Chapter 4 No.4

It is unnecessary to tell of the division of the Empire among the conquerors, or of how a daughter of Alexius III. wedded the heroic Greek who still fought on, Theodore Lascaris, and was the ancestress of one who eventually brought back the old Empire; of how Mourtozouphlos was caught by the Latins and cast down from the top of the column of Arcadius, or of how Greek states sprang into existence on every side; how Baldwin the Emperor was captured by the Bulgarians and died a horrible death. These events all happened within two years. Henry, the brother of Baldwin, reigned in his stead.

Henry Dandolo the old doge died "in the fulness of years and glory" and was buried, it would seem, in S. Sophia, where the great slab that covered his grave is still to be seen. Ten years later Henry the Emperor passed away, and Peter of Courtenay, husband of his sister Yolande reigned in his stead. He reigned though crowned in Rome, only to be captured on his way to Constantinople, and to pass away from history to an unknown fate. Robert, his son, was crowned in S. Sophia in 1221. His fate was hardly less ignominious. His successors, the child Baldwin II. (Courtenay) and John of Brienne, were besieged in Constantinople by the Greek so-called Emperor of Nic?a and John Asēn, the Bulgarian king, but the aged joint-Emperor successfully defended the city. The young Baldwin went as a beggar to the chief courts of Europe, was the pensioner of S. Louis, seated himself with difficulty on the throne, descended to an ignoble marriage treaty with a Mohammedan Sultan and sold the Crown of Thorns to the king of the Franks.

In the weakness into which they had fallen, it is not to be wondered that the survivors of the Latin conquerors were easily vanquished by the advancing power of the Greeks, and on July 25th, 1261, John Ducas and Michael Pal?ologus were welcomed back by the exultant Greeks to the throne of the C?sars.

It was Alexius Strategopoulos, General and C?sar, who captured the city. By night he led his men to the gate of the Pegè (π?λη τ?? πηγ??)-the gate which led out to the spring of Balukli, now called the gate of Selivria. The Latins had built up the entrance, but some of the soldiers scaled the walls, and aided by friends within, killed the guards, broke down the barricade, and opened the gate. A few days later the Emperor, Michael Pal?ologus, entered in triumph. He walked as far as the church of S. John of the Studium. Then he mounted his horse and rode on to S. Sophia. So the Greeks had won back their city. But the results of the Latin conquest and the years of strife that followed it were not undone. The historian of that conquest has thus summed them up.

"The results of the Fourth Crusade upon European civilisation were altogether disastrous. The light of Greek civilisation, which Byzantium had kept burning for nearly nine centuries after Constantine had chosen it as his capital, was suddenly extinguished. The hardness, the narrowness and the Hebraicism of western civilisation were left to develop themselves with little admixture from the joyousness and the beauty of Greek life. Every one knows that the Turkish conquest of Constantinople dispersed throughout the West a knowledge of Greek literature, and that such knowledge contributed largely to the bringing about of the Reformation and of modern ways of thought. One cannot but regret that the knowledge of Greek literature was so dearly bought. If the dispersion of a few Greeks, members of a conquered and therefore despised race, but yet carrying their precious manuscripts and knowledge among hostile peoples, could produce so important a result, what effect might not reasonably have been hoped for if the great crime against which Innocent protested had not been committed? Western Europe saw the sparks of learning dispersed among its people. The light which had been continuously burning in a never forgotten and, among the literary class, a scarcely changed language, had been put out. The crime of the Fourth Crusade handed over Constantinople and the Balkan peninsula to six centuries of barbarism, and rendered futile the attempts of Innocent and subsequent statesmen to recover Syria and Asia Minor to Christendom and civilisation. If we would understand the full significance of the Latin conquest of Constantinople, we must try to realise what might now be the civilisation of Western Europe if the Romania of six centuries ago had not been destroyed. One may picture not only the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Marmora surrounded by progressive and civilised nations, but even the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean given back again to good government and a religion which is not a barrier to civilisation."[25]

The restored Empire of the Greeks was ruled for some years with wisdom and enthusiasm. Michael Pal?ologus was of an ancient family already allied with the imperial house, and "in his person the splendour of birth was dignified by the merit of the soldier and statesman." He was admitted as the guardian, and then as the colleague, of the child-Emperor John. The gallant Varangians, the northern soldiers whose force had been replenished by fresh blood from year to year, and had never deserted the imperial house, had raised him to the throne, and he ruled with a severity and determination that bore down all opposition.

It was his first task to cleanse and restore the palace of Blachernae, left filthy and dilapidated by Baldwin II. Then he set about the restoration of the walls. His chief attention was paid to the sea walls, which he raised seven feet by means of wooden erections covered with hide; and later he began to make a double line of walls to protect the sea side of the city as the land side was protected. He took the harbour of the Kontoscalion (in front of what is now Koum Kapoussi) for a dockyard, had it dredged and deepened, protected by an iron mole and "surrounded with immense blocks, closed with iron gates." But he was determined to rule alone, and before the end of the year he had blinded his young colleague and banished him. He was excommunicated by the patriarch Arsenius, and a schism was caused by his banishment of the prelate, which was not healed for nearly fifty years.

Fearing a renewed invasion by the Latins he did his utmost to make alliances to protect himself. He established the Genoese in a settled concession at Galata, hoping to make them a firm support against their rivals of Venice. But this act only made the commercial rivalries stronger, and planted a power which soon became hostile on the very shores of the capital and in command of the Golden Horn. "The Roman Empire," says Gibbon, "might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa, if the Republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power." No less disastrous was the attempt of Michael to unite with the Roman Church. Urban IV. had taken up the cause of the young Baldwin and called on the powers to make Crusade. Michael endeavoured to meet him by diplomacy if not by submission. His envoys attended the council held at Lyons in 1274 by the Pope Gregory X. Veccus, who had long opposed the union of the churches, underwent a sharp imprisonment in the prison of Anemas, but being convinced of the error of his opinions was released to mount the patriarchal throne. But all these measures were in vain. On questions of faith it should not have been impossible for candid men, as the history of Veccus shows, to bring the churches into essential union, but the claim of the Popes to supremacy, which they emphasised by the mission of legates, was one which the Church of Constantinople has never admitted. Michael died in 1282. Already his attempt had failed, and he died excommunicated by pope and patriarch. The restorer of the Empire was unworthy to rank among its heroes, and the historian of the Greek people has described him in language of severity that is well deserved. "He was selfish, hypocritical, able and accomplished, an inborn liar, vain, meddling, ambitious, cruel and rapacious. He has gained renown as the restorer of the Eastern Empire; he ought to be execrated as the corrupter of the Greek race, for his reign affords a signal example of the extent to which a nation may be degraded by the misconduct of its sovereign when he is entrusted with despotic power."

Of his intrigues, the most important of which was his encouragement of the revolt of John of Procida against the French in Sicily, ever memorable as the Sicilian Vespers, it can only be said that they may have saved him from attack. Catalan mercenaries, who after the expulsion of the French from Sicily came into the service of the Empire, overwhelmed its fairest provinces with rapine and disaster. It is a history which makes Gibbon for once ascend the pulpit of the preacher of righteousness. "I shall not, I trust, be accused of superstition; but I must remark that, even in this world, the natural order of events will sometimes assume the strong appearances of moral retribution. The first Pal?ologus had saved his Empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood; and from these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who assaulted and endangered the Empire of his son."

Andronicus II., indeed, had a long but disastrous reign. He continued his father's works at the harbour of the Kontoscalion. He repaired the sea walls, and in 1317, when his wife, Irene, died and left him some money, the impoverished C?sar was able to undertake a general repair of the whole of the fortifications. Otherwise he is known in the history of the city only for his disputes with the patriarch, his abject submissions, and his misfortunes. His son, Michael IX., was from 1295 to 1320 the associate of his throne, and won universal praise. His grandson, Andronicus III., sank to the pleasures which had disgraced so many of his predecessors, but when his iniquities were too flagrant to be concealed, when his brother Manuel was murdered, it was believed, through his orders, and his father, Michael IX., died of grief, he took up arms against his grandfather, secured his own coronation, and then the absolute submission of the aged Emperor. Andronicus lived in 1332 in the great palace, but in absolute penury. He took monastic vows and died, no longer as Emperor, but as the poor monk Antony.

Andronicus the younger (III.), though he married princesses of Western houses, did not add to the dignity of the Eastern Empire. He died in 1341, and left behind him a child of eight, the son of his second wife, Agnes of Savoy. He was protected by John Cantacuzene, who had protected his father, and finally won him the crown, and who himself bore a character that was high among the best of the Byzantine statesmen and generals. But palace intrigues and attacks of interested politicians against him, at last obliged him, as he declares-for he is his own historian-to assume the Imperial title. In the war that ensued it seems that while the people supported the Pal?ologi, the officials supported the new claimant. It gave the opportunity to the Servian king, Stephen Dashan, to extend his territories and threaten to replace the Emperors as leaders of the Greek peoples. Strip by strip the territory of the Empire was shorn away, and Serbians, Turks, and Albanians left little to be conquered by Cantacuzene. At last, after previous failures, he advanced to the walls again in 1347 and was admitted secretly by his friends through the Golden Gate. For once, what was practically a change of dynasty was accomplished without bloodshed. John Cantacuzene became Emperor and gave his daughter in marriage to John Pal?ologus. It is said by a contemporary that so poor were even the imperial houses that at the wedding feast the illustrious personages had to be served in earthenware and pewter: strange change from the time when the very walls of the palace glittered with gold. In seven years the balance of power changed completely. War, first joint against the Serbians, then hostile against each other, was ended, it seemed, in favour of Cantacuzene by the assistance-a woeful precedent-of the Turks, now settled in Europe and the masters of Adrianople. But when the successful Emperor tried to associate his son Matthew on the throne, the feeling of Constantinople turned strongly against him. In 1358, John Pal?ologus whose seat of government had been fixed at Thessalonica, arrived, with but two galleys and two thousand men, on a dark night at the gate of the Hodegetria on the Sea of Marmora. Bringing their vessels quite close to the gate, they made every sign of distress, throwing out oil-jars and uttering cries for help. The stratagem succeeded; the guards opened the gate and came to their assistance. They were overpowered, and the troops rushed in and captured the adjoining tower. The city rose in favour of the young Pal?ologus, and John Cantacuzene with great willingness, if he is to be believed in his own case, retired from the throne and entered a monastery, where he died in 1383.

Each change of Emperor marked the more clearly the coming end of the Empire. John VI. Pal?ologus "carelessly watched the decline of the Empire for thirty-six years," from the day when he became sole ruler. He saw the growth of the Turkish power, and he sought the aid of Urban V. for the final contest that he saw must come. In 1361 he was decisively defeated before Adrianople, and in later years he was little better than the vassal of the Sultan. He himself went to Rome in 1369, and submitted to the Latin Church, on the points of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the use of unleavened bread and the supremacy of the Roman See. So poor was he that he was arrested at Venice, on his return, for debt. The C?sar of the East had indeed sunk low.

He was compelled to aid Sultan Murad with troops, and during his absence in Asia, apparently in 1374, his eldest son, Andronicus, secured Constantinople, in alliance with the Turkish Sultan's son, also a rebel against his father. By the aid of Murad, Andronicus was seized. He was imprisoned in the tower of Anemas with his wife and his son John, then only five years old. He was to have been blinded, but perhaps in mercy the sight of one eye was not harmed. After two years he was released, and he at once made alliance with the Genoese and with the Sultan Bayezid, and marched to the capital. He caught his father and his brother Manuel, who were at the palace of the Pegé, now the village of Balukli, and sent them with his younger brother Theodore to the prison in which he himself had been confined, "as Zeus," says the historian Ducas, with a classic touch such as the Greeks always delighted to use, "cast his father Kronos and his brothers Pluto and Poseidon into Tartarus." Andronicus entered the city by the Selivri Kapoussi (gate of the Pege), and held the throne for two years and a half. Bayezid urged him to kill his father and brothers, but he would not; and within two years, in some way, as to which the historians-none of whom are strictly contemporary-differ, they escaped, and with the aid of Murad, or Bayezid (for again the dates are doubtful), attacked the city, entered by the gate of S. Romanus, and defeated Andronicus, who was allowed to retire to Selivria as ruler of the adjacent lands. In 1384 Manuel was recognised as heir to his father. These changes were all effected by the aid of the Turks, and of the cities of Genoa and Venice, who, it might seem, gave the city to whom they would; and when John VI. began to repair the walls which thirty-six years before he had himself despoiled, he was stopped by order of Bayezid and compelled to destroy what he had done.

In his time decay visibly laid its hand on the still splendid city. Many of the streets, it is said, were almost in ruins, the palaces empty, and the costliest and most beautiful treasures of the ancient Byzantine art had been sold to the Genoese and the Venetians. But for the defeat of Bayezid by Timur, the prize would have fallen into the hands of the Turks half a century before it was theirs at last.

Manuel II. had an unquiet reign. Forced to yield on every side to the demands of the Sultan, blockaded in Constantinople, he was at last forced to admit his cousin John, the son of Andronicus, as joint Emperor, in 1399, a title which he seems to have borne but a short time.

For a while it seemed that the distractions and defeats of the Turks might give opportunity for a revival of the Empire. In 1411 a Turkish attack on Constantinople was driven off; but the Greeks were incapable of using their own victories or the weakness of their enemies; and though Manuel made some reforms in the administration the members of his household thwarted him on every side. The years of peace were wasted, and in 1422 Murad II. appeared before the walls of the imperial city.

The defeat of the Turks-their last-was soon followed by the death of Manuel (1425). John VII. set himself to repair the walls, but he could not rebuild or repopulate the city. The decay, in spite of the outward splendour, the disgraceful subjection of the Emperor to the Turks, and the hatred of the Greeks for the Westerns, all struck the keen observer Bertrandon de la Brocquière, a Burgundian knight, who visited the city in 1433. The despairing effort of the Emperor was to win the help of a new crusade by union with the Latin Church.

Those who have stood in admiration before the frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli in the Riccardi Palace at Florence will remember the solemn impressive figure of John Pal?ologus, in his gorgeous robes, as he rides in the procession of the Magi, a stately personage contrasting markedly with the bourgeois Medici who follow him. Italians knew the Eastern Emperor, for in 1438 he stood with the patriarch before the Council of Ferrara, and in the next year, in Florence itself accepted, with his bishops (save the bishop of Ephesus), the doctrines of the Latins, and joined on July 6, 1439, in the proclamation beneath the dome of Brunelleschi, then only three years completed, of the unity of the Catholic Church of East and West.

When he returned to Constantinople the people refused to accept the union, and even the bishops who had signed the decrees of Florence now repudiated their act as a sin. No help came from the West; and John died in 1448, having preserved his throne even by temporising with the Turks.

Constantine Pal?ologus was the eldest surviving son of the Emperor Manuel. He could only ascend the throne by the consent of the Sultan, and when that was obtained he was crowned in Sparta, where he had ruled. On the 12th of March 1449 he entered Constantinople. The city was receiving its new lord with exultation and joy, says his friend and chronicler Phrantzes. So long as Murad still reigned they were indeed safe, but when Mohammed II. became Sultan it was clear that there would be war.

Constantine turned-it was his only hope-to the West for aid. He sent an embassy to Rome begging for help, and showing willingness to renew the union of the Churches. The Pope, Nicholas V., sent back Cardinal Isidore, who had once been a Russian bishop, but, having accepted the decrees of Florence, had remained loyal to them, and was an exile from his country in consequence. He arrived at Constantinople in November 1452, bringing some money and a few troops. On December 12, 1452, the union was ratified in S. Sophia, and Cardinal Isidore said mass according to the Latin rite. From that day the people regarded the church as desecrated. In the church and monastery of the Pantokrator the monk Gennadios preached against the crime and folly of the union. Many of the great nobles cried out against it; one even declared that the Sultan would be a far better lord than the Pope. As Constantine rode through the streets daily the mob mocked and reviled him; and some cried out "rather than that we should be Latins would we be Turks." The holy sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ they rejected, declaring that it was polluted. Even if an angel from heaven had descended and declared that he would save the city if only the people would unite with the Roman Church the people would have refused. So the chroniclers describe the disunion within. Without, the preparations were complete.

The conquerors of Constantinople had had a romantic history. A horde of barbarians, coming from the far East, and a branch of the race known to Chinese historians as the Hiung-no, they emerge into history in the sixth century, then assuming the name of Turk, which they were to make famous. In the latter half of that century they became known to the rulers of Constantinople. In 568 embassies came to the Emperor from the Northern Turks. Eight years later an embassy was sent to the Southern Turks. At the very end of the century an embassy came to the Emperor Maurice in 598 from the Khan of the Turks, now claiming to be a great sovereign. But it was more than six centuries before the Empire came face to face with the actual tribe which should found the power that was to take its place. Pressed hard by the Seljuks, with territories limited to the Bithynian province, it was not till the beginning of the fourteenth century that Osman, the founder of the Osmanlis, came forward as a leader who should begin a line of mighty sovereigns.

Legends surround the life of Osman; his dream of a great tree which should overshadow the world, of Constantinople won by clashing swords, of the ring of universal Empire, his romantic love suit, belong perhaps to history, but only as it appears magnified by an imagination fired by the wonderful successes of later years. More certain are the capture of Nicaea and of Brusa, accomplished by his son,-the latter still the picture of a Turkish city, with its innumerable mosques, its trees and gardens, its population half-military, but now wholly languid and quiescent. The sword of Osman is still the sign of power among his descendants. It rests in the türbeh of Ey?b, the companion of Mohammed himself, who fell not by the sword but by disease during the first Moslem attack on Constantinople in 672, and over whose grave Mohammed the Conqueror built a tomb, to the Moslems the most sacred of all in the city they had made their own. Osman was brought to Brusa only to be buried. His son Orchan carried fire and sword nearer and nearer to the goal. It was he who founded the terrible corps of the Janissaries, Christian child captives trained by the sternest methods to be the fiercest champions of Islam. In 1326 Orchan captured Nicomedia; in 1330 he defeated the imperial host led against him by the Emperor himself, and Nicaea fell into his hands. He showed the wisdom and restraint which, combined with the daring and ferocity of his men, served to strengthen the Turkish power step by step in the districts it won. Nicaea was not pillaged. Its citizens were allowed to live on in peace under Moslem laws, and Orchan himself by every act of charity and of devotion to his religion sought, and won, the respect of the people whom he had conquered. Then for twenty years he rested and prepared. Brusa was enriched with mosques and hospitals, tombs of soldiers and prophets, fountains, baths, colleges of students of the Koran. There rest to-day the first six Sultans, among "some five hundred tombs of famous men, pashas, scheiks, professors, orators, physicians, poets, musicians."

The years of waiting ended when in 1346 the power of Orchan was so great, and was recognised to be so dangerous, that John Cantacuzene, the Christian C?sar, did not hesitate to purchase his friendship by the gift of his daughter Theodora, in a marriage performed with all the pomp of a State ceremonial, but without even the form of a Christian blessing. The friendship thus bought was never yielded. The Osmanlis crossed to Europe in freebooting bands, and ravaged up to the very walls of Constantinople; and when the Genoese whom Cantacuzene had settled at Galata fought with him and destroyed his fleet, it was with the aid of Orchan that they fought against their benefactor. In 1356 Orchan's son, Suleiman, inspired like his grandfather by a dream or a vision which he took as a supernatural summons, crossed to Europe with but thirty-nine companions, and took the fort of Tzympe near Gallipoli. In three days there were three thousand Turks settled in Europe. It was the beginning of an Empire which lasts to this day. The occupation of Gallipoli followed, and when Orchan died in 1359, the Turks had settled down to wait, for a hundred years, till the Queen city herself should fall into their hands.

Before him his son Suleiman had passed away; and his tomb at the northern entrance to the Hellespont seemed to mark the country for the possession of the Turks. "For a hundred years he was the only Ottoman prince who lay buried in European earth; and his tomb continually incited the races of Asia to perform their pilgrimage to it with the sword of conquest. Of all the hero-tombs," says Von Hammer, "which have hitherto been mentioned in connection with Ottoman history, there is none more renowned, or more visited, than that of the second Vizier of the Empire, the fortunate crosser of the Hellespont, who laid the foundation of the Ottoman power in Europe."

Already the military organisation was founded, and the system which had made in the brother of Orchan as Vizier the civil ruler of the people. Now the settlement in Europe was begun. Murad (or Amurath, as our forefathers called the name), the younger brother of Suleiman, succeeded his father. In less than thirty years he had transformed the face of Southern Europe, and made the Emperor of Rome but a dependent of his power. He landed and established his armies in Thrace. He defeated the Hungarians and Serbians and captured Nisch; he pressed southwards and Adrianople fell into his hands; and then when the circle of Turkish territory was drawn closely round Constantinople, he turned northwards and became the conqueror of the northern lands ruled by princes Christian yet still barbarian, who had long before this conquered them from the Empire. In 1389 Murad was slain, after a great victory, by Milosch Kobilovitsch, the hero of Serbian legend. Bayezid, his son, reigned in his stead; and he began the fatal custom which still further consolidated the monarchy. On the very day of his accession he had his brother murdered, and so wise was the precedent considered that by the time of Mohammed the Conqueror it became a law that every brother of the Sultan should be slain. He began, too, it is asserted, the hideous vices which have stained the Empire of his successors, and which degraded the courts of the Sultan with the guilt of the rulers and the shame of their captives.

The battle of Kossova, the last fight of Murad, was followed before long by that of Nicopolis, in which the choicest chivalry of Europe went down before the fierce onslaught of the Turkish squadrons. The captives, all but twenty-four knights, who were spared, were butchered in cold blood in the presence of their comrades, before the tent of Bayezid.

Then Bayezid led his hosts to the conquest of Greece; and in 1397 Athens fell before his arms. The C?sars bowed before him, suffered a mosque to be built within the walls of Constantinople, and actually joined their arms to his for the capture of the one Greek city which remained free in the midst of the European conquests of the Turks. When at last the insolent Sultan demanded that the crown of the Emperors should be yielded to him, and threatened to exterminate the inhabitants of the capital if he were not obeyed, it is said that the nobles replied: "We know our weakness, but we trust in the God of justice, who protects the weak and lowly, and puts down the mighty from on high." It was an answer that befitted the ancient city.

Before the attack was made that seemed certain to prove fatal to the last stronghold, the capital of the Christian Empire, Bayezid was called away to meet the onslaught of the greatest of conquerors, Timur the Tartar. The great battle of Angora shattered the Turkish power, destroyed the Janissaries and left Bayezid himself a prisoner in the hands of Timur. Before a year was over, the proud Sultan died, and the power which he had made so great was utterly crushed beneath the feet of the Tartars.

Brusa itself was left in ruins, and not only the son of Bayezid, who was safe in Adrianople, made submission, but even the Emperor paid tribute to Timur. Then the conquering horde swept back again to the Far East, and the Turks set to work to rebuild again the power that had been shattered.

Domestic warfare succeeded the destruction at the hands of foreign foes, and Mohammed I., the youngest son of Bayezid, established his authority over his brothers as ruler of the Osmanlis by the aid of the Emperor Manuel Pal?ologus. His brother Musa laid siege to Constantinople, and the troops of Mohammed actually joined with those of Manuel in the successful defence of the city. Mohammed was the ally, almost the subject, of the Emperor, and when he died he sought to commend his children to Manuel's care.

Mohammed died in 1421 at Adrianople. His son Murad II. had to fight for his throne against a pretender whom the Emperor had set free, and whom he overcame only by the help of the Genoese galleys which carried him from Asia to Europe. In 1422 he was ready to revenge himself on the Greeks. His army encamped before the walls of Constantinople, and his own tent was set up in the garden of the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Fountain (Balukli). He brought his cannon to bear upon the walls that cross the valley of the Lycus, but without success. The walls of Theodosius were still too strong, and the fierce attack on the gate of S. Romanus was a failure now, as it would not be thirty years later.

The city was stoutly defended. John Pal?ologus, the Emperor's son, commanded a garrison inspired by the fullest religious enthusiasm: and when a vision of the Blessed Virgin, the Panhagia, was seen on the walls, both by assailants and defenders, the siege was given up; and the Sultan did not attempt to renew it. Still, a tribute was paid by the Emperor, and it must have been clear to the Osmanlis that the capture was but for a short time deferred. But Murad had to undergo defeats at the hands of the Hungarians, which he amply avenged: and his two abdications showed that he was weary of power, if not incapable of wielding it. The end of his reign saw him repeatedly over-matched by the Albanian hero, Scanderbeg, whom he himself had trained among the Janissaries. In 1451 he died; and then the greatest triumph of the Osmanlis was at hand.

The early history of Mohammed II. has been thus summed up, in the clear-cut eloquence of Dean Church.

"Three times did Mohammed the Conqueror ascend the Ottoman throne. Twice he had resigned it, a sullen and reluctant boy of fourteen, whom it was necessary to inveigle out of the way, lest he should resist his father to the face, when, to save the State, he appeared to resume his abdicated power. The third time, seven years older, he sprang on the great prize with the eagerness and ferocity of a beast of prey. He never drew bridle from Magnesia, when he heard of his father's death, till on the second day he reached Gallipoli, on his way to Adrianople. To smother his infant brother in the bath was his first act of power; and then he turned, with all the force of his relentless and insatiate nature to where the inheritor of what remained of the greatness of the C?sars-leisurely arranging marriages and embassies-still detained from the Moslems the first city of the East;-little knowing the savage eye that was fixed upon him, little suspecting the nearness of a doom which had so often threatened and had been so often averted."

It did not need the half-defiant attitudes of Constantine XII. to arouse the young Sultan: as soon as he had concluded a truce with his northern foes he began to make those elaborate preparations which should ensure success in the great conquest. His first act was to secure the isolation of the capital. Already he held the passage of the Dardanelles; now he would secure that of the Bosphorus. In 1393 Bayezid had built on the Asiatic shore, some five miles above Constantinople, the fortress which was the first distinct menace to the imperial city. Anadoli Hissar, the "Asiatic Castle," still stands overhanging the water's edge, a splendid medi?val building of four square towers with one great central keep. In 1452 a corresponding tower was begun on the other side of the sea, at the point where the passage is narrowest. The first stone was laid by Mohammed himself on March 26, 1452, and by the middle of August the castle was completed. The design of this Roumeli Hissar represented the name of the Prophet and the Sultan, the consonants standing out as towers. Protests were unheeded and the two envoys sent by the Emperor to remonstrate were butchered at once. A Venetian galley was sunk as it passed, to prove the range of the guns. Its crew were slain when they swam ashore. A Hungarian engineer was employed to direct a cannon foundry, and a vast store of materials of war was accumulated for the siege. After another winter's preparation all was ready, and early in the spring of 1453 a vast Turkish host[26] was ranged from the Golden Horn to the Marmora. The sea was covered by three hundred vessels and it seemed as if succour was cut off on every side.

On April 6, 1453, the siege began.

The last message of the Roman Emperor to the Turkish Sultan had been somewhat in these words: "As it is plain thou desirest war more than peace, as I cannot satisfy thee by my vows of sincerity or by my readiness to swear allegiance, so let it be according to thy will. I turn now and look above to God. If it be His will that the city should become thine, where is he who can oppose His will? If He should inspire thee with a wish for peace, I shall indeed be happy. Nevertheless I release thee from all thy oaths and treaties to me, I close the gates of my city, I will defend my people to the last drop of my blood. And so, reign in happiness till the Righteous and Supreme Judge shall call us both before the seat of His judgment."

It was in this spirit that Constantinople stood to meet the foe. Mohammed when he came in sight of the walls, spread his carpet on the ground and turning towards Mecca prayed for the success of his enterprise. Everywhere throughout the camp the Ulemas promised victory and the delights of Paradise.

On April 7, the Turkish lines were drawn opposite the walls. The tent of the Sultan himself was placed opposite the gate of S. Romanus (Top Kapoussi). Thence to his right the Asiatic troops stretched down to the sea, to his left past the gate of Charisius (Edirnè Kapoussi), the European levies extended northwards to the Golden Horn. Within four days sixty-nine cannon were set in position against the walls, and with them ancient engines, such as catapults and balistae, discharging stones. On the heights about Galata also a strong body of troops was placed.

ROUMELI HISSAR

Within, measures had been taken to repair the walls, but it is said that the money had been embezzled by the two monks, skilled in engineering, to whom it had been given, and in some places the fortifications were not strong enough to support cannon. Constantine sought help from every side. On April 20, four ships laden with grain forced their way through the Turkish fleet, but they added few if any to the defenders. The Venetian aid that had been promised did not arrive even at Euboea till two days after the Turks had captured the city. Of troops within, Phrantzes, who himself had charge of the search, states that there were hardly seven thousand in all, of whom two thousand were foreigners. Others give higher numbers, but there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Emperor's most trusted friend. Strange it seems that outside, in the Sultan's army, some thirty thousand Christians were fighting for the infidels. Phrantzes says that when he heard that some of the Byzantine nobles had left the city, the Emperor only heaved a deep sigh.

Of the arrangements for defence, the fullest accounts can be found in the writings of Phrantzes and Ducas, the letters of Archbishop Leonardo of Mitylene and of Cardinal Isidore, the report of the Florentine Tedardi, two poems, and a Slavonic MS. quoted by M. Mijatovich.[27]

Here it is needless to tell how each wall was manned. It may suffice to say that during the few weeks that passed, while the Christians still kept their foes at bay, there was no rest for the besieged. Sometimes when the Emperor went on his rounds to inspect the defences he found the weary soldiers asleep at their posts. He seemed himself to be sleepless; every hour that he did not devote to the defences he seemed to spend at prayer.

He visited every post himself; he even crossed the Golden Horn in a small boat to be sure of the security of the great chain which stretched from the tower of Galata to what is now called Seraglio Point. Every hour he had to contend with new difficulties, with monks declaring that defence was hopeless because of the union with the Latins, with Italian mercenaries clamouring for pay. He was compelled to take the furniture of the churches when the treasures of the palace were quite exhausted, but he promised if God should free the city to restore to Him fourfold.

After nearly a week in which the heavy Turkish cannon thundered against the walls, the gunners learned at last from the Hungarian envoys to their camp how to direct their fire. At length, on April 18, at the hour of vespers, a great attack was made. The people rushed out from the churches, and the air was filled with the cries of the combatants, the ringing of the bells, the clash of arms. The attack was strongest against the weak walls by the Blachernae quarter, and by the gate of S. Romanus. After hours of hard fighting it was repulsed, and Te Deum was sung in all the churches for the victory.

The victory of the 18th, followed by that of the 20th, when the ships broke up the whole Turkish fleet and rode triumphantly into the Golden Horn, inspirited the besieged. But on the 21st the cannonade brought down one of the towers that defended the gate of S. Romanus. The Sultan was not on the spot, and the Turks were not ready to make assault, so the opportunity passed. After these victories the Emperor hoped that it was possible to induce the Sultan to retire. He offered to surrender everything but the city, and there were some in the infidel camp who would have been ready to make terms, but Mohammed would offer only that the whole Peloponnesus should be Constantine's in undisturbed possession, if he would yield the city. The terms were rejected, and the Emperor prepared for the worst.

But still the Turks were far from the end of their task. Long though the extent of land walls was that had to be manned, it was not difficult to protect it with a comparatively small force. A low counter-scarp enclosed a moat, over which rose the scarp surmounted by breastworks. Above this was the line of the outworks, with towers advanced here and there from their surface. Behind, and also protected by high towers, was the inner or great wall, with breast work and rampart. It was "the most perfect of Eastern fortresses,"[28] and might indeed seem impregnable. Every wall had its "military engines capable of playing on the siege-works of the beleaguering army." And as the walls "were loopholed at a stage below the battlements," the "garrison could fire not merely from the parapets but from a well protected second line of openings." While therefore it was quite possible to defend the land walls, the besieged relied for ultimate safety on being able to leave without risk the walls of the Golden Horn and the sea practically undefended. The Turkish fleet would not venture to draw near to the Marmora walls. The Golden Horn was safe with Galata on the other side-though the Genoese held aloof, through treaty probably with Mohammed-and the chain across. The Sultan had already tried to force the chain but failed. So it seemed safe:-

"Till Birnam wood shall come to Dunsinane."

But the genius of the Sultan, or as one authority says, a Christian in his army, devised a scheme which at once made him the master of the city. He determined to transport his fleet overland into the Golden Horn from the Bosphorus. An extraordinary feat it was, but it was splendidly performed. A narrow canal was dug, paved, and set with rollers. The point of starting was between Top Haneh and Beshiktash, out of the range of the fort at Galata. Thence between two and three miles up the valley of Dolma Bagtché the seventy or eighty ships were drawn by night up the hill of Pera to the point where now the gardens stand just below the Hotel Bristol, and thence down the hill to the bay of Kassim Pasha where now stands the great Arsenal.[29] When the watchers on the towers of Galata and the Kentatarion by the Gate of Eugenius could see through the fogs of dawn on the morning of April 22, the great fleet was no longer before them in the Bosphorus, but behind in the Golden Horn there rode the gallant vessels with their flags flying in the breeze. The north-east wall must be reinforced. How could it be done?

The Venetian ships in the harbour determined to attack the Turks before they could complete the great pontoon which they were preparing to bring up. For some days, however, nothing was done. The attacks on the land walls continued and were beaten back, often with heavy loss. But each day provisions were growing less and the defenders were growing weaker. On the morning of April 28th two Venetian galleys, three smaller ships, and two stored with fire, advanced upon the Turks. They were received with the fire of four cannon. The great galley of Gabrielo Trevisani sank, and one of the smaller ships. Only one of the Turkish ships caught fire. The Venetians who swam to shore when their ships sank were beheaded next day in sight of the defenders of the walls. A bitter revenge was taken. Over two hundred and fifty Turks had at some time or other been captured and lay in the prisons of Constantinople. They were now all beheaded on the walls in sight of their kindred. The horrible act made certain what would be the fate of the city if it fell.

And internal dissensions made the fall seem imminent. The Venetians accused the Genoese and the Genoese the Venetians for the failure of their attack on the Turkish fleet, till Constantine himself called their leaders before him and besought them to be at peace. "The war without," he said, "is enough; by the mercy of God seek not war among ourselves." "So," says Phrantzes, "with much speech at length he pacified them."

