Supporting Our Sick, We Climbed Up
Shelving Steps And Threaded Many Windings, And At Last Came Up Into
The Main Street Of Pera, Humbly Hoping That We Might Not Be Judged
Guilty Of Plague, And So Be Cast Back With Horror From The Doors Of
The Shuddering Christians.
Such was the condition of our party, which fifteen days before had
filed away so gaily from the gates of Belgrade.
A couple of fevers
and a north-easterly storm had thoroughly spoiled our looks.
The interest of Mysseri with the house of Giuseppini was too
powerful to be denied, and at once, though not without fear and
trembling, we were admitted as guests.
CHAPTER III - CONSTANTINOPLE
Even if we don't take a part in the chant about "mosques and
minarets," we can still yield praises to Stamboul. We can chant
about the harbour; we can say, and sing, that nowhere else does the
sea come so home to a city; there are no pebbly shores - no sand
bars - no slimy river-beds - no black canals - no locks nor docks to
divide the very heart of the place from the deep waters. If being
in the noisiest mart of Stamboul you would stroll to the quiet side
of the way amidst those cypresses opposite, you will cross the
fathomless Bosphorus; if you would go from your hotel to the
bazaars, you must go by the bright, blue pathway of the Golden
Horn, that can carry a thousand sail of the line. You are
accustomed to the gondolas that glide among the palaces of St.
Mark, but here at Stamboul it is a 120 gun ship that meets you in
the street.
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