132

THE PASHA'S CHILDREN.

my heart leap, and caused my thoughts to fly away many thousand miles in an instant. While passing through a small antechamber we saw a young Mámalook-a Greek or Georgian boy, about nine years old, beautiful as an angel. His exquisite little mouth, his fair complexion, his dark eyes, and finely arched eyebrows, his smooth lofty forehead and clustering ringlets every thing conspired to enhance his loveliness. Any where else I should have supposed it to have been a girl in disguise. We found the three young princes sitting side by side on a carpet at the farther end of the room, busily engaged with their writing lessons, under the direction of a master; and when we were presented to them they looked up surprised and wonderstricken, like children to whom such things were not familiar, and cast many furtive inquiring glances at each other, but did not speak. They must have been by three different mothers, as their ages were nearly the same. The one who, if there was any difference, appeared to be the youngest, may have been about five years old: he was dressed in green; and there was a pride and fire in his eye which strikingly distinguished him from his brethren. They were accompanied in their studies by a number of other boys, all under twelve years old; and their governor, a grave venerable Turk, seemed pleased to exhibit his pupils, but did not run into the common fault of flattering them by extravagant praise.

LXXIV. I had been dissuaded from demanding permission to enter the old mosque in the citadel,

MOSQUE IN THE CITADEL.

133

from an apprehension of being refused; but, while the rest of the party were otherwise engaged, I walked up to the door, where I found two soldiers, a negro on one side, and an Arab on the other, both looking good tempered; I therefore, -the interpreter being absent, inquired by signs whether I might go in, and they replied, in the same language and with smiles, that I might. So I stepped over the threshold, and found myself in a spacious Mohammedan place of worship. It was a hypæethral building, consisting of a neatly paved area, and a series of arcades, resembling the colonnades of a monastery, which extended all round. The minaret, which towers far above every other part of the citadel, is remarkable for the chasteness of its design, which is exceedingly light and elegant, the turret, galleries, and fairy cupola harmonising finely together. On either side of the doorway was an antique column. The one on the left hand was surmounted by a curious capital, which could be referred to no order of architecture; but that on the right belonged to the Corinthian order, and the foliage was most rich and delicately executed.

LXXV. Within the strong and lofty walls of the citadel are found the scanty remains of Saladin's palace- - a few upright columns, which appear to have supported the roof of a hall; a gateway of heavy Saracenic architecture; and a portion of the massive wall. All these, however, will speedily disappear to make room for modern buildings. An elegant fountain, erected by the Pasha, already occu

pies a part of the site of the ancient palace; and in the vicinity is a bazar for the accommodation of the inmates of the fortress.

thing which Habib

an order to see the but as we knew that an

LXXVI. There was one Effendi hesitated to grant us, tombs of the Pasha's family; English lady had recently been admitted, we refrained from pressing the point, and proceeded thither without one. These tombs are situated in the midst of the great cemetery, to the south of the modern city, which consequently must be in great part traversed in approaching them. No burying-ground, that I have seen, ever appeared so admirably adapted to be the abode of death. The simple grave-stone, the tomb, the cenotaph, the mausoleum, rise here amid the desolation of the desert. Life, and every thing partaking of it, seem almost impertinent in this barren region. The edifices which men have here constructed to protect the ashes of their fellows, exhibit, nevertheless, both taste and imagination, and form a city of tombs, which the stranger, who has no child or friend sleeping there, may wander through for hours with pleasure. We remarked in riding along numerous light cupolas supported on slender columns, or on four Saracenic arches of most airy and tasteful construction; simple pillars surmounted by the turban, and more solid and spacious domes resting on massive walls. The pillars, in many of these tombs, are of white marble, and, together with the cupolas which they sustain, so chaste and uncumbrous in their

THE PASHA'S FAMILY TOMBS.

135

proportions, that they might almost seem of Grecian origin, and recal to our mind those fairy chapels of Dian, which the traveller beheld of old peeping forth among the oaks and laurels of Tempé. Here and there we saw family burying-grounds, enclosed with walls; but the general cemetery is open on all sides. In the midst of these tombs stands one solitary house, in which were heard the sound of music and the voices of the Almé. It was said that they were celebrating a wedding; and some of the girls looked out of the windows with laughing eyes, appearing to invite us to enter; but we were hastening to a different spectacle.

LXXVII. On reaching the enclosed space in which stood the tombs of the Pasha's family, we found the keeper of the grounds seated beside an elegant mausoleum, with a stone canopy supported on four columns.

Of him we asked and obtained

permission to enter. Over the graves an edifice divided into several apartments has been erected. The floor was covered with rich Persian carpets; the windows were darkened with green curtains; a softened light entered from above. The tombs themselves are of marble, and consist of a kind of sarcophagus superimposed upon an oblong square basement of sandstone. A short pillar, surmounted by a turban sculptured in marble, is placed at the head, and at the foot another. These sepulchral columns, as well as the sarcophagi, are covered with Arabic or Turkish inscriptions, in letters of gold, which, intermingled

136

TOUSSOUN PASHA.

with flourishes, and various fanciful devices, produce a very pleasing effect. Some of our party, however, considered the whole to be in bad taste, and preferred many of the tombs in Père la Chaise. But I know of no monument in that cemetery, excepting that of Eloisa and Abelard, -which, I admit, interests the heart more strongly, though for reasons totally independent of the architecture, and that of the Countess Demidoff, which could be at all compared with these. The tomb of Toussoun Pasha, an ardent young man, who is said to have resembled Raphael in the manner of his death, was covered with withered flowers. That of his mother occupied, not many paces distant, the most distinguished place; and those of the other members of the family lay ranged around- elegant, tasteful, melancholy, in the midst of their golden ornaments. The effect of the whole, at least upon my mind, was highly solemn. Hither, on the anniversary of the death of each inmate, their female relations repair to pray and weep; and as often as they are seized with melancholy they do the same thing. Various stone basements are erected in the neighbourhood of these tombs, ready to receive the sarcophagi of such other members of the family as death shall strike out of the lists of the living.