Within these few years a new feature has been added to the moving picture of the harbour. When steam-boats were adopted by all the nations of Europe, the tardy Turks alone rejected them. The currents of the Bosphorus constantly running down from the Black Sea with the velocity of four or five miles an hour, renders it extremely difficult for ships to ascend, unless assisted by a strong wind, and even with this aid they hardly stemmed the rapid stream. It was not uncommon to see lines of twenty or thirty men, with long cords passed over their shoulders, slowly dragging up pondrous merchantmen with a vast labour, which a single steamer would at once render unnecessary. It was among the first reforms of the sultan to introduce any European inventions which could assist human labour; and he not only encouraged the introduction of these boats, but he erected an arsenal in the harbour for building them by his own subjects. This spacious and novel ship-yard is under the superintendence of the laborious and patient Armenians, who are the great mechanics of the Turkish empire. Here they not only build the boats, but cast the machinery, which the stupid Moslems could not comprehend, till they saw their own sultan embark in the wonderful self-moving machine, that issued from their own arsenal, and swiftly climbed the rapids of the Bosphorus against both wind and tide. A singular circumstance connected with the first introduction of steam-boats was the subject of universal conversation. An immense crowd had collected, as well to see the sultan, as the vessel in which he had embarked. When he stood upon the deck, a broad flag was displayed floating over his head, with the sun, the emblem of the Turkish empire, embroidered on it; but within the disc was worked a cross; and the pious Moslems saw, with fear and astonishment, their sultan sail under this Christian emblem. He had just before shown such indulgence and good-will to the rayas of that faith, that his enemies every where gave out, that, among his innovations, he was disposed to adopt it himself, and the present flag was a public display of it. It appeared, afterwards, that the unconscious sultan knew nothing of the emblem over his head. The sanguine Greeks of the arsenal had that morning inserted it in the midst of the sun; and so had exhibited it as another cross of Constantine, converting an infidel sovereign to Christianity.