Sophia as having had angels for architects, and as the most remarkable temple of ancient Christendom. In it Chrysostom spoke with his lips of gold. Up to the time when Mahomet with his Osmans rode victoriously into the city, and even into this temple, and dismounting, leaped upon the altar exclaiming, There is no God but GoD, and MAHOMET is his prophet!"—up to the time when Sophia held her bloody carnival in these great walls, and while learning had here her chosen throne, this temple shone resplendent in Mosaic and gold, purple and marbles, with its silver doves and carved images, as the Church of the East and the glory of Christendom. It was only the other day when repairing some of the walls, that rich mosaics superior to any at Rome, were discovered beneath the plaster, representing saints and martyrs. The sultan ordered them (sensible soul!) to be covered again, not knowing but that they might come in play in some future age. It is a current belief among the Turks, that their authority will end in a century; and being Fatalists, it might prove a true prophecy; although, my firm belief is, that the Ottoman power is stronger now than it has been for half a century. The Mahometans have two or three miraculous objects in the church. One is a shining stone, said to be an onyx, which absorbs light, and when shone upon shines with intense glitter. Another is a sweating column, that emits a dampness, which is a panacea superior to Brandreth or the Life Bitters. But most, Sophia will be remembered as the first home of the Christian for the poet has truly sung that in "Sophia's far-famed dome, There first the faith in triumph was led home, Like some high bride, with banner and bright sign, And melody and flowers." We saw places where the cross had been removed, and where images had been defaced. The crescent shone superior, however; and from what we have observed in Constantinople generally, there is no present prospect of a wane of this symbol. The Sultan is building new palaces, the priests have their old powers, the Faith seems as firm, and the heart of the city throbs as warmly as ever. If these be indices of all Islamism, the Cross is not making much headway toward that Millennial point which we are assured it must attain even in these strong holds of the prophet. The population of Constantinople is over 600,000 souls; and how many are in the surrounding cities I do not know. It is curious to see the unusual phases this population presents, not the least curious among which is that of a class called scribes, who sit cross-legged at their stands, and write letters and petitions for the people. The time is reckoned as at Rome, from sundown. The graveyards are the public promenades, where joy meets joy in gratulation. The muffled faces of the women, the odd costume of the men, the sacredness of the public dogs, the howling and dancing of the dervishes—a singular piece of madcapery—the easy air, grace, dignity and gorgeous apparel of the Pashas and Beys contrasted with the heavy-loaded, half bent and head-shaved carriers, are to be met with at every corner. But above all, is the unutterably grand panorama of the cities which form the margin of the Bosphorus, inclosed in walls which gleam as they wind over the distant hills-belted in from the waves of Marmora by a deep blue band, and the harbor interspersed with the heavy steamers and men-of-war, and light canoes by the thousand-and all this flooded by a sunlight, in which the orange and the acanthus bloom as no exotics, and the cypress points upward in rivalry of the gilded minarets and gleaming crescents, and where the transparent water repeats the enchanting scene, and waving, breaks it into myriad forms of glancing splendor. We left these scenes at sunset, and as we moved out of the harbor amidst schools of sportive porpoises and flocks of gulls (called condemned souls), soon bade the lovely scenes at distance farewell. "The sun of life will set" ere we 4 forget thy luxurious people and gorgeous palaces, oh, Byzantium! Already to the memory thou risest like a vision of the night or a reverie of the evening, which painter never illustrated, and which Poetry alone has inwoven in "Dreams of many-colored light, Of golden towers and phantoms fair.” A XIX. Oriental Luxury and Classic Isles. "Slow sinks more lovely ere his race be run, Byron. FTER leaving the Dardanelles, we stopped again at Smyrna, where I took a Turkish bath, the seventh heaven of Orientalism. It is grateful enough for the traveller whose lungs have been shivered almost by the northern airs, or smothered by office confinement, just to breathe this delicious atmosphere under this rainless and cloudless sky. It is holy repose to the mind, vexed at home with business and pestered with care, only to look out through the calm eye upon these seas of beauteous blue (so blue that there is no expression for it), sleeping so calmly and tranquilly under a canopy of purple lustre, to watch the gloaming rise and die away along these coasts of Morea, and to recall in "clear dream and solemn vision," the mighty intellects who of old peopled these shores of Greece. Oh! it was delicious to float amidst the isles, upon this morning, around the promontory of Sunium, past the temple of Pallas upon its rocky crest, or amid the waves which wash Navarino; and which at a later day than that upon which they kissed the victorious prows of Themistocles at Salamis, bore the united fleets of Russia, England, and France, in array against the fleets of the Bosphorus and of Alexandria, and when in signal defeat the Turk was compelled to yield to Greece her dear-bought freedom. In fine, there is a delight which only belongs to dream-land and the Levant which we have experienced throughout these waters, where Beauty loves to linger, and where crusading heroism roamed whilome; but after all, the apex of sensuous delight, the ultimate gratification of all the senses at once, lies in a Turkish bath. It laps the world of sense in a new Elysium. The process consists simply of bath-rooms of heated air, in which, after becoming an embodied ooziness through perspiration, your attendant gently washes you in warm water, rubbing through many courses, including soaping and hair-glove processes (as many as a French table d'hôte), all the old Adam of clay out of you, leaving the original porcelain; when swathed in warm linen, turbaned and chibouqued, you are put away amidst pillowey ottomans to "sleep-perchance to dream ;" and in that dream to be transported, in wavy motion, to new climes of softer skies and lovelier tintings, of mellower music and balmier fragrance. But —I wish I had leisure to tell you my dream as I sat all enveloped amidst a company of easy Greeks and luxurious Turks, in the baths of Smyrna. Two hours long it lasted. An American never experiences at home such an indifferentism to all sublunary things. He never loses his earnest consciousness of what he is where he is what he is born for. But this is a peculiarity of Orientalism. Such an abominable waste of time would never do in America. One's clients would go off in a huffy, and business would disappear completely. But one should not come to Turkey, unless he does as the Turks do, in some respects. I never knew what it meant to "eat like a Turk," before I saw these Islam people in Ramazan time, when after fasting all day, at the sound of the sundown gun, they turn in with pipe and knife, and eat and smoke " till daylight does appear," when the gun calls a halt. If we Christians were one-tenth as observant of our religion as these benighted Mussulmans, one could reasonably speak of the Millennium. Mahometanism is an unceasing prayer. The very atmosphere of the East seems fitted for this most holy, solemn, and devout exercise. If Moslemism be untrue (and why should I write it conditionally)? what a |