[Vide Iliad, xiv. 245, etc. Homer's "ocean-stream" was not the Hellespont, but the rim of waters which encircled the disk of the world.]
[272] {219}["The pleasure of going in a barge to Chelsea is not comparable to that of rowing upon the canal of the sea here, where, for twenty miles together, down the Bosphorus, the most beautiful variety of prospects present themselves. The Asian side is covered with fruit trees, villages, and the most delightful landscapes in nature; on the European stands Constantinople, situated on seven hills; showing an agreeable mixture of gardens, pine and cypress trees, palaces, mosques, and public buildings, raised one above another, with as much beauty and appearance of symmetry as your ladyship ever saw in a cabinet adorned by the most skilful hands, where jars show themselves above jars, mixed with canisters, babies, and candlesticks. This is a very odd comparison: but it gives me an exact idea of the thing."—See letter to Mr. Pope, No. xl. June 17, 1717, and letter to the Countess of Bristol, No. xlvi. n.d., Letters of the Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, 1816, pp. 183-219. See, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, June 28, 1810, Letters, 1890, i. 280, note 1.]
[273] [For Byron's "Marys," see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 192, note 2.]
[274] The "Giant's Grave" is a height on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, much frequented by holiday parties; like Harrow and Highgate.
["The Giant's Mountain, 650 feet high, is almost exactly opposite Buyukdereh ... It is called by the Turks Yoshadagh, Mountain of Joshua, because the Giant's Grave on the top is, according to the Moslem legend, the grave of Joshua. The grave was formerly called the Couch of Hercules; but the classical story is that it was the tomb of Amycus, king of the Bebryces [on his grave grew the laurus insana, a branch of which caused strife (Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. xvi. cap. xliv. ed. 1593, ii. 198)]. The grave is 20 feet long, and 5 feet broad; it is within a stone enclosure, and is planted with flowers and bushes."—Handbook for Constantinople, p. 103.]
[ET] {220}
For then the Parca are most busy spinning
The fates of seamen, and the loud winds raise.—[MS.]
[EU] {221}
That he a man of rank and birth had been,