From that time to our own Constantinople has been the capital city of the Turkish Empire. Again, I wish I might tell you about at least a few of its many wonders, for I have seen some of them, but again I must hasten on.
The city is so great that it overflows in every direction; in fact, there are three cities in one: Stamboul, the central division, filling the tongue of land between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora; Galata, on the farther bank of the Horn; and Scutari, on the opposite shore of the Bosporus. It is to the last-named that we are going.
Although actually a suburb of Constantinople, Scutari is a town in itself, and a large and ancient one. In the earliest times of the great Persian monarchy, it was called Chrysopolis, the
Golden City. Its present name means in Persian a courier who carries royal orders from station to station; that is because the place has always, from its earliest days, been a rendezvous for caravans, messengers, travelers of every description. Here Xenophon and his Greeks, returning from the war against Cyrus, halted for seven days while the soldiers disposed of the booty they had won in the campaign. Here, for hundreds of years, stood the three colossal statues, forty-eight feet high, erected by the Byzantians in honor of the Athenians, who had saved them from destruction at the hands of Philip the Lacedaemonian. Here, to-day, are mosques and convents, palaces and tombs, especially the last; for the burying ground of Scutari is one of the largest in the world^ and its silent avenues hold, some say, twenty times as many dwellers as the gay and noisy streets of Stamboul.
It is a strange place^ this great burying ground. Beside each tomb rises a cypress tree, tall and majestic. The tombs themselves are mostly pillars of marble, with a globe or ball on the top; and perched atop of this globe is in many cases a turban or a fez, carved in stone and painted in gay colors. This shows that a man lies beneath; the women's tombs are marked by a grapevine or a stem of lotus, also carved in marble. At foot of the column is a flat stone, hollowed out in the middle to form a small basin. Some of these basins are filled with flowers or perfumes; in others, the rain and dew make a pleasant bathing and drinking place for the birds who fly in great flocks about the quiet place. Not far from this great cemetery is another place of burial, that of the English; and this is laid out like a lovely garden, and watched and tended with loving care; for here rest the brave men who fell in this terrible war of the Crimea, or who wasted away in the great building that towers foursquare over all the neighborhood. We must look well at this building, the Barrack Hospital of Scutari, for this is what Florence Nightingale came so far to see. Through all the long, wearisome journey, I doubt whether she gave much heed to the beauties or the discomforts of the way. Her eyes were set steadfastly forward, following her swift thoughts; and eyes and thoughts sought this one thing, this gaunt, bare building rising beside the new-made graves. Let us follow her and see what she found there.
CHAPTER IX.
|HE Barrack Hospital at Scutari was just what its name implies. It was built for soldiers to live in, and was big enough to take in whole regiments. Surrounding the four sides of a quadrangle, each one of its sides was nearly a quarter of a mile long, and it was believed that twelve thousand men could be exercised in the great central court. Three sides of the building were arranged in galleries and corridors, rising story upon story; we are told that these long narrow rooms, if placed end to end, would cover four miles of ground. At each corner rose a tower; the building was well situated, and looked out over the Bosporus toward the glittering mosques and minarets of Stamboul.
You would think that this vast building would hold all the sick and wounded men of one short war; but this was not so. Seven others were erected,
and all were filled to overflowing; but the Barrack Hospital was Miss Nightingale's headquarters, and the chief scene of her labors, though she had authority over all; I shall therefore describe the situation and the work as she found it there.