THE PASSING OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE

THE PASSING
OF THE
TURKISH EMPIRE
IN EUROPE

BY
CAPTAIN B. GRANVILLE BAKER
LATE OF H.M. 21ST HUSSARS AND THE 9TH ROYAL PRUSSIAN HUSSARS
AUTHOR OF “THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE,” “THE
DANUBE WITH PEN AND PENCIL,” “A WINTER
HOLIDAY IN PORTUGAL,” &c.
WITH 33 ILLUSTRATIONS & A MAP
LONDON
SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
38 Great Russell Street
1913

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CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

TOWARDS the end of a dismal summer, when everybody who is anybody in the United Kingdom was departing for their annual holidays, dark clouds began to gather on the political horizon overshadowing that European storm-centre, the Balkan Peninsula. Angry clouds had gathered over the seething races of those lands so frequently that no one heeded when the cry “Wolf!” went up again. “Balkan troubles again,” said those who thought they knew, and they turned with renewed interest to places for the holidays. But the clouds gathered apace, and ere Europe was fully alive to the situation, protests, ultimata, and the usual amenities had been exchanged; the world found itself confronted by a war between the Ottoman Empire and its former subjects, now clearly defined nationalities, united to one purpose, and that the end of Turkish rule in Europe.

While the Great Powers slowly set in motion the cumbrous machinery of diplomacy the storm-clouds discharged their lightnings, setting ablaze all the country from the Danube to the Ægean Sea, from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. Over the borders of Turkey in Europe came hosts of armed men, ably led, well trained, and purposeful. They came down the Valley of the Maritza, the Struma, down from the Black Mountains, and out of Greece in the south, nations in arms, and determined to end oppression in Turkey’s European possessions. With desperate valour they beat down fierce resistance until but a small shred was left of the Empire carved by the sword of Othman out of South-Eastern Europe.

History was in the making while diplomacy still talked about the status quo, and to my mind present events, if not an actual repetition of former historic happenings, bear at least some resemblance to them. Again an enemy’s angry gaze is directed towards Constantinople, again, as the early days of the ninth century into modern times, the Ruler in the seat of Constantine prepares to meet invasion. And beneath the surface of the troubled waters is there is the feeling of a heavy ground-swell. The Goths came down the Valley of the Maritza and met the Roman legions at Adrianople; the latter were defeated, Emperor Valens left among the slain. Yet those Goths were only the fringe of that great movement which broke the power of Rome. In those remote days of the “Völkerwanderung” Central Europe seethed with strong young nations bent on expansion forced by their growing numbers. Slav pressed on Teuton, and both races overflowed the boundaries set them by the Cæsars.

Are matters very different now? Perhaps the only difference is that the desire to expand, subconscious in early days of Christianity, is now informed of consciousness, is born of clearly defined necessities, and directed towards definite aims. The main line of advance since the first Aryans crossed the Balkans, swarmed over the Peloponese, peopled the islands of the Ægean Sea, and found their way to India has always been to southward, towards warm water; their movements to the north and west might be considered as purporting to guard their flanks, had they been conscious of strategic necessities.

The main line of advance of those thronged peoples between the Ural and the Vosges Mountains is from the Baltic to the Balkans, and Teuton and Slav are pressing slowly, surely southward, as rivals, for they are keenly conscious of their own and each other’s aims. Even now this movement is scarcely realized by the States of Western Europe, notably Great Britain, though its tendency has been clearly defined for many years, and on the Teuton side, a half-Slav people, Prussia gave it impetus. The movement has been so slow as to pass unobserved for many years, but it has been deliberate, because racial impulses have been curbed by the arts of diplomacy, by the science of strategy, and by a keen realization of economic necessities. Each of these three factors has its victories to record, acts which to most people seemed but loose links in the chain of history rather than the firm steps towards the goal, distant but clearly seen by those who led the movement. The science of strategy brought Schleswig-Holstein into the German Union, welded the German States together, and extended their line of outposts to the Vosges Mountains. Diplomacy, following victory in the field, made of the German States an Empire, reconciled Austria, and forced Italy into the Triple Alliance. Diplomacy again brought Heligoland as an outpost in the sea to Germany, and political economy is endeavouring to bring Holland into the German Zollverein. Thus we find the right flank of the Teuton movement from the Baltic to the Balkans fully secured. Neither has the left flank been neglected; wedged in between the Balkan Kingdoms and Russia is Roumania. A Hohenzollern sits on the throne of that country, and all who know Roumania will realize that Austria is paramount there. In both Servia and Bulgaria la Haute Finance is in Austrian hands, and German commercial enterprise has extended feelers into Asia Minor.

On the Slav side of this great movement Russia looms, apparently slow to move; but the Slav temperament may be roused to dangerous frenzy, and signs are not wanting that the troubles of their southern kinsmen may cause a popular upheaval, forcing the Government into action. Meanwhile Russia is deliberately organizing her vast resources.

Does it not seem as if the struggle between the Balkan Kingdoms and the Porte were but the prelude, but a vanguard action, to clear the Turk out of Europe, and so make room for the titanic conflict impending between the Slav and Teuton peoples? When they meet, what then? Consider the enormous highly organized strength available among the possible combatants—Germany’s millions, Austria’s vast resources! Are those who live on the flanks of the impending movement prepared to hold their own? Outside the ring surrounding Slavs and Teutons, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy are the confines of a vast Empire.

When last the Teuton nations moved so many centuries ago a world-wide Empire fell in ruins, an Empire glutted with wealth yet teeming with a pauper population in its capital, luxurious, unnerved, disdaining any service to their country, unconscious of any obligations in return for the privileges of citizenship. So Rome fell before the Teuton.

Again the Teuton is stirring. Germany is daily perfecting an already formidable navy, for flank defence first, then for further enterprise; Austria has recently greatly added to the budget for naval and military purposes, and the road to Saloniki is no longer closed by Turkey; Italy with her considerable naval power is allied to Germany and Austria.

What is Great Britain, the vast Empire encircling the moving forces from west to east, doing towards her own safety? When the nations of Europe were well aware of the trouble which has now reached its climax in the Balkan Peninsula, and were beginning to take at least diplomatic action, Great Britain was having holidays and could not be disturbed. So our naval force in the Mediterranean has been weakened to guard against the German’s left flank protection and the coast of Egypt is left insufficiently protected.

While the Balkan Kingdoms were mobilizing the armies which have since swept triumphant over Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, armies composed of the whole manhood of each nation, not of hired soldiers, Great Britain was collecting troops for Cambridgeshire manœuvres, with much self-laudation, and the assistance of the Territorial force, got together a number about equal to Montenegro’s first levy for the war with Turkey; and Montenegro is about half the size of Wales and sparsely populated. Servia, a country hitherto denied a voice in the great Committee of European States, at once mobilized troops exceeding in number the expeditionary force with which Great Britain proposes to take part in an armed conflict of the Great Powers, and moreover that small kingdom proved itself capable of even greater effort and produced as many fighting men as Moltke required to vanquish France.

The Allies acted sharply and decisively. Seven weeks after the declaration of war the Sultan’s troops were forced to retire behind the lines of Chatalja, the outer defences of Constantinople. Constantinople was the seat of Cæsar from the middle of the fourth century until Mohammed the Conqueror made it the capital of his Empire in 1453. From here Ottoman armies marched to victory; Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs were conquered, enslaved, their national identity swamped by the rising tide of Moslems as it flowed on over the plains of Hungary even up to the bastions of Vienna, that bulwark of the Western world.

From Stamboul, where I write, successive Sultans directed the policy of Turkey as their power waned. Here plans were devised, intrigues inaugurated to check the forces that threatened Ottoman supremacy. Here the Sultan in his palace heard of fresh troubles in his Empire, of defeats on the field of battle and in the council chamber. Here between the deep calm of the Orient and the restless striving of the West successive wearers of the sword of Othman must have marked the signs of the times and wondered how disaster might be averted.

But disaster came, a swift retribution for years of indolence. As I write this the sound of firing is borne on the westerly wind into the City of Constantine, Tsarigrad, Stamboul.

I was mightily drawn to revisit this ancient city now in these days of darkness, so I hurried out overland, crossing Germany, Poland, Roumania, till I landed on the banks of the Golden Horn. When I had passed I noted a feeling of deep anxiety, to account for which the present troubles of Turkey are insufficient; there seemed to me an undercurrent of unrest such as perchance preceded the “Völkerwanderung” of some fifteen centuries ago. I came here to record as best I can the doings of these days in Constantinople, the capital of a vanishing Empire, and while I went about the city, revisiting places I have seen bathed in summer sunshine, now gloomy under a lowering sky, as I noted the many signs of “Sturm und Drang,” I was filled with grave forebodings; here where a mighty Empire is tottering to its fall under pressure of the vanguard of a “Völkerwanderung” I pondered whether another world-wide Empire were as secure as that of the Ottoman was till recently supposed to be.

B. G. B.

Constantinople

The Passing of the
Turkish Empire in Europe

CHAPTER I

The high road to the East—Roumania and the Carpathian Mountains—Thracians and Dacians, and how the latter had dealings with Emperor Trajan—The Roumanians, their origin, story, and present condition—The “Tsigani”—Tales of Hunyadi Janos, Knjes Lazar, Michael the Brave, and others—The story of Ghika the cats’-meat man—Roumania and the Balkan conflict—A morning in the Carpathian forests—Bucharest—The Roumanian Army.

IT was with strangely mingled feelings that I left London one Saturday evening, left the capital of one great Empire supposed to rest on firm foundations, considered strong in the council of nations, to visit the heart of yet another Empire once considered mighty and of weighty influence in Europe, now tottering to its fall with alarming rapidity, under the staggering blows of four small peoples, young and purposeful, unspoilt by wealth and power.

The lights of Dover gleamed steadily in a black sky, the dark waters gave back broken reflections from a brilliantly lit liner making her stately way down Channel, as the throbbing turbines carried our little ship towards the East. A grey morning rose over the Dutch landscape, shrouded trees reflected heavily in the sullen waters of dykes and canals. A grey sky hung heavily over the teeming life of industrial Westphalia, and broke into heavy drops of rain over the wide plains of Hanover, and poured in torrents into the well-lit streets of Berlin, the “Ville Lumière” of Europe since Paris relinquished the splendour of an Imperial Court.

From Berlin my road turned to south-east, past prosperous cities such as Frankfort-on-the-Oder, Breslau, towards that corner of Europe where three Empires meet on what was once part of the picturesque Kingdom of Poland, long since forced into the realm of things forgotten by those three Powers that meet here. It is a gloomy country, black and ungainly in its tense industrial existence.

As it were, subconsciously, I felt like one hurrying to the death-bed of a friend; strange, for I have no reason to consider the Turk my friend. Indeed, though I like the individual Turks I have met, I cannot summon up a really friendly feeling for a Power which has deliberately mis-governed its varied subjects, has times out of number countenanced, even encouraged, acts the remembrance of which makes the heart sick. Yet in spite of reasoning, that feeling of hurrying to the death-bed of a friend never left me, but it had in it something of the antagonism which, as psychologists declare, is an ingredient of the love of a man for a woman. No doubt pity was mingled with this feeling, pity for a mighty race of conquerors now humbled to the dust, however much those ruling them be to blame; again there was anxiety as to the fate of the beautiful city, the City of Constantine, my destination; fear, a nameless fear, filled me, the son of a great Empire, as I thought over the fate of another Empire found unprepared to uphold a position it insisted upon, and therefore rudely awakened and thrust aside by young, strong nations whose sons know not how to shirk responsibility, neither do the men and women of those peoples shun any sacrifice to gain what they whole-heartedly desire.

This strange feeling that obsessed me became stronger as I left well-ordered Germany behind, and felt the subtle influence of the East on entering Austrian territory. In the first place the traveller’s comfort is affected, for German orderliness makes way to Austrian laisser-aller, resulting in a want of cleanliness in the railway carriages. Apologists say that this state is due to the many Polish Jews who freely use their cheap season tickets; this might account for the dirty condition of third-class carriages when packed with worthies in greasy gaberdines, with ringlets dangling down from either temple; it is no pleasure to pass through a third-class carriage on your way to the dining-car. However well this excuse may serve, I found no attempted cleanliness in any other class while travelling through Austrian territory, and it seemed that the Roumanian railway authorities do not set much store by the God-like virtue either, at least as far as the accommodation of travellers is concerned.

Throughout my travels I have found that romance and picturesqueness are seldom separated from dirt, and, fortunately, the former may often outbalance the latter. The world of romance became gently insistent as the railroad left the teeming coalfields of Prussian Poland behind and passed on to places famous in the history of the Kingdom of Poland—Cracow, still a centre of the refined and gracious intellectuality which characterizes Polish nobility. Then, again, there is Przemysl (hopeless the effort to pronounce it), yet it is the name of a mighty dynasty which reigned over Bohemia from here for at least a century in those days when the Christian world was moving eastward as crusaders, under Frederick Barbarossa, and for a short time ousted the Greek Emperors from the seat of Constantine in favour of the Latin Emperors, Baldwin and his successors. Here, again, Empires have gone under and their lands have been divided among younger races. We hurry on ever to south-east, and shortly enter a land which was formerly a portion of the Empire now on its death-bed—Moldavia, a province of Roumania.

Roumania is a very interesting country, and I must own to a kind of spell which its past history and its present prosperity cast upon me. The former is stirring indeed. Memories of histories I had read came crowding in upon me as I travelled through Moldavia, the country separated from Russia by the Pruth, watered by the Sereth and its tributaries, Moldava, Bistritza, and others that come down from the Carpathian Mountains into the fertile plain. The Carpathians, snow-tipped, densely wooded on their lower slopes, accompanied me in the blue distance, until about the latitude of Galatz they turned away to westward, curving round in their southern range until they meet the Danube at Orsova, and force it to narrow down to a third of its stately width in order to pass through the Iron Gates. I thought of all those hordes of wandering barbarians whose course was deflected by the Carpathians, showing again how nature’s barriers form the destinies of men. Streams of savages poured into this valley from the plains of Western Russia. Who were the first inhabitants is matter of conjecture: Scythians probably occupied the eastern districts, Thracians and Dacians were found by Trajan in the western part. Trajan conquered the Dacians in his campaign of 101-106 A.D., and founded a colony called Dacia Trajana. The column to this Emperor’s honour, in Rome, sets forth the story of his conquest. The Dacians were by no means easy people to deal with, and Rome—Imperial Rome—had much trouble with Decebal, their King, who was finally vanquished, and committed suicide in order to escape from the disgrace of following the conqueror’s triumphal chariot through the Roman Forum.

Among the Roman remains scattered about the western parts of Roumania are the bridge-heads at Turn Severin and the ruined tower of Severus in the public gardens of that thriving township. It is supposed by the Roumanians themselves that they are descended from the Roman colonists of Dacia Trajana, and they point to their language in evidence. Theirs is indeed a Latin tongue, but language is often a false guide in the difficult and intricate paths of ethnology. It seems to me open to doubt that Rome of the second century could have afforded a sufficiently large supply of emigrants to people a large colony; and that the whole Roumanian nation should be descended from the Roman legionaries seems unlikely, for in the first instance it does not follow that the legionaries were all Romans, or even Latins, and again, if they had been, there would have been only a small proportion of them who would be permitted to bring wives and families with them. Moreover, the Roman tenure of the land was short, only about a century and a half, as in 270 the Goths streamed in from the north-east, obliging Emperor Aurelian to withdraw his troops into the province of Moesia, subsequently called Dacia Aureliana. The Goths were not inclined to settle anywhere in those days; they simply plundered and murdered as they went along, and probably left no definite impression on the races they were pleased to visit. We shall meet them again nearer Constantinople.

Huns and Gepidi probably left stronger traces in the population of the former Roman province of Dacia Trajana when they swarmed through it in the middle of the fifth century, and I am inclined to think that in the middle of the next century the invading Avari made a deeper impression. Slavs and Bulgars forced their way here, and of the former many traces have been found, leading to the supposition that they enter largely into the composition of the Roumanian people. The Hungarians may have contributed something towards building up the present people of Roumania, when they marched through in 830, and subsequent Slav races, such as the Petschenegs in 900 and the Kumani, Tartars, in 1050, probably added their quota. At any rate German influence had vanished, and Slavs and Finns (Bulgars), with detachments of other wandering races united, blended into one, and it is thus that the Roumanian nation of to-day may be said to have originated. Dacia of Roman days extended well into Hungary of the present day, Transylvania, and the Banat, with the present divisions of Roumania, being a number of duchies still called Dacia in those days, though Imperial Rome had long abandoned the part of “Weltmacht.” In the tenth and eleventh centuries, no doubt owing to the intervening Carpathians, Transylvania and the Banat became subject to Hungary, while the duchies of Wallachia and Moldavia crystallized into political entities, and were found to be sufficiently powerful to keep out the Kumani and check the Tartars in the fourteenth century.

Towards the end of the fourteenth century yet another race came into Dacia from out of the East, driven from their homes in India by Tamerlane. They are known by various names, and are spread all over Europe. We call them gipsies, the Germans “Zigeuner,” from “Tsigani,” the name by which they are known in Eastern Europe. They call themselves Romanies, probably because they made Roumania their home, and here they are to be found in great numbers. Their language is Roumanian, though they have acquired many others in the course of their wanderings. Wherever they go they bring music with them, grand epics, love-songs, quaint little popular ditties, which they sing to the accompaniment of string instruments. It is these Tsigani who have been instrumental in keeping alive the traditions of a great past among the peoples of the Balkan countries. Together with religion, their songs have helped to preserve the national identity of Roumanians and Serbs, have fostered racial ambitions, and inspired heroes to fight for freedom. They sing in soul-stirring epics of Stephan Dushan, of great Voivods who led men to battle, of Hunyadi Janos and his paladins, of ill-fated Knjes Lazar, whose army of crusaders went under in a sea of blood before the sword of Othman on the Amselfeld at Kossovo, since recaptured by the Serbs. Their songs tell of great men rulers of the independent principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia; of Michael the Brave, who lived when Henri IV was King of France. Michael showed the Osmanli that it is vain to attempt the suppression of a strong race and its religion. No doubt the attempt seemed successful for a while; Cantomir of Moldavia and Brancovan of Wallachia, allied to Peter the Great of Russia, suffered defeat at the hands of the Turks on the banks of the Pruth, and had to submit to the rule of Greek hospodars, placed in power by the Porte, for a period of fifty-eight years.

The duchies, like greater Powers in Eastern Europe, were unable for long to withstand the influence of the latest race to come from out of the East, and became subject to the Osmanli. During troubled centuries of Turkish suzerainty the Roumanian people preserved their faith, their national characteristics, and this enabled them to rise as a young, strong race when the hour of deliverance came. They had absorbed from their conquerors a number of able men, whose descendants have since identified themselves with the ambitions of Roumania, whose names are writ large on the tablets of fame among those who helped to make Roumania free. Of one of these the following story is told. There lived in Stamboul a gentle, business-like Armenian, by trade a cats’-meat man. Among his customers he noticed an elderly, dejected individual who was very particular in his choice of the daily morsel of meat, choosing liver as a rule. Now it struck the Armenian that possibly this daily purchase might be meant for human consumption, instead of for the delectation of a pet cat; careful inquiries led to the following discovery. His customer was an old servant, the only one who had remained true to his master, and that master, once Grand Vizier, had fallen from his high estate on very evil times. The Armenian cats’-meat man thereupon thought fit to be charitable, provided his customer with better wares, and suggested that payment might be deferred until a brighter day. By one of those turns of the wheel not unusual in Oriental countries, the former Grand Vizier rose from poverty and rags to power again, and decided to reward the Armenian. Considering that one candidate for the vacant post of Vali of Moldavia was likely to be as bad as another, he decided to thus endow the cats’-meat man, who possibly developed unsuspected talent in his new line of business. At any rate, he is the putative ancestor of one of Roumania’s greatest princely houses, the Ghika family. There are descendants of yet more ancient families still to be found in Roumania, amongst them some Cantacuzene, of Byzantine fame.

