THE sun is declining towards the west, and the tall cypresses cast lengthening shadows across our road. We may linger no longer at the Gate of St. Romanus, for we have much to see before the day draws to a close. So let us go forward along the road again. Before we leave the shade of the cypress groves the road begins to descend. Here to our left the conqueror, Sultan Mahomed, pitched his tent where he could survey the warlike operations carried on against the city in the valley below. To our right the moat deepens, and the enormous strength of the position chosen for the walls of Theodosius becomes more apparent here than anywhere. Below us lies a deep valley—the valley of the Lycus, the spot which the genius of Mahomed chose for the final assault upon the city of Constantine, and here it was that the history of the Byzantine Empire was brought to an abrupt conclusion.

By the golden light of the afternoon sun this valley

The Valley of the Lycus, looking North. The road leads up to the ridge on the other side like a white band, strongly contrasting with the deep tone of the cypresses that crown the height.
The Valley of the Lycus, looking North.
The road leads up to the ridge on the other side like a white band, strongly contrasting with the deep tone of the cypresses that crown the height.

looks wonderfully peaceful. The road leads up to the ridge on the other side like a white band, strongly contrasting with the deep tone of the cypresses that crown the height. Beyond them again you see the further side of the Golden Horn, serene and beautiful, while a faint haze rising from the water speaks of industry, and shimmers in the last rays of the sun. We enter the Gate of St. Romanus for a minute and note the strength of the remaining towers of the inner hall. A few steps further, turning to the left, gives us a comprehensive view of that historic spot, the valley of the Lycus, seen from within the walls. At our feet down in the valley, clusters of little wooden houses cling to the old walls and are shaded by acacia-trees. This is a Bohemian settlement, where you may see women unveiled and dressed in tattered garments of bright colours, and little brown children wearing nothing but a coat of dust acquired in their researches on the road.

To the left the massive inner wall descends and shows a forest of cypress-trees upon the northern bank of the Lycus. The wall rises again and reaches the highest ground covered by the fortifications of Theodosius. Here stands the Mosque of Mihrimah upon the site of a church dedicated to St. George. But that chaotic mass of ruin at our feet has yet a stormy tale to tell, so we descend into the valley of the Lycus. The memories of those last years of the Byzantine Empire, of the days when the proud towers and stout walls of Theodosius tottered and fell before the black powder invented by a German monk but used by a ruthless Eastern warrior with such disastrous effect, hang so thick that former events are almost lost in obscurity.

Before the city extended as far as these walls, and ere there was occasion for them, the valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place to see. The stream had not sunk into insignificance, but still watered fair meadows. Here 3000 white-robed catechumens were assembled one Easter morn awaiting baptism at the hands of St. John Chrysostom. As we have already heard, he had just been deprived of his high office by the intrigue of the Empress Eudoxia. Yet he meant to perform the ceremony, and would have done so but for Arcadius, who happened to pass that way and ordered his guard of Goths to disperse the crowd.

Then some years later, when these proud walls were newly built, their founder, Theodosius II, rode down from the heights without the walls. He fell from his horse and died a few days later from the injury caused to his spine.

Let us now turn to the history of that race that overthrew the last remains of the Roman power. The race

The Valley of the Lycus, from Inside the Walls. Before the city extended as far as these walls, and ere there was occasion for them, the Valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place to see.
The Valley of the Lycus, from Inside the Walls.
Before the city extended as far as these walls, and ere there was occasion for them, the Valley of the Lycus was a pleasant place to see.

that in this valley wrested the ancient bulwark of Europe from the weak hands of the last Byzantine Emperor—the Turks. To do this we must go back into the records of the sixth century and notice the state of Asia and its relation to Europe at that time.

In the sixth century there appeared out of the East a race destined to overthrow Byzantine civilization and Persian splendour, a power destined to stretch its conquering arms from the Euphrates to the Pyrenees, and from the Red to the Black Sea. The nomad races of Arabia had never played an important part in the history of the world. They lived a patriarchal existence in their rocky fastnesses or desolate plains. Their system did not encourage national unity, concentration of strength on consolidation of resources. They had never engaged in agriculture nor practised any handicraft; their sole employments were the chase and the care of sheep and goats. It seemed that these dwellers in tents would never know anything better than the nomadic life. But a great force arose which united the groups of tribes into a nation—Mahomed the prophet—and having conquered and converted to his faith the whole Arabian peninsula, made ready with the forces under his control to spread his creed into all lands.

