4 



Photo by H. G. Dwiglit 



A gri;e;k peasant woman of thk marmora : Constantinople 



is, as to the deliciousness of its climate, 

 only the fond creation of a poet's brain. 

 Some days in April or May or June seem 

 absolute perfection and leave nothing for 

 full satiety to dream of or wish. Octo- 

 ber or November or December is some- 

 times beautiful, and scattered through 

 the year are many pleasant days ; but, 

 taking the twelve months through, few 

 localities possess a climate more capri- 

 cious and unkind. The variations in tem- 

 perature are frequent, sudden, excessive, 

 and dangerous. The experience of one 

 year forms small basis for calculation of 

 the next. The heat of summer is often 

 maintained for months at a high tem- 

 i:)erature ; meanwhile no rain moistens 

 the baked and cracking ground and the 

 night is hardly less parching than the day. 

 Snow sometimes falls in winter, but the 

 ground rarely freezes, becoming instead 

 a mass of adhesive mud which is ren- 

 dered still more disagreeable by incessant 

 rains. The damp and clammy winter 

 never invigorates like the sharper season 

 of New England. 



Topographical position between the 

 Black Sea, the Marmora, and the ^gean 

 largely affects the climate. The swift 

 Bosphorus, bounded by sharply descend- 



ing banks, becomes a tunnel for shifting 

 currents of air. Old habit lingers and 

 the American resident speaks of the four 

 seasons ; nevertheless the remark of Tur- 

 ner is literally true : "There are two cli- 

 mates at Constantinople, that of the north 

 and that of the south wind." 



All the vicinity of Constantinople is 

 subject to earthquake. Hardly a year 

 passes without several shocks. These 

 have generally been slight and of brief 

 duration. The most violent in recent 

 times occurred July ii, 1894, and de- 

 stroyed nearly a hundred lives. In an- 

 cient times they were often long-contin- 

 ued and frightfully disastrous. 



The seven hills, which were to Con- 

 stantine and the cohorts the admired re- 

 minder of the older Rome, may still be 

 distinctly traced. Though the topogra- 

 phy has been vastly modified since 330, 

 though frightfully devastating fires have 

 caused the city to be rebuilt from its 

 foundations on an average of once every 

 50 years — that is, more than 30 times 

 since it became an imperial capital — 

 though the valleys have been partially 

 filled and the crests, never more than 300 

 feet in height, have been worn away, yet 

 the seven proud hills are there. They 



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