The hour of our
arrival in Constantinople was an accident. The steamer _Nickolai II._
was late, and as no one may land there after sunset, we were forced to
lie in the Bosphorus all night.
It was dark when we sighted the city, but it was one of those clear
darks where without any apparent light you can see everything.
_Surely_ no other city in the world has so beautiful an approach! Our
great black steamer threaded her way between men-of-war, sail-boats,
and all sorts of shipping, and if there were a thousand lights
twinkling in the water there were a million from the city. It lies on
a series of hills curved out like a monster amphitheatre, and it
stretches all the way around. I looked up into the heavens, and it
seemed to me that I never had seen so many stars in my life. Our sky
at home has not so many. Yet there were no more than the yellow points
of flame which flickered in every part of that sleeping city. Three
tall minarets pierced above the horizon, and each of these wore
circles of light which looked like necklaces and girdles of fire.
Patches of black now and then showed where there were trees or marked
a graveyard.
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