about a mile, stretched out to our right, surmounted by lofty hills, sharp at the top, and clothed to the summit with dark forests, with their sides varied by hedge-rows, villas, orchards, and gardens. Deep precipitous ravines occasionally descended on this side into the sea, overshadowed by huge overgrown oaks, the branches of which dipped into the water. 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. It is rather a great river like the Thames, shut in on either side by hills covered with houses, and covered by innumerable lines of ships lying at anchor along the quays. Vessels of every description are to be seen there, from the Arabian bark, the prow of which is raised, and darts along like the ancient galleys, to the ship of the line, with three decks, and its sides studded with brazen mouths. Multitudes of Turkish barks circulate through that forest of masts, serving the purpose of carriages in that maritime city, and disturb in their swift progress through the waves, clouds of alabastros, which, like beautiful white pigeons, rise from the sea on their approach, to descend and repose again on the unruffled surface. It is impossible to count the vessels which lie on the water from the seraglio point to the suburb of Eyoub and the delicious valley of the Sweet Waters. The Thames at London exhibits nothing comparable to it."--(II. 262-265.)