Already had we said our farewell to many a fond and valued friend, never, probably, to be looked upon again in life; and as we wandered amid scenes and sights to which we had become familiarised, we felt that indescribable sadness with which an object is ever contemplated for the last time. The heart may have been wrung, the spirit may have been pained, during a foreign sojourn; deep shadows may have fallen over the landscape; but there must ever be sunny spots on which the memory lingers, and to which the affections cling. The freshness had passed away from the Valley of the Sweet Waters, and the turf had withered beneath a scorching sun; yet to me it was still beautiful. The sparkling Barbyses was shrunken to a silver thread; but in my mind’s eye I yet saw it filling its graceful channel, and gliding like a snake through the silent glen. The cemetery of Eyoub was glorious! The lordly trees which overhang the tombs were rainbow-like in their tints; and the gilded head-stones appeared to be over-canopied by living gems. Every hour passed in the solemn Necropolis of Scutari was a distinct mine of thought—Its deep, dense shadows, its voiceless solitude, its melancholy sublimity—all remained as I had first felt them—The seasons effect no change on this City of the Dead—The long dim avenues of cypress put on no summer livery to flaunt in the garish sunshine—amid the snows of winter, and the skies of spring, they wear the same dark hues—the autumnal beams shed no golden tints over their dusky foliage; nor do the summer heats betray them into blossoming. The grave-tree, nourished by the mouldering remnants of mortality, dank with the exhalations of the tombs, and rooted in a soil fed with corruption, drinks not the dews, and revels not in the day-beam, like the changeful child of the sunshine, which flings its leafy and light-loving branches over a painted kiosk, or a marble fountain—It is dark and silent, as the dead above whom it springs; and the wind moans more sadly among its boughs, than when it sweeps through the leaves of the summer woods. The very streets, narrow, difficult, and even plague-teeming as they were, acquired a new interest when we remembered that in a few weeks we should tread them no more. The columns of the Atmeidan—the “Tree of Groans” beside the mosque of Sultan Achmet—the gorgeous Fountain of Topphannè—each claimed a longer look than heretofore, as we felt that it was the last. These were our chosen haunts; and the steam-vessel that was to convey us to the Danube, by which route we had decided on returning to England, already lay in the port, when an Officer of the Imperial Household bore to us the gracious permission of the Sultan to visit his palaces; coupled with the injunction that we were to be unaccompanied by any other Frank. Not a moment was to be lost! We had not a week to remain in the country; and we accordingly appointed the morrow for crossing to the gilded summer Palace of Beglierbey.