II
CONSTANTINOPLE TO TEHERAN (1905)
The Black Sea
Attended by the cavass[4] of the Swedish Embassy, old Ali, I drove down to the quay on a fresh, sunny October morning, loaded all my boxes on board a caique, and was rowed by four men out to the Bosporus between anchored sailing vessels, steamers, and yachts. On arriving at the gangway of a large Russian steamer, I waited until all my luggage was safe on board and then followed it.
The anchor is weighed, the propeller begins to turn, and the vessel steers a course northwards through the Bosporus. With my field-glasses I settle down on a bench in the stern and take farewell of the Turkish capital. How grand, how unforgettable is this scene! The white, graceful minarets shoot up to heaven from the sea of houses, and the cypresses—tall, grave, and straight as kings—also seem to point out to the children of earth the way to Paradise. Everywhere the houses mount up the hills, ranged like the rows of seats in a theatre. The whole is like a gigantic circus with an auditorium for more than a million Turks, and the arena is the blue water of the Bosporus.
The steamer carries us away relentlessly from this charming picture. As dreams fade away in the night, so the white city is concealed by the first promontories. Then I change my place and look ahead. Perhaps the view is even more beautiful in this direction. The sound is like a river between steep, rocky shores, but in the mouth of every valley, and wherever the margin of the shore is flat, stand white villas and mansions, villages, walls and ruins, gardens and groves. The Bosporus is barely twenty miles long. In some places its breadth is less than a third of a mile, in others two-thirds. Old plane-trees spread their crowns over fresh meadows, and laurels, chestnuts, walnuts, and oaks afford deep shade. White dolphins skim along the water, and a school of porpoises follows in the wake of the boat, waiting for the refuse from the cook's galley. They are dark, soft, and smooth, their backs shining like metal, and they can easily be seen several feet below the surface. A single flap of the tail fin gives them a tremendous impulse, and they come up to the surface like arrows discharged by the gods of the sea, and describe beautiful somersaults among the waves. They could easily overtake us if they liked, but they content themselves with following close behind us hour after hour.
To the left we have the European coast, to the right the Asiatic. The distance is always so small that the Europeans can hear the bark of the Asiatic dogs. Here is Terapia, with the summer villas of Christians and the ambassadors' palaces. Turkish coffee-houses are erected on the shore, and their balconies hang over the water. Farther on there is a large valley with an ancient plane-tree with seven trunks which are called "the seven brothers." According to tradition Godfrey de Bouillon with his crusaders reposed under its shade in the winter of 1096-1097, when he marched to recover the holy sepulchre and win the sounding title of "King of Jerusalem."
Now the channel widens out and the coasts of the two continents diverge from each other. We see the horizon of the Black Sea opening before us, and the vessel begins to pitch. Lighthouses stand on either side of the entrance, which is commanded by batteries high above it. We roll out into the sea, and half an hour later we can hardly see the break in the coast-line which marks the end of the Bosporus.
We make straight for Sebastopol, near the southernmost point of the Crimea. This is the station of the Russian Black Sea fleet, but the Russians have little pride in it, for the Turks control the passage to the Mediterranean, and without the consent of the other great Powers the Russian warships cannot pass through. The Black Sea is, of course, open to the mercantile vessels of all nations.