Identifier: constantinoplesc01allo (find matches)
Title: Constantinople : and the scenery of the seven churches of Asia Minor
Year: 1839 (1830s)
Authors: Allom, Thomas, 1804-1872 Walsh, R. (Robert), 1772-1852
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Fisher, Son
Contributing Library: Northeastern University, Snell Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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s it is that the cemetery extends by constant renovation. Whether it isthat the soil is naturally congenial to these trees, or that it is enriched by the use towhich it is applied, it is certain the cypress attains to majesty and beauty in thesecemeteries, which are seen nowhere else; their stems measuring an immense circum-ference, and their pointed summits seeming to pierce the clouds, exhibit them asmagnificent specimens of vegetable life. Sometimes they assume a different form, andthe branches, shooting out horizontally, extend a lateral shade. These varieties havebeen by travellers mistaken for pines, which the Turks never admit into their ceme-teries. But of all the cities of the dead in the Turkish empire, that of Scutari in Asia,at the mouth of the Bosphorus, is perhaps the most striking and extensive. Itstretches up an inclined plain, clothing it with its dark foliage, like a vast pall thrownover the departed. It extends for more than three miles, and, like a large forest, is
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CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS ENVIHONS. 13 pierced by various avenues, leading to different places. Such is its size, that it is saidthe area it incloses would supply the city with corn, and the stones which mark itsgraves would rebuild the walls. Among the causes assigned for this increase, one is, thattwo persons are never b uried in the same spot, so the graves are constantly expandingon every side; another, a prepossession unalterably fixed in the mind of a Turk:he considers himself a stranger and sojourner in Europe, and the Moslem of Con-stantinople turns his last lingering look to this Asiatic cemetery, where his remains willnot be disturbed, when the Giaour regains possession of his European city; an eventwhich he is firmly persuaded will sometime come to pass. Thus the dying Turk feels ayearning for his native soil; like Joseph in the land of Egypt, he exacts a promise fromhis people that they would carry his bones hence, and, like Jacob, says, bury me inmy grave which I have in the

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