And now, if even a poor writer of travels may be allowed to invoke his Muse, I do most certainly invoke mine with bent knee and clasped hands, for, verily my mind grows bewildered, “in faccia al nobile subbietto,” and the majestic outlines of the great Byzantine basilica tremble before my vision like images reflected in the water. May the Muse inspire me, St. Sophia illumine me, and the emperor Justinian pardon me!

It was a fine morning in October when we at last set forth, accompanied by a Turkish cavas from the Italian consulate and a Greek dragoman, to visit the terrestrial Paradise, second firmament, car of the cherubim, throne of the glory of God, wonder of the world, the greatest temple on earth after St. Peter’s. This last expression, as my friends of Burgos, Cologne, Milan, and Florence must know, is of course not my own, nor would I ever dare to make it so: I merely quote it among the rest as one of the many terms consecrated by the enthusiasm of the Greeks which our dragoman repeated to us as we passed along the streets. We had purposely supplemented him by the old Turkish cavas in the hope—and we were not disappointed—that their two accounts might bring vividly before us the struggle between the two religions, histories, and nations, the legends and explanations of one magnifying the Church, those of the other the Mosque, in such a manner as to make us see St. Sophia as she should be seen; that is to say, with one eye Christian and the other Turkish.

My expectations were very great and my curiosity was all on fire, and yet I realized then, as I do now, that the actual sight of a world-renowned object, no matter how fully it may justify its reputation, never quite comes up to the keen enjoyment one experiences when on his way to see it. If I could live over again one hour out of each of those days on which I saw some great sight for the first time, I would unhesitatingly choose the one which intervenes between the moment of saying, “Now let us start,” and that in which the goal is reached. Those are the traveller’s most blissful hours. As you walk along you can feel your soul expand, preparing, as it were, to receive the streams of enthusiasm and delight soon to well up in it. You recall your boyhood’s dreams, which then seemed so hopelessly far from realization; you remember how a certain old professor of geography, after pointing out Constantinople on the map of Europe, traced the outline of the great basilica in the air, a pinch of snuff between his thumb and fore finger; you see that room, that hearth, in front of which, during the coming winter, you will describe to a circle of wondering and attentive faces the famous building; you hear that name, St. Sophia, ringing in your head, your heart, your ears like the voice of a living person who calls, and awaits your coming to reveal some mighty secret: you see above your head dim, prodigious outlines of arch and pilaster and column, mighty buildings which reach to the heavens, and when, at last, but a few steps more are wanted to bring you face to face with the reality, you linger to examine a pebble, watch the passage of a lizard, tell some trifling anecdote—anything that may serve to postpone, if but for a few seconds, that moment to which for twenty years you have been looking forward, and which you will remember for the rest of your life. And, truly, if you take away what goes before and what follows after, not so very much remains of the much-talked-of joys of seeing and admiring. It is almost always a delusion, followed by a slight awakening, after which we obstinately delude ourselves again.

