From the Scutari hill-top the eye is greeted by one of the most enchanting prospects the world has to show--the blue waters of Marmora traversed by greener Bosphorus currents, light mists resting along the foot of the hill-bound coast of Asia, a group of islands floating on the surface of the water, the Golden Horn glimmering away northwards, with the marble walls of the Seraglio stretching a long white finger between it and the sea, Stamboul crowned with minarets and domes. Flocks of gray birds flit aimlessly across the water--the restless souls of women, says Turkish legend--the waves lap round the tower of Leander, the light wind comes whispering down between the exquisite Bosphorus shores, bringing the breath of Russian steppes to shake the plane-leaves in Scutari streets. Constantinople the Magnificent gathers her rags round her, throws over her shoulders her imperial robe of sunshine, and sits in peaceful state with her kingdom of blue waters at her feet.... But all around you the dead speak and command your ears. The ground is thick with the graves of men who died fighting, who died of cold and hunger in bleak Crimea; under your feet are great pits filled with unhonoured bones, and the white stones which strew the grass cry aloud the story of struggle and fight into the quiet air. Beyond them the dark canopy of cypresses shadows countless thousands of Turkish graves; the surface of the ground is broken and heaped up as though the dead men had not been content to sleep, but had turned and twisted in their shallow covering of earth, knocking over their tombstones in the effort to force a way out of the cold and the dark into the beautiful world a foot or two above their heads. ‘Remember us--remember us!’ they cried, as we passed under the cypress-trees. But no one remembered them, and their forgotten sorrows could only send a thrill of vague pity through our hearts. Not less pitiful in their magnificence are the tombs of the Sultans in Stamboul itself. Here under marble domes, adorned with priceless tiles and hung round with inlaid armour, you may sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings, and as you tell of poison and of dagger, of unfaithful wives and treacherous sons, each splendid sarcophagus will serve as illustration to your words. The graves of the dead Sultans are strewn with costly hangings, and set about with railings of mother-of-pearl and precious woods; plumed and jewelled turbans stand over their heads, their wives lie round them like a bodyguard, but gold and pearl and precious stones all serve to blazon forth the tragic histories of those men who lie buried in such mournful state.