THE ARSENAL. 115
PLAGUE was indeed naturally the first thought, and she shuddered sickeningly as she uttered the inquiry: it was a relief to be negatively answered, though the tale of the grave-digger was sad enough. He was consigning to the earth the wretched fever-stricken victims who had been rescued from a live of slavery by an Austrian brig, then anchored in the Golden Horn. They had been taken by pirates in the Archipelago-youths, women, old men, and children! the ocean-robber, grown daring and haughty by success, had attacked the Austrian, and had been taken; but retribution came too late to the pirate to avail his wretched prisoners. They hat all perished miserably within a few hours of each other, just as the minarets of Constantinople, cutting against the horizon, gave them a blessed glimpse of home; and this dark, silent glen had been selected as their resting-place - they could not have found one more fitting!
THE TOWER OF GALATA.
"Twas night - and over sea and land there fell
The silver mantle of the midnight queen:
While dark and long the shadows stretched away
'Neath sighing cypresses and lofty towers.
THE suburb of Galata occupies a portion of the base of the hill upon which Pera is built, and is the focus of European commerce in Constantinople. Many of its streets are of considerable width; and some of its houses, inhabited by the principal Frank merchants, of even princely dimensions. A magnificent Armenian schismatic church is conspicuous among its religious edifices, while the constant traffic kept up with the shipping in the harbour fills its stores with men of many nations, and its thoroughfares with the clamour of many tongues.
The name of the suburb is stated to be a corruption of γαλα, or milk, Galata having originally been the milk-market of the Lower Empire. It subsequently became the site of a Genoese town, that people having, during the period of the Crusades, established themselves on this eligible spot for forwarding their commercial undertakings; its situation between the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn being eminently calculated for every species of maritime traffic.