The interior of a Turkish room seems formed everywhere on the same model, and the one I have already described to you in our own lodging, though of the poorer sort, is on the same plan with the rest. The lower part is sometimes as large as the upper, sometimes much smaller. A little wooden shaft commonly runs up the sides from the step which separates the two levels, and something of the sort is frequently continued across the room, on the ceiling. The divân surrounds usually three sides of the upper part of the room; here the Turk or Greek reclines for the greatest part of the day, smoking his long pipe, or looking out of the windows, which extend as far as the divân itself; and here, I believe, he sleeps at night. All this part of the dwelling, among the richer Turks, is ornamented with painting and gilding, fancifully, and sometimes tastefully disposed, and the cushions and backs of the divân are covered with silk, and embroidered. The poorer content themselves with inferior materials and less decoration. Every visitor is presented with a pipe and a cup of coffee, and generally with sweetmeats. The porcelain coffee-cup is placed within a cup of metal, often richly ornamented, and it is a merit that the liquor should be very thick. All these little particulars strike the attention when we first meet with them, but they are nothing in words, because they have been so often described that the words are become familiar, though the customs are new. The early antiquities of this place are so interesting, and the Christian ones of so little importance, that I find it requires a considerable effort to turn my attention at all towards them. The principal church is a gloomy building, divided by ranges of columns, and not distinctly exhibiting the form of the Greek cross. A little church dedicated to St. George, on the side towards mount Anchesmus, is more characteristic. The body of the building is nearly square, with a porch of the whole width opening by three arches. A Greek cross rises above the square, and the intersection is crowned with an octagonal lantern, having a shaft at each angle, supporting a curved rib, and a narrow semicircular-headed opening on each side. The dome is tiled and springs from the angles, so that, as in some churches I have noticed to you in the south of France, the upright faces of the sides of the octagon cut into it. The whole width of this edifice is but 27 feet, and another little church dedicated to the same saint, a little below the monument of Thrasyllus, is still smaller, the nave being but 7 feet wide, but it is very well constructed. These Greek churches, like the ancient temples, must have been for the priests, and not for the people. [Illustration: Illustration of church] LETTER XLIX. NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ATHENS. _Athens, April, 1818._