The Beauties Of The Bosphorus; by Miss Pardoe

PALACE OF BESHIK-TASH 20

The gardens of the palace are extensive, but will require time to make them worthy of description; at present, a great portion of the hill-side behind the building is left in its original state, boasting for all ornament sweeps of fine cypresses, and here and there a tuft of almond trees, a group of acacias, or a majestic maple; while the white tents of the Bulgarian workmen employed upon the walls, give to the scene the picturesque and cheerful appearance of a summer encampment.

THE CASTLES OF EUROPE AND ASIA.

"Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight
Along the leaguered wall and bristling bank
Of the arm'd river."
BYRON.

THESE fortresses stand on either shore of the Bosphorus, about half way up;where the channel is unusual narrow, and was once traversed by the celebrated bridge of Darius. The Anadoli Hissari, or Castle of Asia, was, during the reign of the Janissaries, the prison of the Bostangis, or body-guard of the Sultan, who were immured or executed as the nature of their crimes dictated. It rises on the lip of a pleasant rivulet which empties itself into the Bosphorus, and washes the tree-fringed valley of the Asian Sweet Waters, called by the natives Guiuk-Suy, or Chest-water, from the extreme purity of the spring.

The Roumeli Hissari, or Castle of Europe, on the opposite shore, is of very singular construction, the ground-plain forming the characters of the Prophet's name; by whom, tradition says that it was built in six days, by permission of the Greek Emperor, who, with more courtesy than policy, acceded to the desire of Mahomet to possess a pied-á-terre on the European edge of the channel. This fortress was the celebrated prison of the Janissaries; and the large gun yet fills its embrasure on the lower rampart, which was fired on the execution of every criminal, to announce to the Sultan, that the guilty one hat expiated his crime. The strength of the Castle is much grater than its appearance from the sea would indicate; and it is well supplied with water, and the means of storing provisions.