I was, however, much more amused (for that is the only applicable word) in watching the proceedings of a Greek lady who had accompanied me, than in contemplating the portly saints and florid martyrs by whom I was surrounded. A slight iron rail runs along the screen at the base of the paintings for the purpose of supporting the tapers which the zeal of the pious may be inclined to burn in their honour; and my companion was busily employed in lighting a score of these minute candles at a lamp that is constantly left burning for the purpose; humming in an under-tone, while she did so, the barcarolle in Masaniello which was exchanged, as she commenced her survey of the holy group, for such exclamations as the following:—
“The Virgin—I shall give her four, because my own name is Mary—and look, I pray you, at the pretty effect of her gold hand, and her silver crown, with the light flashing on them. Now comes St. George—I like St. George, so he shall have two. Who is this? Oh! St. Nicholas; I cannot bear St. Nicholas, so I shall pass him by.”
I ventured to intercede in his favour.
“Very well, then, as you wish it, there is one for him; but he never was a favourite of mine: there are two saints in the calendar to whom I never burn a taper, St. Nicholas and St. Demetrius.”
It was, however, finally settled that no partialities were to be indulged on the present occasion, and consequently the effect produced was that of a miniature illumination. My curiosity being satisfied, and the pious offering of my companion completed, we proceeded to make a tour of the vast monastic-looking building forming one side of the enclosure, and which is appropriated to the priests. Ascending an external flight of steps, we found ourselves in a wide gallery, whence the apartments opened on the right and left, precisely as the cells are arranged in a convent. One of these small, but comfortable, rooms is allotted to each individual; and those which we visited were very carefully carpeted and curtained, with divans of chintz, and every luxury customary in Greek apartments. In many of them we found ladies taking coffee with their owners, while servants were hurrying to and fro, full of bustle and importance.
Altogether there was an atmosphere of comfort about the establishment, which quite made me overlook its otherwise dreary extent; and as I passed out by another door, having before me the Palace of the Patriarch, I felt no inclination to commiserate the worldly condition of his subordinates.
From the Priest’s House we proceeded to the prison,[4] where we found one miserable urchin of twelve years old, “in durance vile” for an attempt to turn Musselmaun; he was ragged and almost barefooted, and some pious Turk had promised to recompense his apostacy with a new suit, and a pair of shoes; but, unfortunately for the cause of the Prophet, the boy was caught in the act of elusion, and delivered up by his exasperated parents to the authority of the Church, which had already kept him a prisoner for eight days, and was about to send him, with a chain about his leg, to spend a month in a public mad-house!
What analogy the good Papas had found between the mosque and the mad-house I know not; but the punishment was certainly a most original and frightful one. The boy told us his own tale, and then added, with a broad grin, that he would take them in at last. Two other prisoners, accused of theft, were about to suffer their sentence in a day or two: exile in both cases, accompanied by branding on the breast in the most aggravated of the two; and, meanwhile, close confinement. They were a couple of shrewd-looking, desperate ruffians, and laughed in his face as the keeper spoke of them. We were then shown the bastinado, and the rings and chains for insubordinate prisoners; and, after having made a donation which was received with a surprise perfectly untrammelled with gratitude, I returned to the residence of our hospitable friends, with the rattling of fetters in my ears, and a thousand gloomy fancies floating over my brain.
At half past ten o’clock we repaired once more to the Church, in order to assist at the midnight mass; where a Greek lady very politely gave up her seat to me, that I might have an uninterrupted view of the ceremonies. The service had already commenced when we entered, and the whole interior of the edifice was one blaze of light. The thirty chandeliers suspended from the ceiling threw a many-coloured gleam on the crowd beneath them, from their pendants of tinted glass; and the huge candles in front of the Sanctuary, and the tapers burning before the saints, added to the brightness of the glare; which, penetrating through the lattices of the gallery, enabled me to contemplate as extraordinary a scene as I had ever witnessed in a place of worship. The fair tenants of the front seats presented much the same appearance as a parterre of flowers; there were turbans of every tint, dresses of every dye, bonnets of every form: and such a constant flutter, fidget, and fuss; such bowing, smiling, and whispering, that I began to fancy there must be some mistake, and that we were, in fact, gathered together to witness some mere worldly exhibition.
But the monotonous chanting of the priests, which had been momentarily suspended, was suddenly renewed; and I turned away from a score of polite greetings, offered by persons of whom I had not the slightest recollection, but to whom I had doubtlessly been presented during the carnival, in order to observe the proceedings beneath me.