THE

KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE,

EDITED BY LOUIS GAYLORD CLARK.

THE number for January, 1856, begins the FORTY-SEVENTH VOLUME of the KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE.

Since the price of subscription has been reduced from FIVE to THREE DOLLARS a year, the circulation of the KNICKERBOCKER has been increased nearly four to one. In many places ten are sold where there was but one before, and through the year it has been steadily increasing. It is now offered as cheap as any of the Magazines, all things considered. Instead of making new and prodigious promises, we submit a few extracts from notices of late numbers, which we might extend to a number of pages.

"Those famihar with the Editor's monthly Gossip with his readers, have doubtless, with ourselves, admired the perennial source of its plesant wit and joyousness. In this number The Gossip' holds on its way like some fair rivulet glancing and dancing in the sunshine of a May morning. We used to wonder how Mr. CLARK held out, expecting he must certainly snow brown' in the coming number; but this number gives no sign of exhaustion.-National Intelligencer. Washington.

'Pleasant, genial, delightful Old KNICK. Thy name is a suggestion of all things delectable; tee sight of thy modest, fresh cover, a balm to spiritual sore eyes; a glance within thee, best antidote for the blues. Thou hast given to kindly humor, to piquant delineation, and to side-splitting fun, a 'local habitation,' without which they might go wandering over the domain of letters, calling now and then where a friendly door opened to them but refusing to be comforted for the loss of their old dear home.'-Courier, Burlington Vt.

"The great care evinced in the selection of articles that adorn its pages, is a sufficient guaranty that no contribution meets the eye of the reader but those which are known to be worthy of his perusal. When storms and wild tempests Ere sweeping o'er our hill-side village in these chill winter hours, and all is drear and desolate without, we ask for no more agreeable companion than the 'KNICKERBOCKER;' for while its contents impart valuable information, its sallies of genuine wit are a sovereign specific for all fits of the blues or attacks of the horrors, and time passes merrily on,'-Democrat, Doylestown, Pa.

"The KNICKERBOCKER has been and will be a fact of its own; a genuine living thing, all the more desirable now that the new crop of magazines, filled with articles pirated from English authors, makes fresh home creations more conspicuous and welcome.'-New-York Christian Inquirer.

'No one ever rose from the perusal of the KNICKERBOCKER & disappointed reader. Whatever may have been his anticipations, they have always been rewarded. When he took up a new number, he felt sure of a literary treat; It was no mere showy repast he was invited to. Did he seek the grave or didactic essay, the touching story, poetic gems, or the humorous tale, he was always sure of finding the object of his search. And then, besides, there was the Gossip' of Old KNICK.,' always looked to with eagerness, never put down except with regret that there were not more pages of inimitable random sketches-the Knick-nacks of that repast.'-Courier, Natchez, Miss.

THE KNICKERBOCKER, New-York; Samuel Hueston, This best, decidedly best, of the American magazines seems to have improved in appearance and in the quality of its literary matter-always good-even upon its reduction in price. It is a luxury of which no man who has three dollars to spare-and who that has a taste for good reading has not should deprive himself, to sit down in a retired corner, when the mind has been wearied with the perplexi ties of every day pursuits, and pore over the well-stored pages of "Old Knick." We even now read the old volumes of this work, of a dozen years ago, with more real pleasure than half the new publications of the day. Each number will "bear the wear and tear of half a dozen readings," and then the volume be "worthy of good binding and a place on the shelves," and that is what can be truly said of but few of the magazines of the present day.

The contents of the Knickerbocker are so varied, that almost every one will find something in its pages to please him-to instruct and amuse. The articles are marked by the highest order of merit, and in a long series of years we have found nothing in this work to which the most fastidious could object. It is a work which should be on the centre table of every family.—Knoxville Times.

Rev. F. W. SHELTON, Author of Letters from Up the River, etc., will be a regular contributor. The best talent in the country will be enlisted, and no expense or effort spared, to make the KNICKERBOCKER More than ever deserving of the first position among our original American Mag azines.

TERMS.-Three Dollars a year, strictly in advance-there will be no deviation from this con dition; Two copies for $5 00; Five copies, and upwards, $2 00 each. Booksellers and Post masters are requested to act as Agents. Those who will undertake to procure subscribers wil receive favorable terms. Specimen numbers will be sent gratis on application, post-paid.

INDUCEMENTS FOR CLUBBING.-The KNICKERBOCKER and Harper's, Putnam's, Graham's o Godey's Lady's Book will be sent one year for FIVE dollars; the KNICKERBOCKER and Home Jour nal, for FOUR dollars a year.

POSTAGE-Two cents per number, prepaid at the office where the work is delivered, quarterly in advance.

All remittances and all business communications must be addressed, post-paid, to SAMUEL HUESTON, 348 Broadway, New-York.

