conducted me down a narrow stair beneath a low damp roof: at the bottom was a sort of cistern, and my guide, holding the candle so that its rays fell upon the water, pointed out some red fishes swimming about, gabbling meanwhile some unintelligible rigmarole, which was no doubt the famous legend of the miracle of the fish. It seems that at the moment when the Mussulmans made their final and successful assault upon Constantinople a Greek monk was engaged in frying fish in the monastery kitchen. Suddenly another monk appeared in the doorway, crying that the city had been taken. “Bah!” replied the first; “I will believe it when I see these fish jump out of the pan;” upon which out jumped the fish as lively and frisky as you please, half brown and half red, because only one side was done; and they were religiously picked up, as any one might suppose, and put back in the water whence they had been originally taken; and there they are swimming to this very day. His recital finished, the monk threw some drops of holy water in my face, and, when these had fallen back in his hand converted into coin, reconducted me to the entrance, where he stood leaning against the doorway watching my receding figure with his dull, sleepy little eyes. [B] Ali Pasha was beheaded on February 5th, 1822.--TRANS. And ever on the one hand wall after wall, tower succeeding tower, and on the other shaded cemeteries, sometimes a green field or so, a vineyard, or a group of deserted houses. Now and then, as I looked ahead from some depression in the road, I would fancy that I could see the final outline, but on reaching high ground the same unbroken succession would again be seen stretching away into the distance, seemingly without end: at every few steps new towers would come in sight, far away, one behind the other, two or three at a time, as though they were pressing forward and peering over one another’s heads in the effort to see who it could be thus daring to disturb that silence and solitude. [Illustration: Interior View of the Seven Towers.]