OUR GIRLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR GIRLS.

NIGHT ON THE GOLDEN HORN. A lady traveller recently had the interesting experience of sleeping with Europe in sight on one side of her. and Asia in sight on the other. She has written a beautiful pen-picture of this memorable experience. " The last pale glow of sunset shed a golden-brown gleam over the Sea of Marmora as the Queen of Cities slowly came into view. " The domes and minarets of Stamboul crowned the city of dreams rising shadowy from the sea. " Above the Galata Quays the lights of the European Quarter were flashing forth, while on the Asiatic coast lay Scutari, dark and mysterious as the cypress trees crowning her ridge. We were to sleep that night in what must surely be one or the loveliest harbours in the world. *' Constantinople lay in velvety dusk and glittering light. The brilliant lights of the European coast, the twentiethcentury world of the East, seemed like some huge comet resting on the dark waters of the Sea of Marmora. Behind us lay Asia and here, too. lights were shining far between. One luminous patch brought into view the great square barracks and the long, low building where Florence Nightingale tended her wounded heroes long ago. Glimmerings here and there revealed the presence of villages along the coast. " Suddenly out of the darkness over the Golden Horn appeared a moving beam of light, gliding fantastically toward us over the water like a giant spirit of the sea; it was the headlight of a ferry-boat running from Constantinople to the islands and the villages, a boat beginning its journey in Europe and ending m Asia. Then I heard for the first time the haunting rhythm of the Turkish boatman, the weird music haunting the waters between two continents. It seemed to me that there was in it something of the romance of East and West, and of all the meeting and clashing of the two throughout the ages on the shores by these dreamy waters."