From Pole to Pole | Page 8

and farther off is St. Sophia, the principal mosque. Like Rome, the city is built on seven hills. In the valleys between, shady trees and gardens have found a site. Far to the west are seen the towers on the old wall of Stambul.
[Illustration: PLAN OF CONSTANTINOPLE.]
Before you to the north, on the point of a blunt promontory, stand the two quarters called Galata and Pera. There Europeans dwell, and there are found Greeks and Italians, Jews and Armenians, and other men of races living in the adjacent countries--in the Balkan Peninsula, in Asia Minor and Caucasia.
Between this blunt peninsula and Stambul an inlet runs north-westwards deep into the land. Its name is the Golden Horn, and over its water priceless treasures have from time immemorial been transported in ships.
Turn to the north-east. There you see a sound varying little in breadth. Its surface is as blue as sapphire, its shores are crowned by a whole chaplet of villages and white villas among luxuriant groves. This sound is the Bosporus, and through it is the way to the Black Sea. Due east, on the other side of the Bosporus, Scutari rises from the shore to the top of low hills. Scutari is the third of the three main divisions of Constantinople. You stand in Europe and look over the great city intersected by broad waterways and almost forget that Scutari is situated in Asia.
Turn to the south. Before your eyes lies the Sea of Marmora, a curious sheet of water which is neither a lake nor a sea, neither a bay nor a sound. It is a link between the Black and Aegean Seas, connected by the Bosporus with the former, and by the Dardanelles, the Hellespont, with the latter. The Sea of Marmora is 130 miles long. Seven miles to the south the Princes' Islands float on the water like airy gardens, and beyond in the blue distance are seen the mountains of Asia Minor.
You will acknowledge that this view is very wonderful. Your eyes wander over two continents and two seas. You are in Europe, but on the threshold of Asia; and when you look down on the Turks swarming below, and at the graceful white boats darting across the sound, you may almost fancy that you are in Asia rather than in Europe. You will also notice that this fairway is an important trade route. Innumerable vessels pass daily through the Bosporus to the coasts of Bulgaria, Rumania, Russia, and Asia Minor, and as many out through the Dardanelles to Greece and the Archipelago and to the coasts of the Mediterranean.
Close beneath you all the colours and outlines are distinct. The water of the Bosporus is vividly blue, and the villas dazzlingly white. On the Asiatic side stand woods of dark-green cypresses, and outside the western wall Turks slumber in the deepest shade; cypresses, indeed, are the watchmen of the dead. And all round the horizon this charming landscape passes into fainter and lighter tones, light-blue and grey. You cannot perceive clearly where the land ends and sea and sky begin. But here and there the white wings of a sailing vessel flutter or a slight puff of smoke floats above a steamer.
A continuous murmur reaches your ears. It is not wind, nor the song of waves. It is the combined voice of nature and human labour. It is like the buzzing round a beehive. Now and then you distinguish the cry of a porter, the bell of a tramcar, the whistle of a steamer, or the bark of a dog. But, as a rule, all melt together into a single sound. It is the ceaseless noise that always hovers over the chimneys of a great city.
THE CHURCH OF THE DIVINE WISDOM
Let us now go down to the great mosque on the point. On the top of the principal dome we see a huge gilded crescent. This has glittered up there for 450 years, but previously the cupola was adorned by the Christian Cross. How came the change about?
Let us imagine that we are standing outside the church and let the year be 548 A.D. One of the finest temples of Christendom has just been completed by the first architect of his time from Asia Minor. The work has occupied sixteen years, and ten thousand workmen have been constantly engaged at it. But now it is finished at last, and the Church of the Divine Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, is to be consecrated to-day.
The great Emperor of the Byzantine realm, Justinian, drives up in a chariot drawn by four horses. He enters the temple attended by the Patriarch of Constantinople. The building is as large as a market-place, and the beautiful dome, round as the vault of heaven, is 180 feet above the floor. Justinian looks around and