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II
FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO BATUM
In the afternoon of Wednesday, June ioth, wc were to go
on by the French steamer into the Black Sea. An Armenian
deputation came on board with a splendid basket of flowers
as a parting gift. Such touching gratitude is almost painful
when one has done nothing for them yet, and all one can say
is that the will is there, without knowing how far the deed
will follow suit.
At length wc east off and moved away from the land.
Outside us lay a big Orient liner surrounded by a swarm of
boats, and she weighed anchor at the same time on her way
to Eastern lands. On the inner side the houses rose one above
another up the steep slopes of Galata to the old Genoese
tower, now used as a fire station, at the top. On the other
side wc could see StambouPs chequered masses of houses
with the broad mosque-cupolas above. And between the
two parts of the town a forest of masts and funnels in the
Golden Horn. Outside lay the strait glittering in the sun,
with the long line of the Sea of Marmara behind. Wc turned
in the cramped space between ships lying at anchor, and
steamed north-east through the Bosporus, while the cupolas
of the mosques over Stamboul and the slender masts of the
minarets stood out dark for a long time against the sunny
western sky, and Constantinople slowly sank behind us.
What a wonderfully intricate nest of dissimilar elements is
this noisy ant-hill by the Bosporus, swarming with friends
and enemies, but chiefly enemies ! A great centre of power
where two worlds meet by this narrow waterway between
two seas. A wistful lyric of bygone days under an alien
yoke.
During all the changes of a thousand years the Byzantine
empire, in spite of all its failings and weaknesses, formed a
remarkable centre of civilization here, with contributions
both from the East and the West. Up to its last stubborn
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