The arrival at Constantinople made such an overpowering impression upon me as to almost efface what I had seen during the previous ten days’ trip from the Straits of Messina to the mouth of the Bosphorus. The Ionian Sea, blue and unruffled as a lake; the distant mountains of Morea, tinged with rose color in the early morning light; the archipelago, gilded with the rays of the setting sun; the ruins of Athens; the Gulf of Salonika, Lemnos, Tenedos, the Dardanelles, and a crowd of persons and events which had caused me infinite amusement during the voyage,—faded into such indistinct and shadowy outlines at the first sight of the Golden Horn that were I now to undertake a description of them it would be an effort rather of imagination than of memory; and so, in order to impart something of life and warmth to the opening pages of my book, I shall omit all preliminaries and begin with the last evening of the voyage at the precise moment when, in the middle of the Sea of Marmora, the captain came up to my friend Yunk and me, and, laying his two hands on our shoulders, said, in his pure Palerman accent, “Gentlemen, to-morrow at daybreak we shall see the first minarets of Stambul.”

Ah! you smile, my good reader, you who have plenty of money and are tired of spending it—who, when a year or so ago the fancy seized you to go to Constantinople in twenty-four hours, with your purse well lined and your trunks packed, set forth as calmly as if it were a trip to the country, uncertain up to the last moment whether, after all, it might not pay better to take the train for Baden-Baden instead. If the captain had said to you, “To-morrow morning we shall see Stambul,” you would probably have answered, quite calmly, “Indeed? I am very glad to hear it.” But suppose, instead, you had brooded over the idea for ten years; had passed many a winter’s evening mournfully studying the map of the East; had fired your imagination by reading hundreds of books on the subject; had travelled over one-half of Europe merely to console yourself for not being able to see the other half; had remained nailed to your desk for a whole year with this sole object in view; had made a thousand petty sacrifices and calculations without end; had erected whole rows of castles in the air, and fought many a stiff battle with those of your own household; and finally had passed nine sleepless nights at sea haunted by this intoxicating vision, and so blissfully happy as to have a twinge of something like remorse at the thought of all your loved ones left behind;—then you would have some idea of the real meaning of those words: “To-morrow at daybreak we shall see the first minarets of Stambul;” and instead of replying phlegmatically, “I am glad to hear it,” you would have given a great thump on the bulkhead, as I did.

One great source of satisfaction to my friend and myself was our profound conviction that, boundless as our expectations might be, they could not possibly be foiled. About Constantinople there is no uncertainty, and the most pessimistic traveller feels that there, at least, he is safe, since no one has ever been disappointed; and this, moreover, has nothing to do with the charm of its great associations or the fashion of admiring what every one else does. It has a beauty of its own, at once overmastering and triumphant, before which poets, archeologists, ambassadors, and merchants, the princess and the sailor, people of the North and of the South, one and all, break forth into loud exclamations of astonishment. In the opinion of the whole world it is the most beautiful spot on earth. Writers of travels on arriving there at once lose their heads. Perthusier falls to stammering; Tournefort declares that human language is powerless; Pouqueville thinks himself transported to another world; Gautier cannot believe that what he sees is real; the Viscount di Marcellus falls into ecstasies; La Croix is intoxicated; Lamartine returns thanks to God; and all of them, heaping metaphor upon metaphor, endeavor to make their style more glowing, and search their imaginations in vain for some simile that shall not fall miserably short of their ideas. Chateaubriand alone describes his arrival at Constantinople with such apparent tranquillity of soul as to strongly suggest the idea of stupor, but he does not fail to observe that it is the most beautiful thing in the world; and if the celebrated Lady Montague, in pronouncing a similar opinion, has allowed herself the use of a perhaps, she clearly wishes it to be tacitly understood that the first place belongs to her own beauty, of which she had a very high opinion. It is, after all, a cold German who declares that the most beautiful illusions of youth, the very dreams of first love, become poor and insipid when contrasted with the delicious sensations which steal upon the soul at the first sight of those charmed shores, while a learned Frenchman affirms that the first impression made by Constantinople is one of terror.