Roumania followed Greece and Servia in wresting its freedom from the Turk, and the Convention of Paris in 1856 assured the autonomous rights of the principalities, their union into one State, and constitutional government. A native magnate, Colonel Alexander Cusa, ruled as Prince Alexander John I for ten years, and although his election to that position was not in exact accordance with the Treaty of Paris, was nevertheless sanctioned by the Powers. This Prince resigned in 1866, and as a Count of Flanders, younger brother of the King of the Belgians, declined the invitation to succeed him, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen accepted it as Carol I. In 1877 Roumania declared herself completely independent of Turkey, much against Russia’s wishes, and ceased to pay tribute to the Porte. This precipitated the war against Turkey, and three divisions of Roumanian troops, some 35,000 men, with 108 guns, led by their Prince, joined the Russian forces. Prince Charles himself fired the first shot at Vidin, and his gallant troops followed him on to victory. They particularly distinguished themselves by spirited bayonet attacks at Plevna, and it was to the Roumanian troops that Osman Pasha surrendered. Roumania was not called to the conference at S. Stefano, and had to trust to Russia’s good offices in order to get her independence fully recognized. For this kindness Russia annexed fruitful Bessarabia, leaving to Roumania the swamps of the Dobrutsha. On the 22nd (10th) of May, 1881, the Hohenzollern Prince was crowned King of Roumania, having been duly proclaimed by both Chambers of the country’s Parliament. He rules still, and wisely, over a prosperous country of 50,702 square miles, with a population of six to seven millions.

The majority of the people of Roumania belong to the Orthodox Greek Church, have so far lived in peace with their neighbours, and are happy and prosperous. But they have not remained unaffected by the desperate events which brought such an upheaval to the other Balkan States. There is among the younger generation considerable discontent at the supposed subservience of Roumania’s foreign policy to the dictates of her mighty friend, Austria. It is argued that if Austria had not vetoed Roumania’s mobilization on the outbreak of the Balkan War, that war might have been stopped. As matters stand at present, many Roumanians think that they have missed an opportunity of getting some useful trifle of territory for themselves, or that they have been deprived of opportunity, and are consequently very sore about it. So here, too, threatening clouds obscure the political horizon.

It would be a ghastly sequel to the indecision of the Great Powers if this plucky little kingdom were called upon to face an invader, if grim-visaged war were to cast its shadow over the fair fields and fertile plains of Roumania. The rich soil produces abundance of wheat, maize, and other cereals, and would produce more but for the summer droughts. I have seen the rich yellow maize being garnered, and have watched the golden wealth of corn shipped into boats and barges on the Danube, to be taken down to Braila, Galatz, and thence onward to feed other countries less bountifully supplied. Then there are vast forests, another source of wealth. It is only a few weeks ago that I was tramping over crisp snow in the shade of close-standing forest trees. A friend had asked me to go out with him after wild boar. It was a glorious day; cool greys and purples in the forest, with here and there a patch of rich brown soil, and through the trees the sun, in a clear blue sky, drew radiance from the snow, and showed up on a background of dark green firs the golden glory of larches, the red and russet leaves of wild cherry, and other trees, on which the foliage still lingered ere the winter storms set in. Winter is very severe in this country, and wolves come down from the mountains to the villages in the plains in search of their prey. There is other game in plenty; bear may be found in the depths of the Carpathian forests, and the wild cat, in thick black and grey striped coat, steals through the undergrowth like his larger kinsmen of the jungle.

Bucharest, the capital of Roumania, is a town for which I have a sincere liking. It is not a large place, only some 300,000, but it is a well-planned town, gay, just a little wicked, and above all, the inhabitants insist on the best of music, and get it at such places as the Continental Hotel, where you can dine well to the strains of an excellent gipsy orchestra.

Roumania occupies a position of some danger in the complex polity of South-East Europe. To eastward, across the Pruth, looms the massive strength of Russia, never yet put to a severe test, so that its power is still an unknown quantity. To southward across the Danube live the Bulgarians, a strong, ambitious people, and, as far as I can ascertain, not on the friendliest terms with Roumania. But behind Roumania is the Empire of Kaiser Franz Josef, and Austrian influence is strong, especially in the industrial life of Roumania. It would be piteous to carry war into this happy country, with its flourishing agriculture, its prosperous oil-fields, at Bustenari, Campiña, etc. But Roumania has taken due precautions; a navy of some seventy-five small but well-appointed vessels guards Roumanian interests on the Black Sea coast; they may be seen occasionally on the lower reaches of the Danube, by the huge bridge that carries the railway over to Constanza, the Brighton of the Black Sea littoral, or perhaps Trouville is a more apt comparison. Here also ends the wall which Trajan built from the Danube across the narrowest part of the Dobrutsha.

Then, again, the Roumanian Army is well able to hold its own. The war establishment of the regular army, well trained and well equipped, numbers 175,000 troops, more by three-quarters than Great Britain’s expeditionary force. To this should be added a territorial force of excellent quality of about equal numbers, altogether a formidable obstacle to any one who wishes to interfere with Roumania’s position in the world. For this adequate defence Roumania pays somewhat less than two and a half millions.

As I wrote this the political horizon of Roumania was dark with heavy storm-clouds, for her eastern neighbour is like to be drawn into the strife which is altering the state of Southern Europe, the onslaught of the southern Slav nations on their old oppressors at Constantinople. The southern frontier of Roumania at least was safe, for the Bulgarians were hammering now at the gates of Constantinople, pouring out their blood like water by the lines of Chatalja.

CHAPTER II

My fellow-passengers in the boat train to Constanza—The Bosphorus and places of interest by its shores: Kavak and the Genoese castle, forts ancient and modern—Some mention of forgotten deities, and also of races long since dead, who passed by here—The Russians and their first visit to the Bosphorus—The Genoese and their doings in these waters—The Giant’s Mountain and Joshua’s grave—My adventure at Kavak, suspected of spying, and a similar experience at Badajoz—The castles, Anatoli and Roumeli Hissar—Mohammed the Conqueror and the siege of Constantinople—Approaching the Golden Horn, foreign warships—Byzas the seafarer—Some legends and tales about ancient Byzantium, mentioning important people like Alcibiades and Philip of Macedonia—Stamboul and the origin of its name; some of its story—Its present troubles.

THE Roumanian mail-steamer “Dacia,” a fast, well-appointed ship, carried me out into the Black Sea on a clear, dark night, her nose pointing towards the Bosphorus. My fellow-passengers by the train conveying me to Constanza had tried to fill me with alarm as to the state of Constantinople, they spoke of rumoured massacres, and advised me to don a fez, alluded with head-shakings to cholera, and generally warned me against my enterprise. Nevertheless, the next morning found me within sight of the entrance to the Bosphorus; a pearly grey morning, and the sun drew a flickering path of light from our port bow, broadening into a scintillating expanse of silver on the horizon. Groups of Turks stood in the bows straining their eyes for a sight of land.

It was an intensely peaceful morning which made it difficult to imagine that behind the blue heights rising out of the water fierce war raged with all its attendant horrors; for there to south-west, beyond the coast fort of Kilia, and some fifty miles beyond it, were the lines of Chatalja, where the Bulgarians were trying to wrest the Empire of the East from the palsied hand of the sons of Othman. The coast of Asia Minor emerges from the pearly sea and marks the entrance to the Turkish Empire from the north. History and legend crowd in upon this narrow waterway, with its little wooden houses by the shore, sombre cypresses guarding them, and the graves upon the slopes, where modern forts and ancient strongholds stand side by side. Here to our left on the Asiatic side lies Anatoli Kavak, the Poplar of Asia, for several poplars stand out above the buildings devoted to the sanitary service of the port. There is a fort at the point trying its best to look modern, and above it, rising to the heights, are the remains of an older civilization, those of the Genoese castle. On the opposite bank is Roumeli Kavak, the Poplar of Europe, also fortified in the divers manners of many ages. Legend and history have been busy in this part of the Bosphorus. This narrow passage was formerly known as the Straits of Hieron, and that name derives from the fact that a temple to the twelve gods stood here. Here Jason offered sacrifices on his return from Colchis. There were also temples to Poseidon and Zeus, Serapis and Cybele, but they have vanished with the gods to whom they were dedicated.

The Heruli took refuge here after an unsuccessful sea fight off Scutari, then known as Chrysopolis, and about the same time the Goths crossed over from Roumeli Kavak into Asia, and ravaged Bithynia up to the walls of Nicodemia, but Odenatus, commanding the military forces of the East, checked their progress and drove them away to Heraklea on the Black Sea. In the middle of the ninth century Russians appeared for the first time, passing down the Bosphorus to the City of Constantine, but attempted no further than Hieron. They came again in the middle of the tenth century under a cloud of sail ten thousand vessels in all, and burned Stenia and Hieron, but Theophanes, the soldier of Emperor Romanus II, met and defeated them at Hieron. In later years the Genoese became powerful and held a strong position at Galata; they took Hieron and Serapeori, and the ruined castle on the heights above Anatoli Kavak stands as a monument to that enterprising republic. Another seafaring republic, Venice, which rivalled Greece on this highway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, troubled the waters between Anatoli and Roumeli Kavak with frequent naval engagements. Meanwhile the country was supposed to belong to the Empire of the East, and a church was built and dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, who was considered peculiarly suited to represent and defend Greek interests at Hieron. However, those who had assigned to him this duty neglected their own, and so in time had to make way for the Turk. He in his turn was now threatened from the north, for but fifty miles away the Bulgarians were hammering at the lines of Chatalja.

A little further to the south on the Asiatic side rises the highest point on the banks of the Bosphorus, the Giant’s Mountain. The Turks call it Yousha daghi, the Mountain of Joshua, and no one shares with them the interest in this spot, for here they have thought fit to bury Joshua. His grave is here, so who dare doubt; it stands over five hundred feet above the level, is guarded by true believers, and offers to others an opportunity of becoming immune to “need, sickness, or any other adversity.” All the visitor need do to attain to this happy state is to hang a bit of rag on one of the bushes that grow out of the grave, and rags are plentiful in Turkey. It is also advisable to walk round the grave several times and wish for something you happen to want. The grave is twenty feet long and five feet broad, and carefully enclosed within a framework of stone.

While taking a sketch of this landscape some years ago, I had my first of two experiences as a suspected spy.

In some countries of Europe even the most innocuous traveller is liable to be suspected of espionage as soon as he produces a camera—a bit of paper and a pencil will even suffice to arouse suspicion. Strange to say, it is among the so-called Great Powers that the mania has got the firmest hold of the official world and even of the public.

Of course, the lesser Powers have not quite escaped contagion, and it is from some of these that I have gained my experience as a suspected spy, for, needless to say, such an habitual traveller as I am is not likely to escape from the effects of the prevailing malaise. Fortunately my experiences have been rather amusing than otherwise, and have caused no international crisis, no trembling in the balance of the Peace of Europe, not even a newspaper paragraph.

But think of what might have happened when I took a pencil sketch of the bulwarks of Belgrade! True, those venerable fortifications date from the days of Vauban, and are as much use for defence as are the walls of Semendria, the old Roman castle further down the Danube, and moreover the Danube Powers have long ago agreed not to fortify any place along the river-bank. Yet the fortifications of Belgrade are jealously guarded; but as it was four in the morning when I took my sketch from on board the Danube steamer there was no one about to say me nay, and hence no international complications.

A few days later my peripatetic habits took me to Constantinople, and there one day I seated myself on the banks of the Bosphorus, Asiatic side, and began a sketch of the lovely view before me. There happened to be a more or less modern fort immediately behind me; this, of course, did not concern me. I was deeply engaged in rendering the blue sky reflected in the sea, a stern old Genoese castle in the background, which had served its purpose of defence many centuries ago, when two amiable Turkish artillery officers came down to the beach and sat one on either side of me. They greeted me kindly and inquired whether I could speak German or French. I replied that I could oblige in either, whereupon they conversed with me in both, mixed, and to my mind not a judicious mixture. We talked of many things, when one of them said, “It is forbidden to sketch here!” and the other endorsed the statement. They quite agreed with me, however, that it would be a pity to stop painting now, as I had so nearly finished, and so our conversation went into other channels. There was yet another Turkish officer, who stood some way behind us, shouting in an angry tone and in his own tongue, which, as I understand it not at all, did not trouble me. An occasional pacifying answer from my two neighbours failed of its effect. When I had quite finished my friends helped me to pack up and escorted me past the fort, followed by the sound of the angry voice. My escort explained that the owner of the voice wanted to arrest me and was with difficulty dissuaded; this friendly demonstration moved me to offer hospitality, my escort having casually mentioned that good beer was to be found at a neighbouring café. The escort furtively looked back towards the fort, then sadly shook hands with me and said, “No, he (the angry one, a good Moslem) is looking—come again another day.”

My most recent experience showed me that the mania has spread to Spain, though happily in a mild form. I suffered from it, so I know; and this is what happened.

At the time I was collecting material for a book on Portugal, and to this end the Portuguese Government had kindly given me a free pass over their railway system. This pass, I found, would take me to Badajoz and back, a most excellent reason for visiting the place. The time-table prepared me for a twelve hours’ journey by slow train, but in its being intensely matter-of-fact could not foreshadow the “local colour” which illumined my pilgrimage. The start at 7 p.m. was quite peaceful; I secured a corner seat, and the other corners only were occupied, so we jogged along in no very great discomfort. But only a few stations out of Lisbon the peace was broken. A sound of many voices, high-pitched, grew louder as we drew up at a wayside station, it rolled into our compartment in “dense volume” as the door was flung open, and with it came a shower of parcels of all sizes, impartially distributed among us. The fulcrum of this shower (if a shower runs to one) was a stout lady, impelled through space into our midst by some potent agency without. Grasping a bottle of wine in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, talking loudly all the while, she alighted (not at all like a bird) on my foot, dropped on to my knee, and slid thence into a seat by my side. Followed quickly by her maid, also talking; she settled abruptly on the cap of a cavalry officer opposite to me. But yet more strident tones dominated this Babel, proceeding from a stouter lady, volant, who once settled, fitted a number of talkative males into the interstices between huge hat-boxes and other personal effects. The compartment was thus completely crowded, and conversation raged—raged till morning, was raging on the platform at Badajoz, when I left for the town. Had I been a stranger to the country and its people the intense excitement of my fellow-travellers might have led me to imagine all manner of horrid happenings to unhappy Portugal, grim revolution mixed with devastating earthquakes, foreign invasion on one frontier and a tidal wave on the seaward side—as a matter of fact, the ladies were travelling for their health.

All-unsuspecting I passed in at the gates of Badajoz, past the guard-house, and made my way towards the south-east of the city, where I hoped to get a good view. I did, and having indulged in an appropriate thrill over the storming of that citadel, proceeded with my legitimate business, sketching. Then I wandered round by the river, and began the outline of a mass of crumbling ruins, tumbling down towards the bank. Those walls must have been quite useful for defensive purposes many centuries ago, they are now extremely picturesque, and therefore still useful to the peripatetic artist. Suddenly a well-modulated voice broke in upon my labours. Standing by my side, cap in hand, was a sergeant of the Guarda Civil, who wished to know whether My Excellency, Grace, or Worship (I do not know what the Spanish usted means) had any authorization to take sketches. I admitted that I had none, at the same time appealing to the gentleman as an expert whether my sketches could possibly be considered of any strategical or tactical value. The sergeant modestly declined to judge in such a weighty matter, and requested that I should do him the favour of accompanying him. This I untruthfully expressed myself delighted to do, and so he led me to the guard-house. There was no barred and bolted prison cell for me, in fact I did not penetrate into the interior of the guard-house at all, possibly because a very stout corporal filled up all the doorway. This warrior took a very serious view of the case and said he must fetch an officer; so he majestically passed out of my ken, for I never saw him again. In the meantime I was getting distinctly bored; the sergeant, though most courteous, was no conversationalist, and my knowledge of Spanish is strictly limited. After an hour’s delay two gentlemen in mufti passed our way, evidently people of importance, for my sergeant was at once cap in hand, and to them he entered upon a recital about my serious case. One of them understood French, so I showed him my sketch-book and asked him to try and discover anything of military value or importance in it. He failed, but nevertheless suggested that the sergeant and I should call upon the Military Governor. I hinted that we might have thought of that before, but my sergeant seemed to consider it (thinking) no part of his business.

We waited another hour at the Military Governor’s palatial official residence, watching Spanish soldiers moving in and out in their quick, jaunty manner; smart, well-dressed men they are too. Then His Excellency the Governor came down the steps, and my sergeant, cap in hand, began his story all over again. I burst into it in French and again showed up my sketch-book, His Excellency quite agreeing with me that my sketches were singularly harmless from any point of view. Perhaps I was assuming more responsibility than becomes a wandering painter when I promised that I would never bring out an English army to upset the walls of Badajoz again, though of course I could safely promise never to take part in any such disturbance should it happen again. The Governor was thoroughly satisfied with my earnest assurances, and with a generous wave of his arm invited me to draw and paint all Badajoz. “Would His Excellency give me that gracious permission in writing? Without it I might be calling again in half an hour’s time and with a fresh escort!” “Certainly!” So I became possessed of a document which gave a strange rendering of my name—it described me as one Leandro Vaca, which latter being interpreted means cow. After this formality we were all extremely polite to each other, we bowed a great deal and said to each other things which we could not have meant to be taken seriously. Twice did I meet the Governor and his staff in the streets that afternoon, and each time we did the bowing all over again.

Two hours of precious daylight had been wasted, so I made up for lost time and sketched everywhere, especially near sentries, as I particularly wished to watch the magic effect of the Leandro Vaca document. But alas! not one of those sentries could be roused to the least interest in my proceedings; so I took my way back to the station, destroying the document, as the Governor had requested me to do so. Here ends my “espionage story,” which, not to be behindhand, I have had to put into print myself, no reporter having thought it worth while at the time.

A very different place altogether is Therapia, some three miles further south on the European side; the name means “Place of Healing,” and must have been given to it before the ambassadors of the Great Powers set up their summer residence by its shore. As I passed by Therapia several Turkish men-of-war, a small cruiser, a gunboat, and several destroyers were lying peacefully in the small harbour, completely indifferent to the trials of Turkey’s land forces, who, only a matter of fifty miles away, were endeavouring to ward off the Bulgarians’ blow at the heart of the Ottoman Empire.

The Bosphorus broadens out somewhat at Beikos on the Asiatic side, and it is on this curving bay that according to legend Pollux visited Amycus, King of the Bebryces, to the latter’s undoing.

