The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-27

KING, not hundred years ago; but one OF
these sheikhs might have seen a sheikh who by
like communication would have learned from
an eyewitness the events of two thousand
years ago, when the memory of Alexander
still was young, and before julius fought for
the empire of the East
The British Association at its last meeting
reduced by five thousand years the age of the
Welhngtonia gigantea, and unlucky inquiries
have also brought down the ages of the
sheikhs. Those who had not been on the pill
grimage fixed them at six hundred or eight
hundred years. those who had been part OF the
way said four hundred; was afraid to inquire
nearer lest the old men should be reduced to
boys, and l should lose the pleasure of the
marvel.
l was told, however, by learned Turk,
that the truth of the matter was that sheith
taking possession of the tent or abode of a
famous sheikh, is known by that name, and
that the ignorant multitude see in the per-
petual succession of men of like name only
one long-lived individual.
Often have aged and bowed men been
pointed ont to me as a hundred and fifty
years old; but ! could never get such an age
proved. A Turk can always gain a few years
in age by the shortness of the Turkish year.
A Turkish friend who had been in Roume-
liza told me that at great fair in the Adria-
nople district he had seen an old Greek
woman sitting at the foot of q tree selling
wares; her age, she said, was hundred and
fifty: but she pointed out her mother and
grandmother, and said that her great-grand-
mother was at home in the village, being now
too infrm to attend the fair The old women
got much custom, including some from my
friend, but he did not 90 to the village to see
the eldest of the family.
People gifted as to tenure of life are like
wise privileged as to other faculties, ubiquity
not excepted. There is now. or was lately,
an imam in the city of Diarbellir, who on the
same day, and within an hours time, preached
in the great mosques of Diarbellir and Aleppo
two OF three hundred miles apart. This was
attested by merchants and others, who had
known him in both places. He likewise
preached simultaneously in the cities of Mosul
and Diarbekir
An African friend-who made arithmetical
mistakes in many matters of mine-told me
some singular tales. He informed me of
men and women in his part of the world who
! had three eyes each; and of another popu-
| lation having, besides the front eyes, two be-
| hind and a tail. These gentry were canni-
! balls. The people were named Nya Nyas,
and they had teeth filed in a saw shape, and
there were Nya Nyas in Turkey.
At COnstantinOple, in Santa Sophia, MahO-
! met Ghazi, the conQuerOr rode on horseback
to the altar, and devoted it, by the recital of
| the consecrated formula, to the worship of
! the one God of the Osmanli The bishop
who was officiating stepped into the wall,
! gospel in hand, and has been waiting with
mitre and crozer in the wall four hundred
years for the return of the Byzantine empire.
Alas. the Ottomans have prophets tOo they
came to Byzantium under holy guidance.
! Eyoob or job followersofsthe prophet, him
self led the first attack those triple walls,
and falling, left his body and the prophecy of
the apostle, as a pledge to those who were
Ii Tl,r, toll
holy man, all this was revealed to Mahomet
and little reck he and his successors of
the bishop Of the idolators. The tomb of
| Eyoob, surrounded by the many sepulchres
Of sultans and warriors stands on its holy
ground, monument to them of divine as
suranCe.
But for their enemies, the bishop is not the
only the testimony. In the monastery of
! Balukl, outside the doomed walls, at the
moment when the last of the Constantines
died like a warrior on mountain of slain, the
monks of Balukli were frying fish. And the
fish, more sensible to the events of this world
than the monks, jumped off the gridiron into
sacred tank, where they still live to COM
memorate the dread event, and keep up hope
in faithful Greeks. There they may be seen
on their yearly festival and i have seen them
at other times by the Offering of a silver coin.
They still bear the stripes of the gridiron, as
any one can witness. If a few fish can live
for four hundred years, why should not the
sheikhs near Mecca live twice that time!
Though the underground people are hidden,
their treasures are sometimes found. Trea-
sure-fnding is a recognised way of attaining
to fortune Just as every poor family in
England thinks an unknown uncle may bring
them sudden wealth from India, so the ma
| tive, nay the European resident, in Turkey,
never knows bat in his very garden the tent
of some Lydian king may give way to the
mattock, and deliver up its wealth of gold and
Jewels. Silver is seldom expected, for it is
better to have gold and jewels. According
to received notions, but unrecorded by his
tory the old kings of these countries had the
popularity of burying with them immense
masses of treasure, jars upon jars ofgold. Why
they didit, reason saith not but who knows
who may have the luck to find the store?
There are tales enough of these discovered
| boards received as profound truth | have
seen the spots where the tombs were rifed,
and | have heard the names of the finders l
know beautiful pass, with clumps of poplars
and planes, called the KaVakli Dere or Poplar
Dale. where a Hollander, in the last century,
is recorded by the universal popular voice to
have discovered a tomb and treasure. He went
back to the city, and, taking negro slave as
an assistant, gradually and steadily carried off
the enormous prize This he smuggled on
board the fleet in the bay, and, lest the secret
should leak out he poisoned the black before
sailing: vet the full and authentic particulars
seem to be lust as well known as if the dead
negro had revealed them. Perhaps he did, for
there is no want of ghosts in the East. There
was one in a well near my house that rarely
troubled the neighborhood.
Treasure adventures are not of the past
to OH in,