Mahomed’s general, Khaled, called the “Sword of God,” in a very short time after the prophet’s death subdued the Persian army and gained its empire for his master, the Caliph Abu Bekr, Mahomed’s successor as Commander of the Faithful. In the same reign Syria was conquered from Heraclius, Ecbatana and Damascus became Mahomedan towns like Mecca and Medina. Amron the general of Omar, the third Caliph, added Egypt to the new Empire, and in less than eighty years the Arabs had conquered every foe they encountered. But their power fell as quickly as it had risen. The Empire was divided into independent Caliphates, Spain, Egypt and Africa, but with the fate of these the traveller is well acquainted. Damascus became the capital of Calipha, and legend and history make much mention of the men who ruled there: Haroun-al-Rashid, the contemporary of Charlemagne, Al-Mamoon and others of his line. But the days of the Arab Empire were numbered, another race appeared in Asia Minor, coming from their hunting-grounds in Tartary—the Turks.

The origin of this newly-arrived people is obscure—they are said to claim descent from Japhet, and no doubt he will serve the purpose as well as any other of the sons of Noah. An English historian of the seventeenth century (Knolles) took sufficient interest in the Turks to write their history, and he begins with these remarks: “The glorious empire of the Turks, the present terrour of the world, hath amongst other things nothing in it more wonderful or strange than the poor beginning of itselfe, so small and obscure as that it is not well knowne unto themselves, or agreed upon even among the best writers of their histories; from whence this barbarous nation that now so triumpheth over the best part of the world, first crept out or took their beginning. Some (after the manner of most nations) derive them from the Trojans, led thereunto by the affinity of the word Turci and Teucri; supposing (but with what probability I know not) the word Turci, or Turks, to have been made of the corruption of the word Teucri, the common name of the Trojans.”

The “Ten Tribes” have also been called upon to act as ancestry to the Turkish nation, but have not as yet responded to the call. It is to be presumed that the Turks are a mixed race, at least a study of the various and very different types you see leads to that conclusion. At any rate the Turks were there, there’s no denying it, and made their power felt. From Tartary, where in the fifth century Bertezena established a short-lived Turkish Empire, this race spread in successive waves over the whole of Asia. One wave overran China, which remained for two hundred years under the Tartar sway. Another wave achieved the conquest of Bokhara and Samarkand, and gradually drew nearer to the western part of Asia, where they first heard of the splendours of the Empire of Constantinople. In the sixth century they sent an ambassador to Justinian, entered into alliance with him, and engaged to rout the Abari and protect the frontiers of the Empire from their inroads. They also defended it against the Persians, and defeated them on the Oxus.

By degrees they became formidable to the Eastern Empire, but their progress was checked by the Arabs, who in the eighth century overran their country and compelled them to embrace the Mahomedan faith. Soon the young race recovered its strength, and came to the assistance of the Caliph Motassem, whose nation was then on the down grade, and no longer supplied the men whose victorious arms had carried the Crescent triumphant to so many countries. Fifty thousand Turkish mercenaries were taken into the service of the Caliph, and, like the PrÆtorian Cohort of Rome, the Janissaries of Constantinople and the Mamelukes of Egypt, they in time assumed decisive voice in the Government.

A Turkish dynasty, that of the Samanians, ruled over most of the territories formerly possessed by the Arab Caliphs. Of this, Mahmud was the most famous; in the twelfth century he conquered Delhi, Multan and Lahore, and his victorious career was only checked by the waters of the Ganges; he was the first to bear the title of Sultan.

Another Turkish dynasty, the house of Seljuk, sprang up and dispossessed both Sultan and Caliph of the territories they had obtained. The dominions thus acquired were increased until the greater part of Asia Minor had gone to form the Turkish Empire. The city of Nice was captured to become the Turkish capital, and the Eastern Emperor Alexander Comnenus was forced to acknowledge Suleiman as master of Asia Minor.