The mosque of St. Sophia stands opposite the main entrance of the old Seraglio. On reaching, however, the open square which lies between the two, the first object to attract attention is, not the mosque, but the famous fountain of Sultan Ahmed III., one of the richest and most characteristic examples of Turkish art. This exquisite little building is not so much a monument as a caress in marble imprinted in a moment of passionate adoration by an enamored sultan upon the forehead of his beloved Stambul. I doubt if any but a woman’s pen can do it justice: mine, I feel convinced, is far too coarse and heavy to trace those delicate outlines. At first sight it hardly looks like a fountain at all, being in the form of a little square temple with a Chinese roof, whose undulating rim extends for some distance beyond the walls, and lends to the whole something of the character of a pagoda. At each corner rises a round tower furnished with small screened windows, or, rather, they are more like four charming kiosks, corresponding to the graceful cupolas on the roof which encircle the main central cupola. In each of the four walls are two niches, flanking a pointed arch, beneath which the water flows from a spout into a small basin. Around the edifice there runs an inscription which reads as follows: “This fountain speaks to you in the following verse by Sultan Ahmed: Turn the key of this pure and tranquil spring and call upon the name of God; drink of these inexhaustible and limpid waters and pray for the Sultan.” The little building is composed entirely of white marble, which, however, is almost hidden beneath the mass of ornamentation with which its walls are covered—arches, niches, tiny columns, roses, polygons, garlands, fretwork, gilding on a background of blue. Carving around the cupolas, inlaid-work below the roof, mosaics of a hundred different combinations of color, arabesques of every conceivable form,—all seem to vie with one another to attract attention and arouse admiration, until one’s powers of seeing and admiring are well-nigh exhausted. Not so much as a hand’s breadth of space is left free from carving, painting, gilding, or ornament of some sort. It is a prodigy of richness, beauty, and patience, which should, by rights, be preserved under a glass case; and, as though it were too perfect to delight but one sense alone, you are tempted to break off a piece and put it in your mouth, feeling that it must taste good as well—a casket designed, as one would suppose, to guard some priceless treasure, and you long to open it and find the—what? Infant goddess, magic ring, or fabulous pearl. Time has to some extent faded the brilliant colors, dimmed the gilding, and darkened the marble; think, then, what this colossal jewel must have been when first unveiled, all fresh and sparkling, before the eyes of the Solomon of the Bosphorus a hundred and sixty years ago! But, old and faded as it is, it undoubtedly occupies the first place among the lesser wonders of Constantinople, and is, moreover, an object so distinctively Turkish that, once seen, it claims a prominent position among that certain number of others which will dwell for ever in one’s memory, ready to rise up at the sound of the word “Stambul;” the background for all time against which will be thrown out one’s dreams and visions of the Orient.

Looking across from the fountain, St. Sophia can be seen occupying one side of the intervening square. About the exterior there is nothing especially noteworthy. The only points which attract the eye are the lofty white minarets, which rise at the four corners from pedestals each the size of a house. The celebrated dome looks small, and it seems impossible that this can be the same as that which we are wont to see, from the Bosphorus and Sea of Marmora and the hillsides of Asia, rearing its mighty form like the head of some Titan against the blue heavens. It is a flattened dome overlaid with lead, flanked by two semi-domes, and pierced at the base by a row of small windows. The four walls which support it are painted in broad bands of white and red and strengthened by enormous masses of masonry. A number of mean-looking buildings, baths, schools, hospitals, mausoleums, and soup-kitchens, crowd around the base and effectually conceal the ancient architectural form of the basilica. Nothing can be seen but a heavy, irregular edifice, faded and bare as a fortress, and apparently totally inadequate to embrace the mighty expanse of St. Sophia’s great nave. Of the original basilica only the dome is visible, and even that has been despoiled of the silver splendor which, according to the Greeks, could once be seen from the summit of the Olympus. All the rest is Mussulman: one minaret was erected by Muhammad the Conqueror, another by Selim II., the two others by the Third Murad, the same who toward the close of the sixteenth century added the buttresses to strengthen the walls shaken by an earthquake, and placed the huge bronze crescent on the summit of the dome, the gilding alone of which cost fifty thousand ducats. The ancient atrium has disappeared, and the baptistry has been converted into a mausoleum where are interred the remains of Mustafa I. and Ibrahim, while nearly every one of the other small buildings which adjoined the Greek church have been either destroyed outright or else, by the erection of new walls or some other alteration, changed past recognition: on all sides the mosque crowds, pushes, and bears down upon the church, of which the head alone remains free, and even around that the imperial minarets mount guard like four gigantic sentinels. On the east side there is a doorway flanked by six marble and porphyry columns; another on the south leads into a courtyard surrounded by low, irregular buildings, in the midst of which a fountain for ablutions plays beneath a little arched canopy supported on eight, small columns. Viewed from the outside, there is nothing to distinguish St. Sophia from the other great mosques of Stambul, except that it is heavier and dingier; far less would it ever enter one’s head to name it “the greatest temple on earth after St. Peter’s.”

