They are now a thing of the
past. Poor brutes, they deserved a better fate than the cruel method of
extinction which Turkish rule administered.
Of course we visited Stamboul's greatest Mosque, S. Sophia. Many other
Mosques we saw, but none that approached the majesty of this. One, the
Church of the Monastery of the Chora, famous for its beautiful mosaics,
we did not see, although the German Emperor had driven specially to it on
his visit in 1898 to the Sultan. The only good road Constantinople
seemed to possess was this road to the church, which lies outside the
city, and this road, we were told, was constructed for the convenience of
His Imperial Majesty.
One day, on the bridge that spans the Golden Horn, we passed the Grand
Vizier in his carriage. It was the day on which we crossed the Bosphorus
by steamer to visit Scutari on the Asiatic shore. Scutari commands a
splendid view of the city, the Golden Horn, and the Bosphorus in its
winding beauty, right away to the Black Sea. What a city some day will
Constantinople be! The grandest perhaps on earth. In Scutari we heard
the Howling Dervishes at their devotions, and the following day, in
Constantinople, witnessed a _performance_ shall I call it? of the Dancing
Dervishes in their whirling, circling, toe-revolving exercise.
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