From that time onward the two Asiatic cities lost something in importance but gained in peace—though Persians, Saracens, and Turks later troubled them again. The fourth Ecumenical Council sat in Chalcedon in 451, in that church of St. Euphemia which had been a temple of Venus. The famous oracle of Apollo Constantine destroyed, using its marbles for his own constructions on the opposite side of the strait. From Chrysopolis he also took a celebrated statue of Alexander the Great. His example was followed by the emperor Valens, who utilised the walls of Chalcedon as a quarry for the aqueduct that still strides across a valley of Stamboul. And even Süleïman the Magnificent was able to find materials for his greatest mosque in the ruins of the church of St. Euphemia and of the palace of Belisarius. [Illustration: The Street of the Falconers] To-day a few sculptured capitals remain above ground in Scutari, and every now and then some one in Kadi Kyöi digs up in his garden a terra-cotta figurine. Otherwise there is nothing left to remind you of the antique cities that sat in front of Byzantium. They have disappeared as completely as the quaint little Scutari of my youth. But two settlements still remain there, and still different, although so long united under one destiny. When projected trolley-cars and motor roads come into being, as they are destined shortly to do, I fancy that this separation will become less and less marked. For the time being, however, Scutari and Kadi Kyöi might be on opposite sides of the Bosphorus. Kadi Kyöi, with its warmer winds, its smoother lands, its better harbours, its trim yachts, its affluent-looking villas, its international _Bagdadbahn_, has acquired a good deal of the outward appearance of Europe. Whereas Scutari remains Asiatic and old-fashioned. It is very much what it was before Bagdad railways, when the caravans of the East marched through its narrow streets, when the Janissaries pounded their kettledrums in the square of Doghanjiler—the Falconers. And it contains almost all that is to be seen in the two towns of interest to the comer from afar. * * * * *