phorus, twists with many windings round promontories, reaches Constantinople in a day’s voyage, and then runs into the Propontis by almost similar straits. In the midst of this place, where it flows into the Bosphorus, stands a large stone with a column, on the base of which a Roman’s name is inscribed in Latin letters. Not far off, on the European bank, stands a high tower, in which a light shines at night for the benefit of voyagers, which is commonly called a pharos. Not far from this place a small stream falls into the sea, in which chalcedonies and sardonyxes are collected. A few miles from this place they showed us a narrow sea over which Darius, the Persian king, transported his armies against the European Scythians. But almost in the midst between these two sea-passes, or gulfs,[1] stand two castles, one in Europe, and the other, directly opposite, in Asia. The latter the Turks had already in their power before the taking of Constantinople; the former, where we lived in the Black Tower more than two years in grievous imprisonment, of which I shall give an account below, was erected by Sultan Mahomet not very long before he besieged Constantinople. He caused apartments, handsomely floored with marble, to be constructed in that tower, and dwelt there till he took Constantinople. The Turks use these fortresses instead of a prison for more important prisoners, as I, unhappy youth that I was, was compelled miserably to experience. This prison is well-beset with guards, who live
- ↑ It is amusing to observe the difficulty which an inland Bohemian has in expressing marine technicalities. He here uses a metaphor from a defile between two mountains to express straits in the sea, which he above calls a “neck.”
