Volume 1

Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the completion of her memoirs, narrated by her physician.

  • Meryon, Charles Lewis, 1783-1877.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the completion of her memoirs, narrated by her physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    The town of Adrianople is beautifully situated in a rich and cultivated plain, which is watered by three rivers. The Marepa (the ancient Hebrus), which takes its rise in the moun- tains near Philipopoli; the Toungi, whose source is near the Black Sea; and the Lardi. These three rivers join a little below the town, and lose themselves in the sea at Onos. The city is eight miles in circumference, and its population eighty thousand souls—consisting of forty thousand Turks, twenty thousand Greeks, six thousand Armenians, and the same number of Jews. Since the province of Bulgaria has been ravaged by the Turks, many of the poor inhabitants have taken refuge in this place, which has very much increased the number. Like all other Turkish towns, (Turkey in Europe) the houses are built of wood, and the streets are excessively narrow and very badly paved. From a distance, the irregularity of the houses, with the interspersion of trees, and the mosques, with their lofty minarets, produce a very picturesque and fantastic ap- pearance. Adrianople boasts, however, of many magnificent buildings—the mosque built by Selim the Second is a noble structure, and, in my opinion, far surpasses Sophia, Sultan Achmet, or any of the others which I have [seen] at Constan- tinople. It is, I am told, one of the truest specimens of Turkish architecture. It consists of two courts, surrounded by porticoes, which are supported by large and massive columns of porphyry and verd-antique. The roof is composed of several cupolas—the interior appeared to be spacious and magnificent, and has one prodigious dome. I am unable, however, to give you a minute description, as I was only allowed to have a hasty glance. The Turks do not wish it to be profaned by the eyes of an infidel. Not very distant from Sultan Selim is another mosque, which was formerly the church of the Trinity, and is now called by the Turks “ Utchirif,” which, I believe, is nothing more than a translation of the word “ Trinity.” It is a very handsome building, but very inferior to the other. There is