DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9695#0107
UNTILL ANNO 162O 39
Ninthly: I was at Tophana1, or place of Artillery,
where I saw a multitude of Ordnance lying on the ground,
amon[g] the rest one with three bores, and another whose
bore was twelve of my spannes, within which I have com-
puted is Near thirty inches, or two and a half feet
Diameter2.
Tentldy and lastly: There hapned at my beeing thear
three terrible accidents : a Small earthquake3, a fearfull
fire4 which by report consumed about four thousand
1 i.e. the Top-khana. Evliya Efendi, Travels in Europe, vol. I.
Part ii. pp. 54—62, has a long description of the Top-khana and of
the suburb to which it gave its name. Of the foundation, he says as
follows, p. 54, " Top-khanah, in the time of the Infidels, was a convent
situated in the middle of a forest : this is the mosque called the
mosque of Jehangir: as it was dedicated to Saint Alexander, the
Infidels visit it once every year on the feast of this Saint....Thus
the foundation of Top-khanah is carried back to Alexander[?].
Muhammad II. built here the gunfoundery and Bayazld II. enlarged
it, and added the barracks."
Compare TheVenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 27, " Tophana
lies upon the Rivers side over against the Serraglio: It is called
Tophana, that is to say, the House of Cannon, because it is the place
where Guns and other Pieces of Artillery are cast, and that gives the
name to all that Quarter, which is a kind of little Town." See also
Delia Valle, Voyages, vol. i. p. 26.
2 "In the yeare 1605...a French gentleman presumed to tell
[count] the artillery and canons before the Topinaw as they lay by
the sea shore." Gainsford, Glory of England, p. 197.
3 Compare Thevenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 19, "This
town (Constantinople) is so subject to Earthquakes, that I have felt
two in one night." See also note 4.
4 Compare the following allusions to the prevalence of fires at
Constantinople in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:—
" The Citie of Constantinople in time past had eleven gates....But
the continuall fires, the many Earthquakes...overthrew the famous
Ancient wall." Sanderson, Voyage, in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Book ix.
ch. 16, p. 1628 f.
" In Constantinople there have happened many fearefull fires...and
now lately in the yeare 1607, October 14, there were burned above
three thousand houses." Lithgow, Painefidl Peregrinations, p. 138.
Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 289, mentions an extensive fire at Con-
stantinople in 1606, and, on p. 295, he alludes to the portents at the
end of the reign of Sultan Ahmad, " First they were astonished at a
blazing Comet, secondly they were affrighted at a great fire hapning
amongst the Jewes, which they presaged ominous, Thirdly a sore
Earth quake made their hearts quake for feare. The Sea also
swelled extraordinarily. And a great dearth hapned."
Thevenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 26, remarks, " As to
Ninthly: I was at Tophana1, or place of Artillery,
where I saw a multitude of Ordnance lying on the ground,
amon[g] the rest one with three bores, and another whose
bore was twelve of my spannes, within which I have com-
puted is Near thirty inches, or two and a half feet
Diameter2.
Tentldy and lastly: There hapned at my beeing thear
three terrible accidents : a Small earthquake3, a fearfull
fire4 which by report consumed about four thousand
1 i.e. the Top-khana. Evliya Efendi, Travels in Europe, vol. I.
Part ii. pp. 54—62, has a long description of the Top-khana and of
the suburb to which it gave its name. Of the foundation, he says as
follows, p. 54, " Top-khanah, in the time of the Infidels, was a convent
situated in the middle of a forest : this is the mosque called the
mosque of Jehangir: as it was dedicated to Saint Alexander, the
Infidels visit it once every year on the feast of this Saint....Thus
the foundation of Top-khanah is carried back to Alexander[?].
Muhammad II. built here the gunfoundery and Bayazld II. enlarged
it, and added the barracks."
Compare TheVenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 27, " Tophana
lies upon the Rivers side over against the Serraglio: It is called
Tophana, that is to say, the House of Cannon, because it is the place
where Guns and other Pieces of Artillery are cast, and that gives the
name to all that Quarter, which is a kind of little Town." See also
Delia Valle, Voyages, vol. i. p. 26.
2 "In the yeare 1605...a French gentleman presumed to tell
[count] the artillery and canons before the Topinaw as they lay by
the sea shore." Gainsford, Glory of England, p. 197.
3 Compare Thevenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 19, "This
town (Constantinople) is so subject to Earthquakes, that I have felt
two in one night." See also note 4.
4 Compare the following allusions to the prevalence of fires at
Constantinople in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries:—
" The Citie of Constantinople in time past had eleven gates....But
the continuall fires, the many Earthquakes...overthrew the famous
Ancient wall." Sanderson, Voyage, in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Book ix.
ch. 16, p. 1628 f.
" In Constantinople there have happened many fearefull fires...and
now lately in the yeare 1607, October 14, there were burned above
three thousand houses." Lithgow, Painefidl Peregrinations, p. 138.
Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 289, mentions an extensive fire at Con-
stantinople in 1606, and, on p. 295, he alludes to the portents at the
end of the reign of Sultan Ahmad, " First they were astonished at a
blazing Comet, secondly they were affrighted at a great fire hapning
amongst the Jewes, which they presaged ominous, Thirdly a sore
Earth quake made their hearts quake for feare. The Sea also
swelled extraordinarily. And a great dearth hapned."
Thevenot, Voyage into the Levant, Part i. p. 26, remarks, " As to