The banks draw closer together, clustering wooden houses dipping their stone foundations in the water grow more numerous as the Bosphorus winds southward. Two castles rise from among trees and wooden houses, one majestically, the other in rather humbler fashion, the former on the European, the latter on the Asiatic shore. History lingers round these broken towers, but the battered grey walls looked sadder than when I saw them last, under the grey sky they seemed to mourn the departed glory of the race that built them. The castle on the Asiatic side, Anatoli Hissar, encloses rows of quaint little wooden huts, tendrils of vine stretch across the narrow cobbled alleys from the overhanging roofs, and at the foot of the castle flow the Sweet Waters of Asia. It is a pleasant place in spring, this “valley of the heavenly water,” and one of the loveliest spots on the banks of the Bosphorus. To many Asiatic poets it has been what the valley of the Mondego was to Camoens and other sweet singers of Lusitania. Mohammed I built this castle, and Mohammed II sat here in 1451 watching the growth of Roumeli Hissar, the Castle of Europe, on the frontier shore. In three months this castle rose from the rocky slope at this the narrowest part of the Bosphorus; thousands of labourers were forced into the service of construction, and the ground plan was the initial letter of Mohammed’s name.

When it was finished Firaz Agha was appointed commander of the garrison of four hundred men, and levied toll on all passing ships, while the Emperor of the East sent despairing offers of peace from his purple palace in Constantinople. But Mohammed II declined to negotiate, and continued his preparations for the taking of the Castle of Cæsar. Here the forces of Othman gathered strength for their great enterprise, hence they set forth on desperate venture. Constantinople fell before them, the Eastern Empire vanished like a dream, and the Crescent gleamed over the subject races of the Balkan Peninsula and carried terror into the hearts of Christian countries away to the walls of Vienna.

To-day those former subject races, strong and united, have overrun all but the last few miles of the Turkish Empire in Europe; there to westward, at a distance of fifty miles or so, the Bulgarians were hammering at the lines of Chatalja.

When Mohammed the Conqueror first began to besiege Constantinople he endeavoured to force an entrance by the Golden Horn; from Roumeli Hissar to Seraglio Point his fleet extended, but in vain, for a heavy chain barred the entrance, and beyond it the larger vessels of the Genoese and Venetians rode at anchor. So Mohammed conceived a bold plan in keeping with his character and ability.

From Beshiktash—called by the Greeks Diplokion, the Double Columns, Mohammed caused a road of smooth planks to be constructed; this road led over the heights and down to the western end of the Golden Horn. It must have been a difficult task, for Galata, the Genoese fortress, had to be avoided. Galata stands in a position somewhat similar to Constantinople, on a promontory formed by the Hellespont and the Golden Horn, which bends slightly to the north after passing west of the place where the land wall of Theodosius joined the sea-wall, towards the Sweet Waters of Europe. When the road was completed, the planks thoroughly greased, a host of men hauled eighty galleys over it during the night. According to the Byzantine chronicler, Ducas, every galley had a pilot at her prow, another on her poop, with his hand on the tiller; so, with drums beating time to the sailors’ songs the whole fleet passed along as though it were carried by a stream of water, sailing, as it were, over the land. The next morning these ships were riding at anchor in the upper, shallower part of the harbour, beyond reach of the larger Genoese and Venetian vessels.

Thus the fleet of Mohammed the Conqueror in 1453, while the Turkish fleet of to-day was lying idle, though hundreds of thousands of sons of Ottoman were struggling to retain a fragment of Turkey’s European possessions.

There were few signs to show that Turkey was engaged in a struggle for life as I passed down the Bosphorus; here and there were camps, red-brown canvas tents, and over some buildings by the shore the red crescent on a white ground spoke of much-needed comfort for the sick and wounded. It was not till Stamboul and Scutari hove in sight that I saw anything unusual, but what I saw was remarkably so—the massive hulls of foreign warships. Nearer to Scutari lay a large French cruiser, black against the uncertain light of a rainy day. Scutari and Kadi Kevi, the ancient Chalcedon, as Byzas, the founder of Byzantium, called it, because the inhabitants of that place must have been blind, or they would have chosen the tongue of land opposite, on the glorious harbour, on which to build their city. Scutari, where Florence Nightingale’s hospital still stands. English ladies are following in that noble woman’s steps here, in Constantinople, in this day of affliction for the Turkish Empire—and are doing so with the bravery and devotion of women of our race.

Indeed a sign of evil days when foreign warships are anchored in the Golden Horn, but the interests of many nations are affected, and the future, not only for the Balkan countries, but also for all Europe, is big with possibilities.

Grey clouds hung over the Golden Horn as I approached it, the domes of mosques and their attendant minarets stood out darkly against a sullen sky, and the ancient cypress grove that breaks the outlines of the buildings on Seraglio Point seemed like those who mourn over some great catastrophe. Here, on this tongue of land—Seraglio Point—began the history of this troubled city, this Castle of Cæsar, throne of the Osmanli, which has seen more glory and more gloom, known more high delights and abject terrors than perhaps even eternal Rome. While heavy drops of rain fall from a leaden sky on to the steel decks of those grim foreign men-of-war, or splash on the slow-swinging waters of the Golden Horn, it is difficult to conjure up the scenes of former glories witnessed here by the sun on his daily passage from the east.

The Oracle in Poseidon’s sacred grove had whispered to Byzas the seafarer: “Go forth to the Country of the Blind and build you a city opposite their own—you shall prosper.” Silently the ship that carried Byzas and his fortunes stood out to sea as Aurora touched the high peaks of the Peloponese with rosy finger-tips, and called forth colours, carmine and gold, from the unruffled surface of the pearly Ægean Sea. Bearing ever to the north, Byzas and his fellows asked of those they met, “Is this the City of the Blind,” and receiving no answer, held on their way. He may have been tempted to land on one or other of the Prince’s islands, floating on the bosom of the blue Sea of Marmora, but the spirit within urged him further into the unknown.

Perhaps it was twilight when he saw a large city looming on the eastern shore of the narrowing waterway, the city he called Chalcedon, for opposite to it he found that entrance to the spacious harbour which is known the world over as the “Golden Horn.” Here Byzas, fulfilling the Oracle’s prediction, laid the foundations of ancient Byzantium, and the City grew and prospered. Behind the walls a busy populace increased the wealth and importance of the place, and others came here from afar in search of riches. So ancient Byzantium became the mart for those who traded from the west along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus away to Trebizond, on the Black Sea, where the old Greek tongue yet lingers in its purest form; the Crimea opening out cold, inhospitable Russia, even distant Persia exchanged its wares for the products of the city which Byzas had founded.

Byzant also assumed great strategical importance, as many of those who came in search of wealth came armed and minded to acquire what they wanted by the sword. Chroseos, King of the Persians, emerges from the mists of history, and appears for a brief space of time before the walls, with hordes of warriors, trained to ride, to shoot, to speak the truth; Spartans and Athenians tried the strength of this bulwark of Europe, and Alcibiades besieged it. In 370 B.C. the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, helped to defend the city against Philip of Macedonia, and forced him to abandon his intent. It is said that during this siege the Macedonians, under cover of a dark night, were on the point of carrying the town by assault, when a light appeared in the heavens to reveal their danger to the inhabitants. Rome gained possession of the city before the Christian era, and Constantine the Great, the man of genius, made this his capital in A.D. 330, giving to the city its present name, or rather one of its names, for the Turks call it Stamboul, or Istamboul, probably derived from the Greek εἱς τἡν πὁλιν, and to the Slavs it is known as Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.

Here in the heart of the Eastern Empire history, strong, full-blooded, speaks to us from ancient monuments and battered walls. Churches arose to mark the religious life of a strongly imaginative people, ruins of palaces still tell of a line of rulers, emperors, sultans who lived their day, worked for good or evil, and passed into the mist of things but half-remembered. Alien races found their way hither in search of booty, and dashed out their souls against the City’s strong defences. Severus, Maximus, and Constantinus tried its strength; another Persian king, Chroseos II, battled before these walls in 616, and ten years later the Avari came with the Persians on like enterprise. Towards the end of the seventh century a fierce foe, the Arabs, came up from the south, and tried in vain to force an entrance into the Castle of Constantine. They came again, and besieged the city for two years, from 716-18, but were refused a second time.

About a century and a half later Russians came down from the Black Sea, the prows of their long boats, under a cloud of sail, ploughing up the wintry waters of the Bosphorus. They also failed, but repeated the attempt twice in the tenth century, and yet once more towards the middle of the eleventh, only to return northward, baffled and broken.

The city fell for the first time before a host of Western Christians during the Latin Crusades under the leadership of Dandolo, Doge of Venice, in 1203-4. These Christians pillaged the Imperial City, and set up a line of Counts of Flanders as Emperors of the East. After some fifty years the Latins were driven forth, leaving Constantinople in a state of indescribable misery and desolation; Greek Emperors returned, but failed to restore the power of the Eastern Empire, which was sorely tried by the insistent sons of Othman. The last Greek Emperors reigned but two short centuries after the retreat of the Latins; then came Mohammed the Conqueror, and Constantinople passed into the hands of the Turk. It was during the Feast of Pentecost, on May 29th of 1453, that Constantinople fell before the sword of Othman. At this present season the Turks were keeping the Feast of Bairam, their Pentecost. Again, the superstitious point out another coincidence; both 1453 and 1912 make up the unlucky number thirteen.

Before Constantinople fell in 1453 the Eastern Empire had been shorn of all its possessions by the invading Turk, and from Adrianople, his European capital, he had organized the siege of the City. To-day all that the Turk may call his own of the European territory acquired by the sword is the point of land between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, on the north and south respectively, the Bosphorus on the east, and to westward the lines of Chatalja. Young nations long oppressed have risen against the power of the Porte; Greece, the first country to free itself, has marched to Saloniki, adding victory on victory; Montenegrins, the first to enter on this war, have come down from their mountains, and have taken possession of Turkish territory on the Adriatic Sea; Servia poured her warlike sons over the passes into Macedonia, and wrenched former possessions of Old Servia from the fiercely resisting Turks; finally Bulgaria, that strong, ambitious nation, holds Adrianople in a grip of steel, has hurled its young strength against the stubborn Turkish defences, and is now on guard at the lines of Chatalja, demanding admission by the voice of death-dealing ordnance.

During the Turkish Feast of Pentecost the enemy was at the gates, and the fate of Constantinople, the fate of the Turkish Empire in Europe, trembled in the balance.

It is rather a leap from the days of Mohammed the Conqueror to an evening at the Club de Pera, but Constantinople is a city of strong contrasts. The streets leading from the water-side to the club showed no signs of unusual military activity, there was no appearance of excitement or despondency in the bearing of the inhabitants, and the club, but for a larger gathering of members and the sight of a White Crescent armlet, was much as I am accustomed to find it. Indeed, men came to me, as the latest arrival, for news from the front and the outside world, for they have to wait for the papers from home, generally four or five days old. It seems strange, but is none the less true, that we here on the spot heard hardly anything of events that are disquieting the rest of Europe; we heard but distantly of Servia’s stubbornness in face of Austria’s insistence concerning the Adriatic littoral, we caught but a fleeting rumour of Russia’s supposed designs and Roumania’s possible peril. All we knew was that brave men were dying by thousands out by the lines of Chatalja, some fifty miles distant; the booming of guns carried by the sobbing wind from out of the west brought us tidings of warlike happenings.

CHAPTER III

The everyday aspect of Constantinople—Refugees in the streets—Sick and wounded soldiers in the streets—The Red Crescent over the Museum in the Seraglio—More about Byzas—Theodosius II and Constantius the præfect—The geological situation of Constantinople—The treasures of the Museum and the School of Art—The Prince’s Islands—Irene, Empress of the East, and Charlemagne—The Atrium of Justinian—About Amurath I and the Christian Princess—Mohammed the Conqueror and the Greek Patriarch—Some tales of the Seraglio, of Bajazet and Zizimes, of Selim I, of Suleiman the Great and Roxalana—The Seraglio as hospital.

THE sun was shining brightly as on the morning after my arrival I made my way down from Pera through Galata, towards Stamboul. Everything appeared much as usual; the bridge of Galata was as crowded as ever with all sorts and conditions of men—hamals carrying huge loads, soldiers, kavasses, dervishes, water-carriers, and vendors of cake and other less useful articles. Horses seemed as plentiful as ever, driven by loud-voiced coachmen, drawing obese, elderly Turks. The fish-market was as busy as ever, and the open space behind the Mosque of Valideh showed its customary groups of men of leisure.

It was on the way to the station, in the narrow streets of that neighbourhood, that I saw sights unusual to the City. Nearly all these narrow streets were blocked by rows of waggons, drawn by oxen, conveying fugitives from Thrace and Macedonia, chiefly the former province. Men, but few young ones amongst them, women and children, swarmed about these carts, which contained all their portable property. From the dark recesses of these carts, covered either with striped carpet or tilt of basket-work, you might see a solemn-faced baby, brown of visage, black-eyed, crawling over the indescribable medley of sacks and bags stuffed with the family properties, while familiar utensils, strangely out of place, were disposed about the outside supports of the roof. Groups of children played about in the appalling filth of the narrow streets and seemed quite happy and contented. Women unveiled, and young girls went about performing household duties, and the men for the most part sat on their haunches against the wall, wrapt in contemplation.

On the whole there seemed little misery among these particular people, who had left their homes, fleeing before a victorious enemy. They waited patiently, some of them for days, to be transported across to Asia Minor, where, on the “native heath” of their race, they propose to start life afresh. Being Turks, they are no doubt used to Turkish rule, and prefer it to any other.

Sadder scenes I saw when walking up from the station past the lower gate of the Sublime Porte, towards the old Seraglio. Here were hundreds of soldiers, some sick, some slightly wounded, making their way to the hospitals established in the buildings of the Seraglio enclosure. Most of these men looked only weary, others thoroughly unconcerned, but on some faces I noted traces of such despair as I have seldom seen before. Weary and footsore, they trod the uneven pavement up to the gate of the Seraglio, only to be turned back and ordered elsewhere. These men were only the slightly wounded, in fact, no others, it appears, have come into the town. Where are those who were dangerously wounded? It is said that they are rotting, uncared-for, on the plains of Macedonia, on the hill-sides and plains of Thrace.

The Red Crescent now flies over the Museum, Armoury, and other buildings within the Seraglio enclosure, where so much of Constantinople’s stirring history took place. A wall with many square towers shuts off the Seraglio from the rest of Stamboul, and here, within this limited space, was laid the seed of Byzantine greatness. Formerly, stout walls enclosed this point to seaward as well as landward, and Bondelmontius, who travelled here, counted 188 strong towers. There are yet a few traces left of those stout walls, their foundations in the Sea of Marmora or the waters of the Golden Horn. No doubt Byzas built a wall, as becomes the founder of a city, but it was so long ago, and so many great men have built here since, that any expectations of finding traces of the original walls are hardly reasonable. They say that some huge blocks of stone date from the days of Pausanias, but even later work is old compared to most similar historical remains found in Western Europe. Theodosius II and his præfect Constantius have left records of their activity here, and that was in the beginning of the fifth century; then Emperor Theophilus repaired them in the ninth century.

Constantinople, like several other great cities, stands upon seven hills; this is the fashion among really great cities, and the first of these hills is that on which stand the Seraglio buildings. A broad road leads up to these buildings, which contain many interesting things. There is the Museum, containing many treasures, among them two of wondrous beauty—two sarcophagi—one of which claims to have held the remains of Alexander the Great, the other is said to have been the last resting-place of one of Alexander’s generals, and is known as “Les Pleureuses,” from the beautifully sculptured female figures in mourning draperies which adorn it. One set of buildings is devoted to modern art, a school for that purpose having been founded here, under the auspices of Humdi Bey, who is responsible for much of artistic effort and archæological research which characterized the Young Turk ambition to compete with the West in Western graces and accomplishments. I visited the School of Art two years ago, in order to see how far those ambitions were likely to be realized, especially in painting, my own particular pursuit. There were numbers of sketches and studies of undoubted accuracy, evidence of appreciation and of careful observation, but to me these works appeared no more than transcriptions of Nature; the Divine Fire which creates was not. This leads me regretfully to suppose that the Turk is not likely to progress along the line of creative art, albeit their High Priest, the Sheikh-ul-Islam, has decreed that there is no infringement of the laws of the Prophet in the endeavour of his followers to express higher thoughts by means artistic.

It has been my good fortune to visit many of our earth’s most beautiful places; Imperial Rome has cast its spell upon me, Naples I saw and happily did not die of joy at seeing it, I have entered Bombay Harbour when the sun was rising behind the Poona Ghats, and have seen the Shwe Dagon at Rangoon, gleaming over its dark green bowers by the rays of the setting sun. Then, again, I have looked over the broad expanse of the Tagus at Lisbon, when a fierce storm from the vast Atlantic flayed the troubled waters, and vivid lightnings showed distant Palmella against an angry sky; I have walked in the groves by the banks of Mondego, the Lovers’ River, at Coimbra, where whispering reeds tell the story of Inez de Castro, and have sat by the banks of the Lima, which flows through the “Happy Valley,” whither the ancient gods fled before the Cross. Yet have I seldom found a spot so fitted to attune the mind to an appreciation of things beautiful as Constantinople and its Seraglio enclosure. To the south-west, in the blue Sea of Marmora, the Prince’s Islands, or the Daimonnisoi, seem to float on the untroubled waters. There are nine of these islands, and chief among them is Prinkipo, and to each one attaches some interest, some memory of former times. There is Halki, or Khalki, a group of three hills, and each had its convent dedicated respectively to the Virgin, to St. George, and to Holy Trinity. There is also a historic monument which more nearly concerns Englishmen, the tomb of Edward Barton, sometime Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth to the Sultan of the day.

But Prinkipo, as chiefest of the Prince’s Islands, stands out above them in romantic interest. Irene, the great Empress of the East, great among renowned contemporaries of the ninth century, Charlemagne, Haroun-al-Raschid, had built and endowed a convent on this island. Charlemagne spent much of his time fighting infidels; his warpath led him over the Pyrenees to assist the Gothic kingdoms against the Moor; on one such occasion, when retreating into France, Roland the Paladin fell. Again, Wittekind, Duke of the Saxons, was subject to the Frankish Emperor’s attention, and caused him a vast amount of trouble before he became a Christian and settled down. Then Charlemagne took the field against the Avari, who infested the banks of the Danube from above Vienna down towards the Black Sea, and who probably proved troublesome neighbours to the Eastern Empire. No doubt Irene was much impressed with Charlemagne’s prowess, and being a lone, lorn widow had the happy idea of uniting the Empires of the East and the West by matrimony. Charlemagne sent an ambassador to arrange the matter, but one Nicephorus, Chancellor of the Empire, spoilt the plan by banishing Irene to Prinkipo. The Empress was not allowed to rest here, but was conveyed to Lemnos, where she died a year later. Her remains were buried in the convent she had founded at Prinkipo. Nicephorus, as first Emperor of that name, reigned for nine years, and suffered the indignity of paying tribute to the Arabs. He fell in the war against the Bulgarians, who now, as I write, are threatening Constantinople at the lines of Chatalja.

