File:Six and one abroad (1914) (14784510015).jpg

Identifier: sixoneabroad00thom (find matches)
Title: Six and one abroad
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Thomas, Sidney J., 1868-
Subjects:
Publisher: (Austin, Tex.) Printed by E.L. Steck
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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, we passed by way of a narrow, sloppy introduction ofstreet into a tower wherein we were wound around and upby a spiral footway till we were discharged into a gallery over-looking the main floor. Ah, me! Finest specimen of Byzantine art in the world!Lovely columns; grand arches, was the ecstatic exordium ofour conductor. True; to some extent; but the view was blotched by forty-eleven-dozen Turkish rugs that curled rudely at their edgesand made a mess of the clean marble floor, and by the Mo-hammedans in head rags and extension breeches and bare, brown 70 Six and One Abroad feet squatted around and going through the genuflections ofworship. Magnificent dome! Beautiful mosaics! continued theguide in an effusion of mangled English. True; but the grace-ful sweep of the dome and the labyrinth of arches that sup-ported it were blurred by a flock of pigeons that roosted inthe cloisters and left the stain of their droppings on everyfloor and balustrade and pillar. Strange idea that of making
Text Appearing After Image:
ENTRANCE TO THE BAZARS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. a pigeon roost of so noble a sanctuary, but it is the Turkishway. The only wonder is that dogs, too, are not kenneled there.From a dozen positions in the balconies the guide spun hisskein of ecstacy and exaggeration, and we, his dupes, wonderedand retrospected. Then stepping again into the spiral hopper,we unwound the quaint old elevator to the starting point. Noinfidel can touch the holy floor of a mosque unless he be shodin No. 12 goat skin slippers; and in these gondolas we slided St. Sophia, Bazars, and Bosphoriis 71 ill aud glided about in a comic farce—all of us except those whowore rubbers, which were deemed sufficient to prevent con-tamination. It was hard in this ridiculous equipment to ap-preciate the real merit of the imposing old structure. But lookup! High up and above the distracting interpolations of su-perstition, up to the stately arches and crowning archivolts, upto the sweeping, canopy of gold and catch the tints that arep

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