Next day and on the first of May the Turkish cannon did some damage; but in some parts the fire was utterly unable to penetrate or dislodge the splendid masonry, and one tower near the Lycus, it is said, was struck by over seventy balls without suffering in the slightest; and the great gun built by the Hungarian mercenary Ourban was dismounted by the fire of the cannon directed by the gallant Genoese engineer Giustiniani, who, with four hundred of his countrymen, manned the walls near the gate of S. Romanus. Mohammed himself was standing by the gun at the moment, and in rage called his troops at once to the assault. They crossed the counter-scarp and began to pull down the scarp where it had been repaired; but again the defenders drove them back.

It was said when the attack began the walls were but half manned, as some of the soldiers had actually left their posts to go home to dine. This laxity, as soon as it was discovered, was of course stopped; but it shows how utterly the people, safe for centuries behind their defences, had forgotten the meaning of war.

The Emperor on the 3rd of May sent out a ship which penetrated through the Turkish fleet, being disguised with Turkish colours, to beg aid. It was plain that if it were much delayed it would be too late. A council of war, indeed, advised the Emperor to escape while it was still possible. The Patriarch and the Senators urged him to go, assuring him that he could then easily gather an army to relieve the city. "The emperor," we are told, "listened to all this quietly and patiently. At last, after having been for some time in deep thought, he began to speak: 'I thank you all for the advice which you have given me. I know that my going out of the city might be of some benefit to me, inasmuch as all that you foresee might really happen. But it is impossible for me to go away: how could I leave the churches of our Lord, and His servants the clergy, and the throne, and my people in such a plight? What would the world say of me? I pray you, my friends, in future do not say to me anything else but, 'Nay, sire, do not leave us.' Never, never, will I leave you. I am resolved to die here with you.' And saying this, the Emperor turned his head aside, because tears filled his eyes; and with him wept the Patriarch and all who were there."[30]

In the next two days a ship was sunk, and the other Christian vessels were compelled to withdraw outside the chain. A Genoese merchant ship was also sunk, and when the merchants of Galata protested, declaring that they were entirely neutral, the Grand Vizier promised to compensate them, when the city was taken.

During the next week the breach by the gate of S. Romanus was daily widened, and on the 7th of May a desperate attack was made upon the walls. But again with splendid courage the Turks were beaten back, though some of the bravest of the defenders fell.

On the 12th of May a breach was made in the walls north of the palace of the Porphyrogenitus, and thousands of Turks poured in. It was only the arrival of Constantine himself, summoned hastily from a council of war, that drove forth the hosts after hot fighting. The Emperor would have pushed through and fought hand to hand in the ditch, we are told, if he had not been held back by his nobles.

From this date every effort was concentrated upon the gate of S. Romanus. There more cannon were directed; and in return men were brought from the fleet, now felt to be useless, to man the walls. One of the towers fell; and new engines were constantly being brought, with clever shelters for the archers. A great erection covered with bulls' hide was destroyed by a gallant attack from the walls, to the surprise of the Turks, who thought the feat impossible. Mines and countermines every day were discovered; every day the defenders were becoming weaker.

On the 23rd an envoy from the Sultan was admitted to the city. Again, and for the last time, Constantine was offered a sovereignty in the Peloponnese, freedom for all who chose to depart, and security for the persons and possessions of all who should choose to remain after the surrender. Again he rejected the offer. No doubt he thought that it was impossible to trust it; nor could the Roman Emperor endure to yield the city that had been but once captured in its age-long history. "We are prepared to die." The last hope failed just after the last bold defiance was returned: the ship sent out returned, to say that nowhere had it found the vessels of the relieving force.

The people began to see portents in the sky, when the great bonfires in the Turkish camp were reflected on the great dome of S. Sophia. The Emperor stood on the walls watching the enemy keeping festival, it seemed, with sounds of music, and shrill cries and the beating of drums. As he watched, says one who saw him, the tears coursed down his cheeks. He knew what must come, but he was ready to fight to the last. Again he was urged to fly, the Patriarch declaring that the city now must fall. Again, and for the last time he refused. "How many Emperors, great and glorious, before me have suffered and died for their country? Shall I be the one to fly? No, I will die with you!"

The ladies of the imperial household, the sister-in-law of the Emperor and her attendants, were sent away in a ship of Giustiniani's; and everything was prepared for the worst. By gigantic efforts the walls were repaired, and so well was the work done that even the Sultan was for a moment half dismayed.

Already there were many in the Turkish camp who thought the enterprise too hazardous to continue. It was known that a Venetian fleet was on the way, and that a league was being formed by the Pope. After long debate it was decided to make one last assault, and, if that failed, to raise the siege. On the night of the 28th, Mohammed visited all the posts, and promised to his soldiers all the pillage of the city, encouraging them by every hope for this world and the next. In the city priests bearing the sacred icons went through the streets. It was for the last time. For the last time Constantine called his officers together and spoke to them in brave words which burnt themselves into the memory of the faithful Phrantzes.

"Brothers and fellow-soldiers, be ready for the morn. If God gives us grace and valour, and the Holy Trinity help us, in Whom alone we trust, we will do such deeds that the foe shall fall back with shame before our arms." Then, says the chronicler, the wretched Romans strengthened their hearts like lions, sought and gave pardon, and with tears embraced each other as though mindful no more of wife or children or earthly goods, but only of death, which, for the safety of their country, they were glad to undergo. Constantine for the last time went to the great church, and there, before all the bishops, asked the pardon of all whom he had wronged. Then he received his last communion. For the last time the Holy Sacrifice was offered in S. Sophia, and then the last of the C?sars and his nobles went forth to die.

Before cock-crow he was again at his post; and with the first streak of dawn the Turkish troops poured forth to the attack. Again and again they were forced back, and again forced forward by the troops behind them. The moat had been filled with earth and stones; but a great palisade of stones covered with hides had been set up below the inner wall. The Janissaries at length rushed up to the breach, but even they were driven back. The critical moment came when a wound compelled Giustiniani to retire, and a few minutes after the Turks discovered a gate in the outer wall that had been newly opened, near to the gate of Charisius, and below the palace of the Porphyrogenitus, found it unprotected, and entering through it turned upon the defenders from within. Already the Genoese had left their posts when their leader withdrew. The Janissaries again advanced; they stormed the barricade, and at the moment when some discovered the Kerko-porta,[31] others forced their way through the gate of Charisius, and others through the great breach near where the great C?sar had stood. When the city was entered he was in the street calling his men around him. He rode forward, cutting his way through the foe, with some of the bravest of his nobles round him. At length he fell, near the gate of S. Romanus, by an unknown hand, and the conquering Turks swept over his body.

The age-long fight which the Imperial East had waged against barbarism was over. The city of the C?sars and the Church was in the hands of the infidel. The land where the scholarship of the ancient world and the law of the pioneers of equal justice had been preserved unbroken, was now trodden under foot of those whose life was formed on quite other models. Europe had stood by for centuries and watched the gallant battle waged by the Christians who manned the bulwarks of her civilisation. She had now to learn what was meant by the substitution of the Koran for the Bible, of Mohammed for Christ.

Within a few hours of the capture of the gate of S. Romanus the whole city was overrun by the victorious troops. At first they slew all whom they saw, but when it was plain that all opposition was over they began to make captives, tying them together with ropes and dragging them on as they advanced further into the city. In the last hours of the siege thousands had gathered in the great church of S. Sophia. There many still thought that they must find safety. God, they fancied, could not allow the infidel to desecrate the fairest church in all the world. An angel, it had been prophesied, would descend at the last moment and strike the enemies of Christ to the dust.

The great doors were shut, and the hushed thousands stood in prayer. The cries of the victors came nearer and nearer, and at last the doors of the narthex were beaten in and the savage soldiery rushed in, slaying at first, then seizing captives, tearing down every Christian symbol, and shattering with their axes the magnificent iconostasis, before which, twelve hours before, Constantine and his gallant men had bent in reverent devotion.[32]

At noon Mohammed himself entered the city by the gate of S. Romanus. He rode straight down the wide street which leads to S. Sophia, followed by the greatest of his officers and the holy men of the Mussulman faith. At the great door he dismounted, and taking earth from the ground he poured it on his head, as mindful of the end of all earthly conquests. Then he entered, and when he saw that wonderful sight which still strikes dumb with awe the greatest and the meanest of mankind, he stayed. Then, after some minutes' silence, he passed up to the altar. As he went he saw a soldier wantonly breaking up the beautiful pavement with his axe, and sternly forbade him, with a blow. As the priests stood before him he assured them of his protection, and he bade those Christians who still stood unfettered in the church to go to their homes in peace.

Then the Sultan ordered one of the Ulemas to mount the pulpit and read forth to the conquerors from the Koran, and he himself mounted upon the marble altar and prayed. Two legends have grown up round these first moments of the Mussulman triumph in the great church. It is said that as the first infidel entered a priest was celebrating the Eucharist, and that he passed into the wall, which mysteriously opened for him and closed when he had passed, bearing the Body and Blood of the Lord. He will return, they say, when the Christians again have S. Sophia for their own. The other legend points to a pillar at the south-east where a mark like a blood-stained hand stands out on the white marble. There it declared, Mohammed riding his horse over heaps of dead, made an impress of blood and victory, and ordered the slaughter to be stayed.

As the day went on it became known that some of the most notable of the defenders had escaped. Tedardi the Florentine, whose record of the siege is one of the most valuable we possess, when at last he saw that the fight was hopeless, fled to the harbour and with many others swam out to the Venetian ships some of which put out to sea and escaped. Giustiniani's wound had proved mortal. Cardinal Isidore, in disguise, was taken captive, but a Genoese of Galata bought his freedom. Many escaped to Galata. Some paid large ransoms: some were slaughtered, whether Latins or Greeks, in spite of the money they gave. Most of the Greeks were made captive. The duke Notaras and his family were at first spared, but when Mohammed demanded that the duke's son, a boy of fourteen, should be sent to him in the palace, he refused, and he and all his sons were put to death.

The usual fate of the Greek nobles however was that the fathers were slain, the boys taken to the barracks of the Janissaries, and the women and girls to the harems of the sultan and his chief favourites. Some forty thousand Greeks perished during the siege, fifty thousand it is supposed became captives, ten thousand, it is possible, some few rich, most the very poor, retained their freedom if not their homes.[33]

The body of Constantine, recognised by the purple buskins, was found in a heap of dead. His head was cut off and borne to the Sultan. It was exposed on a column in front of the palace. The body was buried with respect, and over its grave, not far from where the mosque of Suleiman now stands, a lamp has always been kept burning, but the Ottoman government has sternly repressed the attempt of the faithful Greeks to turn it into a place of pilgrimage and prayer.

So ended the Roman empire of the East. Its fall was an undying disgrace to Christendom, which stood by and would not help. But it fell chiefly through its own weakness. Military power and religion had been the strength of the Empire; corruption had eaten away the first, and the luxury and vice of the imperial court had shown that the Christian faith had failed to hold its own. In the hour of their despair the Emperors turned again to Christ, but it was too late to save the Empire which their defiance of His laws had brought to desolation. The Church of Constantinople must pass through the fires of persecution, and recover in its isolation, if it might be, the strength of the first days.

When Mohammed passed from the great church, he rode along the Hippodrome, and when he came to the serpent column from Delphi he struck off one of the three heads. He had done, he might have said, with the old world. It was the day of the new peoples: a day which began with the destruction of the old. As he walked through the deserted halls of the great palace he repeated the words of Firdusi:

Now the spider draws the curtain in the C?sar's palace hall,

And the owl is made the sentinel on Afrasiab's tower of watch.

CHAPTER II

Constantinople under the Turks

Constantinople soon became Stamb?l in the mouth of the Turks, a corruption it may be of the ε?? τ?ν π?λιν which they had often heard in the mouth of the Greeks. The crescent of Byzantium became the symbol of the Ottoman power. A new city began to be raised on the ruins of the old.

IN THE CEMETERY AT SCUTARI

Some privileges were left to the Christians. Galata and Pera were from the first confirmed in their independence and freedom of trade; yet step by step the Turkish sway was established over them, and though the foreign liberties still exist, and are reinforced by the privileges, from time to time increased, of the ambassadors and their households and the colonies they protect, the Sultan's rule is complete on both sides of the Golden Horn. After three days of plunder, Mohammed set himself to make order. He declared that he would protect the Greek Church. A new patriarch, George Scholarios or Gennadios, was installed: his ecclesiastical jurisdiction was recognized. He was allowed to hallow new churches, and one little humble oratory remained undefiled by the infidel. On the hill above the Phanar, hidden away in a side street, by a high wall, stands the little white-washed sanctuary round which on the fatal day the fight had surged. The Turks still call it Kan Klissé, the church of blood. The Greeks know it as S. Mary Mouchliotissa (the Mongolian), in memory, not only of the B. V. M., but of Mary the daughter of Manuel Pal?ologus, who had married the Khan of the Mongols, and after his death returned to Constantinople and built or restored the little church. Mohammed gave it to the architect Christodoulos, and by special firman, preserved it to the Christians.

The patriarchal throne was moved first to the Church of the Apostles, soon destroyed to make the mosque of the conqueror; thence to the Pammakaristos (Fet?yeh Djami); thence to the Church of the Wallachian palace in the Phanar, now the monastery of the Jerusalem patriarchate. At last, in 1601, it was moved to the ancient Petrion, where it remains. The palace of the patriarch is close by: the walls still show remains of the ancient fortifications, and of the stones of the monastery where the Empress Theodora lived so long in retirement. The church has a beautiful iconostasis of dark olive wood, and a patriarchal throne and pulpit, all probably of the seventeenth century, but which the faithful delight to ascribe to much earlier days. The throne is called the throne of S. John Chrysostom, the pulpit his pulpit; but their only claim to the title is that they belong to his successors, in an unbroken line. In this sheltered spot, and in the district of Phanar, stretching between the inner bridge over the Golden Horn and the ultra-Moslem suburb of Ey?b, remain the last links of Constantinople with the ancient Christian city. Round the patriarchal church, with the Christian schools and colleges, in the houses that are still half fortresses, cluster ancient memories that survive to-day. Gautier wrote fancifully, "Hither ancient Byzantium has fled. Here in obscurity dwell the descendants of the Comneni, the Dukai, the Palaiologoi, princes with no lands, but whose ancestors wore the purple and in whose veins flows imperial blood." Still in these dark houses, dusty and begrimed without, there survives some of the ancient Greek society, that has passed through so many changes, and hopes at least to witness one more.

The conquest of Constantinople had less effect than might have been expected upon the position of the Greek Church. Gennadios whom Mohammed made Patriarch, had been the bitter opponent of the reunion of the churches, and he had even declared that the destruction of the Empire would be the certain result of the concessions to the Latins. Mohammed desired that the Church should retain its power. If he protected it there might grow up some general feeling of acceptance of the Moslem rule. Thus synods were still allowed to meet, the patriarch was allowed to hold courts Christian, and to enforce his sentences with excommunication. But none the less the Church had no means of resisting the absolute power of the Sultan. At any moment patriarch, bishop or priest could be deposed, banished, executed, by his sole will. The Church has never ceased to live in a position of danger, at the mercy of an alien lord, and amid an infidel people; and at any moment she is liable to an active persecution, and her members to martyrdom.

The earlier patriarchs after the conquest seem to have been disturbed in their office by scandals, intrigues, difficulties of every kind. Before long the Sultan demanded payment on each new election, and it is represented that it was only by bribes that the election proceeded at all. Simony appears to have been rife. It was but slowly and under persecution that the Church was purged from these sins and became again fully worthy of the reverence of the whole Greek people. The encouragement of learning in the present century, the high character of the patriarchs, the times of danger through which they have passed, have left the Church the true centre of the national life which still remains. Nor has the widespread influence of the patriarchate failed to preserve some relics of the power of the ancient Empire. During the seventeenth century, while the Morea was in the hands of the Venetians, the Patriarch of Constantinople still nominated the bishops, revenues still reached him from the monasteries; and his excommunications were still valid in the lands which did not own the Sultan as lord. The Patriarch still claims ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Balkan lands, though the Porte has appointed a Bulgarian exarch, in accord with the wishes of the government, to act as head of the Orthodox in that principality, and Roumania has also freed herself; Serbia still struggles to be free: but it can hardly be doubted that should the lands ever be reunited, they would all gladly return to the obedience of the Patriarchate.

But this by anticipation: Mohammed set himself to found a new city. Land was freely granted to rich families from other cities: it is said that five thousand families, Greeks and Turks, were soon induced to settle in what had been the richest city in the world. Four thousand Servians were planted outside the walls to recolonize the villages that the war had destroyed. As the conquest spread Greeks and Albanians were forcibly deported to the capital. The Christians of Constantinople alone were freed from the tribute of their children. Before he died Mohammed saw the city again populous and in prosperity. He founded a new city on the ruins of the old: the new population, half Christians, but predominantly Turks, gave new life; and the new life was made to centre round the new buildings which Christian art inspired the Moslems to build. Gradually the city became not only Oriental, but Mohammedan. It is thus we see it to-day. Of the buildings let us speak later. Now let us see the work that was done by Mohammed the Conqueror and his successors.

The Turkish power depended upon the characteristic institution of the Janissaries. From the time of Orchan it was the law of the Turks to require from all the Christian subjects of their power a tribute of their children. These were at once made Mussulmans, brought up very strictly in their faith, skilfully taught, and trained to hardness. As time showed their capacity, they were divided into two classes; those who had no special physical strength were set to work in the offices of State; the others underwent the strict discipline which produced the finest military corps in Europe, the Janissaries. Unmarried, without family ties, connected neither among themselves nor with the people, these soldiers, it was said by their founder, Khalil-Djendereli, would belong solely to their sovereign, from whom they would have their sole reward. It was an original and daring thought, to make each conquest the basis of future victories. "Let the Christians support the war; let themselves furnish the soldiers by whose means we shall fight."

The first batch of Christian captives thus set apart in 1328 were brought before a renowned dervish, Hadji Bektash. Thus he blessed them. "Let them be called Yeni-Tscheri (new soldiers): they shall be conquerors in every fight; let their countenance be ever white and shining, their arm strong, their sword sharp, their arrow swift."

No troops ever more powerfully affected the imagination of friends and foes. Among the Turks they were always the leaders, the forlorn hope. Among Christians the terror of their name spread over Europe. In every war they gained new laurels, and from the moment when they stormed the walls of Constantinople they began to be, slowly but certainly, the sole strength of the Ottoman power. At first the absolute servants of the Sultan, before two centuries were over they became his masters. Their numbers increased rapidly. Within a few years their numbers reached twelve thousand, and in the seventeenth century they were more than three times as numerous. The description of the English traveller Sandys shows perhaps better than any other record what impression they made upon Christians at the height of their power.

"The Janissaries," he says,[34] "are those that bear great sway in Constantinople: in so much that the Sultans themselves have been sometimes subject to their insolencies. They are divided into severall companies under severall Captaines; but all commanded by their Aga: a place of high trust, and the third in repute through the Empire: howbeit, their too much love is to him an assured destruction. These are the flower of the Turkish infantery, by whom such wonderfull victories have been atchieved. They call the Emperour father (for none other is there for them to depend on), to whose valour and faith in the time of warre he committeth his person: they having their stations about the royal pavillion. They serve with harquebushes, armed besides with cymiters and hatchets. They weare on their heads a bonnet of white felt, with a flap hanging downe behind to their shoulders; adorned about the browes with a wreathe of metall, gilt, and set with stones of small value; having a kind of sheathe or rocket of the same erected before, wherein such are suffered to sticke plumes of feathers as have behaved themselves extraordinarie bravely. They tucke up the skirts of their coates when they fight, or march: and carry certaine dayes provision of victuals about with them. Nor is it a cumber: it being no more than a small portion of rice, and a little sugar and hony. When the Emperor is not in the field, the most of them reside with him in the Citie: ever at hand upon any occasion to secure his person, and are as were the Pretorian cohorts with the Romanes. They are in number about forty thousand: whereof the greater part (I meane of those that attend on the Court) have their being in three large Serraglios; where the juniors do reverence their seniors, and all obey their severall commanders (as they their Aga) with much silence and humility. Many of them that are married (a breach of their first institution) have their private dwellings: and those that are busied in forreine employments, are for the most part placed in such garrison townes as do greatly concerne the safetie of the Empire. Some are appointed to attend on Embassadors; others to guard such particular Christians as will be at the charge, both about the City, and in their travels, from incivilities and violences, to whom they are in themselves most faithfull: wary and cruell, in preventing and revenging their dangers and injuries; and so patient in bearing abuses, that one of them of late being strucken by an Englishman (whose humorous swaggering would permit him never to review his countrey) as they travelled along through Morea, did not onely not revenge it, nor abandon him to the pillage and outrages of others, in so unknowne and savage a country; but conducted him unto Zant in safety, saying, God forbid that the villany of another should make him betray the charge that was committed to his trust. They are al of one trade or other. The pay that they have from the Grand Signior is but five aspers a day: yet their eldest sons as soone as borne are inrolled, and received into pension; but his bounty extendeth no further unto his progeny (the rest reputed as natural Turks), nor is a Janizary capable of other preferments than the command of ten, of twenty, or of an hundred. They have yeerly given them two gowns apiece, the one of violet cloth, and the other of stanmell, which they weare in the City: carrying in their hands a great tough reede, some seven feet long, and tipped with silver; the weight whereof is not seldome felt by such as displease them. Who are indeed so awefull, that Justice dare not proceed publikely against them (they being only to be judged by their Aga), but being privately attached, are as privately throwne into the sea in the night time. But then are they most tumultuous (whereto they do give the name of affection) upon the dangerous sicknesses of their Emperours; and upon their deaths commit many outrages. Which is the cause that the great Bassas as well as they can, do conceale it from them, untill all things be provided for the presentment of the next for them to salute. Whereupon (besides the present larges) they have an Asper a day increase of pension: so that the longer they live, and the more Emperours they outlive, the greater is their allowance. But it is to be considered, that all these beforenamed, are not onely of that tribute of children. For not a few of them are captives taken in their child-hood; with divers Renegados, that have most wickedly quitted their religion and countrey, to fight against both: who are to the Christians the most terrible adversaries. And withall they have of late infringed their ancient customes, by the admitting of those into these orders, that are neither the sons nor grandsons of Christians; a naturall Turke borne in Constantinople, before never knowne, being now a Barsa of the Port."

To the English traveller's record may be added information of the Venetian ambassador's relazioni, which speak of the severe military training which the lads underwent, the strict asceticism in food, drill, garb, and tell that at night they all lay in a long room, lighted, and patrolled all night by a watchman, who walked up and down that they might learn thus to sleep in the midst of alarms.

Children of every nation, Poles, Bohemians, Russians, Italians, Germans, as well as tribute slaves from Greece and the Balkan lands, they knew no home but that narrow court in the Seraglio, no master but the Sultan, no hope but the hope of plunder and the paradise of Islam. So great was the power of the training, the comradeship, the fanaticism, that but one of all the Christians forcibly made Moslem and brought up among the Janissaries is known to have taken the opportunity to escape and return to Christendom. The single hero was Scanderbeg, who alone arrested the triumphant progress of Mohammed II.

One of the most curious memorials of the old Turkish State is that which is preserved to-day in the museum at the end of the At-meidan. There a hundred and thirty-six figures, huge painted dolls, represent the terrible troops in their habits as they lived. On the stairs are figures in chain armour, in the hall above the representations of the different ranks, and the officers named after the kitchen duties they were supposed to perform. It was one great family, in idea, with the Sultan as father. He gave the food, and their great kettles in which it was cooked were also their drums, with spoons for drumsticks. A strange grotesque sight are these bright figures in their long robes, with here and there, for contrast, an example of the new uniform introduced by Mohammed II. The museum is almost deserted; but there is no more characteristic memorial of the great days of the Turks. Let the visitor not imagine that he may sketch or take notes or look at the book of drawings which he may find in the room. He will hear the familiar Turkish word Yasak! and the book will be snatched from his hands.

But this by the way. When Mohammed II. took Constantinople and settled the Janissaries in the outer court of the Seraglio, once the Acropolis, they were only beginning to be the centre of power. Yet even then they were the most characteristic institution of the Osmanlis. While Constantinople was assuming the aspect which it was to bear for centuries, of an entirely eastern town, with minarets everywhere, khans, shrouded women, the strange solemn social life of the East, Mohammed the Conqueror was adding everywhere to his empire. Servia and Bosnia were annexed, Albania and Cyprus subdued; the whole of Asia Minor was under his rule. He died on May 2, 1481, and left the name of the greatest of the Turkish rulers. His laws, his organisation of the judicial and religious class of the Ulemas, the teachers of the people, were more permanent than his victories. But when he died the power that he had founded rested securely on the great maxim which his successors were, from his practice, to develop till it became a fixed theory of government-that the children of Christians were alone those who should enjoy the highest dignities of the empire.

The visitor to Constantinople remembers Mohammed most of all by the magnificent mosque which towers over the city and is seen in such striking effects of light from the heights of Pera. With the name of his successor is associated a mosque as beautiful and as famous. Bayezid succeeded his father in spite of a plot of the Grand Vizier to give the throne to his younger brother Djem, whose romantic adventures fill so large a space in the French and papal diplomacy of the end of the fifteenth century. His reign (1481-1512) was marked like his father's by great victories, and the once famous Turkish fleet owes its origin to him. In him first appears the contemplative lethargic character which was to become marked in some of the later Sultans. Eastern writers called him a philosopher; and when he had ceased even to pretend to be a warrior his troops insisted on his giving up the throne to his son Selim.

Three weeks after his resignation he died. Rarely has he who has once been Sultan lived long in retirement. Selim, with ferocious zest, carried out, though he did not inaugurate, another custom of the Ottoman monarchy. He swept away all possible claimants to his throne, strangling his two brothers and five of his nephews. He followed the victorious course of his predecessors; he fought in Persia, he seized Egypt and occupied Jerusalem, and Mecca, the centre of Mohammedan reverence, passed under his power. Savage and relentless as he was-it became a proverb of hatred, "Would that thou wast the Vizier of Sultan Selim"-he was yet, like so many of his race, a poet, and the friend and patron of learned men. He died near Adrianople on the 22nd of September 1520, and left the throne to his son Suleiman, one of the greatest of the Sultans.

Suleiman began with mercy. Justice and benevolence, he declared that he took for the principles of his government. He freed prisoners, he declared that he would rule in accordance with the precepts of the Koran. From the first his reign was a succession of victories. In 1521 Belgrade surrendered; in 1522 he conquered the isle of Rhodes, so long the gallantly defended outpost of Christendom in the Mediterranean. For a time after these great successes he turned to pleasure, but threatened insubordination among the Janissaries awoke the barbarity which was never far below the surface in the great Turkish Sovereigns, and Mustafa the aga with several of the officers paid for their independence with their lives.

It was necessary, Suleiman saw, to continue war, to find employment for his turbulent force; and in 1526 he marched against Hungary with a force of a hundred thousand men. At Mohacz the Christian army was utterly defeated after a gallant fight, in which Suleiman himself was for a time in great danger, and in which at the end the flower of Hungarian chivalry with their King at their head perished by the sword or in the river through which they tried to escape. Buda Pesth fell into the hands of the conqueror. All the prisoners taken at Mohacz were massacred, and over a hundred thousand slaves were led back to Turkey. The spoils were enormous. The library of the old Seraglio and the treasury still hold some of the choicest manuscripts of the famous library of Mathias Corvinus. Suleiman returned in triumph to Constantinople.

To the passage of armies on their way to victory the people of the great city had now become familiar as in the greatest days of the Empire. Thirteen times, it is said, did Suleiman pass through the gates on warlike expeditions and thirteen times did he return a conqueror. He led his forces to the walls of Vienna, and though he was at length compelled to withdraw, he inflicted a blow on the Empire which it took long to recover, and he showed to Europe that a new and terrible power had come to take part in the affairs of the West. In Persia, if he was not entirely successful, yet he added new territories to the Empire. A pirate fleet under his sanction swept the seas. He defeated the combined fleets of Spain, Italy, and Venice. During a reign of forty-six years he kept Europe and Asia at war. But his greatest triumphs were not those of the battlefield. He made the great Sovereigns of Christendom count him as their equal. Every prince of the time was anxious to enter into negotiation with him. Their envoys came to Constantinople, and were treated as suppliants. To every indignity they submitted for the sake of winning the alliance of "the grand Turk," the Sultan whom Europe came to call "the magnificent."

France was the first to make alliance with the infidel; and in spite of the papal curse the Mohammedan power was introduced as a prominent actor in the politics of Europe by the most Christian King, Francis I. The Sultan of sultans, King of kings, giver of crowns to the kings of the world, the shadow of God upon the earth, Suleiman, the ever victorious, assured the prostrate King of France that he need not fear, for that every hour his horse was saddled, his sword girt on, and he was ready to defend and to overthrow. A solemn treaty in February 1535 united France and Turkey in bonds of perpetual amity. It was renewed in 1553; and the alliance remained an important fact in the politics of Europe for more than two hundred years.

Renowned for his victories in diplomacy and war, Suleiman's fame was even greater as a patron of art and letters. It was through him first that the Christendom of the sixteenth century heard of the glories of Eastern literature, and that Europe began to imitate Asia. It was the great age of Turkish poets. The court of Suleiman was thronged by poets who vied with each other in celebrating the glories of their master. Every bazaar of the East rang with his praises: in far distant lands the ingenious verse-makers made his victories, his pleasures, his magnificence, the theme of their elaborate compositions. Trade poured into Stamb?l. All the riches of the East, the wonderful carpets and embroideries, the exquisite metal-work, the dignified designs of the pen and the brush, fixed their natural home in the court of the magnificent Suleiman. Under him the architecture of the Moslems reached its culmination: the splendid mosque named after him, with the türbehs around it, represent the great work of his age, worthy of commemoration as lengthy as that which Procopius gave to the edifices of his sovereign. Great as conqueror, as builder, and as restorer of ancient work, Suleiman may well be called, in yet another aspect, the Turkish Justinian. He was great also as a legislator, and his work completed that of Mohammed II. He laid down the limits of the privileges of the Ulemas, the powers of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the Grand Vizier. Financial organisation, so essential to the security of his conquests, was made under his rule into an elaborate system. The penal code was revised, simplified, and, on the whole, rendered less severe. Every change, every reform, showed the guiding genius of the great Sultan; arbitrary as the worst of his race, unrestrained always in the exercise of his authority, he yet showed an Eastern despotism at its best, animated by a zeal for justice, for regularity, for the welfare of the people.

Suleiman, whose name exercised so great a fascination over the imagination of the West, was the hero, Christian romancers thought, of a grand passion. The name of Roxelana became famous in the drama and poetry of Europe. Her story was indeed a striking one. Khurrem, "the joyous one," was a Russian captive, who, in the later years of the mighty Sultan, obtained an absolute control over him. From a slave, placed among hundreds of other captives in the harem, she rose to be herself Sultan,[35] the wife of the Commander of the Faithful.

It was contrary to all precedent that Suleiman deposed the mother of his eldest son from her rank and made Roxelana Sultan. The French Ambassador accounts for the elevation in this way. "Roxelana wished to found a mosque for the weal of her soul, but the mufti told her that the pious works of a slave turned only to the advantage of her lord: upon this special ground Suleiman declared her free. This was immediately followed by the second step. The free woman would no longer comply with those desires of Suleiman which the bondswoman had obeyed, for the fetwa of the mufti declared that this could not be without sin. Passion on the one side and obstinacy on the other at last brought it about that Suleiman made her his wife. A treaty of marriage was ratified, and Roxelana was secured an income of 5000 sultanins."[36]

The extraordinary influence which this remarkable woman exercised over the great Sultan was new, it seemed, to the Empire; it was not only new, but destructive to the military system of the Turks that any special attachment should be formed which should attract the Sultan to the home rather than the camp. The Sultans, with all their gross pleasures, had been ever warriors ready to desert everything for their military duties, and had ruled their Empire as well as their army solely by their own will. Suleiman seemed to open the way to influences which would be destructive to the Turkish power; and one of the greatest of the Viziers a century later said that all his successors were fools or tyrants.

Be this so or not, Suleiman and Roxelana were unique in Turkish history. Their devotion to each other appeared to be complete: and the passionate love which grew rather than diminished with years, marked the history of the court with the stains of sacrifice and crime. Mustafa, the Sultan's eldest son, stood in the way of the children of Khurrem. The Vizier Rustem Pacha was her devoted slave, owing to her his elevation to the dignity of the Sultan's vicegerent. He brought to Suleiman reports that Mustafa was allying with the Shah of Persia to dethrone him, and was winning the Janissaries to his side, a charge to which his valour and ability, and his great popularity with the soldiers, might seem to give some colour. Suleiman himself, on his Syrian campaign, ordered his son to appear before him. On September 21, 1553-the day was long remembered-the gallant Mustafa was brought with great pomp and ceremony to the tent of the Sultan. When he entered he found only the seven mutes armed with the fatal bowstring. He was seized, and before he could utter more than one cry, he was murdered. The thick tapestry at the back of the tent was drawn aside and Suleiman entered to gaze upon the body of his son.

Even then the vengeance was not complete. The child of the murdered Mustafa was stabbed at Brusa in his mother's arms. The horror that was felt at these crimes became evident when the Janissaries demanded the punishment of Rustem, and when Djihanghir, the son of Suleiman and Roxelana, died of grief for the brother to whom he was devoted. The new grand Vizier was sacrificed also: and not long afterwards the beautiful Roxelana, Khurrem, passed away. The great Sultan gave her the most beautiful of tombs. The art of the Mussulmans was centered in that last home which the love of Suleiman could bestow.

"Without, the scented roses twine,

The Suleymanieh tow'rs o'erhead,

The flagstones, flecked with shade and shine,

Re-echo to the pilgrim's tread,

And soft grey doves their wings outspread

In the blue vault above the shrine."

If Roxelana was the evil genius of Suleiman, his reign was not more happy after her death. Her two elder sons, Selim and Bayezid broke into open war. Bayezid attacked Selim, and, betrayed, it would seem by the basest of intrigues, he was defeated, and fled to Persia. Every letter that he wrote to his father was suppressed, and the Persians sold him to his brother by whom he and his four sons were put to death. A few months later his fifth son, a child of three, was strangled at Brusa by the Sultan's orders.

To the last, Suleiman led his troops to the field. He died on August 30, 1566, while he was conducting the siege of Szigeth, a small fortress in Hungary. The grand Vizier concealed his death from the army and sent messengers at once to Selim, who hastened to Constantinople.

Suleiman left behind him a name more famous than any of his predecessors save Mohammed the Conqueror. His lofty and enterprising genius, his heroic courage, his strict observance of the laws of Islam tempered at times by a wise tolerance, the order and economy which were combined with his magnificence and grandeur, his love of knowledge and the protection he extended to learned men, all mark him out, says the historian of the Ottomans, among the noblest of his race.

