once on board, conducted his odalisques to a fore-cabin,
placed a hideous negro at the door as sentinel, and returned immediately
to the deck, where another negro presented him with a narguileh (Turkish
water-pipe).

Nothing can less resemble our regular fortifications than the fort of
Gallipoli, (before which we soon after passed,) and the other castles of
the Dardanelles, which ought to render Constantinople the most
impregnable place in the world (from the sea.) The forts are large
buildings of a dazzling white colour, perforated with port-holes,
similar to those belonging to a ship of war, and mounted with old guns,
the greater portion of which are without carriages, and served,
ordinarily, by a single artillery-man, assisted in time of war by three
or four peasants. In the present century, however, these batteries have
shown their prowess, and against our own countrymen too. During the
month of February 1807, the British government, justly irritated at the
increasing influence that the French ambassador, Count Sebastiani, was
obtaining at the Ottoman court, despatched Admiral Sir John Duckworth,
in command of a squadron, with orders to bombard, if necessary, the
Seraglio itself. Unfortunately, Sir John Duckworth's plan of acting was
exactly contrary to what would have been our gallant Nelson's in the
same position. After having passed without difficulty before the then
disarmed castles of the Dardanelles, after having burned the Ottoman
fleet off Gallipoli, while the crews were peaceably celebrating on shore
the feast of Courban-Beiram, Sir John presented himself off
Constantinople, and threatened to bombard that city, should the Sultan
refuse to accept the conditions he offered, at the same time he allowed
his Imperial Highness two days to consider the terms; Nelson would have
allowed as many hours only. The folly of Admiral Duckworth's conduct
fully shown in the sequel, for, at the conclusion of the forty-eight
hours, the approaches to Stamboul and Galata were bristling--thanks to
the delay accorded, and to the exertions of the French ambassador--with
twelve hundred pieces of cannon; while, at the same time, orders having
been sent to the castles of the Dardanelles to mount their batteries,
the British squadron was hemmed in on all sides, as if by enchantment.
The besieged now became the aggressors, and there soon remained to
Admiral Duckworth no other resource than to weigh anchor and get away as
fast as possibl