the south-west of the triumphal gate of the city.

_The Modern City._--As the capital of the Ottoman empire, the aspect of
the city changed in many ways. The works of art which adorned New Rome
gradually disappeared. The streets, never very wide, became narrower, and
the porticoes along their sides were almost everywhere removed. A
multitude of churches were destroyed, and most of those which survived
were converted into mosques. In race and garb and speech the population
grew largely oriental. One striking alteration in the appearance of the
city was the conversion of the territory extending from the head of the
promontory to within a short distance of St Sophia into a great park,
within which the buildings constituting the seraglio of the sultans, like
those forming the palace of the Byzantine emperors, were ranged around
three courts, distinguished by their respective gates--Bab-i-Humayum,
leading into the court of the Janissaries; Orta Kapu, the middle gate,
giving access to the court in which the sultan held state receptions; and
Bah-i-Saadet, the Gate of Felicity, leading to the more private
apartments of the palace. From the reign of Abd-ul-Mejid, the seraglio
has been practically abandoned, first for the palace of Dolmabagche on
the shore near Beshiktash, and now for Yildiz Kiosk, on the heights above
that suburb. It is, however, visited annually by the sultan, to do homage
to the relics of the prophet which are kept there. The older apartments
of the palace, such as the throne-room, the Bagdad Kiosk, and many of the
objects in the imperial treasury are of extreme interest to all lovers of
oriental art. To visit the seraglio, an imperial irade is necessary.
Another great change in the general aspect of the city has been produced
by the erection of stately mosques in the most commanding situations,
where dome and minarets and huge rectangular buildings present a
combination of mass and slenderness, of rounded lines and soaring
pinnacles, which gives to Constantinople an air of unique dignity and
grace, and at the same time invests it with the glamour of the oriental
world. The most remarkable mosques are the following:--The mosque of
Sultan Mahommed the Conqueror, built on the site of the church of the
Holy Apostles, in 1459, but rebuilt in 1768 owing to injuries due to an
earthquake; the mosques of Sultan Selim, of the Shah Zadeh, of Sultan
Suleiman and of Rustem Pasha--all works of the 16th century, the best
per