All my readers know that the Bosphorus

THE BOSPHORUS

All my readers know that the Bosphorus is the broad stream of sea-water which connects the Euxine with the Sea of Marmora, falling into the latter between Stamboul and Scutari. It is joined at this point by the “ Sweet waters of Europe,” which flow into the upper end of the Golden Horn, as the Liane may be said to do into the Port of Boulogne, to use a familiar example. There is, however, no tide. It is of great importance to the beauties of Constantinople and its neighborhood that the water is always at the same height.

The length of the Bosphorus is, at a rough guess, about twenty miles. Its course is very winding; its shores are irregular and hilly, broken by small valleys or chines; its banks are covered with picturesque villages, and indeed nearly all along the water’s edge the line of pretty dwellings is unbroken. It divides Europe from Asia, and is the great channel of communication between all the ports of the Black- Sea and the Mediterranean.

On my first disengaged day, I arranged with a friend to make a little voyage up this beautiful stream, in a caique. Ho was residing at Pera, and made a bargain with two fellows to take us for the day for forty-five piastres, (about ten shillings.) We took a large basket of food — principally consisting of hard eggs, bread, and pale ale — and started from the Tophane landing-place about nine A. M.

The morning was threatening, and it soon began to rain in torrents; so drenching our poor boatmen, in their flimsy white jackets and drawers, that we pulled up at a little cluster of houses, where there was a Greek cafe, (properly inscribed, that there might be no mistake about it,) and waited until the storm was over. The room was crowded with Greeks, drinking, smoking, and playing cards; and, in an adjoining room, as many more were absorbed in a game of billiards, played with small ninepins on the cloth. The master had not much to offer beyond some muddy coffee, and execrably bad brandy; but he pointed with great pride to a shelf of English pickles, and bottled beer, which, he appeared to have some vague notion, were always taken together. There was also a picture of Queen Victoria, which had been presented gratis, with some newspaper — hung up, I suppose, in compliment to the Anglo-Ionian subjects who used the house. The noise and confusion, were bewildering, and the intentions of llussia the sole subject of conversation. In about half an hour the weather held up, and when we embarked again the scene was most lovely. The greater part of the noble Turkish fleet was lying at anchor in the middle of the stream.

Many ships were sailing down from the Euxinc ports, on the sterns of some of which it was pleasant to read the Polly of Sunderland, or the Two Sisters of London : all the caiques had come out of their nooks and corners again, and the roofs of the houses, wet with rain, glistened in the sunlight as though they had been silver. I earn conceive nothing so exciting as the approach to Constantinople must be, by the Bosphorus, to those travellers who have come down the Danube. The banks display every variety of water scenery. Now the handsome villas and palaces remind one of the edges of an Italian lake, Como or Orta, for instance; the next turn of the stream brings you to rocky eminences, with such ruins on them as you might see on the llhine or Mo.-elle; and, a little further on, gentle hills, covered with hanging woods, rise from the stream, as they might do anywhere between Maidenhead Bridge and Marlow.

Village called Arnaudhoi

Our men rowed very well, and we soon came to a village called Arnaudhoi, where the current is very rapid, and at times dangerous, the banks forming the outer curve of a sharp sweep in the 6tream. The boatmen here shipped their oars, for persons were in waiting to tow the caiques round the bend, it being impossible to row against the current. They were here always, for the purpose, taking the boats in turn, and they received a few paras for their trouble. Further on, the same thing was repeated, and, indeed, at every sudden turn, some poor fellows were waiting to track us daily ephesus tours.

The houses continued uninterruptedly along the shore, and they were nearly all built after the same style, and of wood. Here and there a new edifice was being raised upon a European model, but it did not appear to be so much in keeping with the scene, as the green, and dove, and clay-colored houses of the Turks. There is a lightness about these little buildings which is very pretty and effective. They look, from a short distance, as if made of cardboard, and one cannot help thinking that a single candle within would illuminate their entire form, like the cottages the Italians carry about on their heads in our streets. There are very many palaces amongst them, belonging to the Sultan and the great people of his court; and on the summits of some of the mountains are royal kiosks, wherever a beautiful view is to be commanded.

In the absence of all artistic impressions, the Turks are great admirers of Nature. Fields and forests, blue water and skies, sunny air and bright flower-gardens, are the great sources of their happiness. The state of idle, listless dreaming, into which the contemplation of these objects throws them, they call Kef. We have no word that answers to this; busy, anxious England has not allowed one to be invented. But it is a very pleasant repose — one that teems with images far more real and beautiful than the deadly opium or hasheesh can call up ; and so, these little kiosks, dedicated to the idlest inactivity of mind and body, are perched about the hills of the Bosphorus, and there the Turk dreams away bis leisure time, drinking in the bright and lovely prospects around him, with only the bubbling of the narghile to assist rather than intrude upon his unstrained contemplations.