SCUTARI AND THE MAIDEN TOWER,
ON THE BOSPHORUS.
The promontory of Scutari, given in our illustration, was distinguished by the ancient Greeks under the name of ακρον βοος, or “cape of the ox,” because it was supposed to be that to which Iö swam, when, under the shape of that animal, she fled from the persecutions of Juno, and gave the name of Bosphorus to the whole streight. Under the Greeks of the Lower Empire it was named μεγα μετωπον, or “the great forehead,” from its bold projection into the sea. It is strikingly picturesque. Just below it is the turbulent estuary, formed by the rushing waters of the streight, opposed by those of the Sea of Marmora, where, in the calmest day, they wheel and boil among the rocks with a turbulence and agitation quite extraordinary in the still and placid surface of the water around them. Rising from hence, the promontory displays a succession of picturesque objects, clothing its surface−kiosks, and grottos, and thickets, and hanging gardens−till they ascend to the summit, crowned with the dome and minarets of a mosque, and the noble barracks of Scutari.
This place was distinguished as the scene of blood, in the terrible commotions that preceded the final suppression of the Janissaries. A body of those fierce and mutinous soldiers passed the Bosphorus, and made an attack on the Barrack of Scutari, hoping to convert the extensive edifice into a fortress, to overawe the opposite city from this eminence. They were repulsed, however, after much carnage, by the cannon of the topgees, and dispersed in two bodies: one took the route along the coast to Moudania; another proceeded in the opposite direction, up the Bosphorus, which they recrossed, and established themselves among the woods of Belgrade, where they became a desperate banditti, and carried their depredations to the walls of the capital. It was found impossible to dislodge them in the ordinary way from the dense forest, and the whole was set on fire. The vast surface of timber blazed up, so as to illumine the dark waters of the Black Sea with its glare; and the banditti, driven from its recesses, were shot without mercy, with boars, wolves, and other beasts of prey, as they issued from the burning cover. When the fire subsided, the whole district exhibited a melancholy spectacle of Turkish destruction−vast forest-trees prostrate and half consumed, lying among the scorched bodies of men and various animals.