forty cities, with the date of their
capture. It is not likely that another will ever be added to the list.

We now passed out through the Sublime Porte, and directed our steps to the
famous _Aya Sophia_--the temple dedicated by Justinian to the Divine
Wisdom. The repairs made to the outer walls by the Turks, and the addition
of the four minarets, have entirely changed the character of the building,
without injuring its effect. As a Christian Church, it must have been less
imposing than in its present form. A priest met us at the entrance, and
after reading the firman with a very discontented face, informed us that
we could not enter until the mid-day prayers were concluded. After taking
off our shoes, however, we were allowed to ascend to the galleries, whence
we looked down on the bowing worshippers. Here the majesty of the renowned
edifice, despoiled as it now is, bursts at once upon the eye. The
wonderful flat dome, glittering with its golden mosaics, and the sacred
phrase from the Koran: "_God is the Light of the Heavens and the Earth_,"
swims in the air, one hundred and eighty feet above the marble pavement.
On the eastern and western sides, it rests on two half domes; which again
rise from or rest upon a group of three small half-domes, so that the
entire roof of the mosque, unsupported by a pillar, seems to have been
dropped from above on the walls, rather than to have been built up from
them. Around the edifice run an upper and a lower gallery, which alone
preserve the peculiarities of the Byzantine style. These galleries are
supported by the most precious columns which ancient art could afford:
among them eight shafts of green marble, from the Temple of Diana, at
Ephesus; eight of porphyry, from the Temple of the Sun, at Baalbek;
besides Egyptian granite from the shrines of Isis and Osiris, and
Pentelican marble from the sanctuary of Pallas Athena. Almost the whole of
the interior has been covered with gilding, but time has softened its
brilliancy, and the rich, subdued gleam of the walls is in perfect harmony
with the varied coloring of the ancient marbles.

Under the dome, four Christian seraphim, executed in mosaic, have been
allowed to remain, but the names of the four archangels of the Moslem
faith are inscribed underneath. The bronze doors are still the same, the
Turks having taken great pains to obliterate the crosses with which they
were adorned. Around the centre of the dome, as on that of Sultan Achm