* * * * *
I found that great tangle of ships in the Golden Horn wonderfully
preserved, many with hardly any moss-growths. This must be due, I
suppose, to the little Ali-Bey and Kezat-Hanah, which flow into the Horn
at the top, and made no doubt a constant current.
Ah, I remember the place: long ago I lived here some months, or, it may
be, years. It is the fairest of cities--and the greatest. I believe that
London in England was larger: but no city, surely, ever _seemed_ so
large. But it is flimsy, and will burn like tinder. The houses are made
of light timber, with interstices filled by earth and bricks, and some
of them look ruinous already, with their lovely faded tints of green
and gold and red and blue and yellow, like the hues of withered flowers:
for it is a city of paints and trees, and all in the little winding
streets, as I write, are volatile almond-blossoms, mixed with
maple-blossoms, white with purple. Even the most splendid of the
Sultan's palaces are built in this combustible way: for I believe that
they had a notion that stone-building was presumptuous, though I have
seen some very thick stone-houses in Galata.
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