CHAPTER II

THE EUXINE AND THE BOSPHORUS IN STORY, MYTH AND LEGEND

_The Pontic Sea,_ _Whose icy current and compulsive course_ _Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due course_ _To the Propontis and the Hellespont._ SHAKESPEARE “Othello.”

Our entrance into the Black Sea was through the well-jettied Sulina Canal--a canal which, for a great part of its length, passes through a reed-covered lowland which is so near sea-level that, when the Danube is in flood, vast stretches of it are completely under water. The delta of the Danube, which has an area of about one thousand square miles, has been built up by the immense accumulation of mud and sand which has been brought down by the great river and its numerous affluents from the rain-drenched Balkans and Carpathians and from the far-off snow fields of the Carnic and Rhætian Alps. The rate at which the delta is encroaching on the sea may be judged from the carefully conducted investigations that have been made, which show that the amount of earth discharged at the mouths of the Danube totals several thousand cubic feet a minute. For many leagues out from land the earth-colored water of the Danube is easily distinguished from that of the Euxine. This alone enables one to realize the extent of the erosion going on in the Danube basin and the immensity of the deposit that is daily laid on this part of the bed of the Black Sea.

As myth and legend hover over the Danube from its source to its delta, so do they also linger along the western shore of the historic Euxine. Even before we have left the earth-colored flood which pours into it, we descry in the distance the little island of Fido-Nisi--Serpent Island--so called from the great number of snakes which are said to infest its sea-lashed cliffs and about which, from time immemorial, Russian and Turkish sailors have told the most fantastic stories.

_In antiquity it was known as Leuce--_ _“Leuce, the white, where the souls of heroes rest.”_

According to Homer, the ashes of Achilles, the hero of the _Iliad_, were placed in a golden urn and deposited in a tumulus on the promontory of Sigeum in the Troad. This elevated headland, visible far out on the Ægean, served as a landmark for passing mariners. Later poets, however, inform us that the body of Achilles was snatched from the burning pyre by Thetis, his goddess-mother, and transferred to the Island of Leuce where, with his bosom friend, Patroclus and other heroes,[28] it was speedily worshipped by the Greeks who here erected a temple in the hero’s honor. For this reason Leuce was long known as the Island of Achilles.

The Greek historian Arrian in his _Periplus of the Euxine Sea_, written in the form of a report to the Emperor Hadrian, says:

Some call this the Island of Achilles, others call it the chariot of Achilles, and others Leuce, from its color. Thetis is said to have given up this island to her son Achilles, by whom it was inhabited. There are now existing a temple and a wooden statue of Achilles of ancient workmanship. It is destitute of inhabitants and pastured only by a few goats which those who touch here are said to offer to the memory of Achilles. Many offerings are suspended in this temple, as cups, rings and more valuable gems. All these are offerings to Achilles. Inscriptions are also suspended written in the Greek and Latin languages. Some are in praise of Patroclus, whom those who are disposed to honor Achilles treat with equal respect. Many birds inhabit this island, as sea gulls, divers, and coots innumerable. These birds frequent the temple of Achilles. Every day in the morning they take their flight and, having moistened their wings, fly back again to the temple and sprinkle it with the moisture, which having performed they brush and clean the pavement with their wings.... It is said that Achilles has appeared in time of sleep both to those who have approached the coast of this island and also to such as have been sailing a short distance from it and instructed them where the island was most safely accessible and where the ships might best lie at anchor. They also say further that Achilles has appeared to them not in time of sleep, or a dream, but in a visible form on the mast, or at the extremity of the yards, in the same manner as the Dioscuri have appeared. This distinction, however, must be made between the appearance of Achilles and that of the Dioscuri, that the latter appear evidently and clearly to persons who navigate the sea at large, and, when so seen, foretell a prosperous voyage, whereas the figure of Achilles is seen only by such as approach this island.[29]

A short sail southwestwardly from the island of Achilles brings us in view, on our starboard, of the important seaport of Constanza. It is located at the eastern extremity of Trajan’s wall and had a special interest for me because its site is near that of Tomi to which the poet Ovid was banished by the Emperor Augustus. The privations which he had to endure on this distant boundary of the Roman Empire and the miseries of his life among the barbarians on the shore of the Euxine are graphically described by the poet in his _Tristia_ and _Letters from Pontus_.

