ABSTRACT
If Turkish gardens tend to look a little wild, it is partly because they contain so many trees. In Constantinople, at least, there is so little rain in summer that it would be almost impossible to keep the gardens green without them. Almost every Turkish garden contains visible water of some sort, which at its simplest is nothing but a shallow marble pool. There is rivalry between the gardens of the upper, the middle, and the lower Bosphorus with regard to their advantages of position. The upper Bosphorus is the most desirable from the European point of view. The gardens of the lower Bosphorus are in many ways less picturesque than those nearer the Black Sea. The hills on which they lie are in general lower, farther apart, and more thickly covered with houses. With their milder air, however, their more Mediterranean light, and their glimpse into the Sea of Marmora, they enjoy another, a supreme, advantage.
