Mon 6. [6 June 1898] Woke at 6. Looked out of window at the Dardanelles [Çanakkale Bogazi] and went to sleep till 9. Long talk with the attaché. Cold. Got in sight of C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] after lunch and arrived at 4. It looked extraordinarily lovely, with the great white minarets on the hill top and the Ahmedieh making a wonderful fine mass with St Sophia. Left M [Maurice] to deal with the luggage and flew off to see Alexander's tomb. The low sun touched the marble figures and threw out all the delicate colour - what struggle to escape what mad pursuit! As one looked at the battle scene one wondered why all was silent and no din of battle rose from that conflict. The dead lay under the horses' feet, with exquisite heads thrown back and arms outstretched or doubled under them and over top of them rode the conquerors striking and slaying the hooded Persians. On the other side the hunting scene, the Devices, Alexander figures wonderfully fine, and at one end a wonderful figure on a horse and a Persian just being struck by a Greek, in whose face was all the agony of imenent [sic] death. The architectural work lovely. All the weapons stolen except one little silver axe preserved in a case where was also a tiny exquisite head broken off. In another case a skull which was found in the tomb and which may therefore have been Alexander's. Besides this there was a fine stone sarcophagus something like the Elgin marbles, with chariots and a bear hunt and some splendid sphinxes on it; and in the next room the sarcophagus they call the Satrap and the Pleureuse very fine indeed, the figure of a mourning woman repeated 18 times in different attitudes of grief. Went on to St Sophia. The low sun was coming in golden through the windows of the dome and a few groups of people sitting on the floor listening to expounders of the Koran. Overcome again by the beauty and the space of it. On way back bought Rabat Lakoum at Hadji Bekr's. M. in a great state because we cd not get out passports vise'd and wd have to stay till the evening train instead of leaving by the morning boat to Costanza [Costanta]. Hotel Bristol. After dinner strolled out with Mr Hoare, did some shopping and sat in a garden listening to a very bad band.