But reverses were in store for the young Empire of the Turks; the Eastern Emperor gathered together an immense army of Macedonians, Bulgarians and Moldavians. He solicited the aid of the Crusaders, and bands of French and Norman knights, headed by Ursel Baliol, whom Gibbon calls “the kinsman,” or “father of the Scottish Kings.” The Turks were everywhere defeated. Nice and the western portions of Asia Minor were regained, and Iconium became the Turkish capital. Yet more trouble came to the house of Seljuk, and this time from the East, where Jenghiz Jehan with his fierce Mongols was abroad, under whose attacks the dynasty of Seljuk fell.

The bearer of a romantic name, and one known to all true Moslems, now appears upon the scene. Ertoghrul, the son of Suleiman, who had been accidentally drowned in the Euphrates, was marching with a portion of his tribe, 444 horsemen, who chose him for their leader, towards Iconium, the Seljukian kingdom. He accidentally met the forces of Ala-ed-din flying before a host of Mongols. Joining forces with the Sultan he changed the fortunes of the day and routed the enemy. The grateful Sultan rewarded him with the Principality of Sultan Oeni or Sultan’s Front, on the western border of the Iconian kingdom. Here Ertoghrul settled as Warden of the Marches.

In his new office Ertoghrul enhanced the reputation he had already earned as faithful vassal of the Sultan. He carried his victorious arms further afield, and at Broussa defeated the combined forces of Greeks and Mongols. The territory he had thus gained was conferred upon him, his power grew, and with it that of his race; he died in 1288, and Othman, his son, was chosen as his successor.

This, the progenitor of those who in unbroken succession have ruled over the destinies of the Turkish Empire, and whose descendant occupies the throne of the Eastern Empire to-day, was twenty-four years old when he succeeded to the government of his tribe.

To great strength and beauty (he was called Kara, from the jet-black colour of his hair and beard) he added courage and energy; and, like all great conquerors, had the gift of reading the characters of men. This enabled him to make wise and fortunate selections of those whom he employed to carry out his designs.

Othman’s long and prosperous reign laid the foundation of the present Turkish Empire. His campaigns were victorious, the territory of neighbouring Turkish tribes was incorporated in his dominions, and the Greek Empire was forced to contribute to the aggrandizement of his realm.

During an interval of peace, from 1291 to 1298, Othman devoted his energies to the internal government of his dominions and became famous for the toleration which he exercised towards his Christian subjects. Not till the death of Ala-ed-din, the Seljukian Sultan, did Othman declare himself independent. He did not even then assume the full title of sultan or emperor, but with his two next successors reigned only as emirs or governors.

When, after several years of peace, Othman had consolidated his resources, he went to war again, and in order to give his followers greater zest and increase their zeal, proclaimed himself the chosen defender of the Moslem faith and declared that he had a direct mission from Heaven. He thus infected them with a fanaticism to the full as fierce and effective as that which had urged Mahomed’s hordes on their career of conquest. The only evil deed which may be attributed to this great ruler was committed in a fit of rage. His venerable uncle Dundar, who, seventy years before, had been one of the four hundred and forty-four horsemen who followed the banner of Ertoghrul, endeavoured to dissuade him from an attempt on the Greek fortress of Koepri Hissar. Othman, observing that some of his officers agreed with Dundar, raised his bow and shot his uncle dead. Thus the commencement of Ottoman sway was marked by the murder of an uncle, even as the foundation of Rome began with fratricide.

Koepri Hissar fell before Othman’s fanatic onslaught at Houyon Hissar, where he for the first time encountered a regular Greek army in the field. Again he conquered. In the beginning of the fourteenth century Othman fought his way to the Black Sea, leaving behind him several towns unsubdued, amongst these Broussa. Othman’s body was failing fast from old age, and he had to send his son Orchan against a Mongolian army, which the Greek Emperor, unable to stem the tide of Turkish conquest, had incited to attack the enemy’s southern frontier. Orchan beat them, then returned to besiege Broussa, and in 1326 took it.

