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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    likewise another mosque, which is near the Hospital for Idiots. We found there many noble columns of porphyry and verd- antique, and likewise a statue of the European Adrian; at least they say so. It is very much trunculated, as it has lost its head and arm. The dress, however, is certainly Roman, and is the one which was generally worn by the Emperor. The English consul, who was my guide, and who is a very worthy and hospitable man, told me a very ridiculous, but, in my opinion, not an untrue story relating to this statue, which at once proves the ignorance and superstition of the Turks. The statue is very near the hospital for idiots. The master of the hospital had a great number of chickens, but, unfortu- nately, one night, the greater number were stolen. The poor Turk thought that Adrian had devoured them; so, in revenge, he cut off his head, and threw [it] into the river Marepa. Formerly there were many valuable remains of antiquity to be found in this city, but they have been almost all destroyed by the merciless and unrelenting Turks. Many of the columns have been employed in building their houses, but the greater part, I am told, have been buried under the foundation of Sultan Selim. The Turks respect neither the sanctity of reli- gion, nor the genius of man. There are in the town two very fine Besisteens. The largest was built by Ali Pasha, and is of a prodigious length. It consists of three hundred and sixty- five shops, in which every sort of merchandize is exposed for sale. The other, which is called “ Arasta,” is smaller, and is more particularly appropriated to the sale of shoes. They are both built of solid masonry, and have a beautiful appearance. Adrianople, as you well know, is celebrated as being the first capital of the Turks in Europe. Mahomet the fourth and Mustapha the first lived here entirely, which occasioned so much jealousy among the Janissaries of Constantinople that they rebelled and deposed those two monarchs. Achmet the third, not dismayed by the fate of his two predecessors, was