we went over the celebrated stone bridge, called Mustapha Pasha’s bridge. In this bridge there are twentytwo arches, and the bridge itself is above 404 paces long. We next arrived at the village of Shimpry, where there is a handsome inn, and a Turkish temple; and we spent the night in that village.
On Nov. 16 we arrived at the city of Adrianople, in Turkish Ændrene. This place was called Oresa before it was enlarged by and named after the Emperor Adrian. It is situated just where the Hebrus meets its tributaries, the Tunya and the Harda, and thence the united streams flow together into the Ægean Sea, which separates Asia from Europe. The city is not very large in circumference, but there are extensive suburbs round it; and it is owing to the buildings constructed by the Turks that it has grown to its present magnitude and extent. Over the river there is a very large stone bridge. Here we had an inn of no great excellence, although there were many others handsomely built; this being, next to Constantinople, the largest city in these countries. On Nov. 17 we rested there and looked over the city, where there is nothing particular to see, except the inns, and two temples,[1] very handsomely built of stone. These temples are circular inside, and in them are three galleries, with large pillars, built of white and red marble, round which are iron rings, at the bottom of which hang 326 handsome glass lamps. Higher over these is a second set of rings, from which ostrich-eggs and balls of looking-glass are suspended by silken straps. Over this, again, is a second gallery, all
- ↑ I have pretty uniformly translated the word kostel by “church,” and chram by “temple.”
