There being no accommodation here for travelers, we did not ask the captain to lay by all night. Next morning we were sailing through the rapid Hellespont, at the Dardenelles. About ten o’clock, A. M. we reached the part of the Hellespont where Lord Byron swam across from Europe to Asia—from Sestos to Abydos.
“If in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!”
Here we stopped some minutes, and two or three yawls came from the Asia side in quest of something to do. At the hind part of one of these yawls was a large, fat and shiney black African, doing the lazy part of the work—steering. His heavy self weighed down the other end, containing two men and oars. It was a beautiful day and the sun came down with a quivering heat in the distance, so, as it is said, that the natives in the interior of Africa cook their meat on sun heated rocks, he looked as if he was about to broil. He attracted the attention and caused amusement for the passengers; and some one threw some orange peelings on his naked rotundity as he was half lying on his back with no clothes on above his loins. He pretended to take no notice of it until they came in such regular succession he could not but show signs of acknowledgement or cowardice. After his patience gave out, he turned lazily around and looked up, like a duck at thunder, and shook his head; they followed up this amusement until he got agoing on the gibberish dialect, and that was more amusement yet; at last our boat left him, and one of our passengers translated his resentment. It was merely, “according to his ideas of decorum, he had not been treated gentlemanly, and that he would remember it if ever we came to his country, and that he would not consider us worth taking notice of.”
On the morning of the 11th of May, the captain said to the sailors, “Bosphorus! down the hatch and bring the mail on deck.” I looked ahead and saw an immense number of steeples, towers and minarets; to the eye no city on earth need look prettier. It was, indeed, the fairest sight I ever beheld. I asked an old Turkish tar what it was, he said, “Stamboul, stamboul.” The captain said to the pilot, “right towards the Harem.” Gondoliers from all directions of the “golden horn” were racing to us; in one of them a couple of officers, in their gay colors came. All our baggage was gondoliered, and we, all afloat, approached the Custom House. I slipped a five franc piece, as I had been told, in an officers hand, to get rid of the trouble of unlocking trunks, and he went blind, and I passed unmolested with my contraband, if I had any, into the great Mahommedan city, Constantinople.