I am afraid, to judge by my own café, it is quite impossible to give anything like a true idea of Constantinople to those who have never been there; at any rate it would require a volume and not two columns to do it, but I can’t help trying to impart some of my own impressions to your readers. Miles away in the Sea of Marmora you first catch sight of the domes and minarets (like huge wax candles with graceful black extinguishers on them) of the capital of the East. As you near the mouth of the Bosphorus, on the European side lies the Seraglio Point with its palaces, Sublime Porte, and public offices and gardens full of noble cypresses. On the Asiatic side lies Scutari, the great hospital, with the English cemetery and Marochetti’s monument in front of it, occupying the highest and most conspicuous point. Midway between the two shores is a rock called Leander’s rock, on which is a picturesque little lighthouse. Passing this you turn short to the left round Seraglio Point, and open at once the view of the whole city. The Golden Horn runs right away in front of you, and on the promontory between it and the Sea of Marmora lies the old town of Stamboul, crowned with the mosques of St. Sophia and Sultan Achmet. A curious old wooden bridge, some five hundred yards in length, crosses the Golden Horn and connects it with Galata, a mass of custom-houses, barracks and offices, broken by a handsome open square, at one end of which is the Sultan’s mosque. Behind these the houses are piled up the steep hill side, and at the top stands the striking old tower of Galata, from which you get the finest view of Constantinople. Beyond comes Pera, the European quarter, where are the Embassies and Missouri’s Hotel. Of course a vast city lining such a harbour and strait as the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus must be beautiful, but there is something very peculiar in the beauty of Constantinople, which the splendid site alone will not account for. I tried hard to satisfy myself what it was, and believe that it lies in the wonderful colouring of the place. The mosques are splendid, but not so fine as many Gothic churches, and the houses in general are far inferior to those of most other capitals; and yet, seen in the mass, they are strikingly beautiful, for those which are not of wood are almost all covered with boarding, which is stained or painted in many different colours. Many of them are a deep russet brown, others slate gray, or blue, or deep yellow, some pale green with the windows picked out in red. The colours are not fresh, but toned down. Then very many of the houses have court-yards, or small gardens, and you get the fresh foliage of orange-trees, and figs, and cypresses, as a further contrast, and for flooring and ceiling the blue of the Bosphorus water and of the cloudless Eastern sky. The moment you get into the wretched, narrow, unpaved streets, the charm goes; but while you keep to the great high