The Hippodrome of Constantinople; And Its Still Existing Monuments (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889. Excerpt: ... 24 I No Theatre, no Palace, no public edifice, has to-day a promenade so magnificent. Standing nearly forty feet above the ground beneath, protected by a solid marble railing reaching to the breast, the spectator had a spacious avenue, 2,766 feet long, in which to walk. Did he cast his eye within? All the pomp and pageantry of imperial and popular display were before his gaze. The contests that stirred his blood and fired his sympathy were as brilliant and as ardent as human ingenuity could provide. When tired of living humanity, its struggles, its restless glories, its hot ambitions--the fairest, the most etherial forms that esthetic touch has summoned into being, were on every side in the perfect majesty of perfect peace If, as he strolled along that lofty marble way, he turned his glance without, he saw, piled high around, the countless, imposing structures of the Metropolis, " Of that city that, for more than half a thousand years, was the most elegant, "the most civilized, almost the only polished and civilized "city in the world." Beyond were the Golden Horn, crowded with shipping, the Bosphorus in its winding beauty, the Marmora studded with islands, and fringing the Asiatic coast, the long line of the Arganthonius Mountains, and the peaks of the Bithynian Olympus, glittering with eternal snow, all combining in a panorama which, even now, no other city of mankind can rival. How many spectators the Hippodrome could contain it is impossible to tell. Sixty thousand is a moderate estimate; without doubt, ample space was afforded for twenty thousand more. In the delirium of the race--ease, rank, office, wealth--all was forgotten; no barriers of marble railing, far less of class, could keep them apart. Treading on each other's feet, raised on each other...