Imagine, then, if you can, the effect produced by all these impassioned statements on the ardent brains of a clever painter of twenty-four and a bad poet of twenty-eight! But still, not satisfied with even all this illustrious praise of Constantinople, we turned to the sailors to see what they would have to say about it; and here it was the same thing. Ordinary language was felt by even these rough men to be inadequate, and they rolled their eyes and rubbed their hands together in the effort to find unusual words and phrases in which to express themselves, attempting their description in that far-away tone of voice and with the slow, uncertain gestures used by uneducated persons when they try to recount something wonderful. “To arrive at Constantinople on a fine morning,” said the helmsman—“believe me, gentlemen, that is a great moment in a man’s life.”

The weather, too, smiled upon us. It was a fine, calm night; the water lapped the sides of the vessel with a gentle murmuring sound, while the masts and rigging stood out clear and motionless against the sky sparkling with stars. We seemed hardly to move. In the bow a crowd of Turks lay stretched out at full length, blissfully smoking their hookahs with faces turned to the moon, whose light, falling upon their white turbans, made them look like silvery haloes; on the promenade deck was a concourse of people of every nationality under the sun, among them a company of hungry-looking Greek comedians who had embarked at PirÆus.

I can see before me now the pretty face of little Olga, one of a bevy of Russian children going with their mother to Odessa, very much astonished at my not understanding her language, and somewhat displeased at having addressed the same question to me three consecutive times without obtaining an intelligible answer. Here on one side a fat, dirty Greek priest, wearing a hat like an inverted bushel-measure, is looking through his glass for the Sea of Marmora, and on the other, an English evangelical clergyman is standing stiff and unyielding as a statue, who for three days past has not spoken to a soul nor looked at any one; near by are two pretty Athenian girls in their little red caps, with hair hanging down over their shoulders, who turn simultaneously toward the water whenever they find any one looking at them, in order to show their profiles, while a little farther off an Armenian merchant is telling the beads of his Greek rosary. Near him is a group of Hebrews, dressed in their antique costume, some Arabians in long white gowns, a melancholy-minded French governess, and a few of those nondescript personages one always meets in travelling, about whom there is nothing particular to indicate their country or occupation; and in the centre of all this mixed company a little Turkish family, consisting of a father wearing a fez, a veiled mother, and two little girls in trousers, all four curled up under a tent on a pile of many-colored pillows and cushions, and surrounded by a motley collection of luggage of every shape and hue.

How one realized the vicinity of Constantinople! On all sides there was an unwonted gayety, and the faces lit up by the ship’s lights were all happy ones. The group of children skipped around their mother shouting the ancient Russian name of Stambul: “Zavegorod! Zavegorod!” Passing near one and another of the little groups, I caught the names of Galata, Pera, Skutari, Bujukdere, Terapia, which acted upon my excited brain like stray sparks from the preliminaries of some grand display of fireworks. Even the sailors were delighted to be nearing a place where, as they said, one forgets, if only for a single hour, all the troubles of life. Among the white turbans in the bow as well there were unusual signs of life: the imaginations of even those sluggish and impassive Mussulmen were stirred as there began to float before their minds the magic outlines of Ummelunia, “Mother of the World”—that city, as says the Koran, “which commands on one side the earth, and on two, the sea.” It seemed as though, had the engine been stopped, the ship must still have gone on, impelled forward by the sheer force of that impatient longing which throbbed and palpitated from her decks. From time to time, as I leaned over the side and looked down at the water, a hundred different voices seemed to mingle with the murmur of the waves—the voices of all those who cared for me. “Go,” they said, “son, brother, friend! Go and enjoy your Constantinople. You have well earned it; now enjoy yourself, and God be with you!”

