Carlowitz—Peterwarradin—Bridge of Boats—Neusatz—The Journey of Life—The Chevalier Peitrich—Austrian Officers—The Hungarian Poet—Illok—The Ancient Surnium—Peel Tower—Intense Cold—Flat Shores—Mohasch—Földvar—Pesth—German Postillion—A Few Last Words 492
Roof of Oulou Jamè from the Garden of the Greek Church 40
Departure for Broussa—Rocky Coast—Moudania—The Custom House—Translation of the word _Backshich_—The Archbishop of Broussa—The Boatman’s House—The Dead and the Living—Laughable Cavalcade—Dense Mists—Fine Country—Flowers, Birds, and Butterflies—The Coffee Hut—The Turkish Woman—Broussa in the Distance—The Dried-up Fountain—Immense Plains—Bohemian Gipsies—Mountain Streams—Turkish Washerwomen—Fine Old Wall—The Jews’ Quarter—The Turkish Kiosk—Oriental Curiosity—A Dream of Home.
Having decided on visiting Broussa, we hired an island caïque with four stout rowers, and provided ourselves with plenty of coats and cloaks, a basket of provisions, and a few volumes of French classics; and thus we set sail from the Golden Horn on the last day of May, leaving Stamboul all splendour and sunshine.
A brisk northerly wind carried us rapidly out into the Propontis; all sails were set; my father and myself comfortably established among “the wraps,” our Greek servant ensconced between two baskets, the steersman squatted upon the poop of the boat grinning applause, and revealing in his satisfaction a set of teeth as white as ivory; and, ere long, excepting this last, our attendant, and myself, every soul on board was asleep.
In less than two hours, Stamboul had vanished like a vision, and could only be traced by the line of heavy mist which skirted the horizon. The coast of Asia Minor was darkening as we advanced, wearing the dense drapery of vapour woven by the excessive heat—the mountain chain, fantastic in outline, stretched far as the eye could reach, and we had already left behind us the two quaint rocks which form so peculiar an object from the heights above Constantinople. But here the wind failed us altogether; the slumbering caïquejhes were awakened, the oars were plied, and we moved over the Sea of Marmora, of which I had such horrible memories, from the night of pain and peril that I had passed upon it on my way to Turkey, as though we had been traversing a lake.