The climate of this inhospitable place was trying indeed to the disconsolate exile who had just come from the palace of the Cæsars and who had so long enjoyed all the delights of the Roman capital. For here, to his eyes, the fields were without verdure, the spring without flowers, and snow and ice were eternal. The long hair and beards which concealed the visage of the rude Sarmatians, among whom he was compelled to live, clicked with icicles. Wine froze and had to be cut with a sword. According to Ovid’s account the cold was more severe in his time than it was during the memorable arctic winter many centuries later when the temperature fell so low that the Euxine was frozen over for weeks and the ice on the Bosphorus was so thick that people were able to pass on foot from the Asiatic to the European shore.

It was in this cheerless and frigid region, far from home and friends, that one of Rome’s greatest poets spent the last eight years of his life and here it was that he died. Before his death he had expressed a wish that his ashes, enclosed in a modest urn, should be taken to Rome in order that he might not be an exile after death, as he had been during so many years of his life, but his request was not granted.[30] A tradition exists that a tomb was erected to his memory in Tomi, but there is among scholars as much doubt respecting the existence, or location of such a tomb, as there always has been regarding the reason of the poet’s banishment by one who had showered on him so many and so great favors.

According to a legend that Ovid recalls in one of his elegies, Tomi was a place of ill omen, for it was here that Medea murdered her brother and strewed the sea with his carved limbs. And it was from this atrocious fratricide, according to the poet, that the town of Tomi took its name:

_Inde Thomis dictus locus hic, quia fertur in illo_ _Membra soror fratris consecuisse sui._[31]

From the most remote antiquity the Euxine has been noted for the fury of its tempests and for the reputed terrors of its navigation, as well as for the savage character of the inhabitants on its coast. For this reason the ancients called it _Pontus Axenus_--the inhospitable sea. Subsequently, as if to placate its fury, by an euphemism, it was called the _Euxine_--the hospitable sea--a name which it has since borne.

But the first name given to this extended body of water was simply _Pontos_--the Greek word for sea--as if it were the sea _par excellence_. The noted traveler, Giovanni da Piano Carpini, a Franciscan friar, and Ricoldo da Monte di Croce, a Dominican missionary in the Orient, called it _Mare Magnum_--the great sea. In the _Itinerarium_, however, of Blessed Oderic of Pordenone it bears the name _Mare Majus_--the greater sea--as it does also in _I Viaggi_ of Marco Polo who calls it _Mare Maggiore_. But this is not all. Friar Jordanus speaks of it as the Black Sea--_Mare Nigrum_, as likewise does Sir John Mandeville who gives it the name _Mare Maurum_--_Mauros_, in Byzantine, as in Modern Greek, signifying black. But there was, probably, no better reason for calling this sea black than there was for giving to certain other well-known seas the epithets of red, white, and yellow. From all this it appears that what we now know as the Euxine or Black Sea has been rich in names as well as in myths and legends.[32]

The Euxine, however, is famed not only for legendary associations but for having been for centuries a section of the great highway between the Occident and the Orient. It was by this route that Fra Oderic of Pordenone, that celebrated missionary of the fourteenth century, made his wonderful journey from Venice to China and other parts of the Far East. It was by the same route that Marco Polo--the most famous traveler of the Middle Ages--returned from his long peregrinations in eastern Asia to his home in the Queen City of the Adriatic. And it was by way of the Euxine that Marco Polo’s father and uncle had preceded him to far-off Cathay where they were most cordially received by the famous Kublai Khan.

