Travels in Turkey and back to England / By the late reverend and learned Edmund Chishull.

  • Edmund Chishull
Date:
1747
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels in Turkey and back to England / By the late reverend and learned Edmund Chishull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/216 (page 39)
    April via. This morning about nine a clock the wind, which changed nothing of its point, yet abated fo much of its ftrength, that it permitted us to turn from the Seven Towers along the bending walls of Confiantinople, as far as the Seraglio point. But the vio¬ lence of the current prohibiting us to make the harbour of Ga- lata, the fhip was again obliged to drop anchor, and wait till fhe could either make fail with a fair wind, or take the opportunity of a calm to be towed in by hamals. We had not long caft anchor, when my efteemed freind, Mr. Matthias Goodfellow, was pleafed to vilit me on board the fhip; and carrying me afhore in the boat, which brought him, firft introduced me to his excellency, the Lord Paget, and then kindly allotted me a pleafant and con¬ venient apartment in his houfe at Galata. April xiii. This day I attended the funeral of Signior Demetrafco, chief dragoman to the Englifh ambaflador, who tho by faith a Latin, yet by birth was of the Greek nation. And accordingly in the way of burying proper to this latter, I obferved the manner of carrying the corps of the deceafed barefaced, clothed in his late ufual ha¬ bit, and fupported by four of his neareft relations; who were followed by women Haves, hired to make a hideous pomp, by teaving their hair, extorting forced and counterfeit tears, and re¬ peating in a continual loud and frightful lamentation, w d<pei“]n >* that is, 0 my mafier / April xv. I paid a vifit to Signior Romharts, a gentile and ingenious merchant of the Dutch nation, at his houfe in Curuchejmee, a village on the Thracian Bofphorus. Here I obferved a Jbphd room remarkably adorned after the richeft Turkifh fafhion, the roof . formed into a cupola, and the gilding and painting of the whole fo fplendidly curious, that it amounted at firft to the fum of four thoufand hangars, or two thoufand pounds fterling.