Speaking of the bridge that spans the Golden Horn from Galata to Stamboul, De Amicis remarks that; “where every day a hundred thousand people pass, not one idea passes in ten years.” The slowness with which the East changes is, perhaps, the impression which the spectacle of life in Constantinople naturally makes upon the mind of a stranger. His attention is arrested by the differences between the scenes he observes for the first time and the scenes with which he is familiar. A fresh eye is quick to detect distinctions and peculiarities. On the other hand, “an old resident,” on the same principle, is more deeply impressed by the changes which have been wrought in the life and aspect of the city of his abode, since the days of his early recollections. To the visitor the old is new, and the new is old; while to the resident the old is familiar, and the new is strange. If the former observer has the advantage of seeing things from a more striking and picturesque point of view, the latter is closer to fact and truth. Colonel White, writing in 1844, in his interesting book, _Three Years in Constantinople_, which such a competent authority as Sir Henry Layard pronounced to be the best work on Turkish life, said, that if a certain policy were pursued, “fifty years cannot elapse ere travellers will flock to Constantinople in search for relics of Moslem institutions with as much eagerness as they now seek for vestiges of Christian or Pagan antiquities. “It would be an exaggeration to say that this prophecy has been literally fulfilled. But events have verified its forecast to such an extent, that one is tempted to assume the prophet’s mantle, and predict that Colonel White’s words will come to pass in the next half-century. At any rate, if the world here has moved slowly, it has moved very far. The descriptions of Constantinople in such works as Miss Pardoe’s _City of the Sultan_, and Colonel White’s _Three Years in Constantinople_, seem to-day descriptions of another city. [Illustration: A WET DAY ON THE GALATA BRIDGE The men in long, white pocketless coats stationed at either end of the bridge collect the toll levied on every man, beast, and vehicle using the bridge--professional beggars alone being exempt.]