Our guides conducted us by a narrow street skirting the northern wall of the edifice to a bronze door, which, swinging slowly back on its hinges, admitted us to the eso-narthex. This is a very long and lofty hall lined with marbles, and still glowing here and there with ancient mosaics. Nine doors on the eastern side give access to the body of the church, opposite which five others formerly led to the exo-narthex, which, in turn, communicated by thirteen doors with the atrium. We had barely crossed the threshold when a turbaned sacristan demanded our firmans, and then, after donning slippers, at a sign from the guides we approached the middle door on the eastern side, which stood half open to receive us. The first effect is certainly quite overpowering, and for some moments we remained stunned and speechless. In a single glance one is confronted by an enormous space and a bold architecture of semi-domes which seem to hang suspended in the air, enormous pilasters, mighty arches, gigantic columns, galleries, tribunes, arcades, over which floods of light are poured from a thousand great windows—a something I hardly know how to define of theatrical and regal rather than sacred; an ostentation of size and strength; a look of worldly pomp; a mixture of the classic, barbarous, fanciful, arrogant, and magnificent; a stupendous harmony in which, with the formidable and thunderous notes of the pilasters and cyclopean arches, recalling the cathedrals of the North, there mingle soft, subdued strains of some Oriental air, the noisy music of the revels of Justinian and Heraclitus, echoes of pagan chants, the choked voice of an effeminate and wornout race, and distant cries of Goth, of Vandal, and of Avar; a mighty defaced majesty, a sinister nakedness, a profound peace—St. Peter’s shrunken and plastered over, St. Mark’s enlarged and abandoned; a quite indescribable mingling of church, mosque, and temple, severe in aspect, puerile in adornment—of things old and new, faded colors, and curious, unfamiliar accessories: a sight, in short, so bewildering, so awe-inspiring, and at the same time so full of melancholy, that for a time the mind cannot grasp its full meaning, but gropes about uncertainly, trying to find first what it is, and then words in which to express it.

The plan of the edifice nearly approaches an equilateral rectangle, over the centre of which rises the great dome, supported on four mighty arches resting upon massive pilasters: these form, as it were, the skeleton of the entire building. From the arches on the right and left of the entrance there rise, before and beyond the great dome, two semi-domes, the three covering the entire nave, these semi-domes have six exedrÆ, of which the four on the sides are also covered with semi-domes, making four small circular temples enclosed in the large one. Between the two exedrÆ at the east end of the building is the apse, which projects beyond the external wall, and is likewise covered with a domed roof. Thus seven semi-domes encircle the main one, two just beyond it and five more beyond these, all of them without any apparent support, and presenting an extraordinary impression of lightness, as though they actually were, as a Greek poet once said, suspended by seven cords from the roof of the sky. All these domes are lighted by large windows arched and symmetrical. Between the four great pilasters, which form a square in the centre of the basilica, there rise to the right and left of the entrance eight wonderful columns of green marble, from which spring graceful arches richly carved with foliage, forming charming porticos on either side of the nave, and supporting at a great height two vast galleries, where are to be seen two other lines of columns and sculptured arches. A third gallery, communicating with the first two, runs above the narthex, and opens out on the nave by means of three enormous arches supported on double columns. Other smaller galleries, resting upon porphyry columns, intersect the four small temples at the extremities of the nave, and from them rise other columns supporting tribunes.

Such is the basilica. The mosque is, so to speak, spread over its surface and hung upon its walls. The mihrab—that is, the niche which indicates the direction in which Mecca lies—is hollowed out of one of the pilasters of the apse; to the right of it, high up on the wall, hangs one of the four prayer-carpets of the Prophet. In the angle of the apse nearest to the mihrab, reached by a steep little flight of stairs whose marble balustrade is carved with the most marvellous delicacy of workmanship, is the pulpit, surmounted by a queer conical roof and hung on either side with victorious banners of Muhammad II. Here the rhatib ascends to read the Koran,H and carries in his hand a drawn simeter, to signify that St. Sophia is a mosque acquired by the force of arms. Opposite the pulpit is the Sultan’s tribune enclosed within a gilded grating. Other pulpits or species of balconies, having railings of open-work carving, and supported on small marble columns and arabesqued arches, protrude here and there along the walls or toward the centre of the nave. On either side of the entrance stand two huge alabaster jars, found among the ruins of Pergamum and brought to Constantinople by Murad III. Enormous green disks, bearing inscriptions from the KoranI in letters of gold, are hung below the pendentives, beneath which great mural slabs of porphyry bear the names of Allah, Mohammed, and the first four khalifs. In the pendentives may still be seen the gigantic wings of the four mosaic seraphim, whose faces are now concealed beneath golden roses. From the roofs of the domes hang innumerable silken cords, measuring almost the entire height of the building, from which are suspended ostrich eggs, lamps of wrought bronze, and crystal globes. Here and there stand cassia-wood reading-desks, inlaid with copper and mother-of-pearl, on which lie manuscript copies of the Koran. On the pavement are spread great numbers of rugs and mats. The walls are bare, whitish, yellowish, gray, still adorned in some places with discolored mosaics. The general aspect is inexpressibly mournful.