Selim II. began ill by not paying the largesse which the Janissaries expected from a new sovereign. They mutinied, and he was obliged to yield. His father had altered the ancient rule which required the Janissaries only to go to the war when the Sultan himself took the field. The Janissaries now compelled him to allow the enrolment of their children in their ranks. Selim was no warrior, and he was glad to send his troops without him. He preferred, the ambassadors say, "the society of eunuchs and of women, and the habits of the serai to the camp:" he "wore away his days in sensual enjoyments, in drunkenness and indolence." "Whoever beheld him and saw his face inflamed with Cyprus wine, and his short figure rendered corpulent by slothful indulgence, expected in him neither the warrior nor the leader of warriors. In fact, nature and habit unfitted him to be the supreme head, that is the life and soul, of that warlike State."[37]

He was the first of the Turkish Sovereigns who was unworthy of the throne that had been won by hard and incessant work. "I think not of the future," he himself said, "I live only to enjoy the pleasure of each day as it passes." A drunkard ruling over the Mussulmans, sworn to total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks, was a grotesque and disgusting anomaly. The people mocked while they followed the example. "Where shall we get our wine to-day," they said, "from the Mufti (priest) or from the Kadi (judge)?"

But whatever might be the character of the Sultan, it had become a fixed policy with the Turks that the Empire could only be carried on by aggressive war. Under Selim, though without his personal intervention, war was made with Russia, but without success: the conquests of Suleiman in Arabia were made complete, and Yemen fell into the hands of the Turks. Then it was determined to complete the conquest of the Mediterranean: war was declared against Venice, and Cyprus was captured in August 1571. But this capture, which Selim described to Barbaro as "cutting off one of the arms of the Republic" was avenged by the famous naval league against the Turks. On October 7, 1571, Don John of Austria utterly destroyed the Turkish fleet at Lepanto, capturing 130 galleys, 30,000 prisoners, and 15,000 Christian slaves. It was the first sign of the long decline of the Ottoman power. Europe awoke to the belief that the Turks were not invincible.

THE GOLDEN HORN FROM PERA, AFTER SUNSET

The news was received with consternation in Constantinople. An outbreak of Mohammedan fanaticism, as so often since, found its expression in the ferocity of the Sultan. Selim issued orders for the massacre of all the Christians in the city: happily his Vizier deferred the execution of the command, and it was revoked. The incident is characteristic. From 1453 the Christian inhabitants of the capital have held their lives simply at the pleasure of the Commander of the Faithful. At any moment the word may be spoken which the loyal Turk must obey

"For an order has come from the Padishah

I must go and kill the Giaour."

The butchery was countermanded in 1571, but little more than twenty years later it was again seriously proposed. When the Spaniards in 1595 sacked Patras, the extermination of the Christians in Constantinople "was discussed in the divan, but the result was confined to the publication of an order for the expulsion of all unmarried Greeks from Constantinople within three days."[38] This was in the reign of Murad III., and when he died, in the same year, "the Janissaries, in their wonted manner, fell to spoiling Christians and Jews, and were proceeding to further outrages, when their aga, to restrain their insolence, hung up a Janissary taken in the act of murdering a rayah."

The alarm of Mussulman Constantinople was ended by the speedy reconstruction of a fleet, and by the capture of Tunis. But with none of these triumphs was it possible to associate the name of Selim. He died on December 12, 1574, "the victim," in the phrase of the Vicomte A. de la Jonquière, "de sa passion pour le vin."

Murad III. his son and successor was not without good instincts. He was a striking contrast to his father. He loved study, he was temperate, he was a soldier. But the terrible custom, now become almost a law of state, laid its frightful burden of crime upon him at the moment of his succession. For eighteen hours he refused to be proclaimed, he argued with the Muftis and the Ministers, to save the lives of his brothers. But he yielded, willingly or unwillingly, and the chief of the mutes was summoned to his presence, shown the body of the dead Sultan, and given nine handkerchiefs for the nine princes in the Seraglio. Weeping, Murad gave the order, says the Venetian ambassador: and men thought when he began his reign that he would be sober, wise, and just. He did not long retain the reputation. He began a war with Persia and his troops were engaged on the Hungarian frontier. But he followed the example of his father. He did not himself lead his armies in the field. He rarely left the seraglio, where he gave himself up entirely to the pleasures which appealed so powerfully to the Moslem. The harem and the treasury became his sole delights. The ambassadors tell stories that sound fabulous of his insane desire for gold. He stripped ornaments from ancient works of art and coined them into money; he collected from every quarter; he pinched and starved everything but his private pleasures, and year after year he cast into the great marble well which he had made beneath his bed "two and a half millions of gold, all in sequins and sultanins." Under him the sale of offices, which was begun by Rustem, the vizier to whom Roxelana induced Suleiman to give his favour, became a settled and almost fundamental rule of the state. Even judicial and military offices were given for bribes, and the money was caressed by the insane Murad and cast into the pit over which he slept. The ambassadors describe in ludicrous language the impression which Murad made upon them. He sat in state to receive them, he received their presents, he listened to them with a stupid stare; then he "went back to his garden, where in deep sequestered spots his women played before him, danced and sang, or his dwarfs made sport for him, or his mutes, awkward and mounted on as awkward horses, engaged with him in ludicrous combats, in which he struck now at the rider now at the horse, or where certain Jews performed lascivious comedies before him." In fact the Sultans were becoming ridiculous, without ceasing to be terrible. As for government, Murad left it to his vizier, a Bosnian, Mohammed, who held his office in three reigns and far surpassed any European minister in riches and power. It was he who peacefully arranged the succession of both Selim and Murad, and so long as he lived there was order and firmness in the government. But after his death the chief office was passed from hand to hand, according to the Sultan's fancy, and always a large sum found its way, at each change of viziers, into the pit of gold. The elevation of Ferhat reads like a tale in the Arabian Nights. Murad would wander like Haroun al-Raschid through the bazaars. One day he heard a cook bewailing the misgovernment of the city. He questioned him, approved his replies, and next day summoned him to the palace and appointed him to the office whose holder he had criticised, from which he rose to be vizier. It was a perilous rise. Ferhat did not long retain his position, but at least he escaped with his life. It was different with others, and the precedent of handing over officers to the vengeance of the Janissaries was set in 1590, when the soldiers attacked the Seraglio and demanded the execution of the Beyler bey of Roumelia and another. The plane tree of the Janissaries began its deadly history.

Murad died on January 6, 1596. His eldest son and successor, whose mother was a Venetian, marked his accession by the most bloody of all the murders which inaugurated the reign of the Sultans. He had his nineteen brothers strangled in his presence, and then proceeded to govern as though he had no objects but those of the most exalted virtue. After a few weeks he left all the work to his ministers, and was himself ruled entirely by his mother. In 1596, however, the disasters of his army induced him to go himself to the war in Wallachia. The sacred standard of the Prophet, preserved at Ey?b, was unfurled, and on the field of Kereskte, Mohammed won a great victory over the Austrians. He returned in triumph to Constantinople, where the rest of his reign was marked by rebellions and misfortunes on all sides. The plague made fearful ravages in the crowded streets of Stamb?l. It penetrated into the Seraglio, and it is said that seventeen princesses, sisters of Mohammed, died. The sipahis rose and demanded the heads of the eunuchs who ruled under favour of the Valideh Sultan. They were given up and strangled. But then the Sultan determined to take vengeance, he entrusted its execution to the Janissaries. The sipahis were ordered to lay down their arms; if they failed to do so they were threatened with the penalties of treason. The soldiers thereupon delivered up their officers, who were put to death. The Sultan himself died in 1603. His son Ahmed succeeded him, an elder son having been put to death on pretence of having shown independence of character which threatened the throne.

Ahmed I. was but fourteen when he came to the throne. Well served by a wise Grand Vizier, his reign was marked by some signs of activity, and, strange to say, by two years of peace. But the treaty of Sitvakorok (1606) with Austria was another step in the decline of the Ottomans.

Ahmed did something to redress the corruption that had infected the government. He administered justice like the chieftains of old; he received petitions, and saw that grievances were redressed. He began, as he grew up, to read of the exploits of Suleiman, and to promise himself that he would surpass them; but he had no stability of purpose, and his reign passed away in disasters, with the murder of the one eminent man, Nousouh Pacha, who might have saved the State, and with the introduction of usages which seemed to the Ulemas to strike at the very heart of Moslem law. Constantinople was almost abandoned to mob-rule because the muftis forbade the use of tobacco, which was introduced by the Dutch. It is impossible now to conceive a Turk without this solace; and it is strange that it needed the most ingenious arguments and the most stubborn defiance to procure the withdrawal of the edict which forbade it to the Moslem. The poets, we are told, called tobacco, coffee, opium, and wine the four elements in the world of happiness; the Ulemas replied that they were the four chief servants of the devil. The people settled the question for themselves.

With Ahmed the custom of butchering the brothers of the new Sultan had ceased. He not only spared the life of his brother Mustafa, but left directions that he should succeed him on the throne. But the custom which he began was even more fatal to the power of the Turks than that which he ended. The succession of the oldest male of the royal house might not itself have been a misfortune. But from the time when the princes ceased to be strangled they were kept in the Seraglio, with no knowledge of the work of government, trained only to a voluptuous and effeminate life. Mustafa had almost lost his wits when he became Sultan; he had been a prisoner for nearly forty years. Within three months his violence, his promotion of two pages to be Pashas of Cairo and of Damascus, his dislike of the female sex, convinced the ministers that he was incapable of governing; he was again removed to the Seraglio, and Osman II., the son of his brother Ahmed, was elevated to the throne.

Of the troubles which beset the ambassadors and how they were redressed more shall be said hereafter. Osman's six years of rule were disturbed by sterner men. The Janissaries again showed that their power was greater than that of the Sultan. Osman decimated them in war, and executed many who drank wine; but they were too strong for him, dragged the unhappy Mustafa again from prison, and again declared him to be the ruling Sultan. The Kafess (cage), the splendid building in the grounds of the old Seraglio, which even now may not be approached, which had so long held him prisoner, has memories of no stranger history than his. When he was dragged forth he trembled before his nephew, and threw himself at his feet. Osman taunted the Janissaries with the weakness of the ruler they preferred to himself; but it was not weakness that the Janissaries feared. Osman was dragged to the Seven Towers, and there, after a desperate struggle, he was strangled in a dungeon. Within a few months the idiot Mustafa was again deposed and sent back to the Kafess, where soon afterwards the bowstring ended his miserable life. For the few months of his nominal reign he was entirely in the hands of the soldiery; minister after minister was given up to them, and ended his life by the bowstring or on the fatal tree. The Janissaries held Constantinople in terror, and raised and deposed a Sultan as easily as a minister.

Murad IV., still a child, the surviving son of Ahmed, was made Sultan in 1623. In him the Turks had again a masterful and determined ruler. His mother the Valideh, and his Vizier Hafiz, made the first years of his reign distinguished if not glorious. Till 1632 he trained himself in all military exercises; he rode, he drew the bow with the best of the Janissaries. Then came the revolt of the Sipahis and Janissaries, which gave him his opportunity. Constantinople was for many days in the hands of the military mob, reinforced by disaffected troops who had returned from Persia. They assembled in the Atmeidan (the old Hippodrome); thence they went to the Seraglio and demanded the "seventeen heads" of the Sultan's chief advisers and friends. For some days Murad held out. He summoned the Vizier, Hafiz, who rode through the crowd, past the barracks of the Janissaries, in at the Orta Kapou, after dismounting, the stones of the mob falling round him as he disappeared. Murad ordered him to escape to Juntan. Within a few hours the Sultan was compelled to come forth to the people and hold Divan. They demanded the seventeen-the "vizier, the aga of the Janissaries, the deftarder, and even a boy, because he was liked by the Sultan." "Give us the heads," they cried. "Give the men up to us, or it shall be the worse for thee."

Murad summoned Hafiz to return to die. The Vizier came back, made the ablution of the Moslem law before death, went forth calmly to the mob, and was hewn in pieces outside the gate of the Seraglio. "Infamous assassins," cried Murad, "who fear neither Allah nor his prophet, some day if God wills you shall find your victims terribly avenged." "The sole remedy against abuses is the sword," one said to the Sultan; and the rest of his life showed how well he understood the lesson. One by one the leaders of the revolt were secretly assassinated; their bodies were found floating on the Bosporus. The Janissaries and the sipahis were ostensibly received into favour again, justice was promised, and the strict rule of law. But it was a reign of terror that Murad inaugurated. His first execution had given him a passion for blood. Sometimes he gratified it in the chase, when he slaughtered thousands of head, driven together by an army of beaters. More often it was displayed in the slaughter of men. In the year 1637 it was declared that he had executed 25,000 men, many of them with his own hand. "He was now terrific to behold. His savage black eyes glared threateningly in a countenance half hidden by his dark brown hair and long beard; but never was its aspect more peculiar than when it showed the wrinkles between the eyebrows. His skill with the javelin and the bow was then sure to deal death to some one. He was served with trembling awe. His mutes were no longer to be distinguished from the other slaves of the Serai, for all conversed by signs. While the plague was daily carrying off fifteen hundred victims in Constantinople, he had the largest cups brought from Pera, and drank half the night through, while the artillery was discharged by his orders."[39]

Drunken and brutal as he was he had still much of the terrible force of the early Ottomans. He led his own troops to battle, and when they flinched-for the old spirit seemed to have deserted even the Janissaries-he drove them forward with his own sword. He appears in history as the Conqueror of Bagdad (1638) a conquest marked, it is said, by a massacre of 25,000 people. He was the last Sultan whom the people of Constantinople saw return in triumph from a war of which he himself had been the leader.

He died on February 9, 1640, leaving behind him no child. Only his mother's craft had prevented the murder of his only brother, the last of the race of Osman. He left behind him an empire which seemed entirely subdued to the Sultan's will. But the terror which he had inspired could not endure; and while it lasted it could only paralyse the forces which should have given strength and permanence to the empire. Greedy, avaricious to an extent as enormous but not so ridiculous as Murad III., the supreme passion of his life was the lust of blood. It became an insanity; at night he would rush through the streets, cutting down all whom he met. Yet he died in his bed; the time had not come when Sultans were murdered as easily as Viziers. Ibrahim, his successor, had been imprisoned in the Kafess since he was a child of two. He had lived through the reigns of Mustafa, Osman and Murad. He had been allowed no offspring. He was utterly ignorant of politics and war. He cared for nothing but the pleasures of the harem. When the soldiers went in to announce his accession he would not believe that they desired anything but his death. He would not be convinced till the corpse of his brother was brought before him. Then he screamed with insane delight, "The empire is at last delivered from its butcher."

His reign of nine years was a horrible mixture of tragedy and farce. In licentiousness he outdid the worst of his predecessors, in folly the silliest of them. The capture of the child of a favourite slave led to the war of Candia: the marriage by his orders of his baby daughter to a rich Pacha was used as an occasion to strangle the bridegroom and seize his treasures. At length the shameful crimes of the sovereign, of which murder seemed the least, caused an organised insurrection in the city. The chief Mufti, whose daughter had been shamefully used by the Sultan, assembled all the mollahs, and the officers of the Janissaries and the sipahis in the Orta djami (a mosque on the Etmeidan, the old quarter of the Janissaries, now destroyed). They first demanded the execution of the Vizier. When that was refused, the Janissaries secured the gates, surrounded the Seraglio, caught and slew the Vizier. In S. Sophia, the Mufti, the Sheik-ul-Islam, proclaimed to a vast multitude the iniquities of the Sultan, and demanded his deposition. Solemnly the Osmanlis declared Ibrahim, the padishah, the king of kings, the commander of the faithful, unworthy to reign. His little child, Mohammed, only seven years old, was fetched from the charge of his mother, the famous Valideh Sultan, and invested with the ensigns of sovereignty. Ibrahim was again carried to the Kafess. Ten days later appeared the mutes, with the Vizier and the Sheik-ul-Islam; and the bowstring ended the life of Ibrahim.

Mohammed IV. reigned for nearly forty years, 1649-1687, and he filled a great space in the history of his time. Foreign observers-notably that most entertaining writer Paul Ricaut, Esquire, "late secretary to his Excellency the Earl of Winchelsea, Embassador Extraordinary for His Majesty Charles II., to Sultan Mahomet Han the Fourth Emperor of the Turks, now Consul of Smyrna, and Fellow of the Royal Society," in his "History of the present state of the Ottoman Empire," and a certain escaped slave (unless indeed it be an ingenious gentleman of Grub Street) who wrote in 1663 "A new survey of the Turkish Empire and Government"-made Europe well acquainted with the customs of the Turks, and the manners, especially the least pleasing manners, of their rulers. The Turk become better known, yet hardly less terrible; and our knowledge of the revolutions of Constantinople now comes to us, for the first time, largely from English observers. The story must be briefly sketched. In the first year of the child-Sultan's reign tragedies of the palace succeeded each other with fearful rapidity.

There was a contest between the Valideh, the mother, and Kiosem (as Ricaut calls her), the grandmother of Mohammed. The aga of the Janissaries took part against Sinan the Vizier, who, with the old queen, determined to put a young child, Suleiman, on the throne. Sinan took prompt measures. He entered the Seraglio, had the Valideh aroused and sent to the bedside of her son. The household was armed. Suspected traitors were slain before Mohammed's eyes, and their blood bespattered his dress as he sat on his throne. While within the Seraglio there was this confusion, without the whole city was in disturbance, and the people were all aroused to defend their Sultan.

Ricaut's description is worth quoting. He derived his knowledge from some persons intimately concerned, and the way he tells the tale, from which a short passage is here given, shows how Eastern doings struck the Westerns of his day.

"These preparations," he says,[40] "were not only in the Seraglio, but likewise without; for the Visier had given order to all the Pashaws and Beglerbegs, and other his Friends, that without delay they should repair to the Seraglio with all the force they could make, bringing with them three days Provision, obliging them under pain of Death to this Duty. In a short space so great was this concourse, that all the Gardens of the Seraglio, the outward Courts and all the adjoining Streets were filled with armed Men: from Galata and Tophana came boats and barges loaden with Powder and Ammunition and other necessaries; so that in the morning by break of day appeared such an Army of Horse and Foot in the Streets, and Ships and Gallies on the Sea, as administered no small terrour to the Janizaries; of which being advised, and seeing the concourse of the people run to the assistance of the King, they thought it high time to bestir themselves; and therefore armed a great company of Albaneses, Greeks and other Christians to whom they offered Money, and the Title and Priviledges of Janizaries, promising to free them from Harach, or Impositions paid by the Christians; which Arguments were so prevalent, that most taking Arms, you might see the Court and City divided, and ready to enter into a most dread confusion of a Civil War."

FOUNTAIN IN THE COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF VALIDEH

The end of the matter was that "the old queen" was dragged naked from the Seraglio, a horror unknown in Turkish history, and bowstrung outside the Orta Kapou. The banner of the Prophet was unfurled. The Janissaries rallied to it. Their aga was deserted and slain, with his accomplices, and (by retributive justice) the Vizier was stabbed in the streets. Tranquillity was re-established, and the government was carried on from the harem. From 1649 to 1656 six Viziers were deposed or strangled, Pacha after Pacha broke into open revolt, the Janissaries and sipahis fought against each other as if there had been no Christians to conquer, and in turn demanded from the Sultan the heads of those whom they chose to proscribe. The Valideh Sultan was wisely and carefully educating her son. In 1656 she gave him the best of teachers and viziers in Kuprili Mohammed. With him began the age of the great Viziers who for a time revived the glory of the Turks. He showed with severity that he intended to rule; and the Turks have always submitted to one who knows how to command. The sipahis were sent away from Constantinople and settled in the provinces. A rising was sternly checked, and four thousand corpses were thrown into the sea. Thus began the rule of the Kuprilian Viziers, which lasted from 1659 to 1702, a half century of varying fortunes, but never wholly unfavourable to the Turks. The interminable war with Candia went on, and the Austrian and Hungarian campaigns succeeded each other with undeviating regularity. The Turks met Montecuculi, and Sobieski, in the field; and when they were defeated they were at least not disgraced. In 1683 Kara Mustafa, the Vizier, was defeated before Vienna and the Turks were driven back to Belgrade. Though he was the Sultan's son-in-law an order was sent to the camp for him to die; he placed the cord with his own hands round his neck. In the year of continuous warfare, when the forces of the empire bore the Turkish banners against Venice, as well as the Empire, the vices and neglect of the Sultan passed for a time almost unheeded. But in 1687 the defeat of the army led to a demand for the punishment of the general, Suleiman Pacha. Mohammed saw that this was but a step towards his own deposition. He sacrificed his minister, and ordered the execution of his own brother Suleiman, that there might be no one to replace him. But it was too late. The army, in rebellion, marched on Constantinople, released Suleiman and invested him as Sultan. Mohammed was imprisoned till his death in 1693.

Suleiman II. reigned but four years, but he showed an unexpected ability. His accession was marked by what had now become a custom, an insurrection of the Janissaries. The house of the Grand Vizier was sacked, his harem was violated, and the most shameful atrocities were committed in the streets. Constantinople seemed to be given over to pillage; the bazaars were attacked, and some private houses were pillaged. The Sheik-ul-Islam was obliged to arouse the Ulemas and display the standard of the Prophet over the gate of the Seraglio, and when the Janissaries, like spoilt children, returned to their allegiance, their leaders were executed and peace was restored. In Suleiman the people had again a sovereign who lived according to the precepts of the Koran. His wisdom and impartiality, extended even to allowing the Christians of Constantinople to rebuild some of their ancient churches, were recognised even by fanatics and he was counted a saint. His wars were carried on by Kuprili Mustafa, to whom also his brother Ahmed II. (1691-1695) abandoned all the power of government, at the death of that wise statesman at the head of the defeated army of the Turks at Salankanem. Mustafa II. (1695-1703) was the son of Mohammed IV. His first proclamation to his people was a strange document to issue from the arbitrary sovereign of the Osmanlis. He attributed all the defeats and misfortunes of the last reigns to the vices of the Sultans. "While the Padishahs who have ruled since our sublime father Mohammed have heeded nought but their fondness for pleasure and for ease, the unbelievers, the unclean beings, have invaded with their armies the four quarters of Islam." In any other monarchy it would have been dangerous indeed to criticise after this fashion. At Constantinople neither the pen nor the voice was of much importance. It was the sword that ruled.

And the sword of the Sultan had ceased to be victorious. In 1697 Mustafa was utterly defeated by Prince Eugene at Zenta. Again a Kuprili was called to command, but by the treaty of Carlowitz, 1699, by which Hungary and Transylvania were given up, the dismemberment of the Empire had begun.

For the last two years of his reign Mustafa abandoned his capital and lived in a palace at Adrianople. An intrigue deposed him in 1703, and his brother Ahmed reigned in his stead. He began his reign by executing all those who had taken part in his elevation, an act which he followed by appointing another Kuprili Vizier. The next year was marked by the beginning of serious wars with Russia, the bizarre sojourn of Charles XII. at Bender, and the treaty of Passarowitz (1718). The wars in which Turkey was now year by year involved continued the slow process of the dismemberment of Turkey; but Constantinople hardly felt the blows which struck the Empire at its extremities. The description which English travellers give of the city shows that strangers passed freely about in it, and that in many respects it was superior to other European capitals as they were then, and particularly in the condition of its streets, to what it became a hundred years later, and remains to-day. A passage from Pococke's travels (published in 1745) is worth quoting here. His description of the four "royal" mosques he saw, those of Ahmed, Suleiman, Selim, and Mohammed the Conqueror, shows that they were much as they are to-day, but on the other hand S. Sophia and the Church of the Studium are manifestly worse now than then; the latter indeed, now a mere ruin, was then "the finest mosque next after Saint Sophia." Of the city he writes thus[41]:-

"Great part of the houses of Constantinople are built with wooden frames, mostly filled up with unburnt brick; and a great number of houses are made only of such frames covered with boards. They have notwithstanding very good rooms in them; and the streets are tolerable, with a raised footway on each side. The street of Adrianople is broad, and adorned with many public buildings; to the south of it there is a vale which is to the north of the seventh hill. The bazestans or shops of rich goods are such as have been described in other places; and many of the shops for other trades are adorned with pillars, and the streets in which they are, covered over in order to shelter from the sun and rain. There are also several large kanes, where many merchants live, and most of these have apartments in them, where they spend the day, and retire at night to their families in their houses. The bagnios also are to be reckoned another part of the magnificence of Constantinople, some of them being very finely adorned within. The fountains, likewise, are extremely magnificent, being buildings about twenty feet square, with pipes of water on every side; and within at each corner there is an apartment, with an iron gate before it, where cups of water are always ready for the people to drink, a person attending to fill them; these buildings are of marble, the fronts are carved with bas-reliefs of trees and flowers and the eaves projecting six or seven feet; the soffit of them is finely adorned with carved works of flowers, in alto relievo, gilt with gold in a very good taste, so that these buildings make a very fine appearance."

Dr Pococke was certainly a somewhat dull person, and as certainly a thorough Englishman. One feels that he never quite got over his surprise that S. Sophia was not like Westminster Abbey or the Golden Gate like Temple Bar. Happily we have a contrast to him in the literature of his time.

Certainly the most charming, perhaps the most characteristic, account of the city of the Sultan that the eighteenth century has left us, is that of the Lady Mary Wortley Montague.

INTERIOR OF MOSQUE OF AHMED I.

Her husband was appointed ambassador to the Sublime Porte in 1716, and she accompanied him. The letters which form the records of her journey out, of her life in Constantinople and of her return, serve to show, as the "Lady" who wrote a preface to them when they were published says she is 'malicious enough to desire,' "to how much better purpose the ladies travel than their lords." The skill and point with which she tells the most ordinary incidents of her travels, no less than fixes on the contrasts that are so striking between what she sees and what her correspondents are accustomed to, gives the letter an imperishable charm. But not a little also is due to the position of the writer. Merchants, and ordinary travellers, as she says, had told the world long before a great deal about the marvels of the Turkish Empire; but Lady Mary was a woman, a very clever woman, and an ambassador's wife. She had the entrée where few others could go, and she knew as very few others did how to describe what she had seen.

The position of an European ambassador's household in Pera in the eighteenth century, was by no means entirely pleasant, and indeed it was not wholly without risks, even for an ambassador's wife. Lady Mary, however, went everywhere and saw everything, and, in the midst of a good deal of domestic discomfort, accommodated herself amazingly to the cosmopolitan and polyglot life which she came to delight in. "I live," she wrote, "in a place that very well represents the tower of Babel, in Pera they speak Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Russian, Slavonian, Wallachian, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian, Hungarian, and what is worse, there are ten of these languages spoken in my own family." Children of three years old often speak five languages, she says, a statement that would be as nearly true now as it was then. This she professes to find annoying, it was really delightful, other things were not so pleasant.

Constantinople in earlier times had not been a pleasant resort for ambassadors. The Mémoires sur l'ambassade de France en Turquie, written by M. le Comte de Saint-Priest, at the end of the eighteenth century, show how difficult and dangerous had been the position of the envoys. They are a brilliant sketch of the work of the able French ambassadors who had endeavoured from the time of Francis I. and Suleiman the Magnificent, to confirm an alliance which should secure to France a flourishing trade in the Levant, and a powerful ally against the House of Hapsburg. Their success was considerable, but it was not infrequently interfered with by their own eccentricities. Savari de Lancosme (1585) was so rash that his cousin Savari de Brèves was sent out to supersede him, and he promptly induced the Turks to imprison him in the Seven Towers.

Achille de Harlay Sanay (1611-17) procured the escape of an imprisoned Pole, and was in consequence himself "outragé en sa personne et celle de ses gens" and made to pay 20,000 piastres. The Comte de Marcheville in 1639, found "le logis de l'ambassadeur si infame, qu'on ne se pouvait imaginer qu'un ambassadeur effectif p?t y demeurer." He built, among other additions, two chapels, "one public, the other interior." The Turks were furiously enraged, and after a good deal of acrimonious complaints, in which the people of Galata shared, the unhappy ambassador was expelled the country. De la Haye, a few years later, spent three months in the Seven Towers, and M. de Vautelec also had unpleasant experiences. M. de Ferriol, illuminating his house on the occasion of the birth of a French prince, found himself in danger of expulsion. As late as 1798, a French ambassador, on the declaration of war, was imprisoned as usual in the Seven Towers.

Lady Mary's friend the French ambassadress might tell her of some of these catastrophes, but she shows no fear that they would happen to herself. Her descriptions were evidently written with perfect freedom, day by day, and it is that which preserves their freshness after nearly two centuries. A passage or two will bring vividly before us what English folk then thought of the Turkish power, and of the sights of the capital.

Here she speaks of the Constitution, just as an orthodox English politician would wish to speak.

"The Grand Signior, with all his absolute power, is as much a slave as any of his subjects, and trembles at a Janizary's frown. Here is, indeed, a much greater appearance of subjection than amongst us; a minister of state is not spoke to, but upon the knee; should a reflection on his conduct be dropt in a coffee-house (for they have spies everywhere) the house would be raz'd to the ground, and perhaps the whole company put to torture. No huzzaing mobs, senseless pamphlets, and tavern disputes about politics;

A consequential ill that freedom draws;

A bad effect,-but from a noble cause.

None of our harmless calling names! but when a minister here displeases the people, in three hours time he is dragged even from his master's arms. They cut off his hands, head, and feet, and throw them before the palace gate, with all the respect in the world; while the Sultan (to whom they all profess an unlimited adoration) sits trembling in his apartment, and dares neither defend nor revenge his favourite. This is the blessed condition of the most absolute monarch upon earth, who owns no law but his will."

To live close to such scenes was an education in Oriental politics. Lady Mary lived still nearer to the outward show and pomp of the Oriental despots. The state of the Sultans was reflected on the ambassadors of powers with whom they desired to be friendly. When she travelled from Selivria, along the shore of the Marmora, Lady Mary and her husband had from the "Grand Signior" "thirty covered waggons for our baggage, and five coaches for the country for my women." Of the Sultan's own state she was most impressed, as travellers are to-day, by the Selamlik. Thus she describes it:

"I went yesterday, along with the French ambassadress, to see the Grand Signior in his passage to the mosque. He was preceded by a numerous guard of Janizaries, with vast white feathers on their heads, as also by the spahis and bostangees (these are foot and horse guards) and the royal gardeners, which are a very considerable body of men, dressed in different habits of fine lively colours, so that, at a distance, they appeared like a parterre of tulips. After them the Aga of the Janizaries, in a robe of purple velvet, lined with silver tissue, his horse led by two slaves richly dressed. Next him the kyzlier-aga (your ladyship knows this is the chief guardian of the Seraglio ladies) in a deep yellow cloth (which suited very well to his black face) lined with sables. Last came his Sublimity himself, arrayed in green, lined with the fur of a black Muscovite fox, which is supposed worth a thousand pounds sterling, and mounted on a fine horse, with furniture embroidered with jewels. Six more horses, richly caparisoned were led after him; and two of his principal courtiers bore, one his gold, and the other his silver coffee-pot, on a staff; another carried a silver stool on his head for him to sit on."

Her skill certainly lay chiefly in describing social functions or eccentricities, and her description of S. Sophia-indeed she makes an apology for her ignorance of architecture-shows a characteristic absence of feeling or artistic knowledge. What she says of the mosque of Suleiman however, is worth quoting.

"That of Sultan Solyman, is an exact square, with four fine towers in the angles; in the midst is a noble cupola, supported with beautiful marble pillars; two lesser at the ends, supported in the same manner; the pavement and gallery round the mosque, of marble; under the great cupola, is a fountain, adorned with such fine coloured pillars, that I can hardly think them natural marble; on one side is the pulpit of white marble, and on the other the little gallery for the Grand Signior. A fine stair-case leads to it, and it is built up with gilded latrices. At the upper end is a sort of altar, where the name of God is written; and, before it, stand two candlesticks, as high as a man, with wax candles as thick as three flambeaux. The pavement is spread with fine carpets, and the mosque illuminated with a vast number of lamps. The court leading to it, is very spacious, with galleries of marble, of green columns, covered with twenty-eight leaded cupolas on two sides, and a fine fountain of basons in the midst of it."

The liberality which allowed Christian ladies to see the mosques, and even permitted Lady Mary, in spite of the horror of her friends and the terrified protests of the French ambassadress, to go about in Stamb?l much as she would have walked in S. James's, was especially the characteristic of the reign of Suleiman II., himself something of a savant, and of Ahmed II., who actually allowed a printing press to be established in the city. But none the less society and government were essentially barbarous. Ahmed III. was himself deposed in 1730 by an insurrection of the Janissaries. His nephew Mahm?d I., son of Mustafa II., was his successor. Again within three weeks the leaders of the revolution were executed before his face. "These executions," it is quaintly said, "when they became known, instead of exciting the slightest sedition, gave the greatest joy to the inhabitants of the capital." Step by step the Turks lost ground, by treaties with Persia (1732) and with Austria and Russia, by the mediation of France (Belgrade, 1739); and the new policy of governing the lands of Wallachia and Moldavia by "Fanariotes" (Greeks of the ancient families who still dwelt in the Phanar), was far from successful. In Constantinople itself there were émeutes if not insurrections, and incendiary fires which gave occasion for them. They were the usual means of expressing dissatisfaction with the government, and the usual means were taken to meet them, by the execution of the Sultan's ministers. Mahm?d died in 1754. He was thought at least to have done no harm; and his successor, Osman III., was regarded as equally blameless.

Mustafa III. (1757-1774) had been many years in the Kafess. He was the son of Ahmed III. His reign was a succession of misfortunes. The astute policy of Catherine II. and her agents in Serbia and Croatia, arousing the religious enthusiasm of the Christians against the Moslems, the utter neglect of the Turkish army and ordnance, the ignorance of the ministers, and the superstition of the people, seemed to invite a certain and immediate destruction of the Empire. Disaster after disaster at last awoke the Sultan and his ministers to the necessity of employing European aid, and the French ambassador Saint-Priest with the Baron de Tott was successful in reforming the army, introducing the bayonet, founding a school of mathematics, and infusing a new spirit into the Turks.

