Facing the anchorage, on the east of the white houses which climb the western skirts of the rising land, a bold cliff towers up above the water with abrupt walls of dark rock. The face of this cliff is almost bare of vegetation; but the summit, which is flat, is completely covered with a soft carpet of old turf. The elevation of this lofty platform above the sea-level is 850 feet. East and west the hill descends with gentler gradients, on the one side to the estuary of the Pyxitis, and on the other to the little cape and to the town; but whether you approach it from the city or from the river valley, the slopes are no light matter to climb. On the south it joins on to the half-circle of the coast range, which recedes from beyond the river in a wide amphitheatre, embracing both the bays and all the town. Thus the town itself is shut off from the level ground about the river by this peninsula of table-topped rock; and while one road climbs these slopes to unite the two valleys, the other winds outwards along the foot of the cliff, following the curve of the shore. I remember that, when for the first time I looked out upon the city, I was at once impressed with the manner in which this bold natural feature corresponded to the name of the town (Trapezous). Could the shape which is denoted by the figure of a table be presented by Nature in a more convincing manner than by this mass of rock, towering up above the sea and from the valleys to a summit which is almost perfectly flat? Yet the name does not appear to take its origin in a justification at once so striking and so clear, but rather to derive from the configuration of the ground in the western bay upon which the ancient fortress was built. Still this platform is surely the most impressive characteristic of the site of Trebizond. The Turks, who have no antiquarian sympathies, apply to it the bald and undiscriminating appellation of Boz Tepe, the grey hill, basing the name upon the colour of the trachytic rock of which the hill is composed. The Greeks of old knew it as the Mount of Mithros--Mithrios--from a statue of the god Mithras which used to stand upon this elevated spot. It is not easy to imagine a more delightful ground of vantage from which to overlook the town and command the coast. You may step a distance of some 500 paces by 200 on a level surface of springy turf, with no object between you and the wide expanse about you, in air which is at once full of sun and vigorous; and, if the day be clear, you may descry beyond the endless stretch of water the faint blue line of distant Caucasus closing the horizon in the east.