| W. L. Leitch. | Drawn from Nature by Hervé, Esq. | J. Sands. |
A STREET IN THE SUBURBS OF ADRIANOPLE.
This capital of Thrace is one of the many towns erected by the emperor Hadrian in the East, and who, from his strong propensity for building, acquired the name of κτιϛσης “the architect.” His travels were marked by memorials of this kind, and his progress is to be traced, not like that of other conquerors, by the ruins, but by the erections he left behind him; and several towns, both in Asia and Europe, still retain his “image and superscription.” He selected for his Thracian city the banks of the classic Hebrus, and for many centuries it continued a flourishing town under the Greek empire. When the Turks passed into Europe in 1362, they seized on it, and, transferring the seat of empire from Brusa, they made Adrianople their capital, and called it Ederne. It so continued for more than a century, till Mahomet destroyed the empire of the Greeks, and there established his seat of government in the imperial city of Constantinople.
The city stands at the confluence of the rivers Toondja and Arda with the Maritza, the modern name for the Hebrus. After this union, the river becomes a noble stream, flowing down to the Archipelago, where it debouches into the Sea, amongst a group of Islands, near to the town of Enos, which is considered the port of Adrianople, and the outlet of its scanty trade. Various streams, flowing through the rich country around the capital, fertilize it to the highest capability of produce, but such advantages are totally neglected. No corn is raised on these exuberant plains, even for their own consumption. When the Russians in 1830 descended from the Balkans, they expected to find well-filled magazines ready for the supply of the army. They found nothing. No stores had ever been laid up, and 8000 men, are said to have perished at Adrianople by want and subsequent sickness. Their advance on Constantinople was suspended, and the indolence and improvidence of the Turks, without intending it, saved their capital.
The present city is eight miles in circumference, and contains about 100,000 inhabitants. It is adorned with many public edifices, and splendid mosques, among which is that of Sultan Selim, supposed to rival that of Sulimanie, or any other in the capital. Its aërial dome is twenty feet higher than that of Santa Sophia, and its symmetrical and beautiful proportions are the admiration of all strangers. On the porch is read one line only from the Koran, as simple as it is noble, “Allah is the light of heaven, which illumines the darkness of the earth.”
