ector of the entire province, extending from
Ba_gh_dad to Constantinople, accompanied by several pa_sh_as, called on
Him, showed Him the utmost respect, and was entertained by Him at
luncheon. But seven days after His arrival, He, as foreshadowed in the
Tablet of the Holy Mariner, was put on board a Turkish steamer and three
days later was disembarked, at noon, together with His fellow-exiles, at
the port of Constantinople, on the first of Rabi'u'l-Avval 1280 A.H.
(August 16, 1863). In two special carriages, which awaited Him at the
landing-stage He and His family drove to the house of _Sh_amsi Big, the
official who had been appointed by the government to entertain its guests,
and who lived in the vicinity of the _Kh_irqiy-i-_Sh_arif mosque. Later
they were transferred to the more commodious house of Visi Pa_sh_a, in the
neighborhood of the mosque of Sultan Muhammad.

With the arrival of Baha'u'llah at Constantinople, the capital of the
Ottoman Empire and seat of the Caliphate (acclaimed by the Muhammadans as
"the Dome of Islam," but stigmatized by Him as the spot whereon the
"throne of tyranny" had been established) the grimmest and most calamitous
and yet the most glorious chapter in the history of the first Baha'i
century may be said to have opened. A period in which untold privations
and unprecedented trials were mingled with the noblest spiritual triumphs
was now commencing. The day-star of Baha'u'llah's ministry was about to
reach its zenith. The most momentous years of the Heroic Age of His
Dispensation were at hand. The catastrophic process, foreshadowed as far
back as the year sixty by His Forerunner in the Qayyumu'l-Asma, was
beginning to be set in motion.

Exactly two decades earlier the Babi Revelation had been born in darkest
Persia, in the city of _Sh_iraz. Despite the cruel captivity to which its
Author had been subjected, the stupendous claims He had voiced had been
proclaimed by Him before a distinguished assemblage in Tabriz, the capital
of A_dh_irbayjan. In the hamlet of Bada_sh_t the Dispensation which His
Faith had ushered in had been fearlessly inaugurated by the champions of
His Cause. In the midst of the hopelessness and agony of the Siyah-_Ch_al
of Tihran, nine years later, that Revelation had, swiftly and mysteriously
been brought to sudden fruition. The process of rapid deterioration in the
fortunes of that Faith, which had gradually set in, and was alarmingly
accelerated during the years of B