AND RESERVOIRS. 
763 
in these canals, for that necessary of life, an idea some years ago 
possessed a few hoary heads in the Grand Seignior’s councils 
that at some future time a foreign enemy may seize the sources 
of their fountains, and by that means reduce the city to sur¬ 
render. On Sultan Selim’s vain attempt to establish his corps 
of Nizam-i-Gedid, or European-organized troops, who, amongst 
other duties, had that of remaining in military post over the 
springs of those canals, Tshelebi-Effendi, one of the chief digni¬ 
taries of the Ottoman empire, wrote a treatise on the subject, ex¬ 
planatory of his royal master’s reasons for these innovations. He 
was an old man between eighty and ninety, who had passed much 
of his life in Europe, and therefore might have been respected as 
a probable judge of its political views. Under such impressions, 
he writes to this effect of these canals, in the parabolical character 
of a traiterous Rayah, counselling the late empress of Russia how 
to become mistress of the Ottoman capital: — 
“ None of the Ottoman troops (the Janissaries) are ready to 
take the field; those of Anatolia are employed in cultivating 
the land, and smoking their pipes; such as inhabit Constantin¬ 
ople, are either buried in carrying on various trades, or at least 
know nothing of good discipline. Were they to assemble in 
troops with the greatest possible expedition, it would require a 
month for that purpose. Rehold, the water used for drinking 
in so great a city, comes from certain reservoirs situated beyond 
it. (These reservoirs lie amongst the hills and woods between 
the Black Sea and Propontis, in fact, the forests of Belgrade 
and Domouzderry.) Your majesty need only dispatch from the 
Crimea all the vessels there, large and small, filled with troops, 
and disembark them suddenly in the district that contains the 
reservoirs. On the water being stopped, the consequence will 
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