THE SUBLIME PORTE.-THE SERAGLIO.

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CHAPTER XXVII.

CONSTANTINOPLE.

The Sublime Porte.-The Seraglio.-The Imperial Gardens.-Church of St. Irene.-Trophies.-Circuit of the City.—Cemeteries without the Walls.— Defences.-Siege of 1453.-The Seven Towers.-The Sea-wall.-View of the City from the Seraskier's Tower.-Streets of Constantinople.-Houses.-The Burnt Column.-The Virgin's Stone.-Destruction of the Janizaries.

WITHIN the shade of St. Sophia is the Sublime Porte, which leads from the city to the Seraglio, and gives name to the Ottoman court. It is a lofty and massive portal, without taste, or even barbaric magnificence. It is adorned with passages from the Koran in gilt letters, and is guarded by a score or two of soldiers. Through it we passed into the grounds of the Seraglio, which are nearly three miles in circumference, defended on two sides by walls and on two by water. The water-boundaries are adorned with gilded portals, and long promenades on the summits of ornamented sea-walls, through one of whose low doors the suspected concubine or the devoted inmate of the Harem passes by night to a caique in waiting, and in a minute the report of a single gun, booming over the quiet waters, announces that the victim is plunged into the sea. The influence of Christian Europe has wellnigh put an end to this horrible practice.

There is neither order nor beauty in the imperial grounds or buildings. Everything is without regularity or taste, apparently produced by the mere caprice of sultans and sultanas. Kitchens, kiosks, pavilions, palaces, and armories in old Greek churches, are placed without any respect to symmetry or taste. As, at the

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TROPHIES.-CIRCUIT OF THE CITY.

time of our visit, the palace was undergoing repairs to fit it for the unusual summer residence of the young Sultan,* we could not obtain access to the first or second courts, which are generally open to Christians who are provided with firmans, so we turned aside to the ancient Church of St. Irene, and found it crowded with arms and appliances of war. Above the great altar, in a room separated by wooden palings, hung the keys of conquered cities and the swords of vanquished sovereigns. It is long since one was added, and it is certain their number will not be increased. With the exception of its ornaments and furniture, the church remains as when the Greek last performed service in it. Its small semicircular windows piercing the thick walls at a great elevation, its massive arches and gloomy galleries, are good specimens of the Byzantine architec

ture.

An interesting day to the stranger in Constantinople is that on which he makes the circuit of the city. He may depart from Seraglio Point and ascend the Golden Horn about four miles in a caique. The wall on his left sometimes towers from the water above the houses, and sometimes they rest upon it. Behind it are sheltered from observation the Armenian, Greek (the Fanar), and Jewish (Balata) quarters, whose external appearance indicates poverty and wretchedness, while the narrow, dirty streets are the abodes of luxury and wealth. The water-wall on the Golden Horn terminates in a lofty, irregular, and very massive ruin at the northwest angle of the city, usually called the Palace of Constantine. Here the caique is abandoned, and the traveller, on foot or on horseback, follows the course of the land-wall, running southward about five miles across the neck of the * He usually spends his summer in one of the palaces on the Bosphorus.

DEFENCES.-SIEGE OF 1453.

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Peninsula, and terminating on the Sea of Marmora at the Seven Towers, at the southwest angle of the city. From the crowd and noiseless activity of the Horn, over whose placid waters ten thousand caiques dart without ruffling the surface, the traveller passes suddenly into a profound solitude, which is rendered impressive by the apparently interminable cemeteries which lie under the walls, and stretch far into the country. Not a garden, or mansion, or grain-field is visible, and only now and then a solitary horseman, perchance an arabah drawn by oxen, may be seen moving at a distance. It seems difficult to realize that this silent region of the dead is separated from the abodes of five hundred thousand human beings only by a single wall.

For some distance from the Golden Horn, the fortification is a single lofty wall, strengthened by bastions, and defended by what was once a deep and broad fosse. But two thirds or three fourths of it next the Sea of Marmora is a triple wall, with intervening ditches, which are much filled up. The outer wall is the lowest, having suffered most from the violence of sieges, and the inner the highest. They are fortified by bastions at short distances, which give them an air of strength which they do not possess. One good park of modern artillery would make a breach in an hour. Yet these venerable ramparts have withstood the vicissitudes of thirteen hundred years, and of a score of sieges, and have yielded but two or three times to victorious invaders. The last time was in 1453, when Mohammed the Second made a breach near the Gate of the Cannon, into which Constantine Paleologus rushed, and there fell sword in hand, literally cut to pieces by the Turks, who entered the city over his dead body, and the Greek empire was extinguished. The gate at which the breach was