The place of thousand tombs
That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms
And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamped by an eternal grief.
According to a poetic legend, myriads of strange birds hover over the tombs, or flit noiselessly from the Black Sea to the fairer one of Marmora, when they turn and retrace their flight. These birds have never been known to stop or feed, and never heard to sing. They have a dark plumage, in unison with the sombre cypress-trees over which they incessantly flit. When there is a storm on the Bosphorus, they send up sharp cries of agony. The Turks believe that the weird birds are condemned souls who have lived an evil life in this world, and are not permitted to rest in a tomb, and so in a spirit of unrest they wander over the tombs of others. One of the most beautiful monuments in the vast cemetery is the one which marks the grave of Sultan Mahmoud’s favourite horse.
The Turkish Government gave a piece of ground adjacent to the sacred cemetery to serve as a burying-place for the British soldiers who fell in the Crimea. And it was at the instance of Miss Nightingale that a memorial was erected there to the fallen heroes. She started the scheme during her period of convalescence at Scutari, and it was completed after the conclusion of the war. Some four thousand British soldiers lie in the cemetery, and in the midst of the nameless graves rises a gleaming column of marble. The shaft is supported by four angels with drooping wings. On each side of the base is inscribed in four different languages:—
“THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY
QUEEN VICTORIA
AND HER PEOPLE.”
CHAPTER XIX
CLOSE OF THE WAR
Fall of Sebastopol—The Nightingale Hospital Fund—A Carriage Accident—Last Months in the Crimea—“The Nightingale Cross”—Presents from Queen Victoria and the Sultan—Sails for Home.