DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0493
CRAP XVIII.]
SEA OF MARMORA.
181
steep and barren hills, with but few trees scattered along their
sides. Their most interesting feature to me was the sloping roofs
of the villages, which here, for the first time, met my eye, and
spoke of Europe. The fortifications are very respectable, and
have some few guns that throw stone balls of two feet and a half
in diameter ; these guns can only fire in one direction, however;
and, should they miss, the object of attack has sailed far away
before they can be brought to bear again upon her.
In the evening we entered the little Sea of Marmora, which
was throwing up as heavy a swell as if it were an ocean.
The next morning—the seventh after our departure from Bey-
rout—revealed to us a distant view of magnificent Stamboul, but
we were obliged to bear away to the right, to disembark the troops
on the " Princes' Islands," where they were to perform quaran-
tine. Their sufferings during the voyage must have been extreme,
exposed during the daytime to a burning sun, and at night to the
spray that constantly broke over the ship; yet they showed the
same profound apathy in recovering their freedom, as they had
done during their painful voyage. I never heard a murmur es-
cape from one of them, though some of their officers remonstrated
once or twice with the captain about their unavoidable miseries.
These officers were, without exception, coarse, mean, dirty, and
unsoldierlike : they seemed to belong to the very lowest class of
the population.
After a long delay, while the arrival of the Princes was being
announced at Constantinople, we were ordered to land at Kartal,
a quarantine station on the Asiatic shore. I steered the captain's
gig with the royal party in it, while a larger boat took their suite,
and a beautiful mare which they had brought from the banks of
the Euphrates.
And now I found myself floating on the moonlit Sea of Mar-
mora, in the shadows of the minaretted Asiatic shore, with a fair
Persian princess in my charge : I could not see her face; but
her as soft and gentle as the breeze that breathed
through the folds of her long white veil. The princes sate one
on each side of me, in high conical caps of black Astrakan fur;
and a female slave, enveloped in black drapery, sate opposite her
young mistress. We pulled for many a mile along that placid
SEA OF MARMORA.
181
steep and barren hills, with but few trees scattered along their
sides. Their most interesting feature to me was the sloping roofs
of the villages, which here, for the first time, met my eye, and
spoke of Europe. The fortifications are very respectable, and
have some few guns that throw stone balls of two feet and a half
in diameter ; these guns can only fire in one direction, however;
and, should they miss, the object of attack has sailed far away
before they can be brought to bear again upon her.
In the evening we entered the little Sea of Marmora, which
was throwing up as heavy a swell as if it were an ocean.
The next morning—the seventh after our departure from Bey-
rout—revealed to us a distant view of magnificent Stamboul, but
we were obliged to bear away to the right, to disembark the troops
on the " Princes' Islands," where they were to perform quaran-
tine. Their sufferings during the voyage must have been extreme,
exposed during the daytime to a burning sun, and at night to the
spray that constantly broke over the ship; yet they showed the
same profound apathy in recovering their freedom, as they had
done during their painful voyage. I never heard a murmur es-
cape from one of them, though some of their officers remonstrated
once or twice with the captain about their unavoidable miseries.
These officers were, without exception, coarse, mean, dirty, and
unsoldierlike : they seemed to belong to the very lowest class of
the population.
After a long delay, while the arrival of the Princes was being
announced at Constantinople, we were ordered to land at Kartal,
a quarantine station on the Asiatic shore. I steered the captain's
gig with the royal party in it, while a larger boat took their suite,
and a beautiful mare which they had brought from the banks of
the Euphrates.
And now I found myself floating on the moonlit Sea of Mar-
mora, in the shadows of the minaretted Asiatic shore, with a fair
Persian princess in my charge : I could not see her face; but
her as soft and gentle as the breeze that breathed
through the folds of her long white veil. The princes sate one
on each side of me, in high conical caps of black Astrakan fur;
and a female slave, enveloped in black drapery, sate opposite her
young mistress. We pulled for many a mile along that placid