Page:Busbecq, Travels into Turkey (1744).pdf/53

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Writers, have given Information of those Particulars at large.

To return then to the Site of Constantinople. There is no Place in the World more pleasantly seated to the Eye, nor more convenient for Trade. But, let me tell you, the Buildings therein (as in all other Turkish Cities) are not magnificent, nor are their Streets stately or large; nay, in Constantinople, they are so narrow, that they much eclipse the Beauty of the Place. Yet there are in it some valuable Relicks of old Monuments to be seen; but not so many as a Man would imagine, considering how many Constantine brought thither from Rome. It is not my Purpose to insist upon each of these Particulars; yet, a Word or two of the principal ones.

In the Area of the old Hippodrome, there are two Serpents cut in Brass; as also, a mighty Obelisk. Moreover, Constantinople doth gratifie us with the Sight of two memorable Pillars; One over-against the Caravaserai, where I lodged, and the Other in the Forum, called by the Turks, Aurat-basar, i. e. The Womens Court, wherein, from Bottom to Top, is engraven the History of a certain Expedition of one Arcadius, who built it, and whose Statue, for a long time, stood on the Top of it. And yet it may rather be called a Stair-Case, than a Pillar, because it goes winding up like a Pair of Stairs. I caused the Shape of this Pillar to be drawn, which I have by me. But the other Pillar, over-against the House the German Ambassadors used to lodge in, the whole Structure, besides the Basis and the Chapiter, consists of eight solid Marble or Red Porphyry Stones, so curiously joined together, that they seem but one continued Stone. For, where the Stones are jointed one into another, upon that Commissure, there is wrought a circular Gar-