LET.  XLIII

TO THE ABBOT OF ——.

Constantinople, May 19.  O. S. 1718.

I AM extremely pleased with hearing from you, and my vanity (the darling frailty of mankind) not a little flattered by the uncommon questions you ask me, though I am utterly incapable of answering them.  And, indeed, were I as good a mathematician as Euclid himself, it requires an age’s stay to make just observations on the air and vapours.  I have not been yet a full year here, and am on the point of removing.  Such is my rambling destiny.  This will surprise you, and can surprise no body so much as myself.  Perhaps you will accuse me of laziness, or dulness (sic), or both together, that can leave this place, without giving you some account of the Turkish court.  I can only tell you, that if you please to read Sir Paul Rycaut, you will there find a full and true account of the vizier’s, the beglerbys, the civil and spiritual government, the officers of the seraglio, &c. things that ’tis very easy to procure lists of, and therefore may be depended on; though other stories, God knows—­I say no more—­every body is at liberty to write their own remarks; the manners of people may change; or some of them escape the observation of travellers; but ’tis not the same of the government; and, for that reason, since I can tell you nothing new, I will tell you nothing of it.  In the same silence shall be passed over the arsenal and seven towers; and for mosques, I have already described one of the noblest to you very particularly.  But I cannot forbear taking notice to you of a mistake of Gemelli, (though I honour him in a much higher degree than any other voyage-writer:) he says that there are no remains of Calcedon; this is certainly a mistake:  I was there, yesterday, and went cross the canal in my galley, the sea being very narrow between that city and Constantinople.  ’Tis still a large town, and has several mosques in it.  The Christians still call it Calcedonia, and the Turks give it a name I forgot, but which is only a corruption of the same word.  I suppose this is an error of his guide, which his short stay hindered him from rectifying, for I have, in other matters, a very just esteem for his veracity.  Nothing can be pleasanter than the canal; and the Turks are so well acquainted with its beauties, that all their pleasure-seats are built on its banks, where they have, at the same time, the most beautiful prospects in Europe and Asia; there are near one another some hundreds of magnificent palaces.  Human grandeur being here yet more unstable than any where else, ’tis common for the heirs of a great three-tailed bassa, not to be rich enough to keep in repair the house he built; thus, in a few years, they all fall to ruin.  I was yesterday to see that of the late grand Vizier, who was killed at Peterwaradin.  It was built to receive his royal bride, daughter of the present sultan; but he