Mustafa died in 1774, at a time of unexpected success. He had seen at least the necessity of reform. Abdul Hamed I., his brother, who succeeded him, had been forty-four years a captive. He was not the prince to restore the power of his Empire: the treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774) further reduced its territory, and gave the cause for war eighty years afterwards by the clause allowing to Russia a right to represent to the Porte the grievances of the Christians in European Turkey. In 1788 the Crimea was captured by Russia; in 1789 Abdul Hamed died. His nephew Selim III. (1789-1807) had to deal with all the difficulties introduced into the East by the partition of Poland, the schemes of Napoleon, and the Mediterranean policy of Pitt. To follow these wars which resulted from the new political situation would be impossible. It need only be said that the French occupation of Egypt, and the decisive entrance of England into the Eastern question created as great a revolution in the position of Turkey as had occurred in any Monarchy of the West. The old alliance with France was broken. It became the interest of England to preserve the tottering power of Turkey as a counterpoise to Russia, and as a security for her own interests in the East.

Internally Turkey, under the energetic Selim, made a new start. A cannon foundry was begun at Galata, the Top-haneh so familiar to-day: new troops, drilled and armed after the European fashion were embodied; new taxes were levied, and a financial administration was organized which made some pretence of following Western ideas.

After what has been said so often, it may almost go without saying that there was an insurrection of the Janissaries to express the orthodox opinion of these reforms. The separation of the artillery from the Janissaries, and the creation of new regiments of infantry for Constantinople, to act as a counterpoise to the Janissaries, caused a serious revolt which was entirely successful, and the Sultan was obliged to receive the Aga as his chief minister. In the very midst of these troubles occurred the famous mission of Colonel Sébastiani, which led to the forcing of the Dardanelles by the English fleet under Admiral Duckworth. The fleet destroyed a small Turkish flotilla in the Marmora and cast anchor before the city. It was centuries since the people of Constantinople had seen a hostile fleet threatening their city. They worked night and day to repair the fortifications, to mount cannon, and to man the walls with an efficient force. In five days nine hundred cannon were placed upon the walls, and the English fleet had to retire. The Sultan was forced to declare war against Great Britain.

Within a few weeks he was deposed by another insurrection of the Janissaries, encouraged by the Sheik-ul-Islam. Again they assembled in the Atmeidan, again they overturned their kettles, their picturesque method of declaring that they would no longer eat the food of the Sultan,-attacked the Seraglio, murdered all the ministers, and deposed the Sultan. The ministers had gladly died that they might save their master. It was not sufficient. Can a Padishah, who by his conduct and his laws attacks the principles of the Koran, be allowed to reign? Impossible. And Selim retired to the Kafess.

Mustafa IV. was a mere name under which the rule of the successful revolutionaries was legitimated. Assassination and execution proceeded. The Grand Vizier, in command of the army in Bulgaria, was beheaded. He was the most conspicuous of a hundred victims.

The Pasha of Rustchuk, Mustafa Baraicktar, led 40,000 men to Constantinople, to restore Selim. He had with him the standard of the Prophet, which had accompanied the late Grand Vizier to the field. Encamped outside the walls, he allowed Mustafa still to hold the palace: a few murders and a few depositions were all that marked the suspense. On July 28, 1808, Mustafa Baraicktar entered the city, declared the Sultan deposed, and advanced to the Seraglio to restore Selim III. While the troops were kept back at the gates, the Sultan determined to secure himself. Selim, after a desperate struggle, was murdered in the Kafess. "Take Sultan Selim to the Pasha of Rustchuk, since he demands him," said Mustafa, and the body wrapped in a carpet was thrown out. Mahm?d, the last surviving prince of the house of Osman, but narrowly escaped: the murderers sought him everywhere, but he was concealed under a heap of rugs. The avengers of blood burst in; he was rescued: Mustafa IV. was thrust into the Kafess, and Mahm?d II. at the age of twenty-three ascended the throne.

The reign of Mahm?d (1808-1839) witnessed the first real introduction of Turkey into the atmosphere of the West. He had been trained by the deposed Selim, to hate the Janissaries, to play the part, strange indeed, of a reforming Sultan. Baraicktar was at his side.

It seemed at first that only a new and more blood-thirsty tyrant had begun to reign. On the day of his accession, thirty-three heads were exposed on the outer gate of the Seraglio, the Bab-i-Humayoun: many of the leaders of the Janissaries were strangled and thrown into the Bosporus: even the women who had shown joy at Selim's murder were sewn up in sacks and drowned at Seraglio point. Within a few months the government of the new Sultan and his Vizier was in danger of ending like those that had preceded it. On November 14, 1808, a new revolt of the Janissaries broke out. They surrounded the palace of the Porte and set fire to it. Baraicktar the Vizier escaped, but only a few days later to meet death by exploding a powder magazine rather than fall into the hands of his enemies. For four days the streets were abandoned to carnage, and to the horrors of blood were added those of fire. M. de Jucherau, a Frenchman then at Pera, has left a vivid description, which is supplemented by that of an English traveller.

"No one," says that eloquent author, "attempted to stay the conflagration, which in a short time made terrible progress. Soon the most populous quarter of Constantinople was covered with a sheet of fire. The cries, the groans of women, and old men and children, attracted no attention and excited no pity. In vain they raised their suppliant hands, in vain they begged for beams or planks to save themselves from their burning houses by their roofs: their supplications were vain: they were seen with indifference to fall and to disappear among the flames. The desire of destruction was the only feeling that then prevailed! Sultan Mahmood beheld the awful spectacle from one of the lofty towers of the Seraglio, but not 'like another Nero,' as some have unjustly asserted-the flames were not of his lighting, and he was anxious that they should cease. He ordered Cadi-Pasha to stop his carriage, and to retire with his troops within the walls of the Seraglio, and despatched a hatti-sheriff to the Janissary-agha, commanding him, as he valued his head, to exert himself to stay the conflagration. As Mahmood was Sultan, and from the pledge he had in his hands, was likely to continue so, even when the revolt should end, the Janissary-agha trembled at the imperial mandate and obeyed; but the fire was too intense and active to be subdued or arrested, even by throwing to the ground whole stacks of houses: it vaulted over the chasms thus made, and only found 'sufficient obstacles in the public squares and in the mosques, whose vast cupolas and massy stone walls have frequently preserved Constantinople from entire destruction.'"[42]

The fire raged from the Seraglio to the aqueduct of Valens, and a man-of-war in the harbour directed its cannon on the barracks of the Janissaries in the At Meidan. The troops of the barracks on the other side of the Horn, at the Arsenal and at Top-haneh, threw in their lot with the Janissaries. Mahm?d within the Seraglio took the precaution which he had so long refrained from: he ordered the murder of his brother Mustafa IV., and the body was thrown out to the Janissaries. In a few hours Mahm?d outwardly submitted. The new troops were disbanded; the barracks were destroyed; the military schools, the mathematical institution, the printing press, every sign of the dangerous introduction of Western ideas, entirely disappeared. Even the ladies of the Seraglio ceased to learn French, and Mahm?d abandoned the enervating amusements of the opera and the ballet. For sixteen years a curtain fell, raised only to show an occasional massacre. Constantinople returned to its condition as the most orthodox of Moslem cities. It was at this time that the greatest of all European ambassadors at Constantinople first made acquaintance with the power in whose fortunes he was to become so powerful a factor. Stratford Canning came to Stamb?l in 1808, as secretary to a special mission. These were his first impressions of Turkey.

"The state[43] of Turkey itself was anything but satisfactory in view of those powers who did not wish the Porte to become the prey either of Russia or of France. The throne of the empire was filled by a young Sultan, who had recently succeeded to his brother Mustafa, whose immediate predecessor, their cousin Selim, had fallen a sacrifice to the mutinous spirit of the Janissaries. Mahm?d, the reigning sovereign, was for some time the last of his race. Young, ignorant, and inexperienced, he had everything to apprehend from the circumstances in which he was placed. Both morally and materially his empire was bordering on decrepitude. The old political system of Turkey had worn itself out. The population was not yet prepared for a new order of things. A depreciated currency, a disordered revenue, a mutinous militia, dilapidated fortresses, a decreasing population, a stagnant industry, and general misrule, were the monuments which time had left of Ottoman domination in the second capital of the Roman empire and throughout those extensive regions which had been the successive seats of civilisation, ever varying, generally advancing, from the earliest periods of social settlement and historical tradition. A continual and often a sanguinary antagonism of creeds, of races, of districts and authorities within the frontier, and frequent wars of little glory and much loss with the neighbouring powers, had formed of late the normal condition of the Porte's dominions."

Most European observers thought that the Ottoman power was doomed to almost immediate extinction; and the next few years increased the illusion. The Mussulman population was everywhere declining; a new Greek power was rising; and Ali Pasha at Janina seemed likely to establish a new Mussulman domination which should destroy the Turkish rule. Within a few years Greece secured her independence by rebellion. But Canning saw plainly enough that Turkey was still strong. As early as 1809 he wrote thus:-

"Very false notions are entertained in England of the Turkish nation. You know much better than I do the mighty resources and native wealth which this enormous empire possesses. I am myself a daily witness of the personal qualities of the inhabitants, qualities which if properly directed are capable of sustaining them against a world of enemies. But the government is radically bad, and its members, who are all alive to its defects, have neither the wisdom nor the courage to reform it. The few who have courage equal to the task know not how to reconcile reformation with the prejudices of the people. And without this nothing can be effected."[44]

From 1821 the tide turned. The defects of the Turkish government did not avail against the valour of the Sultan's army, and the dimensions of Europe. The tragedies of those days passed far from Constantinople. Missolonghi, Navarino, Athens, Janina, Adrianople, are names that bring each its memory; but within the city of the C?sars and the Sultans a different tale was told. It was the great era of reform, when at last Mahm?d was able to use his strength, and re-establish the power of the Padishah.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the authority of the Commander of the Faithful had sunk, decade by decade, till the murder of a Sultan who showed an independent policy was as certain as the sunrise. The Janissaries were the real masters of the city, and of the Empire. The force which had been raised to carry out the absolute will of the Sultan had now entirely superseded him. Anarchy was substituted for the rule of an irresponsible despot. But Mahm?d had a character of strength unknown in any Sultan for two centuries. He had matured his plans, and in 1826 he was able to carry them into execution. But for an utterly unforeseen disaster he would doubtless have been able to secure his triumph earlier than he did. In 1823 the arsenal and cannon foundry at Top-haneh were entirely destroyed by fire. A vast quantity of military stores and ammunition was destroyed. Pera and Galata suffered severely. It is said that fifty mosques and six thousand houses were destroyed. Mahm?d attributed the fire to the Janissaries; and he became the more determined to destroy them.

Already he had dealt with another enemy. In 1821 the plots of the Hetairists, working for the liberation of Greece, became known. Mahm?d immediately ordered all Greeks not engaged in trade to be deported from Constantinople. Then he ordered the patriarch and Synod of Constantinople to excommunicate the leaders who had engaged in the massacre of Moslems. The act was issued; nor can the Church be regarded as having done anything but what was demanded by Christian charity.

Hardly was the excommunication issued before a number of rich Greeks escaped from the city, evidently with the intention of joining the revolutionary armies. On March 26 the city was filled with troops, and arms were issued to the citizens. Several Hetairists were executed; and when the news came of the murder of Moslems in Greece, Mahm?d, who had already imprisoned seven Greek bishops, ordered the public execution of a number of prominent Greeks, who were entirely innocent, solely for the purpose of alarming their compatriots. But this was not sufficient. On Easter Day, April 22, 1821, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregorios, was summoned, at dawn, when he had finished the offering of the Holy Eucharist in his Cathedral Church, into the hall of the Synod at the Phanar, by the officers of the Sultan. There, before the clergy and the heads of the chief Greek families, he was declared deposed by the authority of the State, and the trembling priests were required to elect a new Patriarch in his stead.

HOUSES IN THE PHANAR

Within a few hours Gregorios was hung from the gate of the patriarchate, with a document pinned to his breast, declaring him a traitor in that he knew of the Hetairist conspiracy, and did not reveal it. Of the charge there is no known proof; and the Greeks have always regarded him as a martyr. If he knew the details of the conspiracy at all it is more than probable that he knew them only in confession; nor is it at all probable that he knew anything but that the Greeks intended to strike for their freedom.

Three bishops were executed on the same day. It was not a day to be forgotten. When the body of the martyred Gregorios was taken down it was given to the Jews to be dragged through the streets and cast into the sea. It was recovered by night and taken by ship to Odessa, where it was interred with solemn ceremonial as the remains of a saint and martyr.

This horrible deed was followed by the outbreak of anarchy in Constantinople. The Janissaries called for a massacre of the Christians in the city to avenge the Moslems who had been killed in Greece. The Christian quarters were attacked, the Christian villages on the Bosphorus were robbed, and the patriarchate was sacked. Greek clergy and nobles were executed daily, and four bishops were among the slain. No Christians were allowed to leave the city without a passport or vengeance was exacted upon the family. The massacres that occurred in Constantinople were tolerated if they were not organised by the authorities; several subjects of Western nations were murdered. All that was done by Christian Europe was to protest. The Russian ambassador left Constantinople, having demanded that the massacres should cease and the churches be rebuilt that had been destroyed. Mahm?d replied that only traitors were ill-treated. But the massacres ended, at least for a time.

While all danger of a Christian rising in Constantinople was thus prevented, Mahm?d was maturing the plans which in 1825 made him at last an absolute ruler, at least in his own city.

For seventeen years Mahm?d prepared for this great stroke. First by gifts and offices he detached many of the supporters of the Janissaries and the Ulemas from the party which supported them. Some less important members of the body were arrested for infraction of the laws and were publicly executed. Others were secretly made away with. The Sultan was surrounding himself with an elaborate spy system and with agents who were capable of dealing in detail with those whom he wished to be put out of the way. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in his "Memoirs," says: "I remember that in crossing the Golden Horn from time to time I had observed loose mats floating here and there upon the water, and that in answer to my enquiries I had been told in a mysterious manner that they had served for covering the bodies thrown after private executions into the harbour." All this was done slowly; the power of the Janissaries was gradually undermined; "almost unparalleled craft and cruelty," some observers called the process, but to Mahm?d it seemed absolutely necessary.

In 1826 the Sultan perceived that the time limit had come. A meeting of all the chief functionaries of the Empire and chief officers of the Janissaries was held. They agreed to submit to the new military discipline and organisation which the Sultan designed. All signed their names. On June 12 the first exercises of the new order were begun. On the 16th the inferior officers and the soldiers declared that they would not submit. The revolt was proclaimed in the ancient manner. The kettles were overturned, and the whole force was called to arms. Mahm?d crossed from Bekistasch to the Seraglio; the standard of the Prophet was displayed; the city was filled with the troops upon whom the Sultan could rely; the Moslem population rallied round the green flag. The people assembled in the Atmeidan (the Hippodrome); Mahm?d went to the mosque of Ahmed. The Janissaries were summoned to submit to the new order. They in return demanded the destruction of the "subverters of the ancient usages of the Empire." Then their fate was sealed. They had advanced to the mosque of Bayezid; they were rapidly driven back and hemmed in in their quarters in the Etmeidan. Then from every side artillery was directed upon them. From his house in Pera Stratford Canning, at dinner, saw "two slender columns of smoke rising above the opposite horizon." What did they mean? The Sultan, he was answered, had fired the barracks of the Janissaries. The rest of the tragedy may best be told in Canning's own words:[45]

"The Sultan was determined to make the most of his victory. From the time of his cousin Selim's death he had lived in dread of the Janissaries. A strong impression must have been made upon his mind by the personal danger which he had encountered. It was said that he had escaped with his life by getting into an oven when the search for him was hottest. His duty as sovereign gave strength as well as dignity to his private resentment. That celebrated militia, which in earlier times had extended the bounds of the empire, and given the title of conqueror to so many of the Sultans, which had opened the walls of Constantinople itself to their triumphant leader, the second Mohammed, were now to be swept away with an unsparing hand and to make room for a new order of things, for a disciplined army and a charter of reform. From their high claims to honour and confidence they had sadly declined. They had become the masters of the government, the butchers of their sovereigns, and a source of terror to all but the enemies of their country. Whatever compassion might be felt for individual sufferers, including as they did the innocent with the guilty, it could hardly be said that their punishment as a body was untimely or undeserved.

The complaints of those who were doomed to destruction found no echo in the bosoms of their conquerors. They were mostly citizens having their wives, their children, or their parents, to witness the calamity which they had brought in thunder on their necks. Many had fallen under the Sultan's artillery; many were fugitives and outlaws. The mere name of Janissary, compromised or not by an overt act, operated like a sentence of death. A special commission sat for the trial, or rather for the condemnation of crowds. Every victim passed at once from the tribunal into the hands of the executioner. The bowstring and the scimitar were constantly in play. People could not stir from their houses without the risk of falling in with some terrible sight. The Sea of Marmora was mottled with dead bodies. Nor was the tragedy confined to Constantinople and its neighbourhood. Messengers were sent in haste to every provincial city where any considerable number of Janissaries existed, and the slightest tendency to insurrection was so promptly and effectually repressed, that no disquieting reports were conveyed to us from any quarter of the Empire. Not a day passed without my receiving a requisition from the Porte, calling upon me to send thither immediately the officer and soldiers comprising my official guard. I had no reason to suppose that any of them had been concerned in the revolt, and I was pretty sure that they could not repair to the Porte without imminent danger of being sacrificed. I ventured, therefore, to detain them day after day, first on one pretext, then on another, until, at the end of a week, the fever at headquarters had so far subsided as to open a door for reflection and mercy. Relying on this abatement of wrath, I complied, and the interpreter whom I directed to accompany them, gave every assurance on their behalf which I was entitled to offer. The men were banished from the capital, but their lives were spared, and many years later I was much pleased by a visit from their officer, who displayed his gratitude by coming from a distance on foot to regale me with a bunch of dried grapes and a pitcher of choice water. Let me add that this instance of good feeling on the part of a Turk towards a Christian is only one of many which have come to my knowledge."

On June 17, 1826, the Janissaries ceased to exist. The Sheik-ul-Islam formally proclaimed the extinction of the corps. A solemn divan was held within the Seraglio, and the victory of Mahm?d was ratified by the council. Then Canning writing on the 20th records the end of the revolution which re-established the authority of the Sultan in a position as absolute and despotic as it had been in the days of Mohammed II.

"The Sultan's ministers are still encamped in the outer court of the Seraglio, and I grieve to add that frequent executions continue to take place under their very eyes. This afternoon, when the person, to whom I have already alluded, was standing near the Reis Efendi's tent, his attention was suddenly caught by the sound of drums and fifes, and on turning round he saw, to his utter astonishment, a body of Turks in various dresses, but armed with muskets and bayonets, arranged in European order, and going through the new form of exercise. He supposes the number to have been about two thousand, but never before having seen troops in line he may have been deceived in this particular. He says that the men acted by word of command, both in marching and in handling their arms. The Sultan, who was at first stationed at the window within sight, descended after a time, and passed the men in review. His Highness was dressed in Egyptian fashion, armed with pistols and sabre, and on his head in place of the Imperial turban was a sort of Egyptian bonnet.

"Rank, poverty, age, and numbers are alike impotent to shelter those who are known as culprits or marked as victims. It is confidently asserted that a register has been kept of all persons who, since the accession of the Sultan, have in any way shown a disposition to favour the designs of the Janissaries, and that all such individuals are diligently sought out and cut off as soon as discovered. Respectable persons are seized in the street and hurried before the Seraskier or Grand Vizier for immediate judgment. There are instances of elderly men having pleaded a total ignorance of the late conspiracy, and being reminded of some petty incident which happened twenty years ago, in proof of their deserving condign punishment as abettors of the Janissaries. Whole companies of labouring men are seized and either executed or forcibly obliged to quit Constantinople.

"The entrance to the Seraglio, the shore under the Sultan's windows, and the sea itself, are crowded with dead bodies-many of them torn and in part devoured by the dogs."[46]

Théophile Gautier adds even more gruesome details. To the destruction of the Janissaries was added that of the Becktash derviches. Then the new army was formed, organized, drilled. For the rest of his reign, Mahm?d's chief thought was to perfect the reforms which he had inaugurated in blood. When in 1834 he struck coins bearing his own portrait, so grave a breach of the rules of the Koran caused another insurrection. It was suppressed with fearful severity, and added four thousand victims to the tale. But the coinage had to be called in. Fanatics, whom the people regarded as saints, coveted martyrdom by seizing the Sultan's bridle as he rode over the new bridge which he had made from Galata to Stamb?l, calling him "Giaour Padishah" and paying Heaven's vengeance on his head. Nothing moved Mahm?d. Without, misfortunes befell his power on every side. He held steadfastly on, and when he died in 1839, he left behind him a strong government, and an appearance-it may have been little more-of approximation to the ways of Western Europe. The aim of Mahm?d, indeed, was not unlike that of Peter the Great: he wished to make his State an integral part of the European system. Hitherto, admitted though she was into European politics, coveted as ally and dreaded as a foe, Turkey had occupied no place among the permanent factors of European politics. Mahm?d thought to make Turkey, really and essentially, a European power. It was impossible.

The external events of the reign, the revolt of Mohammed Ali, the treaty of Adrianople, the creation of Greece as an independent State, important as they were in the history of the Ottoman power, hardly affected Constantinople.

In 1832, Stratford Canning returned on a special mission to Constantinople. He found the outer change extraordinary. Mahm?d received him as an European sovereign would receive. He began to think a real reform of Turkey possible. He secured the concession that he sought on behalf of Greece: "The new Hellas was lifted up to that great mountain ridge whence the eye of the traveller may range unchecked over the pastures of Thessaly." Canning, after renewed experience of the delays and intrigues of the Turkish ministers, bade farewell to the Sultan for the last time. His character of Mahm?d is too important to be omitted from our view. It may well conclude what we have to say of the most important reign in recent Turkish history.

"Resolution and energy were the foremost qualities of his mind. His natural abilities would hardly have distinguished him in private life. In personal courage, if not deficient, he was by no means superior. His morality, measured by the rules of the Koran, was anything but exemplary. He had no scruple of taking life at pleasure from motives of policy or interest. He was not inattentive to changes of circumstance, or insensible to the requirements of time. There was even from early days a vein of liberality in his views, but either from want of foresight, or owing to a certain rigidity of mind, he missed at critical times the precious opportunity and incurred thereby an aggravated loss. His reign of more than thirty years was marked by disastrous wars and compulsory cessions. Greece, Egypt, and Algiers escaped successively from his rule. He had to lament the destruction of his fleet at Navarino. On the other hand, he gathered up the reins of sovereign power, which had fallen from the hands of his immediate predecessors; he repressed rebellion in more than one of the provinces, and his just resentment crushed the mutinous Janissaries once and for ever. Checked no longer by them, he introduced a system of reforms which has tended greatly to renovate the Ottoman Empire, and to bring it into friendly communion with the Powers of Christendom. To him, moreover, is due the formation of a regular and disciplined army in place of a factious fanatical militia, more dangerous to the country than to its foes. Unfortunately his habits of self-indulgence kept pace with the revival of his authority, and the premature close of his life superseded for a while the progress of improvement. Mahm?d when young had rather an imposing countenance; his dark beard set off the paleness of his face, but time added to its expression. His stature was slightly below the average standard, his countenance was healthy, he wrote well, he rode well, and acquired a reputation for skill in archery. It may be said with truth that whatever merit he possessed was his own, and that much of what was wrong in his character and conduct resulted from circumstances beyond his control. Peace to his memory!"[47]

Abdul-Mejid (1839-1861), the son of Mahm?d II., had been brought up in the harem. He was only sixteen at his accession, and was utterly ignorant of politics. But he had some wise ministers, and the defeats of the earlier part of his reign were wisely utilised. In 1841 came the practical separation of Egypt, the family of Mohammed Ali being established there as perpetual pashas or deputies of the Sultan, paying tribute, but otherwise free and guaranteed in their position by the Powers.

Unquestionably the great figure in Constantinople during the reign of Abdul Mejid was Stratford Canning, who came in 1842 as British ambassador. He remained till 1852. He returned in 1853, and he left finally in 1858. During these years he devoted himself to the preservation of Turkey as a Power, but only with the hope, and on the condition, that she should become civilized. It may have been a hopeless task, but in the endeavour it is astounding to observe the high measure of success which came to the noble Englishman who gave the best years of his life to it. Kinglake has immortalised him as "the great Elchi." No greater ambassador ever lived; and his greatness lay in the fact that he passed entirely beyond the range of ordinary diplomatic functions, and made himself as really a part of the Empire to which he was accredited as he was essentially the representative of the British nation. Needless to tell again the tale that has been so well told, of his diplomatic triumphs, of his supreme honesty and loyalty, of his ceaseless energy, of his magnificent services to humanity and religion.

Throughout the whole of his life in Turkey he kept his one aim steadily before his eyes, and never deviated from it. If Turkey could be saved he would save her; but it could only be done by carrying out what had been the real intention of Mahm?d the reformer, and making an Oriental despotism resemble an European government with constitutional guarantees for personal and religious freedom. That in the long-run he utterly failed is now quite plain. What he wrote more than fifty years ago, in spite of superficial outward changes is really true to-day. "There is no such thing as system in Turkey. Every man according to his means and opportunities gets what he can, commands when he dares, and submits when he must." None the less Canning won real victories. He procured a declaration that the punishment of death should no longer be inflicted on those who gave up Islam for Christianity. "It was the first dagger," he wrote himself, "thrust into the side of the false prophet and his creed." And indeed so long as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe remained at Constantinople justice, toleration, good government made progress such as could hardly have been conceived before.

It is needless here to inquire how far the success of Turkey in the Crimean War led to the casting aside of all reforms, or whether the war was justified or how it was caused. Russia's declaration of her protectorate over the Orthodox Church; the belief of England and France that they were bound to protect Turkey against wanton aggression; the earnest desire of "the great Elchi" to avoid war: these things may be read in the Blue Books[48] and in Kinglake's great History. Constantinople saw the encampment of British troops at Gallipoli and at Skutari; and then came the sad days of the hospitals on the Asiatic shore and the English cemetery where sleep so many English dead. The Hatti-Humayun of February 21, 1856, seemed to embody all that the best friends of Turkey could have wished, in its abolition of all distinctions telling unfavourably against the exercise of any religion, its fine declarations of freedom and equality among all subjects of the Porte. But who could enforce it? The story is pitiful, and it shall not here be told. Rather let it be remembered when we sail into the harbour of Constantinople that the Crimean Memorial Church which stands boldly on the heights of Pera was the sign of the noble work for religion and freedom that had been done by the great Englishman whose last public act in the city it was to lay the foundation-stone, and whose noble life is simply commemorated on a tablet within its walls.

It was in 1858 that this great embassy ended. Three years later Abdul Mejid died; and his brother Abdul Aziz was girt with the sword in the mosque of Ey?b. Under his rule outward reforms progressed gaily, but the reckless extravagance of the Sultan brought the country to financial ruin. Reforms, insurrections, the creation of Roumania, the insurrection of Crete, how did these affect Constantinople? Not at all. Only daily the financial disorder became more apparent. On May 10, 1876, the city witnessed a scene which might have seemed proof that Turkey was regenerated. The Sultan's son was stopped in the streets by crowds who demanded the dismissal of the Grand Vizier and the Sheik-ul-Islam. From the gorgeous new palace which he had built on the Bosporus came the reply of Abdul Aziz-"His Majesty is deeply touched with the proof of confidence you place in him. It is his pleasure in no way to resist the will of his faithful people." But it was merely one of those delusive pictures which remind one of the tricks of the genii in the Arabian Nights. There was no real change; and on May 29, again resort was had as in the old days to the Sheik-ul-Islam. A reformer, who had been but a few days elevated to the post, he declared the lawfulness of deposing a Sultan whose conduct was insensate, who had no political judgment, who spent on himself sums which the Empire could not afford. At dawn on May 30 the palace of Dolma Bagtché was surrounded by troops, the Sultan was declared a prisoner, and then was hurried across to the old Seraglio. A few days later he returned to the gorgeous palace of Tcheragan. On June 4, he was found dead. It was certified that he had opened his veins with a pair of scissors. Few Sultans have long survived deposition.

Murad V. the eldest son of Abdul Mejid was received at the Seraskierat with enthusiasm. Announcements were made which declared him a reformer. He was Sultan for only three months. Within the first few days a number of the ministers were murdered, as they sat in Council, by the brother of the wife of Abdul Aziz. A few weeks later it was declared that the Sultan was incapable of Government. He was deposed with as much ease as his predecessor, no one knows to-day whether he is alive or not, and Abdul Hamed II., his brother, reigned in his stead. Of his reign little need be said. It has seen the Bulgarian atrocities, the defeat of Turkey by Russia, the encampment of the Russian troops at San Stefano, the proclamation of a Constitution, a parliament with two houses opened by the Sultan himself. It has seen also the suppression of that Constitution; it has seen the liberty of Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Cyprus and Crete.

And Constantinople, what may be told here in brief is what cannot be forgotten. The Sultan no longer lives, like his predecessors, within earshot of his people. Yildiz-Kiosk high on the hills above the Bosphorus secludes him from the world. No longer does the Commander of the Faithful visit the mosques of Stamb?l or ride through the streets with a gorgeous military display. The massacres for which precedent was set centuries ago have again given the city a ghastly fame. In October 1895 crowds of Softas-religious students-assembled in the Atmeidan and a massacre of Armenians began. The riots lasted for three days. The authorities declared that the cause was the revolutionary plots of the Armenians themselves, that they did their utmost to preserve order, and that they would punish all who were responsible. Ten months passed. Constantinople in the spring of 1896 was outwardly at peace, but arrests were constantly being made, and there was a general feeling of insecurity. On August 28, 1896, a band of Armenians seized the Ottoman Bank at Galata, killing the guard and imprisoning the officials. After some hours they were allowed to depart under a safe conduct. But for nearly two days the city was given up to massacre. Bands of Moslems rose simultaneously at different parts before the police or the military appeared, led or accompanied by Softas, by soldiers, by police officers. When the troops appeared they looked on. The scenes in the streets beggar description. Christians were butchered wherever they appeared, were chased into houses and over roofs, were shot in their houses by men who took the tiles from the roofs across the street, broke the windows, and then fired into the rooms where Armenians had crowded for refuge. The churches were filled with people who sought sanctuary, who had lost everything they possessed and dared not leave the security of the sacred walls. The churches of Pera and Galata, the buildings of the Patriarchate in the Psamatia quarter seemed the only safe places. Of the numbers killed no count can be given; two thousand certainly perished, but five thousand has been declared to have been the total of the victims. For days the dead-cart passed through the streets and the murdered Christians were carried off with indescribable brutality to be cast into huge pits or into the sea. It is impossible as yet to tell the full story. It seems still like a horrible dream, a reminiscence of the worst terrors of the Middle Age.

STREET IN GALATA

The two acts of tragedy by which it has been attempted to destroy a large, and that perhaps the richest and most progressive, part of the population of Constantinople, emphasise an important historical fact. Not only by the importations of Mohammed II., but gradually during the four centuries and a half that have elapsed since the Conquest, the population of Constantinople has changed its character. Pera and Galata are the home of a mixed race, of whom every writer says hard words, and of many nationalities still striving to preserve their separate life. Greeks, Italians, Germans, French, English, immigrants from the Balkan lands, are the most prominent, after the Jews and the wealthy Armenians. The divisions that are to be seen in the Orthodox Church, perpetuated by politicians for their own purposes, are the reflection of the national and political divisions that we pass through on our way to Constantinople and find there in full force. Every league nearer to the city walls, as the railway drags its tedious length, is a step nearer to barbarism; and Pera is indeed but a poor outpost of civilisation. It has over it a veneer of the West. As you walk through the streets you might think yourself in an inferior Italian city; when you descend to Galata, down steep streets, half stairways, you pass through the gate of the Middle Ages into a town like any cosmopolitan seaport, crowded with sailors and travellers of all nations.

The Galata bridge, the most wonderful pathway in Europe, with its thousands of passengers in every strange garb, its Parisian carriages, its Arab steeds bearing alert officers, its beggars, mollahs, white turbaned and white coated toll-takers, its ceaseless stream of life all day long, brings you to the harbour, the historic anchorage of great ships for fifteen hundred years or more. "Eothen" has said once for all what comes to mind as we gaze at that magnificent sight, life, ships, walls, domes, minarets.

"Even if we don't take a part in the chaunt about 'Mosques and Minarets,' we can still yield praises to Stamboul. We can chaunt about the harbour; we can say and sing that nowhere else does the sea come so home to a city; there are no pebble shores-no sand bars-no slimy river beds-no black canals-no locks nor docks to divide the very heart of the place from the deep waters; if being in the noisiest part of Stamboul, you would stroll to the quiet side of the way amidst those cypresses opposite, you will cross the fathomless Bosphorus; if you would go from your hotel to the Bazaars, you must pass by the bright blue pathway of the Golden Horn, that can carry a thousand sail of the line. You are accustomed to the gondolas that glide among the palaces of St Mark, but here at Stamboul it is a hundred-and-twenty-gun-ship that meets you in the street. Venice strains out from the steadfast land, and in old times would send forth the chief of the state to woo and wed the reluctant sea; but the stormy bride of the Doge is the bowing slave of the Sultan-she comes to his feet with the treasures of the world-she bears him from palace to palace-by some unfailing witchcraft, she entices the breezes to follow her, and fan the pale cheek of her lord-she lifts his armed navies to the very gates of his garden-she watches the walls of his serail-she stifles the intrigues of his Ministers-she quiets the scandals of his Court-she extinguishes his rivals, and hushes his naughty wives all one by one, so vast are the wonders of the deep!"[49]

But you cross the bridge, or you take a caique, and land under the old walls; you pass through some gateway, scarcely recognisable; and in a moment you are in a new life. It is the East. The hundreds of solemn figures climbing the hill to the daily afternoon prayers at the mosque of Mohammed the Conqueror; the busy market that goes on outside the walls, the stalls displaying everything that man needs to buy, the carpets, the great earthenware vessels, marked in white wax with delicate arabesques, the fresh fruits, the strange liquors, the stranger cates. A few yards off and you are among the streets that belong to particular trades, the workers in brass, the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the horse-dealers, the sellers of every conceivable object under the sun, all in their windowless shops, laughing, talking, selling, with that stately mien which makes a ceremonial of the simplest act. There is no vulgar European haste here, no chattering impatience to serve or to bargain; the ages as they have passed over the place seem to have left their solemn impress on the people. Let the story-teller come and amuse them; for themselves they will not hurry or fret or speed. All is dignified, stately, restrained. This is a Turkish quarter, but the Turks are rarely indeed of pure blood. Almost every Asiatic race, and many European nationalities, have gone to make the Turks of Stamb?l-pilgrims from the far East, Christian slaves, converts to Islam from every quarter of the globe. Negroes are constantly to be met with, eunuchs, slaves, and free trading folk. Pass further on and you are among the Jews, who remain as large a proportion of the population as in the fifteenth century, when some forty thousand of them were to be found in Stamb?l. It was they who first opened regular shops for the sale of manufactured goods, and the greatest shops in the Bazaar to-day are the property of Jews. In the great Bazaar with its intricate streets and quarters, a great desolation reigns. The Jews and the Europeans have invaded its recesses, and the pictures that the old books draw of the haggling and the humour and the riches, have no meaning to-day. In the enclosure of the Ahmediyeh you may see characteristic Eastern sights. There a man sits being shaved. There are stalls heaped with fruit. There are sellers pressing rich stuffs and linen on Turkish ladies as they pass. And indeed it is not all stateliness even among the Turks. Desert the streets of the leather-sellers and the brass-workers, come down to the markets by the mosques, and there is enough vigorous and vivacious life. In the harbour among the shipping, where the rowers of caiques clamour for employment, in the Greek quarter, or in the Psamatia among the poorer Armenians, there is plenty of stir and movement. For a succession of pictures, there is no city like Constantinople. Pilgrims from the far East, Mongolians, Persians, men of Bokhara and Khiva, negroes from the heart of Africa, armed many of them to the teeth, most with the strange wistful half frightened look of strangers and foreigners in a civilisation of which they have not dreamed; the groups at the fountains, the staid ancients smoking solemnly at the doors, the closed windows with the wooden lattices, through which sometimes comes a sound of soft music, the tramp of armed men, the clatter of cavalry as they trot up the street, the endless processions of donkeys and draught horses, and sometimes camels,-these sights and sounds are, in the sunlight by the old walls, in the narrow streets, or by the great domed mosques, never to be forgotten or to be rivalled in Europe to-day.