Othman only survived to hear the joyful news. Bestowing his blessing on his son, he said: “My son, I am dying, and I die without regret, because I leave such a good successor as thou. Be just, love goodness and show mercy. Give the same protection to all thy subjects, and extend the faith of the prophet.” Orchan buried his father at Broussa, and erected a splendid mausoleum over his remains. Acting on his father’s advice he made Broussa his capital, and it remained so until the fall of Constantine’s city. The standard and scimitar of Othman are still preserved as objects of veneration. As we have said before, the sword of Othman is girded on each succeeding Sultan amid the prayers of his people: “May he be as good as Othman.”

The romantic history of the kingdom built up by Othman was worthily continued by his sons. Orchan was proclaimed Emir and urged his brother to share the throne. But Ala-ed-din declined, asking only the revenues of a single village for his maintenance. Orchan then said, “Since, brother, you will not accept the flocks and herds I offer you, be the shepherd of my people—be my Vizier.” And so this high office was instituted. Ala-ed-din devoted himself to the domestic policy of the State and undertook the first steps towards military organization. The troops that had followed Othman to victory were the same men who fed the flocks on the banks of the Euphrates and Sakaria. They formed loose squadrons of irregular cavalry, and after the war returned to their peaceful avocation and, in the main, the mass of the nation continued to be the source whence in the time of war the Ottoman troops were drawn.

But Ala-ed-din saw the need of a standing army who should make war their sole business and profession, and first raised a body of infantry called Jaza or Piade. The next corps raised were the famous Janissaries. They were entirely composed of Christian children taken in battle or in sieges and compelled to embrace the Mahomedan faith. A thousand recruits were added yearly to their numbers, and they were called Jeni Iskeri, or new troops, from which is derived the European corruption Janissaries. These Janissaries were trained to warlike exercises from their youth, and subjected to the strictest discipline. They were not allowed to form any territorial connection with the land that had adopted them, their prospects of advancement depended entirely on their skill in the profession of arms, and the highest posts in that profession only were open to them. Their isolated position and the complete community of interest which united them prevented the degeneracy and enervation which so speedily settled upon every Eastern Empire when once the fire of conquest had died down.

Ala-ed-din further extended the military organization of the Othman crown, and in a manner that rendered the fighting forces readily adaptable to every exigency. A corps-d’Élite was formed of specially chosen horsemen. These were called Spahis. Then further corps were organized, the Silihdars, or vassal cavalry; Ouloufedji, or paid horsemen; Ghoureha, or foreign horse; Azabs, or light infantry; and the Akindji, or irregular light horse. We have met these latter before, when describing battles in which Turks and Franks were opposed to each other. The Akindji gathered together in irregular hordes to accompany every military enterprise, they foraged for the regular troops and swarmed round them to cover a retreat or harass a retiring enemy, they received no pay like the Janissaries nor lands like the Piade, and were entirely dependent on plunder.

The story of a clever ruse is told of one of Orchan’s campaigns against the Greeks. Othman had left Nice and Nicomedia untaken. Orchan took the latter town and invested Nice. Andronicus, the Greek Emperor, crossed the Hellespont with a hastily-raised levy to raise the siege of Nice, but Orchan met and defeated him with a portion of his army. Now the garrison of Nice had been advised of the Emperor’s intention and daily expected his arrival. So Orchan disguised 800 of his followers as Greek soldiers and directed them against the fortress. These pseudo-Greeks, to give the ruse a yet greater semblance of reality, were harassed by mock encounters with Turkish regular horse. The disguised Turks appeared to have routed the enemy, and headed for the city gate. The garrison had been watching the proceedings, were thoroughly deceived and threw open the gate. An assault by the besieging army, assisted by the force that had gained ingress, brought the city into Orchan’s possession.

By 1336 Orchan had included all North-Western Asia Minor in the Ottoman Empire, and the next twenty years of peace he devoted to the work of perfecting the military organization and consolidating the resources of his newly-acquired territories; in this his brother Ala-ed-din loyally supported him. Thus in the middle of the fourteenth century we find two empires face to face, separated only by the narrow channel of the Bosphorus. On the Asiatic side the Ottoman Empire, homogeneous, for all its subjects were of the same race, strong and united; on the other side the Greek Empire, distracted by constant feud and domestic disturbance.

