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From the foot of the two promontories extended a low tract, half under water, formed by the alluvious matters deposited by the river. We moored our vessel close to this marshy spot, near a hut, the last kan of Anatolia.

On the 12th, at four in the morning, we weighed anchor with a light favourable breeze, and in less than half an hour we cleared the mouth of the river. The scene is worthy of being described. Aurora dawned on our right behind the high lands of the continent; on our left extended the sea of Marmora; ahead of us appeared an island; the eastern sky of a deep red, grew paler as the light increased; the morning star sparkled in this empurpled radiance; and below that beautiful star, the crescent of the moon was scarcely discernible, like the faint traces of the most delicate pencil. One of the ancients would have said that Venus, Diana, and Aurora, had met to announce to him the most brilliant of the gods. This picture changed whilst I contemplated it; green and roseate rays proceeding from one common centre, soon shot from the east to the zenith; these colours died away, revived and were again extinguished, till the sun appearing on the horizon, melted all the tints of the atmosphere into one universal white slightly tinged with a golden glow.

We steered northward, leaving the coasts of Anatolia on our right; the wind lulled an hour after sunrise and we took to our oars. The calm continued the whole day. The sunset was cold, red, and unattended with any accidents of light; the opposite horizon was greyish, the sea of a lead-colour, and without birds; the distant coasts appeared of an azure hue, but had no brilliancy; the twilight was of very short duration, and was suddenly succeeded by night. At nine o'clock a breeze sprung up from the east, and we proceeded at a brisk rate. On the 18th, at the return of dawn, we found ourselves near the coast of Europe, of Port St. Stephen; this coast was low and naked. It was two months, to the very day and hour, since I left the capital of civilized nations, and I was now going to enter the capital of barbarous nations. How much I had seen in this short space of time! How much older had I grown in these two months! At half an hour after six we passed the powder mill, a long white building in the Italian style. Behind this edifice, extended the land of Europe, which appeared flat and uniform. Villages, whose situation was

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marked by trees, were scattered here and there. Above the point of this land which formed a semi-circular curve before us, we discerned some of the minarets of Constantinople.

At eight o'clock, a galley-boat came along-side of us. As we were almost becalmed, I quitted the felucca, and went with my people into the boat. We kept close under point Europa, on which now stands the castle of the Seven Towers, an old Gothic fortress now falling to ruin. Constantinople, and the coast of Asia in particular, were enveloped in a thick fog: the cypresses and the minarets, which I perceived through the vapour, exhibited the appearance of a leafless forest. As we approached the point of the Seraglio, a breeze sprung up from the north, and as if by the waving of an enchanter's wand, the mist was swept in a few moments from the picture, and I found myself all at once in the midst of the palaces of the Commander of the Faithful. Before me the channel of the Black Sea, meandered like a majestic river between charming hills: on my right I had the coast of Asia and the city of Scutari; that of Europe lay on my left, forming, as it receded, a capacious bay full of large ships at anchor, and innumerable small vessels traversing it in every direction. This bay, bounded by two hills, presented a view of Constantinople and Galata; disposed in the form of an amphitheatre. The immense extent of these three cities of Galata, Constantinople, and Scutari, with their buildings rising in stages one above another; the cypresses, the minarets, the masts of ships intermingled on every side; the verdure of the trees; the colours of the houses white and red; the sea spreading its blue expanse below these objects and the sky its azure canopy above, altogether formed a picture, that filled me with admiration. It must indeed be allowed that those are guilty of no exaggeration, who assert that Constantinople exhibits a view superior in beauty to any in the world.*

We landed at Galata. I immediately remarked the bustle on the quays, and the throng of porters, merchants, and seamen, the latter announcing by the different colour of their complexions, by the diversity of their languages, and of their dress, by their robes, their hats, their caps, their turbans, that they had come from

For my part, however, I prefer the bay of Naples.

every part of Europe and Asia to inhabit this frontier of two worlds. The almost total absence of women, the want of wheel carriages, and the multitude of dogs without masters, were the three distinguishing characteristics that first struck me in the interior of this extraordinary city. As scarcely any person walks abroad but in slippers, as there is no rumbling of coaches and carts, as there are no bells and scarcely any trades that require the aid of the hammer, a continual silence prevails. You see around you a mute crowd of individuals, seemingly desirous of passing unperceived, as if solicitous to escape the observation of a master. You are continually meeting with a bazar and a cemetery, as if the Turks were born only to buy, to sell, and to die. The cemeteries, without walls, and situated in the middle of the streets are magnificent groves of cypresses; the doves build their nests in these trees and share the peace of the dead. Here and there you perceive antique structures harmonizing neither with the modern inhabitants, nor with the new edifices by which they are surrounded: you would almost imagine that they had been transported into this oriental city by the effect of enchantment. No sign of joy, no appearance of comfort meets your eye. What you see is not a people, but a herd tended by an iman and slaughtered by a janissary. Here is no pleasure but sensual indulgence, no punishment but death. The dull tones of a mandoline sometimes issue from the extremity of a coffeeroom, and you perceive the children of infamy performing immodest dances before a kind of apes seated around small circular tables. Amidst prisons and bagnios rises a seraglio, the capitol of slavery: 'tis here that a consecrated keeper carefully preserves the germs of pestilence and the primitive laws of tyranny. Pallid votaries are incessantly hovering about this temple, and thronging to offer their heads to the idol. Hurried on by a fatal power, nothing can divert them from this sacrifice. The eyes of the despot attrack the slaves, as the looks of the serpent are said to faseinate the birds on which he preys.

There are so many accounts of Constantinople, that it would be absurd in me to pretend to give a description of that city. The reader may, therefore, consult Stephen of Byzantium; Gylli de Topographia Constantinopoleos; Ducange's Constantinopolis Christiana; Porter's observations on the Religion, &c. of the

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