(544-) 
The channel certainly is natural and not cut by art, as 
fome have idlyfanfied, not confidering, how the Euxine Sea 
fbould difcharge it felf otherwife of thofe great quantities of 
waters, poured into it by t\\Q Ifter ^xidTanais, now called Don^ 
and the other rivers , whereby it becomes lels fait, even very 
fenfibly to the taft, than feveral parts of the Mediterranean. 
The firti by a Arrange kind of inftind pafs in vaft fhoales twice 
a year. Autumn and fpring, through the Bofporuf, that is, out 
of one Sea into another; of which the Gr^^4f, who live feveral 
xrionths of the year upon them, take great numbers, and fupply 
the markets at eafy rates ; the Cormorants and other ravenous 
water-fowle, which the T^ry^/ will not fuffer to be deftroy'dor 
otherwife molefted,,preyingalfo upon them. ^ 
The weather in fome months is very inconftant, great heats 
and colds hapning the fame day upon the change of the wind. 
The winters ^tConfiantznople 2itefomt\mes extraordinary fe- 
vere. I have heard it related by feveral old Greeks , as a thing, 
moft certain, that the Bo/ponis w^ls frozen over in the time of 
Achmed, and that a Hare was courfed over it. It hapned thus , 
that upon a thaw huge cakes of Ice came floating down the 
Danube into the black Sea, and were driven by the current in- 
to the Bofporus, where upon the return of the froft , they were 
fixed fo hard that it became paflable. In the year 166^ there 
was ice in the Haven to the great amazement of the Turks; and 
fome were fo frighted at this unufual accident, that they look t 
upon it as a difmaY prodigy, 8c concluded, that the world would 
be at an end that year. li\ve Jguglia or Obelisk^'mthe Hippo- 
drome is betwixt fifty and fixty foot high. 
TheHiftorical pillar in i^/i rilievo, raifed in honour of the 
l^m^QYoxs Jrcaditis and Honorius ^ may be in height about an 
hundred feven and forty feet. 
Alexins Gomnenus lies buryed in the Patriarchal Church a- 
gainft the wall, and his daughter AnnaComnena, the^Hiftorian, 
who lived about the year of Chrift 1 1 1 7. They preted tofliew 
there the reliques of St. Anafiajia, who fuffered Martyrdome 
under the Emperor Valerianiu^ and of St- Euphemia, Virgin and 
Martyr, who loft her life molt glorioufly £otChriJis holy religion 
^tChalcedon unAtv Diocletian, In 
