Hospitality and kindness of the English Consul-Visit paid to another Merchant Account of the Plague-Walls of the City-its antient splendor- Citadel - Torso - Propylæum of the HippodromeCaryatides-Rotunda-Situation of the Hippodrome-St. SophiaMosque of St. Demetrius-Temple of the Therméan VenusShooting Excursion-Triumphal Arch of Augustus-Arch of Constantine-Soroi - Medals-Mines of Macedonia-Population of Salonica, and of all Greece-Commerce of Salonica- Plan of Macedonia - Cotton -Tobacco Wool- Imports of SalonicaGovernment-Game found in the Environs-Prices of ProvisionsMalária - Antient and modern Jews-Comment upon St. PaulWant of communication with the Bazars-Splendid Prospect of

the

CHAP. XI.

Hospitality

and Kindness

Consul.

the Olympian Chain of Mountains

all Greece.

Valedictory Retrospect of

WE were conducted to the house of Mr. Charnaud, the
English Consul; of whose hospitality and most liberal

of the English offices every traveller of late years hath given grateful
testimony'. We shall begin our account of Salonica, by
adding our memorial to the rest: because, at a time when
the plague was so rife that his gates had been closed against
all intruders, and even his provisions were daily received
through one of those turning machines that are used in
convents, he nevertheless threw open his doors for us, and
welcomed our coming, in a manner which we can never
forget. It was indeed a luxury to us to spend two or three
days in his comfortable mansion, during the long journey
from Athens to Constantinople; as it was almost the only
place of real rest, amidst the severe fatigue which a traveller
must encounter, who undertakes to perform this route by
land:-and to the comfortable accommodation afforded in
his house, Mr. Charnaud was enabled to add the advantages
of polished society; possessing himself the easy manners
and the information of a gentleman who has been liberally
to his family, he also
educated. Having introduced us
invited to meet us, a French surgeon, and another gentleman
of the name of Abbott, who is called the Father of the
Levant Company, brother to a merchant whose house
we had frequented at Constantinople. Mr. Abbott desired
that we would use his house as our home while we remained;
and

Visit paid to another Merchant.

(1) See particularly an account of this gentleman in the "Remains of the late John Tweddell," as edited by his brother, the Rev. Robert Tweddell, p. 333. Lond. 1815.

CHAP. XI.

the Plague.

and he introduced us to the ladies of his family. Here we found, as at Mr. Charnaud's, some affable and pleasing women, seated, after the Eastern manner, upon the couches of a diván, who entertained us by their vivacity, and great curiosity to know all the objects of our journey. To our surprise, they amused us with anecdotes respecting our friends and acquaintance at Constantinople; and seemed to be as well acquainted with all that had taken place when we were last in that city, as if they had actually mingled in the society there. Having congratulated them upon possessing such cheerfulness, in the midst of a city which had been described to us as the very centre of contagion, they laughed, saying, they never troubled their heads by thinking of the plague: if it came, they must take their chance: that it was confined principally to the bazars, in the lower Account of part of the town, and to the quarter inhabited by the Jews, with whom they had no intercourse. Unfortunately, this part of the city contained almost the only antiquity worth seeing in the place-the Propylaa of the antient Hippodrome, or of the Forum; and we had determined not to leave Salonica without obtaining a sight of the famous altorelievos there preserved. This, it was said, we might do, if we were only careful not to suffer any person to touch us and as our excellent friend Mr. Charnaud, more concerned than any other person in the consequences of our going thither, was urgent that we should see all the antiquities, we determined to venture. We had escaped the contagion in Bethlehem, where the plague raged with even greater fury; and had therefore reason to hope that the same precautions we had there used might also be the means of our safety here.

The

CHAP. XI.

Walls of the
City.

The walls of Salonica give a very remarkable appearance to the town, and cause it to be seen from a great distance, being white-washed; and, what is still more extraordinary, they are also painted. They extend in a semicircular manner from the sea, inclosing the whole of the buildings. within a peribolus, whose circuit is five or six miles; but a great part of the space within the walls is void. It is one of the few remaining cities that have preserved the form of its antient fortifications;-the mural turrets yet standing, and the walls that support them being entire. Their antiquity is perhaps unknown; for although they have been ascribed to the Greek Emperors, it is very evident that they were constructed in two distinct periods of time; the old Cyclopéan masonry remaining in the lower part of them, surmounted by an upper structure of brick-work. The latter part only may properly be referred to the time of the Greek Emperors, being also characterized by the method of building which then became very general, of mixing broken columns, and fragments of the earlier productions of Grecian architecture and sculpture, confusedly among the work'. Like all the antient and modern cities of Greece,

its

(1) The author has before proved, from Thucydides, that such heterogeneous materials were used in constructing the walls of Athens, so long ago as the Peloponnesian War. See p. 99 of this Volume, and Note (1).

