EXCURSIONS
The best way to see the Golden Horn is by going up it in a fair-sized caique pulled by two men. Fare 15 to 20 piastres (2s. 6d. to 3s. 4d.) there and back. The small steamers plying between Galata Bridge and the various stations on the Inner Horn are both uncomfortable and dirty, and on account of their awnings utterly unsuitable for sight-seeing. Fare (Galata Bridge to Ayub) 50 paras (2nd.).
The Golden Horn, or Bay of Constantinople, extends from its junction with the Bosporus at Seraglio Point to a spot away up the harbour, called the Khlyat Haneh or Sweet Waters of Europe, at the confluence of two small streams, the Kedaris or Ali bey Suyu, and the Vorvlsses or Khlyat Haneh Silyu, and separates Galata and Pera from the Stambul side of the city. Its names of Keratios Kolpos (The Horn Gulf) and Chrysokeras (Golden Horn) are derived from the resemblance of this arm of the Bosporus to the shape of a ram’s horn.
The Golden Horn is some six miles long, with an average width of about 490 yards, and a mean depth of twenty-three fathoms, and is spanned by two bridges. In olden times it was closed during the various sieges by a chain stretched across it, from Seraglio Point to Galata.
The most interesting suburbs on the Golden Horn are—Galata, Pera, Kassim Pasha, Phanar, Balata, Haskeui and Ayub.
Galata was originally known under the name of Sykce (fig-trees), presumably from a grove of fig- trees having once existed there; but the place was afterwards called Galata, from the Gauls who formed a settlement there ; and this name has clung to it throughout its subsequent occupation by the Genoese, down to the present day. Galata is now the place where the banks, steamship agencies, stock exchange, and offices of agents and representatives of European firms are established. The old Genoese walls which formerly enclosed Galata have been pulled down years ago to make way for the erection of modern buildings, and scarcely a vestige of them now remains.
Lilyana Andonova 