looks wonderfully peaceful. The road leads up to the ridge on the other side like a white band, strongly contrasting with the deep tone of the cypresses that crown the height. Beyond them again you see the further side of the Golden Horn, serene and beautiful, while a faint haze rising from the water speaks of industry, and shimmers in the last rays of the sun. We enter the Gate of St. Romanus for a minute and note the strength of the remaining towers of the inner hall. A few steps further, turning to the left, gives us a comprehensive view of that historic spot, the valley of the Lycus, seen from within the walls. At our feet down in the valley, clusters of little wooden houses cling to the old walls and are shaded by acacia-trees. This is a Bohemian settlement, where you may see women unveiled and dressed in tattered garments of bright colours, and little brown children wearing nothing but a coat of dust acquired in their researches on the road.
To the left the massive inner wall descends and shows a forest of cypress-trees upon the northern bank of the Lycus. The wall rises again and reaches the highest ground covered by the fortifications of Theodosius. Here stands the Mosque of Mihrimah upon the site of a church dedicated to St. George. But that chaotic mass of ruin at our feet has yet a stormy tale to tell, so we descend into the valley of the Lycus. The memories of those last years of the Byzantine Empire, of the days when the proud towers and stout walls of Theodosius tottered and fell before the black powder invented by a German monk but used by a ruthless Eastern warrior with such disastrous effect, hang so thick that former events are almost lost in obscurity.
Before the city extended as far as these walls, and ere there was occasion for them, the valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place to see. The stream had not sunk into insignificance, but still watered fair meadows. Here 3000 white-robed catechumens were assembled one Easter morn awaiting baptism at the hands of St. John Chrysostom. As we have already heard, he had just been deprived of his high office by the intrigue of the Empress Eudoxia. Yet he meant to perform the ceremony, and would have done so but for Arcadius, who happened to pass that way and ordered his guard of Goths to disperse the crowd.
Then some years later, when these proud walls were newly built, their founder, Theodosius II, rode down from the heights without the walls. He fell from his horse and died a few days later from the injury caused to his spine.
Let us now turn to the history of that race that overthrew the last remains of the Roman power. The race
