THE MAUSOLEUM OF SOLYMAN "THE MAGNIFICENT. 28
Mustapha had left behind him a son, a fair boy, who had scarcely numbered ten summers-brave, and beautiful, and, until now, beloved. This was the new victim; but the implacable Sultana, fierce as she was, knew all the intensity and watchfulness of a mother's love, and she felt that the vigilance of the new-made widow must be eluded. The boy was, therefore, on some fair pretence dispatched to a kiosque near Broussa, attended by a proper guard, and accompanied by his mother in a covered litter. In the plain beyond Moudania, the litter broke down; and the eunuch who was entrusted with the death-warrant, proposed to the little prince that they should together gallop forward to the city, and send back assistance. The gallant boy complied; and as he sprang from his horse at the door of the kiosque, the executioner stopped him in the threshold, and extending toward him the bowstring, intimated to him that such was the will of the Sultan.
"God is great!" said the brave boy, "and the Sultan is his shadow upon earth - I am ready." And when she reached Broussa, the widow of Mustapha found that she was childless!
PLATE: YENI DJAMI, OR MOSQUE THE SULTANA VALIDE.
YENI DJAMI.
"Lightly tread, 'tis hallowed ground."
THE beautiful mosque of Yeni Djami, known as that of Sultana Validè, was built by the mother of Mahomet IV, and is esteemed one of the most magnificent in the capital. The minarets are peculiarly elegant, each being encircled by no less than three galleries, of the most minute and thickly-perforated sculpture, in the Saracenic taste. The portal is of ponderous size, and the brazen gates are thickly studded with mother-of-pearl; three lofty arches enclose an open peristyle, terraced in, and sufficiently spacious to contain more than a hundred persons. The double range of exterior galleries, running along the facade of the temple, are of fine and delicate workmanship, and the arches by which they are formed, are chastely and beautifully designed. The principal dome springs majestically from the centre of the spacious roof, and rests upon four lesser ones, which appear to lift it to the clouds; while the tomb of the illustrious founder nestles beneath the more lofty edifice, comparatively minute in size, but equally elegant in construction.