No one, of course, undervalues the advantages of steam navigation, or suggests a return to sailing ships. At the same time it remains true, that never again will men see the Bosporus so beautiful as it looked in days when its waters were untroubled by steam. Owing to the prevalence of northerly winds in these regions, ships bound for the Black Sea were liable to long detention on their way up from the Mediterranean. Great fleets of merchantmen were accordingly apt to collect in the Dardanelles and in the Golden Horn, waiting for a favourable breeze. They had sometimes to wait six weeks ere they could stir. When at length the south wind did come, every stitch of canvas the ships could carry was unfurled, and an immense procession of winged sea-coursers and chariots rode through the Bosporus day after day so long as the south wind blew. In an hour, a hundred, two hundred, vessels might pass a given point, all panting to reach the open sea before the wind failed, and racing one another to get there first. Ships of all sizes and of every form, European and Oriental, sails and rigging of every style; huge three-masted merchantmen, “signiors and rich burghers on the flood,” schooners, brigs, barges, caïques, “petty traffickers,” with their white wings stretched over the blue waters, from one green bank across to the other, flew before the wind, and formed a spectacle solemn and stately as a royal or religious ceremonial. It was a magnificent scene of colour, motion, and variety of form; of eagerness and achievement.