The tombs that accompany mosques are only less interesting than the mosques themselves, both for their architectural character and for their historical associations. When space permits they lie in an inner enclosure of the mosque yard, technically called the garden, behind the mosque. Long before Constantinople became their capital the sultans had perfected a type of mausoleum, or _türbeh_. This is a domed structure, usually octagonal in shape, cheerfully lighted by two or three tiers of windows. Every tomb has its own guardian, called the _türbedar_, and some are attached to a school or other philanthropic institution. These mausoleums are often extremely elaborate in decoration, but they all retain a certain primitive simplicity with regard to their central feature. There is no sarcophagus of marble or porphyry. The occupant of the _türbeh_ is buried in the floor, and over his grave stands a plain wooden catafalque covered with green cloth. Like a Turkish coffin, it is ridged and inclined from the head, where a wooden standard supports the turban of the deceased. A woman’s catafalque has no standard, a scarf being thrown across the head. Embroideries, of gold on velvet, or of quotations from the Koran in a zigzag pattern, may cover the green cloth. Such embroideries are often a piece of a last year’s hanging from the Kaaba at Mecca or from the Prophet’s tomb at Medina. But nothing is imposing about the catafalque unless its size, which indicates the importance of the person commemorated. The largest one I remember is that of Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror. And the rail around the catafalque is all that suggests permanence, and that is generally of wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The simple epitaph is written on a placard which hangs casually from the rail, or perhaps from an immense candle to be lighted on holy nights. Near by may be an inlaid folding stand with an illuminated Koran. The floor is matted and covered with rugs like a mosque or a house. [Illustration: The tomb of Sultan Ahmed I] The tombs attached to the imperial mosques are naturally the most important. Not every sultan built his own, however. In the _türbeh_ of Ahmed I two other sultans are buried, his sons Osman II—who was the first sultan to be murdered by his own people—and the bloody Mourad IV. Among the innumerable people whom the latter put to death was his brother Prince Baïezid, the hero of Racine’s “Bajazet,” who lies beside him. In the tomb of Hadijeh at Yeni Jami five sultans rest: her son Mehmed IV, her grandsons Moustafa II and Ahmed III, and her great-grandsons Mahmoud I and Osman III. These and others of the larger tombs are noticeable for the number of little catafalques they contain, marking the graves of little princes who were strangled on the accession of their eldest brother.