On the left we have always the mainland of Asia, and on the right a tongue of land belonging to Europe, and terminating at Sed Bahe.

The shores on both sides are desert and bare.

It is a great contrast to former times, a contrast which every educated traveller must feel as he travels hither from the Bosphorus.

What stirring scenes were once enacted here! Of what deeds of daring, chronicled in history, were not these regions the scene! Every moment brought us nearer to the classic ground.

Alas, that we were not permitted to land on any of the Greek Islands, past which we flew so closely! I was obliged, perforce, to content myself with thinking of the past, of the history of ancient Greece, without viewing the sites where the great deeds had been done.
The two castles of the Dardanelles, Tschenekalesi and Kilidil Bahar, that on the Asiatic shore looking like a ruin, while its European neighbour wore the appearance of a fortress, let us steam past unchallenged.