matured the whole design, death overtook him, and he left his mosque unfinished. It was reserved for Osman, or Ottoman, to complete it. His vizir died immensely rich, and, by the maxims of the Turkish empire, his wealth reverted to the sovereign. “The Sultan,” says the law, “never loses his inheritance to wealth, for, cast it upon the ocean, and let it sink to the bottom, it wall again rise to the surface, and become visible.” Enabled, it should appear, by this accession of means, he set about completing the unfinished mosque of his predecessor. This he effected, though his pious work did not propitiate Allah to alter his decrees with respect to his own fate; it was very miserable. He was seized by Daud, his rebellious vizir, and sent a prisoner to the Seven Towers; here, at the age of nineteen, in the prime of life, vigour of youth, and bloom of beauty, he was strangled, his features mutilated, and one of his ears cut off, and sent as a grateful present to his successor. Notwithstanding the intentions of its first architect, the design of the mosque of Osman is purely Oriental; yet it has an elegant appearance. The approach is by an arcade, supported by a colonnade of light and lofty pillars, enclosing the court. The whole of the interior is covered by an expansive dome, without any visible support of columns. Our illustration represents the court with the congregation gathering for prayers, and some of them engaged in the usual preparations. Nothing can be more grave and solemn than these. The people seem impressed with their pious purpose before they enter the house of prayer. They divest themselves of their gayest apparel, because they suppose humility of appearance is required before God. As they approach, the groups appear to be more than usually serious and silent, as if meditating on what they were about to do. When arrived at the reservoir of water provided for ablution, they wash their face, hands, and feet, from a feeling that personal purity is indicative of purity of the mind. When ascending the steps leading to the entrance, they deposit their shoes, from a conviction that the place they are about to enter is holy ground; and before the gate they sometimes prostrate themselves in reverence to the tomb of the Prophet, whose relative direction and position is always designated in every mosque. Before the door is suspended a curtain, which it is necessary to push aside on entering, and it immediately falls back, to screen the congregation from profane eyes. The floor is generally covered with carpets, on which the people kneel, and then fall prostrate on their faces, resuming occasionally their erect position. During their prayer there is no turning of the head, no wandering of the eye, to mark any abstraction of thought, but every faculty both of mind and body seems wrapt and bound up in the solemn act they are performing. Travellers who have noticed this total engagement of the attention of a Turk when