The Passing of the Turkish Empire in Europe. B. Granville Baker
in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, talking loudly all the while, she alighted (not at all like a bird) on my foot, dropped on to my knee, and slid thence into a seat by my side. Followed quickly by her maid, also talking; she settled abruptly on the cap of a cavalry officer opposite to me. But yet more strident tones dominated this Babel, proceeding from a stouter lady, volant, who once settled, fitted a number of talkative males into the interstices between huge hat-boxes and other personal effects. The compartment was thus completely crowded, and conversation raged—raged till morning, was raging on the platform at Badajoz, when I left for the town. Had I been a stranger to the country and its people the intense excitement of my fellow-travellers might have led me to imagine all manner of horrid happenings to unhappy Portugal, grim revolution mixed with devastating earthquakes, foreign invasion on one frontier and a tidal wave on the seaward side—as a matter of fact, the ladies were travelling for their health.
All-unsuspecting I passed in at the gates of Badajoz, past the guard-house, and made my way towards the south-east of the city, where I hoped to get a good view. I did, and having indulged in an appropriate thrill over the storming of that citadel, proceeded with my legitimate business, sketching. Then I wandered round by the river, and began the outline of a mass of crumbling ruins, tumbling down towards the bank. Those walls must have been quite useful for defensive purposes many centuries ago, they are now extremely picturesque, and therefore still useful to the peripatetic artist. Suddenly a well-modulated voice broke in upon my labours. Standing by my side, cap in hand, was a sergeant of the Guarda Civil, who wished to know whether My Excellency, Grace, or Worship (I do not know what the Spanish usted means) had any authorization to take sketches. I admitted that I had none, at the same time appealing to the gentleman as an expert whether my sketches could possibly be considered of any strategical or tactical value. The sergeant modestly declined to judge in such a weighty matter, and requested that I should do him the favour of accompanying him. This I untruthfully expressed myself delighted to do, and so he led me to the guard-house. There was no barred and bolted prison cell for me, in fact I did not penetrate into the interior of the guard-house at all, possibly because a very stout corporal filled up all the doorway. This warrior took a very serious view of the case and said he must fetch an officer; so he majestically passed out of my ken, for I never saw him again. In the meantime I was getting distinctly bored; the sergeant, though most courteous, was no conversationalist, and my knowledge of Spanish is strictly limited. After an hour’s delay two gentlemen in mufti passed our way, evidently people of importance, for my sergeant was at once cap in hand, and to them he entered upon a recital about my serious case. One of them understood French, so I showed him my sketch-book and asked him to try and discover anything of military value or importance in it. He failed, but nevertheless suggested that the sergeant and I should call upon the Military Governor. I hinted that we might have thought of that before, but my sergeant seemed to consider it (thinking) no part of his business.
We waited another hour at the Military Governor’s palatial official residence, watching Spanish soldiers moving in and out in their quick, jaunty manner; smart, well-dressed men they are too. Then His Excellency the Governor came down the steps, and my sergeant, cap in hand, began his story all over again. I burst into it in French and again showed up my sketch-book, His Excellency quite agreeing with me that my sketches were singularly harmless from any point of view. Perhaps I was assuming more responsibility than becomes a wandering painter when I promised that I would never bring out an English army to upset the walls of Badajoz again, though of course I could safely promise never to take part in any such disturbance should it happen again. The Governor was thoroughly satisfied with my earnest assurances, and with a generous wave of his arm invited me to draw and paint all Badajoz. “Would His Excellency give me that gracious permission in writing? Without it I might be calling again in half an hour’s time and with a fresh escort!” “Certainly!” So I became possessed of a document which gave a strange rendering of my name—it described me as one Leandro Vaca, which latter being interpreted means cow. After this formality we were all extremely polite to each other, we bowed a great deal and said to each other things which we could not have meant to be taken seriously. Twice did I meet the Governor and his staff in the streets that afternoon, and each time we did the bowing all over again.
