The
city is about four miles round, presenting a front of a mile long to the
water; and when approached by sea, it resembles a capacious amphitheatre
with the ruins of an ancient castle crowning its summit. The interior of
the city, however, disappoints the expectations thus raised, for the
streets are narrow, dirty, and ill-paved, and there is now scarcely a
trace of those once splendid edifices which rendered Smyrna one of the
finest cities in Asia Minor. The shops are arched over, and have a
handsome appearance: in spite of the gloom which the houses wear, those
along the shore have beautiful gardens attached to them, at the foot of
which are summer-houses overhanging the sea. The city is subject to
earthquakes and the plague, which latter, in 1814, carried off above
50,000 of the inhabitants.
About midnight, in July, 1841, a fire broke out at Smyrna, which, from
the crowded state of the wooden houses, the want of water, and the
violence of the wind, was terribly destructive. About 12,000 houses were
destroyed, including two-thirds of the Turkish quarter, most of the
French and the whole of the Jewish quarters, with many bazaars and
several mosques, synagogues, and other public buildings.
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