The great marvel of the mosque is the central dome. Gazing up at it from the middle of the nave, it truly seems, as Mme. de StaËl said of the dome of St. Peter’s, as though a vast abyss were suspended over one’s head. It is very lofty, with an enormous circumference, and is made to appear still larger from the fact that its depth is but one-sixth of its diameter.J Around its base runs a small gallery, above which are a row of forty arched windows, and around the crown are inscribed the words pronounced by Muhammad II. when he drew his horse up opposite the high altar on the day of the conquest of Constantinople: “Allah is the light of heaven and earth.” These letters, white on a dark background, are some of them more than twenty-seven feet long. As is well known, this aËrial prodigy could never have been constructed had ordinary materials been employed. The roofs were built of pumice-stone, which floats on the surface of water, and of bricks from the Isle of Rhodes, five of which hardly weigh as much as one ordinary brick; on each of them was inscribed the sentence from David, “Deus in medio eius non commovebitur. Adiuvabit eam Deus vultu suo,” and with every twelfth row relics of various saints were walled in. During the progress of the building operations the priests chanted and Justinian attended in person clad in a coarse linen tunic, while immense crowds looked on in admiration; and this is hardly to be wondered at when we consider that the construction of this “second firmament,” which even at the present time is an object of wonder, was an undertaking without parallel in the sixth century. The common people believed it to be the result of magic, and the Turks must have had much ado for a long period after the conquest to keep their gaze fixed upon the east when praying in St. Sophia, instead of resting it upon that “stone heaven” above their heads. The dome covers, indeed, nearly half the nave, in such a manner as to light up and dominate the entire edifice: it can be seen, at least in part, from every point, and, wander where you will, you invariably bring up beneath it to find your gaze attracted for the hundredth time to that immeasurable space, where eye and mind float with ecstatic delight as though borne on wings.

After inspecting the nave and dome one has but just begun to see St. Sophia. Whoever takes the least shadow, for example, of historical interest in the building could spend an hour over the columns alone. Here may be found spoils from every temple in the world. The four columns of green marble supporting the large galleries were presented to Justinian by the magistrates of Ephesus, having formerly stood in the temple of Diana, which was burned by Herostratus. The eight porphyry columns which stand two and two between the pilasters were a part of the temple of the Sun at Baalbek, and were carried thence by Aurelian to Rome. Others are from the temple of Jupiter at Cyzicus and of Helios at Palmyra—from the temples of Thebes, of Athens, of Rome, of the Troad, the Cyclades, and from Alexandria: altogether, they present an endless variety of style, form size, and color. What between the columns, the railings and pedestals, and the portions of the ancient covering of the walls which still remain, there are marbles from every quarry of the Archipelago, Asia Minor, Africa, and Gaul: the white Bosphorus marble speckled with black contrasts with the black Celtic veined with white; the green marble of Laconia is reflected in the blue Libyan, while the Egyptian spotted porphyry, starred granite of Thessaly, the red-and-white striped stone of Mt. Jassey, and pale caristio streaked with iron, mingle their colors with the purple Phrygian, red Synadian, gold of the Mauritius, and snow-white marble of Paros. Added to this wealth of color is the indescribable variety of form, as seen in the friezes, the cornices, roses, and balustrades, and odd Corinthian capitals carved with foliage, crosses, animals, and strange chimerical figures, all interlaced: others, again, belong to no order in especial, of curious design and unequal size, evidently coupled together by chance—shafts of columns, pedestals ornamented with strange sculptures, injured by time and mutilated by sabre-cuts,—altogether an effect of wild and barbarous magnificence which, while it outrages the rules of good taste, attracts the eye with an unresistible fascination.

