Day & Haghe Lith^{rs}. to the King. THE SERAGLIO POINT, from the HEIGHT of PERA _Henry Colburn, 13 G^t. Marlborough S^t. 1837._] The tower of Galata, rife with memories of the days when the dreaded Janissaries ruled the destinies of the Empire, crowned the height, which, clothed with houses and with verdure, swept downward to the port. The spiral minarets of the Imperial mosque of Topphannè were flaunting their golden glories in the light; the sounds of busy life were on the wind; and the port once past, the wide artillery-ground, and the stately barrack were succeeded by the summer palace of the Grand Vèzir, standing proudly against the current, as though, like the Emperor of old, it dared the wave to overwhelm it. The wide sweep of hilly country, gradually closing, and becoming more lofty in the rear of the buildings that fringe the stream, was clothed with trees of every tint; from among which the many-coloured houses peeped forth in the most picturesque irregularity. Here and there a gleaming minaret shot upwards into the clear Heaven from amid a cluster of plum-coloured Judas trees laden with blossom, or a clump of limes filling the air with perfume; and leaving the dark spiral cypresses far beneath it; as the spirit, soaring above the earth, outtravels the gloom and care from which it frees itself. What a line of palaces stretched along the coast! And what a wilderness of gardens, climbing the steeps behind them, made the background of the picture no inapt representation of fairy-land; while at intervals a little bay formed a delicious nook occupied by country-houses, and terraced-coffee-shops, where the luxurious Osmanli smoked his pipe, and inhaled his tiny cup of mocha, amid sights and sounds to which the world can probably produce no parallel. The stately serail of the Princess Salihè, and the modest palace of her less high-born husband, which is attached like an excrescence to the far-spreading edifice occupied by the harem of his Imperial partner, stands upon a spot where the stream widens, as if to reflect more perfectly the golden shores that hem it in. There is something amusing enough to a foreigner in the one-sided dwellings of the Sultan’s sons-in-law. Without the palace as well as within, they are constantly reminded of the superiority of their Imperial spouses. As they glide along in their gilded caïques, they pass the harem, with its tall doors of bronze, and golden lattices; its far-stretching terraces, and guarded avenues; and they arrive before the small landing-place which gives ingress to their own diminutive salemliek, with its single entrance, and its window draperies of white cotton.