Its present aspect presents a singular and beautiful prospect. The blue and limpid Bosphorus, now expanding into bays, and now cooped between promontories, here suddenly expands into an apparently interminable ocean. The promontories which swell out are clothed with a bright and permanent verdure, covered with villages, fortresses, and beacons, whose white walls and battlemented towers crown them with their turreted diadems, and harmonize well with the bright tints of green and blue from sea and land. These are called phanaraki, from phanar, the Greek for light-house, and kui, the Turkish for town. On the most conspicuous eminence is seen a memorial of the enterprising spirit of the Genoese, a dilapidated castle, still in tolerable preservation, which they erected at one end of the Bosphorus, when they built the town of Galata at the other. Over the entrance, and on other parts of the front, are perfect monogrammal inscriptions, which evidently belong to the Greeks of the Lower Empire, whoever were the architects of the edifice. All parts of these shores command delightful views, and are refreshed by the invigorating breeze which is wafted through the Boghaz from the Euxine, and ventilates this region in the greatest heats of a sultry summer. The thermometer sometimes stands here ten degrees lower than at Pera; and the panting inhabitant of the city escapes with delight, to breathe the bracing air of this cool and refreshing vicinity. The Frank ambassadors, instead of congregating in summer at Belgrade, as in the time of Lady M. W. Montague, have with more taste and judgment fixed their residence here; and Buyukderé is filled with their summer palaces. From this village the high land stretches away in a direction across the Bosphorus, and presents a front to the opening of the Euxine. Amidst these lovely undulating grounds, so varied in form as to command an extensive prospect, while the observer feels almost unseen, parties of pleasure are continually assembled. No true mussulman is unconscious of nature’s charms, on the contrary, his highest enjoyment is in the contemplation of a solemn, silent, and wide-spread landscape. It is this that attracts such numbers to the agreeable heights of Buyukderé, and pleads an apology for the presence of the old Seraskier and his suite, who are represented as partaking of the rural festivities of this happy, healthy spot. [Illustration: Drawn fron Nature by E. Hervé. Esq. Eng^d by W. H. Capone. ANCIENT ARCHWAY & CAVERN IN THE BALKAN MOUNTAINS.]