The Bosphorus - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 437

having been awakened from their slumbers by a terrific crash, to find
their home tumbled in wreckage about them and the rusty prow of a
tramp steamer protruding into the library; or of how a quiet supper
was suddenly disrupted when the yardarm of a passing schooner
smashed through the dining-room window and swept the table clear.
Both shores of the Bosphorus are indented by frequent bays and
harbours, and in general it will be found that an indentation on one
shore corresponds to a cape or promontory on the other. Most of
the bays are at the mouths of valleys reaching back into the hills on
either side, and a great many of the valleys have streams that flow into
the Bosphorus. Almost all of these are insignificant; only the Sweet
Waters of Europe and the Sweet Waters of Asia have any claim to be
called rivers, and these are quite small. Both shores are lined with
hills, none of them very high, the most imposing being the Great
Çamlıca (267 metres) and Yuşa Tepesi (201 metres), both on the
Asian side; nevertheless, especially on the upper Bosphorus, the hills
often seem much higher than they are because of the way in which
they come down in precipitous clifs into the sea. In spite of the almost
continuous villages and the not infrequent forest fires, both sides are
well-wooded, especially with cypresses, umbrella-pines, plane-trees,
horse-chestnuts, terebinths and Judas-trees. The red blossoms of the
latter in spring, mingled with the mauve flowers of the ubiquitous
wisteria, and the red and white candles of the chestnuts, pervaded by
the songs of nightingales and blackbirds, give the Bosphorus at that
season an even more superlative beauty.
Let these general observations suffice, and let us now explore this
most fascinating strait in more detail from the deck of a Bosphorus
ferry. But Bosphorus ferries are whimsical boats, flitting back and
forth between the continents without apparent reason. And so our
description will have to be a somewhat idealized one, which assumes
that we sail up the European side of the strait and down the Asian,
stopping where we please along the way.
BEŞİKTAŞ
The first village (though now part of the city) on the European shore
of the lower Bosphorus is at Beşiktaş, a short distance beyond the