TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
Greek, hobbled about the ship, collecting small 
pieces of money from the crew : these he tied 
up in a rag, and bound upon the pole of the 
rudder: it was “ to buy oil,” he said, “ for the 
lamp burning before an image at the light-house 
a curious vestige of more antient superstition, 
when mariners, entering the Bosporus from the 
Euxine, paid their vows upon the precise spot 
where the Phanari, or light-tower, now stands *. 
About half after one p. m. our hopes revived : 
a general cry on board announced that we were 
close in with the land. Two little Turkish boats, 
like nautili, had been flying before us the whole 
day, serving as guides, to encourage our perse- 
verance in the course we held. Without these, 
the Captain said he could not have ventured to 
carry such a press of sail upon a lee-shore, 
covered as it was by darkness. The rapidity 
with which they sailed was amazing. Nothing 
could persuade the Captain but that they were 
“ due angeli;’ and, in proof of this, he declared 
that they vanished as soon as they entered the 
Straits. We now clearly discerned the mouth 
of the Canal, with the Cyanean Isles 3 , and the 
(2) Xenophon. Hist. Grccc. lib. vii. pp. 380, 412. 
(S) “ Antequam in Bosphorum vcnias, scopuli duo, quos Cyaneas et 
Symplegades olim Graci dixerunt, ad dexteram in ipso Ponti ostio 
occurrunt ; in quorum uno columna vetus & marmore candidissimo, quam 
vulgus Pompeii nominat, posits est.” Dousa Iter Constant, p. 20. 
