But no more looking back. We have arrived opposite Seraglio Point, and our goal is before us; for here is the starting-point of the strange and glorious history of the City of Constantine, here the foundations of the city of Byzas were laid—here is Constantinople.
CHAPTER III
SERAGLIO POINT
PERSONS of importance like our travellers land at Seraglio Point instead of travelling round to the bridge of Galata. Byzas did so, we have it in black and white a few pages back, so it must be true. We can without much fear of contradiction suppose that Constantine the Great landed here also, though perhaps he went to one of the harbours on the Sea of Marmora. Indeed, he is more likely to have done so, for the current runs pretty strongly and the sea is more than a little choppy at this point. Byzas had no harbour to turn into except the Golden Horn, and he must have been too eager to land and survey his new property to have followed that waterway any considerable distance. Just a little west of the point is perhaps the best place to land, somewhere near the Turkish Custom House.
It is, of course, very interesting to land at the bridge of Galata, passing through crowded shipping on the way up the Golden Horn. On one hand, to the south, one sees the irregular mass of buildings, mosques, and public offices which go to form Stamboul. You may descry that vast square of solid ugliness owned by the international creditors of the Ottoman Empire and known as the Public Debt. Close by you catch sight of the head-quarters of Government—the Sublime Porte. Drowsy fox-hunting squires, to whom their wives read the paper of an evening, must often have started at the reiteration of this familiar phrase, and wondered to what year the marvellous Eastern vintage belonged.
Opposite the business quarter of Galata, crowned by its tower. The life, the colour ever changing, on the highway across the Golden Horn is extraordinarily fascinating. Sons of every race and nation upon earth are freely mingled here. The Western official or the business man, whose garb is allowed to betray no ease or originality, here brave the fierce suns of summer clad in the drab discomfort of business attire, with the Perote or native of Pera and Levantines of European origin who have imbibed some longing for oriental display without the requisite taste. Western ladies unveiled, Eastern ladies veiled, the latter in many cases beautifully shod and gloved. Also the Artist raves about a little hand he has seen ungloved, such a dainty, beautiful hand, and according to his own estimate he is an expert in such matters. Then there are Turks, Western Turks, whose costume is also Western, the fez and seldom-shaven cheeks being the only things in which they differ from others, for many are fair and most are fine, handsome men with every sign of the self-control good breeding gives. Hamals, the porters, push their way with backs bent double and their packs joined upon the leather rests provided for that purpose. Great men in carriages drawn by dashing, spirited Arab steeds roll by you, a servant in gorgeous livery beside the driver on the box. Asiatics of all kinds and colours, fantastically yet harmoniously clad, move past with silent, unhurried footsteps. And then a batch of soldiers, fine, upstanding fellows in business-like khaki, march past on their way to embark for the Yemen, the Sierra Leone of the Turkish Empire, for which men even volunteer nowadays, since the bad old order changed.
But we have landed our travellers on the northern extremity of the promontory on which stands Constantine’s ancient city. This part serves as a public promenade, and here people take the air, admire the glorious view, and generally behave like people do everywhere else, when they find time for a leisurely stroll, the only difference being that here men find time for one more often. The point is open to the sea, for there is no further occasion for the walls and towers that encircled this the starting-point of Byzantine history. Here was the first settlement of Byzas that grew into an Acropolis, walled, and strongly held, the heart of a growing empire. So we go inland, crossing by a bridge the railway that discreetly hides its unloveliness in a cutting before running into a terminus that might have been picked up from one of the Hanseatic towns and planted here by some malignant fairy.
The road leads upwards to the Seraglio buildings, and here is much of interest. There is the Museum containing many treasures, among them two of wondrous beauty—two sarcophagi, one of which claims to have held the remains of Alexander the Great, the other is presumed to be the last resting-place of one of Alexander’s higher officers, and is known as “Les Pleureuses,” from the beautifully-sculptured female figures in mourning garb that adorn it. Within these precincts is the School of Art, where much good, earnest work is being done under the guidance of Humdi Bey, to whose efforts the recovery of the sarcophagi and other monuments is due as the result of excavations in Asia Minor.
A broad road leads us with park-like plantations on either hand up from the sea towards the Seraglio buildings. These buildings stand on a height, the first of the seven hills that form the immovable foundations of the city.
The Seraglio no longer serves its original purpose, the Imperial Museums and School of Art have taken up a considerable portion of them, and others find accommodation for troops. Here you may see the stalwart Anatolian peasant being made into a soldier after the German pattern, and a very good pattern too. Bugle-calls, reminiscent of those heard in Germany, tells the Turkish soldier the time for all the many duties he should attend to. Sergeants in manner emphatic and teutonesque impart the mysteries of that solemn, high-stepping march which takes the place of route marching in an army that has to train its men to reach perfection in two years’ time. Slim-waisted subalterns, whose moustaches follow Imperial precept, superintend these operations, and an anxious company commander may be seen in conference with his colour-sergeant.
It would sound invidious, it would savour of interference, to wonder which is the better use for the Seraglio buildings, that of the present or the past. The Artist doth profess loudly on this point, that no building can serve a higher purpose than that of housing in comfort those who are taken from their homes to learn how to defend the honour of their