After a tiresome climb I once found myself on the highest platform of the lofty Galata tower. From this point one has probably the best obtainable view of Constantinople and its environment. The panorama which is disclosed is certainly beautiful, superb; but I am not prepared to agree with the enthusiastic writer who declares that “nothing on this globe can surpass it--that it is incomparable in its panoramic variety and sublimity!”[52] I still contend that the palm for enchanting scenic beauty and for magnificent natural panoramas belongs to Rio de Janeiro. I readily grant, however, that in wealth of legend, romance, and historic associations of every kind New Rome far surpasses the fascinating capital of Brazil. And I am inclined to think that most of those who descant so enthusiastically on the marvelous beauty of Constantinople unconsciously allow their judgments of the city’s present beauties to be colored by the magic and the glamour of the historic past. Considering the Byzantine capital as the theater of thrilling deeds and notable achievements, it is probably unsurpassed in human interest except by Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem. And the views one may have from the height of Galata’s tower are, historically considered, inferior only to those that so impress the spectator who stands on the ruin-crowned summit of the Palatine, the majestic portico of the Parthenon, and the sanctified heights of the Mount of Olives. As I stood on the dizzy balcony which surmounts the lofty tower and beheld the magnificent vistas that opened up before me on every side, I realized as never before what a unique site was occupied by the City of Constantine. On the north are the cypress and palace-crowned hills of the winding Bosphorus and the delightful Sweet Waters of Europe, which are even more attractive than the rival Sweet Waters of Asia. On the south gleams the silver expanse of the Marmora, in which are mirrored the picturesque Islands of the Princes, over which hover so many morbid and voluptuous memories of the past. On the east across the Strait stand out in bold relief the Maiden’s Tower and the Golden City of Scutari, both wrapped in an atmosphere of heavy and exotic passion and “holding their secrets of the Orient closely hidden from the eyes of Europe.” On the hills laved by the glimmering waters of the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmora, and bounded on the west by the historic plain of Thrace, proudly sits, half veiled by a tremulous amethystine haze, the peerless Queen of the East in all her majesty and shedding on the fascinated beholder a strange sense of mystery--seeming not a living, palpable thing, but rather a brilliant phantasm, or a rainbow dream of mystic remoteness.