DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62355#0300
134
BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS.
Many of the more ancient of the tombs are very richly and intricately wrought;
and the shapes of several of these sarcophagi are eminently classical ; but nearly
all the modern ones are mere oblong slabs, mounted in some cases upon circular
pedestals three or four inches in height, and perfectly simple in design. The
situation of the Armenian burial-place is superb; and it is generally occupied
by groups of people of that nation, seated upon the grave-stones, beneath the
cool shadows of the acacia-trees, talking and smoking, as though no symbol of
the dead were near.
Death has no gloom for the philosophical Orientals !
THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN'S TOWER.
A fairy-fortress, girdled by the sea,
Rock-seated, and alone; whose single tower
Was mirrored in the waves, and from whose heights
The eye glanced round on two fair cities, spread
Along still fairer shores. MS.
The popular and poetical traditions attached to this sea-girdled edifice have
already been given, and its peculiar position has rendered it a very striking
object in several of the sketches of Mr. Bartlett; it is, indeed, so essentially
one of the " Beauties of the Bosphorus," that it could not fail to create its own
interest, even were it without its peculiar record; but such is far from being the
case. The massaldjhes love to tell the tale of the fair and high-born girl, who
died, Cleopatra-like, from the bite of an adder, within its walls; the poets love
to sing the adventures of the Persian Prince who delivered the imprisoned
beauty on a night of storm, when there was no tell-tale moon to reveal the
enterprise to jealous guards and watchful eunuchs; and when the wild waves
of the Propontis were lashing themselves to foam against the rocky shores of
Asia, while the hoarse gusts which swept down from the Black Sea, driving
the current of the Bosphorus madly before them, swelled the midnight
diapason, and was sweeter than the voice of the bulbul of Nishapor in the ears
of the lovers.
But neither has the sober historian passed it by ; and pretty and fanciful as
may be the fables which we have quoted, we are bound in our turn to treat the
BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS.
Many of the more ancient of the tombs are very richly and intricately wrought;
and the shapes of several of these sarcophagi are eminently classical ; but nearly
all the modern ones are mere oblong slabs, mounted in some cases upon circular
pedestals three or four inches in height, and perfectly simple in design. The
situation of the Armenian burial-place is superb; and it is generally occupied
by groups of people of that nation, seated upon the grave-stones, beneath the
cool shadows of the acacia-trees, talking and smoking, as though no symbol of
the dead were near.
Death has no gloom for the philosophical Orientals !
THE GUZ-COULI, OR MAIDEN'S TOWER.
A fairy-fortress, girdled by the sea,
Rock-seated, and alone; whose single tower
Was mirrored in the waves, and from whose heights
The eye glanced round on two fair cities, spread
Along still fairer shores. MS.
The popular and poetical traditions attached to this sea-girdled edifice have
already been given, and its peculiar position has rendered it a very striking
object in several of the sketches of Mr. Bartlett; it is, indeed, so essentially
one of the " Beauties of the Bosphorus," that it could not fail to create its own
interest, even were it without its peculiar record; but such is far from being the
case. The massaldjhes love to tell the tale of the fair and high-born girl, who
died, Cleopatra-like, from the bite of an adder, within its walls; the poets love
to sing the adventures of the Persian Prince who delivered the imprisoned
beauty on a night of storm, when there was no tell-tale moon to reveal the
enterprise to jealous guards and watchful eunuchs; and when the wild waves
of the Propontis were lashing themselves to foam against the rocky shores of
Asia, while the hoarse gusts which swept down from the Black Sea, driving
the current of the Bosphorus madly before them, swelled the midnight
diapason, and was sweeter than the voice of the bulbul of Nishapor in the ears
of the lovers.
But neither has the sober historian passed it by ; and pretty and fanciful as
may be the fables which we have quoted, we are bound in our turn to treat the