From the nave one hardly appreciates the vast size of the building, of which it indeed forms but a comparatively small part. The two aisles beneath the large galleries are in themselves two large edifices, out of either one of which a separate temple might be formed. Each of these is divided in three and separated by large vaulted openings. Indeed, everything here, column, architrave, pilaster, roof, is gigantic. Passing beneath these arches, you can barely see the nave from between the columns of the Ephesian temple, and seem almost to be in another basilica: the same effect is produced from the galleries, reached by a winding stair with very gentle gradations, or rather it is an inclined plane, for there are two steps, and one might readily ascend it on horseback. The galleries were used as gynÆconitis; that is, those parts of the church reserved for women: penitents remained without in the eso-narthex, while the mass of the faithful occupied the nave. Each one of these galleries is capable of accommodating the entire population of a suburb of Constantinople. You no longer feel as though you were in a church, but rather walking in the foyer of some Titanic theatre, expecting at any moment to hear the sudden outburst of a chorus sung by a hundred thousand voices. In order to realize the immense size and obtain a really good view of the mosque one must lean well over the railing of the gallery and look around. Arches, roofs, pilasters, have all swelled to gigantic proportions. The green disks which, seen from below, appear to measure about the length of a man’s arm, are now large enough to cover a house. The windows look like portes-cochÈres of palaces, the seraphim wings like the spread sails of a vessel, the tribunes like vast open squares; while it makes one’s head swim to look up at the dome at all. Casting the eyes below, one is taken aback to find how high he has mounted: the pavement of the nave is far away at the bottom of an abyss, while the pulpits, jars from Pergamum, mats, and lamps seem to have shrunken in the most extraordinary manner. One rather curious circumstance about the mosque of St. Sophia is particularly noticeable from this elevated position: the nave not being precisely in line with Mecca, toward which it is incumbent upon every good Mussulman to turn while praying, all the mats and strips of carpet are placed obliquely with the lines of the building, and produce upon the eye the same disagreeable effect as though there were some gross defect in the perspective. From there, too, one is enabled to see and observe all the life of the mosque. Turks are kneeling upon the mats with foreheads touching the pavement; others stand erect and motionless as statues, with hands held before their faces, as though interrogating their palms; some are seated cross-legged at the foot of a pilaster, much as they would rest beneath the shade of a tree; veiled women kneel in a distant corner; old men seated before the lecterns read from the Koran; an iman is hearing a group of boys recite sacred verses; and here and there beneath distant arches and through the galleries the forms of rhatib, iman, or muezzin and various other functionaries of the mosque glide noiselessly back and forth, as though their feet hardly touched the ground, clad in strange, unfamiliar costumes, while the vague, subdued murmur of those who pray and those who read, that clear, steady light, the thousand odd-looking lamps, the deserted apse and echoing galleries, the immensity of it all, the past associations and present peacefulness,—combine to produce such an impression of greatness and of mystery as neither words can express nor time efface.

