Around the Blue Mosque - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 127

Kalyon Hotel and a little restaurant called Karışma Sen, which means
literally Mind Your Own Business.) The Byzantine name of this
gateway is unknown, but in Ottoman times it was called Ahır Kapı,
or the Stable Gate, because it led to the Sultan's mews nearby. Perhaps
it had the same name in Byzantium, for the Emperor Michael III
is known to have built some marble stables in this same area in the
middle of the ninth century.
The footsore stroller can, at this point, rest in the teahouse beside
the Stable Gate, while the more ambitious take a short detour a little
farther along the sea-walls.
A short way along in a turn-around, steps lead to a football field
behind the sea-walls from where there is a good view of the outer
walls of Topkapı Sarayı marching up the hill towards Haghia Sophia,
with seven towers in the fortifications visible.
About 500 metres beyond the Stable Gate, past the modern
lighthouse, we come to a marble structure called the Incili Köşk, or
the Pavilion of the Pearl. An inscription on the fountain which is
built into the kiosk attributes its founding to Sinan Paşa and gives the
date A.H. 986 (A.D. 1578). This is all that remains of the Sinan Paşa
Köşkü, one of the outer pavilions of Topkapı Sarayı. This kiosk was
a particular favourite of Murat III. During his last illness in January
1595, the Sultan spent his days in this kiosk, listening sadly to the
dirges of his musicians, waiting for death to come. One evening the
Ottoman fleet sailed by on its return from the south and, learning
that the Sultan was in the kiosk, fired a volley in his honour. But the
volley shook loose the plaster ceiling of the kiosk and caused it to
come showering down on the Sultan and his musicians. “And so is
destroyed the kiosk of my life,” said Murat sadly, whereupon he was
carried back to his death-bed in the Saray.
A short distance beyond the Incili Köşkü we see the façade of
an ancient church built into the sea-walls, with blocked-up doors,
windows, niches, and a huge arch rising to the top of the wall. These
are the substructures of the church of St. Saviour Philanthropes, built
in the first half of the twelfth century by Alexius I Comnenus, one of
the greatest of the Byzantine emperors. There is a tradition that the
Emperor, himself, was buried in this church, but no trace of his tomb