The inhabitants are a commercial people, being mechanics and merchants, with some Sheikhs and Ulemas. They commonly wear ferrájís of cloth and caftáns of Bogassin. The mountains on the east and Kiblah side of the town are laid out in gardens. The town of Kastemúní is three journies distant on the east side. Sinope is situated on a cape of the Black sea, which bears the same name. Opposite to it on the European shore of the Black sea are the rocks of Kilghra Sultán, and the Black sea appears between them like a straight, which widens towards Constantinople and Trebisonde. Sinope is five hundred miles distant from Constantinople, and lies on the west side of Samsún at four journies distance. The castle stands on a high hill with triple walls of Shedád (gigantic or cyclopean) and was built by the Greeks. It is seven thousand paces in circumference, and has six thousand six hundred battlements, and eight gates, viz. the sand-gate, the place-gate, the arsenal-gate, the new-gate, the hospital-gate, the gate of the inner castle, (Lonjá), the Oghran gate, and the gate of the inner castle towards the sea. All these gates are of iron and double. The lower part of the castle on the seashore is washed by the waves on the two sides, its form is an oblong square; viewed from the top of Mount Búzdepeh it appears like a ship’s deck divided into three parts. The commander is a constant prisoner, for the inhabitants are empowered by an Imperial rescript to kill him if he goes further from the castle than the distance of a cannon’s shot. The garrison consists of six hundred brave warlike men. In the time of Sultán Ahmed, on a dark night, the Cossacks took the town by escalade, and the great Vizír Nassif Páshá, was put to death for having concealed it from the Sultán. It was retaken from the Infidels and garrisoned with fifty additional men, and provided with one thousand quintals of powder, a great number of large and small guns, and other arms. From that period the watch has been kept nightly by two hundred officers and Chaúches, and after the music of sunset the guards, cry their “all’s well,” (Yeg dir Allah). The Infidels tried several times to retake it, but were routed and driven back in great confusion, and God be thanked! they have made no new attempt since the reign of Sultán Murád IV. The town is divided into twenty-four quarters, those of the Infidels are on the sea-beach; one thousand one hundred Infidels pay the tribute (Kharráj) and one hundred are exempted because they are employed in renewing the fortifications; there are five thousand and sixty ancient houses of stone, with slated roofs, facing the sea to the west. The oldest mosque is that in the castle of Ala-ud-dín which has a lead-covered cupola, and a mináreh one hundred paces long, in a fair proportion, with three gates. The mihráb and the place of the Muëzzins are of exquisite workmanship, but the minber is so elegant that angels alone could adequately describe it; I will