Where now are tumbling ruins through which the railroad makes its way, down by the Sea of Marmora where it washes Seraglio Point, there was in ancient days a broad esplanade called the Atrium of Justinian the Great, for it was his creation. It was a fair place too, built of white marble, and here the citizens of Constantinople would meet to breathe the soft air and discuss the happenings of the times, probably as full of rumours as they are to-day. Here they walked, and talked of all things under the sun—religion, politics, and the latest news from the “front.” Before them lay the Sea of Marmora joining on to the Bosphorus, and swift-sailing vessels would hurry in with news from some distant province of the Empire. To-day the warships of the European Powers watch over the interests of their nationals in the death-struggle of an ancient Empire, many of them infants, some unthought of when Constantinople was guarding Europe from Asiatic agression, thus enabling those nations whose warships lie here to develop. Yet among the cypress groves of Seraglio Point, with the waves of the glittering Sea of Marmora lazily lapping against the tottering sea-walls, it was impossible not to let the mind wander among the misty labyrinths of ancient history, though Bulgarian guns were making history some fifty miles away. Historic pageants pass before the mind’s eye: an emperor moving amid pomp and splendour to meet his bride-elect at the sea-gate of Eugenius, down by the Golden Horn. Here Cæsar with elaborate ceremony would invest the lady with the Imperial buskins, and other insignia of her exalted rank. They pass like a dream, and dark clouds settle down on Constantinople, obscuring the brightness of the sun of Cæsar; rumours of defeat whisper among the marble columns of the Atrium, oversounding the officially heralded tidings of victory. So it is to-day, so it was when the old enemy of the Greeks, the Turk, demanded alliance between the house of Othman and the Eastern Empire through the marriage of an Imperial Princess with Amurath I. And that did not appease the enemy, for he came again, and finally made the Imperial City his own, and hence governed Christian peoples. Mohammed the Conqueror centred the life of his nation in the City of Constantine, and chose this promontory for his own residence. He separated a space of eight furlongs by a wall across the promontory, and in this triangle he built his seraglio. Strange scenes were witnessed here; one of the strangest happened shortly after the conquest of the City. The remnant of Greeks gathered together again and returned to the City in crowds, on being assured of their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their religion. To solemnize this pact the Sultan held an investiture on old Byzantine lines, with all accustomed pomp and ceremony, and thus re-instated the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy. With his own hands the Conqueror placed in the hands of Gennodius the crozier or pastoral staff, the symbol of his priestly office. His Holiness was then conducted to the gate of the Seraglio, presented with a richly caparisoned horse, and led by viziers and pashas to the palace appointed as his residence.

This happened within the Seraglio walls! The successor to the throne of many Cæsars, the Conqueror whose hands were red with the blood of massacred Christians, the victorious leader of that fanatic race whose life is more influenced by their creed than perhaps that of any other people, raised the Patriarch, the chosen head of a conquered Christian community, to high office in the state. Thus the Greek Orthodox variant of the Christian Faith lived on in the City of Constantine the Convert, though the Cross had fallen from the church he had built, St. Sophia, and minarets arose around it from which the muezzin calls pious Moslems to prayer.

Mohammed died suddenly in the midst of his soldiers, leaving two sons to contest his vacant throne. The younger, Zizimes, suggested a partition of the Empire, by which he would rule over Anatolia, the Hellespont separating his dominion from that of his brother Bajazet in Europe. But Bajazet would none of it. “The Empire is a bride whose favours cannot be shared,” said Bajazet, and Zizimes thought it safer to seek refuge at the Courts of other rulers, mostly Christians, who, however, appeared little disposed to advocate his claims. For the sum of three hundred thousand ducats paid by Bajazet, a servant of Pope Alexander Borgia administered poison to Zizimes; thus was a problem solved in truly Oriental manner.

Murder was one of the leading factors in the Imperial policy pursued by the sons of Othman, and has always been resorted to as the best solution of a difficult problem, from earliest days until quite recently. Selim I, son of Bajazet, who abdicated in consequence of his son’s constant intrigues against him, had to face a problem, and settled it in the usual manner. Schism has arisen among the followers of the Prophet, and the Shiites repudiated the claim to the Caliphate of Mohammed’s immediate successors, Abu-Dekr, Omar, and Othman. For reasons as much political as religious, Selim proclaimed himself champion of Orthodoxy, and celebrated the event by the St. Bartholomew’s night of Ottoman history. There were in all some seventy thousand of his subjects who held to the Shiite doctrine in Europe and Asia, forty thousand of these were massacred and the remainder sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Thus Selim I became Caliph of Islam.

The old Seraglio walls and the solemn cypresses seem to tell yet another romantic story attaching to this place. It dates from the days when history was full of the names of great men. Charles V, that sombre Habsburger, ruled an Empire on which the sun never set (according to the opinion of those days), Francis I was the chivalrous King of France, his rival Henry VIII of England, and the influence of Pope Leo X was mighty in the Councils of nations. In those brave days Suleiman I was Sultan, and reigned in great splendour from the seat of Constantine. Suleiman loved a woman, a lovely Russian girl, Khourrem (the “Joyous One”), better known by the name the Christians gave her, Roxalana. Khourrem was a slave, but she obtained her freedom from her imperial lover and induced him to marry her. Thereupon her mind was set on furthering the fortunes of her own children, and Mustapha, the son of Suleiman’s former favourite Sultana, a Circassian, stood in the way of her ambition. Mustapha was Governor of Carmania, and Roxalana managed skilfully to insinuate that he was plotting to usurp the throne. Mustapha was recalled, and ordered to enter the Sultan’s presence alone; Suleiman, looking on from an inner chamber, saw seven mute executioners carry out his command to strangle his son with a bowstring.

Roxalana was buried in all due state near the place where rests her sovereign lord, under the shadow of the mosque he built to his own memory. You will notice a difference in the two mausoleums. To enter that of Suleiman you must take the shoes from off your feet, for this is holy ground; a warrior, almost a saint, lies here. No such reverence is expected by the grave of Roxalana, the “Joyous One”; she was a woman, and therefore had no soul; that makes all the difference.

But Roxalana’s son, Selim II, broke the laws of the Prophet, and died drunk.

The Red Crescent floats over the buildings within the Seraglio enclosure to-day. Thousands of sick and wounded stagger in at the gates, and pass by the Armoury, once the Church of St. Irene, in search of the comforts which Christian nations have in all haste collected to meet the awful consequences of this disastrous war. They gathered in thousands outside the old buildings, leaning up against the walls and the railings of St. Irene, behind which, half-hidden by shrubs, are tombs of long-forgotten Byzantine magnates. There is some doubt in my mind as to who built St. Irene: some attribute it to Leo the Isaurian, who reigned from 718-740; others, and I prefer their version, maintain that Constantine the Great built it at the same time that St. Sophia arose, during the Council of Nicæa, in 325, thus giving his subjects two excellent virtues to emulate—Faith and Wisdom—without committing himself to any narrowing dogma. As this version is the more picturesque, historians will probably declare it wrong, and insist on the authorship of Leo the Isaurian.

In the meantime the buildings of the Seraglio enclosure are full of suffering mortality. Thousands have come in from the stricken field, and all the hospitals are crowded. I have visited some of these sick men and wounded, men whom I have seen wandering dejectedly in little groups, or larger bodies, through the ill-paved streets, some falling by the way, and avoided by all, for cholera, the scourge of Asia, was raging in the ranks of the Turkish Army. They are patient, quiet men, these suffering Turkish soldiers, some still wondering why they were torn from their Anatolian homes and sent to fight with unaccustomed arms men whom they did not know of, for a cause they did not understand, and under conditions such as invite disaster. Untrained they went to war, unfed they fought as long as men could hold out, longer probably than would any European troops, starving, sick, in rags, forsaken by their officers, they staggered back into the City, where those responsible for their sufferings still live in lies. Poor souls, with their tired looks, their patient eyes—it was Bairam, their Feast of Pentecost, and many of them were grieving that they could not pass on to their homes and bring little presents to those they hold dear, away there in the scattered villages of Anatolia.

And these that had come in were only the slightly wounded, only those who were still able to move. What of those who have been stricken down by cholera on the road? What of those mangled and maimed by shrapnel and splinters of shell, mortally wounded by bullet and bayonet?

With no adequate preparations for the sick and wounded here at the base of operations, is it likely that the field hospitals were adequately supplied? Foreigners, Christians, are doing the work now which should have been done before by the Army authorities. It seems as if they, childlike, were only too pleased to shift that burden of responsibility on to other shoulders while they yet prated of victory.

Victory? With Thrace conquered by Bulgaria, Macedonia occupied by Serbs, the Montenegrins before Scutari, and Greeks holding Saloniki and Monastir!

Victory? With the remnant of the Ottoman Army hard-pressed behind the lines of Chatalja, and thousands dying by the road!

As in those May days of 1453, at the Feast of Pentecost, Constantinople awoke from sloth and inefficiency to find an enemy hammering at the gates, so that day, at Bairam, the Turkish Feast of Pentecost, the enemy was hammering at the outer gate, the lines of Chatalja, and this would not have happened but for sloth and inefficiency. In the meantime the hospitals were crowded, here in Constantinople thousands were dying on the road, or lying dead on the fields of Thrace and Macedonia, and the enemy’s guns were pounding on the last defences of a “Passing Empire.”

CHAPTER IV

The Mosque of St. Sophia and its beauties, and some legends that attach to it—The present state of its courts—The Sea of Marmora and an historical pageant: Genoese, Venetians, Khairreddin Barbarossa and his victories—The story of stout Sir Thomas Bentinck—The Palace of Justinian and its story: Theophane and her husbands—The Mosque of Achmet—At-meïdan, the former Hippodrome, and its story—Justin, Justinian and Theodora, and the Blues and Greens—Justinian II and his doings—Some reflections on modern history.

JUST without the walls of the Seraglio stands a building which above all others is connected with Constantinople in the popular mind, the former Church, now Mosque, of St. Sophia. This is one of those particular monuments of history which every one of any pretension to culture wishes to see. A mighty, imposing building, measuring 255 feet from north to south by 250 from east to west. This was the cathedral church of old Byzantium built in the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine the Great, A.D. 325, and dedicated to Divine Wisdom. Constantine’s son Constantius enlarged the building, which was destroyed by fire in the reign of Arcadius, 395-408, in whose time the Goths came down over the hills by Adrianople and devastated the land as far as the Peloponese. It is said that the faction of St. John Chrysostom set fire to this building during one of those religious disturbances which, more than elsewhere in the world, unsettled the minds of men and caused them to overlook the greater truths. Theodosius II, he who built the stout walls that guarded the City of Constantine on the landward side for many centuries, re-erected the cathedral in 415, but little more than a century later, in the reign of Justinian, it fell a victim to the flames again. Twice did this happen in the reign of Justinian, the second time during a revolt of different factions in the Hippodrome, but St. Sophia was rebuilt again in greater splendour and on a larger scale in A.D. 538.

This Church of St. Sophia became the scene of many solemn state functions and religious ceremonies, the fumes of incense curled round its many pillars of porphyry from Phrygia—white marble striped rose-red, as with the blood of Atys slain at Synada; of green marble from Laconia, and blue from Lybia. Celtic marble quarries sent their tribute, black with white veins, and from the Bosphorus came white black-veined marble. Among the most beautiful of all these pillars were those eight which Aurelius had taken from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec. Then there were monuments of gold, cunningly wrought, enriched with the most precious stones, and about all these glories floated hymns of praise or supplication to the God about Whose Triune Person the citizens wrangled and fought in the Hippodrome and in the narrow streets.

Legend has it that this work of man’s hand was made yet more glorious by angelic influences. An angel appeared to order the work of the ten thousand men engaged in the reconstruction under Justinian; he appeared again, robed in brilliant white, to a boy guarding the masons’ tools by night and ordered an immediate continuance of the pious work, and yet a third time to lead the mules of the Treasury into the vaults to be laden with eighty hundredweight of gold wherewith to decorate the sacred fane. One more angel appeared, this time to the Emperor himself, clad in Imperial purple, wearing red shoes, to ordain that the light should fall through three windows upon the High Altar, this in memory of Holy Trinity. On Christmas Day of 548 Emperor Justinian and Eutychius the Patriarch moved to the newly reconstructed sanctuary with all the pomp and ceremony of the Church. No sooner were the doors opened than the Emperor ran in with outstretched arms crying, “God be praised, Who hath esteemed me worthy to complete such a work. Solomon, I have surpassed thee!”

Not quite ten centuries later, in May of 1453 at Pentecost, the Patriarch was celebrating High Mass within the walls of St. Sophia, the fumes of incense floated heavenward with the supplications of the people, while the Turk was battering down the stout defences of the city and the Emperor and his followers were falling under the sword of Othman about the ruined ramparts. The Mass was interrupted and has never since been resumed, for from that day to this the Crescent has gleamed on the dome, the High Altar has faced towards Mecca, and from the attendant minarets the imam has called the followers of the Prophet to prayer. To the ancient Christian legends of angels the Turks have added traditions of their own. Near the Mihrab is a window facing north; here Sheik ak Shemseddin, the companion of Mohammed the Conqueror, first expounded the Koran.

In this Feast of Bairam, the Turkish Pentecost, the courts of St. Sophia were crowded with Turkish soldiery, some wounded, others stricken with cholera, and in and out of the upper gate of the Seraglio, through which the Sultan was wont to issue for worship in the Mosque of Sophia, convoys of sick were wending their weary way, soldiers and stores were passing, for the enemy was before the gates—not the old enceinte of the City, but the lines of Chatalja stretching from the Sea of Marmora to the Black Sea—and he was demanding admission in order to complete the High Mass interrupted on that day in May four and a half centuries ago.

After sketching a corner of the enclosure of St. Sophia and a bit of the Seraglio wall, over which the graceful cupola of St. Irene appears, a policeman stopped me for the first time in my experience of this city, but he was satisfied with a sight of my passport, which probably conveyed no definite idea to his mind. I went down towards the Sea of Marmora to renew my acquaintance with several historic places and to muse over the strange vicissitudes of this City of Constantine. It was a fine, clear day, unusually warm for November, and the Sea of Marmora shone in myriads of sparkling facets under the midday sun. Strange stories of ancient days came crowding in upon me. I seemed to see the face of the waters veiled by a cloud of swift-sailing vessels. This strange pageant came up out of the south, Genoese, experienced travellers and redoubtable warriors, then Venetians, the only seafarers who ever tried the strength of old Byzantium’s sea-walls. In double line they came bearing down upon the walls under Dandolo, the venerable Doge. Sailors leapt from the swifter craft and scaled the walls, while from the heavier ships with turrets and high of poop, and from platforms for the engines of war then in use, drawbridges were lowered to the summit of the walls. Already the standard of St. Mark waved from twenty-five towers and fire drove the Greeks from the adjacent defences. But Dandolo decided to forgo the advantage he had gained and to hasten to assist the exhausted band of Latins who were suffering under the superior numbers of the Greeks before the land-walls. The aspect of affairs was so serious that Alexius, the Emperor, fled with a treasure of some ten thousand pounds to an obscure Thracian harbour, basely deserting his wife and people. Next came Khairreddin, called Barbarossa, High Admiral of Suleiman I. Khairreddin was one of four brothers whose trade was piracy, then a most gentlemanly profession. He and his brother Urudsh first sailed under the flag of the Tunisian Sultan, but paid tribute to Suleiman. They conquered Tunis, Algiers, and all the Barbary coast, and held these provinces in fief. How many of those overseas possessions now owe allegiance to the Porte? Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, “Deutscher Nation,” sent Genoa’s greatest admiral, Doria, with a mighty fleet against Khairreddin, but they were dispersed by the eighty-four fast ships of Barbarossa, who scoured the Mediterranean Sea, ravaged the coasts of Italy, Minorca, even distant Spain, beating the combined naval forces of Emperor, Pope, and Venetian Republic, off Prevesa. Khairreddin Barbarossa lies buried on the banks of the Bosphorus. Not long after Barbarossa’s day a new sea-power began to make its influence felt; it stretched out feelers towards Constantinople, and when Amurath II was Sultan the Red Cross of St. George was seen for the first time from the sea-walls of Constantinople. English ships came sailing up from the south bearing messages to the Porte from Elizabeth, Queen of England.

When Ibrahim ruled over Turkey from 1640-1648 all manner of excesses went unpunished owing to the maladministration of a bad Sultan. Some English ships lying in harbour were plundered. In those days it was the custom for any one who had received an injury from minister or official to place fire on his head and hurry to the palace. Redress for the injury to British ships having been refused by the Porte, Sir Thomas Bentinck brought the ships up from Galata, anchored them below the palace windows, and lighted fires on every yard-arm. This manœuvre sent the Grand Vizier hurrying to the Ambassador with offers of settlement in full.

There was one place I revisited down by the Sea of Marmora which tells of evil deeds done one dark night in the days of old Byzant. It is the Palace of Justinian, by some called after Hormisdas or Hormouz, a Persian prince who sought refuge here with Constantine the Great.

A woman of low origin, Theophane, had married Romanus II, the Emperor, a man whose short reign added no lustre to the pages of the Empire’s history, for he spent his time in idleness. Theophane tired of her spouse and killed him by poison, and was minded to reign in the name of her two sons Basil and Constantine, one five, the other three years old. But the weight of responsibility was too great for her to bear, and she looked about for a strong man to support her. She found one in Nicephorus Phocas, then accounted the bravest soldier in the land; he was therefore popular with the people. But soon after Theophane had disposed of her first husband, and her second, Nicephorus, had ascended the throne, the fickle population turned from him and gave evidence of their discontent by stoning him. Nicephorus was forced to seek refuge in this Palace of Justinian, which he had strengthened considerably for his own defence against the people of the City. But Fate overtook him, coming from the Sea of Marmora. One winter’s night in 963, when the gates of the palace were locked and bolted, the windows barred, and as additional precaution the Emperor had moved from the room he generally occupied into a smaller chamber, a boat was made fast at the foot of the palace steps. Headed by John Zimisces, Theophane’s lover, a band of assassins entered the palace, they were joined by others hiding in the Empress’s chamber; with much cruelty and insult they put Nicephorus Phocas to death.

To-day as the visitor to Constantinople looks out to the Sea of Marmora over the seaward walls he may see the smoke of foreign warships curling upward—by the Asiatic coast a French warship, the sunlight glinting on her many round turrets, some way towards south-west the long hull of a British cruiser against the sky, and further towards the west yet another foreign vessel, Austrian, moving slowly, watching events by the lake at the southern ends of the lines of Chatalja; for history is in the making here, the enemy is before the gates, Turks and Bulgarians, with them Serbs, are fighting for a settlement of long outstanding accounts.

Leaving the ruined Palace of Justinian I made my way up towards the hill on which stands the Mosque of Achmed, which rises so proudly with its six minarets above the little houses that cluster on the slope. I passed through more ruins on my way, not remains of ancient Byzant, but the results of one of the numerous fires to which Stamboul is well accustomed, and which it is so ill fitted to control. It was a peaceful spot, and quite deserted but for a very small boy who entertained me with an imitation of a railway engine engaged in shunting, a manœuvre of which whistling was the chief feature. We were not alone for long ere another body of weary soldiers, sick and slightly wounded, trudged past us up to the mosque erected by Suleiman to commemorate his many victories. He it was who carried the Crescent triumphant through Hungary to the gates of Vienna, leaving behind him Serbs and Bulgars in slavery. Those very nations have been trying the power of the Porte beyond the walls and are longing to enter; it is they who have reduced those Turkish soldiers to their present state of misery. The possessions on the southern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea, which Khairreddin Barbarossa added to Suleiman’s dominions, have been wrenched from the feeble grasp of his successor, and the courtyard of the great Sultan’s mosque is crowded with refugees from Thrace and Macedonia, provinces won by the sword, lost by the sword, and the soldiers sent to defend them are now resting, sick and wounded, in the shadow of the Suleimanyeh.

