CONSTANTINOPLE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18651, 21 August 1930, Page 3

CONSTANTINOPLE.

ITS CHANGE OF NAME. ST. SOHPHIA’S HISTORIC DOME. Constantinople has changed its name once mere. In an acecss of nationalism the Government have decreed that it shall be known in the future as Istanbul, which is thought to be a corruption of Islambol (Islam abounding). The city was founded in A.D. 330 by Constantine the Great. He moved his capital from Rome to Byzantium, which has ever since been known by his name. For a thousand years it was the most elegant and civilised city in the world. Yet the Turks could not look across the Bosphorus at the delicate and slender domes of the city without longing for its possession. They were getting stronger year by year, while the Romans steadily declined; at last in 1459 they succeeded in taking the city, and in extinguishing the last remnant of the empire. The Power of Turkey. On the ruins there grew a second empire; soon Turkey was the most powerful nation in the world. Greece was hers and most of the Aegean isles, Belgrade and the Crimea, all Hungary and nearly all of Austria; even Italy had felt the imprint of her foot. Gradually, however, this empire faded too, and there is little memory of her greatness in Constantinople to-day. It is little more than a collection of towns and villages a rambling stretch of ruins. Within the walls, built by the Roman emperors, the city rises on seven hills with a great wilderness of tumbledown and filthy wooden houses climbing up their sides. The streets are narrow and steep; sometimes they are cobbled, but more often they are deeply rutted lanes, cluttered up with piles of stones and rubbish. The great bazaars spread out like some vast and endless rabbit-warren—-for they are all covered in. Here in the dingy half-light the tourist is dragged into every store and urged with cup after cup of black Turkish coffee until he has bought some trinket. He will faithfully bring it back home, blissfully unaware that it was probably manufactured in Manchester. Stately Mosques. In Stamboul are all the greatest monuments of Constantinople. The summits of the hills arc covered with stately mosques, painted pink and white and glistening in the sun. Domes and minarets and huge square buildings, rounded lines and soaring pinnacles, give a unique air of dignified grace. The greatest of all the mosques is that of St. Sophia, built by Constantine and dedicated to Eternal Wisdom. Outside it is not very imposing, but within the great emptiness of its stupendous dome, the diffusion of light, and the beauty and richness of the mosaics and marbles are truly astounding. All over the floor are spread luxurious carpets, and it is more like an enormous drawingroom than a temple. Not far off is what seems to be merely a large rubbish dump; it was once the great hippodrome—“the axis of the Byzantine world.” There emperors were entertained or insulted; there military triumphs were celebrated and martyrs burnt at the stake. Now it is nothing but a rubbish heap. At one end there is perhaps a little activity. You may see a few men squatting on the ground and writing love-letters for a modest sum. All around stand the illiterate waiting to purchase their own romantic outpourings. To-day you may even see a typewriter being used, and no doubt a duplicating sheet is surreptitiously introduced.