صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

NATIONAL MAGAZINE:

DEVOTED TO

Literature, Art, and Religion.

JAMES FLOY, EDITOR.

VOLUME ΧΙΙΙ.

JULY TO DECEMBER, 1858.

New-York:

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,

200 MULBERRY-STREET.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][graphic]

F

QUARANTINE HARBOR, TREBIZONDE.

TREBIZONDE AND ERZEROUM.

JENA KARA DEGNIZ-The Bad Black Sea. This is the character that stormy lake has acquired in the estimation of its neighbors at Constantinople. Of one thousand Turkish vessels which skim over its waters every year, five hundred are said to be wrecked as a matter of course. The wind sometimes will blow from all the four quarters of heaven within two hours' time, agitating the waters like a boiling caldron. Dense fogs obscure the air during the winter, by the assistance of which the Turkish vessels continually mistake the entrance of a valley called the False Bogaz for the entrance of the Bosphorus, and are wrecked there perpetually. I have seen dead bodies floating about in that part of the sea, where I first became acquainted with the fact that the corpse of VOL. XIII.—1

a woman floats upon its back, while that of a man floats upon its face. In short, at Constantinople they say that everything that is bad comes from the Black Sea: the plague, the Russians, the fogs, and the cold-all come from thence; and though this time we had a fine calm passage, I was glad enough to arrive at the end of the voyage at Trebizonde. Before landing, however, I must give a passing tribute to the beauty of the scenery on the south coast, that is, on the north coast of Asia Minor. Rocks and hills are its usual character near the shore, with higher mountains inland. Between the Bosphorus and Heraclea are boundless fields of coal, which crops out on the side of the hills, so that no mining would be required to get the coal; and besides this great facility

« السابقةمتابعة »