LAND AND WATER 
October 30, 1915. 
Vizier and the SL-Hc-ul-Islam arranged a little farce of 
)he following kind. The Patriarch v. as to make appeal to 
the Sacred Courts against the Imperial proposal. \A'^hen 
tlie case came on for hearing the Sultan was present, as 
he often was on important cases, sometimes, no doubt, 
to see that justice was done, but especially to see that 
his orders were executed. The Patriarch, in making his 
appeal, quoted the Koran to the effect that the " people 
of the Books " were to be spared. The President of the 
Sacred Court, in reply to the Sultan's question, declared 
that all the Moslem commentators agreed with the ver- 
sion given by the Patriarch. It was, therefore. Sacred 
Law, which, of course, had to be respected. 
1 he common sense and the sense of justice was to 
some extent increased by an institution which contri- 
buted largely to Turkish military success. The Janis- 
saries, who were to a man the sons of Ciiristian parents, 
had carried the Turkish horse-tails with brilliant success 
in the great light of Kossovo-Pol, where the .Serbians 
were crushed, and in that of Varna, under young 
'Mahomet II., where Huniades was defeated. Xo body 
of men ever served absolutism better. But though every 
man had been taken from his parents and carefully 
drilled into .Mahometism, though most of them had prob- 
ably forgotten all their Christian relatives, they could 
never altogether get rid of their sympathy with the 
Christians. This was largely increased by the fact that 
nearly all of them had become followers of the leader of 
■ body of Dervishes, Hadji Bektash, who was a favourite 
of the Sultan, and who gave them their name, which 
signifies simply " new^ troops." This sect, as indeed 
many of the sects of Dervishes, has always been favour- 
aljle to Christians, and w hen in 7826 the great corps of 
Janissaries was destroyed in C^onstantinople they resisted 
with the cries of Allah and Hadji Bektash. It is to a con- 
siderable extent due to the influence of the Janissaries 
that massacres of the Christians in Constantinople, 
where they were numerous, were much less frequent 
than in other parts of the country. 
Foreigners. 
Foreigners have always constituted an important 
element in the population of Constantinople. Galata, 
on the north side of the Golden Horn, when captured, 
Immediately after the fall of Constantinople, was a 
walled city, its most conspicuous monument being the 
rrower of Christ, as it is now called the Tower of Galata, 
a conspicuous object to all who enter the Bosphorus. It 
,was occupieu by Genoese, and they, like the colonists 
from Pisa, Amalfi, and Venice had each their own 
quarters in Constantinople and had privileges of trading. 
But tlie Greek emperors had alwavs insisted that they 
should govern themselves and remain subjects of the 
Prmce or State to which they belonged when they 
migrated into the empire. They governed them- 
selves under treaties called Capitulations made with 
the empire. They were never allowed to be- 
come lurkish subjects unless they became Moslems 
•Rlahomet the Conqueror renewed ti'ie Capitulations with 
Genoa and \ enice within a few days of his capture of 
ttie city. I wo generations later, in 1535, a new ereat 
treaty was made between Suliman the Magnificent and 
Capitu at.ons were made with our Queen Elizabeth 
Though these have been modified three or four Urges' 
they st> 1 remain substantially in force, although de'- 
nounced by Young Turkey about a year ago, and sfiU 
constitute the law under which British subjects reside 
in the Ottoman Empire. ' 
Between 1453 and the Crimean War Turkish atten 
iTt S? ^° ^"'"P^'^'^'y o^ctipied with external trmE 
taminonle T^T ""' ^""" ^^ ^'>^ ^^"^'^■■°" ^f Con! 
nZZ7 The Janissaries made and unmade Sultans 
.ahe 1 eads o Ministers had been demanded by them in 
Sirpo^r/ ^^ fh-'roft'i' ;"™ ^'-;---''e 
^ngmob. itwr;iJS:i^[;^^rs£^;g^^^^^^^ 
sadors, and especially of the great British aZ^^Z 
16 
who became Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, that Turkey 
made a great effort in the direction of reform. His long 
perirxl of connection with Turkey, ranging over forty 
years, led him to do all that he could to strengthen the 
Turkish nation. He recognised that justice must be 
done to the Christians, and when, after much pressure, 
he succeeded in obtaining the Hattihumayoun it was 
hailed as the Magna Charta of Turkish liberty. 
Real Constantinopolotani. 
Constantinople has always gained something like 
affection from the natives and those who have long lived 
in it. The real Constantinopolitan will tell you there 
is no place like it. The shores of the Bosphorus, which 
are its highway into the Black Sea, are studded with 
villages through two thirds of its length, the houses in 
hundreds of cases overhanging the water and having 
sheds beneath them in which their caiques are housed. 
The embassies have their summer residences either at 
Therapia or at Buyukdere on the European side. 
Americans often compare the Bosphorus with the 
Hudson River, with the most interesting portion of 
which there is said to be considerable resemblance. Thi 
Bosphorus and the Princes' Islands, the first of which 
is distant about seven and the largest island Prinkipo 
about eleven miles from Constantinople, are the great 
suburbs of the city. The Golden Horn, which is a long 
inlet entering the Bosphorus on its European side and at 
its southern extremity, is crowded on both sides w ilh 
houses. Two bridges cross it. 
Stambul, as the city south of the Golden Horn is 
called, is the only portion to which, previous to the 
Moslem conquest in 1453, the name of Constantinople 
was given. Galata, on the opposite shore, and Pera 
behind it were usually spoken of together by the naine of 
Pera, which means " over the way." Stambul, where 
all the great Government offices are to be found, is a 
peninsula terminating in the east at Seraglio Point and 
gradually widening out to a distance of four miles from 
the Horn to the Sea of Marmora. Walls entirely sur- 
rounded it, having a length of about fourteen miles. 
Most of these walls still remain. Those on the Marmora 
are always picturesque and seem to rise out of the water. 
The Golden Horn. 
So also did those on the Golden Horn side, but 
during the sixteen hundred years of the city's existence 
the Golden Horn through its entire length has deposited 
earth and mud on both its sides, so that the walls are 
sometimes as much as two hundred yards from the shor-. 
In many places houses and even streets hav<? been built 
on this mud, and often obscure the towers. The most pic- 
turesque of the walls are those connecting the two seas 
and running nearly four miles. There are no more 
interesting or picturesque ruins of walled cities in Europe 
than on this four miles stretch. The walls of Rome 
are, of course, for ever interesting, but in picturesque- 
ness cannot be compared with those of tlie New Rom.^ 
In 1453. when the Turks captured tiie city, thev made 
their way in through San Romano Gate, which is in the 
centre of a valley almost mid-distant in the four miles 
length. Little has been changed in their appearance 
during the last four centuries. The story of the capture 
of Constantinople is too long to tell here, but it has 
always been, and will always be, regarded as epoch 
making. It was the end of old-world western civilisa- 
tion. It IS the most characteristic mark of the advance 
of the Ottoman race. It completed the dispersion of 
Greek scholars to western Europe, and especially^ to 
Italy, and enabled the Turks to make further progress in 
conquest until they reached the zenith of their power in 
1683 when they were before Vienna. 
An eminent American scholar writes to me stating 
that he fears that his children may never see St. Mark's 
at V enice or Sancta Sophia in Stambul. With the 
recollection of Rheims Cathedral and of the ruthlessness 
ot German destruction he may well have fear. As to 
Sancta Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, I have 
little fear. The Turks will certainly not destroy it. 
