Constantinople seems to be a fated city. In the short
space of two years, civil war has watered its streets with blood, a ruthless enemy has beleaguered its gates, conflagration has mouldered its palaces, the pestilence has slain its hundreds, cholera its thou- sands. The last plague has been one of hail. On the 5th of Oc- tober, a shower of ice fell upon the city, so terrible in its nature that neither tiles nor wood could withstand it. The masses were so heavy that they shivered planks half an inch thick, as effectu- ally as musket-balls would have done. The whole city has been unroofed by the storm ; and, to aggravate the general distress, it vas followed by a deluge of rain, against which it had left no shelter to rich or poor. The storm was not confined to the capital: it visited the whole of the line of the B.)sphorus, and extended as far as Belgrade, destroying every thing vegetable and animal that vas exposed to its fury.
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