Having satisfied his scientific curiosity respecting Candia, he proceeded to visit the various islands of the Archipelago, which he examined with attention. On almost every rock on which he landed some additions were made to his botanical or antiquarian treasures, and with this mass of materials continually accumulating, he pushed on to Constantinople. Being desirous of comprehending the barbarous but complex machine of the Ottoman polity, he made a considerable stay in this city, from whence, when he conceived his object to have been accomplished, he continued his travels towards the east, and following the footsteps of the Argonauts, whom the ancients, he tells us, regarded as their most famous travellers, proceeded along the southern shores of the Black Sea towards Colchos. Our traveller performed this part of his route in the suite of the Pasha of Erzeroom. The whole party embarked in feluccas, the pasha with his harem in one vessel, and the remainder of his people, together with Tournefort and his attendants, distributed in seven others. During the voyage they frequently landed on the coast, for the purpose of passing the night more agreeably than could have been done on board. Tents were pitched, and those of the ladies surrounded by ditches, and guarded by black eunuchs, whose ugly visages and fearfully rolling eyes struck a panic into the soul of our traveller, who seems to have regarded them as so many devils commissioned to keep watch over the houries of paradise. Indeed, Tournefort, if we may take him upon his word, was exceedingly well calculated by nature for travelling securely in the suite of a pasha accompanied by his harem; for when he was cautioned by the great man’s lieutenant against approaching the female quarters too nearly, or even ascending any eminence in the vicinity, from whence their tents might be viewed, he remarked, with apparent sincerity, that he was too much in love with plants to think of the ladies! This was a fortunate circumstance. Plants are everywhere to be procured, for even in the East it has never been thought necessary to place a guard of black eunuchs over hellebore or nightshade; but had the smile of female lips, or the sunshine of female eyes, been necessary to his happiness, he must have languished in hopelessness, at least while in the train of a pasha. Notwithstanding the nature of the government and the state of manners in the country through which he passed, he encountered but few difficulties, and no real dangers. He settled the geographical position of cities, he admired the landscapes, he described the plants; but being fully persuaded that the better part of valour is discretion, he engaged in no adventures, and therefore the current of his life ran on as smoothly on the shores of the Black Sea as it could have done on the banks of the Seine or Rhone.