CONSTANTINOPLE 



1556 



CONSTANTINOPLE 



der that a city so admirably situated for de- 

 fense and for commercial glory should be cov- 

 eted for centuries by the nations of Western 

 Europe, or that the allies in the second year 

 of the War of the Nations should sacrifice 

 OV.T 100,000 lives in a vain effort to wrest it 

 from their Turkish enemies. 



Leading from the Sea of Marmora to the 

 Aegean Sea is the narrow historic channel 

 known as the Dardanelles. To protect their 

 city from capture for they knew that a hostile 

 fleet might some day attempt to force a pas- 

 sage of the channel the Turks had erected a 

 aeries of forts along both shores. The mem- 

 orable campaign in the Dardanelles, which 

 lasted nearly a 3 r ear, ended late in 1915 with 

 the Turks in secure possession of their ancient 

 city, and Constantinople had revealed once 

 more the strategic importance of its site. 



Centuries ago the commercial and defensive 

 advantages of the city on the Bosporus made 

 so strong an appeal to the Roman emperor, 

 Constantino the Great, that in A. D. 330 he 

 chose it to be the capital of his empire, chang- 

 ing its ancient name of Byzantium to Constan- 

 tinople, "the city of Constantine." The pres- 

 ent Constantinople is a city of many cities. 

 Stamboul, the original site and the Moham- 

 medan center, occupies a three-cornered sec- 

 tion, which is bounded on two sides by the 

 Sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, the 

 splendid riverlike harbor of the Bosporus, and 

 on the land side by the great fortress walls 

 built centuries ago by the Byzantine emperors. 

 Of these partly-ruined fortifications, the most 

 famous is the double wall erected in 447 by 

 Emperor Theodosius. On the north and oppo- 

 site shore of the Golden Horn lie the suburbs 

 of Galata and Pera, connected with Stamboul 

 by bridges. Galata is the business part of 

 Constantinople; Pera is the foreigners' quar- 

 ter and the most modern section of the city. 

 Across the Bosporus, on the Asiatic shore, is 

 the suburb of Scutari, which is governed as a 

 part of the political district of Constantinople. 



The City of To-day. Under the weak and 

 non-progressive rule of the Turks, Constan- 

 tinople remained for centuries a backward and 

 unsanitary place, though its many picturesque 

 features lifted it above the commonplace. 

 When, in 1908-1909, the revolution of the 

 Young Turks dethroned Sultan Abdul Hamid, 

 a new era of modernization began. In 1910 

 over 200,000 homeless dogs, disease-spreading 

 scavengers of the streets, were driven to a 

 neighboring island and left there to die of 



starvation. A broad, granite-paved bridge 

 replaces the ancient structure that formerly 

 connected Stamboul and Galata, and the 

 streets have been widened and paved with 

 granite blocks. 



In the fall of 1913 electric cars were intro- 

 duced; during the next year telephones were 



VICINITY OF_ 

 STANTINOFtE 



CONSTANTINOPLE AND VICINITY 



used for the first time, and electric lighting 

 has superseded gas illumination. Cement fire- 

 proof buildings are being erected in Stamboul 

 to replace the old wooden structures which 

 many recent fires have swept away. Modern 

 wagons and motor trucks are beginning to be 

 seen in the streets, carrying the loads that for 

 centuries were packed on the backs of strong 

 burden-bearers known as hamals. 



Even the Grand Bazar in Stamboul, with its 

 narrow, roofed-in alleys and its 3,000 quaint 

 little shops, of time-honored fame as a place 

 to dazzle the unwary tourist and relieve him 

 of his money, is feeling the effect of modern 

 ideas. To the foreign visitor its rich and varied 

 Oriental treasures will always be an attraction 

 not to be resisted, but the wealthier residents 

 of Constantinople prefer to do their purchas- 

 ing in the fashionable shops on the Grande 

 Rue, in Pera. The picturesque headgear of 

 the Turks, the red fez, still sets Constantinople 

 apart from other European cities, but Moham- 

 medan women may now expose their faces 

 in public without fear of punishment. An 

 adequate Turkish postal system is promised to 

 replace the old .system, under which each of 

 the Great Powers will have its own post office. 



Through all of the changes wrought by 

 time, Constantinople has remained a city of 

 mosques monuments of t"he power of Mo- 