Through the gratings of the enclosing wall of the Suleimanyeh refugees and soldiers look out at the passersby on to a large space, the theatre of many scenes in the history of ancient Byzant. Little they know, little they care, for such matters, for their troubles are very present. The refugees have had to leave their homesteads in Thrace and Macedonia, taking with them their most treasured belongings, leaving the fruits of harvest to the invaders. It is said that fear of their own soldiery rather than of the enemy compelled them to flee. Fathers, husbands, and sons of these refugees are among the sick and wounded. One case I know of where a wounded soldier just discharged from hospital set out to find his family, which he heard had migrated to Asia Minor. Whither they have gone he knows not at all, but he has set out on his search, and in his pocket only a dollar, but his heart full of trust in Allah.

Suleiman built his mosque and its enclosure on part of the former Hippodrome, and its erection covered a space of five years, from 1550-1555. St. Sophia was taken as model, and relics of the Greek Empire went to its construction. It looks down on an open space, all that remains of the ancient Hippodrome, At-meïdan, as it is now called. Several ancient monuments stand here dating from the time of the Greek Emperors—the obelisk of Egyptian granite, a four-cornered shaft some fifty feet high, brought from Heliopolis and set up by the Emperor Theodosius; the remains more curious still of the column of the Three Serpents, of bronze and about fifteen feet in height. The serpents seem to grow out of the ground, but the illusion is rather spoilt by the fact that they have lost their heads; one of them at least is said to have been struck off by Mohammed the Conqueror. This column has had an eventful history; it is said to have been taken by the Greeks from the Persians at the battle of Platæa, 479 B.C., and kept at Delphi, dedicated to the Oracle, until the time of Pausanias. Constantine the Great then had it removed to his City, and set it up where it now stands.

Among the memories that haunt At-meïdan, the Hippodrome of old Byzant, are strongest those of the days of Justinian and Theodora his wife. Justinian, nephew of Justin, a simple Dacian who rose step by step to the Imperial Purple, he and his contemporary Theodoric, King of Italy, were illiterate, a strange thing in those days when learning was no uncommon thing among all classes. Justin sent to Dacia for his nephew to train him for high Imperial office, and trained him well during the nine years of his reign. So on the death of Justin, Justinian inherited the throne, and with his many advantages should have proved successful. He was comely of face and of great bodily strength, full of the best intentions and restless in pursuit of knowledge; the wars he undertook he brought to a happy issue, and the laws he framed should have won the gratitude of his people. Yet they loved not Justinian, and by some this is ascribed to Theodora his wife: Theodora, the actress, the dancer, Justinian’s Empress!

Two factions, Blue and Green, influenced the fortunes of Constantinople in those days. The Green faction employed one Acacius as keeper of the wild beasts for their games; he was Theodora’s father. On his death the mother brought Theodora and her sisters to the theatre, where they appeared in the garb of supplicants. The Green faction received them with contempt, by the Blue faction they were kindly entreated, so Theodora favoured that colour ever after. The details of Theodora’s life as actress, dancer, need not concern us; a son was born to her during this period of her existence. Many years later the father of the child, when dying, told him: “Your mother is an Empress.” The son of Theodora hastened to Constantinople, hurried to the palace to present himself, and was never seen again. For a while Theodora lived in seclusion in Alexandria, then she had a vision which told her that she was destined to wear the Imperial Purple; she returned to Constantinople, won Justinian’s love, and verified the vision’s prophecy.

Another Justinian, second of that name, played his short part in the history of Byzant, in scenes enacted in the Hippodrome. In all things different from his great predecessor, for he was feeble of intellect and unable to control his passions, neither was he faithful to his wife, another Theodora, whose love saved his life when her brother, the Khan of the Chazars, bribed by Byzantine gold, sought to take it. This Justinian ruled with great cruelty, through the hands of his favourite ministers, and succeeded by their aid in braving the growing hatred of his subjects. A sudden impulse, rather than any sense of the justice he habitually outraged, led him to liberate one Leontius, a general of great renown, who had suffered unjust imprisonment for several years. Leontius, raised to honour and appointed Governor of Greece, headed a conspiracy which resulted in the populace breaking open the prisons and releasing many innocent sufferers from the Emperor’s injustice. Then in their thousands an excited populace swarmed to the Church of St. Sophia, where the Patriarch, taking as text for his sermon, “This is the day of the Lord,” still further inflamed the passions of the mob. They crowded into the Hippodrome, dragged Justinian before the insurgent judges, who clamoured for his immediate death. But Leontius, already clothed in the Purple, was merciful to the son of his former master and friend; so Justinian, the scion of so many Emperors, was deposed and, slightly mutilated about the face, banished to the Crimea.

Here Justinian waited for revenge while Constantinople’s fickle population revolted from Leontius and placed Apsimar, as Emperor Tiberius, on the throne. But he failed to satisfy the mob, and so when Justinian appeared before the City walls and besieged his own capital with a Bulgarian army the citizens opened the gates and re-instated him. So the Hippodrome witnessed Justinian’s return to power. He sat on his throne watching the chariot race, one foot on the neck of each captive usurper Leontius and Apsimar in chains, while the fickle people shouted in the words of the Psalmist: “Thou shalt trample on the asp and basilisk, and on the lion and the dragon shalt thou set thy foot.” On the conclusion of the games Leontius and Apsimar were led away to execution.

These are some of the strange scenes which the Hippodrome has witnessed ere the Turk crowned his conquests by the taking of Constantinople. Here overlooking one end of At-meïdan, where the Janissaries used to exercise their horses, is the building which contains many relics of that famous corps; the Janissaries are no more, for, like the Prætorian guard, they became a danger to their sovereign. Here on At-meïdan the Ottoman Exhibition was held in 1863. How many changes have taken place in Europe since those days when Abdul Aziz was Sultan! The uncalled-for Crimean War was scarcely at an end and Turkey’s European possessions showed a tendency towards disruption, but things went very well for all that, and no one among the general public noticed the rise of a great Power in the north. The year following saw Prussia master of Schleswig-Holstein, two years from then Austria had been beaten and the southern German States forced into union by the same Power. Then by the time another four or five years had passed, the French Empire fell, and the German Empire became an accomplished fact. Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria have become kingdoms independent of the Sublime Porte; Bosnia and Herzegovina are no longer Turkish provinces, neither does Tripolitana form part of the Ottoman Empire any longer. Over Macedonia and Thrace the Slav enemies of Turkey, formerly that country’s vassals, fly their victorious colours. Montenegro has occupied part of the Adriatic coast, the Hellenes have seized Saloniki, and foreign warships have landed their contingents in Constantinople. Beyond the walls of the City which Mohammed conquered Bulgarians and Slavs are clamouring for admittance; within the walls the beaten Osmanli troops fill the hospitals, crowd the enclosures of mosques erected by conquering Sultans, and die daily by hundreds from neglected wounds, from sickness, above all from that dread Asiatic scourge, cholera.

CHAPTER V

The modern crusade, and that of Johann Capistran—Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army—The religious life of Constantinople—Theodosius I and his creed—St. John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia—The piety of Theodosius II—The Armenian Church—The Greek Patriarchate and the Phanar—The Teutons and Rome—Papal interference in Constantinople—The advance of the Balkan nations: Bulgars, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Greeks.

AT the outbreak of hostilities in the Balkan Peninsula we had it from the lips of a king that this is a crusade, a holy war, a war against the Pagan intruder into Europe, which must end in his subjection and eviction from our Christian continent.

Such sentiments from a monarch who, brought up in one Christian dogma, has chosen another variant of our Faith for his children, can have no other effect than to raise the present war to a much higher level than the wars of former days, which were waged unblushingly to gain some national advantage, to acquire territory, or even merely to flatter national vanity. No, this is a very different war, and informed of the same spirit, so we are told, which moved the Crusaders in their thousands down the Danube to the Holy Land. Those pious warriors passed through Constantinople, honoured the place with a lengthy stay, and, I regret to say, were not sufficiently appreciated by the Eastern Emperors and their people. The same spirit, called forth by Johann Capistran, led noble Hungarians, the chivalry of Servia, and hosts of Bulgarians to meet the Crescent on the Amselfeld at Kossovo, and Eastern Europe went under in a sea of blood. Now this latest crusade is drawing to a close, and the rejuvenated nations of the Balkans have in their turn humbled the Crescent and brought the Cross back to before the walls of Constantinople. What matter that there are numbers of Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army? The war is a crusade—we have it on the best authority.

Those Christians in the ranks of the Ottoman Army have also suffered for their faith, for invidious Moslems have been inclined to attribute the disaster which overtook the Sultan’s Army to the fact that he had been induced to make soldiers of them, whereas, as every true follower of the Prophet knows, Islam is the only creed for a warrior. Again and again those Christian soldiers of the Sultan have been accused of cowardice, of deserting to the enemy in great numbers; no ingenious calumny has been spared to prove that they gave the reason for the debacle, and that but for their presence the Crescent would be gleaming over Sofia again, and again facing Austria-Hungary across Danube and Save. As a matter of fact, reliable informants have told me, the Christian soldiers of the Sultan did uncommonly well, and were even from time to time deserted by their Moslem comrades. If religious matters had to do with the defeats sustained by the Turkish Army, it is more probably the case that pious Moslems felt the authority of the Sultan, the head of their faith, undermined by recent changes, by the admission of non-believers into offices of state, and this led to a despondency which from time to time broke out in panic. One night, it was told me, a Turkish soldier awoke from a nightmare and fled, crying, “The Bulgars are on us!” though there were none in the immediate neighbourhood. The men of his section took alarm and followed him; the company followed—the battalion—brigade, till the whole division was running away in nameless terror before a purely imaginary enemy.

Religion has ever played a leading part in the history of Constantinople, may even be said to have been responsible for its existence, for Byzas, in carrying out the Oracle’s dark instructions, merely followed his religious instincts. Of Constantine the Great it is not necessary to say much; the beautiful story of his conversion to Christianity is one of the earliest of such apocryphal addenda to the story of the Church of Christ as taught us in our infancy.

Constantine was the first Augustus to be baptized, and he was followed by Valens, who, as far as is known, worshipped the fast-fading deities of ancient Rome. We shall meet Valens again at Adrianople—there are few traces left of him here in Constantinople, only the aqueduct he built. It stands out strangely among wooden houses, connecting the seven hills on which stands Stamboul. Valens was followed by another great Emperor, Theodosius I. Theodosius, though born of Christian parents, did not embrace Christianity until towards the end of the first year of his reign, when a severe illness carried conviction to the Imperial mind. Before he took the field against the Goths, Acholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, baptized him, and so Theodosius became a Christian—a stout, full-blooded one at that. Once convinced of the beauty of the faith, and sure of the unfailing aid the Church afforded, Theodosius acted as a soldier and a convert would. He had found the sure haven of his soul, and all his people must also be led into the right way. There was no room for “saucy doubts and fears” in the breast of Emperor Theodosius. On ascending from the font he issued an edict to his people which is worth giving word for word: “It is our pleasure that all the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation should steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the Pontiff of Damascus, and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the Apostles and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the sole Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal Majesty and a pious Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics, and declare that their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of Divine Justice, they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them.” So we find little encouragement in Constantinople of those days of any kind of nonconformity, or any doxy save that of the Emperor himself.

Nevertheless, in matters of religion, Constantinople may be said to have done more than any other centre of national life. For forty years, from 340-380, this was the centre of Arianism, and was also open to all manner of strange doctrines, coming from every province of the Empire, and this worried Theodosius very much. The polemics that raged round the name and nature of Holy Trinity exasperated the soldier Theodosius, so he determined to settle the matter once and for all. He convened a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops to complete the theological system established in the Council of Nicæa. The council managed, wisely, to arrive at a conclusion satisfactory to the Emperor, so at least his mind was set at rest on a vexed question.

Peace was not, for with a people like the Greeks and others who lived in Constantinople, fond of all manner of disputations, any idea of uniformity was hopeless; nevertheless there were endless councils, conferences, synods, which probably only served to aggravate the many controversies. Out of the chaos of ideas and ideals one form or another would rise and stand out above his fellows; of these, perhaps, no one is better known than John, called by the people “Golden Mouth,” Chrysostom. He came from Antioch with a great reputation as a preacher, and that under somewhat unusual circumstances. Eutropius, Prime Minister of Arcadius, the young Emperor, had heard and admired the sermons of John Chrysostom when on a journey in the East. Fearful lest the flock at Antioch might be unwilling to resign their favourite preacher, the minister sent a private order to the Governor of Syria, and the divine was transported with great speed and secrecy to Constantinople.

The new Archbishop made his influence felt at once, and his teachings gave rise to several factions, some in his favour, others against him, all delighted at new food for controversy. Chrysostom was hot-tempered, which led him to express disapproval of wrong-doing in unmeasured terms, unsociable, in consequence of which he lost touch with his surroundings. So it came about that he was surprised by an ecclesiastical conspiracy. Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, had arrived by invitation of the Empress Eudoxia, and had brought with him a number of independent bishops sufficient to secure him a majority in the synod. Theophilus had taken the further precaution of bringing with him a strong escort of Egyptian sailors to keep the refractory populace in order. The synod brought various charges against Chrysostom, who declined to attend the meeting, and was therefore condemned in default for contumacious disobedience and sentenced to be deposed by this august body. Chrysostom was hurriedly conveyed into exile at the entrance of the Black Sea, but was recalled before many days had passed, for his faithful flock had risen, slain without mercy the crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners in the streets of the City, roared and rioted round the palace gates in waves of sedition, that Chrysostom had to be recalled to restore order. He returned in triumph; but he was no courtier, and his zeal outran discretion, so the Empress had him banished again, this time to Mount Taurus, and then further away to the desert of Pityas, but he died on his way thither in his sixtieth year. Thirty years later, in 438, Theodosius II went over to Chalcedon to meet the remains of John Chrysostom, which were being brought from the first obscure burial-place to Constantinople. Falling prostrate on the coffin, the Emperor implored forgiveness for his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia.

Of the many sects thrown up by religious controversy few have survived to this day, but of these one is remarkable in many ways—the Armenian Church. The Armenians are an Indo-European people, living in Great and Little Armenia, an elevated plateau, from which the principal mountains, rivers, and valleys of Western Asia diverge, a plateau some 7000 feet above the sea in places, and rising to its greatest height of 17,260 feet in Mount Ararat, now in Russian territory.

No doubt it is a great satisfaction to the Armenians to have that holy mountain in their native land, though I do not think that undue pride over this interesting feature has kept them apart from others of the Christian faith. They took to it very readily during the reign of Constantius, and during the years when the Eastern Empire was still mighty in Asia maintained their connection with the See at Constantinople. But their country was peculiarly liable to be swamped by alien races, and constant disorders during the many centuries when the Eastern Empire was falling to pieces alienated them from the original fold. Again, their clergy were generally ignorant of the Greek tongue, so they ceased attending synods, and thus widened the rift, so that, as they did not attend the Council of Chalcedon, they came to be considered as schismatics, and have long had a Patriarch in Constantinople, who watches over the interests of his flock. His is a very difficult position, for ever since there has been an Armenian problem no other means of solving it has ever suggested itself to the Porte than that of wholesale massacre—there is an Armenian problem, therefore kill the Armenians; simple, thoroughly Oriental, and not to the taste of Europe, whose protests, however, have never been as loud over Armenian outrages as when some national trade interest is affected. Nevertheless Armenians have stayed on as useful citizens and subjects of Sultans who showed to them less consideration than to any others of the numerous races which live under the Porte’s peculiar jurisdiction; they are advancing in wealth, education, and political importance, and are likely to play an important part in the future of Asia Minor. It is said that the Armenians might have made common cause with the Greeks, and thus assisted towards the deliverance from Turkish yoke which seems to have been brought at last by the arms of the twentieth-century crusaders, who swarmed over the passes of the Balkans and down the Valley of the Maritza only a month or so ago. The Armenians, instead of accomplishing unity by means of their synod, seem to have frittered away their strength in small committees, probably discussing side issues with great earnestness and leaving great questions unsolved, as is frequently the case in the deliberations of such bodies.

Ever since the earliest days of Christianity Constantinople has been the seat of a Father of the Church. His importance increased as the Empire flourished, and he soon was styled Patriarch, a title which has never been relinquished, an office which has never been in abeyance but for those few days between the triumphal entry of Mohammed the Conqueror and the Patriarch’s reinstatement by that monarch.

The buildings which serve as head-quarters for the Patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople stand overlooking the upper reaches of the Golden Horn at the Phanar, and have no great beauty to distinguish them from their surroundings. The cathedral church is small, and the only thing which impressed me in it is the cathedra itself. Not long ago I had the honour of being presented to His Holiness the late Patriarch. A friend and I made our way to the Phanar, through picturesque streets, thronged with the usual crowd of leisurely wayfarers; vines festooned from one side to the other, and in places affording shade from the searching rays of the sun, but at the same time condensing the mingled, varied odours inseparable from life in the East, and which, no doubt, contribute to its indefinable charm. The Phanar is a quarter formerly occupied by those Greeks whose duties brought them in closer contact with the Imperial Court of Byzant; they lived in stone houses that clustered round the Phanar, the lighthouse, at the foot of the heights, where stood palaces of princes, churches, and barracks of the Imperial Guards, and whence the walls defending the City from attack by land draw their rugged lines down to the Golden Horn. We were shown into a long room, hung round with indifferent portraits of former Patriarchs, and introduced by one of the most prominent lay members of the Holy Synod, a gentleman to whom, I fancy, the Greeks of Turkey in Europe owe a debt of gratitude. His Holiness received us most graciously, conversed amiably on many questions, and all went very well till he had a look at the sketch I had taken of him. “As it has not succeeded I will give you a photograph of myself,” said His Holiness, and I am the proud possessor of a signed photograph of this the latest successor of a long line of ecclesiastical potentates. Nevertheless, I consider my sketch a good likeness, and my opinion is not based on conceit alone, but is endorsed by others qualified to judge.

It is sad to reflect that Christianity, even from the earliest days, has strayed so far from the leading precept of its Founder. The Church in all ages, among all nations, proclaimed Him “Prince of Peace,” then incited her followers to take up arms in defence of dogma, ritual, never dreamt of by the Christ. The different peoples which were enabled to divide into groups in accord with racial ambition were used as tools by prelates of the East and West to add to their own importance, to enhance their own prestige. The West drew to it strong Germanic races who, sword in hand, helped to gather the broken remnants of the Latin races into the fold of the Western See; these subtler Latin races, never quite freed from the worship of their forebears, never entirely abandoning the worship of the gods of old, of Isis and Osiris, gained for a space ascendancy over the simpler, purer Teutons, and made the power of the Roman Pontiff possible. Revolts there were many, when the strong, persistent Germanic intellect developed, and tried to free itself from spiritual thraldom. Until the days of Luther, such stirrings were countered by a short shrift and a blazing pyre for the offender. Luther’s theses, nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, marked the straining of the cords that bound northern races to the Southern See, and led nations to give rein to their ambitions, striving to attain them throughout a war of thirty years. Even then the fight was indecisive, and the “Kultur Kampf,” against which Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, battled with but qualified success, occupies the mind and tends to check the spiritual development of modern Germany.

