BEAUTIES OF THE BOSPHORUS. 60
SAINT SOPHIA.
"Sophia's cupola, with golden gleam."
BYRON.
THE great object of every lion-hunting traveller in Turkey is to obtain ingress to the mosques; and as this privilege is only accorded to great personages, and to each European Ambassador once during his residence in Constantinople, many are necessarily fated to disappointment. No golden key will unlock the mysterious gates, nor lift aside the veil of the temple; and it is with a disgust and a reluctance which they scarcely care to conceal, that the officiating priests condescend to do the honours of the shrine, even when the Imperial firman leaves them no alternative.
The court of St. Sophia, like that of every other mosque in the city, is paved with marble, and shaded by magnificent plane-trees, whose far-spreading branches and luxuriant foliage chequer the vast space with alternate patches of light and shadow, which produce a fine effect; and collect in the vicinity of the holy edifice groups of quiet-looking Moslems, who spread their carpets, and seat themselves to smoke their chibouques, and watch the pious who pass into the temple from sunrise to sunset.
An elegant fountain, with a projecting octagonal roof, whose marble basin is screened by a covering of iron net-work from the pollution of the birds which swarm upon the roof and amid the intricacies of the building, affords to the Feithful the necessary opportunity of performing their preliminary ablutions ere they enter the mosque; while in its immediate vicinity, amulet and scent merchants, generally hadjis or pilgrims, with their green turbans and flowing beards, spread their mats, and expose for sale all descriptions of chaplets, perfumes, relics from Mecca, charms against the Evil Eye, amber and ivory mouth-pieces for the chibouque, and dyes and toys for the harem.
As these pilgrim-merchants are generally gifted with a quiet facetiousness of manner which never fails to amuse a Turk, they collect about them numbers of idler, whose picturesque costume and graceful attitudes form at every moment studies for the painter: the tall Effendi, with his turban of cachemire and his furred pelisse, stands beside the red-capped and blue-coated soldier; while, squatted at their feet, pipe in hand, and passing the beads of his tusbee(*) listlessly through his fingers as he intently follows the discourse which is going on around him, may be seen the Emir in his green robe, proud of his descent from the Prophet;
(*) Chaplet.