text:  "The walls which support the circular terraces of the immense gardens of the seraglio were on our left with their base perpetually washed by the waters of the Bosphorus blue and limpid as the Rhone at Geneva; the terraces which rise one above another to the palace of the Sultana the gilded cupolas of which rose above the gigantic summits of the plane-tree and the cypress were themselves clothed with enormous trees the trunks of which overhang the walls while their branches overspreading the gardens spread a deep shadow even far into the sea beneath the protection of which the panting rowers repose from their toil