April xxii.
This day having first visited Mr. Schrever (then ill of the plague, of which he died two days after) in a small boat of the countrey, in company with Mr. Goodfellow and Mr. Evans, I made a tour up the Thracian Bosphorus. This chanel we may conceive to begin from the point of Scutari on one side, and that of Tophana on the other; from whence in a winding figure, graced on each side with seraglios of the chief courtiers of this empire, and on the marine with almost continued villages, as also two castles in the narrowest part, it extends about eighteen or twenty miles, as far as the antient rocky isles of the Symplegades, which seem to open and shut, as one advances to them in the Bosphorus[75]. The largest of them is situated on the European shore, and till lately bore an antient Corinthian pillar, to which a vulgar error has given the name of Pompey’s column. It was erected not on a regular basis of its own, but upon an antient heathen altar, that now only remains; the shaft and capital of the pillar, which have lately fallen, being yet visible in four pieces among the cliffs of the rock. On the aforesaid remaining altar may be read this inscription in large Roman letters.
DIVO CAESARI AUGVSTO
L. CL. ANNIDIVS
L. F. CLAV. FRONTO[76]
Returning from this pillar we stept on the adjoining shore, to see the large and lofty lantern there erected for the direction of mariners at the entrance of this difficult strait. About four miles from hence, in returning thro the chanel, we go ashore on the European side to visit a famous convent of Greek priests, by the name of Mauromolos, seated in the cliff of an hill, and enjoying a beautiful church, adorned with many rich pieces of religious furniture; as books bound in covers of massy silver; an ἁγία πύλη, or sacred curtain[77], wrought both richly and artfully in silk and golden figures; and a set of painting not of the vulgar sort, but regular and proportionable, the most curious of which was done in Muscovy. These fathers are exempted from their harách, on account of a present of excellent fair cherries, once presented to the Grand Signior. Over a fountain, that serves the convent with water, they have this device, not more proper for the place, than ingenious for the contrivance, in making the same words read forwards or backwards:
ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ[78]
I was this day a witness of the strong current flowing towards the Propontis from the Euxine sea, as I had before observed it to force into the Mediterranean from the ocean. Both which are taken notice of by Lucan:
Quaque fretum torrens Maeotidos egerit undas
Pontus, et Herculeis aufertur gloria metis,
Oceanumque negat solas admittere Gades[79].