Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/364

 In every part of the city, even in the mosques, water is bubbling from countless fountains.

As is the case with all Turkish cities, the beautiful picture vanishes the moment you enter Brussa. The smallest German town surpasses Constantinople, Adrianople, or Brussa in the charm of its buildings and still more in comfort. Only the mosques and the Hanns, or caravansaries, the fountains and public baths are magnificent. In the earlier times of the Ottoman monarchy no ruler was permitted to build a mosque before he had won a battle against the infidels. The mosques in Brussa are smaller and less beautiful than those which were built later, but they possess the added interest of historical memories. There you find such names as Orchan, Suliman, Murad, in short, all the heroes of the victorious period of Islam.

The mosque of Bajasid attracted me most because of its excellent architecture. Bajasid is the man whom the Turks call Ilderim, or the Lightning. The monument of the mighty conqueror, who himself was conquered and died in a cage according to the legend, stands alone in the shadow of mighty cypress trees. The largest of the mosques used to be a Christian cathedral. It is lighted from above, the middle vault having been left open. The beautiful Asiatic starry sky itself has become its vault. The opening is covered with a wire screen, and below it in a wide basin a fountain is playing.

I will not say that even the largest mosques, the Sultan Selim, for instance, in Adrianople, or Sulamanich in Constantinople, make the same impression or inspire the same reverence as St. Stephan's in Vienna, or the cathedrals of Freiburg and Strassburg. But every mosque, even the smallest, is beautiful. There is nothing more picturesque than the semi-circular, lead-covered domes and the slender, white minarets rising above the mighty planes and cypresses. When the Ottomans conquered the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire they preserved the Greek