I condescended, and descended to the cabin. The room was comfortable, and all my fancy had painted it. I was mollified, thanked the purser for his politeness, ordered the steward to! bring my baggage, and was speedily installed in the apartment. The purser could not have been more civil to the governor of the Fejee Islands than he was to me during the rest of the voyage.
We steamed out of the harbor of Constantinople towards the Sea of Marmora.
First vanished the shipping in the Golden Horn, and the never-ceasing stream of people crossing the bridge of boats. Then the irregular terraces of many-colored houses in Fera and Golata were lost to sight, though to memory dear; and then our eyes lingered on Stamboul with its mosque-crowned hills, and the Seraglio palace with its surroundings of groves jutting into the widening mouth of the Bosphorus. The sunlight played on the roofs, and domes, and minarets of Stamboul, and brightened the hills that formed the back-ground of the picture.
Long time the city remained in view, but at last it became a jagged strip of white in the horizon, then a scarcely perceptible streak like a sandy beach by the sea shore, and then it was lost to sight altogether.
I repeat what I have said elsewhere, that by far the best approach to Constantinople is by the Black Sea, and not from the Sea of Marmora; not only as concerns the city itself, but with reference to the charming panorama of the Bosphorus, which becomes more and more brilliant each mile that we advance, until at last the anchor drops at the entrance of the Golden Horn, and we stand in front of the Queen of the Orient.
The steamer that carried us belonged to the Austrian Lloyds (Lloyd Austriaco).
The company has a fleet of some forty steamers engaged in the navigation of the Mediterranean and adjoining seas, and it has its headquarters at Trieste.
In 1833 one Baron Bruck established at Trieste a reading room and marine exchange similar to the celebrated Lloyd’s at London and from which he took the name. The members of the exchange became a powerful company for commercial and industrial purposes.
In 1836, it established a newspaper which still exists; in 1837, it started a line of steamers; and in 1849, an institution devoted to printing and art. It has become a most important association and exerts a powerful influence upon the politics and finance of the Austrian Empire. Its founder became the Austrian minister of finance, but owing to certain jealousies he was removed in 1860.
His mortification at his downfall terminated in suicide.