gh the Bosporus. With my field-glasses I
settle down on a bench in the stern and take farewell of the Turkish
capital. How grand, how unforgettable is this scene! The white, graceful
minarets shoot up to heaven from the sea of houses, and the
cypresses--tall, grave, and straight as kings--also seem to point out to
the children of earth the way to Paradise. Everywhere the houses mount
up the hills, ranged like the rows of seats in a theatre. The whole is
like a gigantic circus with an auditorium for more than a million Turks,
and the arena is the blue water of the Bosporus.

The steamer carries us away relentlessly from this charming picture. As
dreams fade away in the night, so the white city is concealed by the
first promontories. Then I change my place and look ahead. Perhaps the
view is even more beautiful in this direction. The sound is like a river
between steep, rocky shores, but in the mouth of every valley, and
wherever the margin of the shore is flat, stand white villas and
mansions, villages, walls and ruins, gardens and groves. The Bosporus is
barely twenty miles long. In some places its breadth is less than a
third of a mile, in others two-thirds. Old plane-trees spread their
crowns over fresh meadows, and laurels, chestnuts, walnuts, and oaks
afford deep shade. White dolphins skim along the water, and a school of
porpoises follows in the wake of the boat, waiting for the refuse from
the cook's galley. They are dark, soft, and smooth, their backs shining
like metal, and they can easily be seen several feet below the surface.
A single flap of the tail fin gives them a tremendous impulse, and they
come up to the surface like arrows discharged by the gods of the sea,
and describe beautiful somersaults among the waves. They could easily
overtake us if they liked, but they content themselves with following
close behind us hour after hour.

To the left we have the European coast, to the right the Asiatic. The
distance is always so small that the Europeans can hear the bark of the
Asiatic dogs. Here is Terapia, with the summer villas of Christians and
the ambassadors' palaces. Turkish coffee-houses are erected on the
shore, and their balconies hang over the water. Farther on there is a
large valley with an ancient plane-tree with seven trunks which are
called "the seven brothers." According to tradition Godfrey de Bouillon
with his crusaders reposed under its shade in the winter of 1096-1097,
when he marched to re