It was midnight before the passengers began to disperse, my friend and I being the last to go, and then with lingering steps. We could not bear to shut up between four walls an exuberance of joy as compared with which the Circle of Propontis seemed narrow and contracted. Halfway down the stair we heard the captain’s voice inviting us to come on the bridge the next morning. “Be up before sunrise,” he cried, appearing at the top of the companion-way; “whoever is late will be thrown overboard.”

A more superfluous threat was never made since the world began. I did not close my eyes, and I don’t believe that the youthful Muhammad II. on that famous night of Adrianople when he tore his bed to pieces, agitated by visions of Constantine’s city, tossed and turned more than did I throughout those four hours of expectation. In order to quiet my nerves I tried counting up to a thousand, keeping my eyes fixed on the line of white spray thrown up against my port by the movement of the vessel, humming monotonous tunes set to the throbbing of the engine, but all in vain. I was hot and feverish, my breath was labored, and the night seemed endless. At the first glimmer of dawn I leaped out of bed, to find Yunk already up; we tore into our clothes, and in three bounds were on deck.

Despair! It was foggy.

A thick, impenetrable mist concealed the horizon on every side, and it looked like rain; so the great spectacle of the approach to Constantinople was lost, all our hopes dashed, the voyage, in short, a failure. I was completely stunned.

At this moment the captain appeared, wearing his accustomed cheerful smile. Explanations were unnecessary. The instant his eye fell on us he took in the situation, and, patting me on the shoulder, said, consolingly, “That will be all right; don’t give yourselves the slightest concern. This fog, for which you ought to be very thankful, will help us to make the most glorious entrance into Constantinople one could possibly desire. In two hours, you may take my word for it, the sky will be absolutely clear.” At these brave words my blood began to circulate freely again, and we followed him to the bridge.

The Turks were already assembled in the bow, seated cross-legged upon strips of carpet, with their faces turned toward Constantinople. Presently the other passengers began to appear, armed with glasses of all sizes and styles, and took their places, one after another, along the port rail of the vessel, like people in the gallery of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise. A fresh breeze was blowing; no one spoke, but gradually every glass was levelled upon the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora, where, as yet, nothing could be seen.

The fog, however, had lifted so rapidly that it was now little more than a filmy veil hanging over the horizon, while above it the heavens shone out clear and resplendent. Directly ahead of us could be seen indistinctly the little archipelago of the three Isles of the Princes, the Demonesi of the ancients, and the favorite pleasure-grounds of the court in the time of the Byzantine Empire, now a popular resort and place of amusement for the people of Constantinople.

Both shores of the Sea of Marmora were still completely hidden.

It was not until an hour had gone by that at last there appeared——

But there is no use in attempting to understand a description of the approach to Constantinople without first having a clear idea of the plan of the city. Supposing the reader to stand facing the mouth of the Bosphorus, that arm of the sea which separates Asia from Europe and connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora, he will have on his right the continent of Asia, on his left, Europe; here ancient Thrace, there ancient Anatolia. Following this arm, he will find on his left, immediately beyond its mouth, a gulf, or rather an extremely narrow bay, forming with the Bosphorus almost a right angle, and stretching for some miles into the continent of Europe, in the shape of an ox’s horn; hence the name Golden Horn, or Horn of Abundance, because, when the capital of Byzantium was here, the wealth of three continents flowed through it. On that point of land, bathed on the one hand by the Sea of Marmora and by the Golden Horn on the other, on the site of ancient Byzantium, rises, on its seven hills, Stambul, the Turkish city; across from it, on the other point, washed by the waters of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, lie Galata and Pera, the Frankish cities; while on the Asiatic shore, directly opposite the opening of the Golden Horn, Skutari rises from the sea. Thus what is called Constantinople is, in reality, three large cities separated by the sea—two lying opposite each other, and the third facing them both, and all so near together that from each of the three it is possible to distinguish the buildings of the other two nearly as distinctly as one can see across the widest parts of the Thames or the Seine. The point of the triangle occupied by Stambul, which curves back toward the Horn, is the celebrated Cape Seraglio, which conceals up to the very last moment, from any one approaching from the Sea of Marmora, the two banks of the Golden Horn; that is to say, the largest and most beautiful part of Constantinople.

