The villages by the water-side are so close together, that Pera may be said to extend from Tophané to the forts beyond Bujukderé. The residences of the pashas, the imperial palaces of the Sultan, and the retreats of opulence, lined these favoured shores; and as the stranger passes on, in steamer or caique, he may catch a view of some hoary pasha or ex-governor sitting cross-legged in his garden or verandah, smoking away, and each looking so like the other that they might all pass for brothers. The windows of one portion of these houses are mostly closely latticed and fastened, but here and there a bright flash of a yellow or red robe shows the harem is not untenanted. These dwellings succeed each other the whole length of the Bosphorus, quite as numerously as the houses on the road from Hyde Park Corner to Hammersmith; and at places such as Therapia and Bujukderé they are dense enough to form large villages, provided with hotels, shops, _cafés_, and lodging-houses. The Turks delight in going up in their caiques to some of these places, and sitting out on the platforms over the water, while the chibouque or narghile confers on them a zoophytic happiness; and the greatest object of Turkish ambition is to enjoy the pleasures of a kiosk on the Bosphorus. The waters abound in fish, and droves of porpoises and dolphins disport in myriads on its surface, plashing and playing about, as with easy roll they cleave their way against its rapid flood, or gambolling about in the plenitude of their strength and security, till a sword-fish takes a dig at them, and sets them off curvetting and snorting like sea-horses. Hawks, kites, buzzards, and sea eagles are numerous, and large flocks of a kind of gregarious petrel of a dusky hue, with whitish breasts, called by the French _âmes damneés_, which are believed never to rest, keep flying up and down close to the water. Amidst such scenery the expeditionary flotilla began its voyage at eleven o'clock. It consisted of two steamers for staff officers and horses, seven steamers for troops and chargers, one for 300 pack horses, four sailing transports for horse artillery, and two transports for commissariat animals. Off Tophané, frigates, some of them double-banked, displayed the red flag with the silver crescent moon and star of the Ottoman Porte. They were lying idly at rest there, and might have been much better employed, if not at Kavarna Bay, certainly in cruising about the Greek Archipelago. [Sidenote: VARNA.]