Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/308

27 G RECALL OF THE KERTCII EXPEDITION. chap, multitude planted on the all -precious line of communication which connected the invaders of Russia with their homes in the West of Europe. Apart from any ideas of Sultan, statesmen, diplomatists (all only adjacent dignitaries not mingling in streets or Bazaars), the Mind of the in con- Imperial City, if in those day unmastered by stantiI101 ' lc; judgment, and affording no trustworthy guid- ance to any mortals on earth, was still other than null, was still— if hardly enlightened, yet —after a manner suffused by the smouldering fire of Greek Intellect— was keenly, was loudly alive. Over-blest in her number of creeds, over- Babeled in her number of races, and customs, and tongues, brooding over the grave of one empire, and the bed — the sick-bed — of another, distraught between the East and the West, dis- traught between the Past and the Future, inar- ticulate, deaf to the reasoners, Stamboul all the more heaved with opinions, if not with Opinion, and was roaring with the voices of prophets. She commonly fed upon Rumour, but fastened, this time, on a truth — on the tidings of a West- ern flotilla returning, as in fear or in penitence, from before the Cimmerian Bosphorus. We shall presently see, or infer, that the emo- tion of French troops encamped near Constan- tinople drew some at least of its strength from the murmur of the Imperial city. The fleets and the armies of the Allies had met no reverse in arms. It was simply the