1895, Nov. 19. Sub ciktion Thed.

(Vol. XLVIII. No. 3, 4,

6; XLIX. 8,4; Z. 3

LIII. 3; III. 3, 5; LIV. 6; LXII. 6; LXIII. 2, 4; TTX. 3, 6; LX. 2, 3, 5; Veu Series! UCE. I. Nov. 1-3.)

را

ray Frind

BY J. 0. NOYES, M. D., LATE SURGEON IN THE OTTOMAN ARMY.

AN old Turkish boat-man, the very picture of Charon, ferried me across the Danube, for a few paras, and set me down on the narrow strand of Silistria. A half-dozen houses were scattered along the sandy shore, but the city appeared to be sunk below the level of its wall, a few minarets alone being visible above the latter. Colonel Bent hastened on in the first arabá his dragoman could obtain. The latter informed me that Silistria contained neither a hotel nor lodgings of any kind kept by a Christian. At the promise of a couple of piasters, a greasy Cawas shouldered my carpet-bags, and led the way to a Turkish khan. A few Ottoman soldiers were leaning idly on their muskets at the gate through which we passed. It seemed as if the genius of death reigned within those solitary walls. Nothing save the desert, the wilderness, and the calm ocean, is so silent as a Turkish city. There is no rattling of carriages or tramp of hurried feet; there are no brawling voices men, silent men, in the grave costume of the Orientals, and women veiled from the sight of the most inquiring eye, glide along the narrow streets and stony lanes, more like ghosts than human beings. The impression is one of solitude and death.

The khan, where a board was promised me for a couch, contained but a single square room, with mats for squatting Turks, racks for chibouques, and shelves for kargilehs and the diminutive cups in which coffee was served by a bustling little cafidji. For a guide I employed a sleek, good-natured Mussulman, who, in the comprehensive language of the Orientals, 'knew every thing,' and appeared to combine the occupation of a police-man at the city-gate with the occasional services of a dragoman. Mustapha was shaven as to his head, but wore his beard after the manner of the Osmanlis, and gloried in a girdle glittering with

bright weapons. He slept at my feet on the hard boards, drank black coffee, and ate fiery dishes of papúka at my expense, having no objection to my piasters, however much he may have hated me in his heart as a Christian.

Silistria, the chief city of the Sandjac of Silistria, has a population of about twenty thousand souls. It is surrounded by a wall and fosse; the former varying from fifteen to twenty feet in height, and mounted, at proper intervals, with saucy cannon. There is none of Dickens' distressing regularity' of streets. In the open places winged and four-footed carnivora may often be seen dismembering an unfortunate donkey or other animal that has died by the way. In Turkish cities filth, and mud-and-dust, her twin sister, most do congregate.' There is not a painted house in Silistria, and, with the exception of the mosques, but two structures more than a single story in height. One of these is the residence of the pacha; the other the half-finished Greek Church, the erection of which the Russians began while in possession of the city, from 1829 to 1833. In the end toward the Arab Tabia I counted where twenty cannon-balls had struck and done good execution. The Russians were compelled to batter down the work of their own hands. That is typical of Russian-of European policy. Absolutists are blinded they plan and work merely for to-day, and build not upon strong and permanent bases. The tyrants of our generation are doomed to roll the stone of Sysiphus: would that they had also to grasp after the delusive cup of Tantalus!

The low cabins of Silistria are surrounded by little court-yards; and walking through the streets is passing between two continuous, windowless walls. These wicker-walls-for such is their construction in the Danubian cities-are so well plastered, internally and externally, as to defy the eye of the curious howadji on the qui vive for the veiled beauties within. The one great object for which Mussulmans appear to live, is to conceal their women from the inquiring eyes of men.

The manner of building Turkish and Bulgarian houses is unique. Four posts are driven into the earth, and joined by means of crosspieces, between which are interwoven the pliant twigs of the willow. The frame-work is done by the awkward native carpenters, after the posts are driven into the earth, and not while they are lying on the ground. The low roof is tiled. A coating of clay, mixed with animal manure, is applied externally; and on the inside a plastic material affords a hard wall which can be white-washed or ornamented with the wretched daubs in which the artists of the veiled sex sometimes indulge. For the floor they employ a piece of the soil given by Allah to be inhabited by his children. Acres of such habitations can be swept away in a few minutes by fire; and hence the immense conflagrations which so often occur in the large Turkish cities. They are, however, the best structures to withstand a siege. I did not see a house that had not been perforated by one or more cannon-balls; but they had merely passed through the wicker-walls, leaving small round holes, the same as when bullets are fired through a glass-window. It was only where a bomb-shell had burst, that great injury had been done. The Russians appear to have aimed particularly at the five mosques of