an and two on the Asiatic
side. These forts are called the Dardanelles, and hence, from them,
the straits frequently receive the name of the Dardanelles. This
strait is thirty-three miles long, occasionally expanding in width to
five miles, and again being crowded by the approaching hills into a
narrow channel less than half a mile in breadth. Through the
serpentine navigation of these straits, with fortresses frowning upon
every headland, one ascends to the Sea of Marmora, a vast inland body
of water one hundred and eighty miles in length and sixty miles in
breadth. Crossing this sea to the northern shore, you enter the
beautiful straits of the Bosporus. Just at the point where the
Bosporus enters the Sea of Marmora, upon the western shore of the
straits, sits enthroned upon the hills, in peerless beauty, the
imperial city of Constantine with its majestic domes, arrowy minarets
and palaces of snow-white marble glittering like a fairy vision
beneath the light of an oriental sun.

The straits of the Bosporus, which connect the Sea of Marmora with the
Black Sea, are but fifteen miles long and of an average width of but
about one fourth of a mile. In natural scenery and artistic
embellishments this is probably the most beautiful reach of water upon
the globe. It is the uncontradicted testimony of all tourists that the
scenery of the Bosporus, in its highly-cultivated shores, its graceful
sweep of hills and mountain ranges, in its gorgeous architecture, its
atmospheric brilliance and in its vast accumulations of the costumes
and customs of all Europe and Asia, presents a scene which can nowhere
else be paralleled.

On the Asiatic shore, opposite Constantinople, lies Scutari, a
beautiful city embowered in the foliage of the cyprus. An arm of the
strait reaches around the northern portion of Constantinople, and
furnishes for the city one of the finest harbors in the world. This
bay, deep and broad, is called the Golden Horn. Until within a few
years, no embassador of Christian powers was allowed to contaminate
the Moslem city by taking up his residence in it. The little suburb of
Pera, on the opposite side of the Golden Horn, was assigned to these
embassadors, and the Turk, on this account, denominated it _The
swine's quarter_.

Passing through the Bosporus fifteen miles, there expands before you
the Euxine, or Black Sea. This inland ocean, with but one narrow
outlet, receives into its bosom the Danube, the Dniester, the