This Castle, like the Fortresses of the Dardanelles, has been suffered to fall into partial decay, but an order was lately issued for their simultaneous restoration, and workmen are now busily employed in repairing the united ravages of time and neglect.
The little village of Mirgheun, about a mile higher up the channel, is one of the prettiest things on the Bosphorus. A long street, terminating at the water’s edge, stretches far into the distance, its centre being occupied by a Moorish fountain of white marble, overshadowed by limes and acacias, beneath which are coffee terraces; constantly thronged with Turks, sitting gravely in groups upon low stools not more than half a foot from the ground, and occupied with their chibouks and mocha.
A short distance beyond Mirgheun the channel widens into a little bay, one of whose extremities is occupied by a ruined house, standing in the midst of a garden. This house, which was formerly a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, is now the property of a Turk, but is never inhabited in consequence of a superstition so wild, and withal so fully credited by both Greeks and Musselmauns, that I must not pass it by unnoticed.
The chapel was desecrated during the Greek revolution; and taken possession of, under the Imperial sanction, by a Turk, who, hurling the effigy of the saint from the niche above the altar, converted the holy shrine into a dwelling-place for himself and his family; but on the very night on which he removed thither he was destined to pay the price of his sacrilege, for he was found in the morning dead in his bed; an event which so appalled his relatives that they immediately disposed of the house to a neighbour, whose only child fell a victim, in the same mysterious manner, to the vengeance of the outraged saint—a third purchaser lost his wife by the like means; and the spot became from that day the dread and horror of every True Believer; while it is an extraordinary fact that its Infidel owner sent for a Greek Papas to exorcise the evil spirit, or to conciliate the saint; and that a solemn sprinkling of holy water and chanting of hymns took place; but it is impossible to say with what success, as no tenant has subsequently been found for the dwelling, which is rapidly crumbling to decay.