FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT ROBERT COLLEGE, CONSTANTINOPLE; NOPLE; OF THE SOCIETY OF MEDIEVAL RESEARCHES, 15 HARVARD COLLEGE LIERARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF Copyright, 1895 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS All rights reserved University Press JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE O the Western eye there seems to be always hanging before Constantinople a veil of mystery and separation. Its remoteness from Great Britain and America in territorial distance and antiquity of history is intensified manyfold by that other remoteness, caused by variety of races, languages, customs, and creeds. It is difficult for the foreign resident to know it well, and for the passing stranger or tourist, utterly impossible. It has been my precious privilege to enjoy unusual opportunities for learning the story and entering into the life of the kaleidoscopic city. The preparation of this book has been a labor of delight, but it has occupied many years. No man could have a more fascinating theme. Even as Constantinople has a charm for all classes of mankind, I have sought to make this not a volume for any one narrow range of readers, but a book for all. As now the bark, so long in building, is launched upon the great sea, I recall the many who have aided in its construction. The mere enumeration of their names would resemble a cosmopolitan romance; for I am proud to reckon among my friends representatives of every na tionality and religion and social rank in Constantinople. To each one of them all I stretch my hand across the ocean and the continent in a warm grasp of friendship and gratitude. One has told me a legend; one identified a rock; one pointed out an inscription; one given a medallion or picture; and each has contributed his stone, or his many stones, to the general mosaic of information. Each face stands out distinct in my grateful memory. The contracted space of a preface allows scant room; but special acknowledgments must be tendered to their Excellencies, Sir Henry Austin Layard and Sir William Arthur White, former British Ambassadors to the Sublime Porte; William Henry Wrench, Esquire, British Consul at Constantinople, and the Reverend Canon Curtis, Rector of the British Memorial Church; His Eminence the Very Reverend Philotheos Bryennios, Metropolitan of Nicomedia; His Excellency Aristarchis Bey, Senator of the Ottoman Empire and Grand Logothete of the Greek Nation; Mr Manuel I. Gedeon, the brilliant mediævalist; the members of the Hellenic Philologic Syllogos; His Excellency Hamdi Bey, Director of the Imperial Ottoman Museum of Antiquities; President George Washburn, D. D., the Reverend Professor Hagopos Djedjizian, and Professor Louisos Eliou, of Robert College; the Reverend George A. Ford, D. D., Arabic scholar, and missionary of the Presbyterian Board at Sidon, Syria; the Reverend Henry O. Dwight, Turkish scholar, and missionary of the American Board at Constantinople; the Honorable Charles K. Tuckerman, former American Minister to Greece; the Honor able Eugene Schuyler, former American Minister to Roumania, Servia, and Greece; the Honorable Zachariah T. Sweeney, former American Consul-General at Constantinople; Alexander A. Gargiulo, Esquire, First Dragoman, polyglot linguist, and adviser of the American Legation at Constantinople; the Honorable Samuel Sullivan Cox, the Honorable Oscar S. Straus of New York City, and the Honorable Solomon Hirsch of Portland, Oregon, former American Ministers to the Sublime Porte. Το This is no mere recapitulation of glittering names. each of these distinguished gentlemen I am personally indebted. I realize sadly that the dull, cold ear of death renders some of them insensible to any word of thanks. Yet there are two to whom I owe more than to all the rest: Alexander G. Paspatis, graduate and doctor of laws of my own Alma Mater, my teacher and early friend, the most modest, the most patient, the most learned of all those who have striven to probe the mysteries of the classic and the Byzantine city; General Lew. Wallace, companionship with whom through years of study and research, and whose always constant friendship have been and are an inspiration. AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A., October the twenty-third, 1895. EDWIN A. GROSVENOR. |