It was the captain at last, with his trained sailor’s eye, who discovered the first shadowy outline of Stambul.

The two Athenian ladies, the Russian family, the English clergyman, Yunk, I, and a number of others, all of whom were going to Constantinople for the first time, had gathered around him in a group, silent, absorbed, every eye intent on trying to pierce through the fog, when, suddenly throwing his left arm out toward the European shore, he exclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, I see the first building!” It was a white peak, the summit of some very high minaret whose base remained as yet completely hidden. Immediately every glass was levelled at it, and every eye began to burrow in that little rent in the haze as though trying to make it larger. The ship was now steaming rapidly ahead. In a few minutes an uncertain shape was visible beside the minaret, then another, then two, then three, then many more, which, stretching out in an endless line, gradually assumed the appearance of houses. On the right and ahead of us everything was still concealed by the fog. That which was now coming into view was the part of Stambul which extends like the arc of a circle for about three miles, from Cape Seraglio along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora to the Castle of the Seven Towers; but the Seraglio hill was still invisible. Beyond the houses, one after another, the minarets now flashed into sight, white, lofty, their peaks touched with rose color by the rising sun. Below the houses we could begin to distinguish the dark line of the ancient walls, uneven and tortuous, strengthened at regular intervals by massive towers, their foundations partially washed by the sea-waves, and encircling the entire city. Before long fully two miles of the city lay before us in full view, but, to tell the truth, the sight fell decidedly short of my expectations. It was just here that Lamartine asked himself, “Can this be Constantinople?” and cried, “What a disappointment!” The hills being still hidden, nothing was to be seen but interminable lines of houses along the shore, and the city was apparently perfectly flat. “Captain,” I too cried, “is this Constantinople?” The captain seized me by the arm and pointed ahead. “O man of little faith!” said he, “look there!” I looked, and an exclamation of amazement escaped me. A shadowy form, vast, impalpable, towering heavenward from a lofty eminence, rose before us, its graceful outlines still partially obscured by a filmy cloud of vapor, and surrounding it four tall and graceful minarets whose peaks shone like silver as they caught the first rays of the morning sun. “St. Sophia!” cried a sailor, and one of the Athenian ladies murmured in an undertone, “Hagia Sofia!” (Holy Wisdom). The Turks in the bow at once rose to their feet. And now before and around the great basilica were discernible through the fog other vast domes and minarets crowded close together like a forest of gigantic branchless palms. “The mosque of Sultan Ahmed!” cried the captain, pointing; “the Bayezid mosque, the mosque of Osman, the Laleli mosque, the Suleimaniyeh!”

But no one was listening. The mist was now rapidly melting away, and in every direction there leaped into view mosques, towers, masses of green, tier above tier of houses. The farther we advanced, the more the city unfolded before us her charming outlines, irregular, picturesque, sparkling, and tinged with every hue of the rainbow, while the Seraglio hill now emerged completely from the fog and stood out clear and distinct against the gray mass of cloud behind it. Four miles of city, all that part of Stambul which overlooks the Sea of Marmora, lay stretched out before us, her black walls and many-colored houses reflected in the limpid water as in a mirror.

Suddenly the vessel came to a standstill. Every one crowded around the captain to know what had happened. He explained that we would have to wait, before proceeding any farther, until the fog had lifted a little more. And indeed the mouth of the Bosphorus was still completely hidden behind a thick veil of mist. In less than a minute, however, this had begun to disperse, and we were able to move forward, howbeit with caution.

We were now approaching the hill of the Old Seraglio, and here the general excitement and curiosity became intense.

“Turn your back,” said the captain, “and don’t look until we are directly opposite.”