The people of the Eastern Empire centred in Constantinople in those days, far beyond the intellectual limitations of the West, could not be expected to submit to the spiritual authority of a Roman Pontiff, especially as the Roman Empire of the West had gone under before its barbarian foes, whereas the Roman Empire of the East yet held sway over many distant provinces conquered by Roman arms. The Eastern and the Western world were seldom in complete accord; the bonds that united them in earliest days were frail, and could only be made to hold when in the hands of a strong man like Constantine the Great. The Western Empire’s fall enhanced the greatness of the Eastern Empire, and thus was paved the way to separation in matters of religion. The intellectual pride of the Greeks would not submit to any dictation on the subject of Christian doctrine from the West, and Roman ambition would not allow outlying communities to formulate new doctrines nor to revise old ones. It needed a small pretext to bring about schism, and that pretext was not long wanting. About the middle of the ninth century Photius, a layman, Captain of the Guards, was promoted by merit and favour to the office of Patriarch of Constantinople. In ecclesiastical knowledge and purity of morals he was equally well qualified for this high office. But Ignatius, his predecessor, who had abdicated, still had many supporters, and these appealed to Pope Nicholas I, one of the proudest, most ambitious of the Roman Pontiffs, who welcomed an opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East. But the Greeks resented the interference, and after many intrigues Photius emerged triumphant, and reconciliation between the two Churches was made more difficult than ever. After about two centuries of unseemly wrangling and bitter recriminations, Papal legates came to Constantinople in 1054 and laid a bull of excommunication against the Patriarch upon the altar of St. Sophia.

It will be readily understood that the Crusades, organized under the auspices of the Church of Rome, were not looked upon with favour by the Eastern Emperors and Patriarchs who, however much they bickered between themselves, showed a united front to outsiders. It is therefore not surprising that the Eastern Empire lent but half-hearted support to the crusading Western nations, and that, when that Empire was in turn threatened from the East, its appeals to Western Christianity fell on deaf ears. This made the path of Osmanli conquerors all the smoother. To-day we are faced with a new crusade, Eastern Christians, members of the Orthodox Church, carrying the Cross against the Crescent. They have met with hardly any but that somewhat overrated “moral” support from Western Christians. Montenegrins came down from their Black Mountains, all available fighting men of a population of some 250,000, and fiercely fought for an ideal. Servia, out of a population of about 3,000,000, sent an army as strong and as well-found as the much-vaunted expeditionary force of Great Britain over the mountain-passes into Macedonia. Meeting with stubborn resistance, suffering checks, they pressed on, and now hold lands which once formed part of Servia when, for a short time, it was a great Empire, and had its capital at Üsküb, which King Peter’s army entered in triumph some short time ago. Then the Hellenes, under the Crown Prince Constantinos, name borne by several Greek Emperors, came up from the south, and smarting under the memory of former reverses, fought their way over the mountains into Macedonia, and have occupied Saloniki. Here, again, is a small nation of barely 3,000,000 sending an army of near 100,000 into the field. Then from the north, in irresistible force, came the hosts of Ferdinand, Tsar of all the Bulgarians. His forces were reckoned at 300,000 when they crossed over the border, and this number was taken from an industrious, thriving population of little more than 4,000,000 souls. Numbers as yet untold have fallen in battle, others have succumbed to disease and the hardships of war, but what remains are loudly clamouring for admission to Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar, where all these sons of the Greek Orthodoxy, though of different nations, hope to reunite in worship at Santa Sophia.

And while these deeds have been doing, Eastern and Western Christianity have been gazing unfriendly at each other. A great Power which adheres to the Church of Rome is looking with disfavour upon the successes gained by these young nations, and diplomacy, which has hitherto failed woefully in its endeavours to maintain peace, is now put to it to prevent another appeal to the arbitrament of arms, and this time of a nature that will make the present war seem but an advanced-guard action. In the meanwhile, with this danger threatening, the part played by Turkey in Europe seems almost incidental only, albeit this great Power is passing from Europe to its native Asia, shorn by a sudden, violent storm of all its old possessions but that narrow corner, fenced off from the onslaught by the lines of Chatalja.

CHAPTER VI

Religious institutions of old Byzant—The rise of monasticism—The conversion of the Bulgarians by Cyril—The spread of Islam towards Constantinople—The attacks of the Saracens and their conquests elsewhere—The decline of the Arab Caliphate and the rise of the House of Othman—The Mosque of Eyub and the sword of Othman—The Turk and his habits—The Mosque of Mohammed—Little St. Sophia—Achmet and the dogs of Constantinople, and the new regime’s dealings with the same problem.

AS was only natural in a community so devoted to all manner of religious observances, such as the Greeks of Byzantium, monasticism made great headway and filled Constantinople with religious institutions of that order. Probably the idea first came to Europe from Africa, via the city of many churches, not long after the days of Anthony of Thebais, in the fourth century. Anthony was an illiterate youth who, suddenly seized with a desire to do penance for some wickedness (let us hope real rather than fancied), distributed his patrimony, left his kith and kin, and retired to a ruined tower among the tombs on the banks of the Nile. Perhaps he found this spot too sociable, for he wandered away into the desert east of the Nile, some three days’ march, and commenced his seclusion in a lonely spot which offered him shade and water. But Anthony’s repose was soon disturbed by numbers of others to whom had spread the fame of his sanctity, and they joined him as disciples in the wilderness, and no doubt in the beauty of holiness. Anthony lived long enough, one hundred and five years it is said, to start a considerable body of anchorites. The notion soon spread to Europe, and Constantinople took it up with enthusiasm; monasteries and convents sprang up in all directions, and soon became either popular resorts of penitent princes, statesmen, or others who wished to obtain some reputation for holiness to enable them to restart their old life with a clean sheet, or else the enforced retreat of emperors and empresses, patriarchs, and courtiers who had fallen from favour and were removed with more or less ceremony from the scene of their former activities. There was a monastery of St. George of Mangane near Seraglio Point, where John Cantacuzene took up his abode after abdication. I have told you of Empress Irene who went into the seclusion of a convent she had built on Prince’s Island.

Holy men went from their monastic institutions into the countries of the Empire’s heathen neighbours and made many converts. Cyril and Methodius were called to Bulgaria and converted Boris, the King, who sent his son Simeon to be educated at Constantinople. Many more Bulgarian youths followed, and it became customary to go to Constantinople in search of learning and the refinements of life. This practice continues to-day, and Robert College, an American foundation, standing high on the European bank of the Bosphorus above Roumeli Hissar, has trained many young Bulgars to a useful life. Among these was M. Gueshof, the present Prime Minister of Bulgaria, whose skill assists Tsar Ferdinand in piloting the fortunes of his kingdom through the troubled political waters of these days.

While the religious life of Constantinople was working out its destiny, while members of various monastic orders forgot the first precepts of their Master and plunged into all manner of political intrigue, a new and powerful creed had arisen in Asia and was drawing thousands out of darkness to the red glare of a militant faith. Islam was spreading ever nearer the coasts of Europe in a solid, devoted body, while Christians of the East were frittering away their strength in political discussions, thus paving the way for the conquest of a large part of Europe by the hosts of Othman inspired by a simple faith, and Constantinople fell. In vain the crusade organized by Pope Urban, the Eastern bulwark of Christianity was doomed. To-day the sons of Othman are in like case as were the Christians of the Greek Empire before 1453. They have assumed, but not assimilated, Western ideas, and in so doing have departed from the faith wherein lay their strength, have undermined the religious pre-eminence of their Lord the Sultan, and have brought a misunderstood version of advanced Western philosophy to a people inherently incapable of understanding anything but the fundamental facts that Allah is great, that Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah, and that his word is a law from which no man dare depart if he would enter into happiness after death.

The first to bring the Crescent up to the walls of Constantinople were swarms of fiery Saracens, who came up under clouds of lateen sails over the blue waters of the Sea of Marmora and laid fierce siege to the City. They came first in the seventh century and forty-six years after the flight of the Prophet from Mecca. Urged by their warlike faith, the Arabs had found conquest rapid and easy of achievement since they issued from the desert; they carried their triumphant ensigns to the banks of the Indus and the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees and thought themselves invincible. By the middle of the seventh century they had conquered Phœnicia, the countries watered by the Euphrates, Judæa, Syria, and all Egypt, Cyprus, and Rhodes, and had overrun the Iberian Peninsula from Africa. The richest prize they coveted was Constantinople, but they tried its strength in vain, and had to retire baffled. The Arabs transmitted their creed to a young race which had come out of Tartary, and laid thereby the foundation of the Ottoman Empire when Arab dominion was declining. The fortunes of the young race, the Turks, were very varied, but they were at last able to assist Caliph Motassem, who was no longer able to find among his own people those martial qualities which had led to Arab conquests. Fifty thousand Turks entered the military service of the Caliph, and they in time came to assume power and a decisive voice in the Government, like the Prætorian Guard before them, and the Janissaries of Constantinople and Mamelukes of Egypt since.

The Arab Caliphate dwindled into decay, making way for a Turkish dynasty, and so when Alexius Comnenus was Emperor of the East he was forced to acknowledge Suleiman as master of Asia Minor.

Othman, Osman, son of Erthogrul, succeeded in 1288, and to him is due the rise of the Ottoman Power. He roused the enthusiasm of his followers by proclaiming that a Divine Mission inspired him to carry the Crescent out to westward, and so he moved victorious over the last Asiatic possessions of the Eastern Empire. Where he came he conquered, and by the beginning of the fourteenth century nearly all Asia Minor was held by the Osmanli, and the Christians of Constantinople were becoming aware of the danger that threatened their religious and political existence. The sword of Othman and his victorious banner passed to Orchan, his son, and with them these words of advice: “Be just, love goodness, and show mercy. Give the same protection to all thy subjects, and extend the faith of thy fathers.” This advice was followed by Orchan, and he too carried the Crescent victorious nearer and nearer to the Eastern bulwark of Christianity, Constantinople. Here at Eyub, in the mosque by the Sweet Waters of Europe, the sword of Othman and his banner are kept in reverent state and serve religious purpose, for every succeeding Sultan is girt with this sword, an act corresponding to the crowning of a Christian king, amid the prayers of his people: “May he be as good as Othman.”

To-day grey threatening clouds are passing over the Mosque of Eyub, where these sacred relics of a warrior race are kept; the brightness that sparkles on the Sweet Waters of Europe which flow into the Golden Horn at this place has vanished under the dull pall of a saddened sky, against which the dark cypresses stand like mourners among the graves of the faithful who are buried round this sacred spot. The gilt crescent on dome and minaret no longer sends answering flashes to the sun that has shone for centuries over the shrine that holds these relics of a fighting race of sovereigns. To many here in this City the sky is overcast, the prospect dark and cloudy, for the Crescent has been waning where it was once supreme, in the countries of Eastern Europe, and the crusade called by the kings of former subject people has reached the outer defences of Stamboul, but fifty miles from the Mosque of Eyub the favourite disciple of the Prophet. The fate of the City is yet undecided, for the arms of Othman have met with reverse after reverse, and no one can say whether recent attempts at implanting Western philosophy on an Eastern creed has left enough of Islam’s virility to defend the last foothold of the Turks on Europe. Here in Stamboul, where stand so many mosques of conquerors, where the Christian churches of the Eastern Empire have been converted into mosques, there is among some a dread uncertainty as to the future. In the bazaars and the narrow streets Turks and Greeks, Armenians and Kurds, Arabs, Georgians, full-blooded negroes, go about their business with the utmost unconcern, as if Europe were not face to face with epoch-making changes which affect the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and especially this City, its heart. Yet here in Constantinople, so full of memories of the great Christian Empire which shielded Europe’s development against the Pagan armies of the East for so many centuries, there is a feeling, subconscious but ever present, that the Turk is only in temporary possession. In all his ways, in all his views, he differs from those with whom he comes in contact in his Empire’s European possessions. He has few belongings and seldom desires more, and these can easily be stowed and transported elsewhere, whereas the races he has conquered and which have wrenched themselves free again are ambitious and greedy of gain. They have been carefully collecting for this final blow; while the Turk has been squandering his goods, they have constructed; whereas the Turk, if he has not destroyed what he found, has at last let it fall in ruins. Those other nations give of their best, put all their strength into the pursuit of one ideal, a great and prosperous Fatherland; the Turk knows only that “Allah is” and orders all things wherever the believer may be, and the ideal of Fatherland is quite beyond his comprehension. The very word, “vatan,” had to be explained to the Turkish people by the enthusiasts who broke the power of Abdul Hamid; but all explanation was useless, the Turk has not found his “vatan” in Europe, and those who broke the power of the Sultan were unable to replace it by anything which the Turk could understand. Devoid of art or science, incapable of political life, the Turk’s energies have been directed solely to works of destruction. Only in one direction has he shown constructive capacity and a desire to leave a lasting record, and that is in the mosques and turbehs, and almost all of these are monuments to men before whom nations went under in seas of blood, who trampled down all signs of prosperity, strangled growing civilization, and levelled homesteads and palaces, churches and strongholds with the ground, on their ruthless march to victory.

Towering over the wooden houses of Stamboul, overshadowing the broken walls of Byzantine defence, which proved vain against the might of Othman, these mosques make Constantinople what it is. Massive masonry, with clinging turrets, crowned by a mighty dome surrounded by the Crescent, and round about the building the bulbous roofs of the medresseh,[1] tetinune,[2] darul ziafet,[3] and darul shifa,[4] emblems of the sycophantic East living on the bounty of the great; thus rises the Mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror, out of the eternal squalor, filth, misery, and unconcern of an Oriental city. And other mosques are much the same, and stand as the only evidence of the Turk’s capacity for construction, and the finest, most imposing of these buildings are due to the most ruthless destroyers among the sons of Othman. Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror built his mosque on the spot where once stood the Church of the Holy Apostles; not a trace remains of that former sacred fane, where in the “Heröon” the rulers of ancient Byzant were laid to rest in coffins of porphyry, granite, serpentine, green, red, or white marble, from Thessaly, Paros, and the Proconessus. Indeed, these tombs were not destroyed by the Osmanli. Latin Christians, during their short tenor of the Imperial City, from 1204-1260, desecrated the shrine and plundered the tombs of the Emperors, but they left at least the building standing, and all traces of that are buried under the massive pile of the Mosque of Sultan Mohammed the Conqueror.

[1] “Medresseh,” academy for students.

[2] “Tetinune,” their dwelling-place.

[3] “Darul ziafet,” where the poor are fed.

[4] “Darul shifa,” hospital.

I have already mentioned the Mosque of Achmet. It is the most pronounced feature of Stamboul, rising in wonderful symmetry above the clustering houses that seem to tumble down to the sea-walls and are only arrested in their fall by the Kütshük (little) Agia Sofia, formerly the Church of St. Sergius and Bacchus. This little building stands stoutly by the sea, resting on the walls that for many centuries kept the foes of Christianity at bay, its flat cupola framed on one side by sturdy minaret, on the other by a weather-beaten poplar. Neither of the saints to whom the Greeks dedicated this church are familiar to me; of St. Sergius I know nothing, and the name of St. Bacchus came as a surprise to me when first I heard it, for Bacchus I had known for many years as an obsolete Pagan deity who made no pretence at sanctity, and was only a god because mortals chose to worship him. It is therefore strange to find him associated with St. Sergius, whose name has a somewhat severe sound to it, on this particular post, for, mind you, the men of the Middle Ages allowed their saints very little leisure, but assigned to each his duty. So, I take it, St. Sergius was entrusted with the defence of this section of the sea-wall, and he requisitioned the other gentleman to take over the social duties of the post and to make things merry and bright. However, as I say, I know very little about saints, so cannot give the real reason why these two gentlemen clubbed together to have a church to themselves, and therefore give the above explanation under reservation.

High above this little church towers the massive Mosque of Ahmedyeh, Achmet, considered chief of all the mosques in Stamboul, its six minarets pointing like warning fingers to the sky where Allah reigns inscrutable. The founder, Achmet, was a pious soul, and at the same time a good sportsman; he gave evidence of the former quality by building this mosque, in the latter capacity he was great at falconry and in hunting with those strong hounds whose degenerate descendants until recently roamed the streets of Constantinople and acted as rather unsatisfactory scavengers.

Achmet was rather worried about the dogs, which, in those days of the early seventeenth century, were already rather a nuisance in the crowded City, and thought it wise to consult the Mufti about the matter, for the lives of dogs, unclean animals though they be, were deemed a matter of some importance. The mufti consulted with others learned in the law of the Prophet, and this enlightened committee came to the conclusion that it was unlawful to kill the dogs, seeing each one had a soul. Christians you may kill, they are the enemies of Allah, whereas dogs are not, or at least do not worry about the matter either way. Women you may kill too, they have no soul at all. It is all beautifully simple, and appeals to the meanest intellect. Anyway, the dogs continued to be a nuisance, so, as they might not be killed, they were banished first to Scutari, where they seemed quite happy, and then to an island some sixteen miles out in the Sea of Marmora, where they might die of starvation. However, if the story be true, the dogs knew a trick worth two of that, and simply swam back to their old haunts, and, incidentally, to their ladies, who had not been exiled. I can quite imagine the all-night howlings of welcome with which the ladies greeted the wanderers on their return, and the flight of slippers, smaller articles of furniture, etc., accompanied by clouds of curses, hurtling through the night, to check the exuberance of this frohes Wiedersehen.

A couple of years ago the authorities, inspired by the enlightened members of the new regime, decided to get rid of the dogs, and they were banished again. This time they were rounded up in all parts of the city, and even from the villages on either bank of the Bosphorus. I remember well a friendly little white lady who lived in a corner on the steps leading up from the sea towards the higher part of the Candilli; here on a heap of melon skins, which served both as food and as bedding, she was wont to bring up one litter of promising little pariah pups after another, and she loved variety, for her children were a most variegated assortment. They were as happy as those bright, sunny days were long, and would tumble in bunches down the uneven steps, or struggle up towards the high road which leads along the Asiatic bank and connects Candilli by land with the great world. Here the pups, after strenuous mountaineering, would get their outlook on life, with all its excitements and possible dangers; here Turkish cavalry from Scutari would come dashing past, galloping furiously when there were people to watch this feat and stones to lame their clever little horses, subsiding to a walk when beyond the sight of admirers and when the roads were soft with dust some inches deep, or grass by the wayside. Other sights presented themselves to the round, wondering eyes of these offspring of the little white lady: of a morning lithe young Englishmen would tear down those steps several at a time, to the great wonderment of the lodgers in the corner on the bed of melon skins. These Englishmen would be hurrying to the “Scala” to catch a boat—never punctual unless you were late—a boat that took them to their work in Pera and Galata. On their return they would ascend with startling rapidity those stony precipices which to the puppies seemed to take a lifetime to negotiate; and in the gardens between the high road and the sea you might hear the gentle voices of fair, fragrant Englishwomen, and the puppies would wag sympathetic tails. Yes, they were pleasant, very pleasant, those summer days at Candilli. The solemn cypresses, in their attitude of constant warning, stood unheeded, for the sun was shining on the waters, and made them gleam in gold and blue and many colours, and the sun drew fragrance from flowering shrubs, and ripened the swelling figs that nestled among the broad leaves which, in their turn, mirrored the life-giver in their bright, smooth surface. But one day the little white lady and her family vanished, for men had been busy during the night, and had carried them and all their friends into exile, had carried them away over the waters where the moon drew a sparkling silvery path, to a barren island. Here they were left to perish, for long ago the wise men, learned in the laws of the Prophet, had decided that every dog, even the smallest pup, has a soul, and that it is evil to kill them, but not to let them starve to death. And these same wise men would not have allowed the possession of a soul to those fair Englishwomen whose blue eyes smiled kindly on the little white lady and her offspring’s wondering interest in the doings of the great world.

