The report of an insurrection having broken out in Constanti-
nople, which: we mentioned last week merely as a report, proves to be incotr.,et.. Accounts vary also in a very extraordinary man- ner as to the extent of the fire. A correspondent of the Times, who dates his letter from Constantinople, says that the devastation extended over a circle of three miles. Ile thus writes- . "It was painful in the extreme to see thousands of human creatures forced from their homes to seek shelter in the mosques, or in the tents placed in the squares, taking with them the remnant of their property ; the old, the young. the sick men, women and children, flying from destruction, or huddled together on the shore. As the night approached, the blaze illumined the horizon Mr miles around, so that persons who were in an island twelve miles distant assured me it appeared like day. From the small Turkish burial-ground near Fem., the spectacle was grand in the extreme. Abstraction made of the calcula- tion of human misery produced on the occasion, the panorama of a fiery circle of morethan a mile in breadth was most imposing. To a painter it would form a superb subject: Imagine an amphitheatre of gently sloping hills over a liver of three quarters of a mile in width, and in the midst houses and mosques with their beautiful minarets, and the tall cypress-trees, the whole glowing in fire, which cast a fearful glance over the high mosques called royal ones, as large as the greatest churches in London, and for which great apprehension was enter- tained, The moon was full, and shone in eastern splendour.,"
After some further description of the grandeur of the spectacle, it is. added-
" The principal destruction was caused among the town residences of the wealthy families, who had beautified and ornamented them with great taste. Several hundred such houses, and some thousands of the pourer classes, have fallen. The Turks are proverbial for their patience, yet some victims have been sacrificed to the rage of the multitude. The dissatisfaction of the people with the Government is believed to have produced the conflagration, fur the intention of the incendiaries had been spoken of before."
The above flaming account was apparently written by an eye- witness ; but perhaps, after all, it was composed in London ; for in the following extract from a Vienna journal, the affair, it will be seen, is considered of no great moment.
" Vienna, September 2L—Letters received direct from Constantinople state, that the number of houses consumed by the late fire was only eight hundred, and that the reported insurrection was merely a mutiny among the troops, in consequence of a reduction of their pay from 23 to 15 piastres. More recent ac- counts have been received from Constantinople through an indirect channel. Letters from Belgrade assert, on the authority of a Russian courier from the Turkish capital, that a new fire had consumed two thousand houses, and de- stroyed all the quarters between the Einar and Solimani Zamissi. Among the buildings destroyed, are the greater part of the mills which supply the capital with flour ; this had caused a temporary want of bread, and increased the dis- tress."
The French and English fleets still linger in the neighbourhood of Constantinople ; and it is said that their final departure is in- definitely delayed. MEHEMET ALI has been visiting Candia, and vas about to proceed to Rhodes. He is cruising about the Le- vant with a powerful squadron. Great dissatisfaction prevails in Greece with King OTHO'S government, and doubtless would pre- vail with any other that deserved the name.
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