The Mausoleum of Sultan Ali Osman, the son of Orcan, which occupies the other wing of the building, contains no object of particular interest; the Hall of Sepulchre is similar in material and in arrangement, save that the Sarcophagi of his wives and children are simply whitewashed. The modern Emperors have been more gallant; and many a deceased Sultana sleeps the last sleep at Constantinople, covered with shawls which, during the rage for cachemeres in Paris, would have killed half the élégantes with envy.
From the Mausoleum of Sultan Ali Osman, we passed into the vaults of the Monastery, and through a subterranean cloister, supported by pillars; whence we clambered by a crazy ladder into what had evidently been the Chapel of the Monastery. Fragments of frescoes still remain about the dilapidated altar, and on the screen of the Sanctuary—here it is a head without a body, and there a pair of legs without either—on one side a half-effaced inscription in old Monkish Latin; and on the other a cluster of wild flowers, concealing the ruin against which they lean. Several of the arches of the chapel still remain, and are very gracefully formed, but the whole scene is one of melancholy: the only portions of the building which are perfect are the tombs of the Ottoman Emperors; all that yet bears the trace of Christianity is stamped with ruin.
We next visited the remains of the Palace of the ancient Greek Emperors, whose dilapidated gateway is flanked by the mouldering remains of two bassi relievi; and the fragments of two fountains of white marble, whose waters, unrestrained by the mutilated basins into which they poured themselves, have worn a narrow channel beside the road, where they rush along, sparkling in the sunshine. The capital of one of the columns which once graced them still remains nearly entire, and is of that elegant stalactite-like architecture peculiar to the Arabs, and quite unknown in Europe. Having passed the gate, we entered a small court, thickly planted with ancient mulberry trees, and containing the remains of some of the Imperial offices; whence a second door admitted us into a wide enclosure, now converted into a nursery-garden, full of vigorous vegetation.
Passing onward, we crossed, by a few unsteady planks, a portion of the ancient fosse, and found ourselves upon the wall overhanging the city, surrounded by the group of mouldering and ivy-grown towers that I had remarked on my journey, and which I found to be the remains of the Palace.
RUINS OF THE IMPERIAL PALACE.
Nothing more magnificent can be imagined than the view from this height. The wide plain through which we had travelled from the coast lay spread out before us, dotted over its whole surface with mulberry and olive trees—the river ran rushing in the light among the dense vegetation—far as the eye could reach, lofty mountains, purpled by the distance, shut in the prospect—while, immediately beneath us, Broussa lay mapped out in all its extent, the sober-coloured buildings overshadowed by lofty trees; and the three hundred and eighty mosques of the city scattered in the most picturesque irregularity along the side of the mountains, and on the skirts of the valley. The palace of a Pasha was close beside us, and behind us rose the lofty chain of land which veiled the lordly summit of Mount Olympus; while over all laughed the bluest and the brightest sky that imagination can picture.
Beyond this, and this was of course the result of situation, and in itself independent of other interest, the remains of the Imperial Palace are altogether destitute of attraction; its decay is too far advanced, or rather its destruction is too absolute, to present a single charm to the most determined ruin-hunter in the world.
About a mile higher up the mountain stand the remains of a Roman aqueduct; half a dozen mouldering towers of colossal dimensions rise hoar and gray against the sky, and at their feet rushes along the pellucid water that supplies the fountains of the city. A narrow channel formed of stone, and full to overflowing, guides the course of the stream, which escapes from the heart of the mountain at the point where it hems in the gayest and the greenest valley that ever fairy revelled in by moonlight. The channel skirts this valley, until it again passes beneath the living rock, and pours itself into the reservoirs of Broussa—but it is less of the mountain stream, or of the fine old Roman remains, that I desire to speak, than of the lovely glen to which I have just alluded.