Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

SCU — SCY 573 ^
SCUTARI (Turkish, Uskiidar), anciently Chrysopolis, a
seaport town of Turkey in Asia, on the eastern shore of
the Bosphorus, opposite Constantinople (see plan, vol. vi.
p. 305), of which it is regarded as a suburb. Climbing
the slopes of several hills in the form of an amphitheatre,
its houses generally painted in red, distinguished by a
number of mosques adorned with numerous minarets, pos¬
sessing some fine bazaars and public baths, and merging
farther inland into burying-grounds, gardens, and villas,
Scutari presents a very picturesque appearance, especially
when viewed from the bridge of the Golden Horn or ap¬
proached from the Straits of Constantinople right in front
of its most prominent point. The inhabitants are largely
engaged in the manufacture of saddlery and silk, muslin,
and cotton stuffs; the town also contains granaries and is
prized as a fruit-market, more particularly for grapes,
lemons, and figs. The population is estimated at 60,000
(entirely Mohammedan, with the exception of some Jews).
The streets, especially the main street leading from the pier
to the barracks, are in general much wider than those of
Constantinople. The city includes eight mosques. Behind
the landing-place is the Bujiik Jami (great mosque), sur¬
mounted by a cupola and a minaret and presenting terraces
mammillated by small leaden domes. _ The centre of the
square is adorned by a fountain of simple architecture.
The mosque of Selim III., farther in the interior of the city,
is likewise flanked by two minarets and surmounted by a
cupola. The most elegant mosque, however, is the Yalide
Jami or mosque of the dowager sultana, surmounted by two
minarets, built in 1547 by the daughter of Solyman.
Another prominent mosque, on the right of the main street
and south of Bujiik Jami, is Jeni Jami (new mosque).
Other noticeable buildings are the barracks built by Selim
III., forming a handsome and vast quadrangle surmounted
by a tower at each angle, and whose corridors, &c., are calcu¬
lated to have an aggregate length of 4 miles; an old large
red building now used as a military hospital, and during
the Crimean War as a hospital for the English sick and
wounded; a seraglio of the sultans; a convent of howling
dervishes, a simple wooden structure of two stories front¬
ing a small cemetery. Other business quarters of the
town deserving mention are Jeni Mahalle (new quarter)
and the Dohanjilar Mejdani (tobacco merchants’ square).
The most characteristic feature, however, of Scutari is its
immense cemetery, the largest and most beautiful of all
the cemeteries in and around Constantinople, extending
over more than 3 miles of undulating plain behind the
town.1 In the centre of the ground rises the magnificent
dome, supported by six marble pillars, which Sultan
Mohammed erected in memory of his favourite horse.
Close to the barracks, on the Bosphorus, the scene of
Miss Nightingale’s labours, 8000 English dead are over¬
shadowed by a large granite obelisk. Immediately behind
the town is the mountain of Bulgurlu clad in evergreen
savins and red beeches, one of the plateaus of which is a
favourite holiday resort. Its summit commands a very
extensive view. In the plain of Haidar Pasha close by,
between the cemetery and Kadikoi (judge’s village,
anciently Chalcedon), the English army lay encamped
during the Crimean War. In front of Scutari, on a low-
1 The cemetery is intersected with numerous paved alleys, and the
tombstones are inscribed with verses of the Koran gilded on a dark
blue ground and bearing each simply the name of the deceased. The
monuments of the men are distinguished each by a turban, those of
the women each by a lotus leaf. The nature of the carved turban
indicates the rank of the deceased and the fashion of the time to
which it refers, so that the tombstones present the sculptured history
of the Mohammedan head-dress from the date of the Turkish conquest.
Each corpse is allowed a separate grave, never desecrated either by
axe or spade. This cemetery lying in Asiatic ground is on that account
the more desired as a burial-place by pious Mahommedans, and holds
half the generations of Stamboul (probably some 3,000,000 persons).
lying rock almost level with the water and about a cable’s
length from the shore, rises a white tower 90 feet high,
now used as a lighthouse, called “ Leander’s Tower,” and
by the Turks Kiz-kulessi, or the “ Maiden’s Tower.” The
first printing press in Turkey was set up at Scutari in 1723.
