February xxvii.
In two hours from our conáck we arrive at Uzunkuprée, a town which has its name from the fair adjoining bridge of an hundred and sixty six arches, and by Saidino is called Ponte d’Erchiene[105]. We were the full space of fifteen minutes in passing this bridge, and towards the further end, which is the most conspicuous part, we observed ten or twelve heads carved on the battlements, that enclose the bridge, in memory, as it is said, of so many chief workmen strangled by Sultan Morát the first (who founded it) for building it so narrow, as not to admit of two carts at once. In two hours farther we arrive at the sandy and delicious banks of Hebrus, just opposite to the city and castle of Dimotico, where Sultan Morát began to seat the palace of his emperial residence. From hence we pass along the bank of that slow, but then plentiful river[106], and after two hours and a half take up our lodgings in a cold inconvenient hovel at Elchilée.
February xxviii.
By five this morning we proceed in a level sandy road on the banks of the Hebrus, where we observe a vast quantity of wild fowl, and by nine arrive at the palace of my Lord Paget in Adrianople, being filled with admiration at the beauty of the river, campain, and prospect of so fair a city.
Adrianople is seated on the Hebrus, at the place where it receives the Tunsa and the Harda. It is a fair and compact city, about five miles in circumference, rising gently on the side of a small hill from the banks of the Hebrus and Tunsa[107]. What is there remarkable, may be reduced to the seraglio, mosques, and sharshées. The seraglio is built in a flat and verdant plain, at the foot of the city betwixt the Hebrus and Tunsa, but more immediately upon the banks of the latter. It is surrounded almost on all sides with a thick grove of beech and elm, which within form the resemblance of a park, and outwardly yeild a grateful prospect, in regard that the countrey about it is almost wholly naked of wood. A square wall encloses the fabric, which is truly mean, and of a confused intricate figure; but, as is commonly said, well contrived for convenience. The matter is plain free stone, and the covering of lead. Nothing can be more grateful to the eye, than the sight of this level verdant situation; and yet in regard of its lowness, and too near approach to the rivers, nothing more unwholesome. It seems to stand in the very same place, where Constantine gave that famous defeat to Licinnius[108].
The mosques observable in this place are those called Eskijamí, the Three Sheríffs, Sultan Bajazet, and Sultan Selím. The first of these is so called from its antiquity, which Morát the first here established, and converted to that profane use from a Christian church, of which it still retains the intire figure. The second is to be observed for the abundance of porphyry, which appears in the fabric, and the various architecture of the four minarées, together with many serpentine pillars, which support the porticos of the area. The third likewise has many serpentine pillars round the area, and those of interrupted veins and distinct materials, which seem to persuade one, that they are of a cast substance. But the greatest beauty of this city, and as some think of the whole empire, is the mosque of Sultan Selím the second, built by him out of materials brought chiefly from the ruins of Famagusta, in the island of Cyprus. Yet in regard that the area is not square, nor supported with so rich or correspondent pillars, excepting four that adorn the front, I esteem it inferior to the two noble mosques of Solymán and Achmét at Constantinople. Otherwise it is a fair structure, built with great conformity of its several parts, and like a theatre consisting of one stately room ending upwards in a cupola. It is adorned with four regular and beautiful minarées, each of which has two hundred forty four stairs leading into the uppermost balcony. For in each of them are three balconies, that imitate the capitals of pillars, between which the whole body of the column is regularly chanel’d. One of these is famous for having three staircases winding one within another, of which one opens into the three balconies, another into the two highest, and the third only into the last of all. From thence we once took the opportunity of viewing the several parts and precincts of the city, the plat of the seraglio, the course of the rivers, and the face of the countrey below, with the busy care of the several mortals, wandering like so many ants on that spot of earth then subject to our eye. Here I could not but pleasantly recollect those templa serena of Lucretius, L. i. ℣. 8.
Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre
Errare, atque viam palantes quaerere vitae.
Adjoining to Sultan Bajazet I was shewn a madhouse or bedlam, which is a noble building of a round figure, covered with a regular cupola, and having a large area in the middle, and therein a cistern of water; but conveniently divided all round into six chambers made archwise, and opening on one side into the area. Here were kept three madmen, all furnished with clean mats, and tied close down to the pavement by an iron chain fastned about their neck for greater security.
The sharshées are two long and fair porticos, walled with brick or stone on each side, and securely arched over head, so as to resist fire. The shorter of these adjoins to Sultan Selím, and is appropriated to the shoemakers: but the other, being about four hundred paces long and six broad, is filled with shops of various trades; all which are shallow niches in the wall of equal hight and breadth, and in general so regularly contrived, that the whole represents a beautiful and rich gallery.