Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

$2 TRAVELS IN ASIATIC TURKEY,
Smith, the artificer^ the s-ymptpros of whose fever hud daily assumed
a stronger degree
of
malignity,
had died in the course of the
jnc eding evening.
His \\uo in
bqdy already
a
high state of pu refaction
; anil the same tever haying-broken out among the inhabitants
of Chi/iicJc,
1 wrote to General KoehUr^ to advise that our people
should be immediately removed. From the General I learned in
re. urn, that the detachment was to be embarked on board the trans-
port then lying
off Tcphunu, and to proceed in her to the J'anlanellts,
as soon as the steps preparatory to the expedition should have
been taken.
On my return from Chiflick., on the 29 th, I rode towards an an-
cient tower, which Europeans have denominated the tower of
Ovid, and which is conjectured to have been originally a signal
tower, from which the inhabitants were warned of the approach
of the ve^els of the Cossacks, whose piracies on the coasts of the
Euxine sea, near which this tower stands, were formerly so much
dreaded.
On the 1st of October, in the evening, a large fire broke out in
a village near Constantinople, situated above the arsenal. It was
a truly grand and awful spectacle; but the whole of the damage
was conhned to the destruction of some he uses.
In the morning after this event, 1 went to Constantinople, where
I visited the mosque of Santa Sophia, and the mad-house, situated
at the extremity of the Hippodrome, or blimey dan.
Santa Sophia, as has been already mentioned, was formerly a
Christian church, and built
by
the Emperor Justin. It was con-
verted by the Turks into a mosque, stii! however retaining its ori-
ginal name. This building, which always attracts the attention of
travellers, is a hundred and fourteen paces iri length, and eightv in
breadth: the dome, which covers the centre of the building, is in
the form of a half globe, rather depressed, and .is altogether sin-
of architecture.
gular in its style
Within side he mosque there is a porch that ranges round its
sides, which supports another gallery thirty paces broad, both vault-
ed over, and supported by a great number of beautiful pillars,
many of which are of verd antique. These columns uphold the
building. You arrive at the upper gallery by means of an easy,
winding, but paved ascent (or stair case), up which horses can
easily ascend. At one end of this gallery there is an enclosed place,
with a gilt grating or lattice work, for the Sultan's use, when he
visits this mosque.