The Patriarch’s throne, simple, and even clumsy in its form and fashion, had existed for twelve hundred years, and was consequently respectable from its antiquity; close beside it stood the raised and high-backed chair of Logotheti; and about twenty feet beyond, stretched the magnificent screen of the Sanctuary, delicately carved in dark oak. This screen particularly attracted me, the workmanship was so minute and elaborate, and the columns which separated the panels in such high and bold relief. Here, as at Pera, dry, hard, savage-looking Saints ornamented the spaces between them, and were equally decorated with the incongruous and disjointed offerings of their votaries. The most popular personage of the whole calendar among the Greeks is decidedly St. George, who had no less than two entire effigies in beaten silver in this church. The pulpit was of mosaic, thickly overstrown with stars of mother-of-pearl; and two large chests, similar to those which I have already named, were composed of the same materials. The women’s gallery was even more closely latticed than that at Pera, and the flood of light without was admitted so sparingly by the high and infrequent casements, that a solemn twilight reigned throughout the edifice, which accorded admirably with its antique and somewhat gloomy character. Thanks to the guidance under which we entered, the priest who had opened the doors for us was obliging enough to walk to the other extremity of the church, and thus leave us the opportunity of penetrating into the Sanctuary, which the profane foot of woman is supposed never to tread. It consisted of a small chapel, containing an altar by no means remarkable, spread with the sacramental plate: a high-backed chair of marble for the Patriarch, a fountain for the use of the officiating priests, a few miserable oil-paintings, and a vast number of small pictures of Saints and Virgins, placed there during a certain time for “a consideration,” to become hallowed by the sanctity of the spot ere they were removed to the private chapels of the different families: every Greek, however limited in fortune, having an apartment in his house fitted up as an oratory. I was, however, much more amused (for that is the only applicable word) in watching the proceedings of a Greek lady who had accompanied me, than in contemplating the portly saints and florid martyrs by whom I was surrounded. A slight iron rail runs along the screen at the base of the paintings for the purpose of supporting the tapers which the zeal of the pious may be inclined to burn in their honour; and my companion was busily employed in lighting a score of these minute candles at a lamp that is constantly left burning for the purpose; humming in an under-tone, while she did so, the barcarolle in Masaniello which was exchanged, as she commenced her survey of the holy group, for such exclamations as the following:—