The Turkish women are intuitively pious; the exercises of religion are admirably suited to their style of existence. In the seclusion of the harem the hour of prayer is an epoch of unwearying interest to the whole of its inhabitants; and there is something touching and beautiful in the humility with which, when they have spread their prayer-carpets, they veil themselves with a scarf of white muslin, ere they intrude into the immediate presence of their Maker.
Being aware of all this, the appearance of females in the mosque of St. Sophia did not produce the same effect upon me as upon many of the party. Those who were lately from Europe could scarcely believe their eyes; and when, in reply to the remark of a person who stood near me, expressing his astonishment at such an apparition, I explained to him that the presence of females in the different mosques was of constant and hourly occurrence, he looked so exceedingly annoyed at the sweeping away of his ancient prejudices, that I verily believe he thought the deficiency of the whole female Empire of Turkey must be transferred to my own little person, and that I, at least, could have no soul.
Upon the whole, the first view of St. Sophia disappointed me; I had carried away an idea of much greater extent; spacious as it was, I could now see from one extremity of the wide edifice to the other—I was no longer bewildered by the blaze of innumerable lights—and I know not wherefore, but I regretted the mysterious indistinctness of outline which had thralled me during my midnight visit.
Ignorant as I am also of architecture as a science, I have a sufficient perception of the beautiful and the symmetrical, to make me lament the incongruous medley of different orders and materials by which I was surrounded. What gigantic pillars encircle the dome!—What individual treasures are collected together! But with what recklessness are they forced into juxtaposition! Columns of varying sizes and proportions; some of Egyptian granite, others of porphyry, others again of scagliola, and various precious marbles, are scattered, like the fragments of many distinct buildings, throughout the whole body of the edifice. The eye is bewildered, and the mind remains unsatisfied.
Eight of the porphyry pillars are relics of the temple of Heliopolis; while those of verd-antique are from that of Ephesus. The walls are lined with marble, jasper, porphyry, and verd-antique, to the height of a gallery which surrounds the temple; and which, like the base of the building, is floored with rich marbles, and supported by plain columns of the same material. But the dome, which was formerly adorned with minute mosaics, was white-washed when the Turks converted St. Sophia into a mosque; and the original richness of the design is now only to be deciphered in spots where the plaster has fallen away; added to which, the inferior Imams attached to the building make a trade of the fragments of mosaic that they are continually tearing down, and which are eagerly bought up by travellers, who thus encourage a Vandalism whose destructive effects are irreparable.
Before we ascended to the gallery, we were introduced to one of the miracles of the place, in the shape of a column; a portion of whose surface is cased with iron, in one part of which a deep cavity is worn away beneath the metal; and into this orifice the visiter is invited to insert his finger, in order to convince himself of the humidity of the marble. This column is called by the Imams “the Sweating Stone;” but if the indignation of the inanimate matter at the transformation of a Christian temple into a Mahommedan mosque have really reduced it to a state of perpetual and palpable perspiration, I am under the necessity of confessing that the miracle was not wrought for me; for, on making the trial, I was conscious only of an extreme chill.
Hence we ascended by a very dilapidated and crumbling spiral stair to the gallery, devoted originally to the use of the women, and capacious enough to contain several hundreds; and here the mosaic merchants plunged their hands into their breasts, and from amid the folds of their garments drew forth some thousands of the gilt and coloured stones which they had torn away from the elaborately-ornamented dome.
These were soon disposed of, and then we were permitted to contemplate at our ease the marvels of the mighty pile, with its vast uncumbered space, its bronzed columns, (many of them clamped with iron to enable them to resist more powerfully the ravages of time,) and the huge, shapeless, mystic-looking masses of dark shadow immediately beneath the dome, which, after you have lost yourself in a thousand vague conjectures on their nature and purport, turn out to be nothing more than the mere daubing of some journeyman painter for the purpose of effacing two mighty cherubim, that, in days of yore, pointed to the Christian votary the way to Heaven, but which now, in the dim twilight of the place, look like familiar spirits, shapeless and grim, guarding the accumulated relics of the days of paganism, congregated beneath them.
The view from this gallery, at the upper extremity of the mosque, is extremely imposing; from that point you take in, and feel, all the extent of the edifice, whose effect is rendered the more striking, from the fact that it is entirely laid bare beneath you, being totally free from the divisions and subdivisions which in Catholic chapels are necessary for the location of the different shrines. Plain and unornamented, save by the casing of marble already alluded to, the walls tower upward in severe beauty, until they reach the base of the stately dome, which is poized, as if by some mighty magic, on the capitals of a circle of gigantic and rudely fashioned pillars; immediately beneath you are the columns that support the gallery in which you stand, throughout the whole extent of the temple; while on your left hand the marble pulpit, with its flight of noble steps, shut in by a finely sculptured door of the same material, and on your right the Imperial closet, with its gilded lattices, complete the detail of the picture.
The two huge waxen candles occupying the sides of the arched recess, or mihrab, at the eastern end of the building, are lighted every night, and last exactly twelve months; they are the very Gog and Magog of wax-chandlery, and must be at least eighteen inches in circumference.