Page:Busbecq, Travels into Turkey (1744).pdf/19

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when alas! we are but Pilgrims here, and therefore, ought to use our Dwellings, as Travellers do their Inns, wherein if they are secured from Thieves, Cold, Heat, and Rain, they seek not for any other Conveniences. So that all over Turkey you will hardly find a stately House, tho' the Owner of it be never so Great, or Rich a Man; the Commonalty of them live in Huts and Cottages; the Nobles are for handsome Orchards, Gardens and Baths; but as for their Houses, tho' the numerousness of their Families require large Ones, yet they have no handsome Gate-houses, or Porches belonging to them; nor Court-yards, nor any thing else Magnificent, or worthy of any Admiration. Herein they resemble the Hungarians, for except Buda, and (perhaps) Presburgh, there is scarce any City in Hungary, that you can call well Built. This Custom I suppose, they derived from their Ancestors, for they being a People given to Camp-discipline and therein trained, did not care a rush for Building great Houses, but looked upon their Towns only as temporary Habitations, which they were about to leave.

Moreover, whilst I was at Buda, I was very much taken with the sight of a strange kind of Fountain that is without the Gate of the Town, in the way leading to Constantinople, the Water whereof at top was boiling hot, and yet in the bottom there were Fishes playing up and down; so that you would think, they must needs be throughly boiled, before you could take them out.

'Twas the 7^{th}, of December, before the Bashaw was so well recovered as to admit me to his Presence; and then, after I had sweetned him with some Presents, I made my Complaint to him of the Insolency and Ravagings of the Turkish Soldiers; and demanded Restitution of what they had wrong-