362 
AMASIA TO CONSTANTINOPLE. 
very borders of it. Here were passage-boats to Constantinople, and many 
persons were going. I preferred, however, the surer route, and conti¬ 
nued with my post-horses to Gevisa , ascending a steep road near an old 
and ruined fortification. 
Gevisa is a small town with a good mosque and neat minarets nicely 
white-washed. The country around it was little cultivated and less 
wooded, so that it excited in me no other interest than that which its 
vicinity to the capital might give. Yet, in any other circumstances 
than those of my eagerness to reach Constantinople, I should not have 
overlooked the delight of searching for the tomb of Hannibal. I now 
however, made every haste to get to Scutari before dark, but I did not 
succeed, and was obliged to pass the night in a coffee-house on the 
borders of the Bosphorus . 
The next morning, the 18th July 1809, I crossed from Scutari, and 
took up my abode in Pera, having completed the journey from Teheran 
in two months and ten days, in which time I had not once slept out of 
my clothes. 
