The distance of time dims the awful realities that shook the foundations of the Imperial City during the few centuries that passed before the Turks made their
victorious entry. As in a glass darkly we see the blind and aged Emperor Isaac taken from his prison to occupy the throne for a short space, the pathetic figure of his son Alexius, fourth of that name, who reigned not a year, to die by the hand of an assassin. A shorter reign followed, that of another Alexius, called Ducas, who in his turn made way for the Crusaders, and a Latin dynasty ruled over the destinies of Constantinople. Six Latin and four Nicæan emperors occupied the throne of Cæsar for the brief period of sixty years, until in 1260 Michael Palæologus restored the Empire of the Greeks.
Two gates pierce these walls, Egri Kapoussi, formerly the Gate of Kaligaria—the bootmakers’ quarter. No doubt in former days this gate, so near the palace walls of Blachernæ, was much frequented. The walls here were submitted to a determined attack during the last siege, but the ordnance of that day was not able to effect a breach, and the guns were removed to batter against the Gate of St. Romanus. To-day this quaint old gateway is seldom used, the industry that gave it a name is dead; dead warriors rest under the cypress-trees that throw their slender shadows over the tortuous, uneven path that leads to this once populous quarter.
The high walls and towers that guarded this place have seen other watchers, who, with heavy hearts and weary, straining eyes, gazed out into the darkness. For here Constantine IX and Phrantzes the historian, his friend, saw the dawn creep up out of the East, lighting up the Turkish camps and revealing the reason of those ominous sounds that had disturbed the stillness of the night. One of those watchers never lived to see another sunrise.
Passing fair is the view from this point. From immediately before the walls the country fades away into the west in easy undulations, the gentle curves of a distant ridge broken here and there by a cypress taller than his upstanding fellows. Away where the Golden Horn, now gleaming silver in the fading light, turns to northward to merge into the sweet waters of Europe, the banks are dedicated to the dead, and here again the sombre cypress keeps his watch. At the foot of the hill, only its tapering minarets showing above the dense mass of foliage, is a holy place of Islam, the Mosque and Sanctuary of Eyub occupying the site of a church and monastery dedicated to SS. Cosmos and Damianus. Bohemund, the Italo-Norman Count of Tarentum, lodged here while the Crusaders negotiated with Alexius I. A gate led to this sanctuary and it was named after a sheet of water by the Golden Horn, called the Silver Lake.
The watchers on the tower above saw young Andronicus go forth with hounds and falcons, to return with a rebel army behind him, and to fill up that dark page of history we have already quoted. From here, again, the sentinel would have reported the advent of John Cantacuzene with an army, to reason sternly with the Empress Anna and the Admiral Apocaucus.