It was also for ages an important link in one of the world’s great commercial highways. From time immemorial there were three great trade routes which connected India and China with Europe. One was the Persian Gulf route which ran from the mouth of the Indus to the Euphrates and along this latter river to Zeugma, or Thapsacus, whence it proceeded to Antioch and other ports of the eastern Mediterranean. The second was the sea route which went from India along the Persian and Arabian coasts to Aden, thence by the Red Sea to Alexandria and Tyre and Sidon. The third was the great overland route which started from Bactra--long, like Babylon, a market-place for the races of the world and a great emporium for Indian and Chinese commerce--and reached the West by two roads. One was the caravan route which crossed Parthia and Mesopotamia and ended in Antioch. The other passed down the river Oxus to the Caspian Sea and thence to the Euxine. This is the trade route that has the greatest interest for us at present--a route that served as one of the world’s chief commercial highways for more than two thousand years.

Long before Alexander made Bactra his base for the invasion of India, long before the Greek Skylax of Karyanda made his famous voyage from the mouth of the Indus to Arsinoe on the Red Sea, and many centuries before Hippalus made his epoch-making discovery of the existence of the moonstones of the Indian Ocean, which immensely augmented the ocean-bound traffic between India and Egypt, a very large volume of the luxuries of the Far East found their way to the Occident by the great Oxus-Caspian-Euxine trade route. And while the ships of Tarshish and

_Quinquiremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir,_ _Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,_ _With cargoes of ivory and apes and peacocks,_ _Sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet, white wine,_

were bringing to Syria and the Land of the Pharaohs treasures from the coast of Malabar and

_The spicy shore_ _Of Araby the blest_,

interminable caravans and countless merchantmen were always busy along the Oxus-Caspian-Euxine route bearing to Byzantium and Athens and Rome silks from China and Bengal; muslin and other stuffs from Benares and Kotumbara; tortoise-shell from the Golden Chersonese; indigo from Sind; drugs, spices, cosmetics, perfumes, pearls, beryls, and precious stones from other parts; costus from Cashmere; pepper from Malabar; gums, spikenard, lycium, and malabathrum from the forests of the Himalayas; and sapphires, rubies, and aquamarines from Burma, Siam, and Vaniyambadi.

What was the volume of this trade between the Orient and the Occident, especially after the establishment of the _Pax Romana_ under Augustus, may be gauged by the fact that the unprecedented demand by the fashionable world of Rome for all kinds of eastern luxuries for a while seriously imperiled the imperial finances. In the single item of aromatics for funerals, the extravagance indulged in seems incredible. At the obsequies of Sulla, before the time of Augustus, more than twelve thousand pounds of precious spices were consumed, while Nero had more expensive aromatics burnt on the funeral pyre of Poppœa than Arabia produced in a year.

When, after the destruction of Bagdad by Hulaku Khan, Tabriz in Persia became the great political and commercial city of Asia, it was by the Euxine that the merchant princes of Venice and Genoa conducted their commerce with the Middle and Far East. Passing through the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, their galleys proceeded to Kaffa in the Crimea which was their chief _entrepôt_ on the Euxine. From this point the enterprising traders continued their course by way of the Sea of Azov, the Don, and the Volga to a port on the Caspian Sea. Thence their caravans started on their long overland journey over lofty mountains and through vast deserts and hostile nations to far distant Cathay in quest of the highly-prized commodities of Chinese kilns and looms. Other traders went directly by sea from Kaffa to Trebizond whence they journeyed over broad, arid plains to Tabriz. Here their numerous caravans were laden with the rich fabrics of Persia and the rare products of India and the Isles of Spicery. From these centers of Asiatic traffic, long lines of patient camels transported their precious burdens to ports on the Euxine where a fleet of Genoese and Venetian galleys was waiting to receive the merchandise collected at so much risk and at the cost of so much labor and which was subsequently distributed among the expectant marts of southern Europe.[33]

Before embarking at Sulina for Constantinople, I almost dreaded the voyage to the Bosphorus. From the time of the Argonauts the tempestuous Euxine has been a byword among mariners and the dread of travelers who have to trust themselves to its storm-lashed waves. In the words of Ovid its fury was inferior only to the turbulence of the fierce barbarians among whom he was exiled. I had prepared myself to endure for a day all the horrors which characterize a rough passage across the English channel. Nor were my fears entirely groundless. The sea was heavy,--the weather was squally. Many of the passengers, unwilling to trust themselves on deck, sought the seclusion of their staterooms. As for myself, I did not feel reassured until we had finally entered the more protected waters of the Bosphorus. Even at the entrance of this famous channel the voyager may, at times, experience great discomfort. Byron states the reason in the well-known stanza of Don Juan:

_The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave_ _Broke foaming o’er the blue Symplegades;_ _’Tis a grand sight from off “The Giant’s grave”_ _To watch the progress of those rolling seas_ _Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave_ _Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;_ _There’s not a sea ..._ _Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine._[34]

_Inter utrumque fremunt immani turbine venti._ _Nescit cui domino pareat, unda maria._ _Nam modo purpureo vires capit Eurus ab ortu;_ _Nunc Zephyrus, sero vespere missus, adest;_ _Nunc gelidus sicca Boreas bacchatur ab Arcto;_ _Nunc Notus adversa praelia fronte gerit._ _Tristia_, lib. L, Elegia II.

The “blue Symplegades,”--at least what is left of them--to which Byron here refers, are famous for their connection with one of the oldest and most interesting of Greek legends--that of the Argonauts. According to the story which Apollonius of Rhodes has so well developed in his _Argonautica_, the Symplegades were two floating and ever-clashing rocks, at the junction of the Euxine and the Bosphorus, which were fabled to close upon and crush all ships that attempted to pass between them. When Jason with his fifty-oared ship, the _Argos_, and his fifty heroes set out for Colchis to fetch back the golden fleece he was obliged to pass between these great colliding rocks. Thanks, however, to the instructions he had received from the seer, Phineus, who had been delivered from the tormenting Harpies by two of the Argonauts, he was able to effect this hitherto impossible passage and to proceed without interruption to his destination.

After this event the eyotlike rocks became fixed in the positions they now occupy. The one, however, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus has, owing to the action of the elements, long since disappeared beneath the waves. The other, on the European side, is also rapidly disintegrating, and soon will litter the floor of the sea. But the story of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece will endure as long as men shall retain a love for the fascinating in myth and legend and the beautiful in art and literature.

Although the Cyanean Islands--as the Symplegades are now called--and the shores of the Euxine are exceptionally rich in places and things of great historic and mythological interest, they are in this respect surpassed by the Bosphorus. Nowhere in the world do myth and legend, traditional associations and historic souvenirs cluster in such numbers and varieties as they do about every rock and bay and promontory of this famous waterway that connects the Euxine with the Sea of Marmora.

Even the names bestowed upon this channel have been manifold. To the ancients it was variously known as the Mouth, the Throat, the Door, and the Key of the Euxine. To-day it is frequently called the Narrows, or the Strait or the Canal of Constantinople. But the appellation which is still the most popular and that by which it is usually designated is that which has its origin in one of the earliest of Greek legends. As expressed in English, the name, which signifies Cow-Ford, or Ox-Ford, seems very prosaic, but the legend on which it is based has always been a favorite with poets and artists.

Io, the beautiful priestess of Hera at Argos, was loved by Zeus and was, in consequence of the jealousy of the goddess, metamorphosed into a heifer. Arriving at the eastern side of the strait, so the fable runs, she plunged into its swiftly-flowing waters and swam to the European shore. And from that time to the present, this famed watercourse has been known the world over as the Bosphorus.

On the promontory of Anadoli Kavak on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, we get a view of the site of Hieron which was long regarded as one of the most sacred places in the pagan world. Covered then with gorgeous temples dedicated to the twelve greater gods it ranked as a place of pilgrimage with Delphi and Olympia. The most imposing and sumptuous of these temples was said to have been founded by Jason and consecrated to Zeus Urius, in thanksgiving for the safe return of himself and his fellow Argonauts from their successful expedition to Colchis. Within it stood a priceless statue of Zeus made of ivory and gold, at the base of which was a slab, now preserved in the British Museum, on which were inscribed the words:

The sailor who invokes Zeus Urius that he may enjoy a prosperous voyage either toward the Cyanean Rocks, or on the Ægean sea, itself unsteady and filled with innumerable dangerous shoals scattered here and there, can have a prosperous voyage if first he sacrifices to the god whose statue Philo Antipater has set up, both because of gratitude and to insure favorable augury to sailors.

But unlike Delphi and Olympia where there is still, thanks to the labors of French and German archæologists, very much to remind one of the past grandeur of these historic places, “not a stone upon a stone” remains on the site of Hieron to attest to its former splendor and majesty. As in so many other parts of the world, the temples of Hieron served as quarries for peoples of a later age who knew not the gods of Olympus, or who had a special interest in consigning them to oblivion. And where, in days of yore, the clouds of incense and the smoke of sacrifice, in the most superb of temples stimulated the fervor of vast multitudes from far distant lands, the traveler to-day finds nothing of the pristine glory of Hieron except what nature gave it--its superb site and its enchanting vistas of the Bosphorus and the Euxine.

After the fall of paganism, Hieron had many vicissitudes. Having been converted into one of the strongest fortresses on the Bosphorus, it was time and again singled out for attack by the enemies of the Byzantine Empire. Among the most celebrated of them was Harun-al-Rashid who led an army the whole way from Bagdad with a view of effecting the conquest of Constantinople and with it of the Byzantine Empire. At a later date Hieron and the stronghold on the opposite side of the Strait fell into the hands of the Genoese. Not long afterwards it was captured by the Sultan Bayazid I, “the Thunderbolt,” and since then it has been in the possession of the Turks.

A short distance to the southwest, on the European shore, is a beautiful valley where the Crusaders are said to have encamped on their way to the Holy Land. A colossal plane tree is here seen which bears the name of “Plane tree of Godfrey of Bouillon,” from a tradition that it was planted by this famous hero of the Christian host.

At Roumeli Hissar, we reach the narrowest point of the Bosphorus and one which is most rich in historical associations. According to tradition, it was here that Xenophon and his immortal Ten Thousand crossed over into Europe after their famous retreat from the heart of Babylonia--a retreat which, revealing, as it did, the military weakness of the Persian Colossus, paved the way for the victories of the Granicus, the Issus, and Arbela and for the conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great.

Here, too, it was that Mandrocles of Samos constructed the bridge of boats that enabled the vast Persian army under Darius to cross into Europe at the time of that monarch’s disastrous campaign against the Scythians. Mandrocles was so elated by his achievement that he had it commemorated in the temple of Hera, in his native Samos, by a picture with the inscription:

_The fish-fraught Bosphorus bridged, to Juno’s fane_ _Did Mandrocles this proud memorial bring;_ _When for himself a crown he’d skill to gain,_ _For Samos praise, contenting the Great King._

But a large volume would be required to give even a brief notice of the countless myths, legends, traditions, and historical souvenirs which cluster about the shores of the Bosphorus from the Euxine to the Golden Horn. They have been the scenes of tragedies and romances and intrigues without number. From the dawn of history the Bosphorus has been constantly a bone of contention among rival and conflicting interests and an important factor in many of the great wars that have convulsed Asia and Europe. And until a plan shall be elaborated for eliminating international jealousies and harmonizing the antagonistic policies and aspirations of many peoples of divers races and creeds, it is not probable that the future history of this unique waterway will be materially different from that of the past. Altruism among nations has so far been confined to words and, from present indications, the day is far distant when it will be revealed in deeds.

It is not, however, through its legendary and storied past that the Bosphorus makes its strongest appeal to the ordinary traveler. It is rather through its scenic beauty--the enchanting vistas it everywhere offers on both the Asiatic and the European shore. These have for ages been celebrated in song and story and few who have been privileged to gaze on them will say that their praises have been exaggerated. From whatever point the Strait is viewed it is picturesque in the highest degree and exhibits all along its course countless objects of exhaustless interest.

Almost the entire distance from the Euxine to the Golden Horn one sees bordering the Bosphorus an almost continuous succession of kiosks, palaces, chalets, bungalows, mosques, and minarets. There are the imposing homes of ambassadors accredited to the Sublime Porte, the luxurious residences of the wealthy pashas and merchant princes of Stamboul, the superb marble palaces of sultans and sultanas, all surrounded by inviting groves and artistically laid-out parks rich in flowers and trees from many climes. Here and there in shaded glens and verdant dales are picturesque villages and hamlets whose quaint wooden houses form a striking contrast to the magnificent structures which are in their immediate vicinity.

Of the many beautiful valleys that debouch into the Bosphorus is that of the Great Geuk Su--Sweet Water--on the Asiatic side which appealed to me most strongly. Its clumps of balmy pines, somber cypresses, and graceful mimosas and its romantic groves of wide-spreading planes, sycamores, magnolias, and beech trees whose pendent branches dip into the crystal stream present rarest pictures of sylvan charm and loveliness. They forcibly reminded me of similar spots of scenic beauty which, years before, had so fascinated me in the far-famed Vale of Tempe in northern Thessaly. Emptying into the same bay as the Great Sweet Water is the Little Sweet Water and the valleys of these two enchanting streams together with their common bay constitute the so-called “Sweet Waters of Asia.”[35] Their attractive groves and greenswards have long been a favorite pleasance for Ottomans and Greeks as well as for foreign residents of Constantinople.

But what most interested me in this heart-gladdening spot was the countless groups of merry and beautiful children who had been brought here by their mothers and nurses for an outing. They seemed to be everywhere. Running and leaping, laughing and shouting, singing and dancing, vanishing among the bushes and suddenly reappearing in the broad greensward, their little forms were perfect pictures of restless energy and unalloyed happiness. Many of the boys and girls were dressed like children one sees in the Bois de Boulogne and their features were just as fair. Nowhere in the East did I see a more animated or a more charming scene except, perhaps, on the embowered banks of the Sweet Waters of Europe on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn.

And the mothers seemed to enjoy themselves fully as much as their children. Some sat quietly conversing under the umbrageous trees while others were enjoying a pleasant row in their light and gaily decked caiques. Most of them were garbed in the _tcharchaff_, a cloak and veil of somber color, but a few still retained the graceful _feridgi_ and _yashmak_ which were formerly in almost universal use among the Ottoman women of the well-to-do classes.

To eastern poets the Sweet Waters of Asia are quite as dear as was the Vale of Tempe to the ancient Greeks. For to the poets of the East this spot is a veritable paradise on earth and far surpasses the vaunted attractions of the celebrated groves of Damascus and the sun-kissed meadows of Shaab Beram in Southern Persia. It supplies, in fullest measure, three of the Moslem’s chiefest delights--umbrageous trees, flowing water, and sweet repose.

The poet must have had some such an enchanting spot in mind when he sang:

_The land of the cedar and the vine,_ _Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;_ _Where citron and olive are fairest of fruit,_ _And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;_ _Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,_ _In color though varied in beauty may vie._

Space precludes more than a passing reference to the sumptuous palaces which adorn the bay-indented shores of the Bosphorus. Of these magnificent edifices Yildiz Kiosk--Palace of the Star--is noted as having been the favorite place of residence of the Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. It is a large structure of white marble and from its commanding site on a grove-clad hill it affords one of the most gorgeous panoramas to be seen anywhere along the matchless Bosphorus.

At the foot of the hill on which stands the palace of Yildiz Kiosk is seen what is undoubtedly one of the most grandiose palaces in the world. It is known as the Serai of Dolma Baghtcheh and was built by the Sultan Abdul-Medjid. His Armenian architect, Balian, was given _carte blanche_ in the matter of expenditure and style of architecture. Only one condition was imposed on him by the Sultan and that was that the completed structure should surpass in magnificence every other imperial palace in the world. Architecturally it is a strange combination of Greek, Roman, Moorish, Turkish, Persian, and Renaissance styles and exhibits both interiorly and exteriorly what is most admirable in the noted palaces of the Louvre, Versailles, the Schönbrunn in Vienna, the Winter Palace in Petrograd, and the imperial palace of the Kremlin in Moscow. With the Ionian-blue Bosphorus as a foreground and the Imperial Park clad in perennial green as a background the snow-white palace of Dolma Baghtcheh, with its delicate lace-like carvings, is, indeed, in the words of an enthusiastic writer, “a pearl placed between a turquoise and an emerald, each jewel multiplied in size and loveliness many million-fold.”[36]

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