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FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO BATUM 49
towns, as the business and export-trade had been mainly in
Greek and Armenian hands.
Mr. Dupuis and I called upon Mr. Knight, the British
consul, who received us very kindly. He was living in a
pretty little house on the hillside, with a wide view over the
town, and a flourishing little garden in front where the birds
were singing, and I recognized the familiar notes of a
chaffinch.
Wc went for a walk with him through the old quarter of
the town and saw the time-honoured walls which encircled the
first fortified town. This town was situated on a level ridge,
a couple of hundred metres across, and bounded by two deep
gorges with precipitous sides on the east and west, and by the
sea on the north. By means of a wall across the ridge on the
south it could be easily converted into a strong fortress, and
it was obviously from the form of this ridge that the town
received its original Greek nåme Trapezos. The deep gorges
on either side are crossed by bridges.
Within the old walls is now the Turkish quarter, where
none but Moslems have lived since they took the town in
1 46 1, eight years after the fall of Constantinople. No doubt
they immediately killed or drove out the Christian Greeks and
appropriated their houses. It is said that only a third of the
whole population remained, and these were probably the
dregs.
But Islam is by no means coupled with any particular
distinctions of race in these parts. As Lynch observes,1
there are whole villages on this coast where all the inhabitants
are Muhammedans ; and these would vigorously protest
against being called anything but Osmanlis, though their
Greek Christian origin is beyond question. It is character
istic, moreover, of these Greeks that they are still as famous
for their theological prowess as they were under the Greek
empire ; in those days they provided the Church with
bishops, and now they furnish Islam with mullahs. But for
all their Moslem fanaticism and hatred of the Christians they
have retained many Christian customs and superstitions.
When sickness lays them low the Madonna comes into her
D
H. T. B. Lynch, Armenia, vol. i, p. n. London, 1901.
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