ILLUSION DESTROYED. 239 



sun-topped Olympus ; the town on the Asiatic 

 side, Scutari ; Pera, with its closely-packed deni- 

 zens, a sort of second Babel, a town of every 

 tongue and rehgion on the face of the globe, 

 being under your feet : these, all these together, 

 form a coup d'ceil which is utterly inconceivable. 

 On descending from my pinnacle, the magical 

 illusion vanishes. Before I reach my caique the 

 whole scene has assumed a different aspect. 

 Alas ! the narrow, hilly, dirty streets of Pera 

 make me, notwithstanding the vividness of the 

 recent impression, think of realities, and not sha- 

 dows. The odours that assail me in my way to 

 my caique make me ask myself if I have been 

 dreaming ; and although the elegant caique, with 

 its long and high prow, and commodious but 

 lazy mode of accommodating its passengers, may, 

 for a time, cause me to relapse into the delightful 

 vision, and although I may, when in the centre of 

 the Golden Horn, again see both Pera and Stam- 

 boul at such a distance that the beautiful takes 

 the place of the disagreeable, and I may delude 

 myself into the notion that it was only a momen- 

 tary disgust, which custom will easily conquer, 

 yet, when landed on the Stamboul side, and 



