[Illustration: The mosque and the Greek altar of Kourou Cheshmeh] I never saw any one lay a sacrifice to the Goddess of Plenty on that ancient marble. A real rite of sacrifice may be seen, however, at the last _panayíri_ of the year, in the village of San Stefano. The _panayíri_, as you might suppose, is that of St. Stephen. In the Greek calendar St. Stephen’s Day falls on the 27th of December (January 9th), instead of the 26th. The most characteristic part of the _panayíri_ is a church procession which takes place on the afternoon before the feast, when priests and choir-boys march through the village with banners and incense and a small flock of sheep. The sheep are gaily decorated, like those of _Kourban Baïram_, and they come to the same end. In fact, the Greeks apply to their own sacrifice the Turkish name of _kourban_. The main difference is that each animal represents some special votive offering. And the offering may take different forms, according to the means of the giver. One rainy winter afternoon I was watching the sheep, daubed with paint and decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers, gather in the yard of the church, when an old crone came into the porch. She had pulled two or three of her many skirts over her head to protect herself from the rain, and when she dropped them into place there appeared in her arms a big rooster. “My _kourban_,” she said, showing him to a neighbour who greeted her, and she made no bones about taking him with her into the church. Holding him tightly under one arm she proceeded to buy, at the stall inside the door, three big candles, one of which she lighted at the shrine of St. Stephen, another at that of the Virgin, and a third in front of an icon which I did not recognise. That done, she made the round of all the icons in the church, twice over, kissing each one and piously crossing herself before it. Then she sat down in a stall at the back of the church, her rooster blinking around as if determined to pass his last hour with credit. The old woman encouraged him with pats and with remarks which I was sorry not to catch. In the meantime candles multiplied before the icons, a sharp sweet odour added itself to that of the strewn bay on the floor, a brisk business was done by a choir-boy who sold, wrapped up in gay tissue-paper, dried leaves supposed to be of the plant which sprang from St. Stephen’s crown of martyrdom, and a big frosted cake was brought in with ceremony and put between two candles on a table opposite the bishop’s throne. At last the Bishop himself arrived, rather wet and out of breath, and was inducted into his vestments beside the stove at the back of the church, not far from where the old woman was sitting with her cock. At that point the latter, unable to contain his emotions any longer, suddenly filled the holy place with a loud and pagan crow.