Book I. 



GARDENING IN EUROPEAN TURKEY. 



67 



Tlie trvillagey a work truly Gterman, seems, from its solidity, calculated to brave the injurlea of time fbr 

 a long series of years. It is covered with jessamine, which perfumes the whole garden ; and, to say the 

 truth, it has no difficult task to perform, for the enclosure is so small, that there can hardly be said to be 

 sufficient space for the air to circulate freely. To the right, which is the side towards the sea, the treil- 

 lage leads to the kiosque of the grand seignior, called Jeni-kiosque, the new pavilion. Three circular steps 

 lead up to it, which occupy, in the semicircle they form, the portion of the kiosque that projects into the 

 garden. 



A number of cages, with canary-birds, were hanging about ; these little creatures sung charmingly, and 

 had been taught to draw water. About fifteen paces from this kic?sque, running along the same rampart, 

 is a terrace of about fifty feet in length, and twelve in breadth, adorned with flowers, which has lately 

 been turned into a conservatory. 



The largest garden, to which they descended from the terrace, is a hundred and twenty paces long, and 

 fifty broad- At the eastern extremity is a hot-house, where Jaques was cultivating a number of foreign 

 plants and flowers with great care. The hot-house was Uttle better than a shed ; under it were a number 

 of benches, rising in a stage one above the other, with the flov/er-pots ranged upon them. Among the 

 plants, some from Abyssinia and the Cape held a distinguished rank for their superior fragrance. An- 

 other garden, or rather a terrace, raised flve-and-twenty feet high, which looks down upon the garden 

 just quitted, contained nothing but a red and parched soil, with a few withered plants. 



An aviary had been made by order of the Sultana Valide ; and this, according to the ideas of the Turks, 

 is the most curious thing upon the terrace. " I quitted this dismal garden," says Dr. Pouqueville, *' this 

 kiosque of Hassan Pasha, perfectly free from the chimeras with which my imagination had been pre- 

 viously filled. I had formerly read the letters of Lady Montague, and I seriously believed that I 

 was to find walls incrusted with emeralds and sapphires j parterres enamelled with flowers ; in short, the 

 voluptuous palace of Armida ; but her account is drawn from the sources furnished by her own brilliant 

 imagination." — We quitted the burning garden to visit the haram. The haram of the sultan — the 

 promised paradise. Lady Montague was now about to triumph. 



The garden of the haram is a square very ill kept ; it is divided from east to west by a terrace. It was 

 here that the feast of tulips was formerly held ; but this has been long abolished. According to all ap- 

 pearance it must have been a very poor thing ; but the pens of romance-writers can embellish objects the 

 most ordinary, and make them appear of prodigious importance. Some clumps of lilacs and jessamine, 

 some weeping willows hanging over a basin, and some silk-trees, are the only ornaments of this imaginary 

 Eden ; and these the women take a pleasure in destroying as soon as the flowers appear, by which their 

 curiosity is excited. 



A plan of these gardens is given by Kraaft [fig. 27.), from which little can be gathered but that tliey 

 abound in trees and buildings, and are surrounded by a formidable walL 



309. Various opinions have existed as t<r the sultan's garden. Thornton, autlior of a late 

 work on Turkey, arraigns Dr. Pouqueville for not being more dazzled with the magni- 

 ficence of the haram, and for thinking that Lady Mary Wortley Montague has rather, in 

 her descnphons of eastern luxury and splendor, painted from a model formed bv her 

 own brilliant imagination, than from reality. But it is certain, H. M. Williams observes 

 that Dr. Clarke's testimony is a strong confirmation of Dr. Pouqueville's. Indeed there 

 IS so striking a similarity in the accounts given by the two doctors, that each stronaly 

 supports the truth of the other, and both lessen extremely the ideas we have hithett« 



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