rity; and its commerce was extensive
enough to attract the merchants of Pisa, Genoa and Venice. Frequently
taken and retaken by the Turks, Constantine finally became under their
dominion the seat of a bey, subordinate to the dey of Algiers. To Salah
Bey, who ruled from 1770 to 1792, we owe most of the existing Moslem
buildings. In 1826 Constantine asserted its independence of the dey of
Algiers, and was governed by Haji Ahmed, the choice of the Kabyles. In
1836 the French under Marshal Clausel made an unsuccessful attempt to
storm the city, which they attacked by night by way of El-Kantara. The
French suffered heavy loss. In 1837 Marshal Valee approached the town by
the connecting western isthmus, and succeeded in taking it by assault,
though again the French lost heavily. Ahmed, however, escaped and
maintained his independence in the Aures mountains. He submitted to the
French in 1848 and died in 1850.

CONSTANTINOPLE, the capital of the Turkish empire, situated in 41 deg. 0'
16'' N. and 28 deg. 58' 14" E. The city stands at the southern extremity of
the Bosporus, upon a hilly promontory that runs out from the European or
western side of the straits towards the opposite Asiatic bank, as though
to stem the rush of waters from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmora.
Thus the promontory has the latter sea on the south, and the bay of the
Bosporus, forming the magnificent harbour known as the Golden Horn, some
4 m. long, on the north. Two streams, the Cydaris and Barbysus of
ancient days, the Ali-Bey-Su and Kiahat-Hane-Su of modern times, enter
the bay at its north-western end. A small winter stream, named the
Lycus, that flows through the promontory from west to south-east into
the Sea of Marmora, breaks the hilly ground into two great masses,--a
long ridge, divided by cross-valleys into six eminences, overhanging the
Golden Horn, and a large isolated hill constituting the south-western
portion of the territory. Hence the claim of Constantinople to be
enthroned, like Rome, upon seven hills. The 1st hill is distinguished by
the Seraglio, St Sophia and the Hippodrome; the 2nd by the column of
Constantine and the mosque Nuri-Osmanieh; the 3rd by the war office, the
Seraskereate Tower and the mosque of Sultan Suleiman; the 4th by the
mosque of Sultan Mahommed II., the Conqueror; the 5th by the mosque of
Sultan Selim; the 6th by Tekfour Serai and the quarter of Egri Kapu; the
7th by Avret Tash and the quarter of Psamatia. In Byz