But the dominating sensation, as I have already said, is one of sadness, and that great poet who compared St. Sophia to a “colossal sepulchre” was not far wrong. On all sides you see the signs of a barbarous devastation, and experience more melancholy in the thought of what has been than pleasure in contemplating what still remains. After the first feelings of amazement have to some extent subsided, one’s mind turns intuitively to the past. And even now, after a lapse of three years, I can never think of the great mosque without trying to imagine the church. Overthrow the pulpits of the Mussulman, remove the lamps and jars, cut down the disks and tear away the porphyry slabs, reopen the doors and windows that have been bricked up, scrape away the plaster which covers wall and roof, and, behold! the basilica whole and new as it appeared on that day, thirteen centuries ago, when Justinian exclaimed, “Glory be to God, who has judged me worthy to perform this mighty work! O Solomon, I have surpassed thee!” Every object upon which the eye rests shines or glitters or flashes like the enchanted palaces in a fairy tale. The enormous walls, once more covered with precious marbles, send back reflections of gold, ivory, steel, coral, and mother-of-pearl; the markings and veins of the marble look like coronets or garlands of flowers; wherever a ray of sunlight chances to fall upon those walls, all encrusted with crystal mosaics, they flash and sparkle as though set with diamonds; the capitals, entablatures, doors, and friezes of the arches are all of gilded bronze; the roofs of aisle and gallery are covered with angelic forms and figures of saints painted upon a golden background; before the pilasters in the chapels, beside the doors, between the columns, stand marble and bronze statues and enormous candelabra of solid gold; superb copies of the Gospels lie upon lecterns adorned like kings’ thrones; lofty ivory crosses and vases encrusted with pearls stand upon the altars. The extremity of the nave is nothing but one blaze of light from a mass of glittering objects: here is the gilded bronze balustrade of the choir, the pulpit overlaid with forty thousand pounds of silver—the Egyptian tribute for a whole year; the seats of the seven priests, the Patriarch’s throne, and that of the emperor gilded, carved, inlaid, set with pearls, so that when the sun shines full upon them one is forced to avert the eye. Beyond all these splendors in the apse a still more vivid blaze is seen proceeding from the altar itself, the table of which, supported upon four gold pillars, is composed of a fusion of silver, gold, lead, and pearls; above it rises the ciborium, formed of four pillars of pure silver supporting a massive gold cupola, surmounted by a globe and by a cross also of gold weighing two hundred and sixty pounds.K Beyond the altar is seen the gigantic image of Holy Wisdom, whose feet touch the pavement and head the roof of the apse. High over all this magnificence shine and glisten the seven semi-domes overlaid with mosaics of crystal and gold, and the mighty central dome covered with figures of apostle and evangelist, the Virgin and the cross, all colored, gilded, and brilliant like a roof of jewels and flowers. And dome and pillar, statue and candelabra, each and every gorgeous object, is repeated in the immense mirror of the pavement, whose polished marbles are joined together in undulating lines, which, seen from the four main entrances, have the effect of four majestic rivers ruffled by the wind. But we must not forget the atrium—surrounded by columns, and walls covered with mosaics—in which stood marble fountains and equestrian statues; and the thirty-two towers whose bells made so formidable a clamor that they could be heard throughout the seven hills; or the hundred bronze doors decorated with bas-reliefs and inscriptions in silver; or the hall of the synod; the imperial apartments; the sacerdotal prisons; the baptistry; the vast sacristies overflowing with treasure; and a labyrinth of vestibules, tricliniums, corridors, and secret stairways built in the walls and leading to tribunes and hidden oratories.

And now let us in fancy attend some great state function—an imperial marriage, a council, a coronation. From the enormous palace of the CÆsars the glittering procession sweeps forth through streets flanked by thousands of columns, perfumed with myrrh, and spread with flowers and myrtle. The houses on either side are decorated with precious vases and silken hangings. Two bands, the one of azzurri, the other verdi, precede the cortÉge, which advances amid the songs of poets and noise of the heralds shouting vivas in all the tongues of the empire, and there, seated like an idol laden with pearls in a golden car with purple hangings, and drawn by two white mules, the emperor appears, wearing the tiara surmounted by a cross, and surrounded with all the pomp of a Persian monarch. The haughty ecclesiastics advance to the atrium to receive him, and all that throng of courtiers, attendants, place-seekers, sycophants, lord high constables, chief eunuchs, master-thieves, corrupt magistrates, spurious patricians, cowardly senators, slaves, buffoons, casuists, mercenaries, adventurers from every land, the entire glittering rabble of gilded offscourings, pours through the twenty-seven doors and into the huge nave lit up by six thousand candelabras. Then along the choir-rail and beneath arcade and tribune there is a coming and going; a movement and mingling of bared heads and purple cloaks; a waving of jewelled plumes and velvet caps; the glitter of golden chains and silver breastplates; an interchange of ceremonious greetings and courtly salutations; the constant rustle and sweep of silken garments and rattle of jewelled hilts; while soft perfumes load the air and the vast servile throng makes the sacred edifice ring again with shouts of admiration and profane applause.

After making the circuit of the mosque several times in silence, we gave our guides permission to talk. They commenced by showing us the chapels built beneath the galleries, now, like the rest of the basilica, despoiled of everything of value: some of them, like the opistodomo of the Parthenon, serve as treasuries, where Turks who are about to start on long journeys deposit their money and other valuables to be secure from robbery, sometimes leaving their possessions there, under the protection of Allah, for years at a time; others have been closed up and are used either as infirmaries for the sick, where they lie awaiting death or recovery, or else places of confinement for the insane, whose melancholy cries or bursts of wild laughter awaken from time to time the echoes of the vast building.

