tions in being appointed to the governorship of the capital. Tatianus, it appears, had seen an eagle brooding over Marcian, sheltering him from the scorching sun, when he had lain down in the field and fallen asleep from the weariness of the chase, and predicted from this omen his future elevation to the imperial dignity.

The slumberer ultimately gained the coronet, and the prophet went not without his reward. Adulation was then, what it is now, the highway to preferment. A courtier flatters his prince, and becomes a privy counsellor; a demagogue inflames the rabble, and becomes its idol. Both may despise the means they employ, and gain, at no little expense of feeling, the reward of their self-degradation. But every man, with the exception perhaps of one in a thousand, ambitious of place, has his price. Nor would I make even this exception, but for the restraints of pride, and a fear of the significant finger of scorn.

It is

The existence of the Marcian pillar at this day would probably have been unknown to the world, but for the researches of Spon and Wheeler. much to be regretted that the efforts of inquisitive travellers have so seldom disturbed the dust of Constantinople. Beneath the fabrics of the incurious Turk, undoubtedly repose some of the richest remains of ancient art. But they will ever lie where they now rest, unless disinhumed by foreign hands. Their development would be attended by no very

serious obstacles in the dispositions of those who dwell above them; for a few piasters would purchase permission to sift every thing that belongs to a Turk, save his harem and his grave. Touch the

first, and you will not live long enough to sign your testament; or put a spade near the latter, and you might as well be digging your own grave or knelling the death-dirge of your obsequies.

The frequent ablutions which the Koran enjoins, render the Turks peculiarly solicitous on the subject of water. The copious use of this element is blended with the most vital principles of their religion. They regard the construction of a reservoir or fount as an act of meritorious piety; and the dying often seek in this form to cancel the crimes of a vicious life. These fountains are among the first objects which excite the attention and admiration of the stranger in visiting the capital: they occupy the most conspicuous places, are generally constructed of fine marble, and are often richly gilt.

As the soil of the city is extremely barren of springs, nearly the whole supply of water is brought through tiled aqueducts from bendts, or tanks, in the mountains, near the shores of the Black Sea. These high places are the regions of frequent showers and springs, whose copious tribute is confined and preserved in a number of glens, by casting a permanent mound across their deep channel. The water thus thrown back forms a pellucid lake: trees are thickly

planted around it; the mound is covered with mar. ble, and the whole becomes an object of magnificent beauty. It is death for a man to injure the mound, maim one of the trees, or take water from the bendts.

On our excursion to Belgrade, we visited several of these woodland reservoirs: they afford a distant, but fresh and wholesome retreat from the dusty atmosphere of the city, and among any people of less indolent habits than the Turks, they would become favorite resorts. But the silence of their green shade is now seldom broken, except by the song of the early bird and the footsteps of the passing pilgrim.

These bendts are not indebted for their design or construction to the ingenuity or industry of the Mussulmen. They originated in the provident wisdom of the Greek emperors, when the increased population of the city rendered a greater supply of water necessary. The same commendable foresight was also the source of the vast cisterns which, though now in ruins, are still objects of admiring wonder. Of these costly capacious structures but two remain that can convey any adequate idea of their original vastness and splendor.

One of these is now dry, and partially filled with earth; but it still presents the spreading arch of its dome, sustained by six hundred marbie columns, each column consisting of three, rising one above the

other. It has the appearance of a superb subterranean temple, and there is now little to oppose this idea but an assembly of silk-twisters who flit among the columns, plying their task in the spectral twilight of the place. Unfortunately, some of our company got entangled in their yarn, and they made the vaulted roof ring with the denunciations of their frightful anger. We apprehended, for a moment, some act of personal violence; but being well armed, were able to pass up without injury.

The other cistern still answers its original intention. We descended to it by a narrow flight of steps leading down from a small trap-door in an obscure private house. By the light of our torches we were able to trace the vast sweep of its circle, with the arched roof, supported by three hundred and sixty columns, that have a very singular effect, rising in stateliness and gloom out of the dim and motionless lake beneath.

The incurious Turk, whose dwelling has been stu pidly reared over the entrance of this reservoir, won dered what there could be about it to compensate u for the exposure and trouble of the descent. He re marked, without any apparent surprise, that the hun dreds and thousands who availed themselves daily of its water, through the medium of pipes leading down into it, were wholly ignorant of its existence. They knew, it would seem, that water could be obtained by performing a certain mechanical

operation, but beyond this their curiosity never extended!

The cistern has never been repaired, or had the least care bestowed upon it, and owes its preservation entirely to its freedom from exposure, and the durability of its material. It has been thus neglected and forgotten merely on account of its entombed location. Had it been placed above-ground, where it could have met the vulgar gaze, the vanity of this singular people would have led them to cherish its smallest pebble, and throw around it a profusion of the richest gilding. Were St. Sophia, with its glowing minarets, to sink merely below the earth's surface, it would soon be covered up by hasty dwellings, whose inmates would think as little, and perhaps know as little of what was beneath them, as an Arab of the glittering mine above which he has pitched his wandering tent.

The covered bazars present an imposing assemblage of long arcades, which are constantly thronged by a crowd of females, who move about, making their little purchases with an air of stillness which would lead you to suppose that they were purchasing the habiliments of the grave for some dear deceased friend; when, in fact, they are only buying a tiny bottle of the attar of roses, or some trifling ornament that may heighten their personal charms; or they may be stealing away, under a shopping pretext, to some place of assignation, where the terrors of the