The Mosques of Constantinople are the most wonderful objects of that renowned city. More than 300 are picturesquely distributed in conspicuous parts, and form a most attractive feature to the eye of the traveller. The city itself is built upon seven gentle hills, which is the main cause not only of its grandeur of appearance, but also of its salubrity and comparative cleanliness. There are fourteen chief or imperial mosques, all lofty, and magnificent in their general dimensions, and built from base to dome, of enduring materials, chiefly of white marble, slightly tinged with grey. Some of these have two, some four, and one (that of Sultan Achmet) has even six of those light, thin, lofty, arrowy, and most graceful towers called minarets. The mosque of Santa Sophia was once a Christian cathedral, and is rich in historical recollections. This mosque ranks as one of the grandest edifices. The ridge of the first hill on which the city stands, setting out from the north eastern part, is covered by the Serai or palace of the Sultan, behind which, a little on the reverse of the hill, the dome of Santa Sophia shows itself. The colleges and hospitals, which are generally attached to or near the great mosques, offer no striking architectural features; but some of the detached chapels or sepulchres (turbés), where sultans, viziers, and other great personages repose, are handsome.
GOLD MASK FROM THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES.
MASK OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
This interesting relic of remote antiquity is at present preserved in the Museum of the East India Company. It was found by Colonel Rawlinson while engaged in prosecuting the discoveries commenced by Layard and Botta, at Nineveh and Babylon; and is supposed to have belonged to King Nebuchadnezzar. In exhuming from the mounds of these long-lost rival cities, the instructive remains of this once gigantic Power, the Colonel discovered, in a perfect state of preservation, what is well believed to be the mummy of Nebuchadnezzar. The face of the rebellious monarch of Babylon, covered by one of those gold masks usually found in Assyrian tombs, is described as very handsome—the forehead high and commanding, the features marked and regular. The mask is of thin gold, and independent of its having once belonged to the great monarch, has immense value as a relic of an ancient and celebrated people.
The Arab tribes encamping about Wurka and other great mounds search in the loose gravel with their spears for coffins. Gold and silver ornaments, which have been buried in these graves for centuries, are worn by the Arab women of the present day; and many a rare object recovered from them is sold and melted by the goldsmiths of the East. The Arabs mention the discovery, by some fortunate shepherd, of Royal tombs, in which were crowns and sceptres of solid gold.
FROST FAIR ON THE THAMES.
"I went crosse the Thames," says Evelyn, January 9, 1683-4, "on the ice, which now became so thick as to bear not only streetes of boothes, in which they roasted meate, and had divers shops of wares, quite acrosse as in a towne, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. So I went from Westminster Stayres to Lambeth, and din'd with the Archbishop. I walked over the ice (after dinner) from Lambeth Stayres to the Horseferry.
"The Thames (Jany 16) was filled with people and tents, selling all sorts of wares as in a citty. The frost (Jany 24) continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planned with boothes in formal streetes, all sorts of trades and shops furnished and full of commodities, even to a printing-presse, where the people and ladyes took a fancy to have their names printed on the Thames. This humour took so universally, that 'twas estimated the printer gained £5 a-day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a day, besides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires to and fro, as in the streetes, sleds, sliding with skeates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet playes and interludes, cookes, tipling, and other lewd places, so that it seem'd to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water."