The Seven Towers—that celebrated prison of which the very name is a spell of power—are rapidly crumbling to decay, but must continue to be among the most interesting of the antiquities of Constantinople, as long as one stone remains upon another. Although situated in a populous part of the city, this fortress is, nevertheless, an isolated building; and four of the towers to which it owes its name are destroyed, but of those that still exist, one contains the apartments originally appropriated to state prisoners, and is also the residence of the Military Commandant and the officers of the garrison. When it ceased to be a state prison for attainted Turks, the fortress of the Seven Towers was exclusively reserved for the reception of the Russian Ambassadors, on the occasion of any misunderstanding between the Ottoman and Muscovite courts; and it is almost a ludicrous fact that, during the reign of Mustapha III., His Excellency Count Obrescoff, representative of Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress of all the Russias, not only suffered an imprisonment of three years in this fortress, but actually passed several days at the bottom of a dry well, into which it was the Sublime pleasure of the Sultan to cause him to be lowered. If His Highness acted upon the impression that the Muscovite Minister would succeed during his subterranean sojourn in discovering the moral deity who is said to be concealed therein, there is every reason, from existing circumstances, to believe that the experiment was a failure, or that she declined being withdrawn from her retreat. Instruments of torture—racks, wheels, and oubliettes—are rife within this place of gloom and horror. One chasm, upon whose brink you stand, is called the “Well of Blood,” and is said to have overflowed its margin with the ensanguined stream which was once warm with life—a small court, designated the “Place of Heads,” is pointed out as having been cumbered with the slain, until the revolting pile was of sufficient height to enable the spectator to look out from its summit upon the waves of the glittering Propontis; and more than one stone tunnel is shown, into which the wretched captive was condemned to crawl upon his hands and knees, and there left to die of famine. But I shall pass by these tales of terror, to narrate a Legend of the Seven Towers, less known than the objects which are exhibited to every visiter, and more calculated to interest the reader.