Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/120

 column may rather be called a winding staircase than a column, on account of the steps constructed in it, upon which you can ascend inside from the bottom to the top. This column, which stands opposite the house of the ambassador of our Emperor, without reckoning the pedestal or basement, and without reckoning the capital, is formed of eight entire blocks of red marble, so artistically united that it seems to be but a single stone; and, indeed, the common people imagine it to be such: for where one stone is joined to another, the suture is entwined with a laurel-wreath, and thus the juncture of these eight blocks is concealed from the eyes of people looking at the column from below, the whole of it being ornamented with a laurel-wreath from bottom to top. This column has clefts and rents from frequent earthquakes, and is fastened together with many iron clamps and rings, to keep it from falling, and is, as it were, begirt with them. Upon this pillar, as they relate, stood formerly a statue of Apollo, afterwards, one of the Emperor Constantine, and finally, one of the Emperor Theodosius the Elder. But, owing to the height of the column, violent winds, or earthquakes, have swept all these statues away.

We saw also, in Constantinople, wild beasts of various nature and form; lynxes and wild cats, leopards, bears, and lions, so tame and domesticated, that they are led up and down the city by chains and ropes. We saw also divers reptiles which we had never seen before; various birds; all sorts of juggling games with asses, horses, mules, and other animals, which take place every day on the open space of the hippodrome, which the Turks call Almayden. Here are fencers; here they