Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

THE GREEK PEOPLE 199Franks do not dwell, he will find wedges ofGreeks among the Turkish inhabitants. ThePhanar, a densely peopled quarter, clusters roundthe Patriarchate. Far away from this, in theheart of Stamboul, the writer was once startledat seeing the name of Comnenos over a druggist'sshop, in a district wholly Turkish. The triplefortifications extend along the base of the triangularcity from the Golden Horn to the Sea ofMarmora, a distance of some four miles.There,nestling beneath the walls where fell the lastConstantine, a ribbon of Greek population remindsthe visitor that he is in Byzantium. On theseaward face of the city, still clinging to the walls,in some cases using their dismantled towers asdwellings, he finds Greeks again in larger numbers.Yonder on the Asiatic shore stands Kadikeuy, onthe site of old Chalcedon. There he will hear theGreek tongue, will see Greek names over theshops, will rub shoulders on the pier with Greekmerchants who transact business in EuropeanGalata and have their homes in Asia. Fartheraway lie the Princes Islands, and there theGreek element is the dominant one. Beyond theislands, Greek villages dot the coast of the Gulf ofNicomedia. On the Bosphorus, the largest andmost prosperous centres of population—Therapia,Buyukdere, Yeni Keui—are chiefly or whollyGreek, and in its waters Greek fishermen casttheir nets. For the city of the Sultans is still,in its people, largely the city of the Constantines.