Its ancient name Chrysopolis most probably has reference to the
fact that there the Persian tribute was collected and reposited, as
at a later date the Athenians levied there too a tenth on the ships
passing from the Euxine. Its more modern name of Uskiidar,
signifying a courier who conveys the royal orders from station to
station, commemorates the fact that formerly Scutari was the post
station for Asiatic couriers, as it is still the great rendezvous and
point of departure of caravans arriving from and destined for Syria,
Persia, and other parts of Asia, and the spot whence all travellers
and pilgrims from Constantinople to the East begin their journeys.
SCUTARI (Turkish, Scodra; Slavic, Skadar), the
capital of North Albania, at the south end of the lake of
the same name, with a population of 24,500 in 1880
(mostly Mohammedans). There is only one street with
any pretensions to regularity. The straggling town is
built on the low flat promontory formed by the Bojana,
which takes off the waters of the lake to the Adriatic, and
the river which flows into the lake after crossing the plain
between Scutari and the mountains of Biskassi. In winter
the town is often flooded by the Bojana. The mosques and
minarets are insignificant; the handsomest of the churches
is the Catholic church at the north-east end. In the
background is an old Venetian fortress perched on a lofty
rock. The town is favourably situated for commerce,
being connected by the Bojana with the Adriatic, whence
its boats carry the products which descend by the Drina to
the mountaineers in exchange for their wool, grain, and
dyeing and building woods. There are some manufac¬
tures of arms and of cotton stuffs. In 1884 330 ships
of 123,923 tons entered the port and 325 ships of 123,713
tons cleared.
Livy relates that Scodra was chosen as capital by the Illyrian
king Gentius, who was here besieged in 168 b.c., and carried cap¬
tive to Rome. In the 7th century Scutari fell into the hands of
the Servians, from whom it was wrested by the Venetians, and
finally, in 1479, the Turks acquired it by treaty. Early in 1885
a beginning was made with the construction of a highway from
the roadstead of San Giovanni de’ Medici to Scutari.
SCYLAX of Caryanda in Caria was employed by Darius
I. to explore the course of the Indus. He started from
Afghanistan and is said by Herodotus (iv. 44) to have
reached the sea and then sailed to the Gulf of Suez (comp.
Persia, vol. xviii. p. 569). Scylax wrote an account of
his explorations, which is referred to by Aristotle and other
ancient writers, but must have been lost pretty early, and
probably also a history of the Carian hero Heraclides,
who distinguished himself in the revolt against Darius.2
But Suidas, who mentions the second work, confounds the
old Scylax with a much later author, who wrote a refuta¬
tion of the history of Polybius, and is presumably identical
with Scylax of Halicarnassus, a statesman and astrologer,
the friend of Pansetius spoken of by Cicero (De Div., ii. 42).
Neither of these, however, can be the author of the Peri¬
lous of the Mediterranean, which has come down to us
under the name of Scylax of Caryanda in several MSS., of
which the archetype is at Paris. This work is little more
than a sailor’s handbook of places and distances all round
the coast of the Mediterranean and its branches, and then
along the outer Libyan coast as far as the Carthaginians
traded; but various notices of towns and the states to
which they belong enable us to fix the date with consider¬
able precision. Niebuhr gave the date 352-348 b.c., others
bring it down a year or two later, and C. Muller as late
as 338-335, which is only possible if the writer’s informa¬
tion was sometimes rather stale. See the discussion in
Muller’s edition (Geog. Gr. Min., vol. i., Paris, 1855), and
against him Unger, in Philologus, 1874, p. 29 sq., who con-
2 See A. v. Gutschmidt, in Rhein. Mus., 1854, p. 141 sq.