The brilliant azure color of the Bosphorus

Our little caique went with wonderful speed. These boats are singularly light, and admirably built to cut through the water.

The ordinary ones hold two persons comfortably, but the passengers must sit at the bottom, and be as careful in getting into them as if they were wager-boats, or they will upset. The oars are, I think, an improvement on our own. Above the spot where the “button” would be, they swell into a large bulb, and this serves to counterbalance the blade, which is straight. They work with a thong, slipped over a peg, instead of rowlocks; and are managed with great dexterity by the caiquejees, as the watermen are called.

The brilliant azure color of the Bosphorus does not depend upon reflection. It is still blue, even on a cloudy day, that would make our own seas and rivers leaden. The tint is, to an extent, in the fater, as it may be seen nearer home in the Rhone, -where it issues from the lake of Geneva, under the bridge, before it is polluted by the Arve.

Nobody could read

We landed on the other side of the Golden Horn, near a picturosque and thoroughly oriental Mosque, to which I was told the Sultan retired on the day of the murder of the Janissaries; and then had a long, tiring walk, skirting the Mosque of St. Sophia, into the first court of the Seraglio, which is public, and conducts to certain government offices. We went under some of the buildings private ephesus tours, supported on pillars, where there was great hustle — horses waiting for men in power, with elaborate trappings, rickety carriages, slaves, soldiers, porters, and eunuchs — with attendants to make everybody take off their shoes, as they went up to the different apartments. Here the luckless letter gave rise to the same difficulties.

Nobody could read, but they took the note and handed it round from one to the other, stared at us, and then returned it. At last, a learned man, whom we attacked, told one of the servants whom it was for, and he said if I would give him baksheesh be would take it in, but not without. A few paras were accordingly put in his hand, and he kicked off his slippers, and disappeared. In a few minutes ho returned, and said that the effendi had gone ‘ away, nobody knew where, but that he would be back again to-morrow. At all events, we had received the first confirmation of his actual existence, which, for the last hour or two, I had altogether doubted; but as the day was now advanced, and as I felt that if I continued the research any longer, I might get cross from fatigue and disappointment, I gave up the pursuit for this day, at least.

As I went home, up the steep Galata Hill, I saw a mad horse — an awkward customer to meet in such a narrow thoroughfare, lie had been suddenly taken so ; and was tearing along, kicking out wildly, and scattering, on cither side, the bricks with which his panniers were laden. It is impossible to describe the confusion be created, for the Galata Hill is always thronged. The women were screaming and flying in all directions, leaving their outer slippers behind them all about the street. One of them chanced to get her yashmak caught by a shutter as she retreated. The veil was pulled off, and, for the first and only time in my life, I saw the naked face of a Turkish female. She was, however, ugly enough to make any concealment of her features perfectly unnecessary. The unveiling frightened her far more than the mad horse, and she directly threw her coarse outer wrapper over her head, and bolted into a shop. The horse finished by falling down near the Galata gate, shattering his knees to pieces, and having his throat cut by one of the police. That night, I expect, the dogs of Pera and Galata held high and gory festival.