I obediently did as I was told, and tried to fix my attention upon a camp-stool, which seemed to dance before my eyes.

“Now!” cried the captain, after a few moments, and I spun around. The boat had again stopped, this time opposite and very close to the Seraglio.

It is a large hill, clothed from top to bottom with cypress, terebinth, fir, and huge plane trees, whose branches, reaching out across the city-walls, throw their shadow on the water below; and from the midst of this mass of verdure, separately and in groups, as though dropped at haphazard, rise in a confused, disorderly mass, the roofs of kiosks and pavilions crowned with gilded domes and galleries, charming little buildings of unfamiliar shape, with grated windows and arabesqued doorways, white, small, half hidden, suggesting a labyrinth of avenues, courtyards, and recesses—an entire city enclosed in a wood, shut off from the world, full of mystery and sadness. The sun was now shining full upon it, but above there still hovered a nebulous veil of haze. No one was to be seen, not the faintest sound could be heard. All the passengers stood perfectly motionless, their eyes fixed upon that hill invested with centuries of associations—glory, pleasure, love, intrigue, bloodshed; the citadel, palace, and tomb of the great Ottoman monarchy. For a little while no one moved or spoke. Suddenly the first mate called out, “Gentlemen, Skutari is in sight!”

Every one turned toward the Asiatic shore. Skutari, the Golden City, barely visible to the naked eye, lay scattered over the summits and sides of her great hills, the morning mist throwing a delicate veil over her radiant beauty, smiling and fresh as though just called into being by the touch of a fairy wand. Who can give any idea of that sight? The language we employ to describe our own cities is altogether inadequate to depict that extraordinary variety of color and form, that marvellous mixture of town and country, at once gay and austere, Oriental and Western, fantastic, graceful, imposing. Imagine a city composed of thousands of crimson and yellow villas, thousands of gardens overflowing with verdure, a hundred snow-white mosques rising in their midst; above it a forest of enormous cypresses, indicating the site of the largest cemetery of the East; on the outer edge huge white barracks, groups of houses and cypresses, villages built on the brows of little hills; beyond them others, again, half hidden in foliage, and over all, the peaks of minarets and summits of domes, sparkling points of light, halfway up the side of a mountain which closes in the horizon as it were with a curtain. A great metropolis scattered throughout an enormous garden and overhanging a shore here broken by steep precipices, there shelving gently down in green gradations to charming little inlets filled with shade and bloom; and below, the blue mirror of the Bosphorus reflecting all this splendor and beauty.

As I stood gazing at Skutari my friend touched me on the elbow to announce the discovery of still another city, and, sure enough, turning toward the Sea of Marmora, there, on the same Asiatic shore and a little beyond Skutari, lay a long string of houses, mosques, and gardens which we had but lately passed in front of, but which, up to this moment, had been entirely hidden by the fog. With the help of the glass it was now easy to distinguish cafÉs, bazÂrs, European-looking houses, flights of stairs, the walls of the market-gardens, and boats scattered along the shore. This was Kadi Keui (Village of the Judge), erected on the ruins of ancient Chalcedon, the former rival of Byzantium—that Chalcedon founded six hundred and eighty-four years before Christ by the Megarians, to whom the Delphic Oracle gave the surname of The Blind for having selected that rather than the opposite site, where Stambul is now situated.

“That makes three cities,” said the captain, checking them off on his fingers as each moment brought a fresh one into view.

The ship was still lying stationary between Skutari and the Seraglio hill, the fog completely concealing everything on the Bosphorus beyond Skutari, as well as Galata and Pera, which lay directly before us. Boats began to pass close by—barges, steam-launches, sailboats—but no one paid any attention to them. Every eye was glued to that gray curtain which hung over the Frankish city. I trembled with impatience and anticipation. Yet a few moments and there would be unfolded before my eyes that marvellous spectacle which none has here been able to behold unmoved. My hands shook so violently that it was with difficulty I could hold the glass to my eyes. The captain, worthy man, watched my excitement with keen delight, and, presently clapping his hands together, cried, “There it is! there it is!”

