April xxviii.
I retired to Belgrade, a small Greek village, seated about twelve miles from Constantinople, and about five from the Euxine sea; where the English ambassador has a countrey seat. It is pleasantly situated among large woods of oak, beech, chesnut, and other trees, and enjoys an healthy air and water. Here I took the opportunity of riding to visit the famous aqueducts of Constantinople, distant from this village about six miles, which were built by Valentinian the first[82], accurante Clearcho praefecto, as Cassiodorus says[83]; and afterwards repaired by Solymán the Magnificent, who exempted twelve adjacent Greek villages from the customary tribute of this empire, for the care he enjoined them of keeping these aqueducts in repair. The most remarkable of them are three great and lofty fabrics, built over so many valleys betwixt the adjoining hills, of which the longest has many but less arches, and may possibly be the entire work of Solymán. The other two have the appearance of a more antient and regular architecture, consisting of two rows of arches one over the other; and those of the second row enclosed by pillars cut thro the middle, so as to render the fabric both passable like a bridge, and useful for the conveyance of water. The more considerable of these two consists only of four large arches, each twenty yards long, and something above twenty high, supported by octangular pillars of about fifty six yards in circumference towards the bottom. The village of Belgrade is likewise honoured with two royal kiosks, the one of the Grand Signior, the other of the Validée; each situated in two delightful recesses of the neighbouring wood, and adorned with natural avenues thro lofty groves of beech, oak, and chesnut. At each of these kiosks the waters of the public aqueduct are gathered into fair and ample cisterns of hewn stone, from whence they pass in arched chanels under ground to the royal city.