THE SQUARE OF THE FOUNTAIN, ADRIANOPLE.W. L. Leitch.J. Tingle.
The city stands in the centre of an enormous plain, 140 miles, or about five days’ journey from Constantinople. It is distinguished by the approaching traveller at the distance of many miles, by the tall minarets of the mosque of Selim piercing the sky, when all other objects of the city are imperceptible. An Oriental town is never discovered like one where coal is consumed, by the dense vapours which fill the atmosphere about it, but obscuring every other object. The site of it is usually marked by some conspicuous building rising above the rest, projecting on the pure air, and seen distinctly at an immense distance. Adrianople is entered on one side by a street, bounded by a vast cemetery having even more solemnity and beauty than is usual in others; this area is intersected by various avenues, and is the constant retreat of the citizens. There is nothing gloomy or revolting in the feelings it excites. The tombs are shaded by the ever-verdant and aromatic cypress, or varied by rose-trees and “flowers of all hues.” It is the constant resort of all the relatives of those who sleep below, and the dead and the living meet here morning and evening in tranquil repose. On another side the city is approached by a wide causeway, the work of its founder, which he intended as the avenue of communication between his new city and Byzantium. It is still used for the same purpose, and forms the highway to Constantinople, but, like all remains of Roman roads in the country, it is so dilapidated by Turkish unskilfulness and neglect, that it is nearly impassable, and travellers, when overtaken on it by darkness, are compelled to light their lanterns, and pass it with the same precaution as the precipice of the Balkans.
In a tour through some of the Turkish dominions in Europe, which Sultan Mahmoud made some years ago, he passed through Adrianople, and paid its state particular attention. He was met by deputations of the various people that compose its population−the Turks headed by their mollas, the Greeks by their ex-patriarch, the Armenians by their vertabiets, and the Jews by their hakim-bashi or high-priest. He distributed large sums of money among them for founding schools, so that the whole population are now in a course of instruction by Lancasterian seminaries, and others on the European system. He also gave directions for building a noble stone bridge across the Maritza, in place of the decayed and tottering wooden structure that he found there. To commemorate these acts of beneficence, a new coinage was struck, having for its emblem a rose on one side, to indicate its principal produce, the attar of roses; and on the other, a star, as a representation of the sultan. It happened, either by accident or design of the Greek artist, that the star was deficient in its rays, and represented only a cross. This was remarked with avidity by the sanguine Greeks, and this coinage of Adrianople was classed, among other similar things, as an indication of his intention to become a Christian.