The festival lasted three days, and not a single hand nor voice was raised in violence during the whole period; when, as if resolved to vindicate themselves from the aspersion of utter insensibility, the Catholic and Schismatic sects terminated their sports with a regular fight, in front of an Armenian church in Galata. The Schismatic party were returning to the place of embarkation in order to pass over to Constantinople, and singing at the pitch of their voices, at the precise moment when a priest of the opposite sect was performing mass in the church. A messenger was despatched to the revellers to enforce silence until they had quitted the precincts of the chapel; but his errand was a vain one; the Schismatics were not to be controlled; a crowd collected—the merits of the case were explained—the Catholics became furious, and insisted on the instant departure of the intruders—the Schismatics waxed valiant, and refused to move—and, finally, after a fight in which many blows were given and received, the Turks stepped in as mediators, and carried off a score of the combatants to Stamboul, where they were detained for the night, fined a few piastres, and dismissed like a set of lubberly schoolboys, who had wound up a holyday with a boxing-match! CHAPTER XXII. The Mosques at Midnight—Baron Rothschild—Firmans and Orders—A Proposition—Masquerading—St. Sophia by Lamplight—The Congregation—The Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Colossal Pillars—Return to the Harem—The Chèïk-Islam—Count Bathiany—The Party—St. Sophia by Daylight—Erroneous Impression—Turkish Paradise—Piety of the Turkish Women—The Vexed Traveller—Disappointment—Confusion of Architecture—The Sweating Stone—Women’s Gallery—View from the Gallery—Gog and Magog at Constantinople—The Impenetrable Door—Ancient Tradition—Leads of the Mosque—Gallery of the Dome—The Doves—The Atmeidan—The Tree of Groans—The Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Antique Vases—Historical Pulpit—The Inner Court—The Six Minarets—The Mosque of Solimaniè—Painted Windows—Ground-plan of the Principal Mosques—The Treasury of Solimaniè—Mausoleum of Solyman the Magnificent—Model of the Mosque at Mecca—Mausoleums in General—Indispensable Accessories—The Medresch—Mosque of Sultan Mahmoud at Topphannè. Although I am about to describe to my readers a morning at the mosques, I must nevertheless first conduct them into the mosques at midnight, by recounting a visit to St. Sophia and Sultan Achmet, which I have hitherto forborne to mention, in the hope (since realized) of being enabled, ere my departure from Constantinople, both to form and to impart a better idea of these magnificent edifices than my first adventurous survey had rendered me capable of doing.