And, true enough, there did at last begin to appear through the mist first little specks of white, then the vague outlines of a lofty eminence, then scattered beams of light where some window caught and reflected the sun’s rays, and finally Galata and Pera stood revealed before us—a mountain, a myriad of houses, of all colors, heaped one above another, a lofty city crowned with minarets, domes, and cypress trees, and towering over all the monumental palaces of the foreign ambassadors and the great tower of Galata; beneath, the vast arsenal of Top-KhÂneh and a forest of shipping; and still, as the fog lifted, more and more of the city came into view stretching along the banks of the Bosphorus; and in bewildering succession there leaped into sight streets and suburbs extending from the hilltops to the water’s edge, closely built, interminable, marked here and there with the sparkling white tips of the mosques—line upon line of buildings, little bays, palaces built upon the shore, pavilions, kiosks, gardens, groves; and, dimly outlined through the distant haze, other suburbs still, their roofs alone distinguishable, all gilded by the sun’s rays—a luxuriance of color, a profusion of verdure, a succession of vistas, a grandeur, a grace, a glory sufficient to make any one break forth into transports of incoherent delight. Every one on board, however, stood speechless, staring, with mouth and eyes wide open—passengers, seamen, Turks, Europeans, children. Not a whisper was heard. No one knew in which direction to look. On one side lay Skutari and Kadi Keui; on the other, the Seraglio hill; opposite, Galata, Pera, and the Bosphorus. To see it all one had to keep revolving around in a circle like a teetotum, and revolve we did, devouring with our eyes first this and then that, gesticulating, laughing, but speechless with admiration. Heavens above! what moments in a man’s life!

But yet the most beautiful and imposing sight of all was to come. We were still lying stationary off Seraglio Point, and until this has been rounded you cannot see the Golden Horn or get the most wonderful of all the views of Constantinople.

“Now, gentlemen and ladies, pay attention!” cried the captain before giving the order to proceed. “This is the critical moment; in three minutes we shall be opposite Constantinople.”

I felt myself grow hot and cold. For a moment all was still. How my heart beat! How feverishly I waited for that blessed word, “Forward!”

“Forward!” shouted the captain. The ship began to move.

On we go! Kings, princes, potentates, ye great ones of the earth! at that moment I felt nothing but compassion for you. All your wealth and power seemed but little in comparison with my place on that boat, and an empire a poor thing to offer in exchange for one look.

A minute passes, then another. We are gliding by Seraglio Point, and see opening before us an enormous space flooded with light and a huge mass of many shapes and colors. The point is passed, and behold! before us lies Constantinople—Constantinople, boundless, superb, sublime! The glory of creation and mankind! A triumph of beauty, far surpassing one’s wildest dreams!

And now; poor wretch, attempt to describe it. Profane with your commonplace words that divine vision. Who indeed can describe Constantinople? Chateaubriand? Lamartine? Gautier? What things you have all stammered and stuttered about it! and yet no one can resist trying. Words, phrases, comparisons crowd through the brain and drop off the end of one’s pen. I gaze, talk, write, all at the same time, hopeless of success, and yet compelled to the attempt by some overmastering influence.

