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mosque of Sultan Achmet, the most imposing in external appearance of any; it is built of white marble, has six lofty minarets, having each three galleries. We entered a large court planted with sycamores; there is a row of fountains around, and the trees are filled with doves. Passing through a cloister covered with little domes supported by small pillars, we arrived at the door of the mosque. The interior of them all is much alike. That of Sultan Achmet is paved with marble; in the centre is a fountain covered with domes formed of grates of gilded iron; among the numerous lamps are suspended crystal balls and ostrich eggs, and there is a celebrated globe of glass, representing in bas-relief the plan of the mosque.

On retiring through the court, we saw some hundreds of beautiful doves being fed on the pavement; they were like a swarm of bees. Behind is the tomb of Sultan Achmet. Besides these there are several other royal mosques, i. e. built by sultans,the mosques of Sultans Soliman, Mohammed, Selim, Bajazet, the Validea, &c., fourteen in number. It is said that there are altogether more than two hundred mosques in Constantinople, built generally on the same plan, and possessing the same character, and all copied after St. Sophia! The Validea, built

by Valide, the wife of Ibrahim and mother of Mahomet the Fourth, near the Seraglio, is covered inside with fine Dutch ware, and possesses a marble colonnade, the columns of which are said to have been brought from the ruins of Troy; it has two minarets of three galleries each.

The Osmanie, too, is much admired for its light and lofty cupola, and a range of antient columns of Egyptian granite, twenty-two feet in height. In the court is a sarcophagus of porphyry, nine feet long, seven wide, and five deep, now serving as a cistern for rain water. Near to the mosque of Seirek is another sarcophagus, supposed to be the tomb of Constantine.

We saw the mausoleums of Sultan Morad and his brothers, in which are a number of figures, said to amount to 120, with cravats round their necks-the monuments of that monarch's children, who were all strangled in a day by his successor's order. We saw also the mausoleum of the late Sultan, his wives, and women, and two little tombs, handsomely ornamented, erected to the memory of two of the present Sultan's children.

The celebrated mosque of St. Sophia possesses no great external beauty. It is a heavy building;

the dome is supported by immense buttresses, and Tournefort's statement that "it is the finest structure next to St. Peter's at Rome," is quite ridiculous; it will bear no comparison with St. Paul's; in fact there is no striking beauty whatever in the exterior of a place which was the wonder of past ages and the boast of Justinian, who, when he had finished it, is reported to have said, "I have outdone thee, O Solomon." The numerous buttresses and props totally ruin the effect which the height and expanse of its dome might otherwise produce.

We walked round the court, which is surrounded by a portico, and feeling an earnest desire to get one peep into the interior, I advanced up a vestibule leading into the mosque, and seeing only a few Turks very intent upon their prayers, I made two or three very hasty strides and looked inside, which I had scarcely done, before up rushed some Mussulmen foaming at the mouth and distorting their countenances with shouts and imprecations of Yaoor. I quickly retreated and joined the party outside, receiving a strong admonition from the dragoman for my imprudence. I saw nothing but a large hall with a low dome of great circumference. There are a great many

antient columns in this mosque, some of jasper, brought by the founder of the church from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, and others of porphyry, said to have been taken out of a temple of the Sun built by Valerian, and sent by Marsia, a Roman widow, to the Emperor Justinian. The Mosaic of the dome is mostly gone, and the "heaven suspended vault," of 115 feet in diameter, 15 feet more than St. Paul's, is only 18 in depth, and 180 from the pavement.

In the fifth year of Justinian this edifice was commenced, and to defray the expense, the Emperor melted down the silver statue of Theodosius, and covered the dome with the leaden waterpipes of the city.

When Constantinople was taken by the Turks, Mahomet the Second, having caused himself to be shaved, went and said his prayers in St. Sophia, and then fastened to one of the pillars, near the Patriarch's throne, a piece of the screen from the Mosque of Mecca with Arabic characters on it, and from that time the Christian Church has been changed into a mosque, and "the Muezzin has summoned the faithful to daily prayers, and the Imaun has preached." It was shattered by an earthquake in the time of the Empress Ann and John Palæo

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logus her son, now completely repaired by Mahomet the Second, and has been since preserved with great care by the Turks.

A young English lady of my acquaintance, the daughter of a Levant merchant, passing St. Sophia with a party of friends, had the temerity to enter the door of the mosque, and being at first unperceived, was quietly commencing a survey of the building, when some Turks espying her, immediately caught up their slippers and threw them with loud curses and imprecations at her head, when she ran away, fortunate not to have suf fered much grosser insult for her imprudent curiosity.

The hour of prayer is announced by the muezzins or criers from the different minarets, who put their fingers in their ears, pull out their mouths with their thumbs, and pitching their voices in a high key, chaunt in a loud clear melodious tone "God is great, there is no God but God, come to prayer-I summon you with a loud voice." On the celebrated nocturnal journey, Mahomet was commanded by the Deity, say the Moslems, to impose fifty prayers daily; but with the advice of Moses, afterwards negotiated for five. First at noon, second at sunset, third when it is so dark

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