Bosphorus

“ The Bosphorus is like an enormous port: we pass close beneath the shining guns of the Ottoman men-of-war, through fleets of merchantmen from every country in the world, with sails of all colors, queerly-shaped bows, and crowds of foreign-looking men upon their decks; we meet and pass outlandish craft from the Asiatic ports of the Black Sea; beautiful little sloops belonging to the various embassies; gentlemen’s yachts shoot by like arrows from the bow, taking part in races which are witnessed from the shore by crowds of spectators ”

“ Further on still, on the Asiatic side, an advanced headland projected into the waves, covered with white houses—it was Scutari, with its vast white barracks, its resplendent mosques, its animated quays, forming a vast city. Further still, the Bosphorus, like a deeply imbedded river, opened between opposing mountains—the advancing promontories and receding bays of which, clothed to the water's edge with forests, exhibited a confused assemblage of masts of vessels, shady groves, noble palaces, hanging gardens, and tranquil havens.
"The harbour of Constantinople is not, properly speaking, a port. ”

“ The Sweet Waters of Asia are those of a muddy little rivulet, which flow into the sparkling Bosphorus some four miles above Constantinople. Along the side of this stream, at its junction with the Bosphorus, is a small level plain, which has been for I know not how long the resort of the Turkish women. Here they come once a week on their Sundays, to look at the hills and the Bosphorus without the interference of blinds and jalousies, and at some other human beings besides the slaves and other inmates of their own harems. ”

“ The navigation of the Bosphorus is the most lovely that ever invited a sail. Its length, in all its windings, is fifteen miles; and when the caïque glides down with the current, there is something exquisitely beautiful and grateful to the senses in every thing around. Nothing can exceed, in picturesque scenery, the whole coast on each side. It affords a continued succession of romantic wooded promontories, projecting into the stream, and presenting, at every winding of the strait, new and diversified objects. ”

“ Upon one of those hot, sultry summer afternoons that so often prevail about the banks of the Bosphorus, the sun was fast sinking towards its western course, and gilding as it went, the golden crescents of a thousand minarets, now dancing with fairy feet over the rippling waters of Marmora, now dallying with the spray of the oarsmen's blades, as they pulled the gilded caique of some rich old Mussulman up the tide of the Golden Horn. ”

“ No house is too small to have a garden, walled as a garden should be, and doing more for the outsider by its green suggestions of withdrawal than by any complete revelation of its charms. Few of these pleasances do not enjoy some view of the Bosphorus. I know one such, containing a Byzantine capital that makes the cedar of Lebanon above it throw as secular a shade as you please, so cunningly laid out at length on the hillside that the Bosphorus is a mere ornamental water of a lower terrace. This Grand Canal of Constantinople enters bodily into certain thrice enviable yalîs on the water’s edge. ”

“ It is refreshing to hear the ripple of the Bosphorus not ten feet distant from one's bedroom window; it is life itself to inhale the invigorating breeze that sweeps down, unchecked and uncontaminated, from the Black Sea; it is inspiriting to gaze upon the gorgeous beauty of the Asiatic coast, another continent not a mile away. And then the smaller accessories of comfortable apartments, good dinners, civilised luxuries, and European society, form no unwelcome contrast to the Crimean tent, the soldier's rations, and the wearisome routine of daily and hourly duty. ”

“ It is difficult to convey any idea of the beauties of the scenery along the banks of the Bosphorus. The eye is constantly attracted by new and beautiful objects, both on the European and Asiatic shores; rapidly passing palaces, summer villas, fortifications, villages, [95] &c., as the boat glides along from bay to bay, of which the Bosphorus forms itself into seven. The currents at the narrowest points in some places are extremely rapid. ”

“ I picked up a queer, wizened old Dalmatian cook, and with the help of my servant was installed in the little place eight-and-forty hours after I had made up my mind.
The life on the Bosphorus is totally different from that in Pera. Everybody either keeps a horse or keeps a sail-boat, and many people do both; for the Belgrade forest stretches five-and-twenty miles inland from Buyukdere and Therapia, and the broad Bosphorus lies before, widening into a deep bay between the two. The fresh northerly breeze blows down from the Black Sea all day, and often all night ”

