CHAPTER XIV. 
CONSTANTINOPLE. 
There is no longer the charm of romance in Mediterranean 
travel ; steam has swallowed up every thing—-even in great 
part the beautiful turbans and flowing robes of the Turks, 
which are fast disappearing in all the traveled routes, and it 
seems likely to swallow up their prejudices and beards at last. 
Now one is whirled along at such a rate that he has to keep 
a hook in one hand and a map in the other to know where 
he is. Tourists are even known and cheated according to 
the color of their books; red indicating Anglo-Saxon origin, 
full purses, and abundant credulity ; black denoting cunning, 
and all other colors the poverty and insignificance of mongrel 
nations. It is a mere summer excursion all over the Medi¬ 
terranean. Starting from Marseilles, you are steamed all 
round Spain in a few days ; or if you like you take a glance 
at Africa from Algiers to Tunis, or a peep at Italy, com¬ 
mencing at Nice and ending at Naples ; and then you have 
Neapolitan lines all around Sicily, and the French lines again 
to Malta ; and from Malta English and French lines to Alex¬ 
andria, or to Constantinople, touching at Athens and the 
Greek islands, and Austrian lines all over the Levant, and 
Russian and Austrian lines throughout the Black Sea and up 
through Eastern Europe. It is nothing now to he steamed 
from New York to Vienna, all the way by water, or from 
California into the interior of Russia. Even the Nile is done 
by steam from Alexandria to Thebes, and the old tempies of 
Egypt reverberate with the thunders of the escape-pipe, while 
the Arabs of the Libyan Desert look down in wonder from 
their camels on the thing of life that plows its way against 
