| T. Allom. | J. C. Bentley. |
ENTRANCE TO THE BOSPHORUS FROM THE BLACK SEA.
VIEVED FROM THE GIANT’S MOUNTAIN.
This spot recalls many interesting recollections of mythology, history, and natural phenomena. Here it was the Symplegades opened to invite, and closed to crush, the stranger who dared to intrude on these forbidden seas. Here it was the Greeks entered on the expanse of the Euxine, and disclosed new regions and new sources of wealth to their enterprising countrymen: and here it was the disruptured mountains first gave a passage to the waters of a vast internal ocean, which have continued ever since to pour down with impetuosity through the great chasm. As evidence of the first of these facts, the Cyanean rocks are still seen, but now firmly fixed in immovable positions; the one bound to the European, and the other to the Asiatic shore: as evidence of the last, the debris of a volcano are every where scattered about over a great extent. Besides scoria and rocks in various states of calcification, columns of basalt lie strewed along both shores; and immediately beyond the bay of Cabacos on the Asiatic shore is a basaltic formation of great beauty and regularity, supporting the promontory of Youm Bournou, with a colonnade as regular as that at Staffa in Scotland, or the Giants’ Causeway in Ireland. If, as the Vulcanists say, these are undoubtedly the productions of fire, here are still the proofs of that mighty rupture that formed the Bosphorus. From the awful convulsions connected with it, this entrance to the Bosphorus was called by the Greeks ἱερον, or “the Sacred;” it is now called by the Turks, Boghaz.
Its present aspect presents a singular and beautiful prospect. The blue and limpid Bosphorus, now expanding into bays, and now cooped between promontories, here suddenly expands into an apparently interminable ocean. The promontories which swell out are clothed with a bright and permanent verdure, covered with villages, fortresses, and beacons, whose white walls and battlemented towers crown them with their turreted diadems, and harmonize well with the bright tints of green and blue from sea and land. These are called phanaraki, from phanar, the Greek for light-house, and kui, the Turkish for town. On the most conspicuous eminence is seen a memorial of the enterprising spirit of the Genoese, a dilapidated castle, still in tolerable preservation, which they erected at one end of the Bosphorus, when they built the town of Galata at the other. Over the entrance, and on other parts of the front, are perfect monogrammal inscriptions, which evidently belong to the Greeks of the Lower Empire, whoever were the architects of the edifice.
All parts of these shores command delightful views, and are refreshed by the invigorating breeze which is wafted through the Boghaz from the Euxine, and ventilates this region in the greatest heats of a sultry summer. The thermometer sometimes stands here ten degrees lower than at Pera; and the panting inhabitant of the city escapes with delight, to breathe the bracing air of this cool and refreshing vicinity. The Frank ambassadors, instead of congregating in summer at Belgrade, as in the time of Lady M. W. Montague, have with more taste and judgment fixed their residence here; and Buyukderé is filled with their summer palaces. From this village the high land stretches away in a direction across the Bosphorus, and presents a front to the opening of the Euxine.
Amidst these lovely undulating grounds, so varied in form as to command an extensive prospect, while the observer feels almost unseen, parties of pleasure are continually assembled. No true mussulman is unconscious of nature’s charms, on the contrary, his highest enjoyment is in the contemplation of a solemn, silent, and wide-spread landscape. It is this that attracts such numbers to the agreeable heights of Buyukderé, and pleads an apology for the presence of the old Seraskier and his suite, who are represented as partaking of the rural festivities of this happy, healthy spot.
