THE DEVIL'S CURRENT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XIII, 28 March 1896, Page 344

THE DEVIL'S CURRENT.

Is the Bosphorus, flowing dark. deep, and swift past the gilded minarets of Constantinople, there is one dread ribbon through its entire length known as the ‘ Devil’s Current.' Reddened with tragedy this ribbon of water has long been the scene of the most dastardly, cowardly, and alwavs silent crimes of the world. Two bridges of iron bind together the two halves of the Sultan’s town. To the north-east is Pera, the foreign quarter, the city, as good Mussulmans term it, of the Franks. Across the Horn is Moslemdon, properly Stamboul. and on the great rounded point where Horn and Bosphorus meet are the manv palaces of His Majesty the Sultan, amongst them his seraglio of white and gold. Seraglio Point, on whose shores Horn and Bosphorus mingle their waters, is but a few yards distant from the ’ Devil’s Current,’ which at this point nears the land. In the dead of night, its waters lit only by the pale stars, time and again swift, long black caiques have glided out with muffled oars pulled by black-garbed servants bent on their master’s cruel bidding. Here crimes of horror that it is hard to picture have been perpetrated unwitnessed. Plash, down in the deep, dark waters, struggling, but voiceless, unwept, uncoffined, and unsung, form after form has gone to death. The ghastly whims of the Commander of the Faithful have thrown toit dainty women, valiant soldiers, ardent statesmen, and youths whose onlv fault was that thev loved their country too well. Abdul Hamid, though he seems from his presence to be the most relentless of all the Sultans, is but following in the footsteps of the Padishahs that have gone before him. Within the past month he deliberately drowned like dogs a score of brilliant and patriotic youths whose one aim was the betterment of their country, and during the last fewyears wholesale sacrifices to the * Devil’s Current ’ have been going on with the virulence of seventy years ago, when with one swoop the Janizaries were wiped off the face of the earth. Down by the water’s edge, along the sea wall of the old city, and on the beach below the palace terraces, the little gate or door, with its arched top. from which the Janizaries were thrown one by one after thev had been bowstrung bv order of the reigning Padishah, is still to be seen. When the Janizaries were sent to their death a gun boomed forth as each body was cast into the Bosphorus, signalling to the imperial despot that vengeance had been wreaked on his enemies.