The despotism of the Turkish government cannot, in this instance, be subject of complaint; when, amid all its reverses, and all its necessities, it has ever respected the property thus trustingly confided; while it can scarcely be denied that the admirable integrity, which is the great safeguard of the heaped-up wealth within the walls of the mosque, is at least as worthy of commendation, as the generous liberality which has foreborne to levy a tax upon so valuable a privilege.
From the mosque we passed out by a charming covered walk to the mausoleum of the Magnificent Solyman; an elegant cupolaed building, with a fluted roof projecting about two feet forward, cased with marble on the outside, and finely painted within in delicate frescoes. An enormous plane tree flings its tortuous branches over the beautiful edifice, which has far more the aspect of a temple than a tomb; and the sunshine falls flickeringly on the marble steps, as it struggles through the fresh leaves. The floor is richly carpeted, and along the centre are ranged the sarcophagi of Solyman the Magnificent and his successor, of Sultan Akhmet, and of the two daughters of the Imperial founder of the mosque. Those of the Sultans are adorned with lofty turbans of white muslin, decorated with aigrettes, and attached to the sarcophagi by costly shawls; the tombs of the Princesses are covered plainly with cachemire of a dark green colour, and are considerably injured by time.
An admirable model of the mosque of Mecca occupied a stand on the right of the entrance, and was an object of general curiosity; it was well executed, and gave an excellent idea not only of the building itself but of the approaches to it. The Tomb of the Prophet occupied the centre of the plan; and the line of road, covered with pilgrims, with its mountain barrier and halting-places, enabled the spectator to form an accurate judgment of the locality.
In all mausoleums of this description, (and they abound in Constantinople) a priest each day lights up the huge wax candles that are placed at the feet of the sarcophagi, and leaves them burning while he reads a chapter from the Koran. Every part of the building is kept scrupulously clean, and a grain of dust is never suffered to pollute the tombs; the light is freely admitted to the interior, and no feeling of gloom connects itself with these resting-places of the dead, which are the very types of luxury and comfort.
Each mausoleum has its peculiar priest, which renders a fact that at first startled me infinitely less surprising; I allude to the immense number of individuals attached to the service of each mosque—St. Sophia alone, as I have been credibly informed, affording occupation to more than three hundred persons!
Three accessories are indispensable to a mosque—a clock, a fountain, and a minaret; the clock determines the hour of prayer—the fountain enables the Faithful to perform their ablutions—and the minaret supplies the gallery whence the muezzin warns the pious to the temple of Allah.
But, independently of these, every Imperial mosque possesses also its Medresch or College, where the Sophtas are instructed at the expense of the establishment; and its Imaret, or receiving-house for pilgrims, where wayfaring strangers are lodged and fed, and the poor are relieved at a certain hour each day, when a distribution of food takes place to all who think proper to solicit it. In the event of a Kourban, or sacrifice, it is in the Imaret that the animal is put to death, and shared among the needy who throng its entrance to benefit by the pious offering.
The mosque of Sultan Mahmoud at Topphannè is greatly enhanced in beauty by the splendid fountain and clock-house which he has built on either side of the entrance; and whose gilded lattice-work, and paintings in arabesque are truly Oriental in their taste; this small but elegant mosque is also remarkable for the gilt spires of its minarets, and the stately flight of marble steps by which it is approached.
The ruins of a mosque still remain in Constantinople which was overthrown by an earthquake, wherein the tomb of the Sultan by whom it was built, was covered with a slab of red marble, said to have been the identical stone on which our Saviour was stretched on his descent from the cross, embalmed, and prepared for the sepulchre!
All the principal mosques are surrounded, and partially overshadowed, by ancient and stately trees, that, in many cases, appear to be coeval with the edifice, and through whose leafy screen portions of the white building gleam out in strong relief; and these are dominated in their turn by the arrowy minarets, which, springing from a dense mass of foliage, cut sharply against the clear sky, and heighten the beauty of the picture.