It is not to be wondered at that under such conditions occasion should have arisen for Turkish interference in the affairs of the Eastern Empire, and a feud between the Genoese and the Venetians offered a suitable excuse.

The Genoese were in possession of Galata; their commercial rivals, the Venetians, sought them out and attacked them on the Bosphorus. Now Orchan hated the Venetians, for they had arrogantly refused to receive an ambassador whom he sent to Venice. The Venetians were the allies of the Empire, and Orchan had only a few years before married the daughter of Cantacuzene, the Greek Emperor. Desire to be avenged prompted Orchan to ally himself with the Genoese, against the Empire and the Venetians. His son Solyman crossed the Hellespont by night with a handful of faithful followers and took Koiridocastron, or “Hog’s Castle.” No attempt was made to regain the castle, as the Emperor was fully occupied not only with the armies of his rebel son-in-law PalÆologus, but with the Genoese fleet.

The Greek Emperor found himself in sore straits and implored the aid of Orchan. This Orchan readily granted and sent ten thousand troops over to Europe, who, after beating the Slavonic army of PalÆologus, did not return to Asia, but took a firm footing under Solyman, upon the European mainland. Before long the Turkish Empire had acquired a number of strong places, and it was evident that they had come to stay.

Soon after these events Solyman, when engaged in his favourite sport of falconry, was thrown from his horse and killed. He was buried on the spot at which he had led his soldiers into Europe. His father Orchan died the same year, after a reign of thirty-five years. We may date the actual foundation of Turkish greatness in Asia and its effect on the history of Europe, and more especially of Constantinople, from the reign of this able and enlightened monarch and his loyal brother Ala-ed-din. The endless possibilities contained in that strong and single-minded race of Turks were concentrated on the banks of the Bosphorus, their advanced guard had crossed into Europe and had there secured a firm foothold. The Turks were knocking at the gates of Constantinople.

Our travellers have heard already how Amurath I, the youngest son of Orchan, inherited his father’s throne. We have followed Amurath’s romantic career, how he restored the Empire his father left him, after subduing the Prince of Carmania, who with some other Turkish Emirs rose against the house of Othman. Amurath’s rule was extended yet further in Europe at the cost of the Greek Empire, and in the middle of the fourteenth century he made Adrianople his European capital. Under Amurath the Ottomans first encountered those Slavonic races with whom they were for centuries after so frequently engaged in hostilities. Following the fortunes of Amurath, we heard the din of battle when the Western chivalry was opposed to the dashing valour of the Turk, and saw the Crescent victorious when the turmoil subsided on the banks of the Maritza. The warlike host of the Slavonic confederacy passed in pageant before us, to meet its fate at Kossova, where Amurath, the conqueror, perished in the fight.

The victorious son of Amurath, Bajazet, who first of the house of Othman assumed the title of Sultan, has been presented to our travellers. With those who took their walks on the Atrium down by the Sea of Marmora, we watched the events that marked the reign of Bajazet and felt the increasing pressure to which the failing Greek Empire was submitted. If we wish to gain some idea of the terror that was felt, let us imagine London slowly isolated by an irresistible host of the Chinese and trying hard to secure the spiritual sanction and material protection of her old enemy, the Pope of Rome. We heard the ringing blows dealt by the Turks as they hammered at the walls of Constantine’s city, and breathed again when Tamerlane and his savage hordes threatened the eastern provinces of Bajazet’s Asiatic Empire. When Bajazet was slain at Angora we saw how the Imperial City revived, and how hope lingered during the years that Mahomed I employed in putting his Asiatic house in order. But shortly after, yet another Amurath appeared in Europe and laid siege to Constantinople; but the time was not yet come, and he was compelled to withdraw to his Carmanian frontier. Nevertheless, the Turks were even then virtual masters of the situation; Thessalonica had fallen, sacked by Amurath II, and nothing but the Imperial City and a small tract of country round it was left to the Eastern Empire.

The travellers have witnessed the growth of the city which Byzas founded, and seen how, according to the utterance of the oracle, it prospered. They have watched the city expand under the fostering care of the earlier Emperors, and have noted how the security its walls afforded led to a mode of life which unfitted the populace for their own defence. But for the stoutness of these walls the city might have fallen long before the advent of Mahomed the Conqueror, and Europe therefore is deeply indebted to these, the monuments of the Theodosian dynasty.

