Page:The travels of Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch - Volume I.djvu/61

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Monday, the twenty-ninth of Teshrin the second, we left Constantinople on board a caïk; and came to Νεοχώρι, or Yeni Keui, to hire a vessel, and proceed, by the Black Sea, to Moldavia: for the voyage by land to Adrianople was difficult for us, for two reasons: one was, that it would require for expenses and hire of carriages more than five hundred piastres; the other arose from the cold, and abundance of snow and rain. This Boghaz, or throat, of the Black Sea was opened in ancient times, by Alexander; and the passage along it is very difficult. From Galata to Neochori, both right and left, are farms and houses, and palaces and seraglios belonging to the Emperor; and gardens and vineyards, walks and baths, and so forth. We alighted at Neochori, at the house of Dadyan Raïs, surnamed Kalokari, and Theodori; and his son is called Yazgaki. May God perpetuate their existence, and prolong their lives! for their generosity and kind actions to us, and to strangers in general, cannot be expressed by mortal tongue.

On Sunday, the third of the Fast of the Nativity, which was the fifth of the month Canon the first, fell the celebration of the Feast of St. Saba; and our Lord the Patriarch performed mass in the Church of St. George and St. Saba, for the aforesaid village; and again, on the Monday, he performed a second mass in the Church of St. Nicholas, it being the day of his festival.

In the afternoon of Monday, after the fourth Sunday in Advent, our Lord the Patriarch performed Funeral Service at Vigils, according to our Ritual, for the deceased Mira, wife of Hajji Abdallah, son of the Canon Mansor, in presence of her children, in the Church of Our Lady; and said mass for her on the morning of Tuesday the fourteenth of Canon the first. They made a breakfast for her, of boiled meat, coloured with wine and bread, according to their custom.

Afterwards, we embarked our luggage on board the ship, upon the rising of a favourable wind, called Νότος, or the South Wind, which the vessels bound for the port of Galata, in the Black Sea, had been waiting for: and in the afternoon of the afore-mentioned Tuesday, they sailed with us in two boats, to take us to the ship, which was anchored in a place named Cara Dash, in Turkish; and in Arabic, Sakhr Alaswad, or the Black Rock; near to the entrance of the Black Sea, and the mouth of the Bosphorus, above the second of the forts which the Turks have erected in this channel: for before you come to Neochori, you Rh