Constantinople remains, with all its changes, a city of the dark ages. At any moment the curtain may be lifted on a scene of tragic horror, and meanwhile there is the grotesque mimicry of Western civilisation, the parade of meaningless forms, justice, government, finance, which in a moment may be destroyed, which never have, it is hardly an exaggeration to say, any real meaning. How does the city fare? Even now, interviews with officials, walks through the streets of Stamb?l, the sights of each day, remind one irresistibly of "a chapter in Gibbon or some tale of wonder in the Arabian Nights." Soberly and solemnly the Turks go about their business. Before the horrors of the last decade an observer who knew well the people and the history wrote these words.

"I have been present in the city during the deposition of two Sultans. The most striking characteristic in the circumstances attending these depositions was the utter indifference of the great body of the native, and especially of the Moslem, population to the change which was being made. There was a small but active party which took action, but beyond this there was comparatively very little excitement; no resistance, no rioting, no expression of dissatisfaction. When newspaper correspondents and foreigners generally were aware that a revolution was in preparation, it is impossible to believe that thousands of Turks and rayahs were in ignorance of the fact. The general feeling among the Sultan's subjects was one of indifference. If the conspirators failed it would go hardly with them. If they succeeded it would go hardly with the Sultan. That business only regarded the parties concerned. Beyond a vague belief that any change could hardly be followed by a worse condition of things than had existed, there was no public sentiment on the matter."[50]

The words would be as true to-day. Save only at moments of sudden and fanatic excitement, organised there can be no doubt at least under the impression that there is a religious duty, and a command which may not be disobeyed, the calm of the city is unbroken. We seem to be standing with Candide when he heard the news that "two viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled," and when he heard the instructive comments of the old Turk who never knew the name of any vizier or mufti. "I presume," said that sage, "that in general such as are concerned in public affairs come to a miserable end, and that they deserve it; but I never enquire what is doing at Constantinople. I am content with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands." To-day it would seem that the people of Constantinople are of the same mind with this philosopher. "Our country is rich, capable of prosperity, and of supporting in comfort twenty times its present population; but alas a gang of robbers has seized it," are the published words of a Turkish prince. Vice and luxury and despotism triumph. Eh bien! je sais qu'il faut cultiver notre jardin.

This at any rate may be said. It is idle to prophecy the future of the Ottoman power in Europe. Has the last Greek war really strengthened it? Does the approach of Russia foreshadow an occupation of Constantinople and the longed for return of S. Sophia to the worship of the Orthodox Church? Of all people the English are the least fitted to foresee the future. Nothing can be more ludicrous than the letters of Tom Hughes, an observer acute enough, written from Constantinople in 1862, in which he says that Islam is all but dead, and that what the Turks want is the English public-school system. The Turk hears such things with a smile; il faut cultiver notre jardin.

CHAPTER III

The Churches

Though as it has already been said there is but one church which has survived the Turkish conquest without ever ceasing to be used for its divine purpose, there are very many buildings in Constantinople still remaining, with more or less change, that were once hallowed to the worship of the Church of Christ.

Very many have perished, the most notable among them that Church of the Holy Apostles, which was destroyed by Mohammed the Conqueror to build the great mosque which bears his name. But those which still remain were among the chiefest wonders of the City of the Emperors, and there is not one of them which does not deserve an extensive study.

The volumes that have been written on Byzantine architecture cannot be compressed into a few pages. It must suffice to recall what are the chief characteristics of the style which may still be seen in its perfection at Constantinople, as at Salonica. The origin of what had so wide an extension over the East, of the art which made a new departure under Constantine, and a still more important one under Justinian, is simply the basilica, the law court of ancient Rome. A long nave and aisles separated by rows of pillars, surmounted by a flat roof and ending in an apse: that is the familiar type of which a splendid example built under Byzantine influence is to be found in the church of S. Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna. To this simple design the East added the development of the dome. In the sixth century the domical style decisively replaced the basilican; and nowhere can the transition be more clearly traced than in Constantinople.

CAPITAL FROM RAVENNA

SHOWING EARLY FORM OF IMPOST

Metal Socket

CAPITALS FROM S. SOPHIA (IMPOST ABSORBED)

We have then, in our examination of the still remaining specimens of Byzantine art, to observe first the basilicas, then the combination of basilica with dome, then the examples of the completed domical style. But this is by no means all. Byzantine art, in the carving of capitals, in the creation of the impost-capital, in its achievement of "teaching the column to support the arch," in sculpture, in bronze work, in the detail of inscriptions, and above all, in mosaic, is worth the most attentive study, and happily in spite of time, war and barbarism, Constantinople still furnishes a fruitful field for the student.

Of the basilicas which existed before the time of Justinian, there are two impressive examples remaining. The first is the church of S. John Baptist, once attached to the monastery called the Studium. It was originally built in 463, and was attached to the monastery founded by one of the early emigrants from the old Rome, Studius. This monastery became the most important centre of the Akoimetai, the "sleepless ones," an order which kept up perpetual intercession for the sins of the world, and whose importance from the fifth century to the time of the Latin Conquest was very great.[51] It was in this church that many of the icons were preserved during the first fury of iconoclasm: in the monastery, Isaac Comnenus and Michael VII. assumed the monastic habit.

The church has undergone several restorations, but is now in a ruinous state. It was turned into a mosque under Bayezid II.-it is called Mir Achor Djami-but its structural arrangements have not been altered. It is a basilica with two aisles and apse, narthex and atrium. On each side the aisles are divided from the nave by seven marble pillars, the capitals Corinthian, the work below Byzantine. The design on the capitals is that of the double acanthus, "one leaf lying over and within another." Outside in the atrium the columns are Corinthian, and so also below in the great crypt or cistern. The door of the narthex is inserted between the two columns. Of the many memorials that the church once contained only one may now be seen. In a wall marking a small enclosure behind the apse, at the north-east, is a tombstone upside down on which may be traced the Greek inscription to the memory of Dionysios, a Russian monk, who fell asleep on September 6, 1387.

Beautiful in its ruin, with the creepers hiding many of the great gaps in the Western entrance, the church of S. John Baptist does not differ essentially from the common Western type of basilica. The galleries (now without floors) mark, it has been said, the advent of organised monasticism earlier than in the West; but there is, save for some of the work on the pillars, nothing of an especially Byzantine style about the church. It seems certain to perish in a few years if nothing is done. Meanwhile it should be visited by every student of history or art.

COURTYARD OF THE CHURCH OF THE STUDIUM

S. Irene, now within the grounds of the Seraglio, is of more importance. It owes its original foundation to Constantine, but it suffered severely in the Nika riot and was rebuilt by Justinian in 532. It was again restored in 740. Little if anything has been done to it since the Turkish Conquest, and it may be taken as certain that its original structure remains practically unaltered. For the historical interest of its contents as well as for its architectural importance, it is well worth a visit; but it is rarely that permission is accorded to view it.[52] It has been used since the Turkish Conquest as an armoury, and an irardé from the Sultan himself is necessary to authorise the Minister of Ordnance to permit any one to see it.

Its form is basilican, a nave with two aisles and an apse. The dome rests upon a drum lighted by twenty windows. It is probable that this was built by Justinian. In the apse is a characteristic feature which shows what must have been the arrangement at S. Sophia. There are five rows of seats for the clergy, facing west-an unusual number of seats I think, for at Ravenna there is but one row. Under the seats there is a passage round the apse.

There were originally a narthex and an atrium. The narthex seems to have been thrown into the church, as is shown by the heavy pier supporting the gallery, with its counterpart in the outer walls ending abruptly at the wall plate. It seems probable that this was done in order to make room for the second dome, the original structure being that of the ordinary Roman basilica. The atrium seems to have undergone many changes: possibly it is entirely of Mohammedan work, as it has pointed arches. The interior of the church is solemn and impressive, an effect due to the great dignity of the general lines. Originally no doubt the walls and domes were covered with mosaics. Part of the apse still bears its decoration uncovered with the wash which is over all the rest of the surface. A gigantic cross of black tesser? stretches up the vault, and large inscriptions remain over the arch. The apse is lighted by three great windows, a feature never seen in Roman basilicas till much later. The columns which support the galleries are plain, the arch resting on simple uncarved blocks. It may be seen, even from this brief description, how interesting the church is as a representation in Constantinople of the style brought to the East by the Christian architects of the Empire, and exposed to many foreign influences, but as yet showing no important signs of departure from the original type.

But the church is interesting not only architecturally, but historically. It has never been used for the worship of Islam. It could be restored in a few hours to the worship of the Christian Church. Its incongruous contents, too, have an interest. There are weapons of the Crusaders, chainmail, great swords; the curious machines of Alexius Comnenus; keys of conquered cities, bags of earth in token of conquest. There are five fine bells, two with dates 1600 and 1658, one dedicated "Vero Deo Patri Filio Spiritui Sancto." There are swords of the Janissaries, and their curiously shaped helmets, and their famous kettle drums, differing in size according to the number of companies that were assembled. Most interesting of all, perhaps, are the fragments of the great chain which stretched across the Golden Horn. In the court are two fine sarcophagi, which are called those of Constantine and Irene.

COMPARATIVE SIZES OF GREAT AND LITTLE S. SOPHIA.

PLAN OF SS. SERGIUS AND BACCHUS.

These two examples of the basilican style are clear and distinct. There are other churches which have basilican features, but do not belong to the period before Justinian, and are worthy of detailed examination. S. Thekla stands back from the walls on the Golden Horn not far from the gate now called Aivan Serai Kapoussi, which was once the Porta Kiliomené. The foundation of this is not earlier than the ninth century, and Anna Comnena mentions its restoration in the eleventh. It is a curious survival of an early style, for it has no dome, and is simply a basilica about forty feet long and twenty broad, with an apse. It was gaily restored a few years ago, and bears as a mosque the name of Toklou Ibrahim Dedeh Mesjid.

S. Theodore Tyrone (Killisé Djami) stands not far to the west of the mosque of Suleiman. It was built about 450, but much of the present building is of the twelfth century. It is not improbable that in its chief features it may be older than any church in Constantinople. The central dome has ten arches, perhaps originally windows, now closed. All the domes are small, and the columns are without ornament. There are narthex and exo-narthex, and in the latter is a mysterious opening, full of stones and fragments of mortar, leading, it is said, to a long passage which the Turks fancy once led to S. Sophia.

But more interesting than either of these is that unique building which the Turks have happily named "Kutchuk Aya Sofia," little S. Sophia, the Church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus.[53] It stands not far from Koum Kapoussi in the Marmora Walls, and quite close to the railway. Originally it was connected with the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul. Procopius describes the churches as standing obliquely towards each other, "joined together, and vieing one with another. They have," he says, "a common entrance, are equal to one another in all respects, are surrounded by a boundary wall, and neither of them exceeds the other or falls short of it, either in beauty, size, or any other respect; for each alike reflects the rays of the sun from its polished marble, and is alike covered with rich gold and adorned with offerings. In one respect alone they differ, that the one is built longitudinally, whereas the columns of the other for the most part stand in a semi-circle. The portico at their entrance is common to both, and from its great length is called narthex (i.e. a reed). The whole propylea, the atrium, and the doors from the atrium, and the entrance to the palace, are common to both." A door now closed at the south of the narthex shows where was the entrance to the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul. S. Sergius and S. Bacchus has happily suffered but little. It has, as has been said, a structural narthex. The atrium can still be traced in the arrangement of the Turkish houses and garden separated now from the church by a narrow pathway.

The Church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus is a square with a dome. Columned exedras fill out the angles of the square under the domed vaults, and the piers supporting the dome form an octagon. A small apse is added at the east end. The ground plan of the church almost exactly repeats that of S. Vitale at Ravenna, which was probably begun a year before its companion in Constantinople. The resemblance is most marked in the six windows of the apse, the galleries and the columns on which they rest. The details also of the work closely resemble each other. We have the simplest form of the impost capital and the eight-lobed melon-formed capital. Vine-leaves form part of the decoration of some of the capitals and of the frieze: some say that this is a fanciful allusion to the associations of the name of one of the saints to whom the church is dedicated. Many crosses are cut in the marble of the west gallery; and on the south side over the imperial entrance from the palace are the monograms of Justinian and Theodora.

Justinian built the Church in 527, and dedicated it to the soldier saints who were martyred under Maximianus, to commemorate his preservation when he was charged with treason during the reign of Anastasius. An inscription commemorates the Emperor "inspired by pity," and his wife Theodora, "the divinely crowned." Its historic associations are interesting. It was there that representatives of the Latin Church on a visit to Constantinople were generally allowed to worship according to their own rite. It is probable that Gregory the Great, who was so long the Papal representative at the Byzantine court, often said mass there. It suffered severely during the Latin conquest, and it was repaired by Michael VIII.

Interesting, and in spite of whitewash and colouring, even beautiful in itself, it is important architecturally as illustrating the process which developed the design of S. Irene into that of S. Sophia. Closely resembling S. Vitale at Ravenna, it is yet, in little, a very distinct anticipation of the great church of the Divine Wisdom of which we have now to speak.

Something has been said already (above, pp. 35-39) of the historic circumstances under which this, "the fairest church in all the world," as our Sir John Mandeville hath it, was built. Hardly a month after the burning of the first church of the Divine Wisdom in 532, the new building was begun. On S. Stephen's Day 537, it was consecrated. In 558 much of it was seriously damaged by an earthquake, the eastern part of the dome, with the apse, being thrown down, "destroying in its fall the holy table, the ciborium, and the ambo." At their restoration, the dome was raised twenty feet.

From the first, it was recognised as the greatest work that had ever been completed by architects. Not only the eulogists of Justinian, but every chronicler of the age, and for some centuries after, bear testimony to the fascination which its splendour and dignity exercised upon the imagination of beholders. It was the great outward expression of the power of a world-empire consecrated to the religion of Christ. It was the symbol of the offering of all beautiful things, all art, now conquered from the corruptions of paganism, all riches, all human skill and thought, to God the Creator. The Divine Wisdom which made the world and designed all things so great and so fair, was to hallow all, now that man offered them up in continual sacrifice to God from Whom alone their use and blessing came. S. Sophia's was the highest outward expression which man had given to the idea of God's omnipotence and omnipresence, and to the absolute dependence of man upon the Divine ordering of life. "Anima naturaliter Christiana" was the noble saying of Tertullian. The Church of S. Sophia was the expression of that thought by the genius of Anthemius of Tralles under the direction of Justinian, C?sar and Augustus.

We can hardly see the great church better than with the words of Procopius, the first to describe it, before us.

In his ?difices, a glorification perhaps too glorious of the great Emperor's wisdom in his buildings, the strange historian, half soldier, half philosopher, who followed the greatest captain of the age in his campaigns, who lived in the close presence of the splendid works which made the men of the sixth century famous in the history of the world, and yet had a mind utterly sceptical as to real goodness, entirely credulous of evil, perhaps for once threw aside his sardonic humour when he wrote of the great church. Here at least, in all those high-wrought pages, he is sincere.

Justinian, he says, is highly to be regarded for his wisdom and his good fortune that he found architects and workmen so skilful, and was "able to choose the most suitable of mankind to execute the noblest of his works."

It was this, he says, which caused the matchless achievement. Cost was not spared, workmen were brought from every land.

"The church[54] consequently presents a most glorious spectacle, extraordinary to those who behold it, and altogether incredible to those who are told of it. In height it rises to the very heavens, and overtops the neighbouring buildings like a ship anchored among them, appearing above the rest of the city, which it adorns and forms a part of it. One of its beauties is that being a part of and growing out of the city, it rises so high that the whole city can be seen as from a watch-tower. The length and breadth are so judiciously arranged that it appears to be both long and wide without being disproportionate.

"It is distinguished by indescribable beauty, excelling both in its size, and in the harmony of its measures, having no part excessive and none deficient; being more magnificent than ordinary buildings, and much more elegant than those which are not of so just a proportion. The church is singularly full of light and sunshine; you would declare that the place is not lighted by the sun from without, but that the rays are produced within itself, such an abundance of light is poured into this church. The Apse.-Now the head (πρ?σωπον) of the church (that is to say the part towards the rising sun, where the sacred mysteries are performed in honour of God) is built as follows. The building rises from the ground not in a straight line, but setting back somewhat obliquely, it retreats in the middle into a rounded form which those who are learned in these matters call semi-cylindrical, rising perpendicularly. Apsoid and Semidome.-The upper part of this work ends in the fourth part of a sphere, and above it another crescent-shaped (μηνοειδ??) structure is raised upon the adjacent parts of the building, admirable for its beauty, but causing terror by the apparent weakness of its construction; for it appears not to rest upon a secure foundation, but to hang dangerously over the heads of those below, although it is really supported with especial firmness and safety. Exedras.-On each side of these parts are columns standing upon the floor, which are not placed in a straight line, but arranged with an inward curve of semicircular shape, one beyond another like the dancers in a chorus. These columns support above them a crescent-shaped structure. Opposite the east wall is built another wall, containing the entrances, and upon either side of it also stand columns, with stonework above them, in a half-circle exactly like those previously described. Great Piers and Arches.-In the midst of the church are four masses of stone called piers (πεσσο??), two on the north and two on the south sides, opposite and alike, having four columns in the space between each pair. These piers are formed of large stones fitted together, the stones being carefully selected, and cleverly jointed into one another by the masons, and reaching to a great height. Looking at them, you would compare them to perpendicular cliffs. Upon them, four arches (?ψ?δε?) arise over a quadrilateral space. The extremities of these arches join one another in pairs, their ends resting upon the piers, while the other parts of them rise to a great height, suspended in the air. Two of these arches, that is those towards the rising and the setting of the sun, are constructed over the empty air, but the others have under them some stonework and small columns. Dome and Pendentives.-Now above these arches is raised a circular building of a curved form through which the light of day first shines; for the building, which I imagine overtops the whole country, has small openings left on purpose, so that the places where these intervals occur may serve for the light to come through. Thus far I imagine the building is not incapable of being described, even by a weak and feeble tongue. As the arches are arranged in quadrangular figure, the stonework between them takes the shape of a triangle, the lower angle of each triangle, being compressed where the arches unite, is slender, while the upper part becomes wider as it rises in the space between them, and ends against the circle which rests upon them, forming there its remaining angles. A spherical-shaped dome (θ?λο?) standing upon this circle makes it exceedingly beautiful; from the lightness of the building, it does not appear to rest upon a solid foundation, but to cover the place beneath as though it were suspended from heaven by the fabled golden chain. All these parts surprisingly joined to one another in the air, suspended one from another, and resting only on that which is next to them, form the work into one admirably harmonious whole, which spectators do not dwell upon for long in the mass, as each individual part attracts the eye to itself. The sight causes men constantly to change their point of view, and the spectator can nowhere point to any part which he admires more than the rest. Seeing the art which appears everywhere, men contract their eyebrows as they look at each part, and are unable to comprehend such workmanship, but always depart thence, stupefied, through their incapacity. So much for this.

SKETCH PLAN OF S. SOPHIA

AA. Outer Porch (Exo-narthex) a. Altar, now destroyed

BB. Porch (narthex) bb. Seats for clergy

CC. Space covered by central Dome cc. Iconostasis, or Screen

DD. Space covered by Semi-domes d. Ambo or pulpit

EE. Space covered by Supplementary semi-domes.

"The Emperor Justinian and the architects Anthemius and Isidorus used many devices to construct so lofty a church with security. One of these I will now explain, by which a man may form some opinion of the strength of the whole work; as for the others I am not able to discover them all, and find it impossible to describe them in words. It is as follows: The piers, of which I just now spoke, are not constructed in the same manner as the rest of the building, but in this fashion; they consist of quadrangular courses of stone, rough by nature, and made smooth by art; of these stones, those which make the projecting angles of the pier are cut angularly (?γγων?ων), while those which go in the middle parts of the sides are cut square (?ν τετραπλε?ρ?).

"They are fastened together not with lime (τ?τανο?), called 'unslaked' (?σβεστον), not with ashphaltum, the boast of Semiramis at Babylon, nor anything of the kind, but with lead, which, poured into the interstices, has sunk into the joints of the stones, and binds them together; this is how they are built.

"Let us now proceed to describe the remaining parts of the church. The entire ceiling is covered with pure gold, which adds to its glory, though the reflections of the gold upon the marble surpass it in beauty. There are two aisles one above another on each side, which do not in any way lessen the size of the church, but add to its width. In length they reach quite to the ends of the building, but in height they fall short of it; these also have domed ceilings adorned with gold. Of these two porticoes one (ground floor) is set apart for male and the other (upper floor) for female worshippers; there is no variety in them, nor do they differ in any respect from one another, but their very equality and similarity add to the beauty of the church. Who could describe these gynaeceum galleries, or the numerous porticoes (στο??) and cloistered courts (περιστ?λου? α?λ??) with which the church is surrounded? Who could tell of the beauty of the columns and marbles with which the church is adorned? One would think that one had come upon a meadow full of flowers in bloom! Who would not admire the purple tints of some and the green of others, the glowing red and the glittering white, and those too, which nature, painter-like, has marked with the strongest contrasts of colour? Whoever enters there to worship perceives at once that it is not by any human strength or skill, but by favour of God, that this work has been perfected; the mind rises sublime to commune with God, feeling that He cannot be far off, but must especially love to dwell in the place which He has chosen; and this is felt not only when a man sees it for the first time, but it always makes the same impression upon him, as though he had never beheld it before. No one ever became weary of this spectacle, but those who are in the church delight in what they see, and, when they leave, magnify it in their talk. Moreover, it is impossible accurately to describe the gold and silver and gems presented by the Emperor Justinian; but by the description of one part, I leave the rest to be inferred. That part of the church which is especially sacred, and where the priests alone are allowed to enter, which is called the sanctuary (θυσιαστ?ριον), contains forty thousand pounds' weight of silver.

"The above is an account, written in the most abridged and cursory manner, describing in the fewest possible words the most admirable structure of the church at Constantinople, which is called the Great Church, built by the Emperor Justinian, who did not merely supply the funds for it but assisted at its building by the labour and powers of his mind, as I will now explain. Of the two arches (τ?ν ?ψ?δων) which I lately mentioned-the architects (μηχανοποιο?) call them loroi-that one which stands towards the east had been built up on each side, but had not altogether been completed in the middle, where it was still imperfect; when the piers (πεσσο?) upon which the building rested, unable to support the weight which was put upon them, somehow all at once split open, and seemed as though before long they would fall to pieces. Upon this, Anthemius and Isidorus, terrified at what had taken place, referred the matter to the Emperor, losing all confidence in their own skill. He at once, I know not by what impulse, but probably inspired by Heaven, for he is not an architect, ordered them to complete this arch; for it, said he, resting upon itself will no longer need the piers below (τ?ν ?νερθεν πεσσ?ν). Now if this story were unsupported by witnesses, I am well assured that it would seem to be written in order to flatter, and would be quite incredible; but as there are many witnesses now alive of what then took place I shall not hesitate to finish it. The workmen performed his bidding, the arch was safely suspended, and proved by experiment the truth of his conception. So much then for this part of the building; now with regard to the other arches, those looking to the south and to the north, the following incidents took place. When the (arches) called loroi (λ?ροι) were raised aloft during the building of the church everything below them laboured under their weight, and the columns which are placed there shed little scales, as though they had been planed.

"Alarmed at this, the architects (μηχανικο?) again referred the matter to the Emperor, who devised the following scheme. He ordered the upper part of the work that was giving way to be taken down where it touched the arches for the present, and to be replaced afterwards when the damp had thoroughly left the fabric. This was done, and the building has stood safely ever since, so that the structure, as it were, bears witness to the Emperor's skill."

The description of Procopius is for us no mere antiquarian record. It is still a guide which may direct us what to look for and how to explain what we see. S. Sophia is unique in the fact of its survival in continued use, and in its preservation from the horrors of "restoration," which have robbed us, all over the civilised world, of the true work of the greatest Christian architects. The Turks, it must be honestly said, deserve the thanks of Europe for their preservation of their greatest work of sacred art. In 1847 Abdul Mejid undertook the reparation of the damage done by time. He employed the Italian architect Fossali, who was probably the first to do any important work at the main part of the building since the time of John VI. Pal?ologus. The work on the whole was well done; and it is plain that it must have been absolutely necessary. The wonder is that his work was so conservative as it was. It is impossible not to echo the gratitude of the experts that "far from being a ruin, the church is one of the best preserved of so ancient monuments, and in regard to its treatment by the Turks we can only be grateful that S. Sophia has not been situated in the more learned cities of Europe, such as Rome, Aachen, or Oxford, during 'the period of revived interest in ecclesiastical antiquities.'"

Evagrius, who may also be regarded as practically a contemporary of the original building, has also left a description which is worth quoting, of this "great and incomparable work, hitherto unparalleled in history, the Church's greatest temple, fair and surpassing, and beyond the power of words to describe."[55]

"The nave," he says, "of the temple is a dome, lifted on four arches, and rising to so great a height that from below it is difficult for the observers to reach with their eyes the apex of the hemisphere; while from above none who might get there, howsoever hardy he might be, would for a moment attempt to lean over and cast his eyes to the bottom. And the arches spring clear from the floor up to the covering which forms the roof; and on the right and left columns, wrought of Thessalian stone, are ranged with (i.e. are in line with) the piers of the arches and support upper chambers [enclosed] with other similar columns, so enabling them that wish to lean forward and see the rites that are being performed: and it is here that the Empress also when she is present on the festivals assists at the celebration of the mysteries. But the arches to the east and the west are left clear without anything to intercept the marvellous impression of the huge dimensions. And there are colonnades under the upper chambers already mentioned, finishing off the vast structure with small columns and arches." It may be noted here that the figures that Evagrius gives are inaccurate. The church is 250 feet long from east to west, not including the narthex or the apse; and it is 235 feet across.

IN THE GALLERY OF S. SOPHIA

These descriptions are in comparatively sober prose; but besides them we have the ecstatic eloquence of Paul the Silentiary, a court official of highest rank, whose poem was probably recited in 563. This is perhaps the most exact of all the descriptions, but it is far too long for transcription.[56]

A passage, which certainly loses nothing of its poetry in Mr Swainson's flowing translation, is of especial interest for its description of the marble which formed the great glory of the church, next at least to the mosaics, if not surpassing them.

"Yet who, even in the measures of Homer, shall sing the marble pastures gathered on the lofty walls and spreading pavement of the mighty church? These the iron with its metal tooth has gnawed-the fresh green from Carystus, and many-coloured marble from the Phrygian range, in which a rosy blush mingles with white, or it shines bright with flowers of deep red and silver. There is a wealth of porphyry too, powdered with bright stars, that has once laden the river boat on the broad Nile. You would see an emerald green from Sparta, and the glittering marble with wavy veins, which the tool has worked in the deep bosom of the Iassian hills, showing slanting streaks blood-red and livid white. From the Lydian creek came the bright stone mingled with streaks of red. Stone too there is that the Lybian sun, warming with his golden light, has nurtured in the deep-bosomed clefts of the hills of the Moors, of crocus colour glittering like gold; and the product of the Celtic crags, a wealth of crystals, like milk poured here and there on a flesh of glittering black. There is the precious onyx, as if gold were shining through it; and the marble that the land of Atrax yields, not from some upland glen, but from the level plains; in parts fresh green as the sea or emerald stone, or again like blue corn-flowers in grass, with here and there a drift of fallen snow,-a sweet mingled contrast on the dark shining surface."[57]

I think ancient words such as these speak best of this ancient church. Yet something must be added of what we see with modern eyes. S. Sophia strikes the modern at once as unlike the domical churches with which he is familiar. The dome in S. Sophia is the one essential feature of the whole building. Every thing leads to it or from it: every thing is subordinate to it. The effect of immense space is conveyed by this subordination, very different from the Western use where the dome is merely part of the general design, usually at the centre of a cruciform building.

The problem which Anthemius of Tralles set himself to solve was that of "uniting the longitudinal with the central building"; to this is added "the appropriate disposition of space, the grouping of subsidiary chambers and the costliness of mosaic splendours."[58]

Originally the church was approached at the west through an atrium, an outer narthex and a narthex. The atrium cannot now be traced: the exo-narthex and narthex still remain, but it seems probable that the former is not now as it was originally built. The walls and ceiling of the exo-narthex are quite plain. Five doors give entrance into the much larger narthex, the walls of which are covered with marble, and the ceiling has mosaics which have been but little touched.

ORNAMENT ON THE BRAZEN LINTEL ABOVE THE PRINCIPAL DOOR OF S. SOPHIA

Translation of Inscription:

"The Lord said, 'I am the door of the sheep: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.'"

The Christian must enter the church by the north porch, which leads down a flight of steps into the narthex. He walks forward till he faces the midst of the church, and there over the great central door, the largest of the nine which open eastwards from the narthex into the nave, the mosaic can still be traced, for the paint is almost worn off. It shows our Lord on His throne with the gospel in His hand, open at the words "I am the Light of the World." An Emperor kneels at His feet. It is the Imperial door-way, and by it the sovereign always entered the church. Immediately above the door and below the mosaic, is a brass lintel on which may be clearly read the text of the book represented open upon a throne with a dove spreading its wings above. "The Lord said, I am the door of the sheep: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture." A heavy curtain falls over the doorway. It is moved aside and we stand in a space that seems enormous. The eye looks forward to find itself carried upward to the great dome. The great arches on the floor support the smaller arches of the galleries, which extend north, south and west. From these again the eye is carried to the smaller semi-domes, thence to the great semi-domes east and west, and so to the great dome which is the centre of all. The scheme seems at once amazingly intricate and exceedingly simple. There is an infinity of detail, but it is never irrelevant to the main idea, and in an extraordinary manner the feeling of unity is dominant at every point. It is impossible to rest content with any part: the architect compels you to see the part only in its relation to the whole.

How should S. Sophia be seen? Every one will have his own preference. Perhaps it is best first to take the great impression that you obtain as you look eastward, and then to go slowly round the aisles, looking again and again towards the centre. The wonderful columns supporting the galleries, four of dark green marble which came from Ephesus-it may be from the temple of Artemis-eight of dark red porphyry which came from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek and were given by a Roman lady, Marcia, to Justinian "for the safety of her soul"-have a magnificent air of strength as well as splendour. Then the details begin to attract the eye, the brass bases to the columns, the capitals elaborately carved with designs most beautiful and delicate, the monograms, still undefaced, of Justinian and Theodora. Here the elaboration, the extraordinary wealth of detail, on the minute examination of which hours may be spent delightedly, the endless variety of the finest work, enchains the attention. For the moment you forget the splendour of the whole in the beauty of the details. But at every point, as you look up from the carving of capitals, or the inscriptions (as on the bronze doors of the narthex, whose Christian emblems may still clearly be traced), you are brought again to the central thought. It is a great church for worship. From every side, from aisles and galleries as from all the length of the great nave, the eye would turn in the old days towards the iconostasis, and to the magnificent ambo, of which writers from the contemporaries of Justinian to the latest Christian pilgrims speak in such glowing words. As a Christian church, S. Sophia must have been unsurpassed in its power to solemnise the worshipper.

BRONZE DOOR OF SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO THE NARTHEX, ST SOPHIA

The brightness of the great church, when all the splendid lamps made the mosaics glitter as the heavens with stars, finds record again and again in poem and history. That glory is departed, though when the thousands of lamps are lighted on the nights of Ramazan (the twenty-eight days fast), something of what it must have been may perhaps be guessed. The mosaics are covered, not everywhere indeed, but over a great part of the vast space, with paint and whitewash. The head of Christ may be dimly traced over the sanctuary. The four gigantic seraphs on the pendentives remain as of old, save that their faces are painted over.

Next to the decoration the point of chiefest interest is the mass of historical memorials that may here and there be discovered. In the south gallery the Second Council of Constantinople, the sixth General Council of the Church, was held. The "place of the most noble lady Theodora" may still be seen in the north gallery. A slab now let into the floor of the south gallery has the words "Henricus Dandolo." It once rested over the body of the blind Doge who stormed the city in 1204. The ciphers and monograms are worth attentive study.[59] The curious water-vessel at the north-west may have stood in the church in the Christian days. But the multiplication of instances would be endless. Anyone who wants really to know S. Sophia, must have with him the noble book of Mr Lethaby and Mr Swainson.

The outside of S. Sophia is comparatively uninteresting, and is impressive only for the vast size. Seen from the corner of the street leading to the "Burnt Column," its immense extent, and the height of the great dome, dwarf every other building within sight. Seen again from the Bosphorus at the entrance to the Golden Horn, or as a vessel sails up the Marmora, it stands, as the old writers said of it, dominating the city. But closer it is almost ugly, and the stripes of red paint with which Fossati bedecked it do not add to its attraction.