We were now reconducted to the centre of the nave, and the Greek dragoman began to recount the marvels of the basilica. The design, it is quite true, was sketched by the two architects, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus, but the first conception came to them through angelic inspiration; it was also an angel who suggested to Justinian the idea of opening the three windows in the apse to represent the three Persons of the Trinity; in the same way the hundred and seven columns of the church stand for the hundred and seven pillars which support the House of Wisdom. It took seven years merely to collect the necessary materials for constructing the edifice, while a hundred master-builders were employed to overlook the ten thousand workmen, five thousand on one side and five thousand on the other, who labored at its erection. When the walls had risen to the height of but a few hands only from the ground more than four hundred and fifty quintals of gold had already been expended. The outlay for the building alone amounted to twenty-five million francs. The church was consecrated by the Patriarch five years eleven months and ten days after the first stone was laid, and Justinian celebrated the occasion by feasts and sacrifices and distributions of money and food which were prolonged for two weeks. At this point the Turkish cavas interrupted in order to call our attention to the pilaster upon which Muhammad II. left the bloody imprint of his right hand on the day of his victorious entrance, as though to seal his conquest; he then pointed out the so-called “cold window,” near the mihrab, through which a perpetual current of cool air inspires the most eloquent discourses from the greatest orators of Islamism. He next showed us, close by another window, the famous “shining stone,” a slab of transparent marble which gleams like crystal when struck by the sun’s rays, and made us touch the “sweating column,” on the left of the north entrance. This column is overlaid with bronze, through a crack in which the stone can be seen covered with moisture. And finally he showed us a block of hollowed-out marble, brought from Bethlehem, in which, it is said, was placed immediately after his birth Sidi Yssa, “the Son of Mary, apostle of, and Spirit proceeding out from, God, worthy of all honor both in this world and the next.” But it struck me that neither Turk nor Greek placed very much faith in this relic.

The Greek now took up his parable, and led us by a certain walled-up doorway in the gallery, in order to recount the celebrated legend of the Greek bishop; and now his manner was one of such entire belief that, if it was not sincere, it was certainly wonderfully well feigned. It seems that at the very moment when the Turks burst into the church of St. Sophia a bishop was in the act of celebrating mass at the high altar. Leaving the altar at sight of the invaders, he ascended to one of the galleries, where some Turks, following in hot pursuit, saw him disappear within this little door, which was instantly closed up by a stone wall. Throwing themselves against it, the soldiers tried with all their force to break it down, hammering and pounding furiously against the stones, but with no other result than to leave the marks of their weapons upon the wall. Masons were sent for, who worked an entire day with pickaxes and crowbars, finally abandoning the attempt: after them every mason in Constantinople tried in turn to effect an opening, but one and all failed to make any impression upon the miraculous wall, which has remained closed ever since. On that day, however, when the profaned basilica shall be restored to the worship of Christ the wall will open of its own accord, and the bishop will come forth, wearing his episcopal robes, and, chalice in hand, his face illumined as with a celestial vision, will mount the steps of the altar and resume the mass at the very point where he left off centuries ago; and then will be the dawn of a new era for the city of Constantine.

As we were about leaving the building the Turkish sacristan, who had followed us all about, lounging and yawning, gave us a handful of bits of mosaic, which he had dug out of a wall shortly before, and the dragoman, whom this incident had interrupted as he was about to launch forth into the account of the profanation of St. Sophia, resumed his recital.

I certainly hope, however, that no one will interrupt me, now that the whole scene has been brought so vividly before me by this description of the building.

