The Bosphorus, Ox-ford in English, runs for about twenty miles, at times like a river, at times as if a land-enclosed lake; then, before joining the Black Sea, it becomes a rocky, wild channel. The Bosphorus breathes calmly and regularly, and the flow of caiques echoes the rhythm with their slow splashes. Not only does the Bosphorus electrify the traveler by its light, but it also intoxicates him by the white incandescence of the sun on its bosom with blue sky pouring into it. It runs through the city of Istanbul, splitting it into two halves the city built on seven hills and described by one of her early foreign lovers, Julia Pardoe: Its clear calm sky, its glittering sea, its amphitheater of thickly-peopled hills, its geographical position, its political importance and above all, its surprising novelty, tend to make every day in that gorgeous scene, and under that sunny sky, a season of intense enjoyment.