While leaving the Temple I crossed the side passage of the Gyneceus. Here is the old door through which the priest who was celebrating the mass when, according to Greek tradition, Mahomet the Conqueror rode on horseback right in the middle of the church in 1454, disappeared with the altar cup and his sacerdotal ornaments. The Turks ran after him to kill him as they had done with thousands of people who had sought asylum in the temple, but the door was immediately closed by a stone wall.
When St. Sophia is given back to the Christian cult, continues the Greek tradition, the priest will reappear and continue the service at the very point at which he was interrupted.
It is one of the finest of popular beliefs, quite worth keeping alive for its own sake.
I wonder if the moment when the Greeks will have to admit that their beautiful tradition is only a legend is not coming sooner than they thought.
I have now been two days in Constantinople; I have compared the present condition of the Army, of the Navy, and of the different Services with their condition four years ago, when I came first to the Turkish capital. I have recalled to my mind what I saw at Tripoli, three years ago, when the Turks demonstrated their worth from a military point of view; and, finally, I have taken into consideration the lessons to be learned from their conduct in the Balkan War.
There is only one possible conclusion: there is a big change in everything; there is the evident mark of somebody who pulls the strings, and pulls them with a definite object, and with strong and delicate hands.
Till a few weeks ago the question: "Is Enver Pasha really a clever politician and a first-rate military man?" would have had one answer only--"Of course he is; he is the only great man of Turkey; as long as he lives Turkey will have some hope of resurrection."
This man, who has the celebrity and the ambition of a little Napoleon, is, at the bottom, nothing more than a child with a large dose of vanity. He worships publicity, he loves to see his photographs in the big foreign papers, to read the gossip about his private life, in which he used to pose as a _blasé_ man of the world, surrounded by a full score of wonderful princesses wanting only to marry him. His vanity went as far as to make him proceed legally against a photographer who dared to publish a picture postcard showing Enver as he really is, short and stoutish.