[Illustration: GOLDEN HORN, EARLY MORNING Beyond the pile of buildings in the foreground a glimpse of the Golden Horn is seen with Stamboul partly shrouded in mist in the distance.] The portion of the Golden Horn to the east of the Galata Bridge is crowded with foreign steamships, among which those bearing the flags of Britain, France, Austria, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Roumania, are the most conspicuous. It may not be to the credit of the country, nor for its greatest advantage, that so much of the commerce of the place should be in foreign hands, but this gathering of the nations in the harbour of the city is imposing; it is an indication of the central position occupied by the city in the world’s affairs, and contributes largely to form the cosmopolitan character for which Constantinople is distinguished. Here the nations assemble to compete with one another as nowhere else in the world, at least in a way so manifest and decisive. This was a feature of the life of the city also before Turkish days. There was a time, indeed, during the Middle Ages when the commerce between the East and the West was exclusively in the hands of the subjects of the Byzantine Empire, when the merchants of Constantinople were the merchant princes of the civilised world. But not to speak of the interference of the Saracens with the trade of the city, the formidable competition of the Italian Maritime States began to make itself felt towards the close of the eleventh century, and from that time onwards became more and more serious until it well-nigh destroyed the business carried on by the native inhabitants. This was due partly to the enterprise of the Italian merchants, and partly to the policy which purchased the aid of the Western States against the foes of the Empire by means of commercial concessions which proved detrimental to domestic trade. It was thus that Alexius Comnenus secured the help of Venice against the Normans, and that Michael Palæologus obtained the support of the Genoese, when, in 1261, he undertook the task of recovering Constantinople from its Latin occupants. The attack upon Constantinople in 1203-1204 by the Fourth Crusade, at the instigation of the Doge Henrico Dandolo, was essentially a piratical expedition to capture the commerce of the East for the benefit of the merchants of Venice. In the course of time the foreign traders in Constantinople were allowed by the Byzantine emperors to occupy the territory extending along the southern shore of the Golden Horn from the Seraglio Point to Zindan Kapoussi. They were grouped according to their nationality, and placed beside one another in the following order, Saracens, Genoese, Pisans, traders from Amalfi, Venetians. After 1261, the Genoese were settled in Galata, where they have left a monument of their occupation in the strong and massive Tower of Galata, that formed their watch-tower and citadel, and where they established, at the very gates