eats while at their devotions. The great
dome, over one hundred feet in width, rises in grandeur one hundred and
eighty feet overhead, supported by four huge columns each seventy feet
in circumference. A circle of windows, forty-four in number, around the
dome illumines the golden mosaics which cover the ceiling. A mosaic
picture in the dome representing the Almighty, has been obliterated by
the Turks and covered with green linen cloth. A verse from the Koran, in
gilt Arabic characters almost thirty feet long, is painted on this
cloth. The sentence, as translated, begins: "God is the light of
heaven and earth," and ends, "God alone sheddeth His light on whomsoever
He pleaseth."

[Illustration: THROUGH THE NARROW STREETS OF THE CITY.]

"If the Moslems believe in the Bible and in God as a supreme being, why
did they destroy the mosaic representation of God on the ceiling?"
inquired one of the visitors.

"The Moslems do believe in the Bible and in one Supreme God," was the
reply, "and it was this very belief that led them to paint out the
picture of God and to destroy all the images and paintings of saints;
for God's command is: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt
not bow down thyself to them.'"

"The Moslems," continued the guide, "regard Mahomet as the Prophet of
God, and the Koran as written by him under the inspiration of God; but
they do not worship Mahomet or any image or picture of him."

We paused to admire the four green marble columns taken from the Temple
of Diana, and the polished shafts brought from the Temple of the Sun,
relics of those two magnificent cities, Ephesus and Baalbek, of whose
grandeur nothing now remains but broken stones. We gazed upward at the
eight immense green shields covered with Arabic characters, high above
our heads on the walls. But we doubted the miraculous healing power of a
small hole that is always damp in a bronze-covered pillar, and hesitated
also to accept the tradition that the apparent imprint of a bloody hand
in the marble wall was made by the Sultan Muhammed II when he rode into
St. Sophia after the capture of the city.

"On Fridays," said the guide, as we stood at the foot of the marble
steps that led to the elevated pulpit, "the priest, clad in a long red
robe, reads a prayer for the Sultan, and, while doing so, ho