Already through each nerve a flutter runs
Of eager hope, that longs to be away;
Already ’neath the light of other suns
My feet, new-winged for travel, yearn to stray.
Catullus, XLVI.
After awaking from a protracted reverie on the summit of Galata’s lofty tower I found, to my surprise, that I had spent much more time there than I had originally intended. Twilight, delicate and ethereal, was beginning to fall and to veil the mosques and minarets and cypress-crowned heights of solemn, crafty, mysterious Stamboul. An animated pageant was slowly wending its way through the Grand Rue de Pera—part of it on its way to popular resorts of amusement and relaxation; part returning from the cares of office and counting-room to the repose of homes on the tranquil banks of the palace-fringed Bosphorus.
But I could linger no longer in the contemplation of such fascinating scenes. The previous day I had made arrangements with a friend to take the steamer that very evening for Chanak Kalesi, on the Dardanelles. One of my long unrealized dreams had been to visit the site of ancient Troy. Several times I had been near it, but pressing engagements had always prevented me from gazing on the spot
Where stood old Troy, a venerable name,
Forever consecrated to deathless fame.
A few moments after our steamer left her moorings in the Golden Horn, she began to round Seraglio Point. Galata and Pera twinkle in the gathering gloom. The domes and minarets of Stamboul rise like dark, shadowy monsters above the somber groups of low, wooden houses by which they are surrounded. Broken stars quiver in the swift-flowing waters of the Bosphorus and, while we are still gazing at the venerable, ivy-mantled walls and towers that so long guarded the City of Constantine, we enter the Sea of Marmora—known to the ancients as the Propontis—the sea before the Pontus or the Euxine of which Herodotus says “there is not in the world any other sea so wonderful.”