DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62355#0211
PALACE OF BELISARIUS.
89
barrier during his transient and infrequent slumber, created that swift and
dangerous reaction of the tide midway of the channel, well known as the
" Devil's Current ;" while he is likewise accused of devouring drowning mariners,
conjuring up tempests, and of having tinged the waters of the Black Sea by
performing his ablutions in its polluted bosom!
Such is the legend of the Jouchi-Daghi, and such the glorious scene spread
out'beneath it.
THE PALACE OF BELISARIUS.
" To what base uses may we come at last !"
Shakspeare.
The ruin known by the name of the Palace of Belisarius, is situated at an angle
of the city walls ; and, according to the authority of the learned Constantius, Arch-
bishop of Senai, and Ex-Patriarch of Constantinople, (still in exile for his work
on the Antiquities of Byzantium,) it was one of the Imperial residences of the
first Constantine; and he asserts, that it owes its present designation to the fact
of its being placed in a quarter of the city called Balata, a corruption of Balati,
or the Gate of the Palace, which has gradually grown, from the hasty and
undigested impressions of Frank travellers, into the Palace of Belisarius. There
are the remains of a lofty and handsome gate-way, and the disposition of the
masonry is highly extolled by architects ; but to the mere tourist, the ruined
Palace of Constantine, reft of its old-world associations, is possessed of little
interest; and that little is absolutely negatived by the price which he is com-
pelled to pay for a visit to its neighbourhood. To all oriental travellers it will
be sufficient to state that the building has been given up to the Jews as a
pauper-hospital, for them to understand at once that it is almost unapproachable,
being the head-quarters of filth, and the hotbed of pestilence, where every sense
is pained by scents and sights calculated to inspire dread and disgust.
Masses of the fallen masonry cumber the foundations of the ruin, and every
niche is alive with its noisome tenant; here it is a sallow and fleshless crone,
whose lean and shrivelled hands can with difficulty disengage themselves from
89
barrier during his transient and infrequent slumber, created that swift and
dangerous reaction of the tide midway of the channel, well known as the
" Devil's Current ;" while he is likewise accused of devouring drowning mariners,
conjuring up tempests, and of having tinged the waters of the Black Sea by
performing his ablutions in its polluted bosom!
Such is the legend of the Jouchi-Daghi, and such the glorious scene spread
out'beneath it.
THE PALACE OF BELISARIUS.
" To what base uses may we come at last !"
Shakspeare.
The ruin known by the name of the Palace of Belisarius, is situated at an angle
of the city walls ; and, according to the authority of the learned Constantius, Arch-
bishop of Senai, and Ex-Patriarch of Constantinople, (still in exile for his work
on the Antiquities of Byzantium,) it was one of the Imperial residences of the
first Constantine; and he asserts, that it owes its present designation to the fact
of its being placed in a quarter of the city called Balata, a corruption of Balati,
or the Gate of the Palace, which has gradually grown, from the hasty and
undigested impressions of Frank travellers, into the Palace of Belisarius. There
are the remains of a lofty and handsome gate-way, and the disposition of the
masonry is highly extolled by architects ; but to the mere tourist, the ruined
Palace of Constantine, reft of its old-world associations, is possessed of little
interest; and that little is absolutely negatived by the price which he is com-
pelled to pay for a visit to its neighbourhood. To all oriental travellers it will
be sufficient to state that the building has been given up to the Jews as a
pauper-hospital, for them to understand at once that it is almost unapproachable,
being the head-quarters of filth, and the hotbed of pestilence, where every sense
is pained by scents and sights calculated to inspire dread and disgust.
Masses of the fallen masonry cumber the foundations of the ruin, and every
niche is alive with its noisome tenant; here it is a sallow and fleshless crone,
whose lean and shrivelled hands can with difficulty disengage themselves from