Even the names bestowed upon this channel have been manifold. To the ancients it was variously known as the Mouth, the Throat, the Door, and the Key of the Euxine. To-day it is frequently called the Narrows, or the Strait or the Canal of Constantinople. But the appellation which is still the most popular and that by which it is usually designated is that which has its origin in one of the earliest of Greek legends. As expressed in English, the name, which signifies Cow-Ford, or Ox-Ford, seems very prosaic, but the legend on which it is based has always been a favorite with poets and artists. Io, the beautiful priestess of Hera at Argos, was loved by Zeus and was, in consequence of the jealousy of the goddess, metamorphosed into a heifer. Arriving at the eastern side of the strait, so the fable runs, she plunged into its swiftly-flowing waters and swam to the European shore. And from that time to the present, this famed watercourse has been known the world over as the Bosphorus. On the promontory of Anadoli Kavak on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, we get a view of the site of Hieron which was long regarded as one of the most sacred places in the pagan world. Covered then with gorgeous temples dedicated to the twelve greater gods it ranked as a place of pilgrimage with Delphi and Olympia. The most imposing and sumptuous of these temples was said to have been founded by Jason and consecrated to Zeus Urius, in thanksgiving for the safe return of himself and his fellow Argonauts from their successful expedition to Colchis. Within it stood a priceless statue of Zeus made of ivory and gold, at the base of which was a slab, now preserved in the British Museum, on which were inscribed the words: The sailor who invokes Zeus Urius that he may enjoy a prosperous voyage either toward the Cyanean Rocks, or on the Ægean sea, itself unsteady and filled with innumerable dangerous shoals scattered here and there, can have a prosperous voyage if first he sacrifices to the god whose statue Philo Antipater has set up, both because of gratitude and to insure favorable augury to sailors. But unlike Delphi and Olympia where there is still, thanks to the labors of French and German archæologists, very much to remind one of the past grandeur of these historic places, “not a stone upon a stone” remains on the site of Hieron to attest to its former splendor and majesty. As in so many other parts of the world, the temples of Hieron served as quarries for peoples of a later age who knew not the gods of Olympus, or who had a special interest in consigning them to oblivion. And where, in days of yore, the clouds of incense and the smoke of sacrifice, in the most superb of temples stimulated the fervor of vast multitudes from far distant lands, the traveler to-day finds nothing of the pristine glory of Hieron except what nature gave it--its superb site and its enchanting vistas of the Bosphorus and the Euxine.