I waited on his Excellency, as well to wish him a good journey, as to receive his commands for Smyrna.
June xiii.
I returned to the house of my esteemed freind, Mr. Goodfellow, in Galata; and the day following took leave of the Dutch ambassador and his family.
June xvi.
I made a visit by boat to the Seven Towers, now a prison for persons of quality, since by the fate of war it has fallen into the hands of the Turks, but antiently the Porta Janicula of Constantinople. The beautiful remains of this gate are still admirable, tho by the Turks suffered to be almost concealed by a dead wall, and the shade of the neighbouring trees. It is a regular and carved arch of white marble, supported by two beautiful pillars, adorned in the pilasters with a sculpture representing several military affairs, and flanked on each side the pillars with twelve tablets of carved work extremely well performed, which contain several poetical stories. Among the rest is Hercules and the Nemeaean lion, the beast prodigious and terrible, but confessing its conqueror by an agreable posture; Luna and Endymion; a winged Pegasus, managed by some of the Muses; a pourtraiture of the known combat of whirlbats; and an imperial figure, crowned by two celestial machines.
Returning by boat along the walls of the city, I observed its crooked figure and posture to the sea; and noted also the several square towers variously interspersed at unequal distances, each bearing an inscription much to the same purport, as may be seen by the following copy, which I took of them in the boat.
On a tower near the Porta Janicula:
ΠΥΡΓΟΣ ΒΑϹΙΛΕΙΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΚΩΝϹΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥ ΠΙϹΤΩΝ ΕΝ
Κ̅Ω̅ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΩΝ