Greek, Latin, Egyptian, and Byzantine scholars and historians, but very few originals of literary merit are likely to be found there. Constantinople has never been renowned for its scholars or literary men. It never had a university until recently. The ancient city of Khiva, far away to the northeast, beyond the Caspian Sea and the deserts of Central Asia, was a literary centre when Constantinople was the political capital of the world. Samarkand, Bokhara, and the cities of Asia Minor were centres of learning and theological controversy when the thoughts of Constantinople were absorbed in military and political affairs. Practically all of the literary treasures in the libraries of this city are the loot of a score of conquered nations. Most of them, when brought home from the wars, were dumped at the mosques and other places without arrangement and generally without any appreciation of their value or knowledge of their contents. Several of the sultans had an appreciation of literary merit and encouraged science and art, but this encouragement has never been continuous. More of them have been iconoclasts, like the Caliph Omar, who used the books of the great library at Alexandria, the greatest of its period, to heat the waters for the public baths.
Many of the manuscripts of the Alexandrian library were stolen, and some of them, doubtless, found their way to Constantinople. There were colonies of Greek and Roman scholars all along the coast of the Black Sea, particularly at Trebizond and in the Crimea. Palestine was once rich in lore. Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Armenia, and several cities of Persia and Turkestan were well blessed with wise men — authors, philosophers, theologians, mathema-
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
ticians, poets, and essayists, and were the seats of colleges and universities.
Nobody knows much about the libraries of Constantinople, however; none of them have ever been catalogued; few of them have even been consulted. The books are piled up on their sides in shelves and covered with the dust of ages. The Mohammedan priests, who have charge of them, are usually illiterate men and look upon learning with superstition. They can give no information concerning the volumes in their charge. Only occasionally, when some scholar from Germany, England, or Italy comes here, with sufficient patience and persistence to break through the restrictions that have protected these collections, has anything of interest ever been brought to light.
These unknown collections, however, are believed to contain early copies of the Gospel, of the Greek poets, of the Egyptian geographers, the Phoenician astrologers, and other ancient tomes, and probably within a short time we will be able to learn something about them. The lost books of Livy are supposed to be in a collection of ancient manuscripts at what is called the topcapon or Cannongate of the Seraglio, the ancient residence of the Turkish sultans.
Dr. Arminius Vambery, a Hungarian author, writer, and scholar of note, who somehow or other made himself popular with Abdul Hamid, obtained permission to examine the Cannongate collection, and spent several weeks there. He afterward persuaded the sultan to let him take back to Hungary a number of historical manuscripts which were brought to Constantinople as loot from Budapest after the Turkish army sacked that city in the Middle Ages. As it was strictly a personal matter between the sultan and
Dr. Vambery, there is no record of what the latter carried away.
Several years ago an enterprising Russian scholar found his way into the same library and secured a very early manuscript copy of the Hexateuch, the first six books of the Bible. The manuscript was sent to the Russian Institute at St. Petersburg, where it is now being edited for publication.
Arthur Evans of London also got an opportunity to look over the books at the Cannongate a few months ago, and found a manuscript of great historical interest. It was a life of Mohammed II, by Critobolus, a Greek author, who accepted service under that sultan and became a sort of Boswell for him. His work is especially important because he was the only Greek writer of importance in that period who belonged to the Mohammedan faith and had an opportunity of consulting the Mohammedan authorities.
There is a strong impression that the libraries at all the mosques have been looted of their treasures from time to time, because the opportunity has not been lacking, and they have never been properly protected. No one has been responsible for the library at that most famous of all mosques, St. Sophia, which must have been very important at one time, but is now only a collection of bound manuscripts, not more than three or four hundred in number, in the custody of a fanatical old priest. They have been kicked around the mosque and could easily have been looted by any one who was able to gain the confidence of the custodian. But all the libraries are amply protected now, and the world of book lovers will soon have accurate information about them.