Several little Turks were studying their Korans, and sometimes
whispering and playing much like school-boys at home.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.]

The mosques of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan Achmed and Mohammed
II. were visited, but next to St. Sophia the mosque which interested
me most was one to which we could not gain admittance--a mosque some
distance up the Golden Horn, where the sultan is crowned and where
the friend of Mohammed and mother of a former sultan are buried. It is
considered so very sacred that Christian feet are not allowed to enter
even the outer court. As I looked through the grated gate a stout
negress passed me and went in. The women go to the mosques at
different hours from the men.

Not far from here is a remarkable well which enables a fortune-teller
to read the fates of those who consult her. Mr. R----, who has lived
for thirty years in Constantinople and speaks Turkish and Arabic as
fluently as his own language, told me he was once walking with an
effendi to whom he had some months before lent a very valuable Arabic
book. He did not like to ask to have it returned, and was wondering
how he should introduce the subject when they reached the well. Half
from curiosity and half for amusement, he proposed that they should
see what the well would reveal to them. The oracle was a wild-looking,
very old Nubian woman, and directing Mr. R---- to look steadily down
into the well, she gazed earnestly into his eyes to read the fate
there reflected. After some minutes she said, "What you are thinking
of is lost: it has passed from the one to whom you gave it, and will
be seen no more." The effendi asked what the oracle had said, and when
Mr. R---- told him he had been thinking of his book, and repeated what