colour, Eastern sights, and Eastern smells: visions of Turks in baggy breeches and jaunty fez; visions of bearded elders in flowing robes and turbans, white, green or multi-coloured according to the wearer’s calling, descent, or personal taste, for only he who is learned in the Koran may wear white. Those who claim descent from the Prophet bind their fez with green, and divers colours are worn more by Ottoman subjects from over the water. Then you dream of stalwart sunburnt Turkish soldiery whose bearing speaks of Koran-bred discipline and stubborn fighting, and a fanaticism which takes the place of imagination. Gorgeous cavasses, frock-coated followers of Islam with unshaven jowls and green umbrellas, smart Bedouins and copper-coloured eunuchs from Abyssinia, immaculately-attired dragomans, veiled ladies, more mysterious even than their Western sisters—in fact, splendour, squalor, light and life, and all as picturesque and romantic as dreams can be. This is the vision, and the reality to whosoever is fortunate enough to see Constantinople is its fulfilment. All but the dragomans, perhaps, for you may pass one by and not know he is that wonderful omniscient being—a dragoman. He will hide his greatness under a straw hat, maybe, he may even affect an air of Western hustle.

But every other effect makes up for any disappointment one may experience over dragomans. In a golden haze kaleidoscopic changes, every type of face a study, every street corner its own distinctive character, even the spick and span liners that lie along the quays, or have their station in the fairway of the Golden Horn, seem to adopt a catchet other than their register provides for them. Over all, the domes of many mosques with their attendant minarets, from which the call to prayer goes forth, they point the way to the goal of all good Moslems, and few there are who allow this world’s cares to interfere with their devotions. Later in the day these mosques, silhouetted in the gold of a Stamboul sunset along with the other tall columns “qui s’accusent” against the sky, go to form, as Browning (who had never seen them) suggests, a sort of giant scrip of ornamental Turkish handwriting.

So, having followed this sketch of Constantinople’s history from Byzas to these days, in which an almost bloodless revolution has been accomplished, let us approach the city, and mark the bulwarks that are left, and hear what those massive towers and battlements have to tell us.

CHAPTER II

THE APPROACH TO THE CITY BY THE BOSPHORUS

AUTHOR and Artist have, for the sake of compactness, been rolled into one. This method leaves to both a free hand and ensures absolute unanimity: their harmonious whole now proposes to the reader a personally conducted tour around the walls of Constantinople, within and without, stopping at frequent intervals to allow the Artist to ply his pencil while the Author holds forth to an eager circle of intelligent listeners.

Constantinople should not be approached by those who hail from the West with any Western hustle—no charging to the agents or the booking-office at the last moment to demand a return ticket by the quickest possible route, to traverse all Europe, passing through many strange and interesting countries with the determined tourist’s reckless haste, to tumble out on to the platform of the German-looking Stamboul railway station, worn out and wretched and wishing to be back at home again. Rather should the traveller wean his mind from many Western notions. Let him disabuse himself of the hackneyed superstition that time is of any moment. In the East it is not. Men have all the time there is, and plenty of that. In this respect it corresponds to the biblical description of Heaven: “There is no time there.” Conscious of their easily won eternity, trains, and more particularly boats, make no attempt to start at the hour mentioned in the schedule, aware that by doing so they would only cause inconvenience to the large majority of their passengers. Any one who has had official relations with the Turk knows that his most frequent exclamation is “Yarsah—yarsah” (“Slowly—slowly”), but to most foreigners the system is, at first, a little disconcerting. Again, the traveller should prepare his mind for what he hopes to see—a walled city,—so should, ere starting, let his mind’s eye travel beyond his garden wall, against which perchance he may safely lean as aid to meditation, to what he has heard of walls, walls that were built by many devoted generations and in return protected their descendants from those hungry powers that seek to destroy whatever prospers.

And travelling toward his Eastern goal the reader passes through many an ancient city whose walls chronicle the history of its inhabitants. He should take his journey easily, should move eastward with no undue haste. Let him go down the Danube, that mighty river which arises from a small opening in the courtyard of a German castle, flows majestically through the lands of many nations, where before the days of history Saga held her sway and gave birth to the Nibelungs. In its waters many ruined castles are reflected, amongst others Dürnstein, where Blondel’s voice at length brought hope of deliverance to his imprisoned liege, Richard Cœur-de-Lion. He will pass many fair historic cities, Vienna, Budapesth, Belgrade, the White Fortress, and so on through the Iron Gates, whence the great stream swells with increasing volume through the plains of Eastern Europe to throw out many arms to the Black Sea. It is here that Author and Artist await you; for to worthily approach Constantinople you should do so from the north, and by sea. And you are in good company, for by this seaway came the Russians in their several attempts on the Eastern capital. The Turks, too, the present masters of the situation, found this way and followed it to victory. These, too, overcame great difficulties—they sailed in small vessels and were much at the mercy of wind and weather; in fact, the Russians found their plans frustrated by the elements. They met with anything but a pleasant reception, whereas the traveller nowadays steams in great comfort in a racy-looking Roumanian

Genoese Castle at entrance to Bosphorus from the Black Sea.
A narrow entrance this—strongly fortified it was too, in olden times, for on that height to the left stands a frowning ruin, a Genoese Castle.

liner, and is sure of a courteous welcome from his hospitable host, the Turk.

Along the coast of Bulgaria—that kingdom of strong men under a strong ruler, whose history, with a long and melancholy hiatus, is taken up again, is in the making, and bids fair to rival that of older nations as a record of devotion and steadfastness of purpose. And so to the mouth of the Bosphorus, a narrow entrance through which the strong current of the Black Sea forces its way to join the warm waters of the Mediterranean.

The Argonauts found their way through here, braved the crash of the Symplegades, and sailed out into the unknown in search of the golden apples of the Hesperides. Let no man say that these were simply oranges, for these a man may cull in many a Greek garden to-day. No—it was an ideal they sought, and, like true men,