lity and brilliancy, coming from
a man who had never seen the place.

"If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with
the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the
imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal
triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east
and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the
Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded
by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis,
or Sea of Marmora. The basis of the triangle is opposed to
the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the
admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and
water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly
or sufficiently understood.

"The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine
flow with rapid and incessant course towards the
Mediterranean received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name
not less celebrated in the history than in the fables of
antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars,
profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks,
attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of
the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine.
On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the
palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene Harpies, and of
the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to
the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are
terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the
description of the poets, had once floated on the surface of
the waters, and were destined by the gods to protect the
entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity.
From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium
the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen
miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at
about one mile and a half. The _new_ castles of Europe and
Asia are constructed on either continent upon the
foundations of two celebrated temples of Serapis and Jupiter
Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors,
command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where
the opposite banks advance within five hundred yards of each
other. These fortress