Four mosques in particular are the pride and jewels of my native town. They were all erected by princesses—the two oldest after the designs of Sinan. The earliest one, dating from 1547, is the first you see when you come to Scutari. It stands, like the mosque of Rüstem Pasha, on a terrace above the hum of the landing stage. As a matter of fact it was built by the wife of Rüstem Pasha, who was also the daughter of Süleïman the Magnificent and Roxelana. Mihrîmah, this lady was called, which means Moon and Sun. Her mosque is named after her, though it is also called the Great Mosque and the Mosque of the Pitcher—for what reason I have yet to penetrate. It is a little stiff and severe, to my way of thinking. The minarets have not the spring that Sinan afterward learned to evoke, and the interior is rather bare. Perhaps it has been pillaged. But the courtyard, looking out through trees to the Bosphorus, is a delightful spot, and it contains one of the most admirable mosque fountains I know. There are also other fountains in the court, and an old sun-dial, too overgrown by leaves to do its work, and a _mouvakît haneh_. When I was speaking of mosque yards in general I did not mention this institution. It may seem to us that people who count twelve o’clock at sunset cannot pay much attention to the science of time keeping. But the exact hours of prayer, like the exact direction of Mecca, are very important matters for Mohammedans. The Arabs, I believe, were the first inventors of clocks. At all events, the first clock seen in Europe was a present to Charlemagne from Haroun al Rashid. A clock is an essential part of the furniture of every mosque. Haroun al Rashid is a long time dead, however, and most of the clocks seen to-day were made in England. Mosques of any size, nevertheless, have their own corps of timekeepers, who do their work in a pavilion called the _mouvakît haneh_—the house of time—and incidentally repair the watches of the neighbourhood. Some of them also take solar observations with instruments that were made for a museum. [Illustration: Fountain in the mosque yard of Mihrîmah]