the religious exercises of the day. Which, like the early Christian agape and the contemporary Italian _festa_, is another survival of an older faith. During the Byzantine period the annual pilgrimage in state of an emperor to one of the shrines of the city was a πανήγυρις. But religious exercises are not the essential part of a _panayíri_ to most of those who take part in one. Nor need a _panayíri_ necessarily take place at a holy well. The number of them that do take place is quite fabulous. Still, as the joy of life was discovered in Greece, who shall blame the Greeks of to-day for finding so many occasions to manifest it? And it is natural that these occasions should oftenest arise during the clement half of the year, when the greater feasts of the church are done. One of the earliest “panegyrics” of the season is that of _Aï Saránda_, which is held on the 9th/22d of March. _Aï Saránda_ means St. Forty to many good people, although others designate thereby the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste—now the Turkish city of Sîvas. There is a spring dedicated to these worthies on the outskirts of Pera, between the place called The Stones and the Palace of Dolma Ba’hcheh. I find it difficult to share the popular belief that the forty martyrs of Sîvas ever had anything to do with this site. It is true that the pious Empress Pulcheria dug them up in the fifth century and transported them with great pomp to the church she built for them on the farther side of the Golden Horn. It is also true that their church was demolished shortly before the Turkish conquest, and its marbles used in fortifying the Golden Gate. But why should a Turkish tomb on the hillside above the _áyazma_ be venerated by the Greeks as the last resting-place of “St. Forty”? Has it anything to do with the fact that the forty martyrs are commemorated at the vernal equinox, which happens to be the New Year of the Persians and which the Turks also observe?