Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/99

 naturally rejected his addresses, until, overwhelmed at last by his importunities, she promised to yield to his desire, provided that he would build her the loftiest tower in the land. On the day when the structure was completed, she flung herself head- long from the parapet into the sea, which at that time washed close to the wall.'

' An old fool and a pretty daughter ! ' — was my guide's terse comment when he concluded the tale. Other variants make slight changes in the elements, adding now the romance of a lover who sues the maiden for her hand, though it is pledged to another, or again the tragic complication of a father and son who are both in love with the beautiful damsel. The Cenci version seems to me as likely as any ; ^ at all events some trag- edy seems to have been associated with the scene. The present position of the tower, standing back from the shore, bears wit- ness to the fact, acknowledged by scientists, that the Caspian Sea was much higher in ancient times than it is now.^ The tower itself has a practical use today, for it serves as a light- house for the harbor.

Some vestiges of walls of stone construction, emerging from the sea not far from where the tower stands, are thought to show traces of Arab architecture of the ninth or tenth century, and are doubtless the remains of a portion of the fortifications described two centuries ago, in the quotation given above from Hanway, as 'extended into the sea.' ^

As we stand by the shore of the bay and look back once more over the new and the old town, our eye catches another scene, but one far different from the life and stir of the town. Far

1 1 have since found that the same York, 1907 ; and id. The Historic

general version is given by Dumas, Fluctuations of the Caspian Sea, in

Impressions de voyage ; le Caucase, Bulletin of the Amer. Geog. Soc, 39.

2. 18-20, Paris, 1880. There is no 577-596, New York, 1907. reason for assuming (as has been done, » See Dumas, op. cit. 2. 42-43 ;

I believe) that the legend is due to any Baedeker, La Bussie, p. 397, Leipzig,

invention by Dumas. 1902, and compare Hanway, Caspian

2 See, for example, Huntington, ^Sea, 1. 378 ; 3 ed. 1. 261. The Pulse of Asia, pp. 329-358, New

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