terpen¬ tine pillar was erefted by the emperor Leo, as a charm againd the noifom number of ferpents, which in his time infeded the city ; the fame perfon fuperditioufly affirming, that fince the late deface¬ ment of this pillar, by the breaking of the ferpents heads, the city was again moleded by innumerable noxious ferpents. At the foot of the old pillar, formerly covered with brafs, I read the re¬ mains of that infcription once taken by Sir George Sandys, but fince his time part of it buried with earth, and part broken away,- which is very erroneoufiy printed in his Travels \ On the bads of the hieroglyphical pillar I obferved the carved reprefentation of the pillar it felf, together with the figures of men labouring to ereft it. May ix. ■ By the filtered of a Greek, who ferves the boflangi bajha as his furgeon, I was admitted in company of Mr. John Philips, an eminent merchant, into the great feraglio of Conftantinople, where we paffed thro two courts, that form the entry of the palace ; the fird of which has a fmall arfenal, furnfihed with arms and ammunition; the fecond has piazzas on two fides, in which the janifaries are wont to eat, and opens at the upper end into the divan. From thefe two courts we were permitted to walk round the full extent of the garden, on each fide of the palace. They are rude and wild places, affording nothing that is entertaining, but that wherewith nature has furnfihed them, which is an admi¬ rable fituation rifing into convenient afcents, and capable of infinite improvement, if it were happily in the pofiefiion of a Chridian prince. The whole plat of ground, which they call the gardens of the feragl'to, is covered with cyprefs and other trees, thro which are cut fhady walks, where kiojks are feen of various forts; the mod eminent and remarkable of which is that called the Blew kioJky fronting the town of Scutari. This and the other called the Alai kiojk, fronting the city of Galata, are rich and fplendid pleafure houfes, covered with a gilded cupola, and adorned in their feve- ral walls with Indian tiles, and dately chimneypieces of folid brafs. Palling thro the extent of the feraglio towards the extreme point, that looks up the Thracian Bofphorus, you obferve a Corin- 1 Book i. pag. 34. N thian