RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE. 
767 
way for a party of Janissaries, leading a train of dogs belonging 
to the Sultan. These animals were of an enormous size, in 
form like our bull-dogs, and very fierce. They are kept for 
baiting wild beasts, a favourite amusement with their royal 
master, and were held by strong chains, each between two con¬ 
ductors, while the path was cleared before them with as much 
insolent command as if the Grand Seignior himself were coming. 
January 1820. — In the course of the three months, the ra¬ 
vages of the plague have been estimated at 80,000 deaths ; but 
by this time its violence had so considerably abated, both in the 
capital, and amongst the villages towards the Balcan mountains, 
it became no longer necessary to defer my departure from the 
shores of the Bosphorus. As a preliminary, I paid a farewell 
visit for two or three days to my diplomatic friends in the beau¬ 
tiful vale of Beyukderry; but took up my temporary residence 
with His Ex. Baron Strogonoff, the Russian envoy. Few spots 
could be more congenial to the retrospective taste of a man of 
letters, and particularly to one who studies antiquity in its his¬ 
tories and other remains, chiefly with a view to deduce future 
good from past greatness ; to make the experience of ages gone 
by be the schoolmaster of those to come ; in short, wherever 
he goes, to unite the man of letters with the politician, the 
politician with the philanthropist, and devotedness to the honour 
of his country with them all. Indeed, I shall long remember 
the last delightful hours spent in that Arcadian valley; the tints 
of Autumn still seeming to linger on its sheltered woods, and a 
soft sun to light the waves of the Bosphorus, while gently laving 
the yet verdant southern shore of the beautiful little bay that 
skirted the mansions of my friends. The names of their Excel¬ 
lencies, the Marquis de Riviere, the Count Ludolf, the Internuncio 
