Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/62

40 and stalls. The effect of these must have been very unsightly, for it is enacted that in those parts of the city which lead from the Milliarium to the Capitol, any stalls placed in the colonnades must be faced with marble and must not exceed six feet in width and seven in height, so as to afford free access to the street in parts of the colonnades.15 This practice of placing stalls under public porticos in the ancient Byzantine cities may have suggested to the Turks the plan of their covered bazaars, and in this arrangement the uncivilized conqueror seems certainly to have improved on his predecessors.

We must not, however, take for granted, that because the city was so crowded during the earlier period of the Byzantine empire, the number of inhabitants was necessarily much larger than at present; for till the Latin conquest, much of the space of the ancient city was occupied by churches, monasteries, palaces, and other public buildings. Many of these edifices must have been destroyed long before the Turkish occupation, either by the barbarous Latin invaders, or by conflagrations, as may be inferred from the description of the city given by Bertrandon de la Broquière, a Burgundian knight, who visited Constantinople in 1433, and who remarks that the open spaces within the walls equalled in extent the portion still covered with buildings.16 It is probable that the Turks in many cases built their wooden houses on the solid vaulted substructions which they must have found everywhere under the ruins; and excavations in their gardens would probably bring to light many architectural remains.