g spirit is frequently sufficiently acute to inquire in
the different hotels if there are any guests who wish to visit the
mosques. Each person who is desirous of doing so gives four or five
colonati {54} to the guide, who thereupon procures the firmann, and
frequently clears forty or fifty guilders by the transaction. An
opportunity of this description to visit the mosques generally
offers itself several times in the course of a month.

I had made up my mind that it would be impossible to quit
Constantinople without first seeing the four wonder-mosques, the Aja
Sofia, Sultan Achmed, Osmanije, and Soleimanije.

I had the good fortune to obtain admittance on paying a very
trifling sum; I think I should regret it to this day if I had paid
five colonati for such a purpose.

To an architect these mosques are no doubt highly interesting; to a
profane person like myself they offer little attraction. Their
principal beauty generally consists in the bold arches of the
cupolas. The interior is always empty, with the exception of a few
large chandeliers placed at intervals, and furnished with a large
number of perfectly plain glass lamps. The marble floors are
covered with straw mats. In the Sofia mosque we find a few pillars
which have been brought hither from Ephesus and Baalbec, and in a
compartment on one side several sarcophagi are deposited.

Before entering the mosque, you must either take off your shoes or
put on slippers over them. The outer courts, which are open to all,
are very spacious, paved with slabs of marble, and kept scrupulously
clean. In the midst stands a fountain, at which the Mussulman
washes his hands, his face, and his feet, before entering the
mosque. An open colonnade resting on pillars usually runs round the
mosques, and splendid plantains and other trees throw a delicious
shade around.

The mosque of Sultan Achmed, on the Hippodrome, is surrounded by six
minarets. Most of the others have only two, and some few four.

The kitchens for the poor, situated in the immediate neighbourhood
of the mosques, are a very praiseworthy institution. Here the poor
Mussulman is regaled on simple dishes, such as rice, beans,
cucumbers, etc., at the public expense. I marvelled greatly to find
no crowding at these places. Another and an equally useful measure
is the erection of numerous fountains of clear good water. This is
the more welcome when we remember that the Turkish religion forbids
the us