CHAPTER V THE CRADLE OF THE OSMANLIS Have Time's stern scythe, man's rage and flood and fire A few poor footsteps may now cross the shrine, Bound with thick ivy broken columns lie, Through low rent circles winds of evening sigh, Rough brambles choke the vaults where gold was stored, NICOLAS MICHEL. Our next side trip, after visiting Troy, was a short excursion to Brusa which-partly by steamer and partly by rail-is easily accessible from Constantinople. I was especially eager to see this famous place, for its historic associations are numerous and varied. It was to Brusa-anciently Prusa-that Hannibal fled after his defeat by the Romans. There are indeed, some authorities who maintain that the great Carthaginian general was the founder of Brusa. It was from this city, which was once large and prosperous, that Pliny the Younger, while governor of Bithynia, wrote his celebrated letter to Trajan, in which he asked for instructions concerning the policy to be pursued regarding "the stubborn sect of Christians" who were then rapidly increasing in numbers and who, by refusing to offer sacrifices to the gods and by persistently avoiding all pagan rites and observances, had made themselves specially obnoxious to Roman officialdom. This letter is remarkable as being one of the first notices in Roman writers respecting the members of that incipient Church which was eventually to become mistress of the capital of Cæsars. 1 Plinii Epistulae No. 97. "Nequi enim dubitabam, qualecumque esset quod faterentur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri.” In Ottoman history Brusa is notable for having been the capital of Orkhan, the second ruler of the Osmanlis and for having long been the favorite resort of Moslem scholars, artists, poets, and dervishes who enjoyed a great reputation among their coreligionists for their reputed sanctity. And even after the transfer of the Ottoman capital to Adrianople and subsequently to Constantinople, Brusa continued to be one of the sacred cities of the Mohammedans. For here were buried the first six Osmanli sovereigns besides more than a score of Ottoman princes and here "more than five hundred pashas, theologians, teachers, and poets sleep their last sleep around their first Padishas." Among the turbehs which particularly impressed me was that of the Serbian princess who, although the wife of a Sultan, was able to preserve untainted the religion of her Christian parents. Here were erected numerous medresses-colleges-mosques and public buildings whose size and grandeur were for centuries a favorite theme of Moslem poets and historians. In beauty of design, richness of material, and exquisite finish some of the mosques-especially the renowned Green Mosque-are even to-day regarded as the most perfect specimens of Osmanli architecture. Our visit to Brusa was most enjoyable and was an ideal introduction to our long journey through the Ottoman possessions in Asia. For in this old capital of the sultans we find more strikingly exhibited than in noisy, metropolitan Constantinople those dominant characteristics of most Asiatic cities-apathetic immobility, undisturbed quietude, and dreamy repose. But before taking the train at Haidar Pasha we spent a day in wandering through Scutari and Kadi Keui which are just across the Bosphorus from Stamboul. Like Brusa both of these places-especially Scutari-are distinctively Oriental in character and are well worthy of a visit. Both of them, too, have played prominent rôles in the long, historic past and, although they are now so overshadowed by the great city of Constantine, they, nevertheless, offer many attractions that are well worthy of the attention of the student and the historian. Scutari was formerly known as Chrysopolis-the Golden City. Its special attractions for tourists are the Howling Dervishes, whose peculiar devotional exercises take place every Thursday, and the Great Cemetery which is celebrated as the largest and most beautiful Moslem of burying places. It is a great forest of cypress trees, more than three miles in length. Each grave has its tombstone, usually a very modest one. Some of the epitaphs I observed were very touching, especially those that terminated with a prayer that a Fatihah-the first chapter of the Koran-might be said for the soul of the deceased. This chapter [writes Sale, the learned translator of the Koran] is a prayer and held in great veneration by the Mohammedans. . . . They esteem it as the quintessence of the whole Koran, and often repeat it in their devotions, both public and private, as the Christians do the Lord's Prayer.2 It is an integral part of each of the five daily prayers which are said by every good Mussulman. It is, moreover, recited over the sick, at the conclusion of an action of importance, but it is, above all, the favorite prayer for the repose of the soul of the departed taking, in this respect, the place of the Catholic requiescat. As translated by Rodwell it reads: Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! King on the day of reckoning! Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help. The path of those to whom Thou has been gracious;—with As we wandered along the pathways of this last resting place of so many myriads of Mohammedans-from Con 2 The Koran: Commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, p. I (Philadelphia, 1870). stantinople as well as from Scutari-I was impressed by the number of men and women who were here absorbed in prayer for their dear departed, or in tending the flowers which adorned the graves. These quiet mourners, with the countless turtledoves, which make their home in the branches of the funereal cypress trees and which seem to keep up continuously their subdued moan, give to this gloomy necropolis a solemnity and an impressiveness that are almost lacking in such ostentatious cities of the dead as Père Lachaise and the Campo Santo of Genoa. A short drive from the Great Cemetery brings us to the modern town of Kadi Keui which, like Scutari, is also a part of the municipality of Constantinople. It was formerly known as Chalcedon and was founded seventeen years before Byzantium. By the oracle of Delphi it was designated as "the city of the blind," because its founders were blind to the superior position of the tongue of land on the opposite side of the Bosphorus, on which the City of Constantinople now stands. Like most other cities in this part of the world it has witnessed many vicissitudes and has been repeatedly captured and sacked by invading armies from both Asia and Europe. Famed in antiquity for its temple of Apollo and for having been the birthplace of Xenocrates, the most distinguished of Plato's disciples, its temples and palaces, after its capture by the Ottomans, served the sultans as a 8 The reason why the Ottoman whose home is on the West of the Bosphorus desires to be buried in the cemetery of Scutaria is that "he considers himself a stranger and a sojourner in Europe and the Moslem of Constantinople turns his last lingering look to this Asiatic cemetery where his remains will not be disturbed when the Giaour regains possession of this European city, an event which he is firmly convinced will sometime come to pass. Thus the dying Turk feels a yearning for his native soil; like Joseph in the land of Egypt he exacts a promise from his people that 'they would carry his bones hence' and like Jacob, says 'bury me in my grave which I have in the land of Canaan.'" Constantinople, p. 13 (by R. Walsh, London, 1836). + Mohammed en joined his followers to visit graveyards frequently "Visit graves," he says, for "of a verity they shall make you think of futurity." Again, he declares: "Whoso visiteth the graves of his two parents every Friday, or one of the two, he shall be written a pious child, even though he might have been in the world, before that, disobedient to them." stone quarry when they required building material for their mosques in Constantinople. But, although not a vestige of Chalcedon's former grandeur now remains, it will always be remembered as the city in which was held in 451 the fourth œcumenical council of the Church, in which was condemned the teaching of Eutyches and the Monophysites respecting the human and the divine nature in Christ. When I recalled the fact that this council, including the representatives of the absent bishops, was attended by six hundred and thirty bishops; that more than six hundred of these belonged to the Eastern Church, and remembered the very small number of the episcopate that is now found in this part of the world, it was easy to understand the present backward condition of civilization and culture in Asia Minor and Syria. What a change, indeed, since the days of those great doctors of the Oriental Church-the Cyrils, the Gregories, the Basils, the Ephrems, the Chrysostoms-whose learning and eloquence have from their time been the admiration and edification of the whole of Christendom. A short distance to the north of Kadi Keui is the Haidar Pasha military hospital which was the scene of Florence Nightingale's heroic labors during the Crimean War. The rooms which she occupied while here are still preserved intact and as I passed through them, I recalled Longfellow's beautiful tribute to her in the verses: A Lady with a Lamp shall stand Heroic womanhood. Nor even shall be wanting here Saint Philomena bore. 5 The world has long admired the noble qualities of heart and mind of Florence Nightingale but admiration for her has been greatly enhanced by the recent publication of certain letters of hers, previously unknown, which |