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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ing forms. The various fishy tribes, at 

 intervals of days and in countless shoals, 

 succeed one another. The watchers, 

 trained by long experience, with sharp 

 eyes pierce the crystal depths and know 

 what fish are passing or are almost come. 

 Then, the signal given, every advantage- 

 ous spot is quickly blackened over with 

 hundreds of fishing-boats, and their gen- 

 erous harvest never fails. 



Would some Izaak Walton ask what 

 are the classes and the habits of the 

 swimming creatures, which thus today 

 within the Bosphorus fall victims to the 

 hook or spear or net ? All this Aristotle 

 best describes in his treatise upon the 

 "Fishes," which he wrote more than 

 2,200 years ago. 



"WHERK IS SANCTA SOPHIA?" 



The first questions every stranger asks 

 as his steamer rounds Seraglio Point 

 from the Mormora or descends the Bos- 

 phorus from the Black Sea are : "Where 

 is Sancta Sophia?" "Which is Sancta 

 Sophia?" To catch the earliest possible 

 glimpse of its outline the eye of every 

 traveler is strained. Myths and legends 

 told concerning it are devoured with eager 

 interest. With rapt attention its walls 

 and pillars and arches and mosaics are 

 scanned. In after years, in the quiet of 

 the stranger's home, it is the colossal 

 form of Sancta Sophia which stands out 

 most distinct on the canvas of Constan- 

 tinople memories. 



Nor is it strange. To many Constan- 

 tinople means nothing but Sancta Sophia. 

 To thousands who have never even heard 

 of the city's wonderful walls, and who 

 have never made a mind-picture of the 

 Bosphorus, the name of its venerable ca- 

 thedral is a familiar sound. Even to 

 those who know it least it is the synonym 

 of what is grandest, most glorious, most 

 historic, and most sacred in the achieve- 

 ments of Christian architecture. 



In one respect Sancta Sophia is unlike 

 every other antiquarian monument of 

 Constantinople. Those other antiquities 

 of the city belong wholly to the past and 

 have no future. The battered Theodosian 

 walls can never withstand the shock of 

 war again. Up the broken Serpent of 

 Delphi, in the Hippodrome, no oracular 



response will ever pass to some future 

 suppliant. Their part in the world's his- 

 tory is done. They are ancient, classic, 

 hoary; but with each day becomes more 

 remote the age for which they were 

 formed and the purpose for which they 

 were designed. 



Sancta Sophia belongs to the past as 

 well. In 537, a whole generation before 

 the birth of Mohammed the Prophet, its 

 great dome swept heavenward as sky- 

 like as it does today ; yet that church, we 

 may believe, has a future as glorious as, 

 perhaps more glorious than, its past. 



MOHAMMED II AT HIS GREATEST 



Sultan Mohammed II was never more 

 profund, more philosophic, more truly 

 great, than on the day of conquest. An 

 Ottoman soldier, in the intoxication of 

 victory or fanaticism, was destroying the 

 mosaics in Sancta Sophia with his mace. 

 "Let those things be !" the Conqueror 

 cried. With a single blow he stretched 

 the barbarian motionless at his feet. 

 Then, in a lower tone, he added, so the 

 historian declares, "Who knows but in 

 another age they may serve another re- 

 ligion than that of Islam?" What the 

 future of this cathedral is the wildest 

 speculation cannot grasp. In the legend 

 of the common people, a Greek priest was 

 celebrating the liturgy when the exultant 

 army of the Sultan burst through the 

 doors. Taking the cross in his hand, the 

 priest slowly withdrew to one of the 

 secret chambers, and there, with the cross, 

 is waiting still. 



The Church of Sancta Sophia rises on 

 the crest and western side of the first 

 hill. It stands just outside the limits of 

 ancient Byzantium. Today its confused 

 and shapeless pile, bounded by four mas- 

 sive minarets, encased in gigantic but- 

 tresses, made grotesque by wide painted 

 stripes of alternate yellow and white, fills 

 the horizon of the eye from every direc- 

 tion. 



HISTORY LIKE ST. PETER'S 



Like Saint Peter's at Rome, it traces its 

 history by an unbroken chain back to 

 Constantine himself. It is a fit coinci- 

 dence that those two cathedrals — one of 

 the vastest sanctuary of Western Cathol- 



