Constantinople

"Where ocean bathes earth''s footstool these sea-bowers Bedeck its solid wavelets: wise was he Who blended shore with deep, with seaweed flowers, And Naiads'' rivulets with Nereids'' sea."Strictly speaking the peninsula on which the city stands is of the form of a trapezium. It juts out into the sea, beating back as it were the fierce waves of the Bosphorus, and forcing them to turn aside from the...