S e c t . XII. O f the Rise, Progress, and present State o f Gardening in European
Turkey, including Greece and Albania.
526. O f gardening, in what is now European Turkey, when that country Avas under
the Romans, nothing is knovvTi. The Roman taste Avoiild probably pass to Byzantium
when the seat of empire Avas rcmoA-ed thither by Constantine ; but as to its history,
during the period that the rest of Europe was enveloped in ignorance and superstition,
A-ciy little has been recorded. The numerous Greek authors on rural matters (Geo-
ponici), Avho Avrote between the fourth and the fourteenth centuries, do little more than
copy Columella and other Latin georgical writers ; they mention very few plants as ornamental,
and treat chiefly of agriculture, Adneyards, and poultry.
S u b s e c t . 1. Gardening, in European Turkey, Greece, and Albania, as an A r t o f Design
and Taste.
527. The modem taste fo r gardens in Turkey is materially influenced by the national
character, and the nature of the climate. Gardens of taste are considered places of shade,
repose, and luxiu-ious enjoyment ; not of active recreation, or a varied display of verdant
scenery. “ Eor some miles round Adrianople,” Lady M. W. Montagu observes, in 1717,
“ one sees nothing but gardens. The rivers are bordered with fruit trees, under which
the citizens divert themselves in the evenings ; not in Avalking, Avhich is not a Turkish
pleasui-e, but in seating themselves on a carpet spread on the turf, under the thick shade
of a tree ; there they take coffee, and smoke, amidst vocal or instrumental music, groups
of dancing females, and other sports.” The gardens at Adrianople, Hobhouse obseiwcs,
are filled with poplars and fruit-trees, and rise in terraces on tho sides of hills mixed
with flat-roofed houses. (Travels in Albania, &c. p. 135.)
52sS. The gardem o f the sidtan, a t Comtantinople, acquired a degi-ee of celebrity througli
the letters of Lady M. W. Montagu, to which, it appears from subsequent authors Avho
have examined them, they ai-e by no means entitled. These gardens were visited by Dr.
Pouqueville in 1798 ; and it is generally allowed that he has described theniAvith as little
imagination, and as much accmacy, as any writer. The grand signior’s gardener Avas
then a German, who conducted Dr. jPouqueville and his companion between the fii'st and
second ramparts of the toAvn, which foim the natural fortifications of the seraglio on the
side to tho sea. We conversed with this gardener in 1828 ; and he confirmed to us
the statements made in Pouqueville’s book.
The palace is, properly speaking, a town within itself, having its walls crowned with battlements : and
its bastions and its gates, like an old fortified place. Dr. Clarke says th a t th e seraglio occupies the
whole site of the ancient Byzantium ; and Pouqueville, th a t th e present manège is placed where there
was a hippodrome a t th e time of th e lower empire; so th a t the destination of th e place has not been
much altered for the last fifteen hundred years. The first garden seen by D r. Pouqueville and his companion
was enclosed on three sides with a palisade, the fourth side being formed by the rampart. It
was filled with shrubs ; such as early roses, heliotropes, and others, distributed in clumps, with several
beams, and a great deal of rubbish lying about. At last they arrived a t the entrance of th e sultan’s
garden.
The gateway to this garden is o f white marble, about fifteen feet high by four wide, decorated with
columns, in a very bad taste. A treillage, twenty-five feet high and fifteen wide, extremely massy, forms
a cross, running each way, from one side to the other of th e garden, separating it into four equal divisions.
In the centre of the cross, it forms a dome over a small basin of white marble, in which is a jet
d ’eau. Jacques ordered some of the men to make it play ; but the Avater did not rise above six feet. It
was, indeed, an exhibition much below mediocrity. The four squares formed by this cross are planted
with flowers, and in th e middle of each are basins again, with jets d ’eau quite in miniature. T h at to the
left, as we entered, says Dr. Pouqueville, “ appeared the most singular of them. After the water has
risen to th e height of about four feet, it divides like a parasol, and each stream falls upon a shell, on the
circuit of th e basin, which again divides it into still smaller streams, scarcely bigger than threads. We
contemplated this che jd'oeuvre for some minutes, and thought it very pretty for amusing children.”
... . . . . . . . . , ... s, from its solidity, calculated to brave th The treiUage, “ a work truly German, seems,_____________ __________ e injuries of ttime
for a long series of .years. It is covered with jasmine, which perfumes th e whole gard en ; and, to say the
tru th , it has no difficult task to perform; for the enclosure is so small, th a t there can hardly be said to
be sufficient space for th e air to circulate freely. To th e right, which is the side towards the sea, the
treillage leads to the kiosque of th e grand signior, called Jeni-kiosque, th e new pavilion. Thre e circular
steps lead up to it, which occupy, in the semicircle they form, the portion of the kiosque th a t projects
into th e garden.” J i t ' H F
A number o f cages, with canary birds, “ were hanging a b o u t: these little creatures sang charmingly,
and had been taught to draw w ater. About fifteen paces from this kiosque, running along the same
rampart, is a terrace of about fifty feet in length, and twelve in breadth, adorned Avith flowers, which has
lately been turned into a conservatory.”
