The Bosphorus has, however, one striking characteristic, that of drawing away the thoughts of the traveller who passes through it for the first time, from the past to the present. All the associations, dreams, fancies, memories awakened by familiarity with its history or legends are put to flight, driven back by the extraordinary richness of the vegetation, the pomp of color, exuberance of life, and magnificent abandonment of nature, in which everything appears as though it were wreathed in smiles and decked for a fête. It is even difficult to realize that these same waters, these enchanting scenes, were the witnesses of those furious sea-battles when Bulgarians and Goths, Byzantines, Russians, and Turks fell upon one another, fought, bled, and were vanquished or overcame in turn; the very fortresses which frown from the heights fail to awaken a spark of that romantic horror which such ruins always inspire when seen at other places; they seem more like artificial adjuncts to the landscape than the stern and actual records of a past which has seen them vomit fire and death. Over all there hangs a veil of languor and quiescence which suggests no thoughts other than dreams of idleness and an immense longing for peace. Beyond Stenia the Bosphorus becomes still wider, and in a few moments we are greeted with the finest of any of the views we have had up to this time. Looking toward Europe, we see directly before us the little Greek and Armenian city of Yeni, built upon the side of a hill covered with vineyards and groves of pine trees, and extending around in the shape of a bow above a rocky shore against which the current sweeps with great violence; a little beyond is the beautiful bay of Kalender, crowded with boats, surrounded by small houses with gardens; and garlanded with luxuriant vegetation, while overhanging it are the aërial terraces of an imperial kiosk. Turning to the other shore, we find it curving in a large semicircle, above which rises a hill, and in the natural amphitheatre thus formed are a number of villages and harbors: Injir Keui--the Fig village--set in a circle of gardens; Sultanieh, half hidden in a forest; and the large village of Beikos, surrounded by kitchen-gardens and vineyards and shaded by tall walnut trees, whose buildings are reflected in the waters of the most beautiful gulf in the whole Bosphorus, the very spot on which the king of Bebryces was defeated by Pollux, and where the enchanted laurel tree stood whose branches caused all who touched them to become insane. Some distance beyond Beikos may be seen Yali, the ancient village of Amea, looking like a bunch of red and yellow flowers thrown down on a great green carpet. All of this, however, is but the merest sketch of that wonderful picture; to which must be added the indescribably soft lines of those lovely hills, looking as though made to stroke with the hand; the innumerable little nameless villages, which seem to have