again see the gleaming lights of a village, Beuyük Limân, and opposite it others shine from the fort which stands upon the promontory of the Elephant. On our left is the great mass of rock called by the ancients Gypopolis, upon which rose the palace of Phineas infested by the Harpies, and on the right Poiras Point shows dim and indistinct against the gray sky. The two shores are now far apart, and the strait seems more like a wide gulf. Night is falling, and the sea-breeze whistles through the rigging, while the broad surface of the melancholy _Mare Cimmerium_ stretches away before us gray and restless; and still we are unable to detach our minds from those wonderful scenes through which we have just passed, so crowded with romantic and historical associations, especially now, when our senses are no longer overpowered by the sight of their natural beauties. In fancy we explore that left shore as far as the foot of the Little Balkans, search for Ovid’s tower of exile and the marvellous Anastasian Wall; then, crossing to Asia, wander over a vast volcanic tract of land, through forests infested by wild boars and jackals, amid the huts of a savage and cruel people, whose sinister shadows we seem to see as they congregate upon the precipitous bank invoking disaster for us on the _fera litora Ponti_. The darkness is broken for the last time by two flaming points looking like the fiery eyes of two Cyclops set to guard the approach to that enchanted strait; they are Anadoli Fanar, the lighthouse on the Asiatic side, and Rumili Fanar, at whose feet the rugged profile of the Symplegades can be dimly discerned in the shadow of the banks. Then the coasts of Asia and Europe are merely two black lines, and then, _Quocumque adspicias nihil est nisi Pontus et aer_, as poor Ovid sang. But I see her still, my beloved Constantinople, beyond those two fading shores. I see her larger and more radiant than she ever appeared when I gazed upon her from the Validéh Sultan bridge or from the heights of Skutari, and I talk with and salute and adore her as the last and fondest dream of a youth which is passing away. But a dash of salt water, striking me full in the face and knocking off my hat, rouses me abruptly from my dreams. I look around: the bow is deserted, the sky obscured, a raw autumnal wind chills me to the bone; poor Yunk, attacked by sea-sickness, has withdrawn; nothing is heard but the rattle of the ship’s lanterns and creaking of the vessel as she flies along, rocked and beaten by the waves, into the darkness of the night. My beautiful Oriental dream is ended. END OF VOLUME II. INDEX. A. Abd-el-Murad, warrior dervish, 146.