Our illustration represents a steep descent from the village of Intiman into the ravine below, and, after fording the mountain-torrent in the bottom of the gulf, the equally steep ascent on the other side. On climbing this, the plain of Bulgaria appears before the traveller, from the summit, in all the luxuriance of verdure and fertility, and leads him to Sophia, the ancient capital of Bulgaria, where the ashes of its kings repose. [Illustration: T. Allom. J. Tingle. MOSQUE OF SULTAN SELIM AT SCUTARI.] On the eastern mouth of the Bosphorus, opposite Constantinople, and, like it, rising from the waters up an inclined plane, stands the large town of Scutari, associated with many historic and classic recollections. When the Persian armies carried ruin to the Greek colonies on the Asiatic coast, and prepared to add Europe to their conquests, they formed a depôt on a promontory at the mouth of the Bosphorus, of all their rich plunder; and so great was the accumulation of wealth of all kinds in this place, that the town built on the spot was called Chrysopolis, or “the City of Gold.” The point of the promontory was named Bous, or “The Ox,” from a tradition that it was here that Iö landed in the shape of a cow, when she swam across the strait to escape the persecutions of Juno. It was just under this promontory that the Athenians defeated the fleets of Philip of Macedon, when he laid siege to Byzantium. It was here that Licinius, the brother-in-law of Constantine, was taken prisoner, and afterwards beheaded, which gave the undivided empire of the East to Constantine, and enabled him to build his new and splendid city on the opposite promontory, when he had rid himself of his last rival; and, finally, it was here the crusaders first contemplated it, indulged in their visions of rapacity, and conceived the project of plundering this capital of their fellow-christians.