But the minarets beckon; they prove the best of guides. Their white spires give a sure clue to the whereabouts of the ancient mosques and churches. And here, through my window, I could count most of these landmarks by which I steered. Nearest and tallest rose the minaret of Sancta Sophia, Holy Wisdom, the cathedral church of the Metropolitan. During the ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter great crowds had gathered here. Good Friday was the day of the people’s procession. The peasants from the scattered villages brightened the town with the cheerful reds and blues of their national costumes, and at night all the world walked singing solemn chants, following the bishops in their glittering copes and jewelled mitres and the simple flower-arched bier. Easter Eve proved to be the official festival of the Greek army and government. A dense mass of people filled the church and surged confusedly in the darkness of the open square outside it; each man, woman, and child, holding an unlit candle in their hands—some large, some small—painted with holy symbols and flowers; careful souls, mindful of their gala clothes, taking pains to hold their candle gingerly by its long cotton wick. Within the building the deep gloom was hardly broken by the lights at the two lecterns, at which the laity read by turns, and the glimmer from where behind the icon-screen came the murmur of priests intoning. After what felt an interminable period of waiting, it was midnight. ‘Christ is risen,’ came the cry. The heavy gold embroidered curtain rose, disclosing within the sanctuary the long, low Altar of the Last Supper. Out poured a brilliant procession of ecclesiastics, marching down the nave to take their stand on the platform in the outer court; everyone in the crowd lighting his candle from his neighbour’s as the _cortège_ passed along. In a moment the church was bright from end to end. The massive pillars stood like rocks in a waving flickering sea of gold. Then, for the first time, the great Madonna of the apse shone revealed. Enthroned on high, against the hollow, glowing background of mosaic, She held out Her Son to bless a strange assemblage under the dome, where British and French officers stood with their Greek comrades, headed by the Greek General Commanding, and all his staff, each holding a lighted taper in honour of His resurrection. What a night for the German aircraft, suddenly flashed across our minds! In the very street outside, now lit with a thousand lights and packed with human beings, I had seen their ugly work only a few weeks before. I shuddered as we forged our way home. Up the hill directly above Sancta Sophia, the somewhat stumpy minaret of St. Paraskevi reared its head. This grand fourth-century basilica, finer than any building of its kind at Constantinople, is now given over to the Greek refugees from Asia Minor. Their carpets and piteous coloured rags hang in complete disorder from its high wooden galleries.