What pretty peeps we had of the Seraglio gardens, as we shot along; through the many latticed openings contrived for the gratification of the fair prisoners. What magnificent glimpses of domes and minarets, of bursting foliage, of marble fountains, and of gilded kiosks! But, alas! how vain must have been all the luxurious inventions of the most luxurious of Sultans, to insure happiness to the tenants of this painted prison! I looked around me on the sea-birds that were sporting upon the wave—above me, to the fleecy clouds that were sailing over the blue ether—far into the distance where a shoal of dolphins were gamboling almost above the water; and, as I felt the motion of the swift caïque, while it was gently heaved up and down by the current of the sea of Marmora, and saw how rapidly we sped along, I breathed a silent thanksgiving that _I_ too was free! Free to come and to go—to love or to reject—to gaze in turn upon every bright and beautiful scene of nature, untrammelled, and unquestioned—that no Sultan could frown me into submission—no Kislar Agha frighten me into hypocrisy—in short, that I was not born a subject of his Sublime Highness, Mahmoud the Powerful. On our left, rose the lordly mountain of Bulgurlhu Dagi, above Scutari, whose shores were fringed with country-houses, and hanging gardens; gradually deepening into a sterner character as they receded from the Bosphorus, and lifting to the sky the palace-like barrack, and the elegant Persian kiosk of the Sultan. The present Sovereign has a superstition derived from an astrologer whom he consulted in his youth, that, while he is constructing Imperial residences, he is sure to be fortunate in his other undertakings; and hence he is continually adding to the almost countless numbers of palaces and kiosks, that occupy the loveliest spots throughout the vicinity of the capital. The most extensive and ancient of these is that which is situated at the entrance of the harbour, and gives its name to the “Seraglio Point,” the walls of the Imperial Seraï running, as I have already mentioned, far along the coast. On the opposite shore is the small but elegant palace of Scutari, with its bowery terraces, which are overlooked by the Sultan’s principal residence of Dolma Batchè; and you may shoot an arrow from the many-coloured and irregularly constructed palace of Dolma Batchè to the vast edifice now building on the same border of the Bosphorus, with infinitely less taste and more architectural pretension—although, with true Eastern inconsistency, the whole of the stupendous palace above Beshiktash, save the foundation, is of wood, surrounded by a colonnade, supported on stately columns of white marble. This palace, of which the expence is estimated at a million sterling, has been already a considerable time in progress; and is erected on a locality that was partly occupied by a beautiful kiosk of Sultan Selim, and partly by a Tekiè and Chapel of Turning Dervishes.