A fire, which consumed two thousand houses, took place at
Constan- tinople the beginning of last month, and as all previous revolutions were preceded by a conflagration, it was taken for granted that this fire, which was, in reality, accidental, was the result of design, and intended to throw the city into confusion. The quarter in which this calamity occurred was one of the poorest in Constantinople, inhabited by Turks of the working classes. The houses were all of wood, and, they con- tinued to burn from midnight until late on the following day ; and it was not until the flames reached the vacant space left from some former event of the same kind that their progress was arrested. I saw the whole of the city as if clad in fire from the islands called lee Isles des Princes, about ten miles distant, and I believed for a time that the fate of Constantinople was sealed, as the whole of it was apparently in the hands of the destroying angel ; and some boatmen, who came off to the islands to announce the event to the merchants staying there, also spread the report that an insurrection had broken out. We were soon, however, relieved from these apprehensions, and on returning to Con-. stantinople I found that the calamity was not regarded as a circum- stance worthy of much notice, and that not the slightest attempt to create a disturbance had occurred.--Correspondence wr the Herald.
Previous page
