BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS. 64
PLATE: VIEW FROM THE OCMEIDAN.
THE OCMEIDAN.
"The tough bow yields before the sinewy arm;
And, swift as lightning, through the yielding air
The winged arrow whistles to the mark."
THE Ocmeidan, of Place of Arrows, is an extensive plain, situated behind the village of Tatavola, called by the Greeks who inhabit it the hamlet of St. Demetrius; and stretching along above the deep valley of this little Christian colony, and beside the cemeteries of Pera.
The view which it commands, where it touches upon the harbour, is most magnificent; the "Seven Hills" are all before it, with their galaxy of mosques and palaces: two of them linked together by the hoary aqueduct of Valens, and all gleaming in white marble, and overtopped by the dusky mountains of Asia Minor. Beneath it spreads the Golden Horn, crowded with shipping, and traversed by a light floating bridge, seeming to the eye as fail and unstable as that of El Sitar; but which is crossed by the Faithful from the Golden City only to arrive at the infidel dwellings of the Franks, instead of the houri-tenanted valleys of Paradise; forming, meanwhile, an extremely pretty feature in the landscape.
A fringe of forest-trees descends to the very edge of the plain, which is full of gentle undulations, and is rendered remarkable by being studded over at irregular distances by columns of stone or marble, bearing inscriptions, and not unfrequently lettered with gold. These columns, which have much the appearance of funeral monuments, are simply records of the skill of the Imperial Toxopholite who now sways the sceptre of the Ottoman empire, and whose dexterity in the use of the "cloth-yard shaft" is presumed to be unequalled throughout his dominions. Archery is a sport to which Sultan Mahmoud is much attached; and he is said to boast that, during the last forty years of his life, he has never suffered a week to pass in which he has not practised his well-worn bow. His proficiency in the science may therefore be inferred; though it is certain that none, save in Imperial arm, could ever have
"Sped the winged arrow"
to such a distance, as some of the columnar records, to which allusion has just been made, appear to testify.