In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Philomena bore.[86]
It is but a few minutes’ walk from Florence Nightingale’s hospital to the Haidar Pasha railway station. On the way thither we passed through the well-kept British Cemetery where rest eight thousand British soldiers who died of wounds and disease during the Crimean War. The large granite obelisk here by Marochetti is a conspicuous object and is visible at a great distance. The Haidar Pasha station, the north-western terminus of the Anatolia[87] Railway was, before its partial destruction during the war, a most imposing building and compared favorably with the best of similar structures in Europe.
Shortly after we take a seat in a cozy corridor car our train swings towards the picturesque shore of the Marmora. From the window of our compartment we have the most lovely views of the Princes Islands, and of the quaint little fishing villages which sprinkle the eastern shore of the Marmora and which are so perfectly mirrored in its placid waters. For hours, as our train moves alternately along the verge of lofty cliffs and near the level of the emerald expanse of the Propontis, we have a succession of panoramas that are scarcely less fascinating than those seen along the famous driveway between Sorrento and Amalfi.
The dancing waves of the Marmora, as they gently lap along its curving shore, are as soothing as a lullaby to a cradled child. And all the while they are murmuring the same old story that greeted the ears of the seafaring Megarians as they passed by nearly three thousand years ago and which reached the crews of the trim Venetian argosies whose arms proudly floated on their flags and pennants as they conveyed the treasures of India and China from the ports of the Euxine to the gem-blue haven of the peerless Queen of the Adriatic. The noonday sun, playing over the rippling waters, changes them in rapid succession from the delicate color of the lapis lazuli to the scintillating iridescence of the opal.