THE reception accorded to “Constantinople” both in this country and Europe, exceeded my most sanguine expectations. A book which had for its theme a capital at once so famous, so fascinating, and yet so little known, was doubtless sure of finding a place.

None the less am I grateful to the press and the public for their cordial welcome. Though this is a carefully revised edition, as few changes as possible in the original have been made, and the work is substantially the same as when fir...

South of the Golden Horn, on the narrow tongue of land—narrow it seems as seen from the hills of the northern shore—is the city of Constantine and his successors in empire, seated, like the old Rome, on seven hills, and surrounded on three sides by sea, on the fourth by the still splendid, though shattered, mediæval walls. Northwards are the two towns, now linked together, of Pera and Galata, that look back only to the trading settlements of the Middle Ages.

The single spot united, as G...