The most famous mosque of all is Santa Sophia, once a Christian church as you can tell by its name, built by the Byzantine Greeks about 300 A. D. It is yellow, weathered by time, is very big and on top of a hill. Inside, it is a dark golden-brown, and the pigeons flying around under the roof seem to be far, far above you. The rugs on the floor are all on a slant because the church was built originally with the altar toward the east; later the Moslems made it face toward Mecca, southeast of Constantinople. No Turk ever walks on those rugs with his shoes on,--he leaves them at the door or carries them in his hand,--and before he comes in to pray, he washes his feet and hands at the fountain outside, no matter how cold the water or the weather. Fountains are everywhere in Constantinople, made of white marble and exquisitely carved. Constantinople has been famous in history ever since the legend that Leander died in swimming the Hellespont, the old name of the Dardanelles. Nations have quarreled over it, because it is one of the most wonderfully situated cities in the world, and Constantine the Great made it the capital of his huge empire. You will study all that in Roman history if you have not studied it already, and will read also of its capture by the Turks, under Mohammed the Conqueror, nearly five hundred years ago. The history of the Ottoman Empire makes the most exciting fairy tale seem colorless. Perhaps you do not know that, when Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of France were forming a mutual-admiration society of their two kingdoms on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, there was another king, as great as either of them, in the southeast of Europe, carving great pieces out of other countries for his empire. This sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, was a great lawgiver. His reign was the height of Turkey's power. Soon after its close the rest of Europe became interested in Turkey, especially Russia and England. Recently, German influence has been stronger than any other at the Turkish court. That is why Turkey fought on the side of Germany, and why England and France determined to storm the forts and brave the mines in the water entrances to Constantinople and so open up a way to the Mediterranean for their great ally, Russia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE GIANT AND THE GENIE BY GEORGE FREDERIC STRATTON