Many of the dogs had a presentiment of danger, and evaded capture by fleeing to the “hinterland,” whence came alarming rumours of packs of wild dogs rendering insecure the country-side. Of these, one or the other found his way back to his old sociable haunts, and Constantinople and environments have not quite got rid of the dogs which, according to the accounts of all travellers in this country, form one of its most remarkable features.

There are other mosques, many of them, rising up from among squalor, or groups of picturesque wooden houses, and these mosques seem to be the only indication of any permanence of Turkish rule. The little wooden houses vanish from time to time, whole districts in one fell swoop, by fire, which has spread with alarming rapidity long before the watchman, tapping the irregular pavement with the iron-shod staff, has given the alarm. Then firemen, with much noise but little expedition, arrive on the scene, and find little left to do but to gather up the fragments, the property of the sufferers. But the mosques remain towering above charred ruins, and the call to prayer sounds from the graceful minaret over deserted homesteads.

Thus the life of this strange people, the Turks, goes on from day to day, leisurely business transacted with all dignity of inherent idleness, endless gossip under the vines and awnings of small cafés, talk which begins nowhere and arrives nowhere. Squalor, dirt, picturesque decay, and over all the sense that a migratory race has settled here for a while, is not disposed to move until turned out, and has just put up a leader or two with sufficient enterprise to make others build him a place of worship to glorify himself above his fellows.

But strong young nations have closed in upon Constantinople and threaten it from the West. They came strong in their faith, armed and equipped and prepared to carry all before them, to make vast sacrifices, and their strongest weapon is an ideal. They have not forgotten the history of past centuries; the memory of nameless indignities, of crushing shame, has fed the spirit that informs them, that bids them hurl their young strength against the vis inertiæ of the Turks and march over heaps of slain, over a country peopled by their kinsmen, fellow Christians, now devastated by the foe they have driven back. Now they are hammering at the gates, at the defences of Constantinople, and all the remaining strength of the dying Ottoman Empire in Europe is massed on the narrow strip of ground between the Bosphorus and the lines of Chatalja.

Uncertainty still reigns there as I write these lines; vain hopes are raised by rumours, some so improbable that they suggest the incoherent rambling of one but half-awakened out of a long drugged sleep. But certain it is that efficiency, concentration, and high purpose have met sloth and corruption, and have conquered. Though the lines of Chatalja may prove equal to the task of defending this last strip of Turkish territory, yet the fact remains that those young nations have brought about an epoch-making catastrophe—the passing of Ottoman rule in Europe.

CHAPTER VII

The defences of Constantinople—Adrianople and its history—The walls of Constantinople and their story—The Marble Tower—Yedi Koulé and the Golden Gate—Tales of Theodosius and Maximus, St. Ursula and the eleven thousand maidens—Emperor Heraclius—The story of Basil the Macedonian—King Crum’s appearance before the Golden Gate—Michael Palæologus and Mary the Conductress—The Walls of Theodosius—Refugees encamped outside the walls—The triumph of Christianity.

IN these days of effective long-range fire the defences of a capital city lie well away from and command the approaches to it. Whereas formerly hostile forces surged up against stout towers and strong walls, the enemy of to-day lets loud-voiced cannon speak from afar, hurling destruction at what look like mounds, green hills, from a distance, but when approached bristle with ordnance and small-arms. Far afield lie fortresses, each encircled with smaller forts, and these are meant to stay the tide of invasion. This was the mission of Adrianople and its enceinte of forts, Adrianople, the City of Hadrian, famous in history, for epoch-making events have taken place around it; the Goths here vanquished Valens, and their impetuous onslaught broke the ranks of Roman legions and filled the minds of those warriors with such dread of the Teuton invader that years passed before they could be induced to face the Goths again. It was Theodosius the Great who brought back their courage to them. His skilful system of block-houses kept him informed of the enemy’s vagrant movements, and by so contriving that the Roman legionaries met only numerically inferior bodies of barbarians, he helped to revive the great traditions of Roman arms at least for a short space of time.

Then again when Bulgarians came pouring down the Valley of the Maritza towards Constantinople, the defenders of the Imperial City met them at Adrianople; the armies of Byzant were beaten, the Emperor slain, and his skull, encased in gold, served as a drinking-vessel to his vanquisher. The hosts of Othman, having overrun the northern European provinces of the Byzantine Empire, made for Adrianople, and the city became the European capital of the Osmanli until Constantinople fell.

To-day the City of Hadrian, the “Sperr-fort” of Constantinople, is surrounded by the enemies of the Porte, Bulgarians and Servians, and thus one of the outlying defences of the capital no longer serves its purpose, and the defence has been drawn in nearer to the lines of Chatalja. Those lines now take the place as last defence of the walls built on the landward side by Theodosius II, and improved and repaired by his successors to the Imperial Purple. They stand to-day grey and deserted, lichen-grown, clad in dark green folds of ivy, that sympathetic friend of fallen fortresses, and listen to the sounds of danger to the capital, while recalling days when they themselves held out against all foes, though earthquakes shook their stout foundations, and discord in the city seemed like to nullify their usefulness. A strange and stirring history this of those landward walls of Constantinople, and worthy of a moment’s consideration in these days, when the fate of yet another Empire, with its seat of government within those walls, is trembling in the balance.

They stretch from the Sea of Marmora northward to the Golden Horn, do those walls of Theodosius, their southern angle marked by a strong tower, a marble tower, dipping its foundations deep into the pellucid waters. I saw it first on a glorious summer day, the gleaming blocks of marble of which it is built were reflected in the waters of the Sea of Marmora, beyond blue sea, or above blue sky, and between the two, floating like the Isles of the Blest on a magic sea, the Prince’s Islands, and behind them the blue hills of Asia Minor, their rugged outlines softened by the heat-haze of a summer’s day. Little white sails gleamed on the flashing waters, sails filled by some idle zephyr which carried small ships away, lazily, out into the southern seas. But, mind you, this tower has not always lived in idleness, bathing its feet in summer seas. Times were when the watchman up in this tower would see the south alive with movement and the silver path on the sea overshadowed by clouds of sail. Swiftly they came, those strange craft from out of the south, bearing bronzed sons of Arabia to storm the City of Cæsar. Twice they came, in 668 and again from 716-718, but their efforts were unavailing, and the groves of cypress trees mark their last resting-place.

The Marble Tower served its purpose well in those ancient days, over which distance has cast its glamour. To-day the Marble Tower stands silent, lifeless, by the side of a leaden sea; passing squalls hide the view to southward and over the Islands towards the mountains of Asia Minor, and a grey sky, heavy with rain, hangs like a pall over the City and this corner of its ancient defences. The Marble Tower’s part in history is long since played out, and now it listens silently, helpless, to the distant booming of cannon before which it would fall like those castles of dreamland at cock-crow; ruined it stands mourning the ruin which overtakes the kingdoms of this world.

A little further northward stands yet another memorable monument to former greatness, Yedi Koulé and the “Golden Gate.” Several ruined towers raise their heads above the broken walls from among groups of little wooden houses. They and the curtains which connect them once formed a stronghold built by Mohammed II on the ruins of a former castle. This was for a time the chief garrison of the Janissaries, and a state prison wherein the Sultans were wont to incarcerate the ambassadors of those foreign Powers with which they chanced to be at war, a playful habit which has been discontinued since Turkey asserted her claim to be considered a civilized nation. The Janissaries also kept their own prisoners here, generally dethroned Sultans, whom they killed here at their leisure and free from outside interference.

A strong fortress stood here, raised by a strong man, Theodosius, in the young days of ancient Byzantium. It was built on to by successive Emperors, and became one of the most important centres of the City on memorable occasions, for this stronghold became known as the “Golden Gate,” the Porta Aurea, and its towering walls looked down upon great historic happenings. Without on the plain dense hosts would form into ordered procession and follow their Emperor in his triumphal entry through the gates. Under a heavy sky, festooned with sombre ivy, crumbling in its last stage of decay, the Golden Gate with difficulty recalls the glories that have passed beneath it. The Golden Gate had three archways, of which the central one was wider and loftier than the others, like those to be seen in the Roman Forum. These were dedicated to Severus and Constantine, and were closed by gilded gates taken from Mompseueste and placed here by Nicephorus Phocas after his victories in Cilicia. The gate is said to owe its origin to Theodosius the Great, who built it to commemorate his victory over Maximus. Though I thoroughly appreciate Theodosius and subscribe to all his claims to greatness, I have ever been sorry for Maximus. After all, it seems, he did not really wish to rebel against Gratian and assume the Imperial Purple. Rather was he urged to it by popular opinion, the politicians of Britain having decided that he should, and the youth of Britain flocked to his standards, so Maximus was bound to move. It was a big move, too, and successful at first, for his rapid progress alarmed Gratian, who fled from Paris, his army of Gaul having gone over to Maximus. The campaign was like the migration of a nation, 30,000 fighting men and 100,000 others, and of these numbers settled in Brittany, where their descendants live to this day. To make things pleasanter, a great number of ladies set out from Britain with the intention of joining the men when the fighting was over. St. Ursula took charge of this column, 11,000 noble, 60,000 plebeian maidens, destined as brides for the settlers, but they lost their way, and when at last they got to Cologne they met the Huns and were all slaughtered. For this St. Ursula was canonized, as is only right and proper, and a beautiful window in Cologne Cathedral sets forth the whole story, giving portraits of the ladies, so that in face of evidence as conclusive as that of our half-penny illustrated dailies there is no more room for doubt. Maximus came up against Theodosius in the end, and that was the end of him.

Nearly three centuries later Heraclius, the Emperor, entered the Golden Gate in triumph after his victory over the Persians, and again a century later Constantine Copronymus followed through these golden arches after defeating the Bulgarians. They came in one long stream of conquerors in those earlier centuries of the Byzantine Emperors, names now forgotten or but dimly remembered; then awoke the “Daughter of the Arches,” as Echo was poetically called, as one hero after another was acclaimed by a vainglorious mob: Theophilus, in the middle of the ninth century, he routed the Arabs. Basil I, the Macedonian—a strange story his. It was in the middle of the ninth century that a young, strong, and active, but weary and travel-stained man came over the heights beyond the Golden Gate. He entered by a side entrance close to, or part of, the Golden Gate at sunset, and being a stranger in the City with no friends to go to, he lay down to sleep on the steps of the Monastery of St. Diomed, which stood near the Golden Gate. A kindly monk extended the hospitality of the monastery to him, and the brothers helped him to find suitable employment. His good fortune led him to a cousin, in whose train Basil went to the Peloponese. Here he became acquainted with a wealthy widow, Danielis, who adopted him as her son, and helped by her wealth and by his own merits, Basil rose to high honour, and finally stepped from the body of the Emperor, killed by himself, to the steps of the throne. Years after his first entrance into Constantinople Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, moved in under the arches of the Golden Gate in triumph.

Another Basil, second of that name, rode in at the Golden Gate after his victory over the Bulgarians. The slaughter he inflicted on them gained him the appellation “Bulgaroktonos”; the memory of the cruelty he practised on his Bulgarian captives lives still in the minds of their descendants, those men whose big guns were battering at the outer defences of Constantinople, those men who would that their sovereign should enter the City as conqueror.

The Bulgarians found the road to Constantinople soon after their appearance in Eastern Europe. Clouds of dust heralded the coming of Crum, their King, with a large host amid flocks of sheep and goats. They pitched their leather tents on the slopes outside the Golden Gate and laid siege to that stronghold, but all their efforts were unavailing, even the human sacrifices offered by their King to his strange gods failed of effect, and a receding cloud of dust told the watchman on the Golden Gate that his savage enemy had withdrawn.

Another figure in the glittering pageant that passed through the Golden Gate in triumph was John Zimisces, the Armenian, of whose rise to power over the corpse of his imperial master, aided by his mistress the Empress, the walls of the Palace of Hormisdas were silent witnesses.

The last of all the Emperors to enter triumphantly by the Golden Gate was Michael Palæologus, in August, 1261. The Latin Emperors had held Constantinople for some time when Michael came with an army to claim his rightful inheritance, and Baldwin, last of the Latins, fled at his approach. The Golden Gate was thrown open, the Emperor dismounted, and on foot meekly followed the miraculous image of Mary the Conductress into the City as far as the Cathedral of St. Sophia. Michael re-established the dynasty of the Palæologi on the throne of Constantine, and they held it for two short centuries. The next conqueror to enter the City of Constantine was Mohammed II, and he rode over the heaped corpses of Janissaries and of Byzantine princes and their mercenaries, in over the breech made by his engines of war, and with him came the spirit of another age and race which yet holds possession, while those distant guns thundered at the lines of Chatalja, threatening to close yet another epoch in the long, tense history of Constantinople, Stamboul, Tsarigrad, the Castle of Cæsar.

The walls built by Theodosius begin after Yedi Koulé Kapousi, the Gate of the Seven Towers, and extend northwards until they reach the high ground overlooking the Valley of the Lycus, when they turn off slightly to the north-east. Constantine the Great had built walls around his City, but it outgrew them, and so to Theodosius II, who reigned from 408-450, fell the task of extending the limits of the Castle of Cæsar. Historians of the time draw a pleasant picture of the scene when these walls were erected. All citizens were called upon to assist, political factions dropped their differences, and so there arose the defences of the City. Misfortune visited them shortly after their completion, when an earthquake overthrew a great portion of the work, including fifty-seven towers. It came at an inopportune moment too, for Attila, the “Scourge of God,” as he was pleased to call himself, was at large, had already inflicted three defeats on the armies of the Eastern Empire, had ravaged Macedonia and Thrace with fire and sword, and was moving down upon Constantinople. Even to-day, after the passing of eleven centuries, these walls of Theodosius present an imposing front, in some places almost untouched by the hand of time; how much more formidable must they have appeared to those assailants whose bones are guarded by the tapering cypress trees a stone’s throw away from the fosse. There were in all one hundred and ninety-two towers. Visitors to Constantinople should view these walls of Theodosius from near Top Kapousi. A long line of walls extends away to the south, first the inner wall, standing on a broad terrace raised somewhat above the outer wall. This terrace is about fifty feet broad, and here was the main defence of the City—for in former days these walls were of enormous strength compared to any engines of offence that could be brought against them—a chain of towers linked together by stout walls known as curtains to the expert. These towers, most of which are square, stand about one hundred and seventy feet apart, and rose, when in their completed state, to a height of sixty feet, standing out some twenty feet from the curtain. Each tower contained, as a rule, two chambers, and was built of carefully cut stone and vaulted with brick inside. The outer wall contained a number of vaulted chambers which offered shelter to the troops engaged in the defence, and there are loopholes through which their fire was directed. This wall had numbers of little towers, alternately round and square, and was about ten feet high, sufficient to afford protection to bodies of troops moving from one place to another along the terrace. There was also a deep moat which could be flooded; it is now serving the peaceful purpose of market-garden.

On a fine day the view over the walls away to the Sea of Marmora is wonderfully beautiful—but this is winter, and grey clouds keep out the sunshine needed to draw out the many beauties of the scene. The road, at no time really entitled to be called so, is now a quagmire with rocks in it, yet traffic of a kind is passing—lumbering carts drawn by water-buffaloes pitch and roll in the sea of mud, and clinging to them are refugees from Thrace and Macedonia who have fled from their homes before the invader. They camp about in the neighbourhood outside the walls of Theodosius, not knowing what to do nor whither to guide their weary steps, these refugees from the storm that tore down the Valley of the Maritza, when Tsar Ferdinand led his armies over the border, and Serbs crossed the mountain-passes to meet their old enemy, ay, and to triumph over him. Flotsam and jetsam, thrown up by the tide of war on the strip of land still held by Turkey in Europe, these refugees would be without hope of any better fate were it not for the efforts of Christian men and women in Constantinople, to whom Christian men and women have sent from distant countries large sums to help the awful distress caused by this last crusade. Up to the present £28,000 has come from Great Britain alone. I do not know how much other countries have contributed. And this has been done for a people who have been ever ready to obey their rulers in carrying out the Oriental methods of solving racial problems by massacre, who are only prevented from applying the same principle to their benefactors by the inexpediency of doing so with the Golden Horn full of European warships. Islam justifies the murder of unbelievers—the followers of that creed are not so much to blame, least of all the ignorant peasant taken from his home to fight for he knows not what, driven from his possessions by a foreign invader. Christianity is again triumphant—where this Moslem country has proved itself unequal to any emergency, incapable of elementary organization, leaving its sick and the wounded of the battlefields to die and rot in the courtyards of mosques, yes, even in the open streets, Christian men and women have organized relief, and theirs is the only work which in any way can claim to have helped the sufferers in those awful last weeks of the “Passing of Ottoman Power in Europe.” One lady is now in hospital there in Constantinople—she was brought in sick from the strain of overwork and the horrors she had witnessed in a little town near by. Outside her door, on the pavements, in the road lay men, Turkey’s famous fighting men, starved, wounded, dying of neglect and disease. So for over a fortnight that Christian woman toiled among them; the nights she spent in making soup for them, the day was taken up in distributing it. It was no nice clean hospital work, dead and dying were piled upon each other in unmitigated misery, in incredible filth—those who have been there and seen say that they have been down, deep down, into Hell. Yet even there the light penetrated, brought by a Christian woman following the precepts of her Master.

Since then the Christian medical organizations, under the Red Crescent, forsooth, lest Islam should feel itself slighted in its character of a creed of mercy and loving-kindness, have taken matters in hand, and order and cleanliness are conquering over ignorance and bringing light to Gehenna. There is yet a vast amount to be done, but it is being done, not only by those professionally qualified to undertake such duties, but by every lady in Galata and Pera, at least I think I may safely say so, as I know not one among my many acquaintances here who is not in some way engaged in the work of mercy. Not only ladies, but men, busy men, are helping—officers from the warships in harbour, sent to prevent a general massacre of Christians, business men, hard-worked officials, all find time to spare in visiting the hospitals and helping wherever opportunity offers. They do not expect gratitude, nor do they find much, I fancy, for East is East and West is West, and to me the Oriental mind is inscrutable still, though I have lived in the East and travelled in it.

There are strange times these days in Constantinople, with the fate of an Empire in the balance. At first sight the traveller might notice little change or little difference from the sights and sounds of normal times. People went about their business much as usual—the Stock Exchange had much the same “allure” as ever, and the smells it harboured have not changed, only intensified perhaps, under the pressure of the lowering heavens. The narrow streets were thronged by the same crowds composed of many races; “hamals” carried astounding weights and packages of strange, outlandish shape, regardless of any other foot-passengers; men of leisure sat under the soaked awnings of the little cafés in Stamboul by the shore of the Golden Horn, or looked dull-eyed out of the plate-glass windows of Tokatlians’, according to their taste, their nationality, their social standing; and a general air of indifference seemed to mark the people of the town, the Turks in particular. But there were military patrols in the street, and when you looked closer into matters you found many evidences of change. The Red Cross and Red Crescent flew over many buildings in Stamboul, Galata, and Pera, Christian civilization was working for the good of Christianity’s bitterest opponents, and in the mosques of Islam, where in the dim religious light you used to see a pious follower of the Prophet performing his solemn devotions, or a “hodja” studying reverently the Prophet’s Book of the Law, where no sound was heard, you now heard the groans of wounded soldiers; for these temples, raised by conquerors of a warrior caste and creed, now harboured all the misery caused by a war ill-planned, ill-managed, and inglorious.

