rried to
the grave on a bier by the friends of the deceased: this is considered as
a religious duty, it being declared in the Koran, that he who carries a
dead body the space of forty paces, procures for himself the expiation of
a great sin.[3] The graves are shallow, and thin boards only, laid over
the corpse, protect it from the immediate pressure of the earth, which is
set with flowers, according to the custom of the Pythagoreans, and a
cypress tree is planted near every new grave. As a grave is never opened a
second time, a vast tract of country is occupied with these burial-fields,
which add by no means to the salubrity of the vicinity. Much is gained,
unquestionably, as regards the health of the inhabitants, by burying
without the cities; but the shallowness of the graves contributes to
render these vast accumulations of animal dust, at certain seasons more
especially, a source of pestilential miasmata. The cemeteries near Scutari
are immense, owing to the predilection which the Turks of Europe preserve
for being buried in Asia--that quarter of the world in which are situated
the holy cities, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The author of
Anastasius gives the following vivid description of this extraordinary
spot:--

"A dense and motionless cloud of stagnant vapours ever shrouds these
dreary realms. From afar, a chilling sensation informs the traveller that
he approaches their dark and dismal precincts; and as he enters them, an
icy blast, rising from their inmost bosom, rushes forth to meet his breath,
suddenly strikes his chest, and seems to oppose his progress. His very
horse snuffs up the deadly effluvia with signs of manifest terror, and,
exhaling a cold and clammy sweat, advances reluctantly over a hollow
ground, which shakes as he treads it, and loudly re-echoes his slow and
fearful step. So long and so busily has time been at work to fill this
chosen spot--so repeatedly has Constantinople poured into this ultimate
receptacle almost its whole contents--that the capital of the living,
spite of its immense population, scarcely counts a single breathing
inhabitant for every ten silent inmates of this city of the dead. Already
do its fields of blooming sepulchres stretch far away on every side,
across the brow of the hills and the bend of the valleys; already are the
avenues which cross each other at every step in this domain of death, so
lengthened, that the weary stranger, from whatever point he comes,