The Golden Horn, or harbour, terminates by the Valley of Sweet Waters, the sides of which are adorned with pleasure-grounds, and an imperial kiosk, near which, with extremely bad taste, art and expense have been exerted to the utmost to constrain and prune nature, so as to destroy the luxuriance and wildness of the rivulet and its banks, by giving them the appearance of a straight canal, passing through an avenue of formal trees, and occasionally over flights of marble steps, intended to represent cataracts.  On gala days, this spot is the scene of festivity and enjoyment for persons of every sect; and before the last dispersion and persecution of the Greeks, is said, in consequence of the number of their women who frequented it, to have presented extraordinary animation and attraction.  The sultan was often to be found enjoying the sight.  Beyond this valley is another, where his horses are turned out to graze in the spring, and which takes place with extraordinary ceremony and pomp.  So much consequence was formerly attached to the noble animals, that petitioners address themselves to the imperial stirrup.  Between the Valley of the Sweet Waters and the walls, is the village of Eyub, pleasantly situated, adjoining to which are several palaces, belonging to members of the imperial family.  But the most remarkable and interesting monument is the mosque or tomb of Eyub, (a disciple of Mahomet, who was killed in the first siege of Constantinople, in 608,) erected by Mahomet II. after the capture of the city, as is said, in consequence of the place of his sepulchre having been revealed to one of his favourites in a dream; he immediately ordered an excavation to be made, and very soon, either by hazard or imposture, a marble slab was discovered.

The Valley of the Sweet Waters, Eyub, and the country immediately behind the walls, may be considered the only pretty spots near Constantinople; for beyond them, and in other directions, nothing is to be seen but an expansion of unpopulated, and, at this time, sunburnt downs.

Jones’s Travels.

* * * * *

THE CORAL ISLAND.

  On a stony eminence, that stood
  Girt with inferior ridges, at the point,
  Where light and darkness meet in spectral gloom. 
  Midway between the height and depth of ocean,
  I mark’d a whirlpool in perpetual play,
  As though the mountain were itself alive,
  And catching prey on every side, with feelers
  Countless as sunbeams, slight as gossamer: 
  Ere long transfigured, each fine film became
  An independent creature, self-employd,
  Yet but an agent in one common work,
  The slim of all their individual labours. 
  Shap’less they seem’d, but endless shape assumed;
  Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk
  Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions;
  Compress’d like wedges, radiated