ANCIENT URN IN S. SOPHIA (TOP MODERN)

Round the great church are some smaller buildings which should not be forgotten. "Every evidence of the atrium has entirely disappeared": it was finally destroyed in 1873. At south side are five türbehs, four of which are of Turkish building, those of Sultans Selim II., Murad III., each with his children, Mohammed III., and the sons of Murad III. Among these that of Selim II. is notable for the beautiful tiles at the doorway. At the south-west is Justinian's baptistery, now the türbeh of Mustafa I. (1622). It is a rectangle externally, but within, an octagon with a low dome, covered with twelfth-century mosaics, which, when I saw it in 1896, were being covered anew with paint. At the north-east of the church is a circular building which may very probably be the earlier baptistery, built by Constantine.[60]

Throughout I have spoken of S. Sophia as a church. Such indeed to the Christian eye it remains. A few hours would restore its fitness for its original purpose. The Mihrab, showing the direction of Mecca, the minber, or pulpit, the Sultan's seat, the immense shields with the names of the four companions of the prophet, the four minarets, belong, one feels, but to transitory things. The dedication of S. Sophia is eternal. S. Sophia is the greatest and most splendid example of what has been truly called "the last great gift of Hellenic genius, medi?val Greek architecture"-the last great work of the Greek people. But it is more. It is the most perfect representation that art has ever devised in visible outward form of the theology of the Christian Church. A multitude of detail, all beautiful, all important when understood, has its true significance solely from its relation to the central idea, to the whole which is so much more than the parts of which it is composed. "The Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity," says the magnificent hymn of faith which we call the Creed of Saint Athanasius. From that central doctrine, that dome of theology, shade off other thoughts and facts which have their importance in exact proportion to their nearness to the central fact. They all contribute to its support; they are all really part of it; but they can only be seen in their real meaning when the one Unifying Truth is seen to be over and above them all.

Is this the narrow view of a Christian priest? Will art critics say that S. Sophia means quite other things, and draws forth quite other memories? Not truly, as I think. For S. Sophia is certainly a supreme expression of Christian faith, and only in relation to that faith can it be fully understood. "We worship one God": S. Sophia expresses that thought, and it expresses the myriad reflections of that truth, and how that worship is visibly presented.

To some art critics, and notably to Jesuit writers, whose sympathy with the genuine expression of artistic ideas has never been profound, S. Sophia seems to mark not only the culmination of Byzantine art but a distinct step in its decadence. Supreme indeed it is, but it is difficult for any one who knows Constantinople to doubt that the work which is at its greatest in S. Sophia was continued centuries after Anthemius had passed away. The same dignity, and sincerity, and splendour, are striven for, and if they are never attained it is only because the greatest genius is never repeated.

There are many later churches which carry us back to the vigorous age of Byzantine art. First must be placed the μον? τ?? χ?ρα?, the Church of S. Saviour "in the country," now called Kahriyeh Djamissi. It stands on an open space of broken ground near the gate of Charisius, Edirnè Kapoussi. It is shown to-day, most courteously and sympathetically, by an imam with whom it is a pleasure to converse. The Christian feels almost at home, though the Moslem has long worshipped where for so many centuries the Holy Sacrifice was offered.

The Church of the Chora was rebuilt, or refounded, by Justinian. The site had been chosen by Constantine for a monastery which he erected outside the walls, "in the country." When Justinian built it, it was within the walls which Theodosius had made. It fell into decay, and Maria Dukaina, the mother-in-law of Alexius Comnenus, restored it. Finally Theodore the Logothete, in 1381, completed the work. Of recent years it has been thoroughly repaired. It has an inner and an outer narthex, a central church and two side chapels.

No church, save S. Sophia, has more touching memories. Crispus, the son-in-law of the Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, redecorated it, and found in it his resting-place as a monk. Patriarchs have retired there. Theodore, who beautified it, had to seek refuge there when Andronicus II. was deposed, and he ended his days as a monk within its walls. Under the sovereigns of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was famous. Near to the palace of Blachernae the Emperors often worshipped there. It kept for part of the year the sacred picture of the Blessed Virgin which was believed to have been the work of S. Luke, and was there yearly shown on Easter Monday for the veneration of the people. When the Turks broke in, the Janissaries seized the picture and cut it into fragments, for charms. The church was turned into a mosque very soon after the conquest. Petrus Gyllius rediscovered it, for it seems soon to have had its history forgotten; and he noted the beauty of the capitals.

Architecturally the complication of the style, the many independent domes, and the practical separation of the chapels from the central church, illustrate the development of Byzantine architecture in its later stages. In detail the beautiful acanthus carved in white marble and carved right through is noticeable. There are also the fragments of a splendid door, now used as jamb linings, the panels of which were originally filled with sculpture. The Church of the Chora as we now have it belongs to a veritable renaissance of Byzantine art, and that most notably in its mosaics. The apse has a great picture of Christ with the open Gospel in His hand. It is whitewashed over. The mural paintings of the side chapels are of little interest; but the mosaics in the narthex and outer narthex are by far the finest remaining examples of the art now visible in Constantinople. Those in the outer narthex represent the history of the B. V. Mary, a wonderful series of glowing pictures in gold and colours. They are well worth minute study of the designs, the dresses, and the colours.[61] But the most striking of all is the splendid figure of Christ enthroned, with Theodore kneeling to present to Him the renovated church. Theodore wears the great cap conferred on him as a sign of dignity by Andronicus II. The Lord, with the Gospel in His left hand, blesses with the right hand, the thumb and two fingers joined, after the Greek manner of benediction. It is a noble figure, restrained and solemn. No longer, as in the earlier representations, is He represented as young and beardless, but as a Man of middle life, the features and hair approximating at least to the traditional portrait. But still, and seemingly to the last in Constantinople, the early reticence which prevented a representation of the Crucifixion remains. All through the incidents of His earthly life He is followed by the artistic reverence of the Byzantines; but His death remains unpictured. The other separate representation of the Lord in this church shows Him blessing, as the giver of life.

There are many other churches which should be visited. Of the medi?val example the most interesting are the church of S. Thekla, S. Mary Pammakaristos, S. Theodosia (mentioned above, p. 62), the Pantokrator, SS. Peter and Mark, and the little village church of S. Mary at the Fountain. Of this last more hereafter. S. Mary Pammakaristos was built by the sister of Alexius Comnenus early in the twelfth century. It stands on the hill overlooking the Phanar. Its design is unlike any other building in the city. The main dome rests on a drum supported by four arches, these again on another drum and other arches. There are narthex and outer narthex and a number of subsidiary chapels, divided from the central chapel by columns of different sizes and shapes. In the south-east chapel there is still a splendid mosaic of Christ blessing the apostles. The tomb of Alexius Comnenus and his famous daughter Anna were here, but they were destroyed when Murad III. turned the church into a mosque. From 1456 to 1586 it was the patriarchal church. A legend attaches to it which declares that the patriarch Jeremiah I. preserved it, and all other churches then remaining, by producing Moslem witnesses before Suleiman, that the city was really surrendered by capitulation, and that the churches were guaranteed to the Christians. Two aged Moslems were brought from Adrianople and their oath was accepted, a strange story of lying in which neither faith seems to be established by the truthfulness of its believers.

S. Theodosia, called "the rose mosque" for the horrible tragedy which marked its last day as a Christian church, is within the Aya Kapou, the Porta Divae Theodosi? which was named after it. S. Theodosia was the first martyr, under Leo the Isaurian, of the iconoclastic persecutions, and her name was held in special veneration by the ladies of Constantinople. Her festival is on May 29; and in 1453 when the city was captured the church was crowded with worshippers, many of whom had spent the whole night there in prayer. Before midday the doors were broken down and the sipahis poured in. Over the walls clustered roses then in bloom, and, within, the columns were wreathed with them. The picture of the ladies seized and carried off into slavery lingered in the verses of Turkish poets, and when the church became a mosque its name was that of the rose, Güil Djami.

The Church of the Pantokrator stands high above the inner bridge, a little below, and eastwards of, the mosque of Mohammed II. It is a triple church, separated by columns and all entered from the narthex. It is probable that it was founded by John Comnenus and his wife Irene, who died in 1124. The exterior of the apses have much fine work; and the door and windows of the narthex are well worth careful examination. Outside in the rough square westwards of the church is a fine tomb of verde antico which is said to have been the tomb of the Empress Irene, on which the crosses still remain. Of the three churches the northern was monastic and the central was the mausoleum of the Comneni. There slept Irene and her husband John I., Manuel I. and his wife Irene, a third Irene, the wife of Andronicus II., and Manuel II. who drove back the Turks from the walls. During the Latin occupation this church was the patriarchal cathedral; there Morosini had his throne; and there the holy picture of the B. V. M. (see above p. 263) was kept by them. When Michael VIII. returned it was brought forth and borne before him through the Golden Gate. Here in 1453 dwelt Gennadios who prophecied incessantly against the union of the churches, and hence he was brought when after the capture of the city he was chosen patriarch. It is a church of many memories, now almost deserted. Near it is the ancient library of the monastery, a quaint disfigured octagonal building that peers over a high wall in a narrow by-street.

CHURCH OF THE PANTOKRATOR

These churches-and there are many more-now mosques, yet retain some of their old dignity; and if they should ever come again into Christian hands it is very likely that many mosaics and much early work in them would be rediscovered.

There is another which I cannot forbear to mention, though it hardly repays the search for it. For many hours in April 1896 did I wander and inquire and grope through filthy streets, followed by filthier Turks, whose attentions became embarrassing, till I relieved myself of them by means of a stern gaze, a threatening forefinger, and a solemnly delivered passage from Euclid, in English. It is not far from Aivan Serai, and is approached through the wall now broken down. It is now called Atik Mustapha Pasha Djamissi, but was consecrated in 451 as the Church of SS. Peter and Mark, having been built by two patricians, Gallius and Candidus, "on the shore of the Golden Horn, in the quarter of Blachernae." It is a sordid, decrepit hovel to-day; but outside it stands its ancient font, made of a single block of marble, and with three steps descending to the bottom. It belongs probably to the earliest years of the reign of Justinian. A pathetic memory, it is forgotten and uncared for save by a few faithful Greeks who cleanse it secretly from time to time. Is it ever used secretly now?

These may stand for examples of the many churches which still remain from Byzantine days. But there are others which should not be forgotten. The Church of the Patriarchate and the little S. Mary Mouchliotissa have been mentioned already (above, p. 155). The Armenian patriarch has his throne in the Church of S. George in the Psamatia. The churches in Pera and Galata are worth a visit, and notably S. Georgio a Monte, near the Ottoman bank, and the Armenian church of S. Gregory, built in 1436, and buried in a back street above the wharfs not far from Top-haneh. This last contains some fine MSS. and a sacred picture of Christ, of great antiquity. It witnessed fearful tragedies in 1876. The open apse of the Armenian churches, with its altar covered with candles, contrasts with the hidden holy table of the orthodox church, plain, and concealed behind the high iconostasis with its closed gates.

The Christianity of Pera and Galata is a strange contrast to the solemn Mohammedanism of Stamb?l. But it is impossible to attend the offering of the Holy Eucharist in the orthodox churches of Pera and of the Phanar without feeling how firm and enthusiastic is the faith of the worshippers. They stand indeed, hardly less than the Armenians, always on the verge of the undiscovered country.

?ω? π?τε ? Δεσπ?τη?.

PART OF THE WALLS OF THEODOSIUS: THE SEVEN TOWERS IN THE BACKGROUND

CHAPTER IV

The Walls

The history of Constantinople-it is proclaimed at every epoch in her life-has ever its two abiding interests, the Church and the military spirit. The one is represented for all time in S. Sophia. The other finds its memorial in the walls.

For centuries, whose heroic story we have so baldly told, the city of the C?sars preserved for Europe the justice of Rome, the learning of Greece. She taught to the barbarians the meaning of civilitas, she led many of the nations into the truest brotherhood of the Catholic Church. And all through she was fighting a war which never ceased, often driven back upon her own defences, but again and again issuing forth a conqueror. By her age-long resistance Constantinople saved Europe from a new barbarian deluge, from a second Dark Age. And Constantinople herself was saved by her walls. There is no historic monument in Europe which has a memory more glorious or more heroic.

To the student of history there is nothing of all he sees in the "Queen of Cities" that is so full of perpetual and varied interest. The whole story of Constantinople might be told in commentary on the great walls that once protected her from the foe. Here it shall only be pointed how two or three days may be spent-or two or three hours if it must be so-in learning something of these magnificent ruins which have so great a history written on their face. The writer has spent many happy hours in tracing them at every point. Within a few days of his last visit the knowledge, such as it was, which he had gained, was a hundredfold increased by the superb work of devotion and research in which Professor van Millingen has summed up the studies of many years, which will be, once for all, the classical authority on the walls and adjoining sites of Byzantine Constantinople. It has often already been referred to in these pages. Here let it be said that every word that is written on the walls is revised in the light of what Professor van Millingen has published, and that no one who wishes seriously to study the history of the fortifications, or indeed of the city itself, can now do so with any success without the help of this almost faultless book.

The simplest method for the traveller is probably first to take the less interesting and more ruinous walls on the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora-which indeed will probably only be visited in detail by those who have a special historical interest, and then to turn to the Land walls, which no one ever visits the city without seeing at least in superficial view.

KADIKEUI (CHALCEDON), FROM SERAGLIO POINT

Constantinople, though it has ceased to be the capital city of a maritime power, has never lost the advantages of its unique maritime position. The sea, with its currents and its storms, has always been its first natural protector. Only once has the city been captured from the sea. But this has not meant that defence was necessary only for the landward approach. Byzantium had its sea-walls: they were enlarged by Constantine, and in 439 Theodosius II. completed them by carrying them on to meet the land-walls, which ended then at Blachernae northwards and by the Golden Gate on the south. During the middle ages they constantly needed repair, notably after the arctic winter of 763-4, when huge ice-floes thronged the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and even broke over the wall at the point of the Acropolis (Seraglio point). In the ninth century again Theophilus made a thorough restoration, which is recorded in many inscriptions still to be seen on the wall by the Dierman Kapoussi at the foot of the Seraglio gardens. Among later restorations are those of Leo the Wise and his brother Alexander: a tower, near Koum Kapoussi, bears the inscription:

+ ΠΥΡΓΟΣ ΛΕΟΝΤΟΣ Κ ΑΛΕΞΑΝ +

and it is here, it has been suggested, that the Cretans held out in 1453 till Mohammed gave them special terms and allowed them to depart with all the honours of war. Michael Pal?ologus, after the recovery of the city from the Latins, began an inner sea-wall, but no traces of it, Professor van Millingen says, have survived. In 1351 again all the seaward walls were repaired, and all the houses that had been built between them and the sea were destroyed. It appears that the strip of ground originally outside the walls was smaller than at present, considerable silting having taken place during the last five centuries. The Venetian fleet in 1203 drew near enough to the walls to throw a flying bridge from the ships to the ramparts.

The last gate of the land walls is the Xylo-porta. The first on the Golden Horn is Aivan-Serai. Near it is a landing-stage, at which the Emperors used formally to be received by the Senate when they came by water to Blachernae. Close to this gate are the churches of S. Thekla and SS. Peter and Mark, and the church (on an ancient site) of S. Demetrius. From an archway near the next gate comes the splendid Nike now in the museum. The walls here are now some way from the Golden Horn, generally at the opposite side of the narrow street, and can be seen only in fragments, sometimes set into a house, or in a garden. Balat Kapoussi, gate of the Kynegos (Hunter), protected a harbour: the name is thought to be connected with the imperial hunting. The other gates going eastwards that are of interest are the Porta Phani, the gate of Phanar, where was once a lighthouse, now the nearest entrance to the patriarchal church and to the little church of the Mouchliotissa; Petri Kapoussi, the gate of the Petrion, near the famous convent where so many imperial ladies ended their days, and where the Venetians cast their bridges on to the walls in 1203, recovering the city for Isaac Angelus, and in 1204, capturing it for the Latins. The desperate Turkish attack on this point in 1453 was repulsed; Aya Kapoussi, the gate of S. Theodosia, comes next. After the inner bridge are the old Venetian quarter and the great timber yards. By the outer bridge is the Baluk Bazar Kapoussi, the gate of the fish market, where now as in the fifteenth century the fish market is held. It was the Gate of the Perama (the old ferry was across here, where is now the bridge) and it was also called Porta Hebraica, for the Jews early settled there, and held their property till they were dispossessed to build the Yeni Valideh Djamissi. Beyond it were the settlements of the merchants of Pisa and Amalfi. Beyond it again is the Bagtché Kapoussi, the Π?ρτα το? Νεωρ?ου, the harbour in which the imperial fleet was moored when it came in for repairs. From here eastwards was the home of the first Genoese colony, and by it is the pier at which a new Grand Vizier lands in state when he first comes to take possession of the office of his department. Further still (after the Porta Veteris Rectoris) is the Yali Kiosk Kapoussi, at the point where the walls which now separate the Seraglio from the rest of the city join the ancient fortifications. It was the Porta Eugenii, and from it the chain was stretched across to Galata. Here the brides of the Emperors landed when they came by sea, and were "invested with the imperial buskins and other insignia of their rank."

From this point there is difficulty for the student to trace the course of the walls. Part can be identified at the beginning of the Seraglio enclosure; but part cannot be seen at all except from the sea. Approach is forbidden by the harsh "Yasak, Yasak" of the sentries. The walls from the Acropolis, now Seraglio point, to the marble tower at the end of the Land walls, had 188 towers, and were above five miles in length. Unlike those on the Golden Horn they were built close to the sea, and the line of their course "was extremely irregular, turning in and out with every bend of the shore, to present always as short and sharp a front as possible to the waves that dashed against them." At least thirteen gates are known. The first is the Cannon gate, Top Kapoussi, "a short distance to the south of the apex of the promontory," called by the Greeks the gate of S. Barbara, from the church which stood near it. Close to it was the Mangana, or arsenal of the city. The next gate is Deirmen Kapoussi (gate of the mill), of which the Greek name is unknown. It was near here that the great ice-floes broke over the wall; and a number of inscriptions westwards from this point mark the restorations of Theophilus. Near it "a hollow now occupied by market gardens indicates the site of the Kynegion, the amphitheatre erected by Severus when he restored Byzantium," where in later times Justinian II. set his feet on Leontius and Apsimarus (see above, p. 55).

The next gate is the Demir Kapoussi, with a small opening through which it is said that the Sultanas sewn in sacks were thrown, and near it large chambers possibly used as prisons. A little further on there are arched buttresses through which water used to be brought from the holy spring of the ancient Church of S. Saviour, and on which was built the famous Indjili Kiosk, from which the Sultans would view the splendid panorama of hill and sea which stretches before it. Here, too, was the palace of Mangana, and not far off the atrium of Justinian mentioned by Procopius, where stood the splendid statue of Theodora. Further south was the Church of the Theotokos Hodegetria, where originally the icon of the B. V. M. attributed to S. Luke (see p. 263) was kept. The place of the small gate named after the church is shown by two slabs, built into the inner side of the gateway now walled up, bearing the inscription "Open me the gates of righteousness that I may go in and praise the Lord." It was through this gate that John VI. Pal?ologus entered in 1355, having tricked the guards by pretending that his ships were wrecked. Beyond Ahour Kapoussi is the ruined wall of the palace of Hormisdas, where once was the Bucoleon, and then comes the small bay which formed the imperial port of the Bucoleon. A little further one sees clearly the Church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus above the ruined wall, and here was the gate on which was an inscription which commemorated the famous Nika insurrection. Beyond this were two harbours, the Harbour of Julian or S. Sophia, and that of the Kontoscolion, where the gate is now called Koum Kapoussi. Within this is the Armenian quarter with its patriarchate. Next comes Yeni Kapoussi, the new gate, where began the ancient harbour now silted up, called the harbour of Eleutherius (Vlanga Bostan).

The next gate was called that of S. ?milianus, now Daoud Pasha Kapoussi, which ended the walls of Constantine along the shore. The next is the π?ρτα το? Ψαμαθ?, Psamathia Kapoussi, named, as is the quarter, after the sand thrown up on the beach. The next, Narli Kapoussi, the Pomegranate gate, is that which gave admission to the monastery of the Studium. Here on the Decollation of S. John Baptist, August 29, the Emperor was received by the abbat and conducted in state to the church to attend the Eucharist of the day. On the tower close by is an inscription recording its reparation by Manuel Comnenus. Beyond was the church and monastery of Diomed, on whose steps Basil the Macedonian slept when he first came to Constantinople a homeless wanderer. The wall ends with the famous Mermer Kuleh. Perhaps this was at one time the prison of S. Diomed, where Pope Martin I. was placed in 654, and Maria Comnena, mother of Alexius II., was imprisoned by Andronicus Comnenus. Traces of a two-storeyed building still exist behind this magnificent tower which so splendidly ends the sea-walls.

THE MARBLE TOWER AT S.W. CORNER OF THE WALLS

so we turn northwards and enter upon the famous defences, so long the bulwarks of the Empire.

Something has already been said about the building of the Theodosian walls. It has been seen that Anthemius who ruled as Pr?torian prefect during the minority of the Emperor Theodosius II. enlarged and refortified the city, and that "the bounds he assigned to the city, fixed substantially her permanent dimensions, and behind the bulwarks he raised-improved and often repaired, indeed, by his successors-Constantinople acted her great part in the history of the world." Repaired by Constantine, then holding the office that had been held by Anthemius, thirty-four years after the first construction, "this was a wall, indeed, τ? κα? τε?χο? ?ντω?[62]-a wall which, so long as ordinary courage survived, and the modes of ancient warfare were not superseded, made Constantinople impregnable, and behind which civilization defied the assaults of barbarism for a thousand years."

The walls stretch now from the marble tower to a short distance beyond the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus. Originally they went further, but, as will be seen, they were superseded by newer fortifications beyond that point.

The walls, as may be traced to-day, were thus divided. First, within was the great inner wall from 13? to 15? feet thick, which historians call τ? κ?στρον τ? μ?γα, τ? μ?γα τε?χο?. It rose probably about 50 feet above the ground, with a battlement of 4 feet 8 inches. It was guarded by ninety-six towers, standing about 180 feet apart, about 60 feet high, and projecting from the wall from 18 to 34 feet. These towers were distinct buildings from the wall, though connected with it. The capture of a tower would not necessarily involve the capture of the wall. From the roof of the tower the engineer discharged stones and Greek fire, and there, says Nicephorus Gregoras, the sentinels looked westward day and night, keeping themselves awake at night by shouting to one another along the line.

Between the inner and outer walls was the inner terrace, ? περ?βολο?, in which were sheltered the troops for the defence of the outer walls. It was a space of from 50 to 64 feet. Above it rising now 10 feet, but probably of old nearly twice as far, was the outer wall, the "little wall." It is "from 2 to 6? feet thick, rising some 10 feet above the present level of the peribolos, and about 27? feet above the present level of the terrace between the outer wall and the moat."[63] The upper part is built above a lower solid portion, "for the most part in arches, faced on the outer side with hewn blocks of stone," and supported behind by arches which carried a parapet-wall. This wall was also protected by towers with small windows. Behind this outer wall the troops on which fell the brunt of the fighting, as in 1422 and 1453, were sheltered.

Beyond the outer wall was an embankment or terrace, τ? ?ξω παρατε?χιον, some 60 feet broad. Then came the moat, of at least the same breadth as the terrace. This is now to a great extent filled up and used for market gardens, but in front of the Golden Gate it is still 22 feet deep. It had scarp and counter-scarp, each 5 feet thick, and the scarp was surmounted by a breast-work with battlements 5 feet high. Across the moat are walls, which were probably aqueducts. It seems probable that the moat itself was rarely if ever filled with water.

To the gates which went through both walls belongs the greatest historic interest. Some of the ten great gates were merely used to give entrance to the fortifications; others, connected with bridges thrown over the moat, formed the public gates of the city. These latter were specially guarded by towers. Besides these there were a few posterns, most of which led only into the inner terrace. Starting from the marble tower we come across a series of inscriptions, one of Basil and Constantine (975-1025), over the first inner tower, and after that a number commemorating the restoration by John Pal?ologus, 1433-44. The first gate is the most renowned of all, the Porta Aurea, the Golden Gate, built of marble with two beautifully carved capitals. It is flanked by two great marble towers. It was built between 389 and 391 to commemorate the victory of Theodosius the Great over Maximus. Through it he entered in triumph in 391, and like the column of Arcadius and the obelisk in the Hippodrome, it is the still surviving memorial of his greatness. Above it at one time stood a statue of Theodosius, and many groups of statuary. An inscription recorded its foundation:

HAEC LOCA THEVDOSIVS DECORAT POST FATA TYRANNI.

AVREA SAECLA GERIT QVI PORTAM CONSTRVIT AVRO.

Probably, as Professor Bury has suggested, the second line was inscribed under Theodosius II. when the archway became part of the new wall. "At the south-western angle of the northern tower the Roman eagle still spreads its wings; the laureated monogram 'XP' appears above the central archway on the city side of the gateway, and several crosses are scattered over the building." Traces of frescoes may still be seen on the inner walls of the southern arch, which Professor Van Millingen thinks may have been used as a chapel. It had three archways, the centre of which was the imperial entrance. Through this gate passed new sovereigns from the Hebdomon (which Professor Van Millingen has conclusively proved to have been situated at the village, now Makrikeui, some three miles westwards of the city) when they came to be crowned or to take formal possession. Such were Marcian in 450, Leo I. in 457, Basiliscus in 476, Phocas in 602, Leo the Armenian in 813, and Nicephorus Phocas in 963. Here too envoys from the Pope were sometimes met.

WALLS NEAR THE GOLDEN GATE: ROMAN ROAD IN FOREGROUND

Through it came the imperial triumphs of Heraclius, Constantine Copronymus, Theophilus, Basil I., Tzimisces, Basil II. The last to enter in triumph was Michael Pal?ologus when the Empire was restored to the Greeks in 1261, and the Emperor walked humbly on foot through the gate till he reached the church of the Studium.

It was long one of the strongest defences of the city, an almost impregnable acropolis, as Cantacuzene calls it. When the city was captured by the Turks, Mohammed II. increased the defences by building here, in 1457, behind the gate, the great enclosure now called the Seven Towers, which became the state prison. In it foreign ambassadors were placed when their countries were at war with Turkey, and there as late as the war with Revolutionary France a French ambassador was confined. Mohammed II. built up all the entrances of the Golden Gate; and the legend still survives that through it a victorious Christian army shall enter when the city is captured from the Turks.

The gate nearest to it, now called Yedi Koulé Kapoussi, may probably have existed in Byzantine times, as a public gate called by the same name as the greater gate. Through it doubtless Basil the Macedonian came when he turned aside and lay down to sleep on the steps of the monastery of S. Diomed.

Next to this as we walk northwards comes the second military gate, and, after walls which have several inscriptions, the second public gate, the Selivri Kapoussi (gate leading to the Selivria road). This was originally the π?λη τ?? πηγ??, gate of the Holy Spring, which is at the village now called Balukli. After we have looked on it, with its old towers and dark narrow entrance through which Alexius the general of Michael Pal?ologus entered in 1261, it is delightful to turn aside and follow the shady road half a mile to the little Christian village, best of all if it is en fête in the week of the Greek Easter, when you can buy icons and sacred medals, and join the crowds who throng the church and descend the steps by the baptistery to the sacred well. The legend of its sacredness goes far back. As early as Justinian's time there was a church there, as Procopius says, "in the place which is called the Fountain, where there is a thick grove of cypress trees, a meadow whose rich earth blooms with flowers, a garden abounding with fruit, a fountain which noiselessly pours forth a quiet and sweet stream of water-in short, where all the surroundings befit a sacred place." There was also for many centuries a palace and park of the Emperors. The last tale of the sacred well belongs to the time of the Turkish conquest. On the fatal 29th of May the village priest was sitting in his garden beside the well frying his fish, when a messenger rushed up with the news that the Turks had broken through the wall and were entering the city. The holy man refused to believe it. "But run to the top of your garden," said his friend, "and see for yourself." "No. I would as soon believe that these fish should leap out of the frying-pan into the spring." And they did; and there are their descendants, as any one may see for himself, to this day.

Back, after a pleasant rest at Balukli, to the third military gate, only a short space from that of the π?γη; then to the Porta Rhegion, the gate of Rhegium Yeni Mevlevi Haneh Kapoussi, which led to Rhegium on the Marmora twelve miles away. On it are no less than five inscriptions on the gateway itself, and two on the southern tower. Of the latter, one reads-

+ ΝΙΚΑ Η ΤΥΧΗ

ΚωΝ?ΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟ

ΦΥΛΑΚΤΟΥ ΗΜωΝ ΔΕ?ΠΟΤΟΥ

+ +

"The fortune of Constantine our God-protected Emperor conquers."

The last line has been effaced.

After the fourth military gate comes the gate of S. Romanus, now Top Kapoussi, near which the last Emperor fell, and through which Mohammed entered in triumph. Opposite this point the Sultan's tent was placed, as Phrantzes tells us.

The next military gate is that of the Pempton. To this the road descends into the valley of the Lycus, and we pass the great breach made by the Turkish cannon in 1453, through which the troops forced their entrance. In the Lycus valley it was that Theodosius II. fell from his horse in 450, an accident from the effects of which he died. The next public gate is that called Edirnè Kapoussi, the Adrianople gate, which was of old the gate of Charisius. Within, the road led to the Imperial cemetery by the Church of the Holy Apostles, where Theodora, the wife of the great Justinian, was buried. Here was the part of the walls which was called Μεσοτε?χον: and here was generally the chief point of attack against the city. "Here stood the gates opening upon the streets which commanded the hills of the city; here was the weakest part of the fortifications, the channel of the Lycus rendering a deep moat impossible, while the dip in the line of the walls as they descended and ascended the slopes of the valley put the defenders below the level occupied by the besiegers."

This was shown in the very first siege, 626, as well as in the last; and it was here that the first cannonade was directed against the walls, in 1422. In the last siege two towers of the inner wall and a large part of the outer wall were battered to pieces, and the moat was filled ready for an assault. Giustiniani erected a palisade covered with hides and supported with earthworks; and it was not till the gallant Genoese fell mortally wounded that the Turks succeeded in forcing their way in.

It is through the Edirnè Kapoussi that one naturally enters to see both the Church of the Chora and the Tekfour Serai, the palace of the Porphyrogenitus. The large mosque within the gate is that built by Suleiman in memory of one of his daughters.

Continuing northwards, with the striking view of the ruined palace rising above the walls, we reach the sixth military gate, and beyond this the lines of the walls, which have turned eastwards, are much broken. The sixth military gate is the Kerko-Porta (see above p. 150).

Beyond this the wall of Theodosius comes to an end abruptly. From this point the fortifications have a different character. "Along the greater portion of their course these bulwarks consisted of a single wall, without a moat; but at a short distance from the water, where they stand on level ground, they formed a double wall, which was at one time protected by a moat and constituted a citadel at the north-west angle of the city." They belong, Professor van Millingen has also clearly proved, to at least three periods, to the days of Heraclius, of Leo, and of Manuel Comnenus. After the Kerko-Porta the Theodosian walls turned eastwards; when the palace of Blachernae was defended it was probably by the erection, after the fifth century, of a new wall. The wall of Manuel Comnenus, built to give additional protection, left the earlier wall on an inner line of defence.

The wall of Manuel is stronger than that of Theodosius, but it has no moat; it resisted all the efforts of the Turkish artillery in 1453. The public gate in it was that of the Kaligaria (the district where military shoes were made), and from a tower beside it the last Emperor and Phrantzes reconnoitred early in the morning of the last day of the siege. North of this, from the tower which stands at the point where the wall turns eastwards, the fortifications seem to have been entirely rebuilt during the repairs of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. In this piece stands the gate of Gyrolimnè, through which probably the leaders of the Crusaders in 1203, who were encamped on the hill just outside, entered to negotiate with Isaac Angelus. Behind it stood the palace of Blachernae, the site of which may be expected to reveal much when it is excavated.

Beyond this, from the great tower, unbattlemented, which has on it an inscription in honour of Isaac Angelus, who reconstructed it in 1188, the greatest difficulties surround the identification of the different portions. The first part of the wall is of great height-sometimes sixty-eight feet-and of thickness varying from over thirty to over sixty feet. Three towers protect this part: two "twin towers" rising to a great height above the walls. The special character of the walls is determined by the fact that, within, the palace of Blachernae stood upon a terraced hill. The second tower, much higher than that with the inscription, may be identified with the tower of Isaac Angelus, described by Nicetas Choniates as built by the Emperor both for the defence of Blachernae, and for a residence for himself. Beyond it is a third tower, which has been generally considered to be the tower of Anemas, mentioned first by Anna Comnena, as the place in which Anemas, who had conspired against her father, was confined.

All these identifications are difficult; and it is also difficult to feel sure that a more satisfactory solution of the many problems which arise would not be to consider that the tower of Isaac Angelus is the comparatively small one that still bears his inscription, and that the two others, and northern tower, combine to form the "prison of Anemas."

Within these towers was certainly the Palace of Blachernae, and the chambers now so grim and foul, that may sometimes be inspected, are very likely the prisons built by Alexius Comnenus and connected with his palace.

Beyond these towers a new series of walls begins. These are "in two parallel lines, connected by transverse walls, so as to form a citadel beside the Golden Horn. The inner wall belongs to the reign of Heraclius; the outer is an erection of Leo V. the Armenian." A splendid view of these magnificent walls, and of the Golden Horn below, is obtained from the hill westwards, on which the Crusaders encamped in 1203. The wall of Heraclius, with its three hexagonal towers, was built to protect the suburb of Blachernae after the attack of the Avars in 627: that of Leo was built in 813 when the city was in danger from the Bulgarians. A citadel was formed between the two walls, within which was the chapel and sacred well of S. Nicholas. The gate is the gate of Blachernae, and beyond it is a tower with an inscription stating that it was reconstructed by "Romanus, the Christ-loving sovereign." From this point a wall led to the water's-edge, and in it was the Wooden Gate (Ξυλ?πορτα, see above, p. 273).

We have thus completed the circuit of the most interesting medi?val defences in Europe. At every point they have memories that go back to great historic days, memories of treachery as well as heroism, but above all of a long and gallant defence of all that made the civilization of Europe enduring and worthy to endure.

To-day as one goes along the great triumphal way, still retaining fragments at least of its solid pavement that was laid by Justinian, the way along which countless armies of emperors and of invaders have passed on their march of triumph or retreat, we are reminded of the past not only by shattered walls, and by the goats that feed and scramble where once the soldiers of the empire kept watch, but by the immemorial cemetery, with its groups of cypress, which stands beside us as we walk.