Two hours of precious daylight had been wasted, so I made up for lost time and sketched everywhere, especially near sentries, as I particularly wished to watch the magic effect of the Leandro Vaca document. But alas! not one of those sentries could be roused to the least interest in my proceedings; so I took my way back to the station, destroying the document, as the Governor had requested me to do so. Here ends my “espionage story,” which, not to be behindhand, I have had to put into print myself, no reporter having thought it worth while at the time.
A very different place altogether is Therapia, some three miles further south on the European side; the name means “Place of Healing,” and must have been given to it before the ambassadors of the Great Powers set up their summer residence by its shore. As I passed by Therapia several Turkish men-of-war, a small cruiser, a gunboat, and several destroyers were lying peacefully in the small harbour, completely indifferent to the trials of Turkey’s land forces, who, only a matter of fifty miles away, were endeavouring to ward off the Bulgarians’ blow at the heart of the Ottoman Empire.
The Bosphorus broadens out somewhat at Beikos on the Asiatic side, and it is on this curving bay that according to legend Pollux visited Amycus, King of the Bebryces, to the latter’s undoing.
The banks draw closer together, clustering wooden houses dipping their stone foundations in the water grow more numerous as the Bosphorus winds southward. Two castles rise from among trees and wooden houses, one majestically, the other in rather humbler fashion, the former on the European, the latter on the Asiatic shore. History lingers round these broken towers, but the battered grey walls looked sadder than when I saw them last, under the grey sky they seemed to mourn the departed glory of the race that built them. The castle on the Asiatic side, Anatoli Hissar, encloses rows of quaint little wooden huts, tendrils of vine stretch across the narrow cobbled alleys from the overhanging roofs, and at the foot of the castle flow the Sweet Waters of Asia. It is a pleasant place in spring, this “valley of the heavenly water,” and one of the loveliest spots on the banks of the Bosphorus. To many Asiatic poets it has been what the valley of the Mondego was to Camoens and other sweet singers of Lusitania. Mohammed I built this castle, and Mohammed II sat here in 1451 watching the growth of Roumeli Hissar, the Castle of Europe, on the frontier shore. In three months this castle rose from the rocky slope at this the narrowest part of the Bosphorus; thousands of labourers were forced into the service of construction, and the ground plan was the initial letter of Mohammed’s name.
When it was finished Firaz Agha was appointed commander of the garrison of four hundred men, and levied toll on all passing ships, while the Emperor of the East sent despairing offers of peace from his purple palace in Constantinople. But Mohammed II declined to negotiate, and continued his preparations for the taking of the Castle of Cæsar. Here the forces of Othman gathered strength for their great enterprise, hence they set forth on desperate venture. Constantinople fell before them, the Eastern Empire vanished like a dream, and the Crescent gleamed over the subject races of the Balkan Peninsula and carried terror into the hearts of Christian countries away to the walls of Vienna.
To-day those former subject races, strong and united, have overrun all but the last few miles of the Turkish Empire in Europe; there to westward, at a distance of fifty miles or so, the Bulgarians were hammering at the lines of Chatalja.
When Mohammed the Conqueror first began to besiege Constantinople he endeavoured to force an entrance by the Golden Horn; from Roumeli Hissar to Seraglio Point his fleet extended, but in vain, for a heavy chain barred the entrance, and beyond it the larger vessels of the Genoese and Venetians rode at anchor. So Mohammed conceived a bold plan in keeping with his character and ability.
From Beshiktash—called by the Greeks Diplokion, the Double Columns, Mohammed caused a road of smooth planks to be constructed; this road led over the heights and down to the western end of the Golden Horn. It must have been a difficult task, for Galata, the Genoese fortress, had to be avoided. Galata stands in a position somewhat similar to Constantinople, on a promontory formed by the Hellespont and the Golden Horn, which bends slightly to the north after passing west of the place