whose magnificent but ruined Moorish gateway
admits only into a little courtyard, with
a dried fountain in the centre, and with
disused and mouldering cloisters round the
sides,—as well as to the ruins left by the
Russian bombardment. A few soldiers
lounge about the castle, and live in a hut
within its enclosure, for the service of a flag-
staff on one of the crumbling corner towers;
from which the star and crescent floated
on that sad day when three thousand
Turkish sailors were massacred in cold blood
by the Russians—when the poor wretches
who tried to save themselves by swimming
were fired upon in the water,—and when
eternal disgrace attached itself alike to
both the combatants: and to the Turks,
for the apathy which led them to
neglect easy and available means of defence
during the many days on which they knew of
the impending danger, and yet did not
provide for it. The only man who did so was a
Frenchman, a surgeon in one of the ships;
who, knowing that the Russians were outside
waiting for a favourable wind; and, seeing that
no preparations were made, no guns landed,
no breastworks thrown up—applied for leave
to go out shooting upon the peninsula at
daybreak, and induced the captain, by a
judicious present of game, to renew this
leave from day to day. So it fell out that,
when the wind changed and the Russians
came, the lucky Frenchman was busy with
the bustards, and escaped the general
slaughter.

The road to the interior runs through a
sort of court-yard on the westerly side of the
castle, closed at each end with heavy gates,
which are shut at sunset, and attended by no
warder. Unwary persons who arrive too
late, are hopelessly excluded from the town,
unless by the report of tire-arms, or by
inordinately vigorous shouting, they can attract
some one to the gate, and can then, by liberal
backsheesh, soften the heart of the keeper of
the keys.

The friend who had promised to take me
into the interior showed me a stack of wood
in the court-yard of the castle, formed by a
toll of one stick taken from each load that
passes through the gate in either direction;
so that if a peasant outside load his donkey
with wood for sale in the town, he is, at all
events, mulct of one stick; and if he fail to
find a customer, he is mulct of another on
his way home. Two sticks do not seem to
constitute a very formidable tax; but, in a
country where there are no wheeled conveyances,
and only horse loads, it bears a large
proportion to the whole. And all local
produce pays a similar tax, either in money or
in kind, before entering or leaving Sinope, or,
indeed, most other Turkish towns; so that
the industry of the peasants is oppressed by
severe, regular, and customary exactions,
besides those that may be imposed from time
to time by the tyranny of grasping officials.

Just beyond the outer-gate, the sea washes
over the massive remains of Roman sarcophagi,
lying under the castle walls, and half
imbedded in sand. The road over the
isthmus rises over a gentle slope, and the
ground was formerly used as a cemetery;
but accumulations of sand have almost
buried the tombstones and cover the road,
so that the horses sink to their fetlocks at
every step. Wild artichokes grow, and
tortoises crawl, among the tombs; and about
half-way up the little slope, a miserable shed
covers the last resting-place of a hermit of
great sanctity. From the barred windows of
this shed, streamers innumerable flutter to
the wind—streamers torn from the rags of
the sick, and tied there by their friends, in
order to remind the saint to work a miracle
of healing. As a further stimulus to his
memory, it is usual to give a donation to an
old woman who guards the shrine; and,
when the cure is complete, a thank-offering
of a pair of horns is considered to be due.
The number of horns set astride upon the
ridge of the tomb, or suspended upon the
walls, is indeed extraordinary; and they
range from ten-tined antlers to the harmless
weapons of a sheep. The old lady who
presides over, and exhibits the collection, is
somewhat less coy than the mass of her
countrywomen, neglects her veil whilst
descanting upon the merits of the deceased
dervish, and is understood to act as a medium
for all the love affairs of the neighbourhood.

Bidding adieu to the tomb and its guardian,
we soon pushed through the sand, and
came to what is called, in Asia Minor, a road.
Sometimes wide and sometimes narrow;
sometimes crossing a flat, and bounded only
by grass; sometimes passing through the
dried-up bed of a winter torrent, sunk
between banks higher than a horseman's
head, and covered in by bay, and arbutus, and
myrtle trees in luxuriant growth; sometimes
almost level, generally breakneck and
precipitous, there was something picturesque in
its wildness, and pleasing in its variety.
Every now and then it would round the edge
of a cliff, where a false step would have been
death to horse and rider, soon to plunge
again into a valley from which the daylight
was almost excluded. Sudden openings in
the foliage would afford a peep at the sea, or
at some little homestead lying among its
orchards of mulberries or its fields of tobacco.
At short distances along the way, water came
bubbling from cool springs, and was received
in stone basins fixed for the purpose, by each
of which a recess contained a wooden cup
for the use of the thirsty traveller. Here
and there a roadside tombstone bore record
of a death by accident or violence upon the
spot where it was erected; but these were
all monuments of the far past, stricken by
the hand of time. At length, after about
two hours' riding, our track wound up a hill
of unusual length and steepness; and upon