“ To our left, and very far below us, the Bosphorus spreads, furrowed with ships and caïques; the whiteness of the marble quays are reflected in it; the whiteness of the new imperial residences, Dolma Bagtche and Tcheragan, are mirrored inverted in long, pale lines; the row of palace and mosques is pictured magnificently upon its banks. Opposite is Asia, still bluish in the remaining drifts of the morning mist; it is Scutari, with its domes and minarets, with its immense cemetery and its forest of dark cypresses. ”

“ The sun was yet below the horizon; but all the sea that stretched away towards the mouth of the Bosphorus on one hand, and the Dardanelles on the other, was covered by a golden brilliance; and a rosy gleam in the east indicated the quarter from which, without any lingering twilight, he would climb at once the azure sky. No cloud shaded the surface of the latter, and scarcely a ripple seemed to curl the still and beautiful bosom of the Propontis. ”

“ When northern winds hurl the agitated waters of the latter against the sombre cliffs which guard the entrance to the Bosphorus, the contrast between this savage sea and the placid waters of the strait and its charming scenery is striking indeed. At every turn we are arrested by unexpected charms. Rocks, palaces, woods, vessels of every description, and the curious scaffoldings of Bulgarian fishermen succeed each other in infinite variety. ”

“ All the way to Emirghian I gave thanks to the Almighty for having protected at least a few imperial palaces and a few old estates which could still give an idea of what the Bosphorus looked like before the war. A few, low, rambling buildings of one or, at the most, two floors, growing lengthwise instead of upward, without a thought of economizing the land, surrounded with parks where grow old trees, are happily still left as a living proof of past splendour and good taste, and complete disregard of business advantages. ”

“ No wonder, then, educated, or rather uneducated as they are, that the visions of their childhood, the dreams of their girlish days, and even the aspirations of their riper years, should be in the anticipation of a life of independence, luxury and love, in those fairy-like homes that skirt the Bosphorus at Constantinople. ”

“ Broken stars quiver in the swift-flowing waters of the Bosphorus and, while we are still gazing at the venerable, ivy-mantled walls and towers that so long guarded the City of Constantine, we enter the Sea of Marmora—known to the ancients as the Propontis—the sea before the Pontus or the Euxine of which Herodotus says “there is not in the world any other sea so wonderful.” ”

“ At the same time, no one has done more for them than the Bosphorus itself. A terrace ten feet long may be as enviable as an estate reaching from the water’s edge to the top of the hill, since it is the blue panorama of the strait, with its busy boats and its background of climbing green, that is the chief ornament of the garden. The Turks lean, accordingly, to the landscape school. Their gardens have, really, very little of an Italian air. The smallest patch of ground in Italy is more architectural than the largest Turkish estate. ”

“ Despite the dangerous vicinity of the Sarmatians, the kingdom of the Bosphorus enjoyed perfect tranquillity for above three hundred years, and through a steady and rational policy increased in prosperity and riches, until the conquest of Greece by the Romans subverted all the commercial relations of the East. At that period the Bosphorians, attacked by the Scythians, and too weak to resist them, threw themselves into the arms of the celebrated Mithridates, who turned their state into a province of the Pontus, and bestowed it as an appanage on his son Makhares. ”

“ A single sob choked his voice, he threw himself again at her feet in the sheer blindness of an utter misery, his hands clutching the folds of her dress, his lips pressed in kisses on the senseless laces, conscious alone of the woman who now had no more thought, or need, or tenderness for him than the cold marble that rose above him into the starry stillness of the Bosphorus night. ”

“ It was not until the 2nd of October that the weather cleared sufficiently to enable us to leave Sinope. Then, however, all promised well for a prosperous voyage. With a clear, blue sky, calm sea, and a fairly favourable breeze we set sail for the Bosphorus. For twenty-four hours the yacht dashed gaily along; and we were all merry with the anticipation of being speedily with our friends at Therapia, when a sudden change came over the sunny prospect. A little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, was seen to windward. ”

