The protests of the English and Dutch ambassadors failed to move Mustapha, and it was only through large donations to the chief officers of State that the French Embassy was set at liberty.
While listening to the tales the Author has to tell, our travellers have picked their way along the railway-line, and have threaded in and out among the picturesque inhabitants of this quarter. Here
stand broken arches, loopholes looking out to sea; there remnants of massive walls with battlemented summits, or perhaps little wooden houses are perched on top, with their latticed windows; while beneath them one sees gardens, where part of a prophecy is at least fulfilled, for every man has his own fig-tree. And as we walk on these remains, the walls recede inland and disappear altogether, for here was formerly a harbour, and the name of the station we are passing, Koum Kapoussi—sand-gate—was given to the gate that opened out on the harbour of the Kontoscalion. A fair-sized harbour too, now all silted up and built over.
What life and bustle was here in the days of old Byzant, those days of the great traders from the East, West and South. And what stores of treasure were landed at this spot. Work from the looms of Greece was stapled here, manufacturers of linen, woollen and silk—the former industries which had flourished since the days of Homer, the latter introduced about the time of Justinian. Perhaps it was here that those rich gifts arrived for Basil I from his generous friend, Danielis, the rich matron of Peloponnesus, who had adopted him as her own. Doubtless the goods she sent were products of the Grecian looms. Even an Emperor of Byzantium must have greeted with pleased astonishment the beauty of the presents sent by his friend. A carpet large enough to overspread the floor of a new church, woven of fine wool and cunningly designed to represent and rival the brilliant eyes that adorn the peacock’s tail. Of silk and linen each six hundred pieces, the latter so exquisitely fine that an entire piece might be rolled into the hollow of a cane, the silk dyed with Tyrian crimson, and the whole ornamented with fair needlework.
Duties were raised on all the goods that entered, and went towards suggesting the splendour of the Emperor and his Court. It is not possible to accurately compute the value of the goods and the vast sums they realized, but at least one traveller of experience was much impressed by what he witnessed here. A Jew, and therefore no mean authority on pecuniary matters, one Benjamin of Tudela, speaks of the riches of Byzantium, which he visited in the twelfth century—
“It is here in the Queen of Cities that the tributes of the Greek Empire are annually deposited, and the lofty towers are filled with precious magazines of silk, purple and gold. It is said that Constantinople pays each day to her sovereign 20,000 pieces of gold, which are levied on the shops, taverns, and markets, on the merchants of Persia and Egypt, of Russia and Hungary, of Italy and Spain, who frequent the capital by sea and land.” Nowadays the main source of public revenue is the crushing import duty on all new articles of 11 per cent., soon with the consent of the powers to be raised to 15. Until recently every Turkish subject resident in the capital paid also a capitation tax in lieu of the military service, which is now to be endured by all alike who cannot pay an exemption fee of £50.