The Greeks tell the following story about the obelisk in the hippodrome, which I mentioned above. They say that it was torn from its base, and lay on the ground for many years, and that in the time of the later Emperors, an architect was found who undertook to replace it on its pedestal. The contract being concluded, he set up a huge machine, which was chiefly worked by ropes and pulleys; by this means he got the huge stone into an upright position, and raised it within three inches of the blocks, on which it had to be placed. The spectators forthwith concluded that all the architect’s trouble, and the labour he had bestowed on his machine, had been to no purpose, and that the work would have to be begun afresh, at the cost of great toil and great expense. But the architect was not in the least alarmed, and, profiting by one of nature’s secrets, he ordered large supplies of water to be brought. With this for several hours the machine was drenched. As the ropes, by which the obelisk was suspended, got wet, they gradually contracted, and of course became shorter, so that the obelisk was raised higher and placed on the blocks, amid the cheers and admiration of the crowd.[120]
I saw at Constantinople wild beasts of different kinds—lynxes, wild cats, panthers, leopards, and lions, so subdued and tame that one of them, when I was looking on, suffered its keeper to pull out of its mouth a sheep that had that moment been thrown to it. The creature remained quite quiet, though its jaws were but just stained with blood.
I saw also a young elephant which could dance and play ball most cleverly. When you read this, I am sure you will not be able to suppress a smile. ‘An elephant,’ you will say, ‘dancing and playing ball!’ Well, why not? Is it more wonderful than the elephant which, Seneca tells us, walked on the tight rope, or that one which Pliny describes as a Greek scholar?
But I must make myself clear, lest you should think I am romancing, or misunderstand me. When the elephant was told to dance, it hopped and shuffled, swaying itself to and fro, as if it fain would dance a jig. It played ball after the following fashion:—On the ball being thrown to it, the elephant caught it cleverly, driving it back with his trunk, as we do with the palm of the hand. If this is not enough in your eyes to warrant the assertion that the animal danced and played ball, you must go to some one who can make up a story with less scruple and more wit than your humble servant.
Just before I reached Constantinople there was a camelopard (giraffe) in the menagerie; but at the time of my visit it was dead and buried. However, I had its bones dug up for the purpose of examining them. The creature is much taller in front than behind, and on that account unfit for carrying burdens or being ridden. It is called a camelopard because its head and neck are like a camel’s, while its skin is spotted like a pard (panther).
If I had not visited the Black Sea, when I had an opportunity of sailing thither, I should have deserved to be blamed for my laziness, since the ancients held it to be quite as great an exploit to have visited the Black Sea, as to have sailed to Corinth. Well, we had a delightful voyage, and I was allowed to enter some of the royal kiosks. On the folding doors of one of these palaces I saw a picture of the famous battle[121] between Selim and Ismael, King of the Persians, executed in masterly style, in tesselated work. I saw also a great many pleasure-grounds belonging to the Sultan, situated in the most charming valleys. Their loveliness was almost entirely the work of nature; to art they owed little or nothing. What a fairyland! What a landscape for waking a poet’s fancy! What a retreat for a scholar to retire to! I do declare that, as I said just now, these spots seem to grieve and ask for Christian help and Christian care once more; and still truer are these words of Constantinople, or rather of the whole of Greece. That land was once most prosperous; today it is subject to an unnatural bondage. It seems as if the country, which in ancient times discovered the fine arts and every liberal science, were demanding back that civilisation which it gave to us, and were adjuring us, by the claim of a common faith, to be its champion against savage barbarism. But it is all in vain. The princes of Christendom have other objects in view; and, after all, the Greeks are not under heavier bondage to the Turks, than we are to our own vices—luxury, intemperance, sloth, lust, pride, ambition, avarice, hatred, envy, malice. By these our souls are so weighed down and buried, that they cannot look up to heaven, or entertain one glorious thought, or contemplate one noble deed. The ties of a common faith, and the duty we owe our brethren ought to have drawn us to their assistance, even though glory and honour had no charm for our dull hearts; at any rate, self-interest, which is the first thing men think of nowadays, should have made us anxious to rescue lands so fair, with all their great resources and advantages, from the hand of the barbarian, that we might hold them in his stead. At present we are seeking across the wide seas the Indies[122] and Antipodes. And why? It is because in those lands there are simple, guileless creatures from whom rich booty may be torn without the cost of a single wound. For these expeditions religion supplies the pretext and gold the motive.
This was not the fashion with our ancestors. They scorned to place themselves on the level of a trader by seeking those lands where gold was most plentiful, but deemed that land most desirable which gave them the best opportunity of proving their valour and performing their duty. They, too, had their toil; they, too, had their dangers; they, too, had their distant expeditions; but honour was the prize they sought, not profit. When they came home from their wars, they came home not richer in wealth, but richer in renown.[123]
These words are for your private ear, for perhaps some may hold it foul wrong for a man to suggest that the moral tone of the present day leaves aught to be desired. However that may be, I see that the arrows are being sharpened for our destruction; and I fear it will turn out that if we will not fight for glory, we shall be compelled to fight for existence.
I will now take you back to the sea which the ancients call Pontus and the Turks call Caradenis, or the Black Sea. It pours through a narrow outlet into the Thracian Bosphorus, down which it rolls, beating against the curving headlands with many an eddy till it reaches Constantinople after the space of one day. At this point it rushes into the Sea of Marmora by a passage almost as narrow as that by which it enters the Bosphorus. In the middle of the mouth next the Black Sea is a rock with a column, on the base of which a Roman name is written in Latin characters (‘Octavian,’ if I remember rightly); then on the European shore is a lofty tower, which serves as a lighthouse to ships by night. They call it Pharos.[124] Not far from it a brook flows into the sea, from whose bed we gathered some pebbles almost equal to the onyx and sardonyx; at any rate, when they are polished they are nearly as brilliant. A few miles from the entrance I mentioned are shown the straits across which Darius led his army in his expedition against the Scythians of Europe; then half-way between the northern and southern entrances to the Bosphorus stand two castles opposite each other, one in Europe and the other in Asia. The latter was held by the Turks a long time before the attack on Constantinople; the former was built by Mahomet, and fortified with strong towers, a few years before he stormed Constantinople. At present the Turks use it for the incarceration of prisoners of rank. Not long ago, Lazarus, an