“ Throned on its seven hills, mirrored in the blue beauty of the Bosphorus—that glorious strait which links the land-locked harbour of Stamboul to the mouth of the Euxine—uniting two divisions of the earth in its golden grasp—lording it over the classic and dusky mountains90 of Asia, and the laughing shores of Europe—the imagination cannot picture a site or scene of more perfect beauty. But the morale of the Turkish empire is less perfect than its terrestrial position ”

“ Beauties of the Bosphorus—Summer-Palace of the Sultan—Adventure with an old Turkish Woman—The Feast of Bairam—The Sultan his own Butcher—His evil Propensities—Visit to the Mosques—A formidable Dervish—Santa Sophia—Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Traces of Christianity.
From this elevated point, the singular effect of a desert commencing from the very streets of the city is still more observable. The compact edge of the metropolis is visible even upon the more rural Bosphorus, not an enclosure or a straggling house venturing to protrude beyond the closely pressed limit. ”

“ No one contradicted him, yet he proceeded in a still more excited manner,—
"Ah! you pretend to monopolize the Bosphorus, do you? Well, I will get to the opposite side of it. That for your Bosphorus! I laugh at your Bosphorus. ”

“ The steamers are profusely decorated with gaycolored flags, and at certain hours all war-ships anchored in the Bosphorus, as well as the forts and arsenals, fire salutes, the roar and rattle of the great guns echoing among the hills of Europe and Asia, that here confront each other, with but a thousand yards of dancing blue waters between them. All along either lovely shore villages and splendid country-seats of wealthy pashas and Constantinople merchants dot the verdure-clad slopes. Two white marble kiosks of the Sultan are pointed out. ”

“ Before embarking at Sulina for Constantinople, I almost dreaded the voyage to the Bosphorus. From the time of the Argonauts the tempestuous Euxine has been a byword among mariners and the dread of travelers who have to trust themselves to its storm-lashed waves. In the words of Ovid its fury was inferior only to the turbulence of the [43] fierce barbarians among whom he was exiled. I had prepared myself to endure for a day all the horrors which characterize a rough passage across the English channel. ”

“ So far as I know, there is no other place where nature and art have so combined to produce an enchanting prospect. As the situation and appearance of Constantinople are unequalled, so the Bosphorus is unique.
Whatever may be the political changes of the Turkish Empire, I do not believe that this pleasing picture will be destroyed; rather let us expect to see it more lovely in the rapidly developing taste of a new era of letters and refinement. It was a wise forethought that planted the American College just here. It is just where it should be to mould the new order of things. ”

“ Bosphŏrus and Bospŏrus, two narrow straits, situate at the confines of Europe and Asia. One was called Cimmerian, and joined the Palus Mœotis to the Euxine, now known by the name of the straits of Caffa; and the other, which was called the Thracian Bosphorus, and by the moderns the straits of Constantinople, made a communication between the Euxine sea and the Propontis. It is 16 miles long, and one and a half broad, and where narrowest 500 paces or four stadia, according to Herodotus. ”

“ The general features of Constantinople and the Bosphorus are so well known, that I am spared the dangerous task of painting scenes which have been colored by abler pencils. Von Hammer, Lamartine, Willis, Miss Pardoe, Albert Smith, and thou, most inimitable Thackeray! have made Pera and Scutari, the Bazaars and Baths, the Seraglio and the Golden Horn, as familiar to our ears as Cornhill and Wall street. ”

“ Along the coast of Bulgaria—that kingdom of strong men under a strong ruler, whose history, with a long and melancholy hiatus, is taken up again, is in the making, and bids fair to rival that of older nations as a record of devotion and steadfastness of purpose. And so to the mouth of the Bosphorus, a narrow entrance through which the strong current of the Black Sea forces its way to join the warm waters of the Mediterranean. ”