The la r p s t garden, to which the doctor descended from th e terrace, was a hundred and twenty paces
long, and fifty broad. At the eastern extremity was a hothouse, where Jacques was cultivating a
number of foreign plants and flowers with great care. The hothouse was little better than a shed ;
under it were a number of benches, rising in a stage one above th e other, with th e flower-pots ranged
upon them. Among th e plants, some from Abyssinia and the Cape held a distinguished rank for their
superior fragrance. Another garden, or ra th e r a terrace, raised five and twenty feet high, which
looked down upon th e garden below, contained nothing but a red and parched soil, with a few withered
plants.
An aviary had been made by order of the Sultana Valide ; and this, according to the ideas of the
Turks, IS the most curious thing upon th e terrace. “ I quitted this dismal garden,” says D r. Pouquc-
ville, “ this kiosque of Hassan Pacha, perfectly free from the chimeras with which my imagination had
been previously filled. I had formerly read the letters of Lady Montagu, and I seriously believed that
I Avas to find walls incrusted Avith emeralds and sapphires; parterres enamelled with flowers ; in short,
th e voluptuous palace of Armida: but her ac count'is drawn from th e sources furnished by her own
brilliant imagination. We quitted the burning garden to visit the haram ; th e haram of the sultan •
th e promised paradise. Lady Montagu Avas now about to triumph.”
The garden o f the haram is a square very ill k e p t; it is divided from east to west by a terrace. It was
here th a t the feast of tulips was formerly h eld ; but this has been long P o lish e d . According to all appearance
it must have been a very poor th in g ; but th e pens of romance-writers can embellish objects
th e most ordinary, and make them appear of prodigious importance. Some clumps of lilacs and jasmine,
•some weeping willows hanging over a basin, and some silk trees, are the only ornaments of this imagina
ry E d e n ; and these the women take a pleasure in destroying as soon as the flowers appear, by which
th e ir curiosity is excited.
A plan o f these gardem is given by Kraft (Jig. 169.), from which little can be gathered b u t that they
abound in trees and buildings, and are surrounded by a formidable wall.
Various opinions have existed as to the sultan's garden. Thornton, .the author of a late Avork o iiT u rk ^ ,
a rra ig n s D r . Pouqueville for not being more dazzled with the magnificence of the haram, and for
th in k in g th a t Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has rather, in her descriptions of Eastern luxury and
splendour, painted from a model formed by her own brilliant imagination, than from reality. But it is
certain, H. M. Williams observes, th a t D r. Clarke’s testimony is a strong confirmation of t ) r . Pouqueville’s.
Indeed, there is so striking a similarity in the accounts given by the two doctors, th a t each
strongly supports th e tru th of the other, and both lessen extremely th e ideas we have hitherto been led
to entertain of the luxury and magnificence th a t reigns in th e grand signior’s seraglio. <{Pouqueville.’s
Travels, translated I»/ Anne P lumptrc.) It has not been at all times impossible to penetrate into the
gardens of the seraglio, by the assistance of a foreigner employed in th e ir superintendence; b u tth e tim e
chosen for the enterprise must be when the khâduns and odalisques have been removed to their summer
iialaces ; and even the adventurous Pouque.ville beheld only an empty dormitory. When any of the
adies walk in the gardens with the sultan, o r move from the different dwellings of th e seraglio, the
black eunuchs precede th em ; and a t the redoubtable cry o f^H e lo e t!'” any gardeners who may bo
within the walls abandon their work, and flee to th e gates ; even th e white eunuchs are excluded. A
loiterer would a t once be cut in pieces by th e sabres of th e blacks. “ Qui est ce qui voudrait mourir
pour un coup d’oeil si mal emp lo y é?” (Tournefort, Voyage .du Lct/oni, lettre xiii. vol. iii. p . 20. edit.
Paris, 1717. Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, &c., vol. ii. p. 856.)
529. The English palace, or Inglees-serai, at Constantinople, is a large stone building,
surrounded by a piece of Avaste ground enclosed by a liigh wall, and stands on the vci-y
edge of Pcra, on the verge of an extensive bujying-ground. (Hobhouse’s Travels in
Albania, vol. ii. p. 837.)
530. Buyuk-dere contains the countiy-houscs of the Fi'anks of Pcra, and of most of
the Em-opeaii ministers. The façades of these mansions are most of them in the Eiu’opean
taste, ancl range along an extensive strand, a mile and a half long, in fl’ont of the sea.
This strand is the evening promenade of the inhabitants and visiters. Behind the
mansions arc large gardens ; Avith groves of plane, lime, and Avalnut-trces, overshadowing
parterres of flowers and valuable plants. The mcadoAV or plain (the kahs. agros of the
Byzantines, Avliich lies at the bottom of the bay) is moAvn into a smooth turf, and is a
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