As I stood a few paces within the doorway, I could not distinguish the limits of the edifice—I looked forward, upward—to the right hand, and to the left—but I could only take in a given space, covered with human beings, kneeling in regular lines, and at a certain signal bowing their turbaned heads to the earth, as if one soul and one impulse animated the whole congregation; while the shrill chanting of the choir pealed through the vast pile, and died away in lengthened cadences among the tall dark pillars which support it.
And this was St. Sophia! To me it seemed like a creation of enchantment—the light—the ringing voices—the mysterious extent, which baffled the earnestness of my gaze—the ten thousand turbaned Moslems, all kneeling with their faces turned towards Mecca, and at intervals laying their foreheads to the earth—the bright and various colours of the dresses—and the rich and glowing tints of the carpets that veiled the marble floor—all conspired to form a scene of such unearthly magnificence, that I felt as though there could be no reality in what I looked on, but that, at some sudden signal, the towering columns would fail to support the vault of light above them, and all would become void.
I had forgotten every thing in the mere exercise of vision;—the danger of detection—the flight of time—almost my own identity—when my companion uttered the single word “Gel—Come”—and, passing forward to another door on the opposite side of the building, I instinctively followed him, and once more found myself in the court.
What a long breath I drew, as the cold air swept across my forehead! I felt like one who has suddenly stepped beyond the circle of an enchanter, and dissolved the spell of some mighty magic.
“Whither shall we now bend our way?” asked my companion, as we resumed our shoes.
"To Sultan Achmet,”—I answered briefly. I could not have bestowed many words on my best friend at that moment; the very effort at speech was painful.
In ten minutes more we stood before the mosque of Sultan Achmet, and, ascending the noble flight of steps which lead to the principal entrance, we again cast off our shoes, and entered the temple.
Infinitely less vast than St. Sophia, this mosque impressed me with a feeling of awe, much greater than that which I had experienced in visiting its more stately neighbour—four colossal pillars of marble, five or six feet in circumference, support the dome, and these were wreathed with lamps, even to the summit; while the number of lights suspended from the ceiling gave the whole edifice the appearance of a space overhung with stars. We entered at a propitious moment, for the Faithful were performing their prostrations, and had consequently no time to speculate on our appearance; the chanting was wilder and shriller than that which I had just heard at St. Sophia; it sounded to me, in fact, more like the delirious outcry, which we may suppose to have been uttered by a band of Delphic Priestesses, than the voices of a choir of uninspired human beings.
We passed onward over the yielding carpets, which returned no sound beneath our footsteps: and there was something strangely supernatural in the spectacle of several human beings moving along, without creating a single echo in the vast space they traversed. We paused an instant beside the marble-arched platform, on which the muezzin was performing his prostrations to the shrill cry of the choir;—we lingered another, to take a last look at the kneeling thousands who were absorbed in their devotions; and then, rapidly descending into the court, my companion uttered a hasty congratulation on the successful issue of our bold adventure, to which I responded a most heartfelt ‘Amen’—and in less than an hour, I cast off my fèz and my pelisse in the harem of——Effendi, and exclaimed to its astonished inmates:—“I have seen the mosques!”
Knowing what I now know of the Turks, I would not run the same risk a second time, though the Prophet’s Beard were to be my recompense. There are some circumstances in which ignorance of the extent of the danger is its best antidote.