58.—Of the Greeks.
Not far from Constantinoppel there is an island called Lemprie; in it is a mountain that is so high, it reaches to the clouds.[(1)] At Constantinoppel is the most beautiful church, so that nothing like it can be found in India; it is called Sancta Sophya, and is covered all over with lead, and one can see one’s self on the walls inside the church as if in a mirror, because the marble and lapis-lazuli on the wall is clear and clean. In this same church is their patriarch with his priests, and the Greeks and all those who are under the patriarch go in pilgrimage, as we, for our sins, go to Rome. When Constantine had finished the churches, he placed as an improvement in the church, high up in the middle of the dome, five golden discs, and each disc is as wide, large, and thick as a mill-stone;[(2)] but the emperor took down two during the great war which the Turkish king Wyasit had with him, when he besieged Constantinoppel for seven years. I myself was at that same time with the king in Turkey,[(3)] and I have also seen the three discs [left] in the church. The church of Sancta Sophia has three hundred gates, which are all of brass. I was III months at Constantinoppel in the house of the patriarch, but I and my comrades were not allowed to walk about the city, because they were afraid that the Infidels would recognise us, and would take us before the emperor. I would gladly have seen it (the city), but it could not be, because the emperor had forbidden it, but even then we sometimes went out with the patriarch’s servants.