SECTION VI.
On the wonderful Talismans within and without Kostantíneh.
First talisman. In the ‘Avret-Bázárí (female-slave-market), there is a lofty column (the pillar of Arcadius) of white marble, inside of which there is a winding staircase. On the outside of it, figures of the soldiers of various nations, Hindustánies, Kurdistánies, and Múltánies, whom Yánkó ibn Mádiyán vanquished, were sculptured by his command; and on the summit of it there was anciently a fairy-cheeked female figure of one of the beauties of the age, which once a year gave a sound, on which many hundred thousand kinds of birds, after flying round and round the image, fell down to the earth, and being caught by the people of Rúm (Romelia), provided them with an abundant meal. Afterwards, in the age of Kostantín, the monks placed bells on the top of it, in order to give an alarm on the approach of an enemy; and subsequently, at the birth of the Prophet, there was a great earthquake, by which the statue and all the bells on the top of the pillar were thrown down topsy-turvy, and the column itself broken in pieces: but, having been formed by talismanic art, it could not be entirely destroyed, and part of it remains an extraordinary spectacle to the present day.
Second talisman. In the Táúk-Bázár (poultry-market) there is another needle-like column (the pillar of Theodosius), formed of many pieces of red emery (súmpáreh) stone, and a hundred royal cubits (zirá’ melikí) high. This was also damaged by the earthquake which occurred in the two nights during which the Pride of the World was called into existence; but the builders girt it round with iron hoops, as thick as a man’s thigh, in forty places, so that it is still firm and standing. It was erected a hundred and forty years before the era of Iskender; and Kostantín placed a talisman on the top of it in the form of a starling, which once a year clapped his wings, and brought all the birds in the air to the place, each with three olives in his beak and talons, for the same purpose as was related above.
Third talisman. At the head of the Serráj-kháneh (saddlers’ bazar), on the summit of a column stretching to the skies (the pillar of Marcian), there is a chest of white marble, in which the unlucky-starred daughter of king Puzentín (Byzantius) lies buried; and to preserve her remains from ants and serpents was this column made a talisman.
Fourth talisman. At the place called Altí Mermer (the six marbles), there are six columns, every one of which was an observatory, made by some of the ancient sages. On one of them, erected by the Hakím Fílikús (Philip), lord of the castle of Kaválah, was the figure of a black fly, made of brass, which, by its incessant humming, drove all flies away from Islámból.
Fifth talisman. On another of the six marble columns, Iflátún (Plato) the divine made the figure of a gnat, and from that time there is no fear of a single gnat‘s coming into Islámbúl.
Sixth talisman. On another of these columns, the Hakím Bokrát (Hippocrates) placed the figure of a stork, and once a year, when it uttered a cry, all the storks which had built their nests in the city died instantly. To this time, not a stork can come and build its nest within the walls of Islámból, though there are plenty of them in the suburbs of Abú Iyyúb Ensárí.
Seventh talisman. On the top of another of the six marble columns, Sokrát the Hakím (i.e. Socrates the sage) placed a brazen cock, which clapped its wings and crowed once in every twenty-four hours, and on hearing it all the cocks of Islámbúl began to crow. And it is a fact, that to this day the cocks there crow earlier than those of other places, setting up their kú-kirí-kúd (i.e. crowing) at midnight, and thus warning the sleepy and forgetful of the approach of dawn and the hour of prayer.