and submitted to be robbed by the lazy Maltese with all a
traveller's resignation. Here, also, I met friends--some medical
officers who had known me in Kingston; and one of them, Dr. F----,
lately arrived from Scutari, gave me, when he heard my plans, a letter
of introduction to Miss Nightingale, then hard at work, evoking order
out of confusion, and bravely resisting the despotism of death, at the
hospital of Scutari.

So on, past beautiful islands and shores, until we are steaming
against a swift current, and an adverse wind, between two
tower-crested promontories of rock, which they tell me stand in Europe
and in Asia, and are connected with some pretty tale of love in days
long gone by. Ah! travel where a woman may, in the New World, or the
Old, she meets this old, old tale everywhere. It is the one bond of
sympathy which I have found existing in three quarters of the world
alike. So on, until the cable rattles over the windlass, as the good
ship's anchor plunges down fathoms deep into the blue waters of the
Bosphorus--her voyage ended.

I do not think that Constantinople impressed me so much as I had
expected; and I thought its streets would match those of Navy Bay not
unfairly. The caicques, also, of which I had ample experience--for I
spent six days here, wandering about Pera and Stamboul in the daytime,
and returning to the "Hollander" at nightfall--might be made more
safe and commodious for stout ladies, even if the process interfered a
little with their ornament. Time and trouble combined have left me
with a well-filled-out, portly form--the envy of many an angular
Yankee female--and, more than once, it was in no slight danger of
becoming too intimately acquainted with the temperature of the
Bosphorus. But I will do the Turkish boatmen the justice to say that
they were as politely careful of my safety as their astonishment and
regard for the well-being of their caicques (which they appear to love
as an Arab does his horse, or an Esquimaux his dogs, and for the same
reason perhaps) would admit. Somewhat surprised, also, seemed the
cunning-eyed Greeks, who throng the streets of Pera, at the
unprotected Creole woman, who took Constantinople so coolly (it would
require something more to surprise her); while the grave English
raised their eyebrows wonderingly, and the more vivacious French
shrugged their pliant shoulders into the strangest contortions. I
accepted it all as a compliment to a stout female tourist,