These were soon disposed of, and then we were permitted to contemplate at our ease the marvels of the mighty pile, with its vast uncumbered space, its bronzed columns, (many of them clamped with iron to enable them to resist more powerfully the ravages of time,) and the huge, shapeless, mystic-looking masses of dark shadow immediately beneath the dome, which, after you have lost yourself in a thousand vague conjectures on their nature and purport, turn out to be nothing more than the mere daubing of some journeyman painter for the purpose of effacing two mighty cherubim, that, in days of yore, pointed to the Christian votary the way to Heaven, but which now, in the dim twilight of the place, look like familiar spirits, shapeless and grim, guarding the accumulated relics of the days of paganism, congregated beneath them. The view from this gallery, at the upper extremity of the mosque, is extremely imposing; from that point you take in, and feel, all the extent of the edifice, whose effect is rendered the more striking, from the fact that it is entirely laid bare beneath you, being totally free from the divisions and subdivisions which in Catholic chapels are necessary for the location of the different shrines. Plain and unornamented, save by the casing of marble already alluded to, the walls tower upward in severe beauty, until they reach the base of the stately dome, which is poized, as if by some mighty magic, on the capitals of a circle of gigantic and rudely fashioned pillars; immediately beneath you are the columns that support the gallery in which you stand, throughout the whole extent of the temple; while on your left hand the marble pulpit, with its flight of noble steps, shut in by a finely sculptured door of the same material, and on your right the Imperial closet, with its gilded lattices, complete the detail of the picture. The two huge waxen candles occupying the sides of the arched recess, or _mihrab_, at the eastern end of the building, are lighted every night, and last exactly twelve months; they are the very Gog and Magog of wax-chandlery, and must be at least eighteen inches in circumference. In making the tour of the gallery, we came upon a door that had been stopped with masonry; the frame into which it had originally fitted is of white marble, and remains quite perfect. There are traces of violence on the brick-work, which appears to have been secured by some powerful cement that has indurated with age, until it has acquired the solidity of stone, and has become capable of resisting any ordinary effort to remove it; and this door is the second miracle of St. Sophia.