DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9697#0310
246
COVEL'S DIARY.
you a most passionate story of her, but let this suffice.
There were about 500 Greekes came to her buryall, not-
withstanding the Plague, and theMetropolite of Adrianople
came to burye her ; and the chief of the Town, which were
fled, came back to the funerall. The young fellow was in
a manner distracted, and came constantly every morning
for many dayes, and mourned over her grave.
The manner of the Christians buriall here is much the
same ; all have the Praeficae} who sing (or rather howl and
snarlle out), which they begin at home and continue to
the grave. The weather was excessive hot, and the air
stagnated in a manner, we being placed in a pan or flat ;
so that it was plague enough merely to stay there. Whilst
we were in Adrianople the rats and mice, and fleas, and
rumbling of carts al night long, and brawling of curs (great
numbers being nourisht in every street), and the stink of
the Jewes, did give us no small purgatory ; but coming
here, where we thought to have had braver accommo-
dations, we found it worse. The terrible heat of the sun
reflected from a dry barren sandy soil, and the fulsome
foggy aire, broyled us and choked us.
We stayed there about 3 months, and returning to
Stambol we found the plague as hot there ; and we lost one
of the servants that waited in my Ld.'s chamber (within a
fourtnight after we came home) of it, and since we have
found that another had it, but conceal'd it. For my part I
am not so Calvinized as to say our Fate or Fortune is wrote
in oure forheads ; but this I will say, I think verily it was
God alone that hath preserved me from so many deaths.
Some that knowe me, I believe, may wonder what the
Devil bewitch me to stay in this Hell of a place; and in
1 The Prcefictz were hired mourners who sang the naenia, or
death-wails. The custom is still prevalent in Greece, the hired
mourners being called moirologistce.
COVEL'S DIARY.
you a most passionate story of her, but let this suffice.
There were about 500 Greekes came to her buryall, not-
withstanding the Plague, and theMetropolite of Adrianople
came to burye her ; and the chief of the Town, which were
fled, came back to the funerall. The young fellow was in
a manner distracted, and came constantly every morning
for many dayes, and mourned over her grave.
The manner of the Christians buriall here is much the
same ; all have the Praeficae} who sing (or rather howl and
snarlle out), which they begin at home and continue to
the grave. The weather was excessive hot, and the air
stagnated in a manner, we being placed in a pan or flat ;
so that it was plague enough merely to stay there. Whilst
we were in Adrianople the rats and mice, and fleas, and
rumbling of carts al night long, and brawling of curs (great
numbers being nourisht in every street), and the stink of
the Jewes, did give us no small purgatory ; but coming
here, where we thought to have had braver accommo-
dations, we found it worse. The terrible heat of the sun
reflected from a dry barren sandy soil, and the fulsome
foggy aire, broyled us and choked us.
We stayed there about 3 months, and returning to
Stambol we found the plague as hot there ; and we lost one
of the servants that waited in my Ld.'s chamber (within a
fourtnight after we came home) of it, and since we have
found that another had it, but conceal'd it. For my part I
am not so Calvinized as to say our Fate or Fortune is wrote
in oure forheads ; but this I will say, I think verily it was
God alone that hath preserved me from so many deaths.
Some that knowe me, I believe, may wonder what the
Devil bewitch me to stay in this Hell of a place; and in
1 The Prcefictz were hired mourners who sang the naenia, or
death-wails. The custom is still prevalent in Greece, the hired
mourners being called moirologistce.