It is a perpetual memorial of the vanity of human power. There, where thousands of Turks are now laid to rest, where the stones gape above the coffins placed a few feet below, and the strange lozenge-shapes with their gaudy inscriptions lean and totter on every side; there once crusading armies camped to sack a Christian city; and there the soldiers of Mohammed mustered for the last fight which was to give them the crown of their centuries of war. Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Goths, men of Italy and Russia and Greece, all have passed; and the men who have conquered where they fought and failed lie buried where once they camped. On one side of the great imperial way stretches this vast gloomy silent graveyard; on the other stand is the shattered wall.

In that long, broken, deserted wall the history of the great city seems summed up. "Débris colossal du passé, elle nous diminue et nous écrase, nous et nos existences courtes, et nos souffrances d'une heure, et tout le rien instable que nous sommes."

CHAPTER V

The Mosques, Türbehs and Fountains

The mosques of Constantinople, as has already been shown, are very largely buildings which had been churches in past days. The inspiration felt so overpoweringly in the Church of the Divine Wisdom still abides in the buildings erected by the Emperors of past days. More open and evident still is the fact that the architects of the mosques, built for Mohammedan worship since the Turks have ruled in the city of the C?sars, have done little more than copy the people whom they have conquered. In most of the great mosques of Stamb?l, S. Sophia is simply and directly imitated. In others the leading idea is developed with a variation or two. Of genuine originality the Turkish architects have shown not a trace.

"MOHAMMED, THE APOSTLE OF GOD." EMBROIDERY FROM CURTAIN OVER THE DOOR OF S. SOPHIA.

The innumerable mosques of Constantinople are of two kinds, those founded by members of the reigning dynasty, and those built by humbler persons. Most of the mosques have a court with a fountain in the midst. Many have houses, round kitchens, schools for children and for students of the Koran, hospitals, and the dwelling of the imam. Nearly all have türbehs, tombs of the royal family and of persons of great distinction. All have of course the minaret, which to the traveller is the most characteristic feature of the vast city. The ordinary mosques have but one minaret, from which five times a day the voice of the muezzin calls the faithful to pray. The royal mosques have more than one minaret, S. Sophia and the mosque of Suleiman have four, the mosque of Ahmed has six.

The first and most sacred of the mosques is that of Ey?b, with the türbeh of that great warrior by its side. It is the one mosque which no Christian may enter or even approach. On the accession of each new sultan he "must be girded with the sabre of the great Osman by the hands of the general of the Mevlevi Dervishes, who comes across Asia Minor from distant Konieh for the proud purpose. Only two Sultans since Mohammed II. have omitted the ceremonial, or have performed it elsewhere, and the reign of each was brief and calamitous."

Both mosque and türbeh, the most sacred buildings in all Stamb?l to the Moslem, are kept, it is said, with ceaseless care, and redecorated again and again with increased splendour. Near them is a great street of tombs, where sleep the long line of sheikhs-ul-Islam.

In that crowded suburb, still fanatically Mohammedan, the stranger lingers but few moments. He seeks the characteristic expression of Moslem reverence in the great buildings that crown the hills. In the heat of the afternoon he climbs the hill to where once the great church of the Holy Apostles stood. Lingering on the terrace he looks over the Golden Horn and the vast city, a city of gardens and minarets, stretching as far as the eye can see. As the hour for prayer draws near, men pour from every street, across through the market, or by the open arid space that extends westwards till the narrow streets close round, stretching down to the harbour. Hundreds and hundreds they seem, of all ages, in every kind of attire, of every race, some light-haired and fresh-coloured, as of more than half European blood; some, negroes from Africa, but all males and all Moslems. They enter the great mosque; the Christian must stand back, even from the court; a few minutes and the stream pours out again and leaves but a few pious lingerers still at their prayers or some children sitting before their teacher and reciting to him the Koran.

It is the great mosque of Mohammed II., built in 1463-69 for the Conqueror by a Greek Christian, Christodoulos. It covers a great extent of ground, with its schools, its türbehs, and its great court. The court is cloistered, and it has eighteen splendid columns, which came, there can be little doubt, from the Church of the Apostles. Six are of red granite, twelve of verde antico; the simple carving of the capitals belongs to a period when Byzantine art was at its best. In the midst of the court is a fountain shaded by cypresses. It is almost always deserted, save for a few children here and there at play.

MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN FROM THE GOLDEN HORN

We enter the mosque itself by the great door at the south. Its size is its most impressive feature. The decoration is simple; great black arabesques on a white ground: dignified, but, in the full sunlight which pours through the great windows, too dazzling. At the right above the entrance is the blue tablet on which is inscribed that traditional prophecy of the prophet: "They shall conquer Constantinople; happy the prince, happy the army, which shall achieve the conquest."

Outside, to the East, is the plain octagon in which is laid, alone, the Conqueror Mohammed. The great turban hangs over the head, a heavy velvet pall over the chest which contains the coffin. Two big brass candlesticks, a Koran copied by the hand of the Conqueror himself, in a reliquary a tooth of the prophet: that is all the türbeh contains. But the simplicity is, for this generation at least, spoilt by the "thorough restoration" the whole has received, and its brightness of new paint. Mohammed, of all the sultans, remains alone in his glory. There are other türbehs round his, his mother, his wife, the wife of Abdul Hamid I., who is said to have been a Creole from Martinique, and the schoolfellow of the Empress Josephine-she was the mother of Mahm?d II.-these and others throng the enclosure. But the memory of Mohammed is still unchallenged among all his successors, and still pilgrims, hour by hour, stand on the broad marble step and look reverently within on his last resting-place.

If Mohammed's mosque has the greatest historic interest, by far the most splendid of all in Stamb?l is the great Suleimaniyeh, the mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent. It crowns the third hill as Mohammed's crowns the fourth. It was built by Sinan; but it would seem that he was throughout ordered to copy S. Sophia. Justinian, when he entered his great church, had said, "Solomon, I have surpassed thee": Suleiman was determined that he would surpass the Christian Emperor.

His mosque owes not only its design but its details to Christian sources. Much of the marble, and most notably the great marble pillars, came from the Church of S. Euphemia at Chalcedon.

Westwards is the large fore-court, surrounded by cloisters, covered by twenty-four small domes. It is much larger than most of the mosque-courts. In the midst is a fountain, with a dome above. There are four minarets at the corners of the cloisters. The mosque itself, like S. Sophia, is nearly square-225 by 205 feet. The central dome rests on four piers, and four great shafts support the side arches of the dome. The great dome is not so large as that of S. Sophia; but the effect from the outside is far more beautiful owing to the skilful grouping of the masses of smaller domes, with the four minarets rising from among the trees. Architects have praised the exquisite adjustment of all the parts of the building; and, indeed, its combination of grace with vastness is apparent to the dullest eye. But its general effect is spoilt, like that of all the greater mosques, by paint. The colour confuses; the four tints are a meaningless disturbance; the eye finds it hard to distinguish the real splendour of marble, in mihrab, minber, and the Sultan's chamber. The brightness of the windows, fine though the glass is, distracts. Most of all the endless wires and cords stretched across and from above prevent any clear view of the whole. But, none the less, it is a splendid building, very solemn and noble, expressive of the best that Islam can give, in its consecration of strength and riches to the highest ends.

Outside are the two splendid türbehs of the most dramatic figures in Turkish history since the Conquest. Suleiman himself lies in a beautiful domed octagon, the walls covered with intricate arabesques, the roof, especially, beautiful in brown. A blue inscription on the white tiles that run round the walls is in exquisite taste. At the head of his catafalque is Suleiman's white turban with double tufts of heron's feathers. Over it are splendid and elaborate shawls, which he once wore.

The same türbeh contains the tombs of Suleiman II. and Ahmed II. But a stone's throw from it is the beautiful tomb of Roxelana, in which a Western poet of our time has found inspiration.

Where rarely sunbeam of the morn,

Or ev'ning moonbeam ever stray'd,

Above the ground she trod in scorn,

Here, draped in samite and brocade,

Behold the great Sultana laid,

Of all her fleeting greatness shorn!

The walls are covered with exquisite blue tiles, with beautiful designs of almond and tulip. Happily this türbeh has not been restored as have so many of them. It remains a gem of the best Moslem art. The group of buildings seen as one descends from the hill on which the Seraskierat stands, or from the tower, has a charming effect. The cypresses mingling with the domes and minarets make the most peaceful scene that Stamb?l can show. In the city of trees and gardens, of domes and minarets, this seems the picture typical of the whole as the Moslems have made it. Here is, one feels, the true poetic East, the home of the poets we have read. We might be in the Arabian Nights,

Whilst there o'er mosque and minaret

That rise against the sunset glow,

broods the great calm of a nation of fatalists. It is not the "purple East" we see, but the soft, somnolent, sensuous splendour of a great repose, or may be a great decay.

Third of the great mosques I should place that of Ahmed, which, with its large enclosures, encroaches on the old Hippodrome. It may well be considered the most truly oriental of them all. "The masterpiece of Asiatic art" some call it, the highest achievement of Mussulman architecture. Something it owes to its position, fronted by the long, broad, open space; something, certainly, to those who know, to its historic associations. But undoubtedly in its general plan and in the detail of its decoration it is more clearly than the others a work of the genius of the East.

COURT OF THE MOSQUE OF AHMED I.

AN ENTRANCE TO THE MOSQUE OF AHMED

It covers a vast space. The great court which surrounds it seems constantly to be filled with a great market. It is in the heart of life: crowds are constantly passing through, pilgrims from S. Sophia, travellers who have turned in from the Hippodrome. The air of the buyers and sellers is more dilettante than that of the serious folk who make their homely purchases among the stalls outside the great mosque of Mohammed II. This seems an oriental scene decked out for your amusement. But the place has a long and tragic history. Part of the area covered by the buildings of the mosque was once occupied by the great palace of the Emperors; part was the Hippodrome; here too, probably, was the August?um. It was not for more than a hundred years after the conquest that the Turks built upon this site. Then (1608-14) Ahmed I. determined to raise a memorial of his piety finer than any of his predecessors had achieved, and if it might be, by a propitiatory offering, to stay the decline which had already begun to fall upon the Empire. He worked himself at the building, it is said, and paid the workmen with his own hands. The fore-court has a beautiful fountain. The interior of the mosque itself is larger than the Suleimaniyeh. Its fault is sameness. Fergusson, whose judgment is not always to be quoted, may here speak without contradiction. "If the plan were divided into quarters, each of the four quarters would be found to be identical, and the effect is consequently painfully mechanical and prosaic. The design of each wall is also nearly the same; they have the same number of windows spaced in the same manner, and the side of the Kibleh[64] is scarcely more richly decorated than the others." The prevailing blue of the whole becomes oppressive. There are some exquisite tiles; but the effect of the whole mosque is spoilt, like that of Suleiman, by the paint. Yet with all its defects the size makes the mosque magnificent. "A hall nearly two hundred feet square, with a stone roof supported by only four great fluted piers, is a grand and imposing object." Fergusson's judgment must be accepted.

At the same time there are many points that no one who has seen them will ever forget. One is the view as you stand under the great columns of the arched court and look up at the almost innumerable domes, rising dome upon dome to the great central cupola that dominates them all, the one minaret that you see breaking the monotonous gradation of the domes by its sheer, sharp ascent into the sky. Another is the colossal strength of the four great piers from which spring the arches of the central cupola, immense in their solidity, yet hardly so clumsy as you think at first when you gaze from under them at the more graceful pillars of the outer arcade.

Of details that repay attention, the chief door into the mosque, typically eastern, stands out. The six minarets, seen from far, are the most graceful of all in the city. Ahmed in building six encroached on the unique dignity of Mecca. The sherif protested, and the Sultan added a seventh to the sacred shrine. His own mosque remains the only one with six.

Within, the later history of the Turks invests the scene with a new interest. It was from the splendid marble pulpit that the fetva decreeing the abolition of the Janissaries was read, while Mahm?d stood in his box. It was round the mosque that much of the fiercest fighting took place that day. Bodies were heaped up before the gate of the court, and from the great sycamore, still standing, and called "the tree of groans," hung corpses "like the black fruit of a tree in hell."

These three are the most splendid of the mosques. Next to them ranks the mosque of Bayezid II. It was built between 1489 and 1497, and the architect was the son of Christodoulos, who built the mosque named after the Conqueror, Bayezid's father. The two sons designed to surpass their father. It cannot be said that they succeeded. The mosque itself has little interest. The fountain in the court does not equal those of Ahmed and Suleiman. But the place will always be visited for the name, which the travellers give it, of the Pigeons' Mosque. A poor widow, says the legend, offered a pair of pigeons to Bayezid for the mosque. These hundreds are their offspring, and they have always been held sacred. They fly about, settle everywhere on the roofs, walk over the floor, and surround in an instant everyone who takes up a handful of grain. They divide the honours of the court with the sellers of trivial ornaments, and the professional letter-writers, whom one may spend a merry half hour in watching, as they formally express the feelings which the lover, or the applicant for a post under government, is rightly supposed to possess, and is anxious to have set forth for him.

The mosque of Bayezid owes something of its attraction to its position, looking on two sides upon a wide open space, with the wall and gate of the Seraskierat only a few yards away. To the east is the great garden, which contains the türbeh of Bayezid himself, with a catafalque thirteen feet long.

Of the hundreds of mosques, each with its own characteristic design or adornment or history, stand out for a word of admiration, those of the Shahzadeh, of Selim I., of the Yeni Valideh, and that called the Tulip Mosque.

The mosque of the Shahzadeh, built like that of Suleiman, by the Moslem architect Sinan, was erected by the Sultan and Roxelana, between 1543 and 1547, to commemorate their eldest son, whose türbeh stands beside it, decorated with the most exquisite Persian tiles. The mosque is on the great central street that runs through Stamb?l. Four semi-domes culminate in a great central dome, and four great octagonal pillars support it. It is one of the most beautiful of the Ottoman mosques. It may be added that the mosque which the sorrowing parents built to their youngest son Djanghir (see above p. 170), at Galata, above Top-haneh, was burnt in 1764, and as it now stands is the result of "restoration" by the present Sultan. It is the most prominent object on the shore as one draws near to landing at the Galata bridge.

On the fifth hill, and perhaps the most prominent object in the view from the hill of Pera, above the petit champ des morts, is the mosque of Selim I. The style is simple, one vast dome resting on a drum lighted by many windows, and supported by flying buttresses.

The Tulip Mosque, Laleli Djami, stands in a prominent position in a crowded street, the Koska Sokaki. It is an example of the more modern style. It was built by Mustapha III. in 1760-63, and shows the Turkish expression of the Strawberry-Hill interest in antiquity. It contains columns from the palace of Boucoleon and the forum of Theodosius. Beside it is the türbeh of Mustafa III. and of Selim III. Perhaps the most pleasant part of a visit here is to stand on the terrace and look over the houses on to the Sea of Marmora and the distant snow-covered hills.

The last mosque I shall mention is that which the traveller probably first visits. It attracts him as soon as he has crossed the Galata bridge, and most likely turns him aside from his way to S. Sophia. It is the mosque of Yeni Valideh Sultan, the wife of Ahmed I. Begun by her orders in 1615, it was completed by the mother of Mohammed IV. in 1665.

MURAL TILES FROM THE MOSQUE OF VALIDEH

This, of all others, aroused the admiration of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. "The most prodigious, and I think, the most imposing, structure I ever saw," she called it; perhaps because she regarded it as a tribute to her sex. Unhappily, as in most of the other mosques, paint and whitewash have done their disfiguring work; but the beauty of its tiles, most of them blue and white, is perhaps superior to any other collection in the city. The exquisite carving of the doorways, too, enriched with mother-of-pearl, attracts one as one passes through. In no other mosque can the excellence of the minute Turkish work be better studied. The delicacy of the lattice work at the fountain, too, is admirable.

So much may I say of the mosques. But a word more is needed for their inseparable attendants. By the Valideh mosque, begun by one sultan's mother, after whose murder it was completed by her rival, is the great türbeh which contains, in two chambers, a host of princes and princesses, and five sultans-Mohammed IV., deposed in 1687, who died in 1693; Mustafa II., deposed in 1703; Ahmed III., deposed in 1730; Mahm?d I., 1754; and Osman III., 1757. Of these, the last two alone died peaceably in possession of the throne.

One other türbeh besides those I have named claims especial mention. It is that of Mahm?d II., the Reformer, and it stands by itself near the Column of Constantine. It is the most modern in date and style, a domed octagon of white marble lighted by seven windows, an atrocious example of the style which our grandfathers thought rich and dignified. At the right as one enters lies the mother of Mahm?d. In the midst is the Reformer himself, a black pall, elaborately worked, thrown over the catafalque. At the head is, for the first time, the fez, the symbol of the reform, but it has attached, as of old, the great tuft of heron's feathers. At the left is the resting-place of Abdul Aziz, again with a splendid covering, and at the head a simple fez. The last of the dead sultans-for Murad cannot be counted-who entered as none of his predecessors had done into the social life as well as the politics of European courts, yet was deposed and died a violent death, fitly ends the list. As you stand by his coffin you see the lesson of Turkish history for to-day. Outwardly, save for the fez, all is as with the sultans five centuries ago: and the spirit of Turkish life has not changed, and will not change.

IN A TüRBEH

ENTRANCE TO THE TüRBEH OF SELIM II. AT S. SOPHIA

Its worst expression is recalled in the blood and luxury which are linked with the names of these two sultans. Its best is attached to the one other architectural feature of the city which I must mention in this place. One of the most beautiful and most characteristic sights that strikes the western traveller as he wanders through Stamb?l is the fountain outside every mosque and at almost every street corner. Hundreds of them are worth lingering over. Here I will only mention one. Outside the Bab-i-Humay?n, the gate upon which the heads of so many disgraced officials have been placed, and under the shadow of S. Sophia, is the most beautiful of all, designed by Ahmed I. himself. White marble it is, with beautiful arabesques and elaborate inscriptions in those graceful elaborations of kaligraphy in which the Turks have always excelled. It is the most elaborate of all the fountains, but the little ones at the street corners, with an arched or domical pent-house above them and some small decorative inscription above the marble founts, have a simple charm of their own.

As one turns away from the Turkish buildings and tries to sum up the impressions which the architecture represented by the mosques of Constantinople leaves on the student of other styles, there are criticisms which are natural and inevitable. How little variety, we say; how tiresome, this similarity of design! The Turks indeed have felt it themselves, but they have been unable to set themselves free. For indeed the lack is the hopeless one, the sheer absence of originality, in every feature. We may call one mosque more eastern than another, but it would puzzle us to find a single feature in any of them, except the Mihrab, which is not ultimately Christian. The feeling, it is true, differs; but that will be felt, by Westerns at least, to be a conspicuous defect. There is no sense of the mystery that lies behind all life, the solemn awe in which alone man may fitly draw nigh to God. All is clear, complete, satisfied, protestant of its completeness and satisfaction. Is there anything, one feels, beyond man and this world? Certainly here there is nothing to raise thought to heaven, to help to pierce behind the veil. Is it fanciful to say that something of this it is that makes the difference between the windows of a Christian church and those of a mosque? The mosques have windows of the plainest, ugliest, most staring. Can anything be more pitiable than the windows of Ahmed's, the characteristic Turkish mosque? No tracery, no stained glass, nothing that uplifts or separates from the outer world.

Yet to all this there must be a corresponding gain. From this absorption in the things of the present, this satisfaction with the work of men's hands, comes often a real perfection of detail. How often the fore-court is an admirable piece of building, worth examination and imitation at every point! Yet even here there is the exception that detracts from the merit of all Southern "pointed" work: the arches will not remain firm of themselves, they must needs be tied together with cross beams. How sordid and untidy this looks one sees in a moment as one stands in the court of the Valideh mosque. But the detail, we must insist, is often good, the niches notably so in the "stalactite pattern," which also appears in the capitals of late date of sixteenth and seventeenth century building, as in the courts of Ahmed and Valideh. Yet when all this is said, the chief glory of the mosques, the best and most original feature of the Moslem art as we see it in Constantinople, is the exquisite tile-work everywhere and of every date. It brings us back again, as we end this chapter, to the magnificent Sultan and his proud wife. The choicest art surrounds the tomb of the Circassian, and there

The walls that shut thee from the sun,

The potter's art made bright with blue,

Where leaf and tendril overrun

The Persian porcelain's ivory hue,

And blazon'd letters, twisting thro'

Proclaim there is no God but One.

EMBROIDERY FROM CURTAIN OVER ENTRANCE TO S. SOPHIA

CHAPTER VI

The Palaces

No features in the Sultan's city are more prominent than the cloud-capped towers and the gorgeous palaces. The two towers of Galata and of the Seraskerat have a very practical meaning. Perpetual watch is kept in them, and warning sent when the fires which have so often devastated both Pera and Stamb?l are seen to have begun. The great tower of the Seraskerat, built by Mohammed II., standing in the large open space in front of the War Office, gives the best detailed view of Stamb?l, and one sees how truly it is not only a city of gardens but a thoroughly Oriental city. The bazaars, the khans, the mosques, and here and there an old Byzantine house can be clearly distinguished; and the seven hills, so puzzling to the traveller on foot, stand out plainly in the forest of building.

The tower of Galata dates back, in foundation at least, to the fifth century; and when the Genoese made their settlement in the suburb it became their chief fortress. It was rebuilt and increased in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The roof has been often burnt, and the present arrangement of four circular chambers, diminishing as they ascend, is that of Abdul Mejid. Seen from the street below the Petit Champ des Morts, it is picturesque and imposing. From it is the splendid view over the whole city and far into Asia and the range of Olympus.

Between these towers, so plain and practical, and the luxurious palaces of the Sultans, the public offices form a convenient link. Some are modern of the modern, comfortable, and even comparatively clean, like the great building of the Ottoman Debt, on the finest site in Stamb?l, with magnificent views of the city and the harbour. Some, like the Sublime Porte, have a certain leisurely dignity, as of the eighteenth century in Italy, but tawdry and decaying. Some, like the Ef-kaf-the ministry of religious foundations, close to S. Sophia-are mere collections of rooms, half ruined, the abode of countless officials and petitioners, of squalor and dirt.

TOWER OF GALATA FROM BRIDGE

How long will it be before the group of buildings now called the Old Seraglio follow in the same way? Already the outer court, with the tree of the Janissaries, and the Church of S. Irene, bear a desolate unkempt appearance, such as one soon learns to associate with everything that belongs to Turkish officialdom. There are few spots in Europe that have a longer or more tragic history. This once was the Akropolis of Byzantium. When first the Turks took the city the Sultan lived in the Eski Sera?, the "old palace," which was on the site now occupied by the Seraskierat. But in 1468 Mohammed began to build here a summer palace, which after much enlargement became under Suleiman I. the chief palace of the Sultans, and was occupied by them till in 1839 Abdul Mejid finally removed to Dolma bagtché.

The outer court can be freely visited; though during the last year entrance has been several times refused to me at the most convenient approach, the Bab-i-Humay?n, a tiresome restriction which is no more than an inconvenience, as one may walk freely through the lower gate. In niches on each side of the Bab-i-Humay?n were often placed the heads of viziers whom the Sultans had sacrificed to their own jealousy or to the demands of the Janissaries. Above is a small square room where Mahm?d waited all day on the fateful 16th of June 1826, for news of the fight raging in the streets against the Janissaries. Above the gate is an inscription placed by Mohammed the Conqueror: "God shall make eternal the glory of its builder. God shall strengthen his work. God shall support his foundations." In the bare space between the outer and inner gates there is nothing to notice except the fateful tree, and the splendid sarcophagi outside S. Irene, which are said to have come from the Church of the Holy Apostles. Thence we go through an avenue up to the Middle Gate, Orta Kapou.

Coming the other way, through the lower gate, Teheshmeh Kapou, we leave the Museum Chinili Kiosk to the left. To the right of the Bab-i-Humay?n is the Gül Kkaneh Kiosk, where Abdul Mejid issued his great hatti sherif in the presence of representatives of all the religions of the empire (see above, p. 219).

Beyond the Orta Kapou no one may pass except by special irardé from the Sultan. This can only be obtained through the Embassy. Of recent years it is rarely refused; but it is usual to make a party, for the expense is large. Some five pounds or so must be given in presents. The visitors are treated as the Sultan's guests, are placed under charge of an imperial aide-de-camp, are refreshed with coffee and roseleaf jam in one of the kiosks, and taken on, usually, to the modern palaces of Dolma bagtché and Beylerbey. The Orta Kapou is strictly guarded. Here one must walk, for only a Sultan may enter on horseback. On the right was the room in which the Christian envoys waited till the Sultan pleased to send out clothes in which alone they might appear before him. As they came forth the Janissaries, ranged in military order, "darted like arrows" at the food placed before them in their kettles, a quaint custom intended to impress the foreigner with the feeling that he was in the power of a still savage people. At the left was the room where Viziers were beheaded.

The court of the divan, now neglected, is the place where the ministers discussed, and the Sultans, when they would, listened from a latticed window. To the right were the vast kitchens. Then comes the Bab-i-s'addet, Gate of Felicity, which leads to what was once the Serai, the royal palace with its harem, which the Italians called Seraglio. It was through this gate that Murad IV. in 1632 walked alone to face the rebels, and hushed them to obedience, and that in 1808 the dead body of Selim III. was thrown out to the Pacha Baraicktar (see p. 201), and that a few days later the corpse of his murderer, Mustafa IV., was carried forth to burial.

Within, we are among a maze of small buildings, without dignity but not altogether without beauty. They represent the caprice of sultan after sultan, and of their ladies. First we see the Arz Odassi, the throne room, built by Suleiman I., where on a large couch, like a great bed, the Sultans reposing on cushions received their ministers and the foreign envoys. Here the first French ambassadors were received by Suleiman, and here in 1568 Elizabeth's envoy sought assistance against Spain. Here again is a lattice behind which the Sultan could sit, if he would assume the state of the unapproachable Oriental.

A CORNER OF THE OLD SERAGLIO

Next we cross a deserted garden, and pass through neglected courts till we reach the library, a single room, built by Mustafa III., with a beautiful bronze door, in which are many unknown MSS. treasures. Next is the Khazna, the treasury, which is opened only by the second in authority of the imperial eunuchs, while a crowd of black-coated and fezzed officials stand on each side. It were idle to enumerate the treasures. The visitor rarely has time properly to examine them. But one cannot fail to note the Persian throne of gold, set with hundreds of precious stones, and the beautiful Turkish divan which belonged to Ahmed I. On the staircase leading to the gallery which contains this last treasure are medallion portraits of the Sultans, interesting enough but perhaps of the same historic value as, though of far superior artistic excellence to, the portraits of the Scots Kings at Holyrood. Of similar interest and closer authenticity are the fine state costumes of the Sultans from Mohammed II. to Mahm?d the Reformer. The robes are exquisite examples of the richest eastern work in brocade and silk, and the weapons are of the finest design. Cases on the walls contain splendid collections of jewels, and some magnificent armour, notably that worn by Murad IV. at the capture of Belgrade in 1638.

There are three buildings within this part of the grounds which no one may approach. The one contains the relics of the prophet. We see the entrance with its massive door and elaborate tiles. We know that inside are the mantle, the sacred standard, the beard and a tooth of the prophet, and an impression in limestone of his foot. Beyond this again is the old harem, now unused. And not far off is the Kafess, the luxurious retreat of dethroned sultans, which has often been mentioned in these pages-the scene perhaps of the worst and vilest crimes of the Ottomans.

It is with kindlier associations that we approach the beautiful kiosk of Bagdad, whose walls, with their beautiful tiles, doors of the finest inlaid work, and carpets of the richest design, place us in an ideal Eastern scene. It is a copy, they say, of a kiosk Murad IV. saw at Bagdad. Pity that it is now only a show. Here or in the Mejidiyeh kiosk looking on the Marmora and up the Golden Horn, comes the refection, and we fancy ourselves again, but for the officials in their to us most inappropriate costume,[65] in the Arabian Nights.

So back again and we drive round at break-neck pace, the driver shouting and cracking his whip all the way, across the Galata Bridge, along that wretched dirty lane called the "grande rue de Galata," past Top-haneh and the modern Valideh Mosque, to the palace of Dolma bagtché. It is the work of Abdul Mejid. It is vast, white, elaborate: it has aroused enthusiasm among personages who might have been expected to know better: it was from this gorgeous abode that Abdul Aziz was hurried across to the old Seraglio at his deposition: some state functions are still performed here. That is really all that one would like to say. The bewildering, dazzling, costly decorations, the pictures that Abdul Aziz so much admired, the mirrors and candelabra, the abundance of everything that is ugly and expensive, represent nothing in the world but a taste which has tried to graft on orientalism the worst ideas of the early Victorian age and the Second Empire.

Of Cheragan, where Abdul Aziz died and perhaps the last Sultan still lingers, I cannot speak. No one is now admitted. Let the enthusiastic de Amicis express, in his account of it, what we feel as we leave Dolma bagtché.

"Nothing of all the splendour remains in my memory except the Sultan's bath, made of whitest marble, sculptured with pendent flowers and stalactites, and decorated with fringes and delicate embroideries that one feared to touch, so fragile did they seem. The disposition of the rooms reminded me vaguely of the Alhambra. Our steps made no sound upon the rich carpets spread everywhere. Now and then an eunuch pulled a cord, and a green curtain rose and displayed the Bosphorus, Asia, a thousand ships, a great light; and then all vanished again, as in a flash of lightning. The rooms seemed endless, and as each door appeared we hastened our steps; but a profound silence reigned in every part, and there was no vestige of any living being, nor rustle of garment save the sound made by the silken door-curtains as they fell behind. At last we were weary of that endless journey from one splendid empty room to another, seeing ourselves reflected in great mirrors, with the black faces of our guides and the group of silent servants, and were thankful to find ourselves again in the free air, in the midst of the ragged, noisy denizens of Tophane."

The present Sultan, as all the world knows, lives in Yildiz Kiosk, a building erected by himself, on the hills above the Bosphorus. He has gradually restricted his public appearances within the narrowest limits possible to a Sultan. Only once a year does he now cross to Stamb?l, to pay, on the 15th of Ramazan, homage to the Prophet's mantle in its chamber in the old Seraglio. Once a week, on Friday, he goes to the mosque he has built just outside his palace grounds. A card from the Embassy admits to a house provided by the Sultan which gives a good view of his ceremonial procession to his official prayers. As a survival, or as the modern expression of the power and obligation of the Khalif, the Commander of the Faithful, it is a sight not to be missed. The massed thousands of splendid troops, as fine a body of men as any soldiers in the world, the pilgrims from the far East, the holy men of the Mohammedan faith, admitted to the best positions and treated with the most profound reverence, the gathering of ladies from the harem in closed carriages surrounded by eunuchs, and of little princes in gay uniforms, at last the coming of the Sultan himself, in the most prosaic of European costumes, surmounted by a fez, with his officials preceding and following his carriage-that is the ceremony to-day which centuries ago foreigners watched rarely and with awe, if not with terror. The times have changed; and the man.

SCUTARI POINT AND LEANDER'S ISLE

CHAPTER VII

Antiquities

Needless to say, the antiquities of Constantinople would take for their description not one but many books. Arch?ologists will read as well as see for themselves. Let me merely call attention to some of the prominent arch?ological remains which no one will wish to miss. They are the living memorials of the great past.

And first the Hippodrome. So much has already been said of it that here I shall only give the barest description of what we see to-day. And first be it noted that the space now open is probably no more than two-fifths of the original Hippodrome. The mosque of Sultan Ahmed encroached on the east; other buildings on the west. The area of the ancient Hippodrome has been estimated at 25,280 square yards. The present space is not more than 216 yards in length and 44 across. Secondly, it must not be forgotten that the present level is about 10 feet above the original pavement. Some indication of this is given by the fact that the bases of the columns, excavated by British officers during the Crimean war, are still considerably below the ground outside the railings.

S. SOPHIA FROM THE HIPPODROME. OBELISK IN THE FOREGROUND

Gyllius gives a long account of the Hippodrome as it was in his day, a century or so after the Turkish Conquest. The Egyptian obelisk, the Colossus, and the serpent column stood then as they stand now; but there then remained also seventeen white pillars at the north-east, the iron rings still fixed to the tops from which awnings were hung. Columns, pillars, benches, remained here and there; but desolation and ruin had already fallen upon the scene. "The Hippodrome," he wrote, "is desolate, stripped of all its ornaments; and they have lately begun to build upon it. At the sight of it I was filled with grief." The Crusaders in 1204 destroyed a vast number of precious works of ancient art which adorned the site: the destruction was completed by the Turks. The famous bronze horses of Lysippus, which stood as ornaments of the imperial seat, were taken to Venice after the Latin Conquest, and stand to-day outside S. Mark's.

We see now only a great open space, thick in dust, from which rise three striking monuments. At the north-east, whence we enter from S. Sophia, is the Egyptian obelisk. This was brought from Heliopolis by Theodosius, and was erected in the position which it has ever since retained. He placed it upon a pedestal of marble and granite, upon which are elaborate reliefs of the fourth century, representing scenes in the Hippodrome. On the north are the bringing the obelisk to the Hippodrome and the placing it in position, and above it a representation of the imperial family watching the games, Theodosius in the midst, with Honorius and Arcadius and attendants, with the Labarum, the ensign of the Eastern Empire, above. On the west is a Greek inscription recording the difficulty of the erection; a corresponding Latin one is on the east. It may be worth while to give the verse translation of the old translator of Gyllius:

"To raise this four square pillar to its height,

And fix it steady on its solid base,

Great Theodosius tried, but tried in vain.

In two and thirty days, by Proclus' skill

The toilsome work, with great applause, was done."

Above the Greek inscription on the west side are other representations of the spectators at the games, including the Empress. The south side gives a chariot race round the low wall (spina), which divided the Hippodrome in the midst and on which the monuments stood. Above is another representation of the imperial family in their Kathisma. On the east, above the Latin inscription, are shown two rows of spectators, the Emperor in the upper, with a wreath for the winner of the race. The sculptures are worth the closest attention, as they are among the finest remains of the fourth century that we possess. The minuteness of the detail, in the representation of the persons with their official garb, is of the greatest historical interest.

