I no sooner perceived an abatement of the flames than, hurried on by an irresistible impulse, I endeavoured to penetrate the town.  I could only do this on foot, as the mass of ruin was impracticable for a horse.  I had never entered the city before, and its ways were unknown to me.  The streets were blocked up, the ruins smoking; I climbed up one heap, only to view others in succession; and nothing told me where the centre of the town might be, or towards what point Raymond might have directed his course.  The rain ceased; the clouds sunk behind the horizon; it was now evening, and the sun descended swiftly the western sky.  I scrambled on, until I came to a street, whose wooden houses, half-burnt, had been cooled by the rain, and were fortunately uninjured by the gunpowder.  Up this I hurried—­until now I had not seen a vestige of man.  Yet none of the defaced human forms which I distinguished, could be Raymond; so I turned my eyes away, while my heart sickened within me.  I came to an open space—­a mountain of ruin in the midst, announced that some large mosque had occupied the space—­and here, scattered about, I saw various articles of luxury and wealth, singed, destroyed—­but shewing what they had been in their ruin—­jewels, strings of pearls, embroidered robes, rich furs, glittering tapestries, and oriental ornaments, seemed to have been collected here in a pile destined for destruction; but the rain had stopped the havoc midway.

Hours passed, while in this scene of ruin I sought for Raymond.  Insurmountable heaps sometimes opposed themselves; the still burning fires scorched me.  The sun set; the atmosphere grew dim—­and the evening star no longer shone companionless.  The glare of flames attested the progress of destruction, while, during mingled light and obscurity, the piles around me took gigantic proportions and weird shapes.  For a moment I could yield to the creative power of the imagination, and for a moment was soothed by the sublime fictions it presented to me.  The beatings of my human heart drew me back to blank reality.  Where, in this wilderness of death, art thou, O Raymond—­ornament of England, deliverer of Greece, “hero of unwritten story,” where in this burning chaos are thy dear relics strewed?  I called aloud for him—­through the darkness of night, over the scorching ruins of fallen Constantinople, his name was heard; no voice replied—­echo even was mute.

I was overcome by weariness; the solitude depressed my spirits.  The sultry air impregnated with dust, the heat and smoke of burning palaces, palsied my limbs.  Hunger suddenly came acutely upon me.  The excitement which had hitherto sustained me was lost; as a building, whose props are loosened, and whose foundations rock, totters and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope deserted me, did my strength fail.  I sat on the sole remaining step of an edifice, which even in its downfall, was huge and magnificent; a few broken walls, not dislodged by gunpowder, stood in