and upon everything was written ‘For Bagdad.’ So, then, Slave of Love said to his mother, ‘Why is “For Bagdad” written on everything my father left?’ And his mother replied, ‘My son----’” But the Pâdishah has fallen asleep, and the slave lets her head sink gently down among the cushions, and sleeps as well. Every door is closed, every light extinguished, a hundred cupolas gleam like silver in the moonlight, crescents and gilded lattices shine through the foliage; the fountain’s splash and gurgle are heard through the stillness, and at last the entire Seraglio slumbers. And so for thirty years has it slept the sleep of neglect and decay upon its solitary hill. Those verses of the Persian poet which came into the mind of Muhammad the Conqueror when he first set foot in the despoiled palace of the emperors of the East are equally appropriate here: “In the dwellings of kings see where the loathsome spider weaves her busy web, while from Erasciab’s proud summit is heard the raven’s hoarse cry.” THE LAST DAYS. At this point I find that the chain of my reminiscences is broken. I can no longer recollect clearly what I did and saw, nor give those long, minute descriptions which flowed so readily from my pen when writing of the earlier part of my visit. It was nothing now but a succession of hurried expeditions back and forth across the Golden Horn, and from Europe to Asia and back again, followed in the evening by visions of populous towns, throngs of people, forests, fleets, hills, all tinged with a faint touch of melancholy by the ever-present shadow of the day of departure now drawing rapidly near, as though already these sights were only memories of what had been. And yet through all the sense of hurry and confusion which the thought of those last days is sure to bring up, certain objects stand out clearly in my memory. I remember, for instance, very distinctly that beautiful morning on which I visited for the first time the greater number of the imperial mosques, and at the mere thought of it I seem instantly to find myself surrounded by an immense space and a solemn stillness. The tremendous impression made upon one’s mind by St. Sophia does not seem to detract from the effect produced by the first sight of those titanic walls. Here, as elsewhere, the religion of the conquerors has appropriated to itself the religious art of the conquered. Almost all the other mosques are built in imitation of Justinian’s great basilica, with huge domes and semi-domes, courts, and porticoes, some even having the form of a Greek cross. But Islamism has tinged everything with a light and color all its own, which, joined to these familiar features, results in an altogether different style of building, where one sees, as it were, the horizon of an unknown world and breathes the atmosphere surrounding a strange God.