Mr. Walpole seems to have observed a separation between the antient and modern walls of Salonica. His situation of the Hippodrome may not perhaps be found to agree with that which the author has assigned for it, in the sequel, between the Rotunda and the sea. The beautiful Inscription which he found upon a marble Soros, and the account he has extracted from Cameniates, of the destruction of many of those monuments, will be considered, as it is by the author, a valuable addition to this part of his work.,

"In

its wretched aspect within is forcibly contrasted with the beauty of the external appearance, rising in a theatrical form,

"In some parts, the distance between the antient and modern walls of the city is very small the circuit therefore of Thessalonica, formerly, may not have been much greater than it is now; about six miles. A third of the town is occupied by the Jews; and in their quarter are seen five Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, over which are many figures in alto-relievo. At the south-east end of the town is the site of the Hippodrome. Some of the Christian churches, as those of Santa Sophia and San' Demetrius, have been converted into mosques: the number of Greek churches is now sixteen. Besides the Jews, who amount to 20,000, there are 12,000 Turks, 10,000 Greeks, and some Bulgarians.

"Near the city walls, by the sea-shore, is a sarcophagus, now used as a reservoir for water. This is one remaining out of the many monuments of this kind, with which the city formerly abounded; and which were converted by the inhabitants of Thessalonica, in the tenth century, to the following use. To defend the part of the city open to the sea from the attack of the enemy, (says Cameniates, who wrote an account of the destruction of this city,) sarcophagi were thrown into the water; or, to use his own words, tombs cut out of one single stone, in which the Greeks antiently deposited their dead; Ἐκ μονολίθου γεγλυμμένοι τύμβοι, ἐν οἷς πάλαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκροὺς ἐνεταφίαζον Έλληνες. These were covered by the sea; and placed at small distances, to prevent the enemies' ships approaching.'

"Perhaps the sarcophagus we saw was one brought to the sea-side for the purpose just mentioned; or it may have been recovered from the sea. On one side of it is a Greek Inscription, in hexameter verse, cut in letters of a low age. The four following are the concluding lines, written with that simplicity so characteristic of the Greek compositions of this kind:

ΤΕΥΞΕΔΕΤΟΝΔΕΤΑΦΟΝΦΙΛΙΟΣΠΟΣΙΣΕΥΤΡΟΠΟΣΑΥΤΗΙ

ΟΙΤΑΥΤΩΙΜΕΤΟΠΙΣΘΕΝ ΟΠΩΣΕΧΟΙΑΜΠΑΥΕΣΘΑΙ

ΣΥΝΦΙΛΙΗΙΞΥΝΩΣΑΛΟΧΩΙΚΕΚΛΩΣΜΕΝΟΝΑΥΤΩΙ

ΤΕΡΜΕΣΙΔΩΝΒΙΟΤΟΥΑΛΥΤΟΙΣΥΠΟΝΗΜΑΣΙΜΟΙΡΩΝ.

"HER AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND CONSTRUCTED THIS TOMB FOR HER AND HIMSELF; THAT HE MIGHT HAVE IT WHEREIN TO REST TOGETHER WITH HIS WIFE; LOOKING FORWARD TO THE TERM OF LIFE WOVEN FOR HIM BY THE INDISSOLUBLE THREADS OF THE FATES."

Walpole's MS. Journal,

We shall subjoin a copy of this beautiful Inscription, in the common Greek characters:
Τεύξε δὲ τόνδε τάφον φίλιος πάσις εὔτροπος αὐτῇ
Οἱ τ ̓ αὐτῷ μετόπισθεν ὅπως ἔχοι αμπαρέσθαι
Σὺν φιλιῇ ξύνως ἄλοχῳ κεκλωσμενον αὐτῷ
Τέρμ ̓ ἐσίδων βιότου αλύτοις ὑπονήμασι μοιρῶν.
VOL. IV.

21.

CHAP. XI.