The walls built by Theodosius begin after Yedi Koulé Kapousi, the Gate of the Seven Towers, and extend northwards until they reach the high ground overlooking the Valley of the Lycus, when they turn off slightly to the north-east. Constantine the Great had built walls around his City, but it outgrew them, and so to Theodosius II, who reigned from 408-450, fell the task of extending the limits of the Castle of Cæsar. Historians of the time draw a pleasant picture of the scene when these walls were erected. All citizens were called upon to assist, political factions dropped their differences, and so there arose the defences of the City. Misfortune visited them shortly after their completion, when an earthquake overthrew a great portion of the work, including fifty-seven towers. It came at an inopportune moment too, for Attila, the “Scourge of God,” as he was pleased to call himself, was at large, had already inflicted three defeats on the armies of the Eastern Empire, had ravaged Macedonia and Thrace with fire and sword, and was moving down upon Constantinople. Even to-day, after the passing of eleven centuries, these walls of Theodosius present an imposing front, in some places almost untouched by the hand of time; how much more formidable must they have appeared to those assailants whose bones are guarded by the tapering cypress trees a stone’s throw away from the fosse. There were in all one hundred and ninety-two towers. Visitors to Constantinople should view these walls of Theodosius from near Top Kapousi. A long line of walls extends away to the south, first the inner wall, standing on a broad terrace raised somewhat above the outer wall. This terrace is about fifty feet broad, and here was the main defence of the City—for in former days these walls were of enormous strength compared to any engines of offence that could be brought against them—a chain of towers linked together by stout walls known as curtains to the expert. These towers, most of which are square, stand about one hundred and seventy feet apart, and rose, when in their completed state, to a height of sixty feet, standing out some twenty feet from the curtain. Each tower contained, as a rule, two chambers, and was built of carefully cut stone and vaulted with brick inside. The outer wall contained a number of vaulted chambers which offered shelter to the troops engaged in the defence, and there are loopholes through which their fire was directed. This wall had numbers of little towers, alternately round and square, and was about ten feet high, sufficient to afford protection to bodies of troops moving from one place to another along the terrace. There was also a deep moat which could be flooded; it is now serving the peaceful purpose of market-garden.
On a fine day the view over the walls away to the Sea of Marmora is wonderfully beautiful—but this is winter, and grey clouds keep out the sunshine needed to draw out the many beauties of the scene. The road, at no time really entitled to be called so, is now a quagmire with rocks in it, yet traffic of a kind is passing—lumbering carts drawn by water-buffaloes pitch and roll in the sea of mud, and clinging to them are refugees from Thrace and Macedonia who have fled from their homes before the invader. They camp about in the neighbourhood outside the walls of Theodosius, not knowing what to do nor whither to guide their weary steps, these refugees from the storm that tore down the Valley of the Maritza, when Tsar Ferdinand led his armies over the border, and Serbs crossed the mountain-passes to meet their old enemy, ay, and to triumph over him. Flotsam and jetsam, thrown up by the tide of war on the strip of land still held by Turkey in Europe, these refugees would be without hope of any better fate were it not for the efforts of Christian men and women in Constantinople, to whom Christian men and women have sent from distant countries large sums to help the awful distress caused by this last crusade. Up to the present £28,000 has come from Great Britain alone. I do not know how much other countries have contributed. And this has been done for a people who have been ever ready to obey their rulers in carrying out the Oriental methods of solving racial problems by massacre, who are only prevented from applying the same principle to their benefactors by the inexpediency of doing so with the Golden Horn full of European warships. Islam justifies the murder of unbelievers—the followers of that creed are not so much to blame, least of all the ignorant peasant taken from his home to fight for he knows not what, driven from his possessions by a foreign invader. Christianity is again triumphant—where this Moslem country has proved itself unequal to any emergency, incapable of elementary organization, leaving its sick and the wounded of the battlefields to die and rot in the courtyards of mosques, yes, even in the open streets, Christian men and women have organized relief, and theirs is the only work which in any way can claim to have helped the sufferers in those awful last weeks of the “Passing of Ottoman Power in Europe.” One lady is now in hospital there in Constantinople—she was brought in sick from the strain of overwork and the horrors she had witnessed in a little town near by. Outside her door, on the pavements, in the road lay men, Turkey’s famous fighting men, starved, wounded, dying of neglect and disease. So for over a fortnight that Christian woman toiled among them; the nights she spent in making soup for them, the day was taken up in distributing it. It was no nice clean hospital work, dead and dying were piled upon each other in unmitigated misery, in incredible filth—those who have been there and seen say that they have been down, deep down, into Hell. Yet even there the light penetrated, brought by a Christian woman following the precepts of her Master.
Since then the Christian medical organizations, under the Red Crescent, forsooth, lest Islam should feel itself slighted in its character of a creed of mercy and loving-kindness, have taken matters in hand, and order and cleanliness are conquering over ignorance and bringing light to Gehenna. There is yet a vast amount to be done, but it is being done, not only by those professionally qualified to undertake such duties, but by every lady in Galata and Pera, at least I think I may safely say so, as I know not one among my many acquaintances here who is not in some way engaged in the work of mercy. Not only ladies, but men, busy men, are helping—officers from the warships in harbour, sent to prevent a general massacre of Christians, business men, hard-worked officials, all find time to spare in visiting the hospitals and helping wherever opportunity offers. They do not expect gratitude, nor do they find much, I fancy, for East is East and West is West, and to me the Oriental mind is inscrutable still, though I have lived in the East and travelled in it.
There are strange times these days in Constantinople, with the fate of an Empire in the balance. At first sight the traveller might notice little change or little difference from the sights and sounds of normal times. People went about their business much as usual—the Stock Exchange had much the same “allure” as ever, and the smells it harboured have not changed, only intensified perhaps, under the pressure of the lowering heavens. The narrow streets were thronged by the same crowds composed of many races; “hamals” carried astounding weights and packages of strange, outlandish shape, regardless of any other foot-passengers; men of leisure sat under the soaked awnings of the little cafés in Stamboul by the shore of the Golden Horn, or looked dull-eyed out of the plate-glass windows of Tokatlians’, according to their taste, their nationality, their social standing; and a general air of indifference seemed to mark the people of the town, the Turks in particular. But there were military patrols in the street, and when you looked closer into matters you found many evidences of change. The Red Cross and Red Crescent flew over many buildings in Stamboul, Galata, and Pera, Christian civilization was working for the good of Christianity’s bitterest opponents, and in the mosques of Islam, where in the dim religious light you used to see a pious follower of the Prophet performing his solemn devotions, or a “hodja” studying reverently the Prophet’s Book of the Law, where no sound was heard, you now heard the groans of wounded soldiers; for these temples, raised by conquerors of a warrior caste and creed, now harboured all the misery caused by a war ill-planned, ill-managed, and inglorious.
CHAPTER VIII
Beyond the walls of Constantinople—The Valley of the Lycus—The siege of Constantinople in 1453—The life of the City at that time—The Genoese ships which fought their way through the blockade—Mohammed the Conqueror’s anger at his Admiral, Baltaoghli—The last of the Byzantine Emperors—The scenes outside the gates during the war—The Mosque of Mihrama—The Palace of the Porphyrogenitus and the legend of the Kerko Porta—Manuel Comnenus—The towers of Anemas and Isaac Angelus, and the Varangian Guard—Egri Kapoo and the master-weaver—Simeon, Tsar of all the Bulgarians, and Emperor Romanus Lecapenus—A walk in the country and the return to the City—A visit to the lines of Chatalja.