There is something very fine about the religion of Mohammed--you do not have to know much about it to appreciate the faith of its followers, whether you know what it is they believe or not. In their outward observance, at least, of the rules laid down for them in the Koran, they show a sincerity which teaches a great lesson. You can see them at any hour of the day or in any place going through their devotions. A soldier will kneel down in a band stand, where a moment before he has been playing for the regiment, and say his prayers before two thousand spectators; and I have had some difficulty in getting my trunks on the Orient Express, because the porters were at another end of a crowded, noisy platform bowing towards the East. Once a year they fast for a month, the season of Ramazan, and as I was in Eastern countries during that month I know that they fast rigidly. Ramazan begins in Egypt when the new moon appears in a certain well near Cairo. Two men watch this well, and when they see the reflection of the new moon on its surface they run into Cairo with the news, and Ramazan begins. There is nothing which so well illustrates the unchangeableness of the East and its customs as the sight of these men running through the streets of Cairo, with its dog-carts and electric lights, its calendars and almanacs, to tell that the moon has again reached that point that it had reached for many hundreds of years before, when all the faithful must fast and pray. [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA] On one of the last days of Ramazan I went to the door of St. Sophia, and was led up a winding staircase in one of its minarets--a minaret-tower so broad and high that the staircase within it has no steps, but is paved smoothly like a street. It seemed as though we had been climbing nearly ten minutes before we stepped out into a great gallery, and looked down upon thousands of turbaned figures bowing and kneeling and rising again in long rows like infantry in close order. Between these worshippers and ourselves were fifty circles of floating tapers swinging from chains, and hanging like a smoky curtain of fire between us and the figures below. The voice of the priest rose in a high, uncanny cry, and the sound of the thousands of men falling forward on their faces and arms was like the rumble of the waves breaking on the shore. Outside, the tops of minarets were circled with lights and lamps strung on long ropes, with the ends flying free, and swinging to and fro in the night wind like necklaces of stars. This was the most beautiful of all the sights of Constantinople; and as a matter of opinion, and not of fact, I think the best part of Constantinople is that part of it that is in the air. * * * * *