The great sight of Scutari, after all, is Scutari itself—which very few people ever seem to have noticed. In front of it opens, somewhat north of west, a nick in the shore known as the Great Harbour. As a matter of fact it is very little of a harbour, whose inner waters are barely safe from the swirl of the Bosphorus as it begins to squeeze past Seraglio Point. The front door of Scutari is here, however, and one altogether worthy of the City of Gold. Seen from the water it is admirably bordered with boats and boat-houses, being no less admirably overlooked by minarets and hanging gardens and climbing roofs and the dark overtopping wall of the great cemetery, while nearer acquaintance proves it to be amply provided with local colour in the way of plane-trees, fountains, and coffee-houses galore. The heart of the town lies in an irregular amphitheatre which twists back from the Great Harbour. Into the floor of the amphitheatre project half a dozen buttresses of an upper gallery, and through the long narrow corridors between them streets climb, sometimes by steps, to the cypresses and their amply sweeping terrace. In this scene, if you like, a lesser Stamboul is set. It has its old houses, its vines, its fountains, its windows of grille work, its mosque yards, its markets, its covered bazaar, even its own edition of the Sacred Caravan and the Persian solemnity of _Mouharrem_. But it has an air of its own, as the storks will tell you who nest near the flower market. It does not imitate, it complements Stamboul. And it contains monuments so remarkable that I am constantly amazed and scandalised to find out how little people know about them.