CHAPTER VIII

Beyond the walls of Constantinople—The Valley of the Lycus—The siege of Constantinople in 1453—The life of the City at that time—The Genoese ships which fought their way through the blockade—Mohammed the Conqueror’s anger at his Admiral, Baltaoghli—The last of the Byzantine Emperors—The scenes outside the gates during the war—The Mosque of Mihrama—The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus and the legend of the Kerko Porta—Manuel Comnenus—The towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, and the Varangian Guard—Egri Kapoo and the master-weaver—Simeon, Tsar of all the Bulgarians, and Emperor Romanus Lecapenus—A walk in the country and the return to the City—A visit to the lines of Chatalja.

IT was not in the City, in Stamboul itself, where signs of any unusual state of affairs struck the casual stranger; it was outside the gates, beyond the walls, that signs of stress and trouble crowded in upon the observer—soldiers, stragglers, refugees, filled the gateways through the walls of Theodosius. On the rising ground outside Top Kapoo dense groves of cypress trees, guarding the graves of men who had fallen in the repeated attempts to force an entry into Constantinople, threw their long shadows over the road beyond the old defences, as they stood out deep-toned against the golden sunset. Now these cypresses were rapidly falling before the axe of the Macedonian refugees, who had formed their camp of waggons outside Top Kapoo. They were camping on the spot where Mohammed the Conqueror pitched his tent in 1453, looking down into the Valley of the Lycus, where the assaults were made which brought down the enfeebled Empire of Byzant. This was a pleasant place, according to all accounts, when the world was young, and St. Chrysostom baptized his three thousand white-robed catechumens in the waters of the Lycus. A few years later Theodosius II rode down from the heights outside to view the walls that he had built. He fell from his horse and died a few days later, from the injury caused to his spine. No doubt the Valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place in those far-off golden days of a golden Empire, which, here in this valley, received the death-wound from the forebears of the people who are now swarming in the groves of cypresses, refugees, destitute, landless and homeless, instinctively turning towards Asia, whence their race sprang. It came with giant strides, that race of the sons of Othman; they first became acquainted with the glories of Byzant through a mission sent from their chief to Emperor Justinian in the sixth century; they were not Moslems then, for it was not till the eighth century that the Arabs overran their country and forcibly converted them. They served the Arab Caliphs for a while, and in time rose above them and founded dynasties of their own folk. The young nation passed through many tribulations, but by the time that Othman, son of Erthogrul, came to the throne, the Greeks had already felt the keenness of the sword that carved possessions out of the Empire of the East, until nothing was left to Cæsar but his Imperial City. This Valley of the Lycus seethed with fighting men in those early days of 1453. Both sides had been making preparations for a year or so. Mohammed had collected his strong, well-disciplined army at Adrianople, his European capital, and here, under his supervision, were made preparations for the siege of Constantinople. He increased the number of guns, and in this was helped by a Hungarian, Urban, who had left the Greek service on account of some ill-usage by his factious masters. The prize achievement of Urban’s foundry at Adrianople was a monster cannon, of which wonderful things were said: its bore was of twelve palms breadth; it could contain a charge that drove a stone ball of six hundred pounds weight a distance of a mile, to bury it in the ground to the depth of a furlong. In spite of its wonderful performance, it is doubtful whether the big gun cast by Urban did very much damage, although, to make sure, it was placed only a couple of hundred yards from the walls it was to bring down. At any rate, Mohammed made all necessary arrangements for the siege, and finally turned on the priests of Islam to rouse his warriors to the proper state of religious frenzy.

The preparations in the City were probably much less thoroughly undertaken. Emperor Constantine was a good man, and efficient, but it seems he was not strong enough to bring his people to the pitch of self-sacrifice necessary to those who have to sustain a siege. The citizens of Constantinople were as keen about religious controversy as ever, and the times provided food for violent discussions, for the ruler of the Empire realized the dangers that beset him and tried to make diplomacy a substitute for efficient military preparations. There was only one way by which help could come to Constantinople, and that was by union of the Orthodox Greek Church with the Church of Rome. The citizens of Constantinople were wildly agitated by the publication of the news of this agreement, and many swore to admit the Moslem rather than the Roman priest. But the latter came, nevertheless, Cardinal Isidore of Russia, as Legate of Pope Nicholas V, and with him came help, a body of trained soldiers, and the union of the Churches was solemnized at St. Sophia, amidst disorder and riots in the streets. The Greeks, though always ready to fight among themselves over some matter of dogma, had for many years ceased to bear arms in defence of their country. They had by degrees become too soft for the hard life of a soldier, dropped one by one the heavier arms and accoutrements, which had to be carried about after them; it was hopeless to try and make any further use of them for military purposes. For this reason they were forbidden to take up the profession of arms, or even to form trained bands or bodies of volunteers; possibly another cause was the danger of an armed mob, violent, decadent, always dissatisfied. Yet they should have been content; their rulers relieved them from the responsibility of defending their country, which, by the way, is considered an honour by the citizens of those European nations which have universal military service; they were fed by the State, which also provided amusement for them—games, fights of wild beasts, drama, and music; in fact, they had even less responsibility and were offered more entertainment than the people of another great Empire of to-day. For defence the City of Constantinople relied solely upon foreign mercenaries.

Mohammed’s line of attack extended all along the walls, from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, where it joined with the fleet he had brought across country; the main assault was directed against the Gate of St. Romanus, down in the valley. The siege continued from April till May. The Greek army was venturesome at first, and made sorties to destroy the earthworks, behind which the Turks were planning mines. But the serious losses caused by such enterprise, as also the dwindling store of gunpowder, put an end to these operations, and the courage of the defenders began to sink. Hope rose again for a while when a premature attack was beaten off, the assailants not yet having effected a negotiable breach, or again when a squadron of four Genoese and one Greek ship from Chios fought its way through the Turkish Fleet and came to anchor in the Golden Horn under the sea-walls of the Seraglio. A very gallant episode this, which happened in the middle of April. The stately ships sailed up from the Dardanelles, and bore down upon the numerous Turkish Fleet, while Greeks crowded on the walls, and the Turks, among them their Sultan, rushed down to the shore to watch. From their tall decks the Christian seamen hurled large stones and poured Greek fire upon the low-lying Turkish barques around them, and so they fought their way to the harbour’s mouth; the chain was lowered to receive them, and welcome reinforcement had come to Constantinople. Mohammed felt the humiliation so keenly that his wrath against Baltaoghli could only be appeased by that Admiral’s death—the order went that he was to be impaled on the spot. But the Janissaries demurred, and entreated the Sultan to spare the Admiral’s life, so the angry sovereign punished the offender, stretched on the ground, held by four slaves, by dealing him one hundred blows with his battle-mace; no doubt a dignified proceeding, though most painful to the Admiral.

The succour brought by the five ships was all that ever came to the distressed City; the siege was carried on relentlessly, and one by one the strong walls and towers went down before Mohammed’s artillery. On May 24th he sent in to demand surrender, but was refused, so orders were given for a general assault on the 29th. The hostile leaders spent the eve of battle in characteristic manner. Mohammed assembled his chiefs and issued final orders; he despatched crowds of dervishes to visit the tents of his troops to inflame their fanaticism and promise them great rewards—double pay, captives and spoil, gold and beauty, while to the first man who should ascend the walls the Sultan promised the government of the fairest province of his dominions.

Emperor Constantine likewise assembled his nobles, and the leaders of his allies, chief of whom was Giustiniani; he adjured them to make yet greater efforts in the defence, and to infuse new courage into the siege-worn troops by their example. Rewards he had none to offer them. Then each leader went his way to the post assigned to him, the Emperor himself to a solemn Mass in St. Sophia, the last time in the history of that sacred shrine the mysteries of the Christian faith were adored by any Christian worshipper. Constantine then returned to the palace and asked forgiveness of any of his servants whom he might have wronged; then he passed from his palace to his station at the great breach.

In the Ottoman camp all was ready for the great attempt, and at sunrise masses of assailants stood in their appointed places, waiting to hurl themselves against the tottering defences of the Eastern Empire. To the sound of drums and trumpets wave after wave of fierce fighting men surged across the filled-in fosse, over the broken walls, to be repulsed by the defenders. Time after time they were repulsed and followed by fresh swarms, trampling down the barrier of corpses in their eagerness for blood and booty. But the courage and numbers of the defenders were ebbing fast; Giustiniani, who, side by side with the Emperor, was conducting the defence of the great breach, fell severely wounded, and was borne away to die in his galley in the harbour. This took the heart out of the defence; the chief of the assailing Janissaries noticed it, and urged his men to yet greater endeavour. The Turks now numbered fifty to one as Hassan, the Giant of Ulubad, led thirty men as vanguard of the last attack into the breach. Hassan fell, and most of those who came with him, but the main body followed rapidly, and under the weight of this tremendous onslaught the Christian garrison was over-powered. The victorious Turks rushed in; others had forced the gate of the Phanar on the Golden Horn, and Constantine’s fair City was given over to the sword.

Constantine XII (Palæologus) fell in the breach, defending the City of his great namesake against the Moslem; his body was found under a heap of slain, and with him fell the greater number of his Latin auxiliaries.

Refugees from Thrace and Macedonia are camping among the cypresses on the site from which Mohammed the Conqueror watched the fall of Constantinople’s last defences, while out at Chatalja another foe was dealing heavy blows at the last defences in Europe of that Empire founded here that day in May, 1453.

The Lycus, a dirty, insignificant stream, now swelled by constant rain and draining the quagmire which is called a road, outside the walls, flows through an arch underneath one of the towers into Stamboul. Just within, and leaning up against the walls, are huts built of wood, disused oil-tins, and other makeshifts. These harbour a colony of gipsies, who seemed as happy in the mud as they were when last I saw them, basking in the sunshine. This colony finds the expert horse-dealers (and stealers) of the neighbourhood. At present business is slack, for the war has demanded all there was in the way of horseflesh in the City, for in this respect, too, no adequate preparations had been made; the tramway companies had to give up their jades to carry the Sultan’s cavalry to victory and Sofia, as was fondly imagined by the hosts that streamed out through the gates of the City. I have seen some of the few survivors of those horses, led back by men who were in much the same condition as their mounts; it seemed as if their sinews alone kept their bones from falling apart.

Groves of cypress trees used to cast long shadows over the many graves that mark the landscape to westward of the track that leads northward along the walls of Constantinople; to-day they are fast disappearing under the axe of the refugees, and what was once a scene of solemn beauty is now squalor and desecration, for right away to the Gate of Adrianople, Edirné, as the Turks call it, there were clusters of carts with their distressful burdens. Looking down on all this misery stands the Mosque of Mihrama, on the highest point of the old defences of Constantinople. A church dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of warriors and horsemen, stood here, until St. George’s mission of protecting Christian soldiers ended in the debacle down in the ruin-heaped valley below. To me, the crescent on the dome of Mihrama, the unfinished minaret amidst its scaffolding seemed to wear an air of detachment from the ghastly scenes below; around it dirt and disease, and abject misery within the courtyard of the mosque; but its growing minaret stands quite aloof, and points to the lowering sky, beyond which Allah decides the fate of mortals. So his worshippers, the followers of the Prophet, lie down in huddled heaps of wretchedness about his courts below—Kismet!

The Walls of Theodosius turn away from the road after the Gate of Adrianople, and end at an imposing ruin, once the home of Emperors—the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus. It stands high, overlooking the City and the open country; on its walls are the remains of two balconies, from one of which the new-born Prince was shown the wide extent of rolling plain and proclaimed “Cæsar Orbi,” from the other, looking out upon the city, “Cæsar Urbis.” Owls and bats now haunt the scene of former greatness, and the voice of Echo, the “Daughter of the Arches,” no longer gives back the sounds of revelry, the chorus of applause, or murmurs of discontent, which made up the history of that ancient Empire which fell before the sword of Othman in the Valley of the Lycus. Close by is a little postern gate in the curtain connecting the last two towers of the Walls of Theodosius; it was called the Kerko Porta, and legend lingered round it. During the last day of the siege, in May of 1453, a rumour ran along the lines of the defence that the Turks had gained admission by this gate. They did so, but were driven out again by the last Emperor’s bravery, which, however, only delayed the inevitable result of Mohammed’s fierce assault. Ever since then the Greeks believed that when the City should be recaptured by Christians, they would enter by this gate. The Turks heard of this tradition, and when the Slavs were pouring down the Valley of the Maritza, and approaching Stamboul, they pulled down the curtain so that the Russians might not enter by the Kerko Porta, and replaced it by a smaller wall.

Beyond the ruined palace the moat ends abruptly, but the walls continue higher and of greater strength. History clings round them; they recall names of famous men who lived their day, Manuel Comnenus, who was to old Byzant what Manoel O Fortunate was to mediæval Portugal. Anna Comnena, daughter of the first Alexius, who wrote the history of her father’s reign, a record of insincerity. Anne and her mother Irene conspired to poison John, her brother, who proved one of the worthiest of the latter Emperors of the East.

The last dynasty of Byzant, the Palæologi, is responsible for the high walls and towers that follow the walls of the Comneni towards the Golden Horn. John VII (Palæologus) had them repaired in 1441, for the last time probably, until Johannes Grant, a German engineer in the service of the Greeks, under cover of darkness, directed his workers to secure the portions of the wall that had suffered most heavily under the fire of Turkish ordnance.

In the plain below is yet another sombre mass of ancient masonry, peculiar in design, for it has the appearance of two towers joined together. They differ in structure, one built of carefully cut stone, with courses of brickwork, the other roughly put together, and from it marble pillars project like cannon. These are the towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, the former descendant of a Saracen Emir who was converted to Christianity when young and in captivity, and distinguished himself in several campaigns under John Zimisces; he was killed in a personal encounter with Swiatoslav, the Russian King.

The other tower is said to have been the quarters of the imperial bodyguard, the Varangians, whose conduct in the field shines out brightly against the records of cowardice and the treachery which inspired the policy of the later Greek Empire. The name Varangian is probably derived from the Teuton “Fortganger,” forthgoer, signifying men who had left their country in search of adventure. The first of these Varangians were probably Norsemen, who suddenly emerged from the darkness of their northern shores to prey as pirates upon the settled communities, and found their way through the Mediterranean Sea to Byzant. The fame of this warriors’ Eldorado reached other northern nations, so from England came big-limbed Saxons, impatient of the Norman Conqueror’s discipline. Danes, too, were to be found amongst the ranks of the Eastern Emperor’s bodyguard, their weighty battle-axes and stout hearts performing those deeds of valour which Anna Comnena was wont to ascribe to that vainglorious hypocrite, her father, Emperor Alexius I. Here, by these towers, the old defences of Constantinople end in heavy masses of ruined masonry.

One Sunday morning the sound of heavy firing coming from the west, from the present-day defences of Constantinople, the lines of Chatalja, drew me out into the open country. I left the City by the Egri Kapoo, the Crooked Gate, formerly the Gate of the Kaligari, the shoemakers, when the Court of Byzant lived here by the Palaces of Cæsar. Little wooden houses stand on the low ground beyond the gate, on the road down to a plain by the Golden Horn. In one of those houses lives Ali, the master-weaver. He was pursuing his vocation leisurely in his little workshop below the level of the road. “The war!” said Master Ali, “the war affects me not at all.” So I went on towards the sound of the guns, past the open space by the water where Simeon, Tsar of all the Bulgarians, after defeating the Greeks in battle, met the Emperor Romanus Lecapenus, and dictated harsh terms. Simeon knew the Greeks well; he and many of his followers had been educated at Byzant, and the culture he thus gained helped him to defeat his teachers. Bulgarians still come to Constantinople for education, at Robert College; among them was M. Gueshof, Tsar Ferdinand’s Prime Minister—and the Bulgarians were again outside Constantinople, hammering at its defences, the lines of Chatalja.

I walked out far into the country that Sunday, over the rolling plains, up hill and down dale, drawn by the sound of gun-fire, which has a mighty attraction for me; it is a strong, invigorating sound. There were few indications of war, though fighting was in progress not many miles away; villagers sat on little stools outside the cafés, over the uneven roads the carts of refugees rolled, creaking towards Constantinople. Here and there I met a party of stragglers, weary soldiers, unarmed, their faces set towards the east where, over the domes of the mosques, the hills of Asia showed faintly, their outlines broken by tall minarets. When evening fell upon the desolate landscape I retraced my steps towards the City, where lights were twinkling and casting broken reflections upon the waters of the Golden Horn. Through the narrow streets of the Phanar, where silent figures flitted across my path, to vanish into some little wooden house or other, with its latticed windows, an air of unconcern prevailed, though men were dying out there, some fifty miles away. Through the crowded purlieus of Galata, up the steep, ill-paved streets to Pera, with its hotels, clubs, cafés, and vicious imitations of Parisian entertainments.

On the following day I went out towards the lines of Chatalja again, this time by sea. We were a party of five—a British consular official; a British naval officer, instructor to the Sultan’s war fleet; two Turks, one a naval officer, the other a captain of artillery; and I, a peripatetic author and artist. We sailed out from the Golden Horn as the sun was struggling to break through heavy banks of cloud; huge warships of different nations loomed large in the pale grey light of early morning, and here and there a twinkling light drew flickering response from the moving waters. As the daylight increased the ancient sea defences of Constantinople took definite form, above them the mosques and minarets of conquering Sultans. We sped past the Marble Tower, looking chill under a heavy grey sky; above it rose the broken towers of Yedi Koulé, past Makri Keui, and round the blunt promontory where San Stefano stands in all its misery of disease, to where the land rises west of Küjük Chekmedje. Here we anchored about half a mile from the shore, hauled in a duck-punt which had soared behind us all the way, and, rowed by an alleged sailor of the Sultan’s navy, made for the shore. There was some water rolling greasily in the duck-punt as we started, it increased in volume, and by the time we drew near the beach we had our feet well under water. The Turkish naval officer and the gunner sat in the bows, the other passengers astern; and the naval expert lent by our Admiralty directed the oarsman to pull us sideways on the beach, as a quite noticeable sea was coming in on our starboard quarter, and our demands (if any) in that line were already fully satisfied. However, the Turkish A.B. (perhaps I flatter him, but flattery is an important item in Oriental colouring) thought fit to attempt a landing which would give us the full benefit of what sea there was. The British expert, when our crank craft first felt the shingle, ordered our Turkish friends to jump ashore. The sailor did so at once, the soldier required time, for he was wrapped in a long grey overcoat, carried a sword, and, moreover, wore boots ill-suited to such enterprise. The duck-punt thereupon began to behave with unseemly levity, and in rolling shipped a deal of water, so that we who sat astern indulged in the unasked-for luxury of a hipbath, alfresco, and, moreover, attired for quite another purpose. Alas! all my dear mother’s good precepts anent avoiding wet feet went by the board. However, we got ashore, so did the duck-punt too, in time; I hear she lies there still, her leaky bottom upwards, a silent witness to our undaunted bravery.