Let us see, then. The Golden Horn lies directly opposite us like a wide river; on each bank there extends a ridge; upon them stretch two parallel lines of the city, embracing eight miles of hill and valley, bay and promontory, a hundred amphitheatres of buildings and gardens, an enormous space dotted over with houses, mosques, bazÂrs, seraglios, baths, kiosks, of an infinite variety of color and form, and from their midst the sparkling points of thousands of minarets reaching heavenward like great pillars of ivory; then groves of cypresses descending in dark ranks from the hilltops to the water’s edge, fringing the outskirts, outlining the inlets; and through all a wealth of vegetation, crowning the heights, pushing up between the roofs, overhanging the water, flinging itself up in radiant luxuriance wherever it can obtain a foothold. To the right, Galata, her foreground a forest of masts and flags; above Galata, Pera, the imposing shapes of her European palaces outlined against the sky; in front, the bridge connecting the two banks, across which flow continually two opposite, many-hued streams of life; to the left, Stambul, scattered over her seven hills, each crowned with a gigantic mosque with its leaden dome and gilded pinnacle: St. Sophia, white and rose-tinted; Sultan Ahmed, flanked by six minarets; Suleiman the Great, crowned by ten domes; the ValidÊh Sultan, reflected in the waves; on the fourth hill the mosque of Muhammad II.; on the fifth, that of Selim; on the sixth, the seraglio of Tekyr; and, high above everything else, the white tower of the Seraskerat, which commands the shores of two continents from the Dardanelles to the Black Sea. Beyond the sixth hill of Stambul on the one hand, and Galata on the other, nothing can be distinguished save a few vague outlines of buildings, faint indications of towns and villages, broken up by bays and inlets, fleets of little vessels, and groups of trees hardly visible through the blue haze, and which appear more like atmospheric illusions than actual objects.

How can one possibly take in all the details of this marvellous scene? For a moment the eye rests upon a Turkish house or gilded minaret close by, but, immediately abandoning it, roams off once more at will into that boundless space of light and color, or scales the heights of those two opposite shores with their range upon range of stately buildings, groves, and gardens, like the terraces of some enchanted city, while the brain, bewildered, exhausted, overpowered, can with difficulty follow in its wake.

An inexpressible majestic serenity is diffused throughout this wonderful spectacle, an indefinable sense of loveliness and youth which recalls a thousand forgotten tales and dreams of boyhood—something aËrial, mysterious, overpowering, transporting the imagination and senses far beyond the bounds of the actual.

The sky, in which are blended together the most delicate shades of blue and silver, throws everything into marvellous relief, while the water, of a sapphire blue and dotted over with little purple buoys, reflects the minarets in long trembling lines of white; the cupolas glisten in the sunlight; all that mass of vegetation sways and palpitates in the morning air; clouds of pigeons circle about the mosques; thousands of gayly-painted and gilded pleasure-boats flash over the surface of the water; the zephyrs from the Black Sea come laden with the perfumes of a thousand flower-gardens; and when at length, intoxicated by the sights and sounds and smells of this paradise, and forgetful of all else, one turns away, it is only to behold with fresh sensations of wonder and amazement the shores of Asia, with their imposing panorama of beauty; Skutari and the nebulous heights of the Bithynian Olympus; the Sea of Marmora dotted over with little islands and white with sails; and the Bosphorus, covered with shipping, winding away between two interminable lines of kiosks, palaces, and villas, to disappear at last mysteriously amid the most smiling and radiant hillsides of the Orient. To deny that this is the most beautiful sight on earth would be churlish indeed, as ungrateful toward God as it would be unjust to his creation; and it is certain that anything more beautiful would surpass mankind’s powers of enjoyment.

On recovering somewhat from my own first overwhelming sensations I turned to see how the other passengers had been impressed. Every countenance was transfixed. The eyes of the two Athenian ladies were suspiciously moist; the Russian mother had, in that supreme moment, clasped her little Olga to her breast; even the voice of the icy English priest was now heard for the first time, murmuring to himself, “Wonderful! wonderful!”

The vessel having in the mean time dropped anchor not far below the bridge, we were quickly surrounded by small boats from the shore, which a moment later discharged a rabble of Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew porters upon our decks, and these, while anathematizing the aliens from the other world, at the same time took possession of our property and our persons. After making some feeble show of resistance, I shook hands with the captain, gave a kiss to little Olga, and, bidding our fellow-passengers farewell, went over the side with my friend, where a four-oared barge rapidly transported us to the custom-house. Thence, after threading a labyrinth of tortuous streets, we finally reached our quarters in the Hotel de Byzance on the summit of the hill of Pera.