But the day was drawing near when even this massive chain of masonry should prove of no avail to check the onrush of a vigorous enemy; the encircling walls and sentinel towers had almost accomplished their task of ten centuries, and behind them a nervous, faint-hearted populace awaited the end of all things. What rumours spread throughout the city of that fiendish invention of the Latins—the black powder. Reports came in of how that foreign inventor, who had deserted to the Turks on account of ill-usage by the Greeks, had built a foundry under Mahomed’s eye at Adrianople and cast a cannon of vast destructive power, a cannon with a bore of twelve palms’ breadth, which could contain a charge that drove a stone ball of six hundred pounds weight a distance of a mile, to bury it in the ground to the depth of a furlong. Then frenzy seized the city, and Constantine, the last Emperor of that name, endeavoured to renew communion between the Greek Church and the See of Rome. So Cardinal Isidore of Russia entered the city as the legate of Pope Nicholas V, and with him came a retinue of priests and soldiers. The union of the Churches was solemnized at St. Sophia, and immediately gave rise to more disorder in the streets. This was the state of Constantine’s Imperial City when Mahomed II encamped outside the walls and planted his victorious standard before the Gate of St. Romanus.

Though the walls of the city were stout and true, the power of the defenders was not equal to that of the hosts arrayed against them. The store of gunpowder, which by this time had found its way into use in the Greek army, was not adequate for a protracted siege, and though the Emperor Constantine comported himself as a hero should, the spirit of his people had long been divorced from military valour.

The formidable array of Mahomed’s army stretched all along the land-walls, from the Sea of Marmora to the Golden Horn, and, as we have related, the upper reaches of that harbour were held by the galleys he had transported overland. In the first days of the siege the Greek garrison made frequent sorties to destroy the earthworks behind which the aggressors planned their mines, and made much progress in the art of countermining. But the serious losses such operations entailed, and the dwindling store of powder, put an end to these enterprises.

So from April till May of 1453 the siege of Constantinople continued. The Emperor and his brave ally Giustiniani, commander of a Genoese contingent, held the foe at bay, and encouraged the defenders by their example. Engines of war, ancient and modern, the newly-invented cannon, and the towers of offence well known as far back as the early wars of Rome, took their places side by side for the first and last time in the annals of military history.

Let us look down upon the valley of the Lycus, a scene of desolation to-day, and fill in the gaps that Turkish arms have made. Let us people the reconstructed bulwarks with defenders, while in the valley below and on all the ground before the walls swarm the hosts of Mahomed. Here round the Imperial standard of the Sultan are camped his best troops, those formidable Janissaries who are kept in leash until the last decisive charge. Meanwhile, the lighter irregular forces skirmish about the moat and ramparts. Down in the valley and opposite the fifth military gate the famous gun is placed—a mighty engine of war for those early days of artillery; it fired seven times a day, and for its conveyance a carriage of thirty waggons, drawn by a team of sixty oxen, was required. Other lighter artillery was placed here, all thundering at the tower that flanks the military gate to northward. Above the roar of cannon and the din of battle we may hear the sound of falling masonry, and when the smoke fades away the ruins of that tower strew the terrace. All the small towers of the outer wall and their connecting curtains have been laid low, the dÉbris fills the moat, and every sign points out that the time for the final assault has arrived.

It is daybreak on May 29, 1453, and we resume our place, looking down into the valley of the Lycus. The hostile leaders had spent the preceding night each in a characteristic manner. Mohamed had assembled his chiefs and issued final orders; he dispatched crowds of dervishes to visit the tents of his troops to inflame their fanaticism and promise them great rewards—double pay, captives and spoil, gold and beauty, while to the first man who should ascend the walls the Sultan pledged the government of the fairest province of his dominions.

The Emperor Constantine likewise assembled his nobles and the bravest of his allies; he adjured them to make the most strenuous efforts in the defence, and to encourage the troops to do their utmost. He had no rewards to offer, but the example of their Prince infused the courage of despair into the leaders of his despondent troops. A pathetic scene this, as described by the historian Phranza, who assisted at it. When the Emperor had delivered his last speech he and his followers embraced and wept. Then each went his way, the leaders to hold watch at their posts, the Emperor to a solemn mass at St. Sophia, where for the last time in the history of that sacred shrine the mysteries of the Christian faith were adored by any Christian worshipper.

