We employed a guide and went through the city, which is a large one, containing two hundred thousand people.
The foreign streets and stores are very fine, but those occupied by Jews, Turks, Armenians, and Greeks are very dirty and disagreeable.
After a couple of hours' walking about in the heat and dirt, we came back to the street running along the bay, which is a couple of miles long, well-paved and clean. A dozen large steamers were at the docks, and much business going on. We saw numbers of fine buildings, hotels, and cafés.
Mr. Zucker and I called on the United States Consul, Mr. Emmet, and I was agreeably surprised to find that he was an old acquaintance, formerly in the Comptroller's office of New York.
At 4 P.M. we went on board, and were soon off. The steamer had been invaded by a dozen young Englishmen, and on interviewing them I found that they belonged to a foot-ball club of Constantinople, and had been to Smyrna playing against a club there. They were a jolly set of young fellows, and made things lively on the ship for the remainder of the trip.
The wind blew hard all day. It was cold and disagreeable, and we saw little of the land, though we were passing through the famous Dardanelles, the Hellespont of the Greeks, past the site of the ancient city of Troy, of which Homer sung, and I would have given much for a bright day or a moonlight night so that I could have seen the exact place where "Leander swam the Hellespont." But this was not to be, so I turned in and slept until morning, and when I came on deck found that we were at anchor in the world-renowned and beautiful harbor of Constantinople.
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
CONSTANTINOPLE.
Constantinople, March 9, 1890.