OUTER COOLING-ROOM OF THE BATH, NEAR PSAMATIA KAPOUSI.

A district of Constantinople is called Psamatia, from a miracle of the Greek church. During one of those verbal and frivolous controversies which divided it, a priest was reproved by a young child for some unsound opinion. He replied, he would hold it till convinced by a sensible miracle that it was wrong. The child was immediately seized by an invisible hand, and held suspended in the air over the heterodox priest, till he confessed and recanted his error. This miracle, called in the Greek church ypsomathea, or “the divine elevation,” gave a name to the whole district, where it is firmly believed at this day. It is one of the quarters inhabited by the Armenians, and presents many indications of the wealth and industry of that thriving people.

It contains one of the principal baths of the city, in the luxury of which, Oriental Christians, as well as Moslems, indulge. After the process we have already described is gone through, the bather, purged from all corporeal impurities, and escaped from the sensations of suffocation and dislocation, is led by the tellah to enjoy the luxury he has, in the opinion of many, dearly earned. Here, in an apartment reduced to a moderate temperature, reclined at ease on a divan, his purified person slightly covered with shawls, entirely divested of his clothes, and perfectly free from all pressure or restraint, he feels a renovated existence. Refreshments of various kinds are brought to him, and, after taking them, he lies for some time sunk in that dreamy repose of half-conscious existence, which is the very paradise of an Oriental. When this is past, and the heat of his body is reduced gradually to its usual temperature, so that he apprehends no peril from sudden change, he resumes his clothes, and goes on his way rejoicing.

Nothing can afford a stronger contrast than the cautious effeminacy of a Turk, and the rude hardihood of his neighbour and enemy the Russian, in this particular. Both equally indulge in hot-baths; but the one reduces the temperature of his body afterwards, by careful gradations, even in the midst of summer, and dreads any extreme sensation as mortal; while the other rushes from burning heat, with every pore streaming with perspiration, into the intense cold of frozen snow, in the depth of winter, and thinks the luxury and salubrity of the bath increased by the contrast.

By a return of the Stambol effendi, or Turkish lord-mayor, there were in the city 88,115 houses, 130 of which were public baths, in which most of the inmates of the other houses daily indulged. To accommodate the number, men and women were obliged to have recourse to the same bath, at different hours.

T. Allom.J. Redaway.

THE ACROPOLIS OF PERGAMUS.
ASIA MINOR.

This city of the Apocalypse was distinguished by many circumstances worthy of record, both in profane and sacred history. It was erected by Philoterus, a eunuch, into the capital of many nations, comprising Lydia, Caria, Phrygia, and other states of Asia Minor, two centuries and a half before the birth of Christ. It possessed the greatest library then known in the world, consisting of 200,000 volumes, afterwards brought by Cleopatra to form that of Alexandria. It gave rise to a material for writing which has since been invaluable in the world. Ptolemy had prohibited the exportation of papyrus from Egypt, and an artist of Pergamus invented parchment, thence called “pergamea.” It was celebrated for the worship of Esculapius, who had a splendid temple there. The priests were the physicians, and the temple was crowded with patients, who invoked succour by watching and prayer. This was communicated by means of dreams and visions through the priests, who administered the remedies which they affirmed the god directed. Mighty sovereigns were among the number of these patients. The last king, Attalus, was noted for his tyranny and singularity. He obtained the name of Philometor, for his love to his mother, and became a brass-founder, in order to cast for himself a statue of her. While engaged in his forge, working as a common artisan, on a hot day, he was seized with a fever, of which he died. His will was another mark of singularity: it consisted of one line−“Let the Roman people inherit all I possess.” The Romans were charged with forging this will, and poisoning the waters of the city, to compel the inhabitants to comply with it. The state from that time became a Roman province; and it was thus, by force or fraud, this ambitious people finally became masters of the then known world.

When Christianity expanded itself in Asia, Pergamus became the third church of the Apocalypse; but it appears, from the reproach of the evangelist, that it was early infected with that heresy, which has caused, in all ages, such injury to the church of Christ. “So hast thou also them which hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which I hate,” says St. John.[14] These heretics were the followers of Nicolas−a proselyte of Antioch, and one of the seven deacons mentioned in the Acts.[15] They were “addicted to the vain babblings of science falsely so called,”[16] pretended to a more deep and mysterious knowledge of spirits and angels, and were the origin of the sect of “Gnostics,” who, in the early ages of the Gospel, degraded it by absurd opinions and foul practices. This church fell like the others, and less perhaps to be regretted, under the dominion of the Osmanli, when, with the sword in one hand, and the Koran in the other, they left the inhabitants of Asia no alternative but death or Mahomet. As they advanced among the Greek cities, they made their perfection in the arts the means of subduing them. They not only cut their beautiful marble columns into portions, and rounded them into cannon-balls, but they perforated the larger pillars into artillery for throwing the pieces of the smaller. At Pergamus many of the shafts of the columns of their temples were thus converted into cannon.

