e reached the city before night, and Francois is glad to find his
presentiment fulfilled. We have safely passed through the untravelled
heart of Asia Minor, and are now almost in sight of Europe. The camp-fire
is extinguished; the tent is furled. We are no longer happy nomads,
masquerading in Moslem garb. We shall soon become prosaic Christians, and
meekly hold out our wrists for the handcuffs of Civilization. Ah, prate
as we will of the progress of the race, we are but forging additional
fetters, unless we preserve that healthy physical development, those pure
pleasures of mere animal existence, which are now only to be found among
our semi-barbaric brethren. Our progress is nervous, when it should be
muscular.

Chapter XXV.

Brousa and the Sea of Marmora.

The City of Brousa--Return to Civilization--Storm--The Kalputcha
Hammam--A Hot Bath--A Foretaste of Paradise--The Streets and Bazaars of
Brousa--The Mosque--The Tombs of the Ottoman Sultans--Disappearance of
the Katurgees--We start for Moudania--The Sea of
Marmora--Moudania--Passport Difficulties--A Greek Caique--Breakfast with
the Fishermen--A Torrid Voyage--The Princes' Islands--Prinkipo--Distant
View of Constantinople--We enter the Golden Horn.

"And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
Of waters, azure with the noontide ray.
Ethereal mountains shone around--a fane
Stood in the midst, beyond green isles which lay
On the blue, sunny deep, resplendent far away."

Shelley.

Constantinople, _Monday, July_ 12, 1852.

Before entering Brousa, we passed the whole length of the town, which is
built on the side of Olympus, and on three bluffs or spurs which project
from it. The situation is more picturesque than that of Damascus, and from
the remarkable number of its white domes and minarets, shooting upward
from the groves of chestnut, walnut, and cypress-trees, the city is even
more beautiful. There are large mosques on all the most prominent points,
and, near the centre of the city, the ruins of an ancient castle, built
upon a crag. The place, as we rode along, presented a shifting diorama of
delightful views. The hotel is at the extreme western end of the city, not
far from its celebrated hot baths. It is a new building, in European
style, and being built high on the slope, commands one of the most
glorious prospects I ever enjoyed from windows made with hands. What a
comfort it was to go up stairs into a clean, bright, che