A few paces further on is the famous Serpent column (see above, p. 11). Nothing in Constantinople, perhaps in the world, has such a history. The three heads have long disappeared: one is in the Museum. When they were taken away is doubtful. Tradition makes Mohammed cut off one on the day of the conquest; but Gyllius certainly speaks as if they were still intact in his day. "Made of brass, not fluted," he says of the pillar, "but wreathed around with the foldings of three serpents like those we see in great ropes. The heads of these serpents are placed in a triangular form and rise very high upon the shaft of the pillar." The column removed from Delphi by Constantine bore, at its first making, the golden tripod which the Greeks consecrated to Apollo after the victory over Xerxes at Plataea. The names of the cities inscribed on the coils may still be traced in fragments. Canon Curtis, in "Broken Bits of Byzantium," part ii., gives tracings of five of them.

BAS-RELIEF FROM BASE OF THE OBELISK IN THE HIPPODROME, SHOWING THE IMPERIAL BOX DURING THE PERFORMANCE OF A BALLET

Further on, and nearest to the Museum of the Janissaries, is the Colossus, which is more than half as high again as the obelisk. It rests upon a base with three steps. It was once covered with brazen plates riveted with iron pins. In the time of Gyllius it was already "despoiled of its outward beauteous appearance, and discovers only the workmanship of its inside, as having felt the effects of the avarice and rapine of the barbarians." All the columns were, during the days of the Empire, regarded as great treasures. The obelisk was restored by Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

These are the most important of the monuments. But four others need mention. The Column of Constantine, of porphyry bound together by bronze rings, stands in a prominent position at the summit of the second hill, a short distance from the Hippodrome. It was Constantine's own special memorial of his foundation of the city, and it was yearly the scene of a solemn service of thanksgiving conducted by the patriarch in the presence of the emperor. It was in the main street of Byzantium, and every public ceremonial was in some way connected with it. Damaged in the eleventh century, it was restored by Manuel Comnenus (1143-1180), whose inscription marks the marble which he placed at the top of the column. It has constantly suffered from fire, and well deserves its common name of the burnt column.

While the column of Constantine is one of the prominent monuments in the city, there are three others much more rarely seen. The column of Theodosius is, happily safe in the Seraglio garden. Its inscription

FORTUNAE

REDUCI OB

DEVICTOS GOTHOS

may refer to victories of Theodosius in 381, but more probably carries us back as far as the time of Claudius Gothicus and the battle of Nissa, 269. It is fifty feet high, and is said to have supported a golden statue of Theodosius. According to legend a pillar-saint lived on it for twenty years. Certainly it was used for a grimmer purpose, for the Latins in 1204 dashed from its summit the usurper Alexius Mourtozouphlos.

The column of Marcian, not far from the Etmeidan, where the Janissaries were destroyed, is hard to find; it is in a garden belonging to a Turkish private house. It is of granite with a marble capital. The column of Arcadius, of which only the base remains, is at Avret Bazar on the seventh hill.

Next to the columns the most interesting antiquities are the aqueducts and cisterns. The aqueduct of Valens, built in 366 of stone from the walls of Chalcedon, is a conspicuous object in the view from the hill of Pera. It has been constantly repaired and restored, and it still carries water. It now extends from near the east of the mosque of Mohammed II. very nearly to the Seraskerat. The way from the mosque back to the bridge passes under it, and gives a good view of its construction and its picturesque, overgrown, half-ruined state. This and the other aqueducts (one of which may be seen near Edirnè Kapoussi) brought water from the distant hills, which was stored in vast cisterns, many of which still remain. Three at least are worth a visit. The most beautiful are the work of Philoxenus; and chief is that which the Turks call Yeri Batan Serai-the underground cistern-but more generally known is that fancifully called Bin Bir Derek, cistern of 1001 columns. I may repeat what I have said of them elsewhere.[66]

"The latter is now empty, and the sixteen rows of fourteen columns each can be closely examined. It has been considered as exhibiting 'the highest development of the art of cistern building,' and thus 'in its particular sphere' resembling S. Sophia; 'like it the boldness of the construction was never again equalled by the Byzantines.'[67] The capitals are not as a rule highly ornamented, but some have monograms which are repeated in S. Sophia. Impressive though this great building is, it is not nearly so striking as the awful gloom of the Yeri Batan Serai (the Underground Palace)-the Basilike. There seems little doubt that this is the cistern alluded to by Procopius,[68] as made by Justinian under the Portico of the Basilica. 'It is still in perfect preservation, with the entire roof intact; its three hundred and thirty-six columns, twelve feet apart, arranged in twenty-eight symmetric rows, stand each in place, crowned by a finely wrought capital; it still serves its original purpose, supplying water from the aqueduct of Valens in as copious measure as of old.'[69] The capitals here are elaborately carved, in endless variety, and in the very finest style of the age. Darkness, immensity, and the colossal size of the columns seen in the flickering torchlight, make this one of the most impressive memorials of the sixth century. It is below ground what S. Sophia is above."

They both belong, as Forchheimer and Strygowski have incontestably shown, to the age of Justinian. The capitals of the columns of the Bin Bir Derek are much plainer than those of the Yeri Batan Serai. Strygowski thinks that there the new impost capital was first used.

"It is of the widest significance for the history of Byzantine art that here throughout the new 'impost capital' is employed in its plainest constructive form. It seems not improbable that the daring builder of the cistern was the first to make use of this form of capital, which completely broke with classical tradition, and is in such perfect accord with the exigencies of arch-architecture." But the analysis of the varieties of capital made by Lethaby and Swainson shows that the impost capital had probably been in use some years before the building of the Bin Bir Derek.

The descent through a trap door and some worn steps from the stableyard of a Turkish house into the Yeri Batan Serai, lighted by a torch extemporised of sacking steeped in naptha, and wrapped round a pole, is an exciting experience. As you look out into the darkness you do not wonder that weird stories have grown up around its recesses, or that Gyllius who discovered it has a strange experience to record.[70]

"Through the Carelesness and Contempt of everything that is curious in the Inhabitants, it was never discover'd, but by me, who was a Stranger among them, after a long and diligent Search after it. The whole Ground was built upon, which made it less suspected there was a Cistern there. The People had not the least Suspicion of it, although they daily drew their Water out of the Wells which were sunk into it. I went by Chance into a House, where there was a Descent into it, and went aboard a little Skiff. The Master of the House, after having lighted some Torches, rowing me here and there a-cross, through the Pillars, which lay very deep in Water, I made a Discovery of it. He was very intent upon catching his Fish, with which the Cistern abounds, and spear'd some of them by the Light of the Torches. There is also a small Light which descends from the Mouth of the Well, and reflects upon the Water, where the Fish usually come for Air. This Cistern is three hundred and thirty six Foot long, a hundred and eighty two Foot broad, and two hundred and twenty four Roman Paces in Compass. The Roof, and Arches, and Sides, are all Brickwork, and cover'd with Terrass, which is not the least impair'd by Time. The Roof is supported with three hundred and thirty six Marble Pillars. The Space of Intercolumniation is twelve Foot. Each Pillar is above forty Foot nine Inches high. They stand lengthways in twelve Ranges, broadways in twenty-eight. The Capitals of them are partly finish'd after the Corinthian Model, and part of them not finish'd. Over the Abacus of every Pillar is placed a large Stone, which seems to be another Abacus, and supports four Arches. There are abundance of Wells which fall into the Cistern. I have seen, when it was filling in the Winter-time, a large Stream of Water falling from a great Pipe with a mighty Noise, till the Pillars, up to the Middle of the Capitals, have been cover'd with Water. This Cistern stands Westward of the Church of St. Sophia, at the Distance of eighty Roman Paces from it."

One other cistern at least is worth a visit. It is that which is approached from the outside of the Church of the Studium at its east end. It was originally the cistern of the monastery. It is now dry and filled with hay. It has a splendid vaulted roof and twenty-five columns with beautifully carved Corinthian capitals.

As one wanders through the streets many remains of Byzantine building, even in the parts that have been almost entirely rebuilt by the Turks, are to be seen. There is one especially notable in the long street that leads to Top Kapoussi (the gate of S. Romanus). The great Imperial Palace about which antiquaries have waged so fierce a fight, has left not one stone upon another; so I will not rashly utter my own opinion of the evidence as to its site. Remains of only two of the Byzantine palaces are now to be found. The first is the surely falling wall which arrests attention as the traveller by the sea of Marmora follows the course of the sea walls before rounding the point. It is close to the Church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus, and the identification of it with the house of Hormisdas purchased by Justinian, and afterwards enlarged by him, may be regarded as certain. It is the "palace of the King, which was formerly called by the name of Hormisdas," of which Procopius says that it was once Justinian's private house, "and when he became Emperor he made it look worthy of a palace by the magnificence of its buildings, and joined it to the other imperial apartments."[71]

It was here that Justinian was living when he had determined to fly, crossing the sea to Chalcedon, and that Theodora made her heroic and historic speech (see p. 33). Now but a single wall remains. Some capitals are strewn in the sea near it. A water gate, with an inscription evidently referring to the Nika sedition, was still standing a few years ago. Canon Curtis told me of its interest in 1896: I searched for it, but it had absolutely disappeared. The solitary wall will probably soon follow it.

THE PALACE OF THE PORPHYROGENITUS

The other palace is one about which the most extraordinary mistakes have been made. It is that which the Greeks call the house of Belisarius and the Turks Tekf?r Serai. It is an oblong building of three stories, facing north and south, and placed between the two walls which descend from the Xylokerkon Gate (Kerko-Porta), at which the Theodosian walls end, towards the Golden Horn. Gyllius believed this to be the famous palace of the Hebdomon, and nearly all the antiquaries have followed him. Professor Bury, among historians, had shown the impossibility of this identification; but it has remained for Professor van Millingen conclusively to show it to be the palace of the Porphyrogenitus. It was here that Andronicus III. resided in 1326 when Andronicus II. was at Blachernae. It was here that John Cantacuzene was in 1347 when he negotiated with the Empress. Architectural authorities differ as to its date. Some have placed it as early as Theodosius II., but it much more probably belongs to the tenth century and to the work of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. It is clearly later than the sixth century work of the palace of Hormisdas, being much more elaborate both in design and in decoration. The evidence for the identification is thus given by Professor van Millingen.[72]

"The evidence for the proper Byzantine name of Tekf?r Serai, occurs in the passage in which Critobolus describes the positions occupied by the various divisions of the Turkish army during the siege of 1453. According to that authority, the Turkish left wing extended from the Xylo-Porta (beside the Golden Horn) to the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, which was situated upon a slope, and thence to the Gate of Charisius (Edirnè Kapoussi). The site thus assigned to the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus corresponds exactly to that of Tekf?r Serai, which stands on the steep ascent leading from Egri Kapou to the Gate of Adrianople."

Of the other palaces practically no remains exist. A few stones of Blachernae may be built into houses or walls on its site. Two lions from the Boukoleon, of which Anna Comnena speaks, stand in the gardens of the old Seraglio not far from Chinili Kiosk.[73] I know nothing else which belongs to any house of the Christian Emperors.

All these treasures of antiquity are still exposed to the sky; but those preserved in the Museum make it one of the finest in the world. The Turks have awoke to the fact that the lands most fruitful in arch?ological remains are now in their hands, and Hamdy Bey, the director of the imperial museum, has with indefatigable industry and admirable judgment made a magnificent collection of antiquities in the two buildings under his charge.

In the annexe, which is first visited on the upper floor, there are several collections-a magnificent series of old Oriental carpets said to have belonged to Ahmed I., two chairs, of Selim I. and Ahmed I., some exquisite Turkish and Persian pottery of various dates, and some extremely fine glass. In the other room (right, first floor) are cases containing Assyrian and Babylonian cones and Hittite inscriptions, including the famous record of Sennacherib's expedition against Hezekiah. There is also a less interesting collection of Egyptian antiquities, and, of course, several mummies. The ground floor contains the splendid collection of sarcophagi, superior to any in the world. They form an uninterrupted series from the Ionic art to that of the Byzantines. The most ancient are the three sarcophagi of terra-cotta from Clazomene, near Smyrna, which with the two at the Louvre are the only complete monuments of the archaic period. Greek art of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is represented by the famous sarcophagi found at Sidon, known as the Satrap, the Mourners, Alexander's and the Lycian. To the same centuries and the third belong a considerable number of sarcophagi. The Greco-Roman style is represented by two sarcophagi which represent the story of Hippolytus. Of the many Byzantine sarcophagi-to which ought certainly to be added those now outside S. Irene-the most beautiful, besides those called after Constantine and S. Helena his mother, is the No. 100 with the monogram of Christ.

The most splendid part of the collection is that which was unearthed in Ph?nicia and chiefly near Sidon by Hamdy Bey from 1887 onwards. The Satrap-representing an oriental potentate in life and in death-is of Parian marble, and was originally painted, and is in the Ionian style. Close by it was found the beautiful Mourners, an exquisite series of weeping women, which belongs to Attic art. The glorious "sarcophagus of Alexander," which represents the Macedonian fighting with the Persians, and hunting, is alone worth a visit to Constantinople to see. It is the work of a contemporary of Lysippus, fourth century B.C., and is one of the very finest examples we possess of ancient art. There is another sarcophagus which evidently copies the frieze of the Parthenon.

Then there is the Egyptian-like tomb of Tabnith, King of Sidon. But it would be absurd to try and describe, or still more to criticise, these splendid examples of ancient art in a little book like mine. The excellent catalogues sold at the museum are well worth buying. Here and in Chinili Kiosk, the oldest piece of Turkish house-building in Constantinople, which contains the rest of the collection, are treasures of every period of art. Among the inscriptions are the famous stele from the temple of Jerusalem, and the Siloam inscription. There are exquisite examples of ancient glass and pottery and bronzes, among them the head of one of the serpents from the column. Among the statues are the great Hadrian from Crete, and the head and torso of Apollo, and the Nero, both from Tralles. There are two curious pieces of mosaic, but otherwise very little that is of late Byzantine work.

The museum, with its treasures scattered about the rooms and in the gardens, as yet hardly half known and studied as they deserve, may not unfitly serve to represent the endless interests of the great city, its associations with every phase of the historic life of East and West. But the fascination of the imperial city which lies "betwixt two seas" lies in something besides her history. And the poets have known it.

"Dans un baiser, l'onde au rivage

Dit ses douleurs;

Pour consoler la fleur sauvage,

L'aube a des pleurs;

Le vent du soir conte sa plainte

Au vieux cyprès,

La tourterelle au térébinthe

Ses longs regrets.

"Aux flots dormants, quand tout repose,

Hors la douleur,

La lune parle, et dit la cause

De sa paleur.

Ton d?me blanc, Sainte-Sophie,

Parle au ciel bleu,

Et, tout rêveur, le ciel confie

Son rêve à Dieu.

"Arbre ou tombeau, colombe ou rose,

Onde ou rocher,

Tout, ici-bas, a quelque chose

Pour s'épancher ...

Moi, je suis seule, et rien au monde

Ne me répond,

Rien que ta voix morne et profonde,

Sombre Hellespont!"

SARCOPHAGUS FROM THE ROYAL MAUSOLEUM AT SIDON

The Carving is copied from the Frieze of the Parthenon

INDEX

A

Agathias, 36, 37, 38, 46.

Akoimetai, the, 26, 233.

Ambassadors, 193-197, 283.

Anemas, 101, 287, 288.

Anna Comnena, 85, 90, 94-96, 97, 265, 287.

Anthemius, the wall-builder, 18, 22, 23, 277, 278.

Anthemius of Tralles, 36, 38, 39, 242, 248, 256.

Aqueducts, 15, 67, 326.

Atmeidan, the, 180, 181, 211, 320-325.

B

Balukli, 40, 77, 127, 283, 284.

Baptisteries of S. Sophia, 261.

Belisarius, 7, 32, 33, 41, 45.

Blachernae Palace and Quarter, 7, 8, 55, 69, 71, 94, 97, 99, 109, 122, 142, 288, 331.

Bucoleon Palace, 331.

Bury, Professor, 31, 52, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 73, 200.

Byzantium, 3, 4, 325.

C

Church of S. Anastasia, 16.

-- The Chora, 262-264, 286.

-- S. George (Armenian), 268.

-- The Holy Apostles, 231, 285, 292.

-- S. Irene, 7, 8, 12, 28, 33, 35, 38, 57, 111, 234-236, 241, 311, 312.

-- S. John of the Studium, 28, 38, 39, 120, 189, 233-249, 276, 280.

-- S. Mary at Balukli, 40, 265.

-- S. Mary Mouchliotissa, 155, 268, 274.

-- S. Mary Pammakaristos, 155, 264, 265.

-- S. Peter and S. Mark, 265, 268, 273.

-- S. Saviour Pantokrator, 130, 264, 266, 267.

-- S. Sergius and S. Bacchus, 38, 239-241, 276.

-- S. Sophia, 1, 7, 8, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 45, 47, 57, 67, 76, 84, 87, 93, 111, 112, 114, 116, 118, 119, 120, 130, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 185, 189, 190, 230, 235, 241-262, 270, 291, 327.

-- S. Thekla, 38, 236, 264, 273.

-- S. Theodore Tyrone, 38, 239.

-- S. Theodosia, 62, 264, 265, 266.

Cisterns, 326-329.

Colossus, the, 320, 325.

Column of Arcadius, 326.

-- of Claudius Gothicus, 6, 325, 326.

-- the Colossus, 320, 325.

-- of Constantine, 325.

-- of Marcian, 326.

-- the Serpent, 6, 8, 11, 153, 320, 324.

-- of Theodosius, 323, 324.

Councils of the Church, 12, 17, 22, 25, 45, 46, 51, 63, 64, 87, 123, 129, 259.

Curtis, Rev. C. G., 39, 324.

D

Dandolo, Henry, 108, 109, 110, 119, 259.

Dolma Bagtché, 144, 220, 313, 317, 318.

Ducas (historian), 141, 151.

E

Emperors (only the more important are here given, as the rest will be found mentioned in their chronological order).

-- Alexius I. Comnenus, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 236, 265, 287, 288.

-- Alexius II. Comnenus, 100, 101, 277.

-- Alexius III. Angelus, 103, 104, 108, 110, 119.

-- Alexius IV. Angelus, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113.

-- Alexius V. Mourtozouphlos, 112, 113, 114, 119.

-- Arcadius, 19, 22.

-- Anastasius I., 26, 27.

-- Andronicus I. Comnenus, 101, 277.

-- Andronicus II. Pal?ologus, 122, 123.

-- Basil I., the Macedonian, 72, 277, 280, 283.

-- Basil II. Bulgaroktonos, 80, 81, 279, 280.

-- Baldwin I., 118, 119.

-- Baldwin II., 120, 122.

-- Constantine I., 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

-- Constantine IV., 51, 52.

-- Constantine V. Copronymus, 57, 62, 65, 280.

-- Constantine VII. Porphyrogenitus, 73, 74, 75, 79, 325.

-- Constantine IX., 80, 279.

-- Constantine XI., 91.

-- Constantine XII., Pal?ologus, 52, 129, 130, 137-153, 287.

-- Heraclius, 49, 50, 51, 66, 67, 107, 280, 286, 288.

-- Isaac I. Comnenus, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 103, 233.

-- Isaac II. Angelus, 101, 102, 103, 104, 108, 110, 111, 113, 287.

-- John I. Tzimisces, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 280.

-- John II. Comnenus, 89, 90, 266.

-- John V. Cantacuzene, 125, 126, 132.

-- John VI. Pal?ologus, 126, 127, 128, 251, 276.

-- John VII. Pal?ologus, 128, 129.

-- Jovian, 14.

-- Julian, 13, 14, 16.

-- Justin I., 27, 28.

-- Justin II., 47, 48, 66.

-- Justinian I., 11, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 107, 114, 231, 233, 240, 241, 275, 284, 289, 327, 330.

-- Justinian II., 52, 55, 275.

-- Leo I., 280.

-- Leo III., the Isaurian, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 265.

-- Leo V., the Armenian, 68, 69, 280, 286, 288.

-- Leo VI., the Wise, 73, 272.

-- Manuel I. Comnenus, 98, 99, 100, 286, 325.

-- Manuel II. Pal?ologus, 127, 128.

-- Marcian, 25, 280.

-- Maurice, 30, 48, 49, 131.

-- Michael I. Rhangabe, 68.

-- Michael II., 69.

-- Michael III., 69, 70.

-- Michael IV., 82.

-- Michael VII. Pal?ologus, 121, 122, 123, 266, 273, 280.

-- Nicephorus I., 68.

-- Nicephorus II. Phocas, 74, 75, 76, 90, 280.

-- Phocas, 48, 49, 280.

-- Stauricius, 68.

-- Theodosius I., 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 50.

-- Theodosius II., 18, 21, 22, 23, 24.

-- Theophilus, 68, 280.

-- Theodore I. Lascaris, 119.

-- Valens, 14, 15, 68, 327.

-- Zeno, 25.

Empress Eudocia, 19, 20.

-- Irene, 63, 64.

-- Theodora, 81, 83, 84, 85, 155.

-- Theodora (wife of Justinian), 29, 33, 34, 240, 241, 259, 285, 330.

-- Zoe, 81, 82, 83, 84.

"Eothen," 225, 226.

Etmeidan, the, 180, 211, 326.

Evagrius, 251, 252.

F

Fountains, 306-308.

G

Galata, 3, 109, 138, 143, 144, 154, 186, 222, 225, 268, 269, 274.

-- Bridge of, 225, 317.

Gates, Adrianople, 7.

-- Aivan Serai, 236, 273.

-- Aya Kapou, 62, 265, 274.

-- Bab-i-Humay?n, 201, 307, 312, 313.

-- Balat Kapoussi, 273.

-- S. Barbara, 275.

-- Charisius (Edirnè), 92, 102, 138, 149, 286, 326.

-- Golden Gate (Porta Aurea), 1, 39, 50, 51, 78, 79, 114, 125, 266, 272, 278.

-- Hodegetria, 126.

-- Kerko-Porta, 150, 286.

-- Kiliomené, 236, 265.

-- Kontoscalion (Koum Kapoussi), 73, 122, 239, 276.

-- Narli Kapoussi, 99, 276.

-- Orta Kapou, 186, 312, 313.

-- Pegé (Selivria), 120, 127, 283.

-- Phanar, 113, 273.

-- Psamatia, 7.

-- Rhegium (Yeni Mevlevi Haneh), 284.

-- S. Romanus (Top Kapoussi), 110, 127, 135, 138, 142, 145, 147, 150, 151, 285, 329-330.

-- Xylo-porta, 109, 273, 288.

-- Yali Kiosk (Gate of Eugenius), 274.

Gautier, Theóphile, 156, 215, 336.

Gennadios (patriarch), 155, 156.

Gibbon, 3, 4, 5, 12, 17, 52, 64, 73, 145, 148, 149, 285.

Giustiniani, 80, 98, 122, 124.

Goths, the, 23, 289.

Gozzoli, Benozzo, 129.

Gregorios (patriarch), 206, 209.

H

Hebdomon, 280, 331.

Hills, the seven, 6, 7.

Hippodrome (or Circus), its history, 6, 8, 23, 24, 30, 31, 33, 34, 42, 47, 48, 75, 91, 99, 102, 117, 153.

-- its present condition, 320-324.

Huns, the, 43, 289.

I

Iconoclasm, 57-64.

Inscriptions, 24, 99, 273, 279, 280, 284, 288, 324, 325.

J

Janissaries, the, 131, 135, 149, 158-164, 171, 180, 181, 186, 196, 199-205, 209, 302, 311, 312.

K

Kuprili, Viziers, the, 186-188.

L

Lethaby and Swainson, Sancta Sophia, 243, 255, 256, 259, 261, 327.

Liudprand, 75, 76, 77, 78.

M

Marble Tower, 6, 277.

Michael Cerularius, patriarch, 85, 86, 87, 90.

Mosaics (see S. Sophia, S. Irene, the Chora, etc.).

Mosques (see also under churches).

-- Ahmediyeh, 7, 189, 291, 298, 301, 302, 303, 309, 320.

-- Bayezidiyeh, 7, 302, 303.

-- Gül (Rose), 39, 266.

-- Laleli (Tulip), 303, 304.

-- of Mohammed II., 7, 189, 226, 231, 292, 295, 298.

-- Shahzadeh, 303, 304.

-- Suleimaniyeh, 7, 153, 170, 180, 196, 197, 291, 295, 296, 298, 303.

-- Yeni Valideh, 105, 274, 303, 304, 305, 309.

Museum, 332-336.

N

Nika insurrection, 31, 32, 276.

O

Obelisk of Theodosius, 323, 324.

Oman, Mr C. W., 143.

P

Palace of Justinian (House of Hormisdas), 41, 276, 330.

Palace of the Porphyrogenitus ("House of Belisarius") Tekf?r Serai, 7, 18, 41, 149, 286, 330-332.

Palaces, the Turkish, 310-319.

Paul the Silentiary, 255, 256.

Pausanias, 3.

Pera, 3, 8, 54, 203, 222, 225, 268, 269.

Photius, patriarch, 86, 87.

Phrantzes, 129, 141, 145, 149, 285, 287.

Procopius, 29, 40, 41, 43, 46, 167, 239, 240, 242-251, 276, 284, 327, 330.

Psellus, 78, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 89.

R

Riant, Count, 115, 116.

Roxelana, 168, 169, 170, 176, 297, 303.

Rycaut, Sir Paul, 184-186.

S

S. Athanasius, 12.

S. Basil, 16.

S. Gregory the Great, 49, 241.

S. Gregory of Nazianzus, 16, 17, 36, 46.

S. Gregory of Nyssa, 15, 16.

S. John Chrysostom, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 119.

S. Theodosia, 62.

Sandys, Travels, 159-162.

Saracens, the, 51, 56, 76, 111, 115.

Selamlik, the, 107, 318, 319.

Seraglio, the old (see palaces).

Seraglio Point, 6, 272, 275.

Sieges, 51, 56, 71, 92, 100, 108-118, 126, 127, 128, 135.

Stratford de Redcliffe, Lord, 203, 205, 211-213, 216-220.

Sultans, Abdul Hamed I., 198, 199.

-- Abdul Hamed II., 221, 318, 319.

-- Abdul Aziz, 220, 221, 306, 317.

-- Abdul-Mejid, 217-220, 251, 310, 312, 317.

-- Ahmed I., 178, 179, 307, 308, 316, 320.

-- Ahmed II., 188.

-- Ahmed III., 188, 197.

-- Bayezid I., 127, 134, 137.

-- Bayezid II., 164, 302.

-- Ibrahim, 183, 184.

-- Mahm?d I., 197, 305.

-- Mahm?d II., 199-218, 295, 302, 305, 306, 316.

-- Mohammed I., 135.

-- Mohammed II., 129, 131, 134, 136-138, 141-157, 163, 164, 167, 231, 273, 283, 285, 289, 291, 292, 295, 310, 316.

-- Murad I., 127, 129, 133.

-- Murad II., 135, 136, 260.

-- Murad III., 175, 176, 177, 260, 265.

-- Murad IV., 180, 181, 314, 316.

-- Murad V., 221.

-- Mustafa I., 179, 261.

-- Mustafa II., 188-197, 305.

-- Orchan, 131-133.

-- Osman I., 131.

-- Osman II., 179.

-- Selim I., 164, 165, 303, 304.

-- Selim II., 171, 172, 175, 260.

-- Selim III., 199, 201, 304, 314.

-- Suleiman I., 165-171, 178, 197, 265, 303. (see also Suleimaniyeh.)

-- Suleiman II., 187.

T

Top-haneh, 109, 144, 185, 304, 317, 318.

Türbeh at Ey?b, 289.

-- of Mahm?d the Reformer, 305, 306.

-- of Mohammed the Conqueror, 295.

-- of Roxelana, 170, 297.

-- of Selim II., 307.

-- of Suleiman, 296, 297.

Turks, first appearance in history, 130.

V

Varangians, 90, 91.

W

Walls of Constantine, 7, 8.

-- Heraclius, 50, 109, 286, 288.

-- Leo the Armenian, 68, 69, 288.

-- Manuel Comnenus, 99, 109, 286.

-- Theodosius II., 18, 109, 135, 272, 277, 286.

Wortley-Montague, Lady Mary, 190, 193-197, 305.

Y

Yildiz-Kiosk, 221, 318.

Z

Zachariah of Mitylene, 34.

PLAN OF CONSTANTINOPLE

View larger image

PRINTED BY

TURNBULL AND SPEARS,

EDINBURGH

FOOTNOTES

[1] This was close to where is now the Kutchuk Aya Sofia (church of S. Sergius and S. Bacchus).

[2] Van Millingen, "Walls of Constantinople," p. 41.

[3] Themistius, Oratio xviii., quoted by Van Millingen, p. 42.

[4] Van Millingen, pp. 44, 45.

[5] Van Millingen, p. 46.

[6] The very interesting little book of M. Antonin Debidour, L'Impératrice Théodora (1885), should be read by all who are attracted by the wonderful career of this extraordinary Empress.

[7] Church of the Sixth Century, pp. 259, 260.

[8] Byzant. Zeitschrift, i. 69.

[9] See Curtis, Broken Bits of Byzantium, ii. 54, 56.

[10] Later Roman Empire, ii. 352.

[11] Vol. ii., p. 423.

[12] The Church and the Eastern Empire, pp. 106-108.

[13] Vol. ii., p. 446.

[14] Vol. ii., pp. 497-498.

[15] Van Millingen, p. 168.

[16] History of Greece, vol. ii., p. 191.

[17] Gibbon, vol. v., pp. 525, appendix II., a most important and thorough investigation of a very interesting period of legal history.

[18] On Nicephorus Phocas see the brilliant book of M. Schlumberger, "Un Empereur Byzantin au Xième Siècle."

[19] In modern times the greeting of a bishop at his entrance by a special anthem is still retained in the Greek Church; as also the greeting of cardinals when they enter S. Peter's-"Ecce sacerdos" etc.

[20] The first part of the reign of these sovereigns, and the reign of John Tzimisces, are described with abundance of illustrative detail in M. Schlumberger's charming book, "L'Epopée byzantine à la fin du dixième siècle."

[21] "History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 4.

[22] This was the suburb named after the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian. The monastery was fortified, and stood on the top of the hill overlooking the Golden Horn. It was granted by Alexius to Bohemond.

[23] His reign was really only a little over twenty-four years and a half.

[24] Van Millingen, Walls of Constantinople, p. 157.

[25] Pean, Conquest of Constantinople, p. 403.

[26] There are many different estimates given by the different writers. La Jonquière, perhaps the latest, decides on 200,000 (p. 158).

[27] M. Mijatovich in his "Constantine the last Emperor of the Greeks," gives a vivid account of the siege, but he is far from accurate in dealing with the topography.

[28] Mr Oman, History of the Art of War, Middle Ages, pp. 526-7, speaks of three walls; but the scarp was quite low, and there were only two walls behind it.

[29] There is much dispute as to the route taken by the ships and as to almost every point connected with the passage. I would only say that it seems to me that the view of Professor Van Millingen, which I have followed in the text, is the most satisfactory.

[30] Quoted by M. Chedomil Mijatovich, from a Slavonic MS.

[31] See Van Millingen, pp. 89 and 99.

[32] The icons were hewn down, the ornaments everywhere torn off, the altar stripped of its coverings, the lamps and sacred vessels stolen; everything, says Ducas, of silver and gold or other precious substance was taken away, and the church was left naked and desolate.

[33] These are Finlay's figures.

[34] Sandys' Travels, pp. 48, 49, ed. 1627.

[35] The form "Sultana" is only a Western one. The Turks use the word Sultan for both sexes, placing it after the name in the case of a female.

[36] Quoted by Ranke, Ottoman and Spanish monarchies [Eng. trans.], p. 12.

[37] Ranke, quoting Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador.

[38] Finlay, vol. v. p. 92. See Von Hammer, viii. 134, 317.

[39] Ranke, p. 25.

[40] Pp. 31-32.

[41] Travels, vol. ii., pp. 127-128.

[42] Constantinople in 1828, by C. MacFarlane, p. 306.

[43] Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, by Stanley Lane Poole, 1 volume edition, p. 18.

[44] "Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe," by Stanley Lane Poole, 1 volume edition, p. 19.

[45] Life, pp. 137-138.

[46] Life, p. 139.

[47] Life, pp. 164-165.

[48] See the correspondence respecting the rights and privileges of the Latin and Greek Churches in Turkey, presented to Parliament 1854.

[49] Eothen, pp. 30, 31.

[50] Pears, Conquest of Constantinople.

[51] See especially "Les Débuts du Monachisme à Constantinople" (Pargoire) in Revue des questions historiques, Jan. 1899, pp. 133, sqq.

[52] In 1896 and 1899 application was made on my behalf by the British Ambassador; on the last occasion the Sultan granted an irardé.

[53] This can be reached from the Hippodrome by a road going southwards, and easy to find.

[54] Aedif. I. i.-The translation here used is that of Mr Aubrey Stewart, published by the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, with alterations by the late Mr Harold Swainson, as published in the admirable work of Mr W. R. Lethaby and himself, Sancta Sophia, Constantinople, a Study of Byzantine Building, 1894 (pp. 24-29). Messrs Lethaby and Swainson insert explanatory divisions of the description, thus 'The Apse,' etc. I have inserted the Greek words where they have transliterated them, and made an occasional slight alteration. The value of Messrs Lethaby and Swainson's work as an architectural translation is great.

[55] Evagrius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 31.

[56] It may be read in Migne's Patrologia Gr?ca, lxxxvi. (2), and in the translation in Messrs Lethaby and Swainson's book.

[57] Quoted from Lethaby and Swainson, p. 45.

[58] Kraus, Geschichte der Christlichen Kunst, i. 361, 362.

[59] See Lethaby and Swainson, pp. 21 and sqq.

[60] See Lethaby and Swainson.

[61] Murray's "Guide" gives a complete list of the subjects.

[62] Inscription formerly on the outer wall between the fourth and fifth towers south of the Golden Gate.

[63] These figures, and all the others, came from Professor Van Millingen's exhaustive book.

[64] I.e. where the Mihrab shows the direction of Mecca.

[65] It is simply that of an English clergyman with high waistcoat and straight collar-and a fez!

[66] Church of the Sixth Century, pp. 298-301.

[67] Forchheimer and Strygowski (quoted by Lethaby and Swainson, p. 248).

[68] De ?dif., i. 11.

[69] Grosvenor, Constantinople, vol. i., p. 399.

[70] Ball's Translations, 1729, pp. 147-8.

[71] De Aedif., i. 4.

[72] Walls of Constantinople, pp. 109, 110.

[73] I must here admit that in the Church of the Sixth Century I wrongly suggested that these lions came from outside S. Sophia. Further study convinced me of my error.