“There is also the figure of Christ whose neck the Jew struck,[184] and the bronze trumpet of Joshua, who took Jericho, and the marble mouth of the well of Samaria. Near it Christ said to the woman of Samaria, ‘Give me to drink;’ the well mouth has been cut in half, and the Samaritans still draw water [from the other half]. “There lie also the bodies of S. Abercius, S. Gregory, and S. Sylvester, and the heads of Cyrus and John, and many other relics. There also is the Baptistery, upon which is painted all the history of the baptism of Christ by John in the Jordan: and how John taught the people, and how little children and men threw themselves in the Jordan: all this was executed by Paul the Skilful during my lifetime, and there is no painting like this. There are there wooden supports, upon which the patriarch has had placed the figure of Christ, thirty cubits high; Paul first painted the Christ with colours made of precious stones and crushed pearls mixed with water; this image is still at S. Sophia. “And when they sing matins at S. Sophia, they sing first before the great doors of the church, in the narthex, then they enter and sing in the middle of the church; then they open the paradise gates, and sing the third time before the altar. Sundays and saints’ days the patriarch assists at matins and at mass, then he blesses the singers from the ambo, they stop singing and then say the _polykronia_: then they begin to sing again, and sing as harmoniously and sweetly as the angels till the Mass. After matins are finished, they put off their surplices and then go out and ask the patriarch’s benediction for the mass. After matins the prologue is read in the ambo till the mass; when the prologue is finished, the liturgy is commenced, and, after the service is over, the chief priest in the sanctuary recites the prayer called ‘Of the ambo,’ while the second priest recites it in the church on the side of the ambo, away from [the sanctuary]: both, when the prayer is finished, bless the people. In a similar way vespers are sung. There are no bells at S. Sophia, but a little hand-bat [_hagiosidère_] which they strike for matins, though they do not strike it for mass and vespers, as in other churches: they follow the precepts of the angel in having this bat; the Latins have bells.... When they built S. Sophia, they inclosed holy relics in the walls of the sanctuary. There are also many cisterns at S. Sophia. Above [evidently _under_] the galleries are the cisterns and storehouses of the patriarchs and of the Church. Vegetables of every kind [suitable for the table] of the patriarchs, melons, apples, and pears are preserved at the bottom of the cisterns in baskets hung by cords: when the patriarch wants to eat, they bring them up quite fresh: and the emperor eats them also. The bath of the patriarch is also above [under] the galleries; the water of the fountains mounts by pipes, and the rainwater is preserved in cisterns.