Constantine then returned to the palace and asked forgiveness of any of his servants whom he might have wronged. He then rode round the ramparts to inspect his troops and utter a last word of hope and encouragement.

Without the customary signal of the morning gun the assailants rose with the sun and dashed in successive waves against the walls of Theodosius. Time after time they were repulsed. The Sultan on horseback, his iron mace in his hand, watched the tide that hurled itself against the walls and towers of Constantinople, to surge back, and again to be reinforced by others who met the same fate. Around the Sultan ten thousand of his chosen troops impatiently awaited the signal for attack.

Meanwhile the courage and numbers of the defenders ebbed away. Giustiniani, wounded in the hand, withdrew, and with him the Genoese. A rumour spread that the Turks had forced an entrance at the Kerko Porta. Constantine, who, mounted on a white arab, was directing operations from the inner terrace by the fifth military gate, dashed along the rampart to help if help were needed. Indeed the Turks had gained admittance, but had again been speedily expelled. So Constantine returned the way he came, and resumed his position by a small postern-gate that gave from the inner wall on to the terrace by the fifth military gate. When he arrived there the fighting masses of the Sultan’s bodyguard and Janissaries were surging over the ruins of the outer wall and over the corpses of their predecessors on to the inner wall. The fury of their onslaught beat down all resistance, and the numbers of the Christians were now but one to fifty of the Ottomans. A gigantic Janissary Hassan was first upon the walls, he and those with him were thrown back; they charged again, and fell to make way for others. In swarms they came, those fiery Janissaries, under the weight of whose tumultuous onslaught the Christian garrison was overpowered. The victorious Turks rushed in at the breaches in the wall, others had forced the gate of the Phanar on the Golden Horn, and Constantine’s fair city was given over to the sword.

Thus after a siege of fifty-three days Constantinople fell before the scimitar of Othman, whose descendant reigns here to this day. And what of Constantine IX, the last, perhaps the bravest, and certainly the most unfortunate bearer of an illustrious name? He was seen at his post by the postern-gate, bearing his part as a soldier in the defence of his city. He had laid aside the Purple, and the nobles who fought around his person fell at his feet, until he too was cut down by an unknown hand, his body buried under a mountain of the slain. We may with Gibbon apply those noble lines of Dryden—

So, gentle travellers, ere we turn away from this historic spot, let us stand here a moment, here where the great cannon hurled missiles against the walls of Theodosius. The Lycus, now an insignificant stream, but yet so old and memorable in history, trickles away gently towards the ruined ramparts. It finds ingress under one of the ruined towers to our right. In front of us rise the remains of those walls that guarded the city through many centuries. There is the built-up entrance of what was once the fifth military gate, beside it the jagged ruins of the flanking tower, the gate of which we witnessed as the drama of the last siege was played before us. In front and all along to either hand the outer wall and moat are but a mass of ruins, and from the heights to north and south those solemn cypresses that guard the graves of the warriors who fell here, look down upon a scene of desolation. One more look upon the ruined curtain through which the built-up arch gave ingress to retreating Greeks and Ottoman assailants on that 29th of May, there in the angle caused by the wall and its southern flanking tower you may faintly see the remains of a postern-gate. There fell Constantine, the last of the Emperors of the East.

The Valley of the Lycus, showing where the last Emperor fell. One more look upon the ruined curtain through which the built-up arch gave ingress to retreating Greeks and Ottoman assailants on that 29th of May, there in the angle caused by the wall and its southern flanking tower you may faintly see the remains of a postern-gate. There fell Constantine, the last of the Emperors of the East.
The Valley of the Lycus, showing where the last Emperor fell.
One more look upon the ruined curtain through which the built-up arch gave ingress to retreating Greeks and Ottoman assailants on that 29th of May, there in the angle caused by the wall and its southern flanking tower you may faintly see the remains of a postern-gate. There fell Constantine, the last of the Emperors of the East.