The present city, now called Bergamo, by a slight corruption of the original name, contains 50,000 inhabitants, of whom 1700 are Christians of the Greek and Armenian churches, and 100 Jews, who have a synagogue. It is approached by an ancient bridge passing over a tributary stream of the Caicus. It forms the front ground of our illustration, with a caravan passing it. In the background is seen the Acropolis, commanding a splendid view over the vast and rich plain below, as far as the Egean sea. On this grand elevation stood the magnificent temple, extensive remains of which still exist, visible from the sea. On the plain below was the Naumachia, where naval combats were held, supposed to be the most splendid in Asia; and among the remains of ruder works is a portion of a common sewer, consisting of a cylinder of brick, thirty feet in diameter. But the ruin most interesting to the Christian traveller is that of Agios Theologus, the Evangelist St. John, erected by Theodosius, when he surmounted the Globe he held in hand with a Cross−to declare that Christianity had now become the paramount religion of the world.

T. Allom.J. C. Bentley.

THE TRIPLE WALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
ON THE LAND SIDE, NEAR TOP KAPOUSI.

The walls of Constantinople, notwithstanding the shocks of earthquakes, the numerous assaults of besiegers, the decay of time, and the dilapidations of neglect, are at this day surprisingly perfect; and though fifteen centuries have passed since their first erection, they include the same space, and stand at the same elevation. The great wall, forming as it were the base of the triangular area on which the city is built, and running from sea to sea, is nearly five miles in extent: a broad high road passes parallel to and just under it, so that a traveller can view without interruption the whole line, from the Golden Horn to the Propontis, and contemplate, during a delightful walk, the most interesting remains perhaps existing in the world. In some places the rising ground so elevates him, that he sees a considerable part of the interior of the city over the walls, and he looks down upon places, hallowed by various recollections, which the narrowness and obscurity of the streets prevent his viewing from within.

This wall, originally erected by Constantine the Great, was enlarged by Theodosius, and is therefore called after his name. It suffered various shocks by violence of different kinds−of nature, time, and the hand of man−and was finally repaired by Leo and Theophilus. From the district called Blachernæ, where it meets the harbour, it rises to an immense height, and towers to a surprising elevation above the head of the passenger. The uniformity is broken, however, by the remains of edifices on the summit of the wall, and the rich drapery of ivy and various trailing plants, which cover it. Here the wall, secured by its magnitude, is single, and presents but one defence. But at the gate called Egri Kapousi, or the crooked gate, where it forms an angle, the elevation is less, and the defence increased by a triple wall of three parallel fortifications, which extend to the Seven Towers and the sea. The walls are eighteen feet asunder, crowned with battlements, and defended by fifty-nine towers, of various forms and sizes. Inserted in different places are tablets of stone or iron, containing inscriptions which commemorate events, or persons who repaired the walls; but most of them are now entirely effaced, particularly those on iron, by the rust and corrosion of the metal. The masonry in some parts consists of huge blocks of granite, resembling those early structures in Greece called Cyclopean, from the fancy of mythologists, that they had been erected by gigantic architects. In others, they are composed of alternate courses of broad flat bricks, resembling our tiles, and stones twice the thickness. Arcades and arches, both in the walls and towers, are formed, in a curious manner, of similar materials. The wall is entered by seven gates, called by the names of the towns to which they lead, or some circumstance connected with them. Of the latter, is the gate of Top Kapousi.

This gate, called also Porta Sancti Romani, as leading to the Greek church of St. Romanus, was that rendered memorable by the final attack of the Turks. Before it stands the Mal Tepé, one of those artificial mounds, supposed to be sepulchral tumuli, which are spread for many hundred miles over these regions, both in Europe and Asia. The summit commands an extensive view of the interior of the city, and here Mahomet II. erected the Sandjak-sheriff, or great standard of the Prophet, and directed the operations of the siege. Beside the gate are seen, yet unrepaired, the breaches made in the walls by that enormous artillery which he caused to be cast for the purpose, and on the summit of the gate are placed some of the huge granite balls discharged from them, in memory of the event; and hence the gate is now called Top Kapousi, or “Port of the Cannon.” When the cross was sinking under the crescent, and the great capital of the Christian world was just falling into the hands of the followers of Mahomet, Constantine retired to the church of Sancta Sophia, and, after receiving, with his few faithful adherents, the solemn eucharist, proceeded to make his last effort in the breach. He was killed in the attack, and the Turks poured into the devoted city over his body. There is no tomb, or coin, or other artificial memorial, to preserve the name of this good and gallant man; but nature has herself supplied the neglect. There grows out of the breach some picturesque and venerable trees, on the spot where tradition says he fell; and travellers gather the red berries in their season, to sow and propagate at home these testimonials of the last and best of the Palæologi.

T. Allom.W. H. Capone.