This was not the fashion with our ancestors. They scorned to place themselves on the level of a trader by seeking those lands where gold was most plentiful, but deemed that land most desirable which gave them the best opportunity of proving their valour and performing their duty. They, too, had their toil; they, too, had their dangers; they, too, had their distant expeditions; but honour was the prize they sought, not profit. When they came home from their wars, they came home not richer in _wealth_, but richer in _renown_.[123] These words are for your private ear, for perhaps some may hold it foul wrong for a man to suggest that the moral tone of the present day leaves aught to be desired. However that may be, I see that the arrows are being sharpened for our destruction; and I fear it will turn out that if we _will_ not fight for glory, we shall be _compelled_ to fight for existence. I will now take you back to the sea which the ancients call Pontus and the Turks call Caradenis, or the Black Sea. It pours through a narrow outlet into the Thracian Bosphorus, down which it rolls, beating against the curving headlands with many an eddy till it reaches Constantinople after the space of one day. At this point it rushes into the Sea of Marmora by a passage almost as narrow as that by which it enters the Bosphorus. In the middle of the mouth next the Black Sea is a rock with a column, on the base of which a Roman name is written in Latin characters (‘Octavian,’ if I remember rightly); then on the European shore is a lofty tower, which serves as a lighthouse to ships by night. They call it Pharos.[124] Not far from it a brook flows into the sea, from whose bed we gathered some pebbles almost equal to the onyx and sardonyx; at any rate, when they are polished they are nearly as brilliant. A few miles from the entrance I mentioned are shown the straits across which Darius led his army in his expedition against the Scythians of Europe; then half-way between the northern and southern entrances to the Bosphorus stand two castles opposite each other, one in Europe and the other in Asia. The latter was held by the Turks a long time before the attack on Constantinople; the former was built by Mahomet, and fortified with strong towers, a few years before he stormed Constantinople. At present the Turks use it for the incarceration of prisoners of rank. Not long ago, Lazarus, an Albanian chief, made his escape from it. He was recaptured with the Spaniards at Castel Nuovo,[125] and brought back to Constantinople. For this offence he suffered the fearful punishment of impalement, but bore his sufferings with wonderful composure.