Hardly had the report been noised abroad throughout Constantinople, at about seven in the morning, that the Turks had actually scaled the walls, than an immense throng of people rushed to St. Sophia for refuge. There were about a hundred thousand persons in all—renegade soldiers, monks, priests, senators, thousands of virgins from the convents, members of patrician families laden with their treasures, high state dignitaries, and princes of the imperial blood,—all pouring through nave and gallery and arcade, treading upon one another in every recess of the huge building, and mingling in one inextricable mass with the dregs of the population, slaves, and malefactors escaped from the prisons and galleys. The mighty basilica resounded with shrieks of terror such as are heard in a theatre at the outbreak of fire. When every nook and corner, gallery and chapel, was filled to overflowing, the doors were shut to and securely bolted, and the wild uproar of the first few moments gave place to a terror-stricken silence. Many still believed that the victors would not dare to violate the sanctity of St. Sophia; others awaited with a stubborn sense of security the appearance of the angel foretold by the prophets who was to annihilate the Turkish army before the advance-guard should have reached the Column of Constantine; others, again, had ascended to the gallery running around the interior of the dome, from whose windows they could watch the movements of the enemy and impart their intelligence by signs to the hundred thousand strained and ashy faces turned up to them from the nave and galleries below. An immense white mass could be seen covering the city-walls from the BlachernÆ to the Golden Gate, from which four shining bands were seen to detach themselves and advance between the houses like four torrents of lava, increasing in volume and noise and leaving behind them a track of smoke and flame. These were the four attacking columns of the Turkish army driving before them the disorganized remainder of the Greek forces, and burning and plundering as they came, converging toward St. Sophia, the Hippodrome, and the imperial palace. As the advance-guard reached the second hill the blare of their trumpets suddenly smote upon the ears of the terrified throng in the basilica, who fell upon their knees in agonized supplication; but even then there were many who still looked for the angel to appear, and others who clung to the hope that a feeling of awe at the vastness and majesty of that building, dedicated to the worship of God, might hold the invaders in check. But even this last illusion was soon dispelled. Through the thousand windows there broke on their ears a confused roar of human voices mingled with the clashing of arms and shrill blare of trumpets, and a moment later the first blows of the Ottoman sabres fell upon the bronze doors of the vestibule and resounded throughout the entire building, sounding the death-knell of the listening multitude, who, feeling the chill breath of the grave blow upon them, abandoned hope and recommended their souls to the mercy of God. Before long the doors were battered in or struck from their hinges, and a savage horde of janissaries, spahis, timmarioti, dervishes, and sciaus, covered with dust and blood, their faces contorted with the fury of battle, rapine, and murder, appeared in the openings. At sight of the enormous nave, glittering with gold and precious stones, they sent up a great shout of astonishment and joy, and, pouring in like a furious torrent, abandoned themselves to the work of pillage and destruction. Some busied themselves at once in securing the women and virgins, valuable booty for the slave-market, who, stupefied with terror, offered no resistance, but voluntarily held out their arms for the chains. Others attacked the rich furnishings of the church: tabernacles were violated, images overthrown, ivory crucifixes trodden under foot, while the mosaics, mistaken for precious stones, fell under the blows of the cimeters in glittering showers into the cloaks and caftans held open to receive them; pearls, detached from their settings with sabre-points, rolled about over the pavement, chased like living creatures and fought over with savage kicks and blows. The high altar was broken up into a thousand pieces of gold and silver; thrones, pulpits, the choir-rail, all disappeared as though swept away by an avalanche of rock and stone, and still those Asiatic hordes continued to pour into the church in blood-stained waves, and on all sides nothing could be seen but a whirlwind of drunken ruffians, some of whom had placed tiaras on their heads, while others wore different parts of the sacerdotal vestments over their own clothing. Chalices and receptacles for the Host were waved aloft, and troops of newly-acquired slaves, bound two and two with ecclesiastical scarfs of gold, and horses and camels laden with plunder, were driven over the pavement strewn with broken fragments of statues, torn copies of the Evangels, and relics of the saints—a barbarous and sacrilegious orgy in which shouts of triumph, fierce threats, bursts of hoarse laughter, children’s cries, the neighing of horses, and shrill clanging of trumpets mingled in one overpowering uproar, until, suddenly, the mad tumult ceased, and in the awed hush which followed the august figure of Muhammad II. appeared in a doorway, on horseback and surrounded by a group of princes, viziers, and generals, haughty and impassive, like the living representative of the vengeance of God. Rising in his stirrups, he announced in a voice of thunder, which re-echoed throughout the whole of the devastated building, the first formula of the new religion: “Allah is the light of heaven and earth.”