42 NOTES ON A SOJOURN IN THE LEVANT. 
studded with villages, which are in reality suburbs of the great 
city, the most pleasant one being Therapia, which is just one and 
a half miles below Biyukdere. Here the chief merchants of Con- 
stantinople have their residences, and all the embassies, but that 
of Russia, their summer palaces. 
The Bosphorus is a most delightful spot, except during the 
winter, which is, I understand, however, a very short one. 
There are no tides, and therefore no mud banks, but you can